A cinematic masterwork in its own right, the film by director Hajrudin Krvavac, premiering just over a half century ago in mid-April, Walter Defends Sarajevo, stands on its own merits with intrigues, betrayals, complex characters, action sequences and an overarching message of triumph and defiance aligned with the Yugoslav ideal of harmony and inclusion in a multi-ethnic state, the film tells the story of heroic resistance to occupation in a plot to foil the Nazi forces 1945 attempt to withdraw from the Balkans and regroup, based loosely on the sacrifice of partisan leader Vladimir Peric who fought under the code name and whose real identity was unknown to the enemy, and has the distinction of being a real contender for the most viewed production of all time. Its release coinciding with the gradual introduction of foreign films and during a time of tensions between the Soviet Union and China, the censors began admitting select works—mostly documentaries from Romania, Hungary and the Yugoslav Republics—but Walter Defends Sarajevo was unique among this class and unlike what most in China had experienced beforehand. Previewed as a radio-play a generation committed the dialogue to heart before the screenings began, playing to a billion individuals over the course of a year in theatres, schools, factories and village squares. Spoiler alert: the operative of the Sicherheitsdienst deployed to capture and kill ‘Walter’ muses during the film’s iconic ending why he was never able to find his nemesis and comes to the realisation—“Sehen Sie dieses Stadt? Das ist Walter!” Still shown to the this day, its influence can be seen in the Chinese film industry.
Tuesday 10 May 2022
Saturday 23 April 2022
8x8
song birds: a printed circuit bluejay and other avian friends
industrials: a leitmotif of edifying vocabulary—see previously—from Futility Closet
occultation: Perseverance rover captures Mars’ lumpy moon Phobos partially eclipsing the Sun
infinite tapestry: a generated side-scrolling landscape—via Web Curios
days of rage: a gallery of activism posters curated by the USC Library system—see previously—via ibฤซdem
art bits: an archives of HyperCard stacks (see also)—via Waxy
ghost in the shell: skeletons in video games
cheeps and peeps: the rich, melodic syntax of birdsong
Friday 1 April 2022
cosmic call
First spotted by Damn Interesting’s Curated Links, Scientific American reports that as the fiftieth anniversary of the Arecibo Message approaches researchers at the FAST radio telescope and affiliates at SETI and METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence because no one wants to answer their phone apparently) have devised a new bit-mapped series of missives to put out to the Cosmos. The sample image illustrates prime numbers and binary and decimal notation and is one of several (whilst debate continues if it is wise to advertise our presence and level of technologic competence) to be bundled along with the components of DNA, particle physics and human physiology, like this iconic message in a bottle.
Thursday 31 March 2022
court of last resort
Since the return of the former British colony to China in 1997, UK justices have sat on the High Court of Hong Kong to ensure and safeguard the laws and liberties accorded to this special administrative area. The pair of senior judges on the Courts of First Instance and Final Appeal, however, recently announced their resignations, with immediate effect, declaring the their continued presence no longer a tenable situation and no longer wanted to appear as an endorsement or legitimasing factor in the erosion of the city’s freedoms. Recent changes to the administration of Hong Kong and its relation to the mainland have caused any degree of meaningful autonomy to dwindle.
Tuesday 22 March 2022
8x8
situation of opportunity: a giant soft pillow urban intervention on the streets of Amsterdam—via Messy Nessy Chic
floor plan: highly detailed drawings of Japanese hotel rooms
you can’t take it with you: the coffin tradition of the Ga people of Ghana
photogenic: Tom Hegen captures the symmetries of solar farms
hobbiton-across-the-water: maps and paintings of Middle Earth curated on-line—see previously
this is a test—this is only a test: a look at the history of the US emergency broadcast system—see previously
long life to the lord of men: jade burial suits from the Han dynasty
anchors in the afterlife: a collection of non-human resting-places
Monday 21 February 2022
the week that changed the world
Having arrived the night before with an audience of sixty million viewers in the US alone (despite the time difference with the three main broadcast networks pooling resources to cover the eight-thousand dollar per hour cost of satellite usage for the eight day event), Richard M. Nixon (see previously here and here) became the first US president to visit the People’s Republic of China, signalling a thaw in almost a quarter-century of hostile relations with his strategic outreach and overture. Normalising trade with the capitalist West, the summit with Mao Zedong and other senior leadership had the immediate result of straining cooperation between communist China and the Soviet Union.
