god gave us grace on november 8 2016 to change the course we were on

In order to—among other counter-programming techniques—to pre-empt the time-slot generally allotted to local news coverage (such as it is) Dear Leader has implemented a nightly summit ostensibly on the exponential spread of the novel corona virus in the US with an occasional word from our sponsors, as in this recent infomercial praising what Trump, whom is portraying hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths as acceptable losses in a perverse Hegelian dialectic that solves the manufactured crisis on slightly better terms, has meant for the country.
Sweet dreams and nighty nightmare—it’s bedtime (see more on their shared business models here and here) for the republic. Do not watch this dangerous and dishonest propaganda; there is far too much at stake.

stemmario

Once again Present /&/ Correct directs us to a brilliant curated collection in the 1938 redesigns of municipal crests and regional coats of arms executed by futurist sculptor and graphic designer Fortunato Depero (*1892 – †1960)—whom founded a utopian, reinventionist art movement similar, parallel to Bauhaus after World War I in Rovereto.
We especially liked the blazons for Como and Pisa but all have the same visually striking effect. Depero unfortunately is not accorded the same level of attention as some of his peers but enjoys a legacy nonetheless, including the unique and ubiquitous design of the bottle that Campari soda comes in.

gallery space

Whilst the great institutions are closed to their admiring public, the Met, the Getty, the Rijksmuseum and others have conscripted the virtual community to restage famous, iconic masterpieces with improvised materials found around the house whilst we all are sheltering-in-place.
We really enjoyed some of the outfits and improvised landmarks faithful to the original that people have created, and we were especially taken with the homage to Jan van Eyck’s 1434 Arnolfini Wedding portrait, which can normally be visited at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Choose your favourite piece of art and do share your recreation.

a day in the life

Once again returning to our faithful chronicler we mark today among other notable events in 1967, the Beatles in costume arrived at the photo studio of Michael Cooper to have their likenesses captured for inclusion on the iconic cover for their eighth album, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the concept painstakingly assembled and realised by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, posing before a tableau of cardboard cut-outs of celebrities and historical figures.
The impetus for this alter ego musical group was in part owing to the Beatles’ tiring of touring with John Lennon’s suggestions that wax-works on stage would please audiences just as well, presaging the backlash that his comment that they were “more popular than Jesus” and a belated, bellwether acid-trip by Paul McCartney. The throng is not so much a recognition of their influences but rather a snapshot of the cultural topology of the moment.  Watch a short documentary on the album art’s making at Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet at the link up top.

data-plan or seward’s folly

Though criticism for US Secretary of State’s negotiated purchase (see also) of the territory of Alaska from the Russian Empire—agreed to on this day in 1867—was much more reserved and the decision and price praised by most in the government at the time and only magnified through the lens of history, hindsight and self-promotion on the part of his detractors, William Henry Seward’s shrewd deal-making had failed him in another arena that resulted in a quite expensive misstep just a few months earlier.
The Secretary of State was honoured with inaugurating the first enduring transatlantic cable on 23 November 1866 (see also) and elected to dispatch a diplomatic telegram—and not merely a ceremonial message but an actual missive encrypted regarding Napoleon III perceived meddling in the affairs of Mexico using a Monroe cipher since the Department of State was footing the bill. The Anglo-American Telegraph company however stipulated that coded messages cost double and that numbers (the basis of the cipher) were required to be spelled out in full. In the end, the brief message cost the State Department nearly twenty-thousand dollars—thrice the chief’s diplomat’s annual salary. Seward disputed the charges in court but ultimately lost.

skirting the issue

Fast Company has a brief but circumspect survey of how fashion has informed and enforced social distancing through the ages with hoop skirts and hijabs and masquerades and mukena as interventions to communicability. What other dress do you think keeps diseases and unwanted suitors at bay? I wonder what sorts of accessories might come out of this latest push for separation.

g.i. joe is the code name for america’s daring, highly trained special mission force - its purpose: to defend human freedom against cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world

