We thoroughly enjoyed this episode of The Allusionist podcast that explores the ephemeral nature of warnings obilge and the limits of translation through the lens of the of the cautionary statement—in thirty-four languages—included with the toy prize as small-print pamphlets in
Kinder Eggs/Kinder รberraschung produced on a global scale, though still unavailable in certain jurisdictions in this format, by Italian confectioner Ferrero (as Kinder Sorpresa or Ovetto Kinder) as examined and considered by sociologist and ethnographer Keith Kahn-Harris. What makes the cut internationally as a language for inclusion in one’s corner shop? What counts as correspondence in this regulatory, disclaimer tone? More food for thought below.
Saturday, 5 March 2022
achtung baby!
Monday, 4 October 2021
the final programme
Adapted from the eponymous Michael Moorcock novel and premiering in UK cinemas on this day in 1973, the Robert Fuest sci-fi, action production (thanks to the introduction from The Flop House), the plot centring around the quest for post-humanism beings—perfect and self-propagating—is a post-modern Prometheus story that shares a lot of energy and aesthetics with the roughly contemporary Abominable Doctor Phibes.

Wednesday, 8 September 2021
functional discourse

Sunday, 29 August 2021
come doused in mud, soaked in bleach as i want you to be—as a trend, as a friend
Ahead of the album’s official release later in the third week of September, a Boston radio station (call sign WFNX from 1983 to 2012 and one of the first commercial broadcasters to play alternative rock) hosted by DJ Kurt St. Thomas premiered Nirvana’s Nevermind, playing the entire recording on this day in 1991. Launching four singles and an unexpected success, both in critical reception and sales, the album is credited with bringing the various genres of the Seattle grunge movement into mainstream media, awarded several honours and reissues. Despite having recreated the cover art with underwater photoshoots for the album’s tenth, seventeenth and twenty-fifth anniversaries, the then infant model has filed a lawsuit against the band for lifelong damages for exploiting his image.
Saturday, 28 August 2021
8x8
letraset press: a collection of instant lettering dry-transfer sheets (see previously) from Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals
the woman who stared at the sun: the circumstance and contributions to astronomy of Hisako Koyama who helped hone our understanding of solar cycles
a good walk spoiled: an in-depth look at how golf course exacerbate the housing shortagecouch gag: a clever individual shares their construction of a miniature replica of the Simpsons’ purple television set that plays random episodes
one week supply: a podcast discussing Damn Interesting’s curated links section
the china syndrome: a super-tunnel simulator that illustrates the quickest, shortest routes to connecting points around the globe—see also
tartu snail tower: the spiralling skyscraper in Estonia’s second city
the art of letters: a typographical study from Mark Gowing
catagories: ๐ช๐ช, ๐, ๐️, ๐️, ๐ฃ, ๐ญ, ๐บ️, architecture, The Simpsons
Monday, 3 May 2021
this is npr
With this day marking the first on-air original programming from Nation Public Radio a half-century ago after the previous year’s passage of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, NPR and its member stations reflect on and renew their unique mandate to serve and amplify a listening audience that mirrors the fullness and diversity of the United States. The network’s original mission statement charged and championed its affiliates as being the source for “information of consequence” that helps the celebrants of human experience be “enlightened participants” in society. All Things Considered was the first segment broadcasted.
Saturday, 1 May 2021
rosebud
Spurred on by the success and controversy of the “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast from two years prior, Mercury studios and RKO Radio Pictures granted screen-writer—collaborating with Herman J. Mankiewic, producer, director—an unusual degree of autonomy and creative-control for his first feature, with Orson Welles’ (see previously here, here and here) influential and critically acclaimed drama Citizen Kane premiered on this day in 1941 at the Palace Theatre on Broadway. Cinematography, light and flashback heavily informed the genre Film Noir, as well as the biographical structure and pace of the film appearing again and again as storytelling and filmmaking models with echoes of the meta-medium of the press as a Faustian character, an untameable and compelling force of nature established going forward.
