meine propositiones

According to most sources, Augustinian monk Martin Luther (see previously here, here and here—not a fave, just problematic), upset with leadership in the Catholic Church—chiefly over the indulgences racket—posted his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church of All Saints on this day in 1517, setting off the Reformation Movement in Germany.

7x7: happy halloween edition

robert the doll: Key West’s most cursed object—see also—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to see here)  

zombie jamboree: Harry Belafonte’s actual ghoulish calypso number—notwithstanding the associations with the Banana Boat Song 

la calavera catrina: a sugar skull puppet presents a primer on Día de los Muertos  

westsonality: enjoy Paul Lynde’s 1976 Halloween Special with a cavalcade of guest stars  

respect the sabbath: periodic movements in the US to hold no Halloween on Sundays  

main title theme: the score for John Carpenter’s classic horror film Halloween 

lovecraft country: welcome to my metaverse—see previously

spot me up

Made in collaboration with Boston Dynamics, we learn courtesy of Laughing Squid, 1981 Mick Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones perform a Tik-Tok style duet with a trio of robot modules for a performance (previously) of their classic—the video produced as part of the fortieth anniversary celebration of the release of their Tattoo You album. What do you think? It’s fun and the tribute choreography is scarily brilliant but perhaps another example of normalisation and propaganda for the police state.

dia do saci

 Designated by an NGO calling themselves amigos of this trickster character of Brazilian folklore to coincide with Halloween as a way to counter American cultural hegemony, the holiday, even where backed with state-support, only enjoys limited recognition and celebration—despite familiarity and popularity of its mascot.

The monopod figure with an enchanted cap and always smoking a pipe, mostly active at night, can be dangerous and malicious—though most pranks are merely annoying—but will grant the wishes of those who trap him or free him, liable to caught in a bottle while disappearing and reappearing in the midst of a whirlwind. Reportedly Saci’s magic cap, according to those who’ve tried to steal it, has an indelibly foul smell and those who’ve handled it can never wash the stench away.  Saci can be propitiated with offerings of a libation of cachaça and a measure of tobacco for his pipe.

schweizer parlamentswahlen 1971

After passing in a national referendum earlier in the year (see also, see previously), women finally secured the right to vote and stand for office in federal elections in Switzerland, exercising their rights for the first time on this day a half a century ago. Lise Girardin (*1921 - †2010) of Geneva was nominated by her party (the Free, Freisinnig Democrats) to be the first female member of the Council of States, der Ständerat—the Upper House of the Swiss federal assembly.

nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

A prolific and popular salon painter in his own time—though figural portraits of classical subjects fell out of fashion until a revival in the 1980s, William-Adolphe Bourguereau of La Rochelle born this day in 1825 (†1905) counts as his most famous work in his 1879 La Naissance de Vénus.  This painting does not actually depict the birth of the goddess by her transported to Cyprus as a fully mature figure in a sea shell—first gained attention and notoriety after winning the 1850 grand prize in the Prix de Rome, submitting two entries for that year’s competition, triumphant with a rather pedestrian depiction of the rescue of Zenobia, half-drowned, by a group of shepherds. The more evocative alternate submission was the pictured Dante and his guide Virgil (where have you brought me?) in an encounter from Canto XXX of the Divine Comedy in the Circle of the Imposters (Falsifiers—perjurers, counterfeiters, etc.) with an alchemist called Capocchio forever condemned to be gnashed by a Florentine knight named Gianni Schicchi de’ Cavalcanti who forged the will of a wealthy merchant to leave a horse for him, whose punishment seems a little extreme. Aside from being immortalised in the epic and this painting, Giacomo Puccini produced an eponymous light-hearted opera in 1918.

8x8

the motion picture that pits steel weapons against steel nerves: Joan Crawford in Herman Cohen’s 1967 Berserk! plus a medley of other horror films 

phenaskistiscopic vinyl: animated record albums—see previously  

cop26: designer installs a sinking Monopoly style house on Putney Weir ahead of this crucial climate conference 

ghostly footsteps (with chains): in 1977, BBC’s foley artists (previously) released a best-selling record of spooky sound-effects  

