synchromy № 4 (13. 803)

Piggy-backing from a recent post, we are pleased for having made the acquaintance of pioneering experimental filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute, who created some of the first electronically generated montage for her visual music, whose abstract shorts, many in collaboration with Scottish-Canadian animator Norman McLaren, whom also produced commissions for the National Film Board (NFB) and UNESCO outreach projects, were shown in special venues, like Radio City Music Hall as well as projected in cinemas before the main features. Influenced by contemporaries like Len Lye and Oskar Fischinger together creating a whole new genre that culminated in Fantasia and derivatives, a selection of Bute’s compositions are at the link above from MetaFilter contributor peppercorn, including her 1958 non-musical, non-animated short film The Boy Who Saw Through starring a young Christopher Walken with x-ray vision.  

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synchronoptica

one year ago: hedgehog highways (with synchronoptica), impossible captchas, an outrageous exchange rate error, a pivotal moment in the life of Frida Kahlo plus the radical left

two years ago: a versatile French pronoun 

three years ago: Outward Bound (1923), West German Star Trek plus assorted links to revisit

four years ago: the debut of M*A*S*H* (1972), assorted links to revisit, Emperor Norton I plus a consequential forgery

five years ago: The Persuaders!,  rewilding one’s attention plus more links to enjoy

six years ago: Hildegard von Bingen, tour guides, words with only plural forms, the musical stylings of Ady Zehnpfennig, the illustrations of Rex Whistler plus the microscopic world announced

seven years ago: The Handmaid’s Tale, previously unreleased pictures of David Bowie, spoon-hanging plus more language hapaxes

eight years ago: the space shuttle Enterprise (1976)

 

talk of the town (13. 801)

For over a decade, David O has been blogging the Manhattan weekly from the beginning in 1925 on a schedule that mirrors when each issue would have gone to print, placing the current posts in the mid-1930s, we learn courtesy of MetaFilter. Though founded as a more sophis-ticated humour magazine originally, distinguished from cornier publications, with reviews and reportage about local happenings, it established itself as a preëminent forum for fiction, essays and long-read journalism after World War II, and has been lauded as an effective conduit for introducing a sizeable readership to modern literature. We didn’t have a stack of back issues at home—National Geographic, yes—but I know I had a subscription at one point and am drawn to any article that revisits an old catalogue or periodicals (I think it was The Awl, also based in New York City that had a regular segment about flipping through magazines from the early 1990s), but this guided tour of editions receding from living memory is even better than sifting through the archives, with context and a bit of history and contemporary analogues, like highlighting the first instance of the Medusa trope for its cartoons followed up with other artists carrying on the tradition through the decades. Scrolling along with Eustace Tilley (see above) a far better use of one’s time with more potential for serendipity than one’s social feeds.

les trente-six vues de la tour eiffel (13. 785)

Best known for his picture series of the Eifel Tower (see previously), with the seasons changing, we appreciated this gallery of Henri Rivière’s lithographic works spanning the first decade of the twentieth century, capturing other quarters of Paris. Somewhat of a departure from the earlier project that was a faithful interpolation of Japonisme and Japanese printmakers in terms of layout and presentation, these vignettes still maintain the traditional minimal palette and outlines and previews the coming ligne claire style adopted by European comic artists like Hergé. Rivière also painted scenes of Breton and a study in waves, like his inspiration, Hokusai.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a customisable chyron roll (with synchronoptica), more synthetic geology plus AI as a calculator for words

two years ago: a nineteenth century puppet theatre, New York’s Chelsea Hotel, branding wild horses plus Haile Selassie deposed (1974) 

three years ago: The Blob (1958) 

four years ago: the Chaos Computer Club (1981), medieval dog names plus the beach photos of Philip Barlow

five years ago: the Battle of Marathon, a sudden revelation plus more nearby abandoned places

six years ago: doom loops, traffic planning and civil engineering, Lascaux Cave rediscovered (1940), flights to nowhere plus the invention of the written word

seven years ago: Bonanza (1959) plus the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (1990)

 

10x10 (13. 777)

futura is a favourite and we’re always going to root for her, but then for legibility you can’t go wrong with frutiger: the very model of a modern day typographer—see previously  

if every girl had a diary: filmmaker Sadie Benning’s quiet confessions to her confident Pixel Vision camera delivers a powerful message from the shelter and safety of her bedroom  

leisurama: the prefabricated Mid-Century Modern vacation home of Montauk, Long Island  

learning to live with an elephant: a 1968 animated short from Terry Gilliam—see previously  

