the medium is the message

Though interest in his work and commentary waned in later years as alarmist or rallying against the inevitable, appreciation for the perspective and insight of philosopher and lecturer Herbert Marshall McLuhan (*1911, dying on this day in 1980 after a long convalescent period from a debilitating stroke) regained their purchase once his predictions started coming true some three decades after he introduced them. Coining his famous aphorism above in his doctoral dissertation expanded to his 1951 The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man, McLuhan also championed the idea of a “global village” and defined cool and hot media—the former more demanding with less stimuli for engagement with the latter being more prescriptive and therefore tribal in nature.

sōsaku kanji kontesuto

Language Log shares some of the top entrants for this eleventh annual Kanji Creation Contest submitted from the general public and school age participants during this past year. Many of these modified character forms—absolutely brilliant in their subtle transformation to imbue them with more meaning—are of course informed by the year’s course of events, like the overall winner, a reworking of the standard glyph 座 (za—to sit). 

With social distancing in mind, the 人 elements are spaced further apart. Similarly, for 会 (kai—to meet), the bottom supporter has been replaced with a Z for Zoom. See more at the link up top, including some non-pandemic-related words that could be classified as sniglets—words (see also here and here) and symbols to convey concepts that ought to already exist yet don’t, leaving a lexical gap for the filling.

see what one or toucan do

For a not so princely sum amounting to just over four-hundred thousand pounds once the lease lapses in the year 10759 CE (by which time the red giant Antares is expected to have gone supernova and is visible in the daytime sky of the Earth), Arthur Guinness (*1725—†1803), entrepreneur, brewer and philanthropist took over facilities established just outside of Saint James Gate in Dublin by Sir Mark Rainsford in exchange for an annual rent of 45£ on a contract to span the next nine-thousand years. Having wisely invested an inheritance from an uncle who was the archbishop of Cashel, Guinness first leased a brewery in nearby Leixlip on the Liffey, County Kildare (ᛚᛅᚼᛋ ᚼᛚᛅᚢᛒ—meaning salmon leap), and perfected his craft at ale and then porter, stout.

to moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

In a strange twist of fate, Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin (previously) was killed on this day (New Style, 1916) coinciding with the passing with the Aruban performer Bobby Farrell (2010), whom with the disco ensemble Boney M. produced possibly the finest musical homage in the 1978 hit single (see link above) from their album Nightflight to Venus, often dressed as the charismatic for concerts. Farrell died of heart failure whist on tour in Saint Petersburg. Here is a video from the variety show TopPop.

MMX

For those of you who’d like to pre-emptively escape to another time and place, just so you know you can reuse your wall calendars from 2010 for 2021 and all the days and dates will align, justifying holding onto this VeggieTales biblical, quotable version. Asparagus Junior and Scooter the Carrot—as with most other results that a quick search yielded—were well outside of my shibboleth.

Even if you’re not a hopeless pack-rat, it’s still amusing to google for cultural touchstones more than a decade on.  It was quite the cavalcade revisiting Dexter,  Disney’s Cars,  365 Kittens in a Year, High School Musical, Glee, Maxine and Robert Pattinson.  Let us know if you can find an actual wall calendar from that year you received as a gift.  Going forward, I wonder what artefacts we’ll be reflecting on, in pin-up form, from 2021.

8x8

persons of the year: more Year End lists from Miss Cellania—see previously  

75x75: seventy-five superlative photographs captured by as many photographers  

mys: the Swedish word without an exact translation compliments hygge when it comes to coping with the prospect of a long, dark winter  

benedict donald: more fine art work (see also)—suitable for framing  

the twenty most powerless: the disenfranchised and estranged of the art world 

she said see you later, boy: McSweeney‘s most read monologues, vignettes and confessionals of 2020  

dance, dance revolution: a dance number from a trio of Boston Dynamics robots—see previously  

refreshing your feed: fifty superlative podcasts according to The Atlantic—via Super Punch

space waste

In order to combat the accumulation of more space junk and the inevitable future consequences of it returning to Earth, the company Sumitomo Forestry is collaborating with Kyoto University to create satellites with a wood housing, experimenting with what types of lumber fair best during launch and in orbit. Appreciating the long-term impact is particularly important as swarms of microsatellites are deployed with a very specific and limited life-span. There is presently some nine-thousand tonnes of human-made debris poised to rain down on us or leave us grounded someday.