Whether or not GI*Joe is worthy of one’s nostalgia or inviting another to indulge that does not share this particular shibboleth (also known as Action Force in the UK and other markets) of shared cultural upbringing is debatable and ought to stand up to that scrutiny in better times and in a pinch but we wholeheartedly endorse what io9 (previously) had to say about how refreshing it was to see a caring and competent governmental-sponsored organisation able to execute its mission not just against Cobra but to protect the environment as well without being hamstringed. In any case, it’s certainly heroic to while away the hours whilst socially segregating oneself in order to save lives.

postmaster or fancy-cancels

Via the always stunning Present /&/ Correct, we appreciated making the acquaintance with a wonderful resource for vintage ephemera in the Bulgarian Virtual Museum for Socialism through the lens of this cheerful collection of postal seals and cancellation (oblitération, измиране) stamps, especially this one commemorating sixty years of radio broadcasting in the country. With an abundance of travel, film and political posters, company and trade logos and extra philately, there’s much more to explore at the links above.

djia = σp/d

Having muddled through the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the collapse of the Russian rouble the following year, the US stock market index the Dow Jones Industrial Average, that gauges the performance of a select thirty large, publicly listed companies, on this day in 1999 a celebration was held on the trading floor when for the first time the Dow closed above ten thousand points.
Bolstered by faith in a strong dollar—the world’s reserve currency—and mergers in the petroleum industry and what was decried presciently by some as an “irrational exuberance” in the seemingly unbridled technology sector, investors at the time would scarcely realise that they were partying at the apex (or nadir, depending on one’s point of view) of the Dot Com Bubble. The speculation fuelled growth peaked in March 2000, once borrowing became more expensive and credit tighter when national banks changed their lending practises once the industry had weathered y2k without significant disruption, before surrendering a gain of nearly four hundred percent by October 2002.

in my merry oldsmobile

Not to be confused with the mass-produced Model-C from competitor Ford Motors that debuted the following year and marketed as a “doctors’ car,” the 1903 variant Model-6, curved dash runabout prototype called the Doctors’ Coupe unfortunately never went into production with only one ever made.
This incredibly steam-punk podium of a vehicle had two gears plus could be thrown in reverse. Though at this early point in history, the cars were named after company founder Ransom Eli Olds (and hence R.E.O. Speedwagon, another musical connection), a popular tune by vaudevillian Gus Edwards with an enduring chorus and refrain was a powerful marketing jingle:

Come away with me, Lucille
In my merry Oldsmobile
Down the road of life we’ll fly
Automobubbling, you and I

To the church we’ll swiftly steal
Then our wedding bells will peal
You can go as far as you like with me
In my merry Oldsmobile

🜍

Though observed numerous times before and mistaken as a comet or star, the asteroid Pallas was discovered and identified—after Ceres—as the hypothetical planet astronomers expected to be present above the orbit or Mars and below that of Jupiter on this day in 1802 by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthais Olbers (*1758 – †1840).
Subsequent discoveries of asteroids occupying a belt that marked the edge of the inner solar system helped scientists come to the incremental conclusion that these celestial bodies were the debris of protoplanets that had failed to resolve into a globe under its own gravity. Named after the epithet for the goddess Athena (see previously)—meaning to brandish a weapon—and is represented by the astronomical symbol above, a spear. The asteroid’s discoverer is also known for his eponymous paradox—otherwise referred to as the dark sky paradox, a crucial thought experiment to dislodge the classical thinking that the Cosmos is static and eternal rather than dynamic since if Universe were infinitely old and homogenous, the night sky should be uniformly illuminated from stars spread out across the firmament.

