el topo

Meaning The Mole in Spanish, with direction, scoring and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky in the titular role, the genre-defining acid Western is a cult classic—one of the first midnight screenings—enjoys many prominent devotees ranging from Yoko Ono to Kanye West and everyone in between. Bizarre as the film about a gunslinger’s quest for enlightenment who bests his philosophical betters through luck and treachery rather than skill is aiming to leave an indelible imprint on the audience from a creator that eschews psychedelics as superfluous, it is considered to be Jodorowsky’s most accessible and enduringly popular. Learn more from BBC Culture at the link above

zoot suit riots

On this day in 1943 in Los Angeles and continuing for the next five days, US sailors and Marines stationed there (either on rest and recuperative or transitioning for deployment to the Pacific theatre) and white residents, enervated by sensational coverage of the so-called Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of the summer prior, and ostensibly over the extravagance of their flamboyant clothes and accessorising that was seen as using up valuable fabric during wartime rationing, clashed with Mexican-American youth.
The attacks spread to other industrial cities across the US, expanding to other minority populations. The violence subsided by mid-June but tensions remained high and concern for the economy of southern California was brought to the forefront, given its reliance on the inflow of inexpensive labour in order to harvest produce, eventually leading to the papering-over of the underlying problems, with local authorities squarely assigning blame to delinquent and idle youths rather than systemic racism contrasted with the inquiry launched by the federal government into the riots which had the aims of determining whether Nazi or Axis agitators were not stoking unrest and sponsored the protestors. The defiance of the Zoot Suitors in the face of this unrelenting violence and antagonism is regarded as a pivotal moment for El Movimiento and related civil rights movements to combat institutional racism and disenfranchisement. As young men, civil rights leaders Cesar Chavez and Malcolm X were both Zoot Suiters.

el gaucho goofy

As problematic and painful as past, back catalogue portrayals depicting racist and stereotyped can be and deserving of being called out, discussed and carrying warning labels, it is unsettling how versions offered as unadulterated can yet be revisionistic and casting a positive pall on iconic characters, Paleofuture’s take down of Disney’s cleaning up a scene of one of their old guard personalities smoking in its 1942 live-action and animated featurette Saludos Amigos mentions a foot-note behind the cartoon’s existence in the first place that bears investigation as well.
The US State Department commissioned Walt Disney and others to peddle the soft diplomacy of Mickey Mouse and company to counteract ties that Central and South America was forming with Nazi Germany—a job that Disney and much of Hollywood readily accepted since European markets were closed off to them due to the war. The propaganda film by most estimates was well received by audiences in both Latin America and domestically, instilling a sense of continental cohesion and giving US cinema-goers a taste of some the refinement of the culture and scenery that they’d been previously ignorant of—and was enough of a commercial success to inspire a sequel The Three Caballeros two years later. Curiously the version of the film currently on offer contains a warning about tobacco-use being depicted—despite the smoke rings being edited out—and we can only surmise that refers exclusively to parrot José Carioca chomping on a cigar. Addicted to the habit and eventually succumbing to lung cancer, like Disney, himself, the voice actor Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig Sr (*1892 – †1967) whom played Goofy was a vocal anti-smoking campaigner whose efforts were instrumental in getting Surgeon General warnings on packs of cigarettes in the US. Past behavior, judged through the lens of the present, is less than model in a lot of ways but it cannot be discussed and condemned if it’s not visible and addressing the off-colour and antiquated can be productive in establishing an enduring change in attitudes.

isla fantasma

Reminiscent of the curious case of Hy-Braʃil positioned in the Atlantic west of Ireland and perhaps perpetuated as a trap-street, a sort of water mark, we enjoyed learning about the phantom islet called Bermeja that appeared on sea charts from the sixteenth century up to the mid-nineteenth century off the coast of the Yucatán peninsula before abruptly disappearing from the map.
The origins and the fate of this would-be strategic land-mass, since its existence would accord México drilling rights to a massive undersea oil reserve, are disputed and range from a simple surveying error repeated in subsequent editions, the island sinking due to climate change or an earthquake—or more sinisterly, as one theory proffers, Bermeja was destroyed by US intelligence services to expand America’s economic zone and fishing-rights. More to explore from Boing Boing at the link above.

el bosque

We are presented with the verdant, vertical urban forest concept of the architectural firm of Stefano Boeri to be built in the near future on a tract of land just outside of Cancún that was formerly zoned for development as a sprawling shopping centre.
Happily the area will instead be home to new model city (see previously), one hundred and thirty thousand human residents cohabitating with some seven million carbon-sequestering plants. Project leaders plan for the settlement, campus to become a showcase hub of research and education with facilities focused on redressing coral reef degradation, lessening the impact of agriculture as well as demonstrating the integration of mobility, robotics and renewables into civil engineering and urban planning, backwards planning to bring these reforms and innovations to communities and infrastructure already extant. Much more to explore at the link up top.

ultimate rendering

Via our peripatetic pal Everlasting Blört, we are shown a gallery of artists’ final works, curated with a bit of context and perspective for their parting paintings. Quite a few seem a little too on the nose as to otherwise deny the creator their reflection and prescient swan song, like this still-life executed by Frida Kahlo (previously, 1907 – †1954) with watermelons (síndria) part of the iconography of El Día de Muertos and completed eight days before the Mexican artist’s death. Watermelons were also the subject of the last painting of Diego Rivera (*1886 – †1957), whom took Kahlo as his third wife.

