the brain that wouldn’t die

First airing on this day in 1993 during the series’ fifth season, the lampoon of the Rex Carlton and Joseph Green 1962 collaboration from the crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 helped elevate this film about a mad scientist who is working on methods of preserving dismembered bodily organs to allow for future viability who experiments on the his decapitated girlfriend whilst keeping a Frankenstein’s monster captive in a broom closet to the status of a cult classic. Because of an imperfect copyright notice, it entered into public domain upon theatrical release and was in 2018 the subject of one of the first fully machine produced movies. The episode was long-time writer Michael J. Nelson’s second appearance as host and features a segment with Mary Jo Pehl as Jan in the Pan, the actor to later replace Dr. Clayton Forrester in their secret underground lair, Deep 13.

7x7

in the stacks: museum curators uncover what may be the oldest depiction of a ghost on an ancient Mesopotamian tablet 

1928 porter: a look at the 1965 short-lived sitcom (see also) My Mother the Car 

this climate does not exist: visualisations of one’s neighbourhood under the climate crisis from Nag on the Lake  

ev: more outstandingly odd electric vehicles from the on-line market Alibaba—via Things Magazine  

reasonable person: “a moron in a hurry” is codified in Anglophone legal statute—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

graphics processing unit: glitch art in medical imaging—via Waxy  

don’t go wasting your emotion: the ABBA classic, as performed by a vampire—via Everlasting Blört

artemius of antioch

Invoked for relief of hernias and maladies afflicting the testicles—for no ostensible reason that we could divine—Roman general Flavius Artemius is feted on this day, venerated as a saint in the Catholic rite and a megalomartyr in the Orthodox church. Though the chronology seems somewhat off, Artrmius supposedly played an influential role in the court of Constantine and fought heroically in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (later placed in charge of missions seeking relics and recovering the bodies of the apostles), only to be later put to death by the emperor’s successor, his cousin Julian (called the apostate) that rejected Constantine’s state sanction for Christianity and returned the empire to pagan pantheism.

obtundo

From the above Latin for blunted (like an obtuse angle), deprived of sharpness or vigour, to be obtuned in the non-figurative sense lies on the spectrum of impaired consciousness between lethargy and stupor, edging from full awareness on the orders of consciousness to total torpor and unarousable unresponsiveness. In other words, the state, albeit expressed in impercise and subjective terms, of being less interested or vested in one’s immediate environment.

7x7

the boy on the bike: a trip down Golden Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset with a beloved bread advert directed by Ridley Scott with music by Dvořák  

dedication—devotion, turning all the night time into the day: more on the hypothesis (see previously) that the Dire Straits song can improve any movie ending 

the hauntening: various AIs try their hand at spookifying, exorcising Victorian mansions—previously

outbreak: a timelapse of COVID-19 cases in the United States over the past eighteen months 

just the punctation: what text without words reveals to authors about their style—via Waxy  

abecedarium: a 1968 Alphabet (previously) of the Dada movement hosted by Hans Richter (caution, some rapid, flashing images) 

rašínovo embankment: revitalised Prague riverfront features vaulted arches for cafes and gallery spaces

born to the purple

Via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump, we very much enjoyed learning about young aspiring chemist William Henry Perkin’s accidental discovery of one of the first synthetic dyes whilst trying to extract quinine, the sole treatment for malaria known to Victorian London, from coal tar—a considered a waste by-product of burning coke and coal but in reality quite useful. Purple was still very much en vogue—signalling that wearers were otherwise porphyrogenita though to harvest the mollusks that were its natural source, the Murex snail, was exceedingly hard to come (as the species was nearly driven to extinction by dint of the royal colour) by and substitutes were quick to fade and wash-out. The substance that Perkin’s experiments yielded stained fabric and appeared to be colourfast, and capitalising on tradition, originally deemed it Tyrian purple, later naming the product, the first to be marketed commercially and leading to an revolution in chemical research, to mauveine after the French term for the mallow (Malva sylvestris) wildflower.

computerised axial tomography

On this day in 1971, the first CAT scan (nowadays usually referred to as a CT scan) was conducted at Wimbledon on an unidentified patient on a diagnostic machine developed by engineer Godfrey Hounsfield and physicist Allan MacLeod Cormack. The duo were recipients of the 1979 Nobel prize for their collaboration and the former is the namesake for the quantitative gauge of radiopacity—that is the ability of electromagnetic radiation to penetrate a media with air at -1000 HU (Housfield Units), water at the baseline of zero and bone set at +1000 at the other end of the spectrum, with identifiable values for various fats, tissues and ligaments.

7x7

ppe: an enigmatic update to COVID guidelines 

i don’t want to live on this planet anymore: a supercut of Futurama gags that have endured  

norm macdonald has a show: an appreciation of the comedian’s (†) early standup  

ernie and the emperors: a Giant Crab discography (1969) 

grandmaster: the mental and physical tolls of chess  

appareil: gorgeous French brick patterns from a 1878 catalogue 

 tireless research: Ruben Bolling showcases great scientists of the twenty-first century

herd immunity

Via friends of the blog, Everlasting Blört and Nag on the Lake

amerithrax

Beginning a week after the 9/11 attacks and continuing over the next month, a bioterrorist—likely a scientist at the US government’s biodefense and research labs in Fort Detrick, Maryland—posted letters laced with anthrax spores to several media outlets and the offices of two US senators, killing five individuals, mostly mailroom staff and infecting a further dozen with the bacteria. Compared to the hunt for the Unabomber for its range and time to identify a culprit and motive, the FBI operation named with the above portmanteau pursued a number of false leads, the attacks spawning, several copycat hoaxes. The notes in the envelops which purported to come from a non-existent grade school contained variations on the message:

09-11-01
YOU CANNOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
&c.

