Though the concept of cities of refuge where perpetrators of accidental crimes could claim asylum is ancient and the modern usage seems quite contemporary, the first municipality in the US that passed an ordinance prohibiting city authorities from enforcing rendition for non-violent offences was Berkeley, California, adopting the stance on this day in 1971, inspiring and leading a shift among many polities in North American and Europe to be more welcoming of arriving immigrants and reduce anxiety surrounding deportation and possible family separation.
Monday 8 November 2021
Sunday 31 October 2021
dia do saci
Designated by an NGO calling themselves amigos of this trickster character of Brazilian folklore to coincide with Halloween as a way to counter American cultural hegemony, the holiday, even where backed with state-support, only enjoys limited recognition and celebration—despite familiarity and popularity of its mascot.
The monopod figure with an enchanted cap and always smoking a pipe, mostly active at night, can be dangerous and malicious—though most pranks are merely annoying—but will grant the wishes of those who trap him or free him, liable to caught in a bottle while disappearing and reappearing in the midst of a whirlwind. Reportedly Saci’s magic cap, according to those who’ve tried to steal it, has an indelibly foul smell and those who’ve handled it can never wash the stench away. Saci can be propitiated with offerings of a libation of cachaรงa and a measure of tobacco for his pipe.
catagories: ๐, ๐น, ๐, ๐, myth and monsters
Thursday 21 October 2021
newfoundland
The clue possibly lying in the name of the province, researchers, using new dating techniques and studying the remnant of an ancient solar storm, have pinpointed the first transatlantic crossing and settlement of Viking explorers to exactly a millennium hence, nearly five hundred years prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus, marking the first encounter and reunion with inhabitants of the New and Old World, the aboriginal population having migrated the long way around. A known flare event in the year 992 unleashed a burst of high-energy cosmic rays that left a marker in the growth rings of trees, felled twenty-nine years after the storm whose timber was used for construction of shelters, sod longhouses (reconstruction pictured in L’Anse aux Meadows), demonstrating that the encampment was set up in 1021. The Viking chronology suggested their journey took place in the eleventh century (see also) but before there was no corroborating evidence—which makes one wonder what other truths might be in the epic sagas.
Saturday 2 October 2021
net promoter score
Incredulously and with much the same hubris and spirit that the American baseball commission calls its big annual play-off the World Series (it’s not) or organisers an international beauty pageant Miss Universe (she’s not), we learn thanks to the always authentic and as-advertised Miss Cellania that unsurprisingly there’s not only no US airline placing in the top ten globally, because America can’t rise to the challenge to compete on the world-wide stage, there’s a separate ranking for North American airlines. The US doesn’t even manage to sweep this category with Air Canada placing third.
catagories: ⚾️, ✈️, ๐, networking and blogging
Wednesday 29 September 2021
7x7
kรกdรกr cube: a practical, mass-produced boxy house (Magyar รpรญtลmลฑvรฉszet) from Communist-era Hungary is staging a comeback
the new english canaan: revisiting the banned publication that mocked American’s puritanical ways—see also
you’ve got a habit of leaving: the first single from the unreleased David Bowie album, coming in January
merfolk and melusine: tritons and mermaids entertained by enlightened minds
facebookland: the social media giant ought to be treated like the autocratic rogue state it is—via Waxy
roll over beethoven: a team of musicologists using artificial intelligence complete the composer’s unfinished tenth symphony—to premier in Bonn next month, via Kottke
ะณะพััะธะฝัะน ะดะฒะพั: a rotating arch for a shopping arcade in St. Petersburg—via Pasa Bon!
Friday 17 September 2021
the persuaders!
Last in the line of a spy, crime adventure syndicate that began in 1960 with Danger Man, The Prisoner, The Avengers and The Saint, the charismatic action-comedy vehicle of Tony Curtis and Roger Moore was first simulcast on ITV and ABC to UK and US audiences on this day in 1971. Though considered a crowning, ambitious and concluding series and played well in foreign franchises, dubbed as Dos Tipos Audaces (Two Bold Characters in South American markets), Minden Lรฉben Kรฉt Kanรกl (Two Spoons in Every Soup in Hungary), Snobbar som Jobbar (Snobs on the Job in Sweden), Amicalement Vรดtre in French-speaking areas (Amicably Yours) and Die Zwei in the Deutschsprachrรคume (one of the best titled cinematic adaptations The Sum of All Fears is plaintively called simply Der Anschlag, The Attack in German) the production of Baron Lew Grade (also behind the series of Supermarionation shows) about two individuals from starkly different backgrounds that have been reluctantly teamed together to solve international cases that the authorities cannot disappointed domestic viewers and was cancelled after one albeit complete season. The opening title sequence (see also) features music by John Berry.
