prêt-à-porter

There’s a wealth of interesting things happening over at the surpassingly brilliant BLDGBlog this week, making it hard to choose the most captivating item.
Having received the standing-desk for the office that I had requested months ago just recently, however, I decided among a water-front elevated train project in New York City, Christmas trees to rehabilitate eroding beaches and haunting Martian geology to go with a Japanese-designed sort of truss or exoskeleton for surgeons to relieve fatigue and stress during long operations that produce the effects of sitting on a bar-stool (which are the most cleverly comfortable seating arrangements to induce patrons to stay awhile, whereas low-slung dining chairs are meant to make people less likely to dally once the business is done and promote turn-over) without a reduction in range of motion or reaction time. This innovation leads naturally to further speculation what bionic, wearable furniture might be developed in the future. As a mature adult, of course the author does not ask about people with mattresses for backs or anything crude, but it is certainly worth pondering what repercussions en suite might have for architecture when one can carry one’s cradle. Be sure to check out Geoff Manaugh’s excellent web-presence for more intriguing articles.

mad dogs and servicemen

The memorable theme song of M*A*S*H* became a little more haunting to me when I learnt awhile back that it has lyrics and the song itself is “Called Suicide is Painless.” One could imagine droning along to the tune of that dirge.
A bit of trivia even more intriguing about the score came courtesy of Dr. Caligari’s daily amalgams of history: celebrating the premiere of the Academy Award winning film this week in 1970, it was pointed out that the composer of the theme, the son of the virtuoso director, Robert Altman—fourteen years old at the time, has earned nearly three times what the director was paid for the movie, making over two million dollars in royalties after the series based on the film was launched. Work is more of a soap opera but can at times feel like the dark comedy with the jingoism and ingratiating ironies. Incorporating the same signature tune, the show had a run of eleven years and I still remember when all the neighbours came over to watch the series finale and how emotional everyone got when saying goodbye, farewell and amen.

bandwidth and broomsticks

Archivists and students of modern history—which I think reinforces that strange feeling of being ungrounded, of something being just out of reach because it happened prior to the spread of the internet’s meticulous and totum pro parte record-keeping—are finding that the teletext pages, the subspace of the airwaves, were also encoded and can be teased out of VHS recordings.
This service, which reaches back to the early 1970s, was invented in the UK but has apparently been phased out entirely by most broadcasters but is still quite prominently featured and utilized on German stations, but the technology remains in place, as it’s the carrier-signal for closed-captions as well—as the notices, headlines, weather, score-cards, schedules, page after page (“magazines”) of programme descriptions and supplemental material provided have been supplanted by the advent of the World Wide Web—which the scheme rather previsioned and anticipated, at least in popularity and accessibility as formatting and compatibility issues tended towards compartmentalization. Recovering this ephemeral—even though parallel and complimentary to what’s on the television in most cases, I think it’s nonetheless a fascinating little snap-shot of the everyday and pushes back the wayback machine by at least sixteen years.

studio cards

Through the daisy-chains that bind us, I was astounded to find this superbly fun and classy curated gallery of vintage film animations in a blog called Nitrate Diva. Lovingly maintained and with a vast archive that spans from the Silent Era through the 1960s, I found it to be too remarkable not to share. Of course, these pictures have a separate, fossilized mythos of their own, but finding these clippings moving under their own power opens up a whole new strata of arresting scenes. One won’t regret the visit.

best-of-show

Though I am not sure why the source website has nominated Borg Seven-of-Nine to represent the ideal of humanoid attractiveness, but I thought I’d repeat the gesture (maybe there is some joke that I am too dense to get or perhaps we are berthing an old meme ourselves), I found this rather detailed research (peer-reviewed apparently by the US National Institutes of Health) study that demonstrates that chickens recognise and register their appreciation of beauty pretty interesting, in so far as it suggests that it’s more than skin deep and is embedded in our nervous composition.
The study looks to date from 2002 but in an age where we readily submit our looks and esteem to computer algorithms or the hive mind (resistance is futile) for judgment, it might be a subject worth revisiting. What do you think?