8x8

expansion pack: kit and ideas for remixing new board games by combining pieces and platforms of classic games one already owns—via Kottke’s Quick Links

video phone: the teleconferencing tool that’s being forced on many of us is a privacy and security nightmare whose long-term liabilities far outweigh the benefits of seeing colleagues in pyjamas

razliv haystack: a look into how the mythos of Lenin fuelled the early Soviet tourism industry

stay sane, stay safe: a graphic design community’s rapid response to promote positivity

at home everywhere: with at least a quarter of the world’s population under at least partial lockdown, a design duo has turned national flags into houses

utica club: beer steins Schultz and Dooley (voiced by Jonathan Winters) advertise Matt Brewery’s flagship beverage

tossed dallas: Tuna Antipasto and assorted silliness—see previously

mashrabiya and mezzanine: a celebration of balconies

employment situation summary

i beg at this time that i have not intruded upon this evening

This day marks the anniversary of among other occasions of pith and moment as our faithful chronicler informs the choice of favoured to win Oscar contender Marlon Brando chose to boycott the 1973 Academy Awards and in his place sent Native American actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather in protest of the portrayal of Native Americans in film and television and to raise awareness regarding the standoff at Wounded Knee. Littlefeather gained an appreciation for her heritage after being involved in the occupation of Alcatraz and her speech helped to remove a media blackout imposed on the siege that had begun a month earlier, involving the ouster and impeachment of the Oglala Sioux tribal president on corruption charges. The beleaguered president refused to standdown and had called in the US Marshals and Federal Bureau of Investigations.

bed, bath and beyond

We are quite pleased with the way our interior design came together and one of the more pleasant aspect was visiting showrooms and browsing through catalogues to select faucets and fixtures.
Not looking to redecorate any time soon mind you, we enjoyed quite a bit leafing through this American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corporation (today the rather sedate Trane Inc., having divested itself of its bathroom division) brochure from 1940 with some fantastic period pastels and palettes to choose from. Much more to explore from Present /&/ Correct at the link above.

super-spreader

Remanded to quarantine for the second and final time (she would remain in isolation for the rest of her life) on this day in 1915, Irish-born cook Mary Mallon (*1869 – †1938)—also known as Typhoid Mary, was the first individual clinically identified as an asymptomatic carrier of a disease.
Persisting working as a domestic for affluent families in New York state (and why wouldn’t she resist calls from authorities to quit her profession if she was in good health herself, albeit precedent-setting), Mallon infected at least fifty-one people with typhoid fever, an ailment caused by exposure to a particularly pernicious strain of Samonella bacteria, at least three of them fatally. Mallon was returned to confinement on North Brother Island, in the East River between the prison Rikers Island and the Bronx mainland, having earned her sobriquet during her first three-year stint and subsequently became a minor celebrity for her stubbornness, unrepentant behaviour (she was retrained as a laundress, considered a safer job, but returned to cooking because the pay was better) and with what was sometimes portrayed as victimhood in the face of public health and medical science—mingled, conflated surely with stereotype and xenophobia. The hospital closed shortly after her death and the island is today a seabird sanctuary.

⚡biscuit or shredded tweet

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we get an example of the sort of tenacious curiosity that gets to the bottom of branding—even when the manufacturer itself was uncertain—and seemed a bit cagey in fact. Tri is definitely not three, not three wholesome ingredients or thrice-baked. Invented and granted a patent in 1902 before going into production the following year by the Shredded Wheat Company of Niagara Falls—the factory powered by the mighty waterfalls’ hydroelectric generation, the snack cracker boasted that it was the only one of its kind baked by this new-fangled electricity.

schengen area

Coming into full effect on this day in 1995 nearly a decade after the treaty, letter of intent was signed on board the riverboat Princess Marie-Astrid cruising the Moselle near the dock of the Luxembourg town at the point where the borders of the grand duchy, France and Germany meet, the Schengen Agreement gradually led to the harmonisation of visa rules, freedom of movement and the abolishment  of border controls. Following the arrangement that one signatory had already established with its neighbours, the treaty developed from June 1985 independently of the European Union—despite of it—due to gridlock among the member states, eventually becoming itself enshrined in inalienable EU law with allowances for opting out and the ability to reconstitute national divides in emergency situations.

