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autobus park № 7: explore Kyiv’s derelict modernist transportation hippodrome—via Things Magazine  

blue: listen to rediscovered demos and outtakes from Joni Mitchell’s album on its fiftieth anniversary 

i’m chasing martian: excellent auditory illusion illustrated—see previously—from chanting fans  

dark matter, dark fish: the overwhelming biomass of Earth’s ecosystem is essentially undetectable for us (see also) yet we claim the right to rubbish it  

warriors of the zenith, warriors of the nadir: a 1904 ethnograph of Zuni ritual masks  

work-life balance: Japanese government proposes four-day work-week  

shareware: a look at the App Store’s predecessor, Software Labs  

private viewing: the collectors who saved modernist Soviet masterpieces

villa la grange

 

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 (Ь / Ъ) 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.

pcфcp

Called the Day of the Adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR, a transitional state during the dissolution of the USSR) or Russia Day for short, this national holiday of the Russian Federation commemorates the passage of structural reform by the First Congress of People’s Deputies on this day in 1990, establishing primacy of the constitution, equal rights for all citizens and political parties and the separation of powers among three co-equal branches of government: the executive, legislative and judicial. The acclaim is not universal with quite a lot of ambivalence towards celebrating this declaration but the holiday is generally marked with awards assemblies, firework displays, parades and concerts.

to russia with elton

Starting with a venue in Leningrad on this day in 1979, Elton John gave the first of a series of eight concerts in the Soviet Union, marking the largest-scale tour thus far of a Western artist (see also), preceded by smaller shows by Boney M and Keith Richards. A subsequent live broadcast from the Rossiya Concert Hall in Moscow (the evening of 28 May) that was also carried by BBC1 marked the first satellite link-up between the USSR and the West and helped diffuse geopolitical tensions at he height of the Cold War.

пе́тя и волк

The symphonic fairy tale by Sergei Prokofiev that introduces young people to the instrumental sections of the orchestra while extolling the virtues of Soviet bravery and boldness and daring to question the dictums of the past generation (embodied in the scolding character of Grandfather) had it premier on this day at the Moscow Philharmonic in 1936. Later in the month, a much better attended performance took place at the Pioneers’ Palace, Peter being a member of this youth scouting organisation. Peter protects his animal friends (except for the duck—that is) as well as tames a fierce wolf with their help and working as a team. A 2003 recording with narration from Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren won a Grammy for best spoken-word album.

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and the oscar goes to: highlights and surprises from the 2021 Academy Awards  

zauberwald: Robert Mertl’s forest photographer captures the aesthetic I aim for during my woodland walks  

canzone russa italianizzata: the Russian Italo-Pop musical stylings of Alla Pugacheva  

cards against humanity: the brilliantly sullen poetry of John Giorno  

yahoo the destroyer: maligning the cannibalised early internet for contributing to the Digital Dark Ages via Waxy—plus a different approach to archiving going forward  

the trouble with tribbles: marketing Flatcat as one’s next robotic feline companion  

art of the title: film lettering over the decades

dos-1

Also known by the technical designation in the acronym for long-duration orbital station, to the public and press the first launch of the Salyut (Салют, salute or a hail of fireworks) programme occurred on this day in 1971, becoming the first space station (see also) from the Soviet Union and was aloft, crews conducting experiments, astronomical observations and docking manuevers until October when deorbited and replaced by the new generation module, The final vessel of the programme (DOS-8), called Zvezda, became the core of the Russian section of the International Space Station.

off we go!

On this day in 1961, a Vostok I spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome under the call sign Кедр (Siberian Cedar, see also) piloted by Yuri Gagarin (Гагарин, Юрий *1934 - †1968), the first human to journey into outer space (previously), holding a short dialogue with flight operations during take-off. Mission control over the radio announced: “Preliminary stage… intermediate… main… Lift-Off! We wish you a good flight. Everything’s all right.” To which Gagarin replied, “Поехали! Goodbye, until soon, dear friends.” The enthusiastic interjection becoming a popular expression for Soviet progress and the start of the Space Age. Once the final stage of the rocket finished firing, the craft and cosmonaut orbited the Earth for one hundred-eight minutes, ejecting from the vessel during re-entry over Kazakhstan and descending to the ground safely harnessed to a parachute.