8x8

getränkekiste: photographer Bernhard Lang features bottle crates from novel perspectives, via Nag on the Lake

россумские универсальные роботы: a 1979 children’s book series illustrated by Mikhail Romadin (*1940 – †2012) of Tarkovsky studios, whom went on to draw for Ray Bradbury and others

uranometria: stars captured on older stellar charts now seemingly vanished could point incognito alien civilisations, via Strange Company

accessory dwelling unit: architecture graduate creates prefabricated homes out of Hawaii’s problematic, invasive Albizia trees

fiat tender: giving cash as a gift but at the same time keeping the personal touch

i demand a recount: “Me and the Boys” voted community choice Meme of 2019, followed closely by “Woman Yelling at a Cat”

chinampa: a look at the fading, ancient practise of floating farming along the canals of Xochimilco

64x64: favourite photographs of the year by as many photographers

monster mash

While somewhat deflated to learn that the secret ingredients of horror icons Boris Karloff’s and Vincent Price’s respective recipes for guacamole sauce (a redundancy since the spread is Nahuatl for avocado sauce) was not the exotica of a magic potion or witches brew, I was quite happy to encounter another instance of people engaged and enraptured not by what’s on the menu per se but rather by how one does food and how there are given set of norms for behaviour and etiquette.
I can’t say whether or not it’s a phenomenon specific to any one culture or subset but it strikes me that Americans are particularly sensitive to it—with the deportment of presidential candidates scruntised for “authenticity” by the way they wield fairground fare more memorable than any excerpts from debates. I wonder what that says about the state of the polity. Do check out the recipes at the link up top but also know that placing the avocado pit in the bowl of guacamole, contrary to testimony, will not keep it from turning brown.

6x6

directors’ cut: prints of iconic filmmakers informed by elements of their movies plus a lot more poster art

radiohead has 18 webrings: the Avocado reads Yahoo! Internet Life’s February 2001 issue

republicans, democrats, in-betweeners looking for high crimes and misdemeanors: a Schoolhouse Rock style cartoon primer about impeachment  

mister green jeans: Lowering the Bar deconflates kangaroos and courtrooms—see previously

chiclets: during political exile after losing territory to the Republic of Texas brought General Antonio López de Santa Anna brought the world chewing gum, via Strange Company

a rhetorical question: Betteridge’s Law of Headline writing

startling stories and thrilling wonders: a gallery of pitch-perfect mashups of musical touchstones and pulp ephemera—via Nag on the Lake

relaciones geográficas

In order to have a better insight into the distant and vast domain that his conquistadors took by force, King Felipe II of Spain, Portugal, Naples and the Two Sicilies commissioned bureaucrats in the 1580s to produce a land survey through a fifty topic questionnaire to solicit descriptions of cities and settlements from the indigenous population.
Their responses came in the form of detailed manuscripts that told the history of their home towns and assigned by one question to visually describe their municipality, those polled answered with these fantastic maps and charts that captured geographical details as well as natural resources. Much more to explore with the intrepid adventurers at Atlas Obscura at the link above.

videojuego

We enjoyed perusing this gallery of vintage and antique sporting and summer travel posters going under the hammer. We were especially taken with the vibrant and angular design of artist Josep Renau Montoro exhibited in this 1941 commission for the Revolutionary Games held at the behest of Manuel Áliva Camacho. The artist was most famous for his murals and political propaganda during the Spanish civil war before being exiled first to México and then to East Berlin. There are other painters of note to be found in the auction preview including Sergio Trujillo Magnenat, Boris Artzybaseff and others.

endonymy

From one of our favourite weekly features, Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links, we are invited to ruminate over the fact that while most countries are named after one of four things—often tautologically, especially in translation—that are sometimes not very consequential to present geopolitics, there are some notable mavericks that defy or really lean into categorisation.
With nearly all countries named in deference to either a cardinal direction, a distinguishing geographical feature, a tribe or clan or an important personage, we’d wish that the campaign to make America great again was an effort to improve scholarship on the Latinised name of a fifteenth century Florentine cartographer from the Vespucci family but alas and alack.  There are nonetheless some notable (and notably disputed too) outliers as well. Our favouites being Malta named for bees (Μελίτη, honey-sweet), Mexico after a simplification of an Aztec city (Mēxihtli) that meant in the navel of the Moon and the Pacific island nation of Nauru, possibly derived from the native conjugation anáoero, I go to the beach.