stardust or tvc15

I am no good eulogist, and sometimes it seems that if I were that’s all any of us would be doing. It’s an unenviable job—I’m sure, to be an obituary writer and I understand that these editors face a sorry annual chore of updating epitaphs on a regular basis, so as to break the news gently and with due celebration. Chief among what David Bowie gave to his audience was that it was OK to be an oddity. Full-stop. There was no moralising or apologies—just curiosity, I think, that manifested itself in realising the revolutionary. That sort of cultural prescience, which a lot of the present class of moguls owe a debt, is reflected in a little (seemingly) footnote of praise picked up in this Guardian article about bowie.net.
Reflecting on his 1998 debut of an internet service provider, after having been the first big recording artist to release a single available on the internet already two years earlier, Bowie said that if he were nineteen again, that time around he’d bypass music and go straight for the online venues. Promising an uncensored web experience, bowie.net offered all sorts of firsts that are really taken for granted presently, like internet simulcasts and one’s own email address, paralleling a few other pioneers but back then I don’t image that most businesses, let alone celebrities, had even an inkling of its potential. We would not have that collective literacy or dexterity had David Bowie not launched this venture. Secondly, and no one cares much for the hyperbolic litigiousness that characterises intellect-property these days, but I believe that Bowie’s joint suit with Queen over the riff from Under Pressure against the performer of Ice-Ice Baby (given that Bowie’s latest album is interpreted as an allegory about al-Sham, I won’t refer to them as the Cosplay Caliphate, but henceforth as Vanilla ISIS, as that was rather an insult to historical caliphate—as much as ISIS is an insult to faith—which were typified by tolerance and religious harmony) was also informed and culturally formative, not exactly codifying the rules of sampling but not letting derivative artists off without proper homage. As much as we could recite that one song word for word played at the roller-rink, I think we’re astute connoisseurs and acutely aware of later lifted compositions. The music and the personality live on and will inspire generations to come, and we can take solace in that.

minced oath or lightwater syndrome

Swearing came about as a linguistic loophole to prohibitions against blasphemy. Socrates’ frequent but rather timid exclamation of “by the dog”—referring to constellation of Canis Major and not “god” backwards, of course—was even known as the Rhadamanthine oath in order to forever ridicule that king’s embargo on invoking the names of the gods in vain.
All sorts of stealth cursing came about and though a lot of the inventions ring as old-fashioned and mincing profanity, which is almost equally unacceptable in polite-company as one’s dancing around the taboo and not making the effort to really distance oneself from vulgar language. Self-censorship’s euphemistic history extends as far back to when we first learned to mask our unmitigated reactions with language: consarnit, Sam Hill, Land of Goshen, Jesus wept (which is considered suitable as one is reciting the shortest verse in the Bible), ‘zounds for by Christ’ wounds and ods bodilns—by God’s nails. If we’ve somewhat matured in keeping our speech cultured (and possibly our own minds out of the gutter), it’s interesting then that we’re being drawn back into the phase of snickering humour by those filters we put in place to keep content age-appropriate and our immediate environment relatively smut-free. Those automated bowdlerisers (despite advances in the industry) perennially and incredulously inconvenience residents of the English towns of Sussex and Penistone and the titular village—as well as many unfortunately named persons—and the phenomena is called the Scunthrope Problem, after another municipality in Lincolnshire with Norse etymology. Keeping a swear-jar near at hand is a good motivator to be as colourful with one’s metaphors as possible or at least to retain adult-decorum.  Alright governor.

chain-letter, chain-mail

Though a little late for a Christmas gift—but well in time to gird one’s New Year’s dharmic security, PfRC presents Auroral Cat, whose super-absorbent halo will ward off any ill-effects and soured luck aggressively threatened for failure to repost the other talismans and charms that are in circulation. Of course, there’s no need for reciprocation, and should one choose to spread the cheer (unafraid) of other trinkets and anecdotes, Auroral Cat’s filter is discriminating enough to rebuff bad fortune and channel good luck through. You’re welcome. There’s nothing wrong with propagating prayers and well-wishes but one ought not agonise over it or feel compelled to, on pain of a ghost dog peeing on one’s bed.

de-icer

Though I’ve been peevish and a little fraught with worry over the balmy and unseasonable weather, scraping ice was not the challenge I was looking forward to this morning. It was that rippled, thick window ice too—I wonder if there’s some special Eskimo word for that… I commiserate with you, Sweet Brown.

very merry

PfRC would like to extend season’s greetings and salutations to all that have visited. Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. Thanks for stopping by and have yourselves a merry little Christmas time.

humbug and hyperthermia

Grumpy Cat is stopping at NO but the rest of us here at PfRC are getting into the spirit of the season, despite the eschatological forecast and unseasonably warm weather.

5x5

purl two: upon request the BBC would send out the knitting instructions for the Fourth Doctor’s iconic scarf

uppruni: a young Björk reads the Nativity story for an Icelandic television audience

food pyramid: Vox examines at different ways nutritional guidelines are influenced and imparted globally

zodiaco: Salvador Dalí’s astrologic menagerie plus a hint into the obsession the artist had with his departed elder brother, Salvador Dalí

tween: proposed EU rules would raise the social media age of majority to sixteen

les archives de la planète

Inspired by the candid images captured by his own personal photographer while on holiday, philanthropist and banker Albert Kahn resolved to commission his own personal Instagram as a goodwill missive to the whole world. Kahn set out with his crack-team of photographers, canvasing more than fifty countries from 1909 until 1929—when the Wall Street Stock Market Crash confounded the line of funding for this project—and amassed a collection of over seventy-two thousand photos, colourised using the latest processing technology. This amazing gallery curated by Dangerous Minds features Paris in 1914—just on the cusp of the Great War. I want to find more of Kahn’s archives to see what snapshot impressions are yet to be rediscovered.