Friday, 16 April 2021
9x9
oh, i travel—a sort of licenced troubleshooter: a lexicon of the Bond franchise in all its forms
riptide: an homage to the pre-code (previously) Hollywood actress Norma Shearer
dead pilots’ society: CBS Summer Playhouse and similar vehicles were venues for anthologies of failed television shows—see also
la vie รฉlectrique: Albert Robida’s 1893 vision of the future includes a remote courtship by means of a tรฉlephonoscopethe sensational she-hulk: Marvel comics hand-lettering from Reagan Ray—previously
buzz-saw: the ancient shark-like Helicoprion had spiral tooth-whorls
reinventing the wheel: engineers in Seoul develop transforming, load-bearing tyre using principles of origami—see previously
oh—the pint pot, half-a-pint, gill pot, half-a-gill-quarter-gill, nippikin and the brown bowl: conventional measurements of liquid (see also) anticipated the next in a binary fashion
shaguar: if Austin Powers were to be revived today, he would have been cryogenically frozen in 1991
Wednesday, 31 March 2021
retronymy
Despite having encountered such constructions previously by name and even using all the time when speaking of evolving tastes and palettes and obsolescence, we failed to appreciate how retronyms build vocabulary and track those changes and advances mentioned just above. Distinct from backronyms and neologisms, the term was coined by journalist and NPR president Frank Mankiewicz in 1980 and refers to a newer name given to an existing object or artefact to differentiate it the original version from a more recent one, whereas no need for clarification had been required beforehand. Some examples include land-line, snail mail (as distinct from email—see also), plant-based meat, American-English, Game Boy Classic and reduplication as in requesting ‘coffee’ coffee. Many more to ponder in the podcast episode below, which also includes a discussion on the twenty-seventh letter of the English alphabet, the ampersand.
Sunday, 28 March 2021
radio caroline
Named after the daughter of JFK photographed dancing in the Oval Office and interpreted by the founder and chief backer Aodogรกn Ronan O’Rahilly (*1940 - †2020) as representing the playful disruption of government business and joyful rule-breaking, the pirate broadcaster (see also) that was never actually circumventing the law as it operated from international waters aired its first regular programme set on this day in 1964—transmitting from a retrofitted passenger ferry anchored off Felixstowne, Suffolk, just beyond the jurisdiction of any one who could object to their activity. Established like its Dutch and other European counterparts to undermine the monopoly that the BBC had over the radiowaves and the pressure that record companies exerted on stations, dictating that their popular songs dominate, Radio Caroline broadcasted from five different ships through 1990 before moving to satellite radio and community AM bands in select areas, continuing today on the internet. Limiting programming to day time hours so as not to interfere with Radio Luxembourg, the station, with news reports at the top of the hour, was extremely popular with homemakers and children and left a lasting impression and alterative from mainstream commercial music. Do give them a listen.
Wednesday, 24 March 2021
prepared piano
We were happy to be introduced to a new type of technique, intervention signature to French composer and pianist Benoรฎt Delbecq’s style and showcased in his latest album “Weight of Light.” Inspired by John Cage’s 1938 Bacchanale, the preparation involves careful selection and placement of items, reeds and twigs being Delbecq’s preferred disruptors, between or on the strings and hammers to create a mysterious, uncanny timbre outside of the instrument’s characteristic range, as illustrated in the video below.
Saturday, 20 March 2021
spaghetti images
As Kottke reports, determination and engineering designed to optimise the surface area for sauce saturation has paid off with the debut of a speciality, niche past shape called the cascatelli—Italian for little waterfalls, a success for Mission: Impastable. There is so far no indication whether or not this creation will be soon joining the ranks of other speciality, utilitarian and decorative shapes (see previously here, here and here) but we can nonetheless appreciate the intention and would be eager to try a forkful alla puttanesca with parmigiana reggiano.