secure socket

Via Slashdot, we discover that the freshly-inked Brexit Deal references decades old and defunct software and platforms described as modern services, including Netscape Browser and Communicator, the last version released in 1997. The cut-and-paste job does not just imply laziness or a rushed job but moreover belies a lack of understanding verging on contempt and disdain for technology and the issues that underlie secure communication while upholding these examples as tools to ensure compliance and cooperation going forward. What do you think? More details at the links above.

mmxx

As a long-standing tradition here at PfRC, here is our annual recap of this most extraordinairy year. We‘ve come all this way together and here‘s to us ploughing on. Thanks for visiting and be good to yourselves and one another.

january: Bushfires rage across Australia, taking the lives of an estimated billion animals.  We had to bid farewell to historian and Monty Python member Terry Jones and veteran reporter and newscaster Jim Lehrer.  Tragically basketball star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna with seven others died during a helicopter accident.  Trump signs a trade deal with Canada and México to replace NAFTA.  The United Kingdom and Gibraltar formally announce their intention to leave the European Union, initiating an eleven-month transition period.

february: Veteran actor Kirk Douglas passed away, aged one hundred and three as well as fellow actors Orson Bean and Robert Conrad.  A detailed study of the most distant planetary body explored by a space probe, now called Arrokoth, is released.  World stock markets respond early to unease surrounding the spread of the novel SARS virus.  Luxembourg makes all public transportation free to the public. 

march: Actor and singer-song writer Kenny Rogers passed away and we said farewell to Max von Sydow. Playwright Terrence McNally (*1938), actor Mark Blum (*1950), architect Michael Sorkin (*1948), influential Indian chef Floyd Cardoz (*1960), Romanian dissident author Paul Goma (*1935) and saxophonist Manu Dibango (*1933) passed away due to complications of COVID-19.  Composer Krzysztof Penderecki (*1933) whose music scored The Exorcist and The Shining also succumbed after a long bout of illness as did musician Bill Withers (*1938, Lean on Me, .Lovely Day, Just the Two of Us) from heart complications. Breonna Taylor (*1993) was murdered in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky by police conducting a groundless, no-knock search of the premises. 

april: We had to say goodbye to award-winning musician Adam Schlesinger (*1967) of Fountains of Wayne fame, Alexander George Thynn, Marquess of Bath (*1932), veteran rhythm guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli (*1926), jazz pianist and educator Ellis Louis Marsalis, Jr (*1934), folk musician and storyteller John Prine (*1946) and polymath John Horton Conway (*1937), inventor of among other things of The Game of Life, and comedian Tim Brooke-Taylor (*1940) succumbing to COVID-19.  We say farewell to veteran actress Honor Blackman (*1925), known for her roles in The Avengers and in Goldfinger as Bond Girl Pussy Galore.  We also say farewell to teacher Harriet Mae Glickman (*1925), whom persuaded Charles M. Schultz to include a black character in his comic strip Peanuts, cartoonist and long-time contributor to Mad magazine Mort Drucker (*1929), veteran actor Brian Dennehy and lesbian and civil rights advocate Phyllis Lyon (*1924).

may: founding member of Kraftwerk and electronic music pioneer Florian Schneider (*1947) passed away after a prolonged struggle with cancer.  Entertainer and illusionist Roy Horn (Uwe Ludwig, *1944) of Siegfried & Roy, and Ken Nightingall (*1928), audio engineer and famously known as the Pink Shorts Boom Operator from Star Wars passed away after succumbing to complications of COVID-19.  Pioneering singer and performer Little Richard (*1932) died after a long struggle with cancer as did techno DJ and producer Pascal FEOS (*1968) and rhythm and blues singer Betty Wright (*1953), known for her ability to sing in the whistle register, above falsetto. Veteran actor and comedian Jerry Stiller (*1927) passed away, aged 92.  Monumental artist Christo (*1935 on the same day as his partner in life and professionally Jeanne-Claude, †2009, previously here and here) passed away of natural causes.  Costa Rica legalises gay marriage, the first Latin American country to do so.