no fomo

From the Latin fomes for tinder, the term was first coined by academic and physician Girolamo Frascastoro in his 1546 treatise De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis to distinguish contamination from an infectious agent—a disease vector in modern parlance—with a fomite being any inanimate object, a surface, a door handle, a light switch, can temporarily host and transfer germs. As small as it seems, hand-washing is a force-multiplier in this battle—which by the nature of public health is communal and goes unseen, that is—never knowing what impact what we did or neglected to do had, but is nonetheless essential.

is there no balm in gilead?

Crass and disturbing it may be at a time like this to put profit over public safety and rather than protecting the weak and vulnerable, it’s acceptable for them to be culled in order to reinforce the false, cloying narrative (that’s doesn’t even come with the promise of elevation or ennoblement) that the Republican Party is transparently become a death cult should come as little surprise.
They’ve proven their unwavering allegiance already time and time again in their unwillingness to entertain or enact any legislation that might be perceived as curtailing gun rights in the States and clearly signal their tolerance of child sacrifice in order to propitiate their financial backers and mollify their base. Some of these same ghouls, without irony, shrieked back in 2009 of the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare and attacking by extension the NHS) leading to bureaucratic death panels that would decide if the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions were worthy of health care to try to cultivate panic and undercut its reception by the public and other law-makers.

8x8

paperback writer: the cinematic portfolio of Matt Stevens in old book covers, via Things magazine

live-feed: snapshots of deserted public places around the world gleaned from web cams, via Kottke

social distance: the inspiring latest torch song from Randy Rainbow, via Miss Cellania

 🤠: lone security guard of the National Cowboy Museum virtually engages his visitors

 😷: the origins of surgical masks and respirators

they laugh and love: John Carpenter announces sequels to his 1988 sci-fi thriller
 
major arcana: an automated tarot reader that seems to never have gotten off the drawing board

still buffering: the lagging evolution of the video teleconference

long-haul

Though the phrase (this had been haunting me for a while) used optimistically as way to promote good order and acquiescence on both sides during the Great War and probably was first forecast in earnest, “Over by Christmas” was a barbed and derisive response as well—soon overtaking the original sentiment. Hopes for an abbreviated skirmish were dashed by a failure to appreciate how technology and mechanisation had fundamentally altered the nature of killing as the very antithesis of our hubris and harmartia that allows us to think the same technology makes everything expedient and negotiable. This will not be over by Easter and please don’t wait for the authorities to tell us to look out for one another.

welttuberkulosetag

The World Health Organisation marks today as International Tuberculous Day in deference to the 1882 to the meeting of a small group of scientists and professors, including pioneering immunologist Paul Ehrlich, at the Institute of Hygiene at the University of Berlin wherein Doktor Robert Koch (*1843 – †1910)—a name now also very much in the news, astounded those assembled by announcing the elusive cause of the infectious disease to be a pathogenic bacteria.
Lucidly and convincingly, Koch was able to present his case to academics and authorities and suggest effective interventions at a time when germ theory still battled with rumour and superstition in the realm of epidemiology as TB spread through Europe and North America. While Koch did not think the there was a zoonotic connection between the human and cattle incidence of the disease (bovines being the vector) and thus delayed the identification of milk and other dairy products as one source of contamination (an oversight that colleague Louis Pasteur corrected), Koch developed a crucial screening process that could identify, isolate and treat carriers prior to symptoms manifesting. Though much diminished, TB has not been eradicated and remains the second most common cause of death (AIDS being the first) from a communicable disease with approximately eight million new cases per year.

organisation commune africane et malgache

Founded in 1961 to promote economic and political cooperation among the decolonised and newly independent francophone nations of the continent and its largest island, the African and Malagasy Union was formaly dissolved on this day in 1985 by mutual consent of its member states.
Once former Belgian-controlled territories were allowed in the group, the governing body gradually realised it was at cross-purposes to more inclusive, pan-continental institutions that were developing in parallel. One lasting legacy of the former organisation’s work, after abandoning defence pacts and a common army that caused the most strife throughout the decades, was the multinational civilian airline Air Afrique and its spinoffs.

guideposts

First unveiled on this day in 1980, the ensemble of granite monoliths outside of the city of Elberton in the US state of Georgia, astronomically aligned and shrouded in a rather mysterious, secretive commission have the Guidestones are sometimes regarded as America’s Stonehenge.