cloaca maxima: Rome’s revered sewer-system—see also  

auchan daily mascarpone cheese: a decade of Russian music videos  

the high-handed enemy: director Denis Villeneuve storybooks the gom jabbar scene 

 kitchen witchery: a tarot deck to divine one’s dinner

the brain that wouldn’t die

First airing on this day in 1993 during the series’ fifth season, the lampoon of the Rex Carlton and Joseph Green 1962 collaboration from the crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 helped elevate this film about a mad scientist who is working on methods of preserving dismembered bodily organs to allow for future viability who experiments on the his decapitated girlfriend whilst keeping a Frankenstein’s monster captive in a broom closet to the status of a cult classic. Because of an imperfect copyright notice, it entered into public domain upon theatrical release and was in 2018 the subject of one of the first fully machine produced movies. The episode was long-time writer Michael J. Nelson’s second appearance as host and features a segment with Mary Jo Pehl as Jan in the Pan, the actor to later replace Dr. Clayton Forrester in their secret underground lair, Deep 13.

season of the witch

Coincidentally on this day in 1390 the first tribunal within the jurisdiction of the court of Paris was held also saw across the centuries and continents the dissolution of the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692—a standing commission (charged to “hear and determine”) with a judge of assize first convened in May of the same year to adjudicate cases in the Salem Witch Trials in colonial Massachusetts, authorities displeased with their conduct and proceedings. During that later five month period, two hundred were accused and nineteen condemned to capital punishment, hanged by the neck until dead. The former, after fourteen months of deliberation and sentencing led to the execution of soothsayer Jeanne de Brigue, whom was allegedly able to summon the demon Haussibut and with his aid find lost objects and catch thieves—which sounds like more of a public service than a crime.

spirit halloween

Courtesy of Boing Boing, whilst the Horror GIF Necronomicon may not have an exhaustive selection of every spooky animation that was circulating during the nineties and naughties, there’s certainly an impressive amount to be found and the site (an original Neocities property) seems to be still undead and kicking.

suite №4

For the iconic motor carriage’s sixtieth anniversary, the design studios of Mathieu Lehanneur made some modifications to the classic Renault 4L (“Quatrelle,” manufactured from 1961 to 1994)—now fully electrified and with photovoltaic cells to help charge engine batteries as well as glamping accessories—the first hatchback as sort of an open, motel on wheels. More at designboom at the link above.

speedrun

Via Waxy, we are treated to this blended super-cut of over five-thousand game plays of the original NES Super Mario Bros. compiled and edited in the course of a year. Click through to see more about the making of this mad scramble that illustrates the adage, in one commenter’s words: “The master has failed more times than a beginner has ever tried.”

let me reach, let me beach

On this day in 1988, Enya’s Orinoco Flow (see previously) from her second studio album Watermark topped the charts for the first time in the UK and held number one for a run of three weeks. Emblematic of the New Age/SophistiPop genres, its distinctive pizzicato plucking chords were produced by a custom tuning of a Roland D-50 synthesiser called the “Pizzagogo” patch.

τούτῳ νίκα

Staging a grand, triumphant adventus (from the Greek ἀπάντησις for escort to celebrate the return of the emperor or other dignitary with parades and decoration), Constantine the Great enters Rome following his

victory at Milvian Bridge (previously), at a strategically important crossing of the Tiber with the supporters of unrecognised emperor Maxentius whose defeat Constantine supposedly attributes to his marching under the sign of the Cross (☧), on this day in 312. While divine intervention was an accepted cause for winning or loosing in a struggle, contemporary accounts have little no no references to credit Christianity and no overly Christian iconography. Amid the fanfare Constantine over the body of his drowned enemy fished out of the river and beheaded. Despite the veracity of the miracle supposedly witnessed by Constantine and his entire army, the above letter form, Chi Rho—the first two letters of Jesus Christ and the commandment that came to him in a dream, “In this sign you will conquer,” Christianity was later decreed to be the state religion of the empire.

in the groove

Via Boing Boing, we are referred to the obituary of Csíkszent-mihályi Mihály (*1934, see previously), the psychologist credited for first recognising and describing the concept of flow, a focused and engaged mental state of disciplined equilibrium that pares down distraction without overwhelming that lends itself well to increased productivity. Lying precariously between boredom and anxiety, leaning into this seeming contraction increases the potential for creativity and happiness.

travels into several remote nations of the world. in four parts.