june: Rallies and marches rage across the US in response to the brutal murder of Floyd George while being detained by police. Actor Ian Holm (*1931), known for his roles as Napoleon in Time Bandits, Ash in Alien and Bilbo Baggins in the Tolkien adaptations, died from complications of Parkinson’s disease.  Influential graphic designer Milton Glaser (*1929, previously) passed away on his ninety-first birthday.  Iconic comedian and fixture of Japanese television for decades, Ken Shimura (*1950) died of COVID-19.

july: Veteran civil rights activist and politician John Lewis (*1940) passed away after an extended bout with  cancer.  Founder of Fleetwood Mac Peter Green (*1946) has died. Actress Olivia de Haviland (*1916) died of natural causes in her home in Paris, aged 104. The US gross domestic product plummets by a third, prompting Trump to suggest that the November elections be delayed until such time as people can vote safely in person.  Long time Trump and Tea Party supporter and once-time presidential candidate Herman Cain (*1945) died of complications of COVID-19 after contracting the virus during Trump’s rally in Tulsa.

august:  Veteran actor and musician Wilford Brimley (*1934) passed away, dying in hospital suffering from multiple health issues.  John Hume (*1937),  architect of the peace accords in Northern Ireland and instrumental in passing the Good Friday Agreement, has departed.  A giantic explosion occurred in the port of Beirut when chemicals stored in a warehouse there detonated.  Actor and singer behind such standards as “If I Had a Hammer” and “Lemon Tree” Trinidad “Trini” López (*1937) died due to complications from COVID-19.  Media mogul Sumner Redstone who created the production company Viacom, recognising that content was king, passed away, aged 97.  Linguist and long-time contributor to Public Radio Geoffrey Nunberg (*1945) died after coping with a long illness.  The Joe Biden campaign selects Kamala Harris as its running-mate, and both parties hold their conventions virtually.  Kremlin-critic and chief opposition candidate to Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, is presumably poisoned on a flight back to Siberia and is subsequently medically evacuated to Germany.  Black Panther actor and humanitarian Chadwick Boseman (*1976) dies after a four-year battle with colon cancer. Long-time Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe announces his retirement from elected office over health reasons.

september: Economist and anarchist David Graeber (*1961) passed away at a hospital in Venice, dying from undisclosed causes.  After a short struggle with cancer and last months spent with family and contented reflection, accomplished actor Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg (*1938) has died.   Interviewed for a new expose by Bob Woodward, Trump admitted on tape months ago that he downplayed the danger of COVID-19, though this revelation seemed to barely rise above the general din of the news cycle and receded quickly in voters’ conscience.  The Polish-government allows twelve municipalities to declare themselves LGBT-ideology free-zones.  Protests continue in Belarus over the disputed reelection of long-serving, Russian-aligned leader Alexander Lukashenko.  Jurist and US Supreme Court associate justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (*1933) died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, leaving a court vacancy just before the presidential election.  A grand jury in Kentucky declined to file homicide charges against the police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor.  Australian singer and actor Helen Reddy (*1941) passed away after succumbing to complications from dementia.  During the first US presidential debate, devolving into a messy, nasty political food-fight, Trump refused to denounce white supremacist groups. 

october: After White House aid Hick Hopes tested positive for coronavirus, Donald and Melania Trump were also screened and found to both be carriers.   The nomination ceremony for the US Supreme Court justice to replace the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the White House rose garden turned into a superspreader event.  Iconic fashion designer Kenzō Takada (高田 賢三, *1939) died from complications of COVID-19.  Singer Eddie Van Halen (*1955) passed away after a long battle with cancer.  The FBI in conjunction with other domestic law enforcement authorities foil a plot by a white supremacists to kidnap the governor of Michigan.  Jacinda Arden remains Prime Minister of New Zealand after her party wins the election in a land-slide victory.  Space probe OSIRIS-REx (previously) arrives at asteroid Bennu and collects mineral samples to bring back to Earth.  Magician and scientific sceptic James Randi (*1928) passes away, aged 92. Despite the US presidential election only being a little more than a week away, the Republican-controlled Senate rush through the confirmation of a young, conservative justice with questionable qualification and adjourn until after the ballots close, leaving those negatively impacted by the continuing pandemic no fiscal relief package.  Actor Sean Connery passed away, aged ninety.  