Made and placed to exacting specifications (the pillars track the sun and the moon) by a group of anonymous donors fronted by a go-between—also under an assumed identity, the local granite finishing company was approached and told that the monument would act as a compass and calendar that could withstand coming, eminent catastrophe and serve as a set of instructions, exhortations for those survivors tasked with rebuilding civilisation. The alternative commandments, inscribed in eight modern languages with transcriptions in Babylonian cuneiform, Ancient Greek, Sanskirt and Egyptian appearing boustrophedonically around the edges of the slabs. Once the money for the project materialised, the granite company executed the job gladly, dismissing the representative as an eccentric. The land and the Guidestones were given to the county afterwards and the regulations, practicable and sage as they may be, have attracted no end of speculation and conspiracy theories and advocate for population control and all manner of social engineering.

rumpus room

We really enjoyed perusing this inviting gallery of conservation pits, an architectural feature incorporating plush seating in a sunken and often shagged subfloor within a larger living area.
The design was a popular mainstay from the 1950s through the 1970s showcased and much copied in the 1958 Miller House (pictured) of Columbus, Indiana from Eero Saarinen—also centrepieces of influential homes by Alexander Girard and Bruce Goff. Do take a look at the extensive collection of images at Messy Nessy Chic at the link up top and let us know which is your favourite adult pillow-fort and how you would design your own.

daisy-cutter

On this day in 1970, under the auspices of the programme Commando Vault to develop and deploy progressively more destructive conventional explosives in the war effort, the United States Army first dropped the BLU-82 (Bomb Live Unit) on troops in North Vietnam and Laos, so nicknamed the above as it was designed not for combat but to clear helicopter landing zones in dense jungle and due to its broad but shallow explosive capabilities, it did not leave a crater. The type and stronger iterations were used up until 2008 (the last live ammunition practise pictured) in various campaigns before being replaced by the MOAB.

ffont ffamily

A commission from the Welsh government has netted a sleek, unifying typeface for its public services and signage that reflects Cymraeg and its unique orthographic characteristics (see also) with its range of diagraphs expressed in dedicated ligatures based on the textura of the country’s oldest manuscripts including the thirteenth century epic The Red Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch Hergest) that recounts the heroic cycle of poems of Llywarch Hen and the struggle against the incursion of the Anglo-Saxons in the Mabinogion, the earliest collection of prose of the British isles, and The Black Book of Carmarthen (Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin, both distinguished by their location and the colour of their vellum bindings) that addresses various subjects including the Arthurian legend and Merlin (Myrddin).

lexus-nexus or in this corner

The always brilliant programmer behind AI Weirdness Janelle Shane’s latest foray into machine mentorship begins with a nice and reflective acknowledgement about one primary, force majure why bloggers blog in the first place: to be introduced to process and jargon outside of field of speciality and indulge in learning something new.
This latest episode (see previously) involved in rem jurisdiction—a concept in legal code that imbues an inanimate object status and agency rather than its minders or responsible parties, a type of legal fiction that has resulted in some preposterous sounding suits such as the United States v. One Book Called Ulysses or the United States v. Four Hundred Twenty-Two Casks of Wine. Given that those actual are precedential cases on the books, Shane wondered what her neural network might glean from studying millions of legal proceedings related to seizure and customs violations to create epic courtroom battles. Quite the courtroom artists, Shane has illustrated some of the less abstract ones like Texas v. One Small Dog with a Napkin Near It—quite a surreal enough judgement—but there were others that far exceeded rendering like South Dakota v. an Apparition at a Shoe Store.

