Though perhaps as remarkable in its departure from the band’s usual fare that came before and after, the third studio album from Radiohead was first released on this day in 1997 and limns the world to come fraught with social alienation, political tribalism and unbridled consumption and commodification—as opposed to the era framed as the end of history and post-modernism—by means of a lyrical narrative that speaks to the vague anxieties perhaps represented by though not exclusively about y2k in the existential dread of loosing oneself to forces inscrutable lumped together as technology.
Saturday 21 May 2022
Friday 20 May 2022
6x6
from juno to jupiter: famed composer who championed the synthesizer Vangelis passed away, aged 79
of angel and puppet: an exploration of innocence through the finger puppets of Paul Klee—see previouslythe pรบca of ennistymon: a sculpture of a mythological chimera almost gets cancelled
fern gully: spelunkers in China discover a massive ancient forest in a sinkhole
capable of completing the kessel run in less than twelve parsecs: the Millennium Falcon was the last ship build at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard
v’ger: Voyager 1 beaming back usual telemetry to mission control—via Boing Boing
Wednesday 18 May 2022
7x7
conservation of momentum: a Newton’s Cradle performs Psy’s K-Pop classic
the tweter: a sweater for two
the elephant: an Ames inspired trainer—see previously
trust-fall: a collection of Italian ex-votos (previously) depicting divine intervention during a stumble
the bond bug: a three-wheeled two-seater produced by Reliant Motor Company—via Pasa Bon!
amphorae: Ukrainian soldiers digging trenches outside of Odesa discover ancient Greek artefacts
bill medley: the ending sequence of Dirty Dancing set to the theme of The Muppet Show—via Boing Boing
Monday 16 May 2022
6x6
dandelion wine: slow drinks made with our favourite noxious weed—see also
give that wolf a banana and before that wolf eats my grandma: Norway’s Eurovision entry—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
stablecoin: the collapse of NFT and crypto markets
for every bear that ever there was: 1984 reportage of Keanu Reeves covering a teddy bear convention for the CBC—via Everlasting Blรถrt
homeostatic awakening: new developments in the Fermi paradox—see previously here and here
quattro bianchi: Italy’s answer to the Long Island Iced Tea packs a wallop
Friday 13 May 2022
6x6
sagittarius a*: the Event Horizon Telescope captures images of the Milky Way’s Black Hole—previously
sluggo: “Music from Nancy”—via Waxyclick-wheel: with the announcement that the last iteration of the iPod is being discontinued after two decades (see also), enjoy this first commercial advertisement
anamorphic camouflage illusion: the Phantom Queen optical effect
รผbersetzer: Google Translate adds languages using Zero-Shot Machine Translation, now facilitating communication among one hundred and thirty-three different languages
white dwarf: astronomers witness a nova in real time
Wednesday 11 May 2022
7x7
homo loquax: Futility Closet refers us to an expanded listing for the taxonomical name sapient human with some choice Latinate adjectives to describe us
crate-digging: Jimmy Carter’s grandson is exploring the White House’s surprisingly hip vinyl collection—via Messy Nessy Chic
le bestiaire fabuleux: a 1948 artists’ collaboration of a surreal and abstract menagerie—see also
sabbatical: Jason Kottke takes a break from blogging and poses the questions that probably haunt everyone in this community—come back soon
mรถrkrets makter: the very different (though retaining the epistolary format) unauthorised translation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula familiar to Icelanders
stratification: exploring the historic map layers of London—via Things Magazine
word-horde: daily vocabulary lessons in Anglo-Saxon words
catagories: ๐ฎ๐ธ, ๐ถ, ๐, ๐ฌ, ๐, ๐บ, ๐ง, Middle Ages, networking and blogging
Tuesday 10 May 2022
und er lebt in der groรen stadt, es war in wien, war vienna wo er alles tat
The lead single from the artist’s third studio album with the eponymous title Falco 3 peaked on the UK charts on this day in 1986, holding top position for several weeks after hitting number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 at the end of March—still holding the sole German language title to have this achievement (99 Luftballons by Nena made it to the number two spot). Inspired by the popularity of the film Amadeus, the Neue Deutsche Welle number was initially released as an eight-minute version called the “Salieri Mix” before being trimmed to the more usual song length.