Al Qaeda and Iraq initially blamed, focus not turning to the possibility that it was a domestic actor within the government until 2006, forensic geneotyping just reaching the sophistication needed to trace the particular bacterial strain back to its source, though the ordered destruction of all anthrax stockpiles limited the chance for future research into the crime. The US mail service is still hyper-vigilant over suspicious packages and prone to false-alarms.

6x6

circumhorizon arc: a rare Fire Rainbow photographed—via TYWKIWDBI 

mars & beyond: Walt Disney’s robot pal Garco takes us on a speculative journey in search of extraterrestrial life 

rip: legendary NBC weather man Willard Scott has passed away, aged eighty-seven  

escape artist: immersive exhibits speak to our communal sensory experience  

valley of the dolls: Peerless Playthings pretend pills  

cloudspotting: the World Meteorological Organisation added aspertias as a supplementary feature in 2017 Cloud Atlas—see also

your daily demon: gaap

Our thirty-third spirit is an infernal prince who governs from today through 7 September and controls sixty-six legions. Gaap’s office is to teach philosophy and the liberal arts, can engender romance, transport people around the world on his back, steal away familiars from competing exorcists and impart knowledge regarding medical care. Formerly of the angelic order post postestates, Potentates, Gaap is the cardinal spirit of the south and opposed by the ShemHamphorash guardian angel Ieuiah.

6x6

slough off old skins: the rise and demise of an Internet Onion—via Kicks Condor  

posture pals: a gallery of awkward, outstanding stances  

gravy boat: kitschy vintage table settings  

a little pick-me-up: the lovely Flowers for Sick People project by Tucker Nichols—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links  

news at eleven: screen grabs of 1990s reporting captions  

more like a simile: an experiment searching the web with AI contextualised natural language—via Web Curios

apostles’ creed

Via the New Shelton wet / dry, we are referred to a study from the Annals of Improbable Research (previously, the group also behind the Ig Noble Awards) ranking the popularity of saints to pray to for protection and intercession against COVID. There’s methodology is the survey, though I suspect it might be rather self-selecting since respondents were polled on social media but we nonetheless appreciated the efforts and the occasion to revisit some of our holy helpers, like Saint Roch (number two), Saint Sebastian (number three, here pleading with Jesus for the life of the gravedigger during the Plague of Justinian), and coming in last at a tie, SS Expedit and Corona.

scunthorpe dilemma

In tribute to a dear friend recently deceased, one individual has pledged to make a sojourn on moped across a circuit of UK settlements and in some cases streets with what’s generally deemed the rudest toponyms and odonyms to be found on the map in order, we learn via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump, to raise funds to combat the cancer his friend succumbed to.

The charity tour begins in the ancient hamlet of Shitteron in Dorset whose name means “farmstead on a stream used as an open sewer.” Be sure to check out the links above to see the entire itinerary and explore a global map of unfortunate, purple place names, including Fucking, Austria and how you can support their cause. The title refers to the over-zealous censorship of internet traffic monitors flagging substrings of text (the above and others) out-of-context.

harper valley ptsa

Whilst the governor of Texas, who has contracted COVID-19 himself, has countermanded any sort mask mandate for public schools and institutions of higher education within the state, executive authority has met its match in the school board, whose trustees have elected to make amendments to dress codes and make masks a requirement “for all employees and students to mitigate flu, cold, pandemic and any other communicable diseases.” The board, at the advice of health experts, will reconvene monthly to determine if prevailing conditions still warrant the use of personal protective gear.

7x7

lowering the bar: a trial lawyer’s endorsement in a whiskey ad illustrates by-gone regulatory period in the US 

blotter art: an LSD museum in San Francisco 

spraycation: Banksy works appear at UK seaside towns Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft  

middle-age spread: comprehensive study finds metabolism stable throughout life and crashes after sixty—via the New Shelton Wet / Dry  

bureau of land management: a celebration of the striking landscape photography of Bob Wick  

o’zbekiston line: a tour of Tashkent’s underground galleries—see also 

 kriegswaffenkontrollgesetz: gentleman outside of Kiel fined for unregistered Panzer

6x6

clink clink: a snappy little animated short of guests at cocktail hour 

samarkand: an East German couple’s tour of Uzbekistan fifty years ago with photography from 1971 and 2021  

expectation management: a comprehensive look into how the Delta variant changes the pandemic endgame—via Kottke  

noah’s violin: the twelve metre long wooden stringed instrument is a floating stage, inaugurated along with Project Moses to protect Venice from flooding  

the rural juror: a spoof streaming service (see also)—via JWZ  

the effect is shattering: a vodka advertising campaign that became a snow clone

la borsetta

We had noticed this handbag in the style of a Barilla pasta package circulating for a few days, and finally took the time to check it out, learning the inspiration for this limited edition leather mini-purse grew out of the tedium of night after night of trusty but monotonous fare during the height of lockdown and the antecedent panic-buying that perhaps left many cupboards stocked with a surfeit of penne.

the matter of facts

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake, we are directed to installation above the reception area of the Tokyo National Art Centre of ephemera curated by an architectural studio consisting of fliers, brochures and other promotional material of events, art exhibits, trade shows, concerts, conventions, that were cancelled or delayed due to the pandemic over the past eighteen months that aims to commemorate the city and its many venues by making it a part of collective memory and the shared experience. More to explore at the links above.