 

movie maps: worldwide cinematic address—comprehensive but missing our village’s cameo—via Nag on the Lake 

insecta odonata: dragonflies migrate over long-distances, comparable to Monarch butterflies 

 🛂: the world’s current one hundred ninety-nine passports mapped as a data-visualisation—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

last and first men: the 1930 science fiction work from Olaf Stapledon who examined humanity from a height of two billion years  

only major western capital without a monumental arch: groundbreaking to begin for the Arc d’Trump in two weeks—see previously

synchronoptica

one year ago: Stravinsky’s Serenade in A (with synchronoptica), protests in Nepal plus more revelations on the closeness of Trump and Epstein

two years ago: voting from space, split-screen campaigning plus British holiday camps 

three years ago: assorted links worth the revisit plus traditional Palestinian embroidery 

four years ago: a banger from The Stone Temple Pilots (1994) 

five years ago: statehood for the US capital district, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9), a rewilded oasis in DC plus more links to enjoy

six years ago: the founding of Washington, DC (1791), the dispute over Hans Island, a celebrated lighthouse plus AI-generated super villans

9x9 (13. 759)

it-narratives: the imagined inner lives of inanimate objects  

inwats: the history and use-case of the 1-800 number  

du big bang à mardi matin: Claude Cloutier’s overview of the evolution of life on Earth in his signature animation style reminiscent of aquatint printing  

shadowology: more art installations from Vincent Bal—see previously  

the decade you’ve been waiting for: Paste magazine’s contention top hundred songs of the 80s—via MetaFilter, see previously  

after the fire: Los Angeles residents moving entire homes to burnt out, vacant lots as a cheaper alternative to rebuilding 

it’s fantastic! it’s futuristic! it’s fatalistic! it’s science fiction: a 1973 BBC Omnibus documentary by Harley Cokeliss  

escape claudes: two chatbots placed in a recursive loop—see previously 

hack’s law: the hidden maths of rivers that calm the waters—via Kottke

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to Geraberg (with synchronoptica), woodblock printer Sekino Jun’ichirō plus the branding of the US Civil Defence Corps

two years ago: a pivotal moment in the Star Trek timeline, aspiring travel-writers, assorted links worth revisiting, a trip to Schwickershausen plus the largest aerospace exhibition 

three years ago: ten-thousand digits, danger signs, the Goring Gap plus more links to enjoy

four years ago: a banger from Tina Turner plus legibility and semi-vowels

five years ago: an attempt was made with AI for a mash-up, the Carrington Event (1859), the Cod Wars (1958) even more links plus reskilling as a swan

six years ago: a Banksy-sponsored rescue boat, Church rejects modernism plus saints named Hyacinth 

9x9 (13. 725)

⛒: the mostly true story of hobo code—see previously here and here  

bury the axis: an independent 1943 anti-fascist stop-motion film   

blackball: a variation on the grandfather paradox with billiards  

cow comes: roundly ridiculed Niu Lai (牛来) becomes a box-office hit  

home taping is killing music: the banality of streaming and the lost joy of music piracy—via Things Magazine—see previously  

diesel dazzle: GM archives reveal costume designs from the Golden Age of industrial musicals—see previously  

casserole culture: Melissa Joseph’s woollen impressions of Midwestern niceties 

lampchop after dark: ventriloquist Shari Lewis‘ raunchier days on the comedy circuit  

hailing frequency: a 1951 prototype beeper in the form of a wearable garter buzzer

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from Midnight Oil (with synchronoptica) plus the Dumbarton Oaks conference (1944)

two years ago: assorted links to revisit 

three years ago: Cars by Gary Numan

four years ago: the rules of chess, more links to enjoy plus a banger from Oasis

five years ago: rude toponyms plus The Baltics are Waking Up (1991) 

six years ago: limited patronage, Comrade Gulliver, antique ballots, Italy’s Hundred Horse Chestnut plus vintage Japanese boxed meal wrappers

jug band (13. 659)

We enjoyed this cover version of Raymond Scott’s animation studio staple Powerhouse (see previously) as performed on blown-bottles. The background music for chase and assembly line scenes for Warner Bros cartoons, featured in over forty shorts, first debuted on CBS Radio’s Saturday Night Swing Club in early 1937 with the same first take by the quintette (actually a sextette with piano, saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, double bass and drums but called the former to keep one’s mind on the melody)—this and “Toy Trumpet” remaining in the band’s repertoire for decades and has been sampled by numerous other franchises, including The Simpsons, SpongeBob and Ren & Stimpy, and in musical homages, such as Devo and They Might Be Giants since. Other popular session titles were “Twilight in Turkey, “Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner” and “War Dance for Wooden Indians,” and whilst best known for his jazzy improvised production pieces, Scott is also considered a pioneer of electronic music and audio engineering, developing multi-track and layering techniques, plus inventing the Electronium and Clavivox as well as consulting with peer Bob Moog on the synthesiser and working with Jim Henson in his later years and composing experimental songs for the Muppets and Motown record producer Berry Gordy. See more renditions by the trio GlasBlasSing, currently touring Germany, from Laughing Squid at the link above.