Monday 9 May 2022
orbital resonance
Though the Octave of Easter refers to a specific eight-day celebration in connect to the Paschaltide, our
word week itself (via the German Woche) derives from the same root as octave and that one out-of-cycle unit of time—that is, seemingly the sequence repeated for countless generations not determined by the motion of the Heavens or our perception of them but nonetheless in most Western and Eastern traditions named for the astronomical objects visible to the unaided eye. The ordering does not accord with the classical model of the Cosmos—the “Chaldean order” that describes the apparent overtaking and retrograde motion relative to the Earth—nor hierarchy of the pantheon, however, but rather the seven strings of the Mesopotamian lyre with which the celestial spheres were thought to harmonise: (4) Sunday ☉, (1) Monday ☽, (5) Tuesday ♂ (Mardi in French), (2) Wednesday ☿ (Mercoledรฌ), (6) Thursday ♃ (Donnerstag), (3) Friday ♀ (Venres) and (7) Saturday ♄. Vexed somewhat by the onerous and complicated Roman subdivision of the days and the planetary officer appointed to each hours, the order of the weekdays seemingly recapitulates musical theory and progression through the major scale. More at the links above and in this video adaptation below from Sara de Rose.Saturday 7 May 2022
why do i find it hard to write the next line?
Reaching the top spot of the UK charts on this day in 1983, the song by English New Wave, New Romantic group Spandau Ballet by member Gary Kemp attempting to write a tribute to his inspirations, Marvin Gaye and Al Green, narrating his difficulty with the creative process—called blue-eyed soul at the time before we had the more accurate conflict of cultural appropriation, reclaimed to a degree when sampled by PM Dawn for “Set A-Drift on Memory Bliss” in 1991, from setting out for such a standard to hit all the same notes. Nonetheless the number, despite and because of its intentions, was hugely popular and enduring.
Thursday 5 May 2022
diggi-loo diggi-ley
Winning the twenty-ninth installment of the Eurovision Song Contest (previously) hosted by Luxembourg City on this day in 1984, the clean-cut Swedish trio of the brothers Herrey were referred to once by fellow contestant and performer Tommy Kรถrberg (Anatoly from Chess) as the “dancing deodorants” which stuck in the press and followed them their whole career. An English-language version was released as “Golden Shoes” at a later date, the more expository title affords non-Swedish speakers a glimpse into the lyrics about the lead singer discovering a magical pair of shoes that make him dance in the streets and wishes everyone in the world could have the same experience. In 1985, the group—the original boy band ahead of the later boom—won the Sopot International Song Festival with “Sommarparty,” and was the first Western band to be invited to tour behind the Iron Curtain.
Wednesday 4 May 2022
time out
Today marks the informal celebration of jazz pianist and composer and proponent of the cool jazz genre Dave Brubeck, the date expressed in US-format (see also) as 5/4 recalling the quintuple time-signature from the lead single “Take Five” from his best-selling 1959 album. Brubeck and his quartet (the song was composed by saxophonist Paul Desmond) were inspired to make this record after touring Asia and Europe at the behest of the US Department of State as cultural ambassadors the year prior and incorporated the exotic, intricate meters and motifs encountered abroad.
Sunday 1 May 2022
sama merdo
The group hailing from Kherson and active from 1993 to 2007, Piฤismo is a hard core punk band notable for performing in Esperanto (see below). In July of 1995, they organised and participated in a music festival in Hola Prystan’ called a “Concert of Loud Music in Incomprehensible Languages” and invited other Esperanto- and Volapรผk-speaking bands. In 2002, the again headlined a fest in Saint Petersburg called “Bored of the Conlangs” (see above). The title of their demo track translates to “Suddenly Crap.”
7x7
chairportrait: thirty iconic designer styles of seating depicted minimally by Federico Babina
der pate technos: a celebration of the career and legacy of Klaus Schulze (RIP)
recursive: vending machine gachapon—see previously
the wretched, bloody and usurping boar: architecture and monumental authoritarianism in places like the Battersea Power Station—via Things Magazine with more on the property
reverspective: the illusory paintings of Patrick Hughes
eye-chart: JWST is now fully-focussed and calibrated and primed for new discoveries (previously)
lookbook: a collection of sculptural furnishings that match their residence
Wednesday 27 April 2022
where have all the merrymakers gone?
In wide release on this day in 1998 after being first previewed to Seattle radio stations and quickly picked up and circulated as an international and enduring hit, Harvey Danger’s Flagpole Sitta (from the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers which features a dialogue about the 1920s fad after the stylites of old and the eye-dialectical for other contemporary compositions like Fame Throwa or Straight Outta Compton) is a literate critique of the self-same music scene and the ramifications it had for popular culture as a post-grunge anthem. I’m not sick but I’m not well.
