Dynam employees say a greeting message as they receive customer-care training ahead of the grand opening of the company's pachinko parlour in Fukaya, north of Tokyo July 29, 2014. Japan's once-booming pachinko industry, grappling with a greying customer base and the threat of new competition from casinos, is adopting a softer touch and smoke-free zones to lure a new generation of players, particularly women. Pachinko, a modified version of pinball, is a fading national obsession, with about 12,000 parlours nation-wide and one in thirteen people playing the game. But that figure is declining as the population shrinks and younger people prefer games on their mobile phones. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

Modern art is truly fascinating. Not in a way that it produces some novel things that will fascinate future generations for decades and even centuries to come. No, that is very far from the truth. On the contrary, modern art is essentially anything (yes, any little thing) that is a bit unusual and was created by a famous person. Let’s take the creation of Antoine Bridier-Nahmias for example. His brainchild is a set of pictures of petri dishes that were contaminated by various cultures of fungi. If this is art, I missed my chance of becoming famous when I accidentally left a piece of bread in a bag in a cupboard for about six months, and didn’t take a picture of the rather shocking results that awaited me when I finally discovered it. (Photo by Antoine Bridier-Nahmias)

South Korean traditional bow artisan Kwon Yeong-Hak works on a bow in his workshop in Yecheon-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea, 26 February 2015. Kwon Yeong-Hak still crafts his bows in the traditional way, carrying on a four-generation family business. The Gakgung bow, of which Kwon is one of the last remaining artisans, is unique to Korea, and is constructed with a variety of materials, including water buffalo horn, oak, bamboo and cattle spinal sinew. A ban on the import of water buffalo horns has put the Gakgung tradition at risk. (Photo by Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA)

Members of a samba school warm up before parading along Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, January 6, 2018. Musicians and members from Rio de Janeiro's top 13 samba schools have paraded in an event aimed at promoting tourism ahead of Rio's world famous Carnival that begins early next month. (Photo by Leo Correa/AP Photo)

Sculptor Ben Young (previously) just unveiled a collection of new glass sculptures prior to the Sculpture Objects Functional Art + Design (SOFA) Fair in Chicago next month. Young works with laminated clear float glass atop cast concrete bases to create cross-section views of ocean waves that look somewhat like patterns in topographical charts. The self-taught artist is currently based in Sydney but was raised in Waihi Beach, New Zealand, where the local landscape and surroundings greatly inspired his art.

A customer shops at an Alibaba rural service centre in Jinjia Village, Tonglu, Zhejiang province, China, July 20, 2015. E-commerce growth in the countryside now outpaces that in major cities, though fewer than one tenth of online purchases made on Alibaba platforms were shipped to rural areas in the first quarter of this year. Alibaba estimates the potential market at 460 billion yuan ($74 billion) by next year. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

A Santa Claus taking a selfie on a surfboard is seen in the yard of a home in the Sleepy Hollow area of Torrance, California, United States, December 15, 2015. In many neighborhoods of Los Angeles, homeowners compete for the most lavish and creative holiday light displays. Torrance's Sleepy Hollow is one such neighborhood where every home outdoes the next: surfing Santas, life-size nativity scenes, ferris wheels, and giant inflatable snowmen line the lawns on every street. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Charlotte Roirdan from Lyon & Turnbull views a letter written by Mary Queen of Scots on March 8, 2012 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The 450 year old letter, unearthed in Blair Castle in Ayrshire, has been verified as the hand writing of Mary Queen of Scotts and has been valued at 3,000 GBP. The letter, dated March 20, 1554, relieves the then laird of Blair from his duties due to gout and will be put up for sale next week at an auction in Edinburgh. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)