november: Terror incidents occur in Paris and Vienna.  With most of Europe entering a second quarantine as a firebreak to slow the spread of COVID-19, Germany goes into lockdown-light for the month.  Election Day comes for the United States with nearly one hundred million voters casting their ballots early.  The election is called in favour of Biden and Harris.  Team Trump refuses to concede.  Long time television game show host Alex Trebek (*1940) dies after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.  Veteran Middle East negotiator Saeb Erekat dies, aged sixty-five, from complications of COVID-19.  The purge of the Trump administration continues with the dismissal of the Defence Secretary for not authorising the mobilisation of the army against protesters and the chief of cyber-security for countering Trump’s false narrative and rightly proclaiming the election the best safeguarded vote in modern US history, and halving troop levels in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan by executive decree.  A historic Hurricane Iota ravages Central America, having barely recovered from the last, Hurricane Epsilon.  Not conceding defeat Trump allows the Biden transition team to begin its work.  Argentine footballer, one of the greatest of all time Diego Maradona (*1960) dies of a heart attack.  

december: Courts, including the US Supreme Court, rebuff Trump’s efforts to overturn election results in a nacent coup attempt.  Massive protests in reaction to legislation that liberalises farming practises leave India paralysed.  The first vaccinations against the SARS-CoV-2 virus are administered.  With last-ditch Brexit negotiations poised for failure and the UK to crash out of the EU with no deal, Britain moves to deploy naval warships to protect fishing stocks in its national waters.  Pioneering Country and Western singer Charlie Pride (*1934) passes away due to complications from COVID-19.  Intelligence officer and master of the spy novel, John le Carré (*1931) has died.  French president Emmanuel Macron contracts COVID-19 and goes into quarantine.  The archbishop of Canterbury tells parishioners, especially the vulnerable, that it is not necessary to attend church services on Christmas day, echoed by the Pope and other religious leaders.  Compounding Brexit uncertainty, the final week of the year sees the UK cut off from much of the rest of the world over concerns about a new coronavirus strain that is significantly more transmissable.  A final deal was arranged for the UK leaving the EU at the last minute which spares Britain the worse fate of crashing-out with no deal but is significantly not as good of a trade pact had the UK remained in.  A powerful earthquake shakes Croatia.  French fashion designer Pierre Cardin passes away, aged ninety-eight.

house music

Carroll Righter (*1900 – †1988), celebrity astrologer and horoscope columnist from the early 1940s onward and advisor to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, released a series of albums in 1969 with each record dedicated to a different zodiacal sign (see also), promising that the instrumental arrangements were especially attuned to one’s personality and constitution and will help alleviate everyday problems and help one to overcome challenges. More to explore at Weird Universe at the link up top.

like the back of your hand

We always enjoy a cartographical challenge round but of course don’t always excel with a random destination or especially remote outliers that do not really test one’s general or specialised geographic knowledge.  

And so we appreciated this novel quiz from Maps Mania that lets you choose familiar environs and prove how well you know your neighbourhoods. There are no thoroughfare, street or road names (see also) until you check your guesses, and it’s not too forgiving if you are more than a kilometre off, taking me several tries to get my orientation correct. Cities and towns world-wide are available for exploration.

small town snow globe refillery

Usually one to eschew all things to do with the holiday once it is over (with some allowances for Three Kings Day) until next time, this strange Winterval when the days blur in normal times, we did rather enjoy indulging this thread and storyboard for the typical Hallmark channel—courtesy of Super Punch—as reinterpreted by an artificial intelligence made to sample all the family-friendly permutations, banging out a formula that really resonates and captures an aspect of Christmas magic. It’s just the frame, the elevator pitch but I am sure that we could expound on the premise and make The Christmas on Christmas happen. “Yet still my twins are dad-free. They need double-dad.”

thermopolium

Previously we’ve covered this exciting find in the ruins of Pompeii suggesting a well-preserved snack bar, and appreciated the update regarding the excavation and research into this Roman fast food franchisee. Such stalls (from the Greek θερμοπώλιον for “a place where something hot is sold” but colloquially known also as popina, caupona or hospitium) were common all over the Empire but this discovery represents the first complete short-order diner uncovered and is yielding insights into the dining habits and diets of the patrons from two millennia ago. Preliminary analysis shows that pig, duck, fish and snail were among the menu items.

childermass

Venerated on this day in the Calendar of Saints by the Catholic Church in celebration of the first, unwitting and anonymous, martyrs to the faith, making the event that according to tradition took place on the fourth day of Christmastide when King Herod ordered the mass execution of all male infants in and around Bethlehem.  Numbers of victims range from a couple of dozen to tens of thousands, depending on the sources.