socio-economics

Amid all the other tragedy and chaos happening around the world, it’s not unsurprising that the headline was buried that yesterday the US government not only curtailed the service commitments of its over seven thousand volunteers abroad in some of the most desperately poor places around the world—along with academics studying overseas as Fulbright scholars—and is repatriating them with little to none transit or logistical support, the Peace Corps (founded 1 March 1961 by the Kennedy administration to help the developing world and fight against Ugly American and neo-imperialism stereotypes) is making those displaced and uprooted (and potentially contagious) helpers redundant, dismissed without benefits and ineligible in most cases as their relationship with the agency does not rise to the level of employee and employer to apply for assistance and compensation. Not only are they being force to leave their adopted homes at a time of peril when the host communities that they serve needs them, they find themselves forcibly returned (those choosing to stay would face a field termination and have their official passport stripped from them) ahead of schedule to a country in dire crisis without a job or purpose when the prospects of securing either seems untenable.

it’s going to disappear—one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear

In a damning indictment against the Trump regime’s handling of the corona crisis and a disgusting example of greed self-enrichment at the cost of untold lives and livelihoods by downplaying the public health threat and short-selling America (it is indeed easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism) a senator and intelligence committee chairman capitalised on his insider knowledge and privately warned an exclusive group of donors at a luncheon about the potential of dramatic, societal disruptions caused by the global pandemic.

The forecast was issued weeks before the true scope of damage became clear to the public and at crucial juncture when stronger measures could have stopped the spread and spared the integrity of that country’s already broken—in fact on the same day as Trump dismissed what health experts were advising as a hoax on the part of the opposition political party and pandering to the basest tendencies of his electoral base—and only came to light from a secret recording by someone in attendance sufficiently alarmed to reach out to the press. I hope against hope that we are wrong and that Trump gets vindication but I fear for what a sustained state of emergency will befall America—and anyone else that diminishes this enemy that won’t argue back but rather just has its way—and the rest of the world will have to corral it with a cordon sanitaire, internationally people knowing that Trump and his ilk are not representative of the people in general and that the majority of Americans are not violent and racist but it quickly becomes a far different relationship with the knowledge that all are infectious. America could have rid itself of its parasitic despots peaceably (one of course cannot say whether there would have still been an global epidemic under different leadership but the response would be measurably different in the US and for nations suffering more because of Trump’s politics like Iran and Argentina) but now they either struggle with the consequences—or bring out the pitchforks. “It could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens.”

ausgangssperre

Though we’ve already both been trying to avoid going out in public as much as possible, Bavaria joins Italy, California, Paris and many other places in a near total lockdown and restriction on movement—modelled after early and successful interventions in Asia that virtually stopped the spread of COVID-19.
It is not to much to ask that other municipalities, neighbourhoods, households absent leadership to do the same and look out for the vulnerable in your communities and offer to pool shopping trips to limit unnecessary exposure and to make sure everyone’s needs are met—especially worrying considering that the first cases were detected in the United States and South Korea on the same day, 20 January 2020, and while the latter has managed to contain the spread, the former has been grossly inept. A long-distance commuter, before being dismissed permanently to tele-work, I slowly realised my rather abrupt descent into full blown Lady Macbeth madness, real business stopped anyway and little to do except agonise over the news, wash my hands and disinfect. Wash my hands, disinfect. Wash my hands.
As a certified misanthrope, I was not enjoying my splendid isolation as much as I should have and grew highly but silently suspect of those I thought were being too careless about personal space and touching their faces. One should not beat oneself up over missteps but I did not really pack properly for this occasion and though taking the largest suitcase I had, I didn’t seem to have brought nearly what I ought to have—I think that was the moment I realised I had gone a bit addled by the stress. It is good to have a list and advance plan.  I did have the wherewithal at least to provide for my house plants and moved them to the balcony and at the office to a common area where someone can attend to them in my possibly, likely extended absense.
There’s the ghostly smudge above of where a poor pigeon crashed into the window spreadeagle—years ago but the mark is still there. The other images: the school lessons left on the stoop, the abandoned Corona display shelf and the removed outdoors seating were other signs of shifting changes. As good as a disinfectant as sunshine can be, the first inviting signs of spring after a gloomy middling winter brought people out in throngs and in close proximity, flounting the advice of health authorities and prompting the state government to intervene with an imposed restriction on movement and assembly. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay calm and look out for one another and please stay inside—like an indoor cat, you can do it.