Saturday 19 February 2022
year of the wood boar
Becoming the first Western musical act to appear in concert in China since the break-through performance of George Michael a decade earlier, the Swedish pop duo Roxette rang in the new year on this day in 1995 in the Bejing Workers’ Indoor Arena as part of their Crash! Boom! Bang! world tour for their album of the same name.
Friday 11 February 2022
7x7
heiti and songti: the typefaces that helped China transition to the digital age
no soup for you: the Fay-Cutler malapropism (see previously) of the week
earn it act: controversial bill restricting encryption—presented as an anti-trafficking and child safety initiative (see also) passes committee in the US Senate
quantitative easing: lampooning practises that exacerbate inflation and speculation, an artist in Kuala Lumpur opens Memebank
all hail hypnotoad: Futurama (previously) returns for an eighth season—with most of the original talent
dingbats: a typographic homage to pre-emoji Webdings—see also for one carry-over
Friday 4 February 2022
de finibus bonorum et malorum
Spotted by Super Punch, New York Times sports writer Andrew Keh took note of the inspiring captions on posters for the Winter Games in the hotel he’s based out of. Lorem ipsum is placeholder text used in draft copies before the final version is available (see previously) and is adapted from a passage from the above Socratic dialogue of Roman orator Cicero (meaning on the ends of good and evil, a rather heavy subject for a throw-away endeavour), popularised in typesetting since the 1960s by a Letraset transfer sheets ad campaign, this pictured call-out begins “the pain is important to me” but non-standard, breaks down from there. Traditionally, the passage, which could very much apply to the spirit of competition, continues: “[B]ut occasionally circumstances happen wherein toil and pain can procure some pleasure. To take a trivial example, whom of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with one who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no pleasure?”
Wednesday 26 January 2022
7x7
reset: audiences of a hugely popular show in China about a video game programmer stuck in a time loop are upset about its positive ending
orszรกgos kรฉktรบra: Hungary’s national long distance walking route (see also) from Irottkล to the Austrian borderthe book of fate: an 1822 edition that appealed to contemporary British preoccupation with Ancient Egypt and Napoleon
we only remember ‘long polio’: contemplating the lingering, debilitating effect of severe cases
boharat cairo: a foundry explores the possibilities of Arabic script expression
encanto: we need to talk about Bruno
where is my mind: an edit of problematic fav Fight Club available for streaming in China follows some different rules
Friday 21 January 2022
6x6
wheelie bins: a collection of municipal-issue recycling bins from across the UK—via Pasa Bon!
filmovรฝ plakรกt: a gallery of vintage Czech movie posters
1 000 trees: drone footage showcases Heatherwick studios’ Shanghai shopping centre
northwoods baseball sleep radio: a fake game with no jarring sounds designed for podcast slumber
holkham bible picture book: a 1330 curiosity that illustrates select passages from the Old and New Testaments
the great british spring clean: projects and programmes (see also) sponsored by Keep Britain Tidy
Thursday 20 January 2022
brearley architects + urbanists
Elevated above the marshes of the Yuandang estuary of Shanghai, a Chinese-Australian design group called BAU has created a graceful, sliver of a bridge to connect two areas of wetlands. With a pavilion and observation platform in the middle of the span, the structure integrates infrastructure with ecology and aesthetics. Much more from Dezeen at the link above.
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐, ๐ฑ, architecture
Thursday 23 December 2021
latinxua
Similar to other courtesy alphabets and attempts at Latinisation we have encountered before—with varying degrees or success and reception (see here and here), the always engrossing Language Log introduces us to the above transcription scheme also known as Sin Wenz (“New Script”) developed by Russian and Chinese Sinologists and saw widespread use in the 1930s and 1940s. This first attempt as Romanisation (see previously) had native speakers as stakeholders and notably did not attempt to indicate tonal shifts as those were expected to be made clear by context. Much more at the links above.
Friday 10 December 2021
fuzzwords of the year
Differentiated from buzzwords as something intentionally euphemistic or vague and so perhaps under the radar of censors and above a certain level of reproach, we enjoyed learning some of the current slanguage vocabulary of China. We especially liked the Mandarin / Putonghua near equivalent for the English acronym GOAT—that is, greatest of all time—in yวngyuวn de shรฉn (ๆฐธ่ฟ็็ฅ) YYDS, “eternal god” and used to heap praise for excellence. As the author points out, the same transliterated, four-letter initialism is also employed for yวngyuวn dฤnshฤn (ๆฐธ่ฟๅ่บซ), essential “forever single”—so context counts. Much more at Language Log at the link above.