Sunday 29 August 2021
you give me fasciation
Our gratitude to our peripatetic pal Memo of the Air for directing us to this updated re-post from TYWKIWDBI that we managed to miss earlier that gives a little more background on the backstory of a Stevie Nicks’ classic we’ve covered previously by way of contorted, cresting displays of growth in certain kinds of plants, included the celebrated saguaro of central and southwestern North America with wasps, bees and white-winged doves counted among their important daytime pollinators.
catagories: ๐, ๐ต, ๐ถ, ๐, networking and blogging
Sunday 15 August 2021
i have directed secretary connolly to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interest of the united states
Effectively ending the economic arrangement among Canadian, Western Europe, Australia and Japan since 1944, the Bretton Woods system (see previously), the first fully negotiated monetary order recognised across independent polities that regulated exchange rates by pinning national currencies to the price of gold under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund, American president Richard Nixon announced, unilaterally, that on this day in 1971 the dollars could no longer be freely converted to their worth in gold. Rendered a fiat currency instead of a representation of intrinsic value, only upheld by the consent of the parties engaged in trade for goods or services, many other signatories soon followed suit and untethered their money. This jarring economic policy change was the culmination of several intervention strategies undertaken by the Nixon administration to curb inflation incurred as the world reserve currency (privilรจge exorbitant as the US could print money at virtually no cost, but subsidised by the rest of the world, each bank note expatriated cost face value in actual goods), preceded by wage and price freezes and raising tariffs. Loosing the ability to service indebtedness over the war in Vietnam, Nixon accused other nations of gaming the system and using established conventions to devalue their currency to maintain a competitive advantage. The US dollar dropped precipitously in value shortly thereafter and led to the the stagflation that typifies the decade and general failure of wages to rise proportionally with the increasing prices of vital things like healthcare, education, rents and food.
Saturday 31 July 2021
home on the range
Thursday 29 July 2021
stamina potion
Directed towards an engrossing economics side-quest to ponder from NRP’s Planet Money, we learn how a cadre of rather ingenious individuals, to stave of the worst effect of a collapsing national currency and exponential inflation which strips money of one of its defining pillars as a store of value, to farming for computer game gold, since collecting and trading those virtual coins for primarily euro or US dollars was at a far better rate of exchange than the bolรญvar soberano and paid a better wage. Choosing the MMORPG (massively multiplayer on-line role-playing game) platform of Old School RuneScape because of its low bar to access, straightforward and relatively easy to play (especially for repetitive, income-generating tasks) and would run on older computers and not be too data intensive, their activity (not allowed according to house rules, selling to third-parties, but can’t really be stopped) has drawn supporters sympathetic to their real world plight and detractors complaining of encroachment and how it skews the in-game economy.
Thursday 24 June 2021
8x8
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 itwarriors 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
Thursday 10 June 2021
wagner-werk-verzeichnis neunzig
Premiering on this day at the Kรถnigliches Hoftheatre in Mรผnchen in 1865, the opera in three acts by Richard Wagner, later classified with the above designation, Tristan und Isolde was a retelling of the twelfth century chivalric romance the adulterous affair between and Cornish knight and princess, a narrative that predates and prefigures the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. Considered by many as the highest expression of the art form during opera’s late stage that opens up the classical to the modern interpretations, it marks a significant point of departure from traditional tonal progression and musical (sonata-allegro form) structure, especially illustrated in the range of harmony, polyphony and the so called Tristan chord ,which resolves to another dissonant chord and occurrences of resolve deferred throughout. Because of the anticipated demands of staging and the requirements for the sets, Wagner first approached Brazilian Emperor Pedro II about having Rio de Janeiro as its debut venue. When this did not pan out, the production company then turned to Strasbourg, Karlsruhe and Paris, though public memory was still fresh of a failed staging of Tannhรคuser there, before starting rehearsals in Vienna. The premiere performance was changed again after a considerable amount already invested, earning the production the reputation of being unperformable even before its first run.
Monday 7 June 2021
orelhรฃo
Referred to as “big ear” in Portuguese, Design Boom celebrates fifty years of the iconic egg-shaped public telephone hoods that were configured for privacy, discretion and to parabolically focus sound by architect Chu Ming Silveira (*1941 – †1997). Though now the installations are mostly ornamental—though also subject to repurposing, just like the red telephone booths of London, are an essential part of the streetscapes of Rio de Janeiro, Sรฃo Paulo and dozens of other metropolitan areas in in Central and South America, Africa and China. The open shells were created in response to complaints of compromised reception with traditional call-boxes that took up too much real estate on the sidewalks and were prone to vandalism and expensive to replace, whereas the acrylic hoods were compact and low-cost.