Monday, 15 March 2021
6x6
antikythera mechanism: researchers rebuild a model of the ancient orrery, analogue computer using the latest cutting-edge technology
uncertain times: learning from pastoral professionals to cope with volatility
syncopated rhythm: turn your typing to piano jazz—via Swiss Misslong ambients: Brian Eno (previously) explains the origins of the genre with the teaching aid of William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops
cargo cults: blockchain’s open ledger threatens to undermine efforts to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels—see also
cleopatra’s needles: the strange obsession with Western powers taking trophy Egyptian obelisks and the transportation challenges involved
catagories: ๐ก️, ๐️, ๐ถ, archรฆology, lifestyle, philosophy
Wednesday, 3 March 2021
6x6
spongmonkey: though not a cultural shibboleth for myself personally, this history of the Quiznos’ submarine sandwich franchise’s mascot was an interesting object lesson in internet culture—via Miss Cellania
backmasking: fun with that portrait animation application, via Super Punch
puce chintz alert: a truly cursed McMansion built in 1978
micro-face: a fascinating, multistage look at the process of acquiring a super hero with the Planet Money podcast
garage mahal: vlogger pays house-calls to the ostentatiously wealthy, asks what they do for a living
previous tenants: buildings that used to be a Blockbuster video rental shop—in the tradition of This Used to be a Pizza Hut—via Things Magazine
Friday, 19 February 2021
si un jour


Tuesday, 16 February 2021
your house is on fire and your children are alone
Courtesy of a film recommendation by one of our favourite podcasts, The Flop House, we learn of the 1963, Oscar-nominated film by Frank Perry that analyses the psycho-social toll of the Cold War that really speaks to the uncertainty and the fears harboured over our current collective crisis and what totems we rally to preserve through selective ignorance. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis (previously) from just a year prior, following the protocol of classroom drills, teachers escort their students home at a rural elemental school after a warning siren sounds. Absent independent verification on the veracity of the alarm, no one is sure whether it is a false warning, a test or not. Some of the students’ parents dismiss these distant, abstract events as they frantically search for a fall-out shelter that can accommodate them all. One girl is ejected, with the claim there is not enough space and goes off to take refuge in a discarded refrigerator—introducing that trope, though her classmates don’t abandon her or forget about her altogether.
Sunday, 7 February 2021
drahtfunk im amerikanischen sector
From the first broadcast on this day in 1946 from the switchboard exchange of the Reichspost on Winterfeldtstraรe 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 Schรถneberg 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.
Saturday, 23 January 2021
black, brown and beige
The extended jazz orchestral ensemble piece by celebrated musician, bandleader and composer Duke Ellington (*1899 – †1974) performed as his debut concert in Carnegie Hall on this day in 1943 was a tone poem framed as a parallel history of the Black experience in America. A concert album with Mahalia Jackson was released in 1958. Learn much more from Indiana Public Media and listen to interviews about the significance of the piece and performance and hear the second and third movements of this narrative symphony.
Thursday, 7 January 2021
contranymy
We quite enjoyed the panel discussion and examples explored in the descriptive phenomenon also called Janus words of enantiosemy—that is when term carries multiple meanings and can be its own opposite in a sense.

Tuesday, 5 January 2021
mรกnasteinn
We always enjoy—albeit too often only vicariously and not as active readers who’ve done the assignment beforehand—listening to episodes of the BBC World Book Club and are usually drawn in, intrigued to add a new title to the pile, by a thoroughgoing discussion that some might call spoilers but strike me more as insights from the author. A recent instalment featuring poet, lyricist and novella-writer Sigurjรณn “Sjรณn” Birgir Sigurรฐsson, sometimes collaborator with The Sugarcubes and Bjรถrk and his now very timely 2013 work Mรกnasteinn: drengurinn sem aldrei var til (Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was) about identity, otherness and escapism through cinema in Reykjavรญk just as the nation is granted independence and the island is visited by the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Visit the link up top to listen to the programme and learn what’s next on their reading list.