(11. 838)

synchronoptica

one year ago:  a Russian-North Korean summit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the new town square

eight years ago: microbeads and microplastics, the extinction illusion plus the thematic apperception test

coup d’etat (11. 837)

Bringing an end to the House of Solomon that ruled since 1270, members of the Ethiopian army and police, a junta backed by the USSR, who would go on to govern the country as the Derg (ደርግ, the Provisional Military Administrative Council) deposed Emperor Haile Selassie on this day in 1974. The emperor was imprisoned by the Marxist-Leninist group upset with his failure to deliver on promised land-reform measures in the semi-feudal state that left many subsistence farmers destitute and effectively indentured to landlords, perpetuating famine and forced relocation of thousands, eventually nationalising all property and abolishing the empire but not before proclaiming crown prince, in exile, Asfaw Wossen Tafari, as king (significantly not emperor, Negusa Nagast, king of kings) who wisely declined and avoided the imprisonment and execution that awaited other members of the court and royal family as well as government ministers and the emperor himself under treacherous circumstances not revealed until after the people’s revolution overthrew the military regime. His death and ceremonial reinterment was not accepted by adherents of the Rastafarian movement who regard Haile Selassie as god incarnate and hope of deliverance from colonial powers for Africa’s diaspora.

wild horses (11. 836)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we learn that the US Bureau of Land Management is using freeze marking to brand and identify wild burros and mustang, in an indelible and painless (reportedly) procedure. The registry assigns captured animals a unique serial number and a small area on the neck just below the crest is shaved off, treated and then an iron dipped in liquid nitrogen is applied. The hair grows back white (the mechanism for producing pigment destroyed), making it easy to recognise the tagged individual, rendered in the International Alpha Angle System, a trichoglyph standard invented in the early 1970s for size, legibility and tamper proof nature with the rotating glyphs meant that fewer irons needed to be taken to the field. The cryogenic technique is used on a variety of livestock and by naturalists tracking animals as well.

222 west 23rd (11. 835)

The historic Queen Anne Revival accommodations in the Manhattan neighbourhood of Chelsea was originally a housing cooperative through the early 1980s before being gentrified into its present form, and the residential hotel was home to many up-and-coming luminaries until such time, including Jack Kerouac, Andy Warhol, Sherwood Anderson, Henri Chopin, Quentin Crisp, Ethan Hawke, Miloš Forman, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Marian Faithfull, Bette Milder, Isabella Rosallini, Eddie Izzard, Jane Fonda and numerous others. In 2011, we learn, a lesser-known but long-term resident, Jim Georgiou and his dog Teddy, was evicted for failing to pay his rent and was temporarily unhoused. The following year during renovations on the building, he saw construction workers tossing out some of the old, white-washed and graffitied doors, which Georgiou managed to salvage and research, connecting them to the suites of different neighbours. After years of work, fifty-two doors were auctioned off, with the proceeds going to organisations that help New York City’s homeless in 2018.

teatro della marionette (11. 834)

Having recently returned from a trip to Lago Maggiore and visiting the island adjacent to Isola Bella—though not having ventured there ourselves—we enjoyed this dispatch on one of the lesser known treasures of Palazzo Borromeo in its nineteenth century puppet theatre (see also), resuming a tradition of entertainmentsthat waned with the death of prince and patron Viraliano VI in 1690, with an exquisite ensemble of wooden actors, elaborate sets and staging from the ridiculous to sublime with witty and sophisticated scripts in the home’s library. The playhouse has undergone periods of neglect and upheaval, including when it was commandeered as a guardhouse by Mussolini during the Stresa Conference (the 1935 one between delegates from the UK and France that re-affirmed the Treaty of Locarno to prevent future wars and not the cheese summit) but the historic collection was always loving conserved by the family. Much more at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Blob (with synchronoptica)

six years ago: open tabs, assorted links worth revisiting plus flying-screen choreography

seven years ago: mushrooms at the museum, more links to enjoy, updating the leader board plus Germany votes

eight years ago: a dark matter galaxy plus fantasy sub-cultures

nine years ago: an usually named concert coordinator plus untamed water

eleven years ago: nouns that exist only in their plural form

skylines and turnstiles (11. 833)

Witnessing the collapse of the World Trade Towers whilst walking to work in Manhattan to his job as a comic book artist, later frontman Gerard Way was inspired to turn to music (see also), forming the band My Chemical Romance, the name suggested by Way’s younger brother from the title of Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh’s novella Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance. The band garnered their fanbase by releasing tracks on MySpace before being discovered and signed with a record label. Arguably the pinnacle of their success, the band’s 2006 album (the lead single released on the fifth anniversary of 9/11) Welcome to the Black Parade was hugely popular and received several accolades, including significantly controversy and resulting moral panic over their promotion of “emo cult of self-harm” for their frank discussions of mental health and balanced but bleak portrayal of the world. We’ll carry on.

i’ve been to many zoos, folks, but biden’s dog must pay the price for eating my concepts of a plan (11. 832)

Maura Quint’s transcript of the US presidential debate, “The One with the Tackle and the Bait,” is worth reading in full but we especially liked these closing remarks by Trump: “I don’t like her. She’s mean, everyone in here is mean. This is a failing nation that I’m in charge of, and I think I should run against Biden, who is dead. Where is he? We don’t see him. Is he with the Ghostbusters now, you know that one ghost, very sexy, very nice ghost taking the pants off, and they were very mean to the marshmallows, weren’t they? Very mean. I would like to wish everyone, including all haters and losers, of which, sadly, there are many, a truly happy and enjoyable debate. Oh, look, it’s Taylor Swift coming on stage. She loves me.”

your lumberyard awaits, my lord (11. 831)

Reminiscent of this parody of the experience of visiting a website in contemporary times, we are directed—via Waxy—to SEO king’s House of Blog Monetisation. Scroll slowly to experience the accelerating rewards one gets for reading a post to its conclusion, made all the more cloying since we’re apt to abandon any article after three to ten seconds, having I guess got it already. No one clicks the ads on purpose.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the healing acoustics of Hoover Dam, the first fatalities with flying cars (with synchronoptica), B-PoTY plus Canadian scrutinies its civil servants

seven years ago: more data breaches plus honest Latin mottos for your alma mater

eight years ago: Wisconsin’s House on the Rock and related collections, the EU Day of Open Monuments, a bike tour through Bad Kissingen, purple flavours plus assault by algorithm

nine years ago: off to the Italian lake district 

ten years ago: Roman outposts