chain reaction

Via Pasa Bon!, we present a veritable Rube Goldberg montage of cats and dominos from Cat Navi Desk, an act, collective responsible for quite a few feline interventions well worth your time and attention. Find out more at the links above.

bailout package

Whilst searching for some other documentation, I came across the notification that I would be receiving a stimulus check in response to the economic fallout of 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis that the world just barely recovered from and gleaned no lessons from—not that this present collapse is comparable in kind or ramifications that project out much further and irrevocably, and left thinking that more than a decade on that a paltry sum only marginally bigger—or even at twice the relief will not have the impact significant to restore even the precarity that most of us are accustomed to much less the blinding robustness that impels us to stammer forward without too much worry. It’s sort of like that sinking, searching feeling one gets when trying to remember what one gave and received last Christmas, even though, at least like in response to the recession, there was a measure of thought, charity and appreciation in those gifts. What do you think? Considering that the US government’s response—one part of a multi-pronged—barely makes the rent for individuals already digging themselves out of a desperate deficit much less the medical bill that prospect of treatment might cost for the uninsured, other, ongoing interventions are needed for not just quelling the revolt of working-class against the feudal lords—which I think much of the sport and spectacle of stock market and similar venues is dedicated to, placating those seeking to preserve the status quo but for moreover building a progressive and inclusive economy and safety-net that is immune to the allure of recidivism that lets privilege and birthright ultimately trump equity.

7x7

a healed fracture: anthropologist Margaret Mead fields a student’s question about the earliest hallmarks of civilisation

money tree: the 1964 New York World’s Fair American Express Pavilion

pivot point: watch the ministry for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment shift their rhetoric on COVID-19

byob: a virtual bar in Saint Petersburg lets people socialise while eliminating the possibility of contagion

dragula: an 80’s jazzercise video synchronised to the Rob Zombie song (in turn the namesake of Grandpa Munster’s race car)—via Memo of the Air

chaotic good: a social-distancing alignment chart

delightful creatures: with the city under lockdown and the waters waning cleaner, dolphins are returning to the canals of Venice after sixty years

равноде́нствие

This moment marks the point when our friends in the northern hemisphere experience the vernal or northward equinox when the apparent motion of the Sun crosses from the celestial southern hemisphere on its March towards the Tropic of Cancer. After this transition, for those for whom this day signals the start of Spring, the daylight hours gradually start getting longer.
At extreme climes (high latitudes) during the equinoctial day, the Sun is seen to move along the horizon, marauding at dawn and dusk and extending twilight to a couple of hours in duration. Idiomatically, the card means that the new season is just around the corner—literally in Russian, on the tip of one’s nose.

frühlingsbote

комбат

Born on this day in 1899, prominent Soviet photographer Max Vladimirovich Alpert (†1980) is best remembered for his iconic image Kombat (short for battalion commander).
Though the date and the subject are not known for certain, an investigative reconstruction of events undertaken in the 1970s are reasonably certain that the political commissar—the Politruk, the officer with the responsibility of political education of their assigned unit—of the battalion who took command after the actual Kombat was incapacitated, Aleksei Yeryomenko, is shown rallying his troops for a counter-attack against the German offense. Research dates the picture to 12 July 1942 on a battlefield in Luhansk (then called Voroshilovgrad) Oblast in far eastern Ukraine, skirmishes intending to halt the advance Fall Blau (Case Blue, the codename for this summer campaign and continuation of Operation Barbarossa) towards Stalingrad.