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silvagunner: an appreciation of the remixing collective from Kicks Condor 

film festival: curate one’s own streaming series from a vast, public domain archive  

re-branding: artist FAEL redesigns corporate logos with a perfect balance of retro and progress 

prompts and cues: remedies to exhausting monologues and fostering better conversations  

metronome: a fascinating look at synchronicity  

братство кольца: a 1991 Russian television version of The Fellowship of the Rings (see also) resurfaces on the internet—including an appearance by Tom Bombadil whose otherwise left out of the adaptations  

the only post-punk supergroup: the musical stylings of the New Age Steppers

deorbit

After fifteen years of service, funding running out its orbit degrading and the International Space Station crewed for the first time, on this day in 2001 over the course of five hours, Mir (previously) was decommissioned by a series of manoeuvres that caused the craft to graze the upper atmosphere and break up over the southern Pacific Ocean. Though no significant debris hit land or populated areas, residents in New Zealand and Japan were told to stay indoors as no object of this size had been subject to re-entry prior.

typhoon class

Though the working-outcome of the navy going into receivership with Pepsi was more improbable than the suggestion to retrofit a fleet of Soviet nuclear submarines as tanker ships to transport oil and natural gas was probably the less technical tenable, advisable alternative to generate capital after the nation’s dissolution. Back in 1995, at the suggestion of the governor of Arkhangelsk oblast, the location of the Russian submarine yards, one experiment was with underwater cargo shipping was undertaken—albeit with a non-strategic vessel and a manifest of foodstuffs—but not explored further due to cost-overruns and lack of funding. The logistics pitch, however, to fill-up directly from off-shore rigs and to travel the globe swiftly and virtually unimpeded (also without burning said fuel) was worth considering. Learn more at Weird Universe at the link above.

mir eo-18

Becoming one of the founding mission specialists that would establish the space shuttle programme in 1979 and subsequently flying four missions on board Challenger, Atlantis and Discovery, NASA astronaut Norman Earl Thagard became on this day in 1995 the first US citizen to reach Earth orbit in a Russian craft (see also), traveling with the crew of the Soyuz TM-21 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, effectively the first American cosmonaut for his fifth and last spaceflight. As researcher, Thagard spent six months aboard the space station Mir conducting a battery of experiments and presently teaches engineering and acts as a technical advisor for filmmakers producing space-based movies.

vostok-3ka no. 1

Also known by the designation Sputnik 9 (see previously), the Soviet spacecraft launched on this day in 1961 carried a complement and crew of mice, guinea pig, a dog called Chemushka (“Blackie”) and a realistic human dummy, mannequin called Ivan Ivanovich (the equivalent of Joe Doe or Max Mustermann) that was so distressing uncanny thus prompting technicians to affix a label to his visor lest someone finding Ivan after a mission might not mistake him for an incapacitated cosmonaut or extra-terrestrial. Ivan was auctioned off after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and purchased by Ross Perot, who subsequently donated him to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. The mission only consisting of a single trip around the world, it was deorbited shortly

санитарный поезд

Via Messy Nessy Chic, we are exposed to the impressive portfolio of photographer Emile Ducke through his series on medical trains that service the vast reaches of Siberia with annual whistle-stops at each station to perform diagnostic exams and prescribe medicine to remote communities who otherwise go without regular health car. The locomotive Saint Lukas (Luke of Antioch, patron of surgeons and physicians) has for its caboose a chapel wagon. More to explore at the links above.

