Monday 18 March 2024

7x7 (11. 435)

deadwooding: Banksy acknowledges authorship of a new mural bringing back some greenery to an aggressive prune tree in Finsbury Park  

subspace: an ultra high-definition video of a cat chasing a laser-pointer was beamed over thirty million kilometres to improve future video calls to the Moon and Mars 

running-stitch: beautiful embroidered portraits from Karola Pezarro  

deadspin: more on the internet’s undead, reanimated by private equity and name recognition—see previously, see more  

bunga bunga: Italy’s Foreign Press Association to move into former home of Silvio Berlusconi, who famously disparaged reporters as Communists  

honeytrap: Aphra Behn’s intersecting careers as a professional writer and spy  

sequoiadendron giganteum: imported by the Victorians as status symbols, Giant Redwoods (see also) are thriving in the UK at more than half-a-million and growing

Sunday 17 March 2024

wรผstungsperioden (11. 432)


Travelling a few villages over towards the former border, driving past some abandoned settlements, vacated owing to they’re being a liability too close to the boundary, we took another nice hike with the dog up to the ruins of Hutsburg on the summit of the Hutsberg, which also was a victim of its formerly strategic location and shifting allegiances.



On the way back, we stopped in Filke to revisit the so called Mauerschรคdel, another ruined remains, this time of early abandonment and then rendered inaccessible, like the above stronghold, during DDR times and its nave acting as the line of demarcation. 

 

Saturday 16 March 2024

heimatblick (11. 428)


 Before the weather turned, we took the dog on a hike up above Stockheim for a panoramic view of the village below. The diversion in the trail up the Tanzberg was a bequest from a local landowner stipulated in his will after an unfortunate farming accident. A bit further along the main path, we encountered a Blitzstein, a memorial for an anonymous resident and likely not the above donor struck and killed by lightning though now an unlikely occurrence given tree height in the vicinity though yet memorable and cautionary. 

I’ve noticed such small headstones before and wondered if they memorialised similar Acts of God—and wondered whether if this was all the individual received for funerary rites since it did sort of seem like divine punishment. When I first came to Germany and began noticing makeshift cenotaphs the just off the shoulder of the road, commemorating the victims of a traffic accident, I remember first thinking, there sure are a lot of people walking on the side of the road and getting killed by cars and thought that the country must have a problem with pedestrian deaths. 

Of course, during our walkies, I wasn’t preoccupied with such morbid thoughts, just wanted to know more about the practise and customs but was not able to find anything else out. Both spots were equipped with a nice picnic area and a wooden sun lounger for warmer weather.  It was a beautiful early spring day and we went on down the valley with a glimpse of the next town of Mellrichstadt off in the distance.

 

Friday 27 October 2023

9x9 (11. 078)

page rank: the SEO trend of naming establishments X Near Me seems to actually drive customers—via Waxy  

cyanea pohaku: a species of tree discovered right before it was driven to extinction

saint eom: the psychedelic compound of folk artist and fortune-teller Eddie Owens Martin outside of Buena Vista in the US state of Georgia and listed on the National Register of Historic Places  

usonian homes: a pair of Frank Lloyd Wright (see previously) houses on the market in Kalamazoo in the US state of Michigan  

saob: the official Swedish dictionary published after one hundred forty years of work

the united states of guns: another sadly evergreen post about how an armed society is not a free society   

happiness hotel: a luxury kennel once occupied the grounds of New York City’s Lincoln Center 

report of my death having been most industriously circulated by several of the london daily newspapers, would the times permit me to contradict the same through your valuable columns and refute the account: sculptor John Ternouth, designer of the plinth for Nelson’s Column, was surprised to learn of his premature demise—via Strange Company  

i am altering the deal—pray i don’t alter it any further: Amazon’s Alexa is ending inoperability support with severe punishment for those who try to hack their way around it

Saturday 7 October 2023

dschungelweg (11. 042)

Deciding to try again to find the route we were searching for yesterday but from a better trodden starting point and walked through the vineyards on another educational trail (Lehrpfad) that this time had information about the different varieties of grapes grown and harvested here with more views of Escherndorf, Nordheim and the Main valley, passing the Vogelsberg and the orchards on the other side of the Weinberg. 






We entered an ancient old-growth stretch of woods hugging the bank of the river, untouched except for a very narrow footpath through the forest. Passing Fahr and back up to the top of the ridge through a second nature path for some more views of the valleys and vineyards before returning to the campground. 
 
synchronoptica
 
one year ago:  absinthe banned in Switzerland, the Feast of Sergius and Bacchus plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: a cool ghoul and your ghost host, the Cyrus Charter, a bird wife plus a catalogue of invasive toys
 
three years ago: most senior US government officials in quarantine,  a typing tutor, a birdhouse apartment plus more historic maps
 
four years ago: a minimum wage machine
 
five years ago: more links to check out, East Germany’s Tag der Republik, a visit to an automotive and aviation museum plus himpathy and related neologism

Thursday 28 September 2023

sycamore gap (11. 029)