Wednesday 26 May 2021
6x6
moulted: people are crafting miniature monsters out of discarded cicada shells
fantastica: music from outer space by Hollywood composer Russell Garcia (*1916 - †2011)project daedalus: the venerable British Interplanetary Society, founded in 1933—once chaired by Sir Arthur C. Clark (previously)
cais das artes: a retrospective look at some of the landmark projects of recently departed architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha (*1928)
greenwood: a look back at the Tulsa massacre (previously) and race riots as we approach its centenary at the end of the month
five-octave vocal range: dolphin responds with glee to Mariah Carey’s high note
catagories: ⚖️, ๐, ๐ฌ, ๐ญ, architecture
Friday 21 May 2021
watershed moment
Via Web Curios, we are directed towards an application for our fans in the continental United States of America (for the present) called River Runner that allows one to drop a raindrop anywhere and trace its path to the sea through run-offs, watercourses, creeks and rivers and explore the precipitation cycle drip by drip, navigating their path over the terrain and residence times through reservoir, adjacent table and flow.
Thursday 20 May 2021
brood x
For the emergence of the seventeen-year cicadas in North America—what was going on in the early summer of 2004, we are treated, via Messy Nessy Chic to this graphic depicting the stages of conventionalisation, deconstruction of the periodic insects (Magicicada septendecula and two other closely related species, tribes, see previously) as illustrated by Hugo Froelich (the periodical being from Syracuse, New York and the contributor not the classical German actor) in 1905 (that year being an emergent one for Brood XXX on a thirteen-year cycle as assigned by entomologist Charles Lester Marlatt at those geographical climes) for Keramic Studio Magazine
Sunday 16 May 2021
nice accessories but zero points of articulation
Via friend of the blog the Everlasting Blรถrt, we are directed to an ancient Mayan artefact, a ceramic figurine with removable helmet that could arguably be a millennium and a half year old example of an action figure—or at least serve a comparable purpose from the vantage point of far-future archaeologists shifting through our fetishes and talismans. Whether a toy or collectors’ item, the miniature is included in a group of twenty-three others accompanying a city ruler on his trip to the hereafter, discovered during a 2006 excavation in Guatemala but resurfacing to circulate on the internet again.
Tuesday 27 April 2021
native land
Via the morning news, we discover this interactive map of the world, which instead of the usual geopolitical boarders and boundaries rather presents us with overlays of the territories and ranges of indigenous peoples. One can toggle to see native endonyms and treaties between aboriginal populations and colonisers and settlers, encouraging one to think critically about place and displacement.
Sunday 25 April 2021
mappi mundi
On this day in 1507, humanist and cartographer Martin Waldseemรผller—whom also went by the Latinised form of his name Hylacomylus (forest-lake miller)—together with his collaborator Matthias Ringmann, published their map featuring the new world, significantly portraying South America as a continent separate from Asia and naming portions of the New World America after explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The academy that Waldseemรผller and Ringmann founded in Saint-Diรฉ with the patronage of the Duke of Lorraine came in possession of a booklet that gave a rather heroic and sensational account of the voyages of Vespucci in the western Atlantic and the two scholars carried forward that credit in a short treatise with atlases and a world map as a primer on cosmography (Cosmographiรฆ Introductio) that spanned from the familiar to the antipodes that were predicted in Antiquity. Ringmann actually, persuasively championed the toponym America, arguing: “I see no reason why anyone could disaaprove of a name derived of that Amerigo, the discoverer and a man of sagacity—with suitable forms being Amerige, meaning land of Amerigo, or America, especially since both Europe and Asia have women’s names.” Europa was raped by Zeus in the form of a bull and gave birth to the Minotaur. Hesione was a Trojan princess and distressed damsel for Hercules to save from a sea monster and blamed indirectly for the Trojan War—Hercules helping himself to the fine horses that Zeus sent in compensation for the abduction of Ganymede and causing strife among the gods. Classically referred to as Libya, Africa was considered to have a feminine ethnonym as well. The original world map was believed lost until a copy was found in Schloss Wolfegg in Austria in 1901 and purchased by the US Library of Congress (pictured)—though other uncut gores to be assembled into globes survive.
Friday 2 April 2021
fuchsia splendens
Though our prized exemplar did not make it through the winter sadly, we did rather find it interesting to learn how this plant of the month, the fuchsia, died of an over-exposure of a different sort though its reputation is now somewhat rehabilitated. First described by a French friar and botanist under commission of Louis XIV stationed on Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in the 1690s, the genus was named in honour of the German Renaissance researcher and professor Leonhart Fuchs of the previous century and considered one of the fathers of the field. In the following decades, it started to be cultivated in Europe and parallel the rise in cheap printing and lithography which resulting in multiple copies from the same prepared page easily reproduced without sacrificing the colour and detail that the flower highlighted and quickly became popular, and oversold eventually victim of its own success. While a number of enthusiasts and nurseries continued to experiment with breeding new types, public tastes were shifting, ultimately went for other novel plants including ferns, orchids, decorative palms and other ornamental plants.