Through his amanuensis and alter-ego Lemuel Gulliver (First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, see previously here, here and here), Anglo-Irish author and clergyman Jonathan Swift published his multipart novel satirizing social foibles and the obsession with travelogue through London-based printer Benjamin Motte on this day in 1726. An instant best-seller with widespread and ingrained cultural influences and literary legacy, Gulliver’s Travels explores petty and doctrinaire differences magnified, the inherent innocence or corrupt state of human nature and a reinstatement of the struggle between Modernity and Antiquity and associated totems and taboos, each part opposed to the themes explored in the preceding-macrocosm, microcosm, insight, innocence.

your daily demon: shax

Our forty-fourth spirit governing from today through the first of November is a grand marquis ruling over thirty legion of mounted subordinates and presents as a stork or stock dove. A notorious liar, unless compelled by his summoner with the sign of his sigil to be called to the floor within a magic triangle, Shax’ powers including depriving the senses and understanding of any person upon the request of the exorcist as well as liberating loot not under the charm of another evil spirit. An avowed horse thief as well, Shax is countered by the guardian angel called Yelahiah.

ferrocarril

Reminding us of the escalator that ascends from the valley to the summit of St Moritz and other similar locomotive attractions, we could appreciate this bit of colourful infrastructure to revitalise an older resort hotel on Gran Canaria without completely razing the existing building. Studio Lopezneeiraciaurri was commissioned to renovate the complex and included a yellow funicular to transport guests up and down, turning this relic from the 1970s into the most modern property around and serving to help us realise that experiential and novel people-movers have an established history as tourist draws.

field camp

Via Messy Messy Chic, we enjoyed learning about Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs whose mission is to promote efficient and collaborative operations among the seventy permanent research stations scattered across the continent from nearly thirty countries and

reduce redundancies that might further jeopardise this more pristine environment through the profiles of the facilities of its constituent members. We especially liked the more veteran stations whose architecture and style dates them, like the Belgian Federal Science Policy and Polar Secretariat’s Princess Elisabeth Base research centre or the Taishan lab of China. Much more to explore at the links above.

7x7

in the stacks: museum curators uncover what may be the oldest depiction of a ghost on an ancient Mesopotamian tablet 

1928 porter: a look at the 1965 short-lived sitcom (see also) My Mother the Car 

this climate does not exist: visualisations of one’s neighbourhood under the climate crisis from Nag on the Lake  

ev: more outstandingly odd electric vehicles from the on-line market Alibaba—via Things Magazine  

reasonable person: “a moron in a hurry” is codified in Anglophone legal statute—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

graphics processing unit: glitch art in medical imaging—via Waxy  

don’t go wasting your emotion: the ABBA classic, as performed by a vampire—via Everlasting Blört

neutralitätserklärung

Chiefly to champion world peace but also motivated to avoid the state of affairs in its neighbour, divided and occupied Germany (see previously here and here) and its own decade-long hosting of foreign forces, the parliament of Austria declared on this day in 1955 its neutrality, pledging to abstain from entering into any future military alliances or permit the establishment of any permanent international army bases on Austrian territory. France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States had agreed to leave Vienna in the summer of that year contingent upon the republic's resolution to commit to being geopolitically neutral, sandwiched as it was between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, nonalignment remaining an element of national identity since and celebrated as the country’s national holiday.

the saga of the viking women and their voyage to the waters of the great sea serpent

The 1958 Roger Corman film with the ridiculously long title (see previously) about a group of women from a land called Stannjøld embark on an adventure in search of their lost men, are shipwrecked by a sea monster and are imprisoned by the Grimaults and made to toil in their mines, reunited with themishing male companions in captivity was revived as a cult cult classic when it was lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000, first broadcast on this day in 1991. Starring Abby Dalton as Desír and June Kenney as Asmild, the film was apparently cheap-looking even by Corman’s standards, reviews were mixed and the director wasn’t enough studio-time in Paradise Cove for such an ambitious epic, going against his instincts and letting special effects carry the story forward. The feature is preceded by the educational short The Home Economics Story.

urgent fury

Along with a coalition of six Caribbean partner states, the United States embarked on this day in 1983 on its first and only military victory since partaking in World War II with its predawn invasion of Grenada, the island nation recently decolonized and independent from the United Kingdom. Characterised by outsiders as a Marxist-Leninist vanguard organization, the New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education and Liberation, the New JEWEL movement, chartered prior to attaining its self-governing status, had seized power in a peaceful coup from the first ministry installed after the UK’s departure.

Internal struggles among party leadership escalated to an armed confrontation that resulted in the killing of the movement's leader, Maurice Bishop, and a group of his supporters once the shooting began under still disputed and unresolved circumstances, and in turn elevated into an international crisis with the United States lobbying for immediate intervention.