dies vitiosus

The indispensably brilliant daily chronicler, Doctor Caligari, begins his detailed, far-reaching time-capsule by disabusing us about the pickle hidden in the Christmas tree, which was never some tradition enshrined in German holiday customs until one American retail fairy-tale marketed it as one—which we’ve ascribed to, as well. Incidentally, 5 December also marks the date that the last episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was aired in 1974, and further back in 1484 (with allowances for the calendar reform) when Pope Innocent IIX endorsed with papal bull, the auto de fey of the feline variety, including the familiars of witches and their human wards, which resulted in the Black Death and Protestantism. Be sure to consult Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet regularly for what daily ripples we are living with.

tintin and milou

During the height of the hunt for suspected accomplices to the latest wave of terror attacks, officials in capital of Brussels implored nervous residents and citizen-journalist not to sound-off about the ongoing investigation, lest they inadvertently tip off those they sought after. It’s a little amazing to think that commentary and the its meta-narrative can unfold in real time and there’s no single abiding and authoritative version, but some jump to make that claim. The people of Belgium obliged and there were no calls of a media blackout during the lock-down nor suspicions that the government was trying to conceal something and they obliged in kind by inundating the channels with feline missives—of the memetic variety to convey support for discretion. Many took the extended opportunity to remain calm and not cowering indoors but rather to defiantly dress up and remix their pets.

5x5

eddie are you okay: catchy barrel-organ version of Smooth Criminal 

lol: ukiyo artists from Edo-era Japan also liked animal memes

planchette: a Ouija board furniture ensemble 

d³Ʃx²: dedicated Whovian reveals the Doctor’s true name

octave: gallery of very large musical instruments

language laboratory oder verenglischen

The Local, Germany’s English language daily, profiles an Italian living in Berlin who, frustrated with obstacles to practising the German language properly and gaining a better mastery of it in an international office setting turned to inventing needful compound words to express contemporary, specific anxieties that no word exists for. Though this lexicon is by its nature a non-standard and idiosyncratic one, building it is a clever way to strenghten one’s vocabulary and imagination. For the nonce, verenglishchen is to rebuff a foreigner’s best efforts to address another in his or her native language by replying in English. I ought to embark on the same sort of project.

timeliness, objectivity and narrative

Building strong partnerships with leading museums and educational institutions around the world to help bring the iconography and language of modern art to the broader, internet dwelling public, the clearing house Artsy is wonderful resource for discovery and triangulation.

Learning enough to pique one’s curiosity to learn more about the inter- connectedness of the community and their contemporaries—through the lens of their portrait of Dorothea Lange, for example, whose evocative Migrant Mother (probably for most one of those archetypal images that we hold in the quiver of minds) captured while under commission for the American Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, but there’s really a more elusive, evasive quality in this photograph and its framer that settles after the initial, unmediated impression. The network of related artists—most of whom I’ve never heard of but seem quite worthy of further investigation—imparts context, but it’s really taking a step back, through biography and scrutiny, that helps to disabuse one—after a fashion—for what we as an audience might take for granted. I think I’d rather conflated Migrant Mother and the haunting blue-eyed Afghani girl from that National Geographic cover in my mind—making the Depression-era photograph colourized—perhaps because the identities of both subjects was once anonymous but are now identified: Florence Owen Thompson and Sharbat Gula. It takes a commitment on the part of the viewer, which is I suppose what powerful and memorable art demands, to see the humanising portrayals and to take something too away from the setting. Though history and poverty always best themselves, it is impossible to imagine the backdrop of abject poverty and starvation that the government attempted to stave off through resettlement and relocation. This scene also conjures up another one of Lange’s programs—documenting the forced internment of Japanese and other foreigners, which was suppressed at the time. I’ll be sure to visit this resource again to get my bearings and discover someone new.

5x5

memory-hole: the estate of George Orwell, ironically, attempts to suppress unsanctioned mention of “1984”

peabody’s improbable history: the archived internet, the Wayback Machine, is getting a search engine

isambard kingdom brunel slept here: a look at the makers of London’s historical markers, the Blue Plaques

monstrous memorabilia: gallery of vintage horror film lobby cards

stellar hosts: an overview of how astronomers went from zero to five thousand plus potential exoplanets in two decades via Kottke’s Quick Links

bug bounty

Boing Boing, via Ars Technicia, has an interesting primer for the zero-day market, which the industry and regime-appointed czars are reluctant to address or even acknowledge.
A “zero-day” is a software vulnerability, identified by hackers but not publicly disclosed nor yet exploited, which is sold to the highest bidder—which is often a competitor but increasing includes zealous or repressive governments hoping to shore up a munitions’ dump that’s basically a kill-switch (or back-door) for the internet—on the tenuous promise that the discoverers won’t reveal the security weakness or act on it for their own benefit, and hence the name because communications platforms and companies that manage the underlying architecture of the internet would have no time to react or patch the fault, the bugs once it comes to light. This brisk, underground market represents a huge, welling threat with more than speculation becoming a commodity but the actual means of offense and defense. In their naïvety, governments are fueling this trafficking by hoping to preserve a systemic integrity but end up diluting everything in the process.