Terrible as humans are capable of being towards one another, most scholars of all stripes agree that the murderous rampage, set off accidentally by the visiting Magi when they are warned off reporting back to Herod by a dream, is an invention by author of the gospel of Matthew to solidify correspondence between the ascension of Jesus and that of Moses—or Œdipus—whom also had to go into hiding and flee over a prophesy that would disrupt and challenge the status quo. The narrative only appears in the one book of the Bible and is recalled in the Coventry Carol. Authors Albert Camus and José Saramago separately suggest, controversially, that survivor’s guilt is why Jesus allowed himself to be ultimately crucified, him knowing along with his step-father Joseph what Herod had planned but only choosing to save themselves. The Massacre of the Innocents is commemorated in some places with role-reversals such as children officiating church services, like with Saturnalia’s master waiting on the enslaved, pranks akin to April Fools—begging off innocence—and the blessing of Christmas toys.

‽

Via ibidem, we are directed towards a modest proposal from Fast Company contributing correspondent Dylan Mulvaney suggesting that a mostly forgotten punctuation mark, the interrobang (see previously here and here), that had its moment in the mid-60s to early 70s might be enlisted as we go boldly, flummoxed into 2021 and might be due for a revival. What do you think? A well-placed Madison Avenue adman called Martin Speckter who represented some of the biggest corporations at the time also happened to be the editor of a trade paper called TYPEtalks and proposed in a March 1962 magazine article entitled “Making a New Point—Or How About That…” his pitch for a new punctuation mark, arguably the first in centuries, his versatile, emotive interrobang. What do you think? There’s quite a bit to be said for consistency for adoption and though added to typewriters back then and included in Unicode today so it’s at one’s disposal, but there’s also a bit of a touch of trying too hard to it.

general knowledge paper

Via both Nag on the Lake and TYWKIWDBI (with lots more on offer as well), we are introduced to a new tradition coming just ahead of the holiday break that has been issued to students at King William’s College near Castletown on the Isle of Man (and to make one feel worse—that’s college in the sense of a finishing school for pupils to eighteen years of age) since 1904 in the form of a quiz—now voluntary and shared with the broader public—of notorious difficulty that the students are expected to research over the break and present once classes resume in the new year.

The annual paper is introduced with the Latin motto: Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est—that is, “the better part of erudition is knowing where one can find anything.” The answers are not quite at one’s fingertips, and of course it’s impossibly difficult but nonetheless something I feel we ought to have been assaying all along. While a few of the clues and prompts did seem adjacent to something we knew, I really couldn’t get any of these right off the bat. How about you? The quiz can be found at the links above as well as on the college’s website—where the answers will be published next month.

♃

Though we told that the astrological sign for the planet Jupiter is supposed to symbolise his thunderbolt or eagle, I’ve always thought it was a stylised number four for the fourth heavenly body in the firmament and just today learned that—unconnectedly—that in the subtractive notation for Roman numerals IV (four) is also an abbreviation for IVPITTER. To avoid blasphemy in inscriptions, it is postulated that the convention of additive notation (IIII) is used instead and preserved on most modern clock and watch faces and dedication, though by no means is this universal. The value 499, for instance, occurs as either ID, XDIX, VDIV, LDVLIV or CDXCIX and sometimes the Latin numerological terms—99 as undecentum—that is, one from a hundred or IC, set the standard.

your daily demon: gemory

Though reportedly male as all the fallen angels, this fifty-sixth Goetic demon presents as a beautiful woman wearing a crown, usually astride a camel, and has the office to discharge prophetic pronouncements concerning events past and future. Ruling the second quartile of Capricorn, from 27 December until Saint Silvester’s Day (31 December), some sources ascribe to Gemory the power to procure the love of women but others call Gemory an ally and companion. Paired with the Principality Poiel, this duchess of the night rules twenty-six legions.