Though transparently a pretext for the invasion and occupation, Ronald Reagan, wanting to forestall a repeat of the Iran Hostage Crisis, attributed his actions to “concerns over the six hundred US medical students on the island,” (the country offering medical school at affordable rates and presenting an attractive alternative to US tutition) and remained steadfast in his decision despite nearly universal condemnation and censure in the UN. Under the leadership of Major General Norman Schwartzkopf, Cuban presence was expelled to prevent further communist influence and a government friendly to capitalists' interest was propped up, though the prevailing narrative is still a contentious one and not authored by the Grenadians.

trog

Premiering in theatres on this day in 1970, this Freddie Francis (cinematographer for such films as The Elephant Man, Sons and Lovers, Son of Dracula, The Deadly Bees, Glory, The Executioner’s Song, Dune, Cape Fear), low-budget science fiction horror vehicle stars Joan Crawford (in her last role) as a renowned anthropologist who learns that a solitary troglodyte—Ice Age caveman—is dwelling in some remote caverns of the English countryside, whom to the distress of the locals tries to lure him out in order to study and perhaps civilise this missing link. For all its camp and status as a transgressive cult movie, it is surprisingly raw and touching.

where all are brothers—none faceless others

First performed on this day in 1971 at the behest of then Secretary-General U Thant for the organisation’s twenty-sixth anniversary, a Hymn to the United Nations with words based of the charter’s preamble by W. H. Auden set to music by cellist and composer Pau Casals was not officially adopted by the supranational body, as Thant intended—to be played before special occasions and further efforts to create a formal anthem were never pursued. 

At last it is,
Where even sadness
Is a form of gladness,
Where fate is freedom,
Grace and Surprise.

7x7

floh u. trödel: couple’s costume ideas—via the ever excellence Everlasting Blört 

boutonniere: Harriet Parry’s flower arrangements reproduce iconic fine art and classic tarot card designs—via ibīdem

microface: a quick quiz to identify whether the subject is a font or a Marvel character (see previously)—via Kottke’s Quick Links  

오징어 게임: Squid Games Funko-Pop characters—see also 

pyrrhic victory: the rules of play for a variant called Atomic Chess allows a pawn crossing the breadth of the game board promotion to a scale that would instantaneously annihilate all pieces—of both sides

rollercoaster tycoon: Saudi Arabia transforms a decommissioned drilling platform into an extreme amusement park  

hell no: a sensible horror film

your daily demon: sabnok

Our forty-third spirit ruling over the initial degrees of Scorpio, from today through 27 October, is a dread, infernal marquis presenting in the form of a lion astride a pale horse. Controlling fifty legions, fortifying cities and alike raising them asunder on his whim, Sabnok was confined to a brass vessel, it is said, by King Solomon. Also having the power to plague populations with festering sores, Sabnok is countered by the guardian angel Vevaliah.

komplementärwährungen

Introduced in Erfurt in October 1929, nearly coinciding with the US stock market crash Black Friday that set off the Great Depression world-wide, the alternative currency known as Wära, invented by Hans Time and Helmut Rödiger its name derived from the words Währung (money) and währen (lasting, stable), was freely exchangeable with the Reichsmark at parity.

As legal tender and a store of wealth, however, each banknote carried a monthly penalty (demurrage, the carrying cost) of one percent its face value which could be offset with stamps and had a expiry date so people and businesses were motivated to spend and not hoard their liquid assets, thereby countering inflation. Gradually other businesses and workers began to accept Wära and there was even a coal mining operation fully financed with loans, salaries and discounted consumer sales in the alternative currency. Marked improvement in the region’s economy attracted the attention of the finance ministry, which after deliberation ordered the experiment to be suspended, fearing this parallel form of payment would ultimately undermine rebuilding Germany’s industrial sector, which by that time in 1931 had spread to a network of fourteen cities and were accepted in several national banks and stores.

the last picture show

The cinematic adaptation of the Larry McMurtry (previously) semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman that traces the final academic year of two high school seniors was released on this day in 1971. With the ensemble cast of Cloris Leachman, Cybil Shepherd, Jeff Bridges and Timothy Bottoms under the direction of Peter Bogdanovich, the ultimately highly acclaimed narrative follows the complicated friendship and trials of two on the cusp of adulthood in a declining, depopulated town in northern Texas, Anarene a real boom-town since made into a ghost town and filmed in Archer City, McMurtry’s home town, just a few kilometres away—torn between inheritance and bequest and moving on.