Made famous internationally by a cameo appearance in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves but a regional landmark for generations, the picturesque lone tree (see previously) growing in a dramatic dip in the Northumbrian landscape near Hadrian’s Wall was chopped down by a vandal for a chance to achieve some dread and senseless Herostratic fame (more here).  The community near the craggy terrain are of course very saddened to loose a natural monument in this fashion, especially when so much more is threatened with accelerated climate change, and there are already plans in place to coax it into regrowing but it won’t have the same character.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus St Leoba

two years ago:  your daily demon: Halphas plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: Pope John Paul I plus Trump’s taxes

four years ago: hitchhiking returns to Brussels 

five years ago: William the Conqueror crosses the Channel (1066) plus the #MeToo movement

Friday 1 September 2023

limes regis (10. 976)

We are treated to a field-trip, courtesy of Strange Company, along an ancient footpath called the Ridgeway that clings to chalk cliffs of Berkshire Downs along the Salisbury Plain down to the Thames at the Goring Gap, the narrow river valley between Reading and Oxfordshire, the Ridgeway—described as the oldest trail in Britain and in use for over five-thousand years, the high ground a preferable trade route since travellers could spot potential highwaymen and marauders. Tour highlights include several ruined castles and forts and megalithic monuments.

Tuesday 11 July 2023

7x7 (10. 874)

fit for a king: a selection of ersatz castles for sale in the US 

caliology: corvids using anti-bird spikes for nesting material
100ยบ in the shade
: mapping tree shadows 

free agent: labour force of the outsourced talk about the effects of the AI revolution—via Waxy  

ravensbourne: finding the lost rivers of London—see previously  

involuntary memory: the aetiology of earworms 

cheese royal: Burger King in Thailand introduces a menu item composed of twenty slices of American cheese

Wednesday 21 June 2023

8x8 (10. 825)

the restaurant of mistaken orders: a pop-up establishment in Japan serves a lesson in compassion along with its dishes  

specimens of fancy turning: these late nineteenth century lathe patterns look like spirographs 

dwarf fortress: an interview with the author of 50 Years of Text Gamessee previously 

mercurial: more on the found and lost planet Vulcan  

monk parakeets: over a decade living in Wiesbaden, these invasive birds went from rare, doubtful sightings to absolute flocks  

area sacra: assassination site of Caesar and since taken over by semi-feral cats opening to the public 

รฑ: the origins of the letter with a diacritical tilde  

evergreen appeal: once considered dire sustenance only, pine-based cuisine in Nordic countries is becoming fine-dining

Monday 12 June 2023

6x6 (10. 802)

i-95: the dialectometric implications of the highway overpass collapse in Philadelphia—which happened near Four Seasons Total Landscaping 

rolling stock: a home studio and venerable teleworking space travels from backyard to the woods on a rail line—see also   

canopy: a treetop walkway in Fyresdal, Norway

alphabetical order: an appreciation of indexing in the age of miscellany 

tugboat: since the 1970s, prospective tanker captains have been training with tiny ships at this centre in France—via Messy Nessy Chicsee also  

ablaut reduplication: the unwritten, consensus rule of spoken English we all tend to obey—see also

Thursday 25 May 2023

8x8 (10. 765)

simply the best: tributes pour in from around the world for the Queen of Rock and Roll, Tina Turner—previously

fabric swatches meticulously arranged: piecing together the mystery of the dress diary of Missus Anne Sykes—via Nag of the Lake  

midnight train: routes of Europe’s overnighters—see previously—via Kottke  

pasteurised prepared cheese product: attempts at rehabilitating the impoverished state of American caseiculture  

cotton tree: Sierra Leone’s iconic landmark brought down by a heavy storm  

ะบะพะฝั†ะตะฟั‚ัƒะฐะปัŒะฝั‹ะน ะบะพะฝัะตั€ะฒะฐั‚ะธะทะผ: chief of Russian mercenary forces, retreating from Bakhmut, says that the offensive in Ukraine has backfired  

chintzy: a history of the calico, block printed textile

hollywood babylon: occultist and underground maker of experimental short films, Kenneth Anger has passed away—see previously

Monday 1 May 2023

8x8 (10. 711)

time in a bottle: individuals turning turning care and attention into currency  

composition as explanation: daily it’s harder to decide if AI is a collaborative tool or a time bomb  

zoonomia: researchers sequence the genome of sixty-five hundred species—plus Balto, the heroic sled dog of the 1925 Serum Run 

back to the drawing board: researchers at Linkรถping University have engineered a functional wooden resistor—see previously—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

occupancy rate: a tour of the empty City of London  

so for you, it’s insects, tap-water and celibacy: examining how bad ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson was for the environment and speculation on who might take up that mantle next 

deep dreaming: on chatbot hallucinations and the first usage of the sense in 1540 by the ryght rodolent & rotounde rethorician R Smyth  

worth1000: a time capsule camera that composes a detailed written description of ones photos with a ticketed invitation to revisit them at a future date

Friday 24 February 2023

dataviz (10. 570)

Via the always excellent Web Curios, we are directed to Information is Beautiful (previously) with its selection of superlative static and interactive infographics short-listed as the most effective and elegant ways of communicating demographics and trends from a given dataset. We especially liked the decade of changes visualisations that immediately laid bare both precarity and opportunity in the Earth Carillon but we expect you’ll discover your own new favourite way of presenting charts and graphs.