boxing day

Probably an epithet meaning “the crowned one” rather than an actual given name (compare to Saint Corona), this second Christmas marks Saint Stephen’s Day, venerated as the protomartyr (*1-†36) of the Christian faith, the early bishop of Jerusalem stoned to death (lapidation) for his blasphemy against the Sanhedrin, which was witnessed by Saul called Paul whom subsequently spread his sacrifice and steadfastness. As possibly a painful reminder, Stephen’s patronage includes bricklayers and is invoked against headaches. Further as responsible for the distribution of alms for the poor in his office, Stephen’s feast day became associated with opening the charity boxes and donating gratuities to service people and the needy, but aligned with—sometimes supplanted by Black Friday (it took off when the US and Canadian dollars reached parity), in many Commonwealth nations, it has become a day with emphasis on shopping and sales.

psychogeography

Being a committed and rather incurable flâneur myself, learning about the playful praxis that combines elements of anarchy and the surreal in urban exploration and understanding how built environments and pathways influence residents and guests struck me as engrossing and endearing for its vagaries of association and membership.

One central tenet—though more nuanced than I am describing it—is that of dérive, drift, and how we’re attracted to those zones that conform to our neighbourhood and comforts and to let oneself go and take a penny-hike like I used to do (and still sometimes at an unknown crossroads) and flip a coin at a corner to decide if you’ll proceed right of left. Of course, proper reconnaissance admits more directions and apparently there’s an app for that too. Societies once dedicated to this movement that I could find seem to have gone inactive in the past few years but organised activities including loitering with intent, scavenger hunts, immersive challenges and workshops that called out gentrification, overtourism and eroding public transportation schemes as well as unearthed the legacy and vestigial signs of the architecture of exclusion. It seems like a good time to revive interest and start our own psychogeographical chapters.

8x8

greatest hits: resonant echoes and forgotten curiosities from another internet caretaker of this past year 

every who down in whoville was sick of the rules—all the masks, sanitisers and closures of schools: how the Grinch stalled whovid  

connoisseur: the importance of sustaining good taste to nourish good work  

dj earworm: five decades of pop music 

the great conjunction: a keen-eyed photographer captures the International Space Station moving between Saturn and Jupiter (previously)

you’ll have to speak up—i’m wearing a towel: decoding the catalogue of Simpsons’ gags and one-liners that might have sailed over some viewers  

crimes of the art: casing the most stolen painting ensemble, the Ghent Altarpiece (see previously), through history  

2020: the musical: Miss Cellania’s annual assortment of lists recapping the year

especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon

For the anniversary of the film’s 1973 debut in American cinemas, we return to this retrospective appreciation of William Peter Blatty’s (*1928 – †2017) The Exorcist and its cultural moment from Open Culture and Mental Floss. For a movie about the Church’s dogmatic approach to demonic possession it really had lasting cache for terrified audiences, the film retaining the title as the biggest grossing R-rated horror production until being dethroned by the remake of It in 2017. With The Omen, Burnt Offerings, Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror to follow, the success of The Exorcist established the speculative, supernatural genre impressing and priming audiences for more, much as 2001: A Space Odyssey (previously) had done for science fiction and consequent revival of the Space Opera. See more at the link above.

desireless

Perhaps best known for her debut hit song that despite being sung in entirely French circumvented the language barrier and charted across Europe Voyage, voyage, the performer Claudie Fritsch-Mentrop was born this day in Paris in 1952. Plus loin que la nuit et le jour (voyage, voyage).

✨seasons greetings✨

 We here at PfRC wish you and yours the biggest, brightest little Christmas of all, and we look forward to seeing you all again real soon. Happy holidays!

the stone tape theory

Adapted for television and first broadcast as a Christmas ghost story back in 1972, the eponymous play directed by Peter Sasdy and written by Thomas Nigel Kneale innovatively tempered horror with elements of scientific plausibility by a research and development team of an electronics firm that have occupied a recently renovated a reportedly haunted Victorian mansion as their new facility and begin collaborating on a new project in computer programming and finding a new format for recording digital media.
Once mysterious events begin happening including the death of one colleague, they conduct some research and interview locals to discover that an unsuccessful exorcism had taken place in the house in 1890. The chief researcher theorises that the apparition that frightened his colleague to death was not a ghost in the traditional sense but that the room, the exposed stone walls somehow psychically recorded that botched casting out spirits and tries to tease out the secret of triggering the playback mechanism and harness it for data storage, only to realise that successive tragedies record over one another. Since the broadcast, the hypothesis of residual hauntings and the “stone tape theory” have been adopted by parapsychological investigators.

