Friday fodder

Links and what-not:

Dark Roasted Blend: Battleship Island & Other Ruined Urban High-Density Sites / fodder

Mexico’s Drug War Tabloid: El Nuevo Alarma - The Daily Beast / fodder crime
As Mexico’s drug war leaves a trail of the dead, El Nuevo Alarma! photographs the casualties in gory detail that has the tabloid flying off newsstands. Bryan Curtis on a sick paper for a sick war.

Robert Johnson revelation tells us to put the brakes on the blues | Music | guardian.co.uk / music
Nearly 50 years after Columbia first packaged his work as King of the Delta Blues, we discover that we've been listening to these immortal songs at the wrong speed all along.

Back to Rockville: Review: The Black Keys / i-was-there

Cartels recruit Guatemalans in Mexico drug war / crime fodder
Mexican traffickers are increasingly turning to Central America for reinforcements, ammunition and help from corrupt authorities there, experts say. The cartels are training Central American recruits at camps in Guatemala and Mexico, infiltrating weak Central American police forces and carving out "safe zones" in foreign countries beyond the reach of Mexican authorities.

mental_floss Blog » Why Are Iranian Movies So Good? / movies
Iran’s regime is one of the most repressive and censor-happy in the world, and yet their independent filmmakers have, over the last twenty years or so, proven themselves to be some of the best and most creative minds working in cinema. In 1978, cinemas were burned to the ground after images of American decadence were shown on screen. The medium itself was outlawed until the Ayatollah Khamenei saw a film he liked, the cinemas were reopened, and the industry grew again.

sinkhole, Guatemala, natural disaster - The Daily Beast / fodder
The enormous sinkhole that swallowed a building in Guatemala is all the more terrifying for being so strange. From rampaging venomous snakes to tornadoes made of fire, here are a few more examples of how Mother Nature gets creative when she’s angry.

Futuristic mega-projects by Shimizu / future-shit
Japanese construction firm Shimizu Corporation has developed a series of bold architectural plans for the world of tomorrow. Here is a preview of seven mega-projects that have the potential to reshape life on (and off) Earth in the coming decades.