Thursday 2 February 2023

i think that i shall never see a poem lovely as a tree (10. 517)

Penned on this day in 1913 by journalist, writer and soldier Joyce Kilmer—best known for these twelvelines of verse—in Mahwah, New Jersey, those couplets, despite or because of their endurance and familiarity, by dint of being a rhyme practically everyone knows are the subject of disparagement and dismissal for being overly simplistic and sentimental and conversely celebrated with popular appeal as a heuristic that romances and rediscovers the virtues of delivering a simple and satisfying message. “Trees” is recited at Arbor Day events and upheld in the tradition of planting memorials in his name with several trees vying to have been the poet’s inspiration. Sergeant Joyce Klimer Triangle (he was killed in action during the Second Battle of the Marne in WWI) in Brooklyn, a traffic island, is the smallest park in New York City, though his memory is honoured akso with a much larger green space in the Bronx.

Friday 13 January 2023

8x8 (10. 413)

rummaged in the roots: with only the dead in their graves as witnesses, we learned that the Hardy Tree of St Pancras succumbed to blight, via Strange Company  

terracotta army: archeologists are hesitant to unseal the tomb of China’s first emperor—and for good reason, via ibฤซdem, more here 

genuary 2023: a month of generative coding to make beautiful AI artefacts—via Web Curios  

alphaputt: this typographical, twenty-six hole course

know your meme: incredibly, there has never been an indexed search engine of the internet image macros—via Waxy

fossil fuel: industry scientists had a preternaturally accurate grasp on the consequences of burning oil five decades ago—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

ucluelet: the largest Rogue Wave on record—see previously  

vauxhall: a tour of south London in the 1980s—via Things Magazine

Thursday 3 November 2022

7x7 (10. 269)

memorymoog: Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo shares his synthesizer collection  

erry & merry: the portfolio illustrator Walter Schnackenberg whose subject and style was informed by Toulouse-Lautec’s Parisian cabarets 

unalloyed: scientists discover a way to synthesise a cosmic compound that may be a cheap and abundant substitute for rare earth elements  

star-bellied sneech: verification for sale 

astronomicum caesareum: an exploration of an intricate, antique tome commissioned to prognosticate one’s destiny  

waverly abbey: an ancient yew in Surrey is accorded the UK Tree of the Year title  

ondioline: a demonstration of this precursor to the synthesizer from Jean-Jacques Perry—via Pasa Bon!

Saturday 15 October 2022

the levelled churchyard (10. 227)

Strange Company’s invaluable Weekend Link Dump invites us to pass an hour in the cemetery of Old St Pancras—not only famed for its connection to the literary circles of Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and Mary Wollstonecraft as well as the iconic telephone box via the tomb of Sir John Soane but moreover attracting visitors to what has been deemed the Hardy Tree, after the former junior architect turned novelist involvement with the expansion of the train network (see also). The building of the Midland Railway necessitated the removal of many graves, a number of the headstones of them were rummaged in the roots of this tree, inspiring the author later to reflect in the titular poem, “We late-lamented, resting here,/Are mixed to human jam,/And each to each exclaims in fear,/‘I know not which I am!’” Much more to explore at the links above.

Friday 7 October 2022

7x7 (10. 203)

silphium: an ancient superfood of the Mediterranean world thought extinct possibly rediscovered in Turkey—via Strange Company 

unsung heroes: a LEGO diorama depicts a crew keeping the sewers unblocked—with more links to fatbergs  

mlle musidora: reviving a forgotten icon of the Belle ร‰poque—see also  

centaur chess: machines can handily beat grand masters but a computer-human team is unstoppable  

the legend of sleepy hallow: the wild ride behind the Headless Horseman

pendant lighting: Ambience Studio upcycles LEGO bricks into a colourful lamp  

pommes bleu: the annual optical spectacle that the intersection of the sun and these stained glass windows of the chapel of Rennes le Chรขteau draws pilgrims

Monday 3 October 2022

tree talk (10. 192)

Via Waxy, artist Kelton Sears, employing a vertical scroll going upwards presents a GIF-driven, happy comic–reminiscent of Cordell Barker’s “The Cat Came Back”–to reflect on our aboreal friends and the way we experience the passage of time—with humour and insight. 


 

Wednesday 14 September 2022

dispersal agent (10. 133)

While I can’t say whether it is the most efficient pastime, once I get settled and can establish a routine in a new workplace I have taken to gathering oaknuts, acorns, hazelnuts, pinecones and chestnuts from that have landed on pavements (and on my path—for the most part because I don’t want to turn this into more of a compulsion than it already has become—I get some looks but there are quite some spent seeds for the taking) during my lunchtime walks in the city during the week. I amass a sizeable bounty having filled my pockets daily and when I go on my walks in the woods, I try to toss them into a patch of land that I assess ought to have a tree. Maybe the forest will accrue in a decade or so, we’ll see. What do you think? I am surely not the only one who does this.