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐ฌ, ๐ฃ, ๐คธ, networking and blogging
Thursday 25 November 2021
7x7
brickover: iconic album covers recreated in LEGO from Pasa Bon’s curious links
sand castles: an innovative intervention to counter desertification
all about photos: arresting, colourful best-in-show exhibits from the AAP annual competition—via Kottkeno one listens to cassandra: rediscovering a 1997 article on what could go wrong in the twenty-first century that’s eerily prescient
parks & rec: a huge collection of vintage outdoor living catalogues and magazines—via the morning news
what—it’s not magaggie’s birthday: an unauthorised Simpson’s cookbook
spin-cycle: a gorgeous, inviting laundrette outfitted by Yinka Ilori and LEGO
Friday 12 November 2021
warp and weave
With a significant portion of global power devoted to air-conditioning, the search for ways to shift the burden of keeping cool, passively, has garnered quite a sense of urgency. Researchers in Nanjing and Stanford, harnessing and enhancing the natural properties of silk and sericulture, learn from the New Shelton wet / dry, which deflects most of the radiant energy falling on it rather than absorbing it like other fabrics embedded fibres with nanoparticles to reflect the portion of the spectrum not already covered, thereby creating a sort of high SPF, super-conducting cloth that blocks fully ninety-five percent of heat, remaining cooler than ambient air temperatures by three-and-a-half degrees Celsius and a whopping twelve degrees difference for the skin’s surface, reducing the risk for heat-exhaustion and dehydration.
Friday 15 October 2021
8x8
day-walker: monster lore invented by Hollywood—via Miss Cellania’s links
tastes like pencil-shavings and heartbreak: niche Chicago liquor Jeppson’s Malรถrt
vermithrax pejorative: dress up as Galen (Peter McNicol) from Dragonslayer plus other obscure, vintage costumes—via Super Punchmodelleisenbahn: real-time model railroading with Hamburg’s transit system—via Maps Mania
hedge rider: an etymological celebration of wizards, witches, warlocks and more
๐: chanting, harmonised breathing and parasyphonic sounds
mundane outfits: revisiting a tradition of dressing as highly specific yet relatable, everyday, social faux pas—an unfancy dress ball held in Japan and Taiwan
the calls are coming from inside the building: a lampoon of the haunted house film trope
Friday 3 September 2021
6x6
mmorpg: a thought experiment that ponders whether dark energy might be the by-product of alien quantum computers
abbatars: after four decades, ABBA is getting back together, first performing as hologramsrole models: China bans men not deemed masculine enough from television
fonarnye bani: a renovated spa in St. Petersburg
push pins: an exhibition of the iconic poster art almanac
wise 1543: unique old, cold orphaned brown dwarves may be ubiquitous in the galaxy
Sunday 27 June 2021
8x8
into the bantaverse: a bot ghost-writes a Star Wars story—see also
green guerrillas: the role that radical gardeners play in fostering community out of urban blight
earth, wind and fire: combine basic elements and create new substancesas an alchemist—via Waxy fourth world: celebrating the life and career of trumpeter and electronic music pioneer Jon Hassell (*1937)in frame: see the untrimmed, original version of Rembrandt’s Night Watch (previously) thanks to the help of a curating algorithm
homo longi: recently discovered ‘dragon man’ skull may be a transitional species from Neanderthal to modern humans
ine bay: hidden, historic boathouses (ไผๆ นใฎ่ๅฑ, funaya) in Kyoto—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links
the skeleton crew: our friendly artificial intelligencer (previously) trains a neural network to write a horror story
Tuesday 15 June 2021
durgan script
The always engrossing Language Log of the University of Pennsylvania acquaints us with a endangered and diffuse language—spread across Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Mongolia—in the Sinitic (Chinese) family but written with Cyrillic and uniquely not Sinographic characters (see also). The continuum of Gansu, Mandarin and Dungan (Kansu) is mutually intelligible to a large extent. Tones are marked with the glyphs front yer and back yer (ะฌ / ะช) from the Old Church Slavonic (see above and here too) and the current orthography is a compromise dating back to the 1920s when the Soviet Union banned Arabic and Persian-based writing systems, looked on disfavourably from the beginning as merchants along the Silk Road could conduct trade deals in a language that was secret to their neighbours.