milagro

Nag on the Lake directs our attention to an exhibit that features a moving collection of Mexican religious icons known as retablos (previously)—from the Latin retro-tabula for “behind the altar” or votive offerings of gratitude meant for display and inspection by the congregation, that document in painting and some captioning turning-points in the lives of those who’ve been on the recipients of divine intercession, which was for many in this show miraculously safe passage crossing the border into the US. Peruse a whole gallery and find much more to explore at the links above.

los tributos o el traje nuevo del emperador

Against the advice of his handlers who, despite how much that they might like focus to be deflected away from the Mueller press conference and Michael Flynn’s turning of states’ evidence, Trump announced a new raft of punitive tariffs against Mexico if it did not quell illegal immigration.
Already betraying his profound, stultifying ignorance of economic principles—tariffs are a kind of tax but a regressive one that US consumers pay, not the Chinese, Europeans or Mexicans—to pander to those who might vote for him a second time by appealing to the lowest common denominator of bigotry and insecurity—a sacrifice owed his base, there’s of course no indication how progress towards satisfying the requirement might be gauged nor who is to impose these sanctions on cross-border trade, nor whether this brash announcement is in violation of the trade deal Trump negotiated to replace the NAFTA accords he withdrew from.

alta california

Seeking the counsel and perspective of history and equipped with the patient and veteran lens of an antique camera that dates back to a time before the current US/México frontier was established and cemented
in a cultish mythology that drapes greed and racism with the civilising sheen of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion, photographer Tomas van Houtryve traced the border as it was before the Mexican-American War, telling the stories of the descendants who instead of crossing the border were rather crossed by it. The collective amnesia and avoidance of a past shameful to recall and confront allows intolerance and the powers of regression not just to keep its pathetic toehold but experience a revival. Learn more about the portraits and landscapes—lines and lineage—at the links above.

6x6

♫: the Keaton typewriter of musical notation

cryogenics: a covertly filmed movie on the urban legend of Walt Disney’s preserved head shot on location

klimatförändring: environmental activist Greta Thunberg nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize

jungbauern: a deep dive into the socio-economics and ethnography captured in this 1914 August Sander’s photograph

hecho en méxico: Candida Höfer turns her lens towards the façades and interiors of the country

clapping music: a performance by Steve Reich that challenges you to keep in sync 

hurdling the language-barrier

Via Nag on the Lake, we are privileged with a preview of the pictogram set from graphic desiger Masaaki Hiromura for the 2020 Tokyo Games. The artist, back in 2004, famously exhibited his Kitasenju—rebus symbols (below) to stimulate both hemispheres of the brain and focus one’s attention. These Gestalt sports symbols conveying athletes in action have a long tradition, first created in response to the growing international character of participants and spectators and each Olympiad gets their own bespoke signage.
This current offering is nearly as visually compelling, captivating and reflective of a certain vernacular of place and venue as Lance Wyman’s iconography (the transport connection is worth considering) for the 1968 Mexico City Games. Much more to explore at the links above.

the creeping devil

A native of Baja California, we find ourselves acquainted with another succulent uniquely sessile in its motility. Colonies of the species Stenocereis Eruca grow recumbently and live up to their common nomenclature as they advance across the desert floor, growing from one terminus, up to a metre and a half per year, as the tail end dies, disintegrates and re-fertilises the sandy soil as it deposits a trail behind. Learn more about the cactus’ distinctive lifecycle at the link above.

rose of jericho

Via the always wonderful and inspiring Nag on the Lake we are introduced to a shrub called Selaginella lepidophylla—a type of resurrection plant—that can cope with the arid and punishing conditions of its native habitat, the deserts of Chihuahua, and survive unscathed near complete desiccation.
During periods of drought—and researchers are looking into how they might reactivate the same dormant genes in food crops to make them sturdier under dry conditions—the plant, also known as the (False) Rose of Jericho, curls up into a ball when dry and unfurls its fronds upon re-hydration and has evolved another clever trick as has its North African cousin—Anastatica hierochuntica, the (True) Rose of Jericho—and can form tumbleweeds to be whisked away to a more favourable location. Since ancient times, farmers (and hucksters) have recognised resurrection plants as vegetable hygrometer to predict oncoming rain. See a time-lapse of the thirsty plant getting a drink at the link above.

7x7

pizzo: the Trump Crime Syndicate is expecting host nation partners to pay a big premium for US troops stationed there—via Miss Cellania’s Links

big and heavy: industrial pamphlets, 1932-1941

reef of silence: an underwater necropolis is proposed as a funerary venue that will rehabilitate coral habitats

chichén itzá: researchers uncover a trove of ancient Mayan artefacts in the Cave of the Jaguar God

shūnyatā: a few moments of guided meditation from Alan Watts

do you know the way to san jose: Silicon Valley plans a monument to Silicon Valley—via Digg

tit-for-tat: though short of needing special entry- and tourist-visas US travellers to Europe will need to pre-register, like with the American ESTA programme