a clean, well-lighted place

While this meme of the iconic Nighthawks in the time of quarantine has been circulating, it is worthy to note how the artist Edward Hopper (*1882 – †1967) survived some pretty tumultuous and transformational times—including World War I, the 1918 Flu pandemic, the Great Depression, World War II and the onset of the Cold War—and through that lens regard his portfolio, many of those works—Nighthawks included address the subjects of loneliness, privation and isolation.

reintegration

Captured by Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press photographer Slava “Sal” Veder on this day in 1973, the moment of reunion on the tarmac at Travis Air Force Base in California between a just released US prisoner of war, held for five and half years in Hanoi, and his family—captioned Burst of Joy—came to symbolize the beginning of the end of the US aggression in Vietnam and signaled the time for healing and reconciliation to start.
Among the first soldiers to be redeployed in Operation Homecoming, the spontaneous, happy image belies a grim reality, like the war itself (see previously)—there being nothing redemptive to the latter tragedy even in terms of good optics, with the marriage on the verge of collapse due to the stress of the soldier’s confinement and infidelities and reflects its opposite side as well with all the lives of Vietnamese and Americans that were beyond restoration. The couple reunited under orders, it was later revealed.

(d/p) · 10ⁿ

Not to discount the suffering of anyone or prematurely make assumptions on how this pandemic will conclude, it is refreshing that we are more willing to discuss death in perspective and possibly lose tolerance for any of loss caused by avoidable behaviours.
We don’t have the luxury of being precious. For example—via Slashdot—one study suggests that the government imposed lockdown and the general aversion to travel and socialising and the attendant net reduction in air pollution may in the end save more lives than limiting the contagion itself through distancing. Estimates place the annual fatalities worldwide from travel related pollutants at seven million. Divergent as these threats (albeit years of overexposure to smog probably put more at risk of developing COVID-19 by compromised lung function) are, it is worth investigating why we react so differently to each vector and let the latter support the sustainment of the former.

amabie

Via both our friends Spoon & Tamago and Everlasting Blört we are introduced to a timely and portentous yōkai (see previously) that presents as a sort of merfolk with three trunk like legs emerging from the sea to forecast either abundant crops or epidemic.
Pictured above is a late Edo era wood block print depicting an encounter in 1846 off the coast of Kumamoto investigated by local authority, whom were told by the creature that identified itself by name that good harvests would continue unabated for the next six years and should disease spread, display an artistic likeness of it to those afflicted to ward off sickness.  I can’t sketch so well and there are many better examples at the links up top from popular illustrators, but I figured I could at least share my contribution, thinking maybe we could all draw and share our own amabie (アマビエ) as an art therapy project whilst we self-isolate.

pyhä urho

Overlooking the possibly fictional but actually assigned patron Bishop Henrik (martyred and fêted on 19 January with a well-articulated legendarium of his own), a department store clerk of Finnish-extraction in the confusingly named town of Virginia, Minnesota lamenting that his homeland did not have a figure like Saint Patrick to celebrate their heritage and as a source of shared cultural cohesion and as an excuse to extend the general revelry (this year especially, please drink responsibly by staying at home or forever forfeit the right to be around other people hereafter) invented Saint Urho (hero) in 1956. Only known to diaspora (with the exception of the folklore and ethnography department at the University of Turku), Urho is variously credited with driving out the frogs (see also) or grasshoppers (with the command Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen! – Grasshopper, grasshopper, go back to Hell!—thus saving the grape harvest but inspiring acts that seem suspiciously like Springfield’s Whacking Day, incidentally on 10 May) and one is to regale themselves in royal purple and enjoy wine and/or purple beer so as to not mix one’s beverages.