distinguished hydrography

Hosted by Washington, DC, delegates gathered from twenty-six countries for the International Meridian Conference adopted the resolution on this day in 1884 that made the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (see previously here and here) the prime “meridian to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world.The resolution was passed but not without some abstentions and serious objections—foremost being France, which until settling on the compromise term Coordinated Universal Time in 1978, did not refer to the selection as GMT but rather “Paris mean time, retarded by nine minutes and twenty-one seconds.” Contrary to popular belief, the meeting did not establish time zones.  Also making it a universal convention to begin astronomical and nautical days at the stroke of midnight, the summit coincided with the enactment of the Longitude Act of 1714 from Queen Anne, establishing a board of judges and prize monies for anyone coming up with a practical way to accurately measure whereabouts on the y-axis while at sea.

ransomwave

In a delightful suite of definitions, we learn the terms emptitous, from the Latin for saleable, to describe one susceptible to bribery, luition (like tuition) a payment of extortion—otherwise from the romantically derived chantage, blackmail or funds gained through scandalous revelations, and of course for motivation, quomodocunquize, to make money by any means possible.

newfoundland

The clue possibly lying in the name of the province, researchers, using new dating techniques and studying the remnant of an ancient solar storm, have pinpointed the first transatlantic crossing and settlement of Viking explorers to exactly a millennium hence, nearly five hundred years prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus, marking the first encounter and reunion with inhabitants of the New and Old World, the aboriginal population having migrated the long way around. A known flare event in the year 992 unleashed a burst of high-energy cosmic rays that left a marker in the growth rings of trees, felled twenty-nine years after the storm whose timber was used for construction of shelters, sod longhouses (reconstruction pictured in L’Anse aux Meadows), demonstrating that the encampment was set up in 1021. The Viking chronology suggested their journey took place in the eleventh century (see also) but before there was no corroborating evidence—which makes one wonder what other truths might be in the epic sagas.

saint ursula and companions

Though little reliable contemporary details of her hagiography and that of her eleven-thousand handmaidens and the virginal princess went unnamed for centuries, they are venerated on this day (see previously) and are the namesake of both the Ursuline order (the name Latin for little she-bear) and the Virgin Islands, marking the occasion of their mass-martyrdom in 383 at Köln on the banks of the Rhine. The Daughter of legendary King Dionotus of Dumnonia (Devon, Cornwall) was betrothed to pagan governor of the province of Armorica, whom after a miraculous storm transported her and her retinue across the sea in just the space of a day resolved that they should all undertake a pan-European pilgrimage, heading first to Ravenna and Rome and persuading the pope to join them. Their encampment was besieged by the Huns at the frontier city with a basilica dedicated to them on the spot of the massacre. Officially stricken from the calendar of saints in 1969 as fantastical, scholarship suggest that the large number of companions may be due to a misreading of the Latin numerals or a single virgin martyr with the name Unidecimilla, the error transmitted through the ages.

bennelong point

Occupying the titular headland, known as Tubowgule by the indigenous Gadigal people, the Sydney Opera House on the harbor, originally designed by Jørn Utzon, and considered one of the more distinguishing structures and venues of the past century, had its official grand opening on this day in 1973. Under construction since 1959, the formal ceremony was conducted by Queen Elizabeth II before a large crowd with the inaugural orchestral performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy. Of note, the first actual musical number took place in 1960 when baritone Paul Robeson regaled the construction crew from the stage during their lunch break with one of his signature tunes, “Old Man River.”

play misty for me

Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, the above titled collaboration with Dean Riesner and Jo Heims was released on this day in 1971 and follows the narrative of an over night disc jockey in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, portrayed by Eastwood, being stalked by an increasingly obsessive caller, Evelyn Draper played by Jessica Walter (*1941 - †2021), who always requests he play the signature Johnny Mathis jazz standard. After a bit of romantic entrapment that betrays the state of the fan’s mental health, the host fights to keep her at bay and unambiguously preclude the prospect of a future relationship .

artemius of antioch

Invoked for relief of hernias and maladies afflicting the testicles—for no ostensible reason that we could divine—Roman general Flavius Artemius is feted on this day, venerated as a saint in the Catholic rite and a megalomartyr in the Orthodox church. Though the chronology seems somewhat off, Artrmius supposedly played an influential role in the court of Constantine and fought heroically in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (later placed in charge of missions seeking relics and recovering the bodies of the apostles), only to be later put to death by the emperor’s successor, his cousin Julian (called the apostate) that rejected Constantine’s state sanction for Christianity and returned the empire to pagan pantheism.

