good boy: a thirty year old dog in Portugal beats a century-old record for oldest in the world
bb-8: a small security robot that rolls about the premises
eternity’s pillar: late night variety show produced by Turiyasan-gitananda—see previously
studio fong leng: a look at the Dutch fashion designer who dressed Kate Bush and socialite Mathilde Willink
can’t do hands: an atrocious sign language guide imaged by an AI—see previously
catgpt: a feline version of the scarily smart chat bot—via Waxy
Featuring pioneering prima ballerina Marie Tallchief (Osage ๐ผ๐ฃ๐ธ๐๐ค๐๐ธ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐๐ธ๐ฒ๐) in the principal role, following after her revolutionary performance in Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird as choreographed by George Balanchine, the premier of The Nutcracker under the same creative team behind the staging by the company of the New York City Ballet on this day in 1954. Enchanting thanks to Tallchief’s magical moves, it has been an annual tradition ever since.
Penned on this day in 1913 by journalist, writer and soldier Joyce Kilmer—best known for these twelve
lines 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.
Guest blogger Tim Carmody takes the helm for the tenth anniversary of the twentieth anniversary of Kottke’s Groundhog Day live-blog, in a very recursive tradition of celebrating the 1993 fantasy, romantic comedy for a decade. Directed by Harold Ramis and written by Danny Rubin, it portrays a cynical TV weatherman assigned to cover the annual event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and gets caught in a time loop, him alone aware that the day is repeating and has the potential for perfecting.
wickies: Fisheries and Oceans Canada is hiring assistant lighthouse keepers
the montessori method: a look at the world’s most influential school system
little moving splat: Ze Frank (previously) covers the strange and wonderfully intelligent behaviour of plasmodial slime moulds
unitar: a selection of one-string music—via Pasa Bon! blue harvest: a history of the spoiler alert—see also
what is a map: an awful educational short from 1949 given the MST3K treatment
dead as a dodo: a de-extinction company gets a one-hundred fifty million dollar investment
the free-market tree: non-felonious children’s literature editions for the state of Florida
coast guard: a collection of lighthouses of North America
The farce, “The Cage of the Mad Women,” by playwright Jean Poiret portraying the comedy of errors that ensues when the son of a Saint Tropez night club operator and his gay boyfriend invites his fiancรฉe’s conservative parents to meet their future inlaws had its debut this day in 1973 at the Thรฉรขtre du Palais-Royal, running for over eighteen-hundred performances. After being adapted as a Franco-Italian film—a trilogy ultimately, in 1978, it became a musical with book by Harvey Fierstein and music by Jerry Herman, with later cinematic premiere as The Birdcage in 1996.
nothing, forever: an endless AI generated episode of Seinfeld, livestreamed—via Waxy
construction spree: an annual survey of China’s Ugliest Buildings
word of the day: eleemosynary—that which is supported by charity—and gives us the derived term alms
he gets us: the billion dollar rebranding of Jesus—mostly financed through dark money, via Super Punch
35f no pmh, p/w cp: OpenAI gives a correct diagnosis but can’t show its work, fabricating a fake citation for its conclusion—via the new shelton wet/dry
yeldard: a forgotten British television oddity rediscovered in Paul Bradley
On the anniversary of the opening of the first McDonald’s establishment in Pushkin Square in 1990—an earlier earnest effort was undertaken by the Canadian master franchise for the 1980 Summer Olympic 
Games, famously boycotted by America, realising the host city offered no fast food options, arranged to open two pop-up restaurants by the main stadium but the plan was vetoed at the last minute by Moscow’s mayor, it’s a good occasion to visit the above adage of globalisation from Thomas Friedman that no belligerents both host McDonald’s. This conflict prevention measure is flawed, however, with the US invasion of Panama, the bombing of Serbia, Lebanon, the annexation of Crimea which shut down Russian outlets temporarily and the divesture of the company following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nearly forty-thousand guests were served that day, queuing in the cold for hours.