9x9 (13. 655)

all the queens houses: the eclectic architectural vernacular that makes up the New York City’s most diverse borough  

everything counts in large amounts: the moral imperative to understand big numbers, however unimaginable—via Kottke   

incendie de forêt: over a quarter million residents in France and Spain are evacuated from encroaching wildfires  

question de forme: the geometric animation of René Jodoin—see also, see previously

concurso de belleza: Trump cites his beauty pageant credentials to claim to be the competent authority when Venezuela is ready for elections  

plotlines: charting the journey of the protagonist in select classic novels with period maps—via Language Hat 

devil dog: Poseidon’s Underworld (previously) reviews the 1978 made-for-television star-studded spectacular about a satanic litter  

interstitial: Western science seems to recognise the meridians and subtle body of acupuncture and Ayurvedic traditions with a popular article on human anatomy’s third circulatory system  

cornell, 1965: filmmaker Lawrence Jordan’s 1978 profile of peer and colleague Joseph Cornell of Utopia Parkway, Flushing Queens

the diffusion pilot (13. 645)

We enjoyed this interrogation of the medium that reflects on artistic control and authorship partnered with the rapid pace of the infusion of generative AI in everything, neither celebrating nor wholly condemning the technology, in this animated short by Aurelijus Čiupas. By turns overpowering and empowering, the piece, divided into two distinct halves seems to ask, if the traditional animator creates the magic motion out a series of static images, what is their role with an infinite number of them? Caution, the video below contains flashing images. More from Aeon Magazine at the link above.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: the bicycle from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure on display at the Alamo (with synchronoptica) plus the Epstein files

two years ago: enduring lessons of technology plus a thistle cousin

three years ago: Mary Magdalene 

four years ago: the Firth of Cromarty, a banger from Take That plus the North Coast 500

five years ago: Plan 9 from Outer Space 

six years ago: white Jesus 

8x8 (13. 637)

founder and ceo of edgars industries: 1995 episode of Babylon 5 sums up the political situation in the US rather eerily  

decoy: an ambiguous, superimposed typeface that hides from AI  

add “crack spread” to your economics vocabulary: an explainer on the disconnect on the price of crude versus petroleum-derived products  

presque vu: the latest batch of new emoji seem familiar—via Waxy  

my father was a barn burner: a PSA from the Norwegian Consumer Council on why we can’t have nice things—see previously  

benford’s law: the counterintuitive observation that helps catch financial fraud—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

dazzle camouflage: more on adversarial apparel, clothing designed to confound and encourage public dialogue on the surveillance state and privacy—via MetaFilter—see more 

it’s show-time, synergy: the Flop House on the quintessentially 1980s cartoon—the funniest lines came out over the mid-season theme song replacement, to the tune of Fame, “Jem—I’m gonna live forever! I am a hologram!”

synchronoptica

one year ago: Sylvanian Families sues over defamation (with synchronoptica) plus a mothballed West German army garrison 

two years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus Geraldine Ferraro accepts her party’s nomination (1984)

three years ago: a banger from Genesis (1986), English occupations in 1881 plus assorted links worth revisiting 

four years ago: a ferry to Newcastle, the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games plus arriving in Scotland

five years ago: a visit to Bohuslän 

six years ago: the Upping of the Swans plus a tour of Rhöngrabfeld 

pause for station identification (13. 551)

Via Swiss Miss, we are invited to tune in to a range of virtual televisions that host programming by decade from the 1950s though the aughts with thousands of channels on the dial. There is a guide to consult and one can select from a list of genres, soap operas, cartoons, drama, trailers, commercials, music, sitcoms, news, talk shows, game shows, etc—though those modern day luxuries does not factor into the nostalgia and we think it’s much more rewarding to sit with the random shuffle as one surfs to see what’s on already in progress. The ads alone make this worthwhile. It’s of course saturated with mostly North American broadcasts but I think there’s some UK shows as well—the individuals behind this project seem to have crafted it with care and new media is being added on a regular basis. Let us know what forgotten gems you find.