Monday 25 April 2022
pretzel logic
As our faithful chronicler informs this day in 1974 shares its anniversary with many moments of the great and the good of the release of Steely Dan’s single from the entitled album Rikki Don’t Lose That Number with the backstory that the titular Rikki is a Ms Ducornet—writer and artist, that the front of the band Donald Fagen met as classmates at a small liberal arts college. Though specifically Bard and identified as located in Annandale (-on-the-Hudson, New York, in another song Reelin’ in the Years—from the year prior—I recall being somewhat of a urban legend attributed soi-disant with the small liberal arts college that I attended (left wondering how many others) that apocryphally You’ve been telling me you're a genius since you were seventeen / In all the time I’ve known you I still don’t know what you mean / The weekend at the college didn’t turn out like you planned / The things that pass for knowledge I can’t understand referred to an experience of a prospectant student visiting and proctoring a few classes.
Saturday 23 April 2022
digital mnemonics
With early antecedents in committing the pillars of Buddhism to heart or for a manual reckoning of the date of Easter for any year—the Venerable Bede’s ‘loquela digitorum’ of the eighth century—contributing correspondent for Public Domain Review Kensy Cooperrider guides on a comprehensive survey of the ways that people used the topologies of the hand and fingers as a mnemonic device (see also) as a way to recall processes and protocols, notation and geography. The illustration of the oversized Guidonian Hand (named after ninth century music theorist Guido d’Arezzo) was a choral aid to facilitate learning of sight-singing—or rather how to read a musical score, the first documented use of solfรจge. Spanning three full octaves and spilling into a fourth—from (ab) ฮ to ฮ (Gamma) ut—this diagram is the source of the phrase ‘running the gamut,’ that is—the full range. Much more at the links above.
catagories: ๐ถ, ๐ฃ, ๐ , ๐ง , Middle Ages
Wednesday 20 April 2022
curtail call
On this day, Easter Monday, in 1992 Wembley Stadium, broadcast live to an estimated global audience of one billion spectators, hosted a tribute concert to Freddie Mercury (previously), whom had died of AIDS-related complications the previous November with proceeds launching an AIDS charity trust. The first part of the concert featured musicians performing short-sets of songs influenced by Queen and the latter section featured performances with the remaining members of the band, including Elton John on piano for “Bohemian Rhapsody” the iconic duet of Annie Lennox and David Bowie singing “Under Pressure.” The final number, “We are the Champions,” was led by Liza Minnelli and included everyone who had participated in the concert.
Sunday 17 April 2022
8x8
trebizond: explore this detailed map of Eurasia in the year 1444—via the always interesting Nag on the Lake
gotham nocture: a Batman gothic opera in pre-production
passion project: former store worker curating every last Gap in-store playlist
out of black ponds, water lilies: an Easter Sunday poem from Better Living through Beowulf
crisis on infinite earths: Marvel’s inspired splintered dimensions and alternate timelines
neoliberal pieties: the organised religion of social media is vulnerable to same corruptions and is no substitute for a public good
latent diffusion: an AI generates maps (plus other artifice) from a text-prompt, via Maps Mania
Friday 15 April 2022
7x7
who’s in your wallet: personalities and personages on banknotes—via Waxy (who is turning twenty)
simoom: a decade of dust storms
hurrian hymn: paean to Mesopotamian goddess Nikkal is the oldest know surviving work of notated musicfound photos: saved from oblivion and shared—via Things Magazine (plus a lot more to check out)
alphabet truck: the whole ABCs on the backside of lorries captured by Eric Tabuchi—via Pasa Bon!
meme-maker: Dutch national library offers a tool to scour medieval illustrations and marginalia—see also here and here
the colour of money: a survey of banknote hues from the archives
catagories: ๐ช, ๐ถ, ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐ท, libraries and museums, Middle Ages, Middle East, The Simpsons
Tuesday 12 April 2022
7x7
mutually intelligible: interlocutors with no common language gravely overestimate the success of their getting the message across
let’s have church: mystery artist of gospel album covers—via Nag on the Lake
partygate: Prime Minister and cabinet members fined for violating lockdown protocols
toto, i have a feeling we’re not in kansas anymore: watch an Iowa television station transition from monochrome to living colour
coin-op: a comprehensive look at Gachapon (ใฌใใฃใใณ) across Japan
1-bit: summon demons with this slightly racy tarot reading
light verb variation: why some people make decisions and others take them