assassins’ creed or top-level domain

Occurring in Paris on this day—the third of Nivôse IX (otherwise Christmas Eve, 1800)—the royalist plot of thee rue Saint-Nicaise to kill le Consulat of the Republic narrowly failed with Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife Josephine just barely escaping with their lives. In the late afternoon, the plotters had positioned their machine infernale and loaded it with gunpowder and ammunition as Napoleon proceeded to the opera to attend an oratorio by Joseph Haydn, whom reportedly slumbered during the ride and slept through the attempt on his life, whilst one unwitting co-conspirator and five by-standers were killed, afterwards insisting on attending the performance. This account later led Sigmund Freud to the conclusion as part of his psychological profile that the man was a sound-sleeper and dreamt of past battles, underminings that he had survived, thus cementing the idea that dreams—in the main—echo, correlate with wake-up calls in popular culture.

nittel nacht

Observed in some Jewish communities dating back as far as the late seventeen-hundreds with scholastic reinforcement in the following century, the Yiddish term (ניטל נאַכט) for Christmas Eve likely comes from natalis but may also refer to the hanged one, nitleh, an epithet for Jesus during the Middle Ages. In medieval Europe, non-observers were often forbidden from being seen in public—with Yuletide often signalling the beginning of attacks on Jewish neighbours by Christians—so this was a good excuse to staying in and specifically not studying the Torah and abstaining from enjoyment so as not to give any glory to the day, though for some, reading the Sefer Toledot Yeshu (an alternate hagiography that portrays Jesus as a womanising charlatan though possibly accounts themselves are exaggerated as another excuse to label people as blasphemers—that is, megadef) as an acceptable activity to engage in. Chess and card games became a tradition, in lieu of other pastimes, and children were apprehensive about being snatched away on this night by demon Jesus.

8x8

the santaland diaries: a holiday classic from David Sedaris 

by jove: more on the complex system of Jupiter and its moons—including Valetudo, which crosses between the prograde and retrograde orbitals—see previously  

mimicry and mutualism: the monkey slug caterpillar (Phobetron pithecium, the larva of the hag moth) that evolved to resemble a tarantula  

where do i begin: Erich Segal’s Love Story at fifty

posse commmutatus: a fresh tranche of pardons (previously) from the outgoing and impeached Trump is an assault and insult on justice 

tree fm: for those who can’t readily go forest bathing or hug a perennial friend, tune into the soundscape of woods around the world—via Things Magazine  

pork-barrel politics: Trump frames riders in COVID aid bill as disgraceful after seven months of contentious negotiation, demands revision 

suggested serving: wintry cocktail and hot toddy recipes from eastern Europe

i’m mister green christmas, i’m mister sun, i’m mister heat blister, i’m mister one hundred and one

Never able to resist the delightfully weird theology of Rankin/Bass productions, we’ve been rather enjoying the duelling melodies of the Brothers Miser from the 1974 special The Year Without Santa Claus. Having come down with a cold before the Christmas rush, Santa’s physician advises a change in routine, suggesting that his role is diminished in the modern era and that no one believes in him anymore, and despite objections by Mrs Claus (voiced by Mickey Rooney and Shirley Booth) decides to take a sabbatical rather than deliver gifts.

Undeterred, Mrs Claus dispatches two elves, Jingle and Jangle, with Vixen the reindeer to gather proof that people do care about Christmas and believe in Santa. Flying from the North Pole, their mission gets blown off track by a weather front caused by the bickering of the Snow Miser (Dick Shawn) and the Heat Miser (George S. Irving) who control the world’s weather. Crash-landing in a place called Southtown, Vixen is caught and put in the dog-pound, city authorities find their alibi laughable but agree to free Vixen if they can prove that they are elves by making it snow for Christmas. The Clauses travel to Southtown separately to try to rectify the situation and free their friends—the Misers conceding after Mother Nature compels her sons to compromise. Upon learning what’s afoot in Southtown and that Santa Claus has grown despondent, the children of the world begin to send Santa presents, this gesture convincing him to undertake his annual route after all—appearing in public in Southtown as snow falls. The show ends with Mrs Claus’ commentary somehow, “yearly, newly, faithfully and truly,” Santa always comes and we could never imagine a Christmas without him.