drahtfunk im amerikanischen sector

From the first broadcast on this day in 1946 from the switchboard exchange of the Reichspost on Winterfeldtstraße in West Berlin for the next several months until a medium wave transmitter could be procured and installed, news and political reporting from the US occupational authorities for the German people, counterprogramming to what was regarded as a propaganda put out by the Soviets, could only be distributed over telephone lines, hence the original DIAS call-sign before becoming RIAS—Rundfunk in the American Sector. Following the Berlin Blockade (previously), the terrestrial sender broadcasted each Sunday at noon the chimes of the Freiheitsglocke installed in the Schöneberg Rathaus, modelled off the Liberty Bell, followed by a short recitation from the “Declaration of Freedom.” Expanding into entertainment with the station’s own orchestra and choir, RIAS and related stations came to cover almost all of West and East Germany (see link up top), on the air until 1993, when facilities and frequency slots were handed over to Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster.

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japandi: a lookbook overview of interiors that combine Japanese and Scandinavian aesthetic elements  

six arms strong and true: more machinalia from Boris Artzybasheff—see previously  

pharmaduke: re-captioning the Brad Anderson comic strip with psychedelic trip narratives, via Things Magazine  

high stakes: revisiting a quarter-century old public wager that technology would destroy society—via Slashdot  

vaccination venues: the architecture of public health promotion  

house of style: supermodel Cindy Crawford guides us through Paris Fashion Week in 1992 on her MTV show  

gradation: moving from binary to blended, a study of the spectrum of everyday objects commissioned for Japan’s award-winning children’s education programme Design Ah

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testi stampati: the riotous typographical illustratrations of Lorenzo Petrantoni  

painterly realism: Nathan Shipley trained a neural network to turn portraiture into convincingly true-to-life photographs 

civilian climate corps: a vision of how putting people to work on conservation projects can help save both the environment and the economy  

narratology: a purportedly exhaustive list of dramatic situations—see also here and here  

stonx: a long thread explaining the GameStop short-squeeze—via Miss Cellania  

paradoxical undressing: National Geographic forwards a new theory to account for the Dyatlov Pass Incident (previously) of 1959  

butler in a box: before digital assistants there was domestic aid in the late 1980s 

will success spoil rock hunter: Art of the Title looks at the opening montage of the 1957 CinemaScope classic

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paradiplomacy: an intricate Tajik teahouse in Boulder, Colorado  

nivotone: brilliant restoration of a 1930s Soviet optical-analogue, electronic music synthesis—via Things  

❄️: a snowflake generator—see previously 

soon may the wellerman come: more sea shanties—see previously  

twitchable: discovering a drive for birding under lockdown  

topographic prominence: an interactive version of Switzerland’s 1845 Dufour Survey Map from Maps Mania, see also 

putin’s palace: a gallery of photographs and digital renderings from blueprints of luxury property that is allegedly the Russian president’s personal retreat

тысячи

First articulated out the Cyrillic script (see previously) in the Bulgarian Empire in the tenth century following a long established Greek, Ionian convention to differentiate numerals from letters when context was not exactly clear with spacers, dots and a diacritic over the glyphs called a titlo ҃ or as a prefix signalling a long string of numbers to follow ҂, like a tilde or macron. Still sometimes seen in Slavonic Church publications and in old monuments and coinage, the system was in use until the civil reforms (see also) of Peter the Great in the early seventeen hundreds when Hindu-Arabic representations were introduced and because of this centuries-long custom continued well into the early modern era, elaborate signs were developed to express powers of magnitude and in terms of both a long and short scale (lesser and greater count multiplier) for accounting and scientific purposes. Align with the Greek (rather than alphabetically), one through ten, correspond with the Cyrillic letters: А, В, Г, Д, Е, Ѕ, З, И, Ѳ and І. The pictured powers of ten using the older alpha form, with the Myriad (Тьма) encircled    ⃝   either ten-thousand or a million and Many Myriad   ꙲   either one billion or 10⁵⁰.