orkopedic (13. 547)

Courtesy of Miss Cellania, we are directed towards this short quiz from Alamo Drafthouse, which for a certain demographic that grew up with the line of Mattel toys and animated franchise, a half-hour “cartoon commercial” that spawned many to adopt the same marketing strategy and whom now as adults shop at the Swedish home furnishings giant, may either prove a breeze to ace or become frustrating with how similar the names become. Eternia or Ikea combines one of our favourite topics, the store’s nomenclature—see previously here, here, here, here and here, with the sword-and-planet paracosm of He-Man (don’t forget She-Ra) and the Masters of the Universe, characters we never identified with but were certainly aware of and have since gained an encyclopaedic appreciation for.  How many can you guess?  The incidental is music “Tijuana Taxi” by Herb Alpert.

give us magnification vince (13. 540)

Via Marco McClean’s Memo of the Air, we enjoyed finding this vintage vinyl abridgement of the profoundly strange Disney feature The Black Hole as an audio LP. I remember such adaptations were popular and a way to tide one over with a teaser when a rewatch was something not so easily summoned up and an extra vehicle to showcase dialogue and sound effect through a radio drama that relied more on imagination than memory. The voice actors who played V.I.N.CENT. LF-396 (Vital Information Necessary Centralised Labour Force) and Old BO.B. LF-28 (Bio-sanitation Battalion), however, respectively Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens, respectively, went uncredited in all versions. Sigourney Weaver was initially considered for the role of Dr Kate McCrea, the expedition’s ESP-sensitive scientist, but the casting director found her name too unusual going instead with actor Jennifer O’Neill, despite her reluctance to cut her hair for the zero-gravity scenes  Eventually relenting after the studio agreed that O’Neill could bring own hairdresser on set, Vidal Sassoon, she allowed her hair to be cropped short, easing the trauma by consuming several glasses of wine, resulting in a drink-driving accident after the first day of filming.  O’Neill was removed from the project and replaced with understudy Yvette Mimieux as the ship’ psychic.

the jig is up (13. 509)

Via Language Log, we are treated to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal’s latest one panel comic—with mouseover title shown—that provides a funny take on the AI Effect, moving the goal-posts as artificial intelligence advances to redefine what “real” intelligence is, with a tendency to conclude that once a problem is solved, like besting a human grand master at chess, it’s all brute compute and no longer a reliable metric of what it’s gauging, and Moravec’s paradox—the observation that whilst computers can excel at maths and in a bounded game environment, they struggle with perception and mobility. Rather than siding with the scientific consensus that this counterintuitive skill-set is owing to the limits of disembodied cognition and how we take what took billions of years of experience, evolution and gravity to learn effortlessly and automatically for granted, the comic supposes that like an adolescent prodigy that is too smart for their own good, AI is making a conscious decision to avoid doing chores.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Israeli defence forces launch an aerial attack on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities (with synchronopticæ), AI as stone soup, hip hop party fliers plus variations on the impossible trident

twelve years ago: a visit to Lucca 

thirteen years ago: US army headquarters in Europe moves to Wiesbaden plus protests in Istanbul

fourteen years ago: EU playable characters plus Germany government scandals 

sixteen years ago: a mosaic of photos of Istanbul 

 

bi-stable curious (13. 440)

Celebrating the return of his favourite recurring character with his latest panel, frequent cartoon contributor to the New Yorker Paul Noth, as we are informed by Things magazine, shares his fascination with optical illusion, including his signature duck-rabbit, first appearing in the humour publication Fliegende Blätter by an anonymous artist in 1892 and soon being ensconced in common parlance by Ludwig Wittgenstein, describing the phenomenon as a bi-stable (or multi-stable) percept, philosophically put “seeing that” versus “seeing as” with an intermediate study in psychology and the original paradigm shift. Much more at the links above.

blacklight special (13. 418)

