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three blind mice: researchers restore sight by reversing the epigenetic clock in laboratory animals, re-endowing youthful characteristics—via Marginal Revolution  

big drunk girl energy: the dumbest coup is still playing out in the courts  

a touch of cabin fever: this is what stir-crazy looks like—the Year on TikTok—via the morning news

manifest destiny: a scrollytelling art histories (previously) that recounts the mythology of North America—via Maps Mania  

alpenhorn: disappearing, defaced and duelling phallic totems in the mountains of Germany and Austria 

for the longest time: dispel the zoom and gloom with this quarantine rendition from the Phoenix Chamber Choir 

 home box office: Warner Brothers is simultaneously releasing its cinematic productions on subscription television for 2021—via Kottke  

oceanus procellarum: Chang’e probe (previously) has lifted off of the lunar surface and will return with the first samples of moon rocks since 1976—via Slashdot

nutbush city limit

The settlement believed to be founded in the sixth century by a Bavarian nobleman called Focko with its first documented mention in 1070 as part of the lordship of Adalpertus de Fucinging with the name evolving over the centuries from Vuxxhingen, Fukching, Fugkhing and finally to Fucking (see also) in the seventeen hundreds, the village of just over a hundred residents in Upper Austria has agreed as on the New Year to change its toponym, accordingly with some gleichnamiger localities to Fugging in an attempt to better reflect native pronunciation.  Despite the realised potential for using the name as an intensifier for any number of causes, villagers have grown weary of stolen signage and windshield-tourists. The villages of Petting, Kissing, Wanking as well as the affiliated hamlets of Ober- und Unterfucking have not yet indicated any plans to change names.

world freedom day

Rather presumptively first proclaimed by George W. Bush on this day in 2001 (sort of like rededicating Armistice Day as Veterans’ Day, also positing that the alternative was the right and only one)—reaffirmed by several US presidential administrations—as an homage to the idea that Ronald Reagan’s policies were solely responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the influence it held over central and eastern Europe as the anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, though the commandeering of the holiday is not widely observed. Because the date coincides with Schicksalstag (the Day of Fate), witness to many pivotal events including the execution of liberal leader Robert Blüm which suppressed the democratic revolution of 1849, the abdication of the Kaiser following the November Revolution of 1918, Albert Einstein’s win of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922, the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, the 1938 Reichspogromnacht which saw the large-scale destruction of Jewish property and of course the wall coming down (German reunification not celebrated on this day because of the prior associations). The German Sprachraum instead marks this day as Inventor’s Day—in homage to Austrian actor and Erfinderin Hedy Lamarr (*1914 - †2000) for her discovery of frequency hopping that led to cellular telephony and Bluetooth technology.

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photos veritables: antique pre-prepared vacation picture albums  

necessitous men are not free men: FDR’s 1944 second, more equitable Bill of Rights 

conformal cyclic cosmology: Nobel winning astrophysicist Roger Penrose shares his Universe origin hypothesis 

la sape: Tariq Zaida documents the fashion of the sapeurs and sapeuses of Brazzaville and Kinshasa—reminding me of this other subculture  

author, poet, composer: the amazing virtuosity of Gordon Parks 

das neue europa mit dem dauernden frieden: revisiting an early proposal for the European Union, divided into Kantons converging on Vienna (previously) 

dss43: Deep Space Communication Complex re-establishes link with Voyager 2 

scarfolk & environs: a road & leisure map for uninvited tourist

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bongo cat: a joyous, simple noisemaker—via Boing Boing  

der orchideengarten: Austrian fantasy-horror revue that prefigured and informed Weird Tales and related properties  

backscatter: spooky, simple photography techniques and visual effects to haunt one’s Halloween picture portfolio 

porto-potty: Austrian postal service issues a special, rather expensive toilet-paper stamp whose proceeds go to charities benefiting those impacted most by COVID-19 

llama glama: a llama-based webfont—via Pasa Bon!  

smitten kitchen: for this US Food Day (made-up as a counterpart to Earth Day but never really took off) a look into the recipe library of Georgia O’Keeffe plus others  

clean up on aisle four: glass-floor of a supermarket in Dublin reveals a millennium old glimpse of Hiberno-Norse history (see also here and here) 

flags and drums: young brothers in Pakistan play BBC News theme on the table

ibiza on ice

Six months on, the Guardian profiles the resort town of Ischgl and the clientele it attracts and how its party lifestyle and après ski venues became an incubator for COVID-19 and helped the epidemic turn pandemic. There’s lots of scapegoating and finger-pointing to sort through but the consequent spread and back-tracking seem rather incontrovertible. The bar where most of the contagion is traced, Kitzloch, was shut down on 10 March with the entire town quarantined from three days afterwards until 22 April.