6x6

schröder staircase: prize-winning optical illusions 

well, the spam, eggs, sausage and spam—that’s not got much spam in it: McDonald’s in China releases a special, limited edition burger  

every day, the same, again: miscellany from the New Shelton wet/dry 

black mirror: a Claude glass was a handheld Instagram filter of artists and sightseers in the late 1700s

back contamination: NASA’s efforts to contain a lunar pandemic (see previously) that never came to pass and what lessons it can teach us in this current situation

frame-included position shift: another impressive optical illusion

syntactic ambiguity

Popularly known as crash blossoms (though named after an incongruously tragic air disaster from an equally amphibolic test headline), such constructions in a telegraphic economy of copy that often omits copulas (to be, feels, gets, seems and words that serve similar functions in languages that are less reliant on agglutination) can result in (usually) unintended vagaries that can lead to humorous or dark interpretations. Some classic—albeit possibly apocryphal or used as homage—examples include “Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge” or “Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim” with plenty of more examples at the link above. The paraprosdokian, anticlimactic comedy of Groucho Marx also elicits a similar response. “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

your daily demon: orobas

Presenting as a horse and infernal patron of all things equine (see also), this spirit with the rank of prince rules the first segment of Capricorn, from today until 26 December and according to the Ars Goetia and other sources can be reliably invoked to suppress gossip and libellous speech and foretell the future. With an etymology possibly from a Latin word, orobias, for a sort of cedarwood incense, the demon makes an appearance in pop-culture properties including several video games and is paired with battle angel called Mehaiah under the archangel Haniel.

acrostic

Inspired by a game that his grandfather taught him they called magic squares, contributing correspondent to the New York World Arthur Wynne (Liverpudlian by birth, *1871 – †1945) published his first “word-cross” puzzle in the special Christmas Sunday supplemental of the paper on this day in 1913. With the letters F-U-N (the name of the jokes and tricks section of the paper) prefilled, the puzzle was a symmetrically arranged diamond and due to a subsequent typesetting switch a few weeks later, Wynne’s creation became known as the crossword ever since.

vèvè

Either derived from a common cosmogram or schema representing the constellations or from the Nsibidi syllabary used by some peoples of West and Central Africa taken to the Americas by enslaved diaspora (or a bit of both), the religious symbols used in voodoo ceremonies and rituals is comparable to our extensive vernacular of signs and sigils employed in demonology and serve a similar purpose—which makes the later magicking seem like fanboy appropriation. Described as a beacon, vèvès represent astral forces and compel the loa, lwa—that is the intermediary or medium—to do the bidding of the summoner, provided adequate sacrifice is offered. As with creating a mandala, the symbol is drawn on the flood with a mixture of sand and ash.

clan of the cave bear

Recent research into a cave complex at Atapuerca in northern Spain that sheltered ancient humans and their ancestors suggests that four hundred thousand years ago, when winters were quite harsh in the region and there was not access to fish stocks like the modern Sámi, Inuit and other peoples who live in unforgiving environments have to tide them over hibernated to get through the season. In depth study of human and Neanderthal fossil remains show that like our ursine cousins, there are signs of annual disruption to bone growth, indicative of a metabolic state of dormancy, in survival mode. This sounds like a good strategy to me.

honourable mentions

Via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to see there as well), we are reminded of some of the other outstanding events that transpired in this most superlative year that we have quite summarily forgotten about if we even had the bandwidth remaining to register them in the first place that are well worth reviewing. We had certainly written-off the phoenix-like reincarnation of Mister Peanut and couldn’t mince technicalities with the Pentagon over Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon versus UFOs. What others are news bulletins for you? We were personally surprised to see that black-light platypodes and the genetic experiments on monkey brains straight out of Planet of the Apes failed to make the cut but there’s still a few days left in 2020.