The aesthetic associated with a certain lifestyle and very much of an individual age particular era, we are introduced to the ubiquitous output of a defunct company in Houston, Texas that was once the biggest producer and distributor of experiential and mostly ephemeral wall art in the blacklight poster, printed with phosphorus ink that fluoresce when exposed to the otherwise invisible ultra-violet spectrum. Though the Day-Glo Colour Corporation had produced the pigment in 1932 with mainly military applications, it was the Houston Blacklight & Poster Company founder in 1969 that solidified the technique’s association with counterculture and drug use, popular in dormitory rooms, garage hangouts and advertising in concert venues, as something that could simulate and stimulate the visual distortions and hallucinations produced by an LSD experience or marijuana high. Regarded as disposable and a relic of the 1970s—though seeing somewhat of a revival in recent years, the city’s university special collections library, aside from rare books and ancient manuscripts, also holds, as we learn courtesy of { feuilleton }, an extensive archive of the company’s posters, ranging from the puerile to the promotional to the truly transfixing, with a tour arranged by a docent or trip-sitter now that the the behaviour has been pulled from the fringes of society whose talent, influential, went on to work in the animation field, bringing their style to Star Trek: TAS among others after the company dissolved within a few short years.

the house of mouse (13. 404)

Via Messy Nessy Chic, we are directed towards this illustrated strategic plan and sales pitch (click to embiggen) that Walt Disney presented to investors in 1957 showing revenue streams and how the company would work just as the empire was forming, Disneyland opening just two years prior, financed in part by syndicated anthology series, the Mickey Mouse Club—the variety show for children also a talent pool for the studio’s live-action stars, and a mini-series on frontiersman Davy Crockett with a tie-in ballad becoming a best-selling record. The entire juggernaut of merchandising (coonskin caps included) was complete and unprecedented, becoming firmly ensconced in American and later worldwide culture.

that’s so maven (13. 381)

Reprising a classic post with updates for 2026 when kill-bots have entered the chat with the US military integrating AI into its tactical decisions with Project Maven and the push for algorithmic warfare, Nancy Friedman takes a fascinating look at the once obscure Yiddish term—originally from the Hebrew mēbin (מֵבִין) as an expert, a knowledgeable person and echoing the rabbinical kaon, “he who understands will understand” (ha-mevin yavin)—but also with derogatory connotations of a know-it-all and a soi-disant authority. Like chutzpah and kvetching, the word was confined to certain circles before garnering acceptance in common-parlance, beginning in the 1960s, promoted to a large extent by an advertising campaign for canned herring, voiced by actor Allen Swift, as the self-proclaimed fish maven, and vocal talent behind Mighty Mouse and other cartoon characters. The following decades saw authors including William Safire take up the mantle, former speech writer for Richard Nixon and also a propellant for the term pundit, and cemented into mainstream language with Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 The Tipping Point as a linguist lacuna that prefigured influencer as a career choice and our social betters. Much more from Fritinancy at the link up top.

inventive genius makes great discovery (13. 357)

The reason why we use the hole emoji as a tag for cartoons, as our faithful chronicler informs, on this day in 1955, the Robert McKimson Looney Tunes short premiered. Among the handful of Warner Brothers’ animated features not to include their usual cast of characters. Despite disapproval from his wife, Gertrude, scientist Calvin Q Calculus continues his research and develops a portable hole. The achievement publicised in a newsreel, a thief pilfers the professor’s briefcase containing the stock of his invention for nefarious purposes. The debut directorial work of McKimson for the studio convinced producers to revive their animation unit that was in the process of slowly shutting down since 1953, but lack of funding prevented other animators being recalled to contribute, with McKimson doing all of the work himself.

ex’23 (13. 318)

Courtesy of fellow peripatetic Messy Nessy Chic’s latest batch of finds, we are acquainted with pioneering theorist and consultant Faber Birren (whose given name, from his maternal grandmother’s surname is a flourish of nominative determinism, a close anagram of Luxembourgish for colour) whom after an adolescent period of experimenting with dyes and painting murals pursued a a programme of pedagogy at the University of Chicago. Unable to surrender his conviction in the importance of colour, regarding it as an article of faith, and dissatisfied with the lacking curriculum in his field of study, Birren dropped out and began a course of self-study in 1921, publishing several influential articles on putting chromatics and contrast to use, eventually establishing his own firm with clients including Monsanto, General Electric, DuPont and the US military. Birren was later contracted as a consultant colourist for Disney advising animators for the schemes of Bambi, Pinocchio and Fantasia and with the outbreak of World War II, Birren was conscripted to make work environments safer for the influx inexperienced workers coming to factories to replace the workforce diverted to the war effort. The coding conventions Birren prescribed are still in use today with the best preserved examples being the sea-foam green used for control panels (the object of this investigation and conserved in museums and legacy installations and universally adopted, also with fire-extinguishers), the lighter shades being used on walls and consoles to reduce visual fatigue. The title nom de plume is from Birren’s colour scale of reflected light in the most calming spectrum and sourced from his trade range colour.