zugspitze

Highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountain range that forms the border between Germany and Austria, the first team of mountaineers to summit it, Josef Naus, guide Johann Georg Tauschl and a survey assistant identified sadly only as Maier, did so on this day in 1820. Though smuggling operations or goatherds might have accomplished this feat first, this documented ascent was in service to the Royal Bavarian Topographic Bureau (Königlich Bairischen Topografischen Bureau) and their commission of an atlas of the kingdom, culminating with the group planting a bergstock to mark their success.  Maximilian I was pleased with the confirmation that the summit lay on his side of the border.

saint wilgefortis

Though officially delisted from the martyrology of saints in the late sixteenth century and her veneration suppressed, the iconography of and devotions to the bearded saint—whose English name is thought to have derived from the Latin for courageous virgin but goes by many others (see previously)—are still to be found to the present age and is feted on this day.
Also going by Uncumber, Ontkommer (Dutch), [ohne] Kümmernis (German), Liberata (Italian), Librada (Spain) and Débarras (good riddance in French), Wilgefortis symbolises the liberation or disencumberment from abusive relationships and is invoked for relief to that end. Historians speculate that her origins can be traced to androgynous depictions of Jesus but was embellished with her own story and cult in the 1420s in Galicia, with a noble woman not wanting to be forced into her arranged marriage and praying for a way out—and miraculous sprouted facial hair that made her repulsive to her betrothed. In iconographic depictions, Wilgefortis’ beard ranges from minimal to quite lush and substantial and is shown often crucified—sadly her fate for showing up and looking unpresentable—with a small fiddler at her feet, having given away her wedding dowry, represented by a silver shoe, to the poor.

svetovni dan čebel

Born on this day in 1734 (†1773), professionally trained painter become beekeeper to the Viennese Hapsburg court, Anton Janša cultivated expert knowledge on their care and maintenance and published authoritative manuals and delivered lectures on apiculture across the Empire in order to maximise their yield of honey and wax and pollination of crops. In addition to the rotation of hives in pastures, Janša’s designs for bivouacs with stacked combs (see also) are the still the modern standard today, and since a bid to the United Nations from Slovenia was accepted in 2017, Janša’s birthday has been memorialised as World Bee Day.

vittore e corona

Feasted on this day in parts of northern Italy, Austria and Bavaria, Saint Corona (or sometimes going by her Greek equivalent, Stephanie, στέφᾰνος—both denoting one who is crowned) is forever twain with Victor of Damascus, an early Christian martyr serving as a soldier in the province of Syria.
Before being ultimately beheaded for refusing to renounce his faith in 170 A.D. during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the imprisoned Victor was brought provisions and encouraged to preserve despite the bodily tortures he was made to endure by a woman called Corona, identified according to different sources as either the sister of one his fellow enlisted men or Victor’s wife. The authorities decided to apprehend her as well—and according to her hagiography, and as depicted rather bizarrely on this turn of the century fruit sticker—the crest of the greengrocers’ guild of Vienna, was put to a rather gruesome death for comforting the imprisoned by being bound to opposing palms trunks and being torn asunder once released. Rather than being invoked in times of plague, Corona is the patron of gambling and the lottery and called upon for circumstances involving money or treasure.

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economies of ale: after a decade of steep declines, UK pub numbers are seeing a slight uptick charted

parkverbotszone: plans for the future IKEA am Westbahnhof in Vienna is being designed for a post-auto world

women hold up half the sky: Liang Jun, the tractor driving figure, iconically featured on the one yuan bill, has passed away, aged ninety

best in show: winners and honourable-mentions of the Ocean Art Photography competition

the id, the super-ego, and the psyche: the strange, singular encounter between Salvador Dalí and Sigmund Freud

triangle man, triangle man: celebrating thirty years of They Might Be Giants’ (a reference to Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills) seminal album Flood

there and back again: a remembrance of Christopher Tolkien (*1925 – †2020), executor of his father’s literary estate and map-maker of Middle Earth

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rebirth of a salesman: revisiting a 1969 documentary that revealed how evangelism and door-to-door sales converged

новогоднее дерево: the evolution of the Yolka New Year’s Tree—from its pagan roots to Soviet anti-religious symbolic staple (see also)

mamurluk: also home to the Museum of Break-Ups, a new gallery space dedicated to hangovers opens in Zagreb

now that’s a name i’ve not heard in a long time: a fan-made Obi-Wan Kenobi Star Wars story

intern’yet: reportedly, Russia successfully unplugs from the world wide web and replaced global portals with domestic ones

bergkristall: Adalbert Stifter’s timeless, beloved 1845 novella

open conference bridge: a team of volunteers are retrofitting and reviving a network of payless, pay phone booths to bring community cohesion

5x5

barman: a historic archive of drinks recipes and other pub paraphernalia via Pasa Bon!

warp and weave: in her O.P.P. (Other People’s Photography) series Heather Oeklaus creates woven photo collages from vintage film stills, via Kottke  

arboretum: an art collector (previously) plants trees in a football stadium in memoriam

on murder considered as one of the true fine arts: true crime superlatives from each state in America via Coudal Partners’ Quick Links

central perk: the theme song from Friends performed in minor key

auflösung

On this day in 1919 signatories of the Allied Powers held a ceremony at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye to ratify the terms of the treaty (see also) that dictated the dissolution of the Austrian Empire.
The successor states, formerly kingdoms, duchies and counties were often not consulted and very few held referenda regarding their own separate sovereignty and rather had it thrust upon them with adjustment period to follow. Cisleitania—the unofficial designation for the territory around Vienna and roughly the present day republic, referring to this side of the River Leitha—that became a much diminished Österreich had previously not had a national character in terms of uniting language or ethnicity (not that borders are ever easily redrawn) and only had in common their allegiance to the House of Hapsburg.

msaxl

Viennese artist and educator, Marianne Saxl-Deutsch, born on this day in 1885 (†1942, murdered at the Treblinka death camp) produced some of the iconic posters used in the original push for women’s suffrage (and revived when society goes retrograde). Still under copyright during the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s (entering public domain in 2013), her work was often used without attribution—her signature MSAXL cut out and leading to her not being remembered as she should have been.

paneuropäisches picknick

Held on this day in 1989 the peace protest known as the Pan-European Picnic in the border town of Šopron (formerly Ödenburg), Hungary on the Austria border sponsored in part by the former Archduke of both nations is considered by many to be the final death-rattle of Communism, presaging what was to follow in Central Europe, signalling the end of accommodation for protracted situations like Romanian refugee camps in Hungary or the East German encampment at the Prague embassy. Borders were eliminated for a space of three hours during the exchange and many took advantage of this window, with border guards given orders not to interfere. Presently, few signs remain of the walls that separated east from west.

meine tochter nimmer mehr

Featured in Amadeus, a favourite of the endearingly incompetent Florence Foster Jenkins and dispatched to the Cosmos on the Golden Records of the Voyager emissaries, we’re all familiar with the challenging coloratura passage, the trilled run spanning two octaves, of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte but I failed to appreciate the piece’s message and that it’s classified as a rage aria (which sounds quite fancy—Yas Queen, the Italian terms being aria agitate or aria infuriate).
Entitled “Hell’s Vengeance Boils in my Heart” (Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen), the Queen of the Night delivers a knife to her daughter Pamina and on pain of disownment, assassinate her arch-rival, the high priest Sarastro, whom had recruited her daughter and would be rescuer Prince Tamino and sidekick Papageno to his school of thought. Familiar with her vocal talents, Mozart wrote the part for his sister-in-law Josepha Hofer who first played the role, with words by librettist Emanuel Schikaneder—whom himself played the part of bird-catcher Papageno in the opera’s premiere.

ibiza-gate

Though the story is still evolving and it is uncertain whether the scandal will precipitate the collapse of the coalition conservation government of Sebastian Kurz, an Austrian tabloid has secured a two-nights’ stay at the luxury villa on the Spanish holiday island where the 2017 meeting took place between woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch reportedly was able to secure public contracts in exchange for the promise of election help (in the form of buying a newspaper and turning it into a propaganda machine) from the now ousted vice-chancellor that will be awarded to a lucky reader. We can understand the concept of disaster tourism and the lure of a free get-away, regardless of the destination, and the importance of combating creeping corruption and influence peddling is crucial but I think maybe it is a touch shameless to be occurring in real-time.

ad mensam

Schloß Hollenegg (DE) outside of Graz (the summer residence of the House of Liechtenstein) is no stranger to hosting unique exhibitions and the latest installation by curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein is no exception—with twenty-one site specific pieces throughout the castle’s sculleries and dining hall that explore table manners and dining etiquette as a social wedge that goes beyond the act of nourishment to afford all the chance to gather together and a place at the table (the Latin title). Much more to explore and chew over with Dezeen at the link above.

vienna convention

In a move that seems particularly American and symptomatic of its McWorld mentality, US citizens travelling in Austria who’ve lost their passport or are otherwise distressed may seek out consular services and relief at any one of the country’s nearly two hundred McDonald’s franchises.
Fast food staff, thanks to a deal reached between the company and the US State Department, will have a special hotline to reach the Embassy to relay emergencies and seek resolution. A spokesperson for the US Mission says that this partnership is not in lieu of a fully staffed and trained diplomatic corps and is in fact increasing access to the embassy by distributing services throughout the country, choosing McDonald’s for this pilot programme because of its geographic spread, after-hours staffing and familiarity to Americans.