7x7

anamorphosis: a sixteenth century optical illusion in a work by Hans Holbein the Younger 

💧: the first episode on the Weirdness of Water, presented by the Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry  

uncharted: the region in Greece that was historically so inaccessible it was named Agrafa, literally off the maps—via Messy Messy Chic  

a people’s archive of sinking and melting: artefacts documenting the climate crisis  

odonym: a suite of applications to explore the toponymical decisions behind street names—see also 

fiat geld: origins of the trillion dollar coin  

spice like us: the geopolitics of nutmeg informed by its reputed efficacy against the plague

lying awake intent at tuning in on you

Originally recorded by songwriter Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club—featuring Thomas Dolby on keyboard, the follow-on version performed by the synth-pop group the Buggles, released a month prior as the debut single from their first studio album The Age of Plastic, the foundational, nostalgic hit, influenced by the music of Kraftwerk and inspired by memories of covertly listening to Radio Luxembourg late at night, topped the UK charts this week in 1979. The accompanying music video, first aired on Top of the Pops, went on, just after midnight on the first day of August 1981, to mark the beginning of MTV’s broadcasting run.

i stopped an old man along the way

Recorded in studio on this day in 1981 to be released a year later as their eponymous fourth studio album’s third single, the David Paich and Jeff Porcaro collaboration, Africa, was met with immediate critical acclaim, which in its latter day, reprised existence has been certified as platinum six-times. Naive and benighted, with some experimental placeholder lyrics (see also), like the line about the Serengeti, it was nonetheless an earnest attempt to raise attention about the plight and suffering on the continent as told through television documentaries, magazine articles and second-hand missionary accounts. After the session, Toto was split about letting its release compete with that of their own lead single from the album, “Rosanna,” some band members saying it wasn’t in line with their signature sound and considered debuting it as solo work for Porcaro alone.

your daily demon: velar

Our forty-second spirit is an infernal grand duke that presents as a merman, who is able to both raise dread tempest and drown sailors or provide safe passage, according to the will of a skilled exorcist. Ruling from today through 22 October, Vepar controls twenty-nine legions of subordinates and is opposed by the guardian angel Mikael.

obtundo

From the above Latin for blunted (like an obtuse angle), deprived of sharpness or vigour, to be obtuned in the non-figurative sense lies on the spectrum of impaired consciousness between lethargy and stupor, edging from full awareness on the orders of consciousness to total torpor and unarousable unresponsiveness. In other words, the state, albeit expressed in impercise and subjective terms, of being less interested or vested in one’s immediate environment.

the tragical death of an apple pie, who was cut to pieces and eaten by twenty-five gentlemen, with whom all little people ought to be acquainted

In the midst of the season for apple picking and pie baking, Spitalfields Life presents us a rhyming Abecedarium (also called battledores, from the wooden tablet or paddle used in the classroom for instruction that resembled the racket from the game of shuttlecock) first in print in the late seventeenth century

and then republished by prolific printer Jemmy Catnach (*1769 - †1813) at the end of his long career, whom produced thousands of chapbooks and affordable literary material, in the form of educational pamphlets, political satires, poetry revues and other ephemera to surfeit a voracious and newly literate public in the Seven Dials (named for the horological devices strategically placed there to record the hour with the sun for the rest of the city, which was not necessarily free of the impediment of shadow) district of London. Go through the whole alphabet with much more to explore at the links above.

7x7

pour homme, femme, et grenouille: Amphíbīa, Kermit the Frog’s signature scent from 1995  

hampsternomics: a look at how the attention economy has matured through the lens of a quarter-century old meme—see previously 

a day without rain: Endless Enya (previously) from Mischief Magazine—via Web Curios  

memento mori: a treasury of macabre reminders of death’s inevitability  

corvid catalogue: counting crows of literature  

sneakernet: non-existent virtual trainers dreamed up by artificial intelligence (see also)—via ibīdem  

pietra per pizza: a deep-dive into the history of the cooking accessory convinces one individual it isn’t just a trendy gimmick

atlas des champignons: comestibles, suspects et vénéneux

Unsuccessful in our foraging this year (and usually coming up with the suspect varieties, if not outright poisonous ones), we appreciated pouring over the detail and descriptions from physician, botanist and accidental chronicler of the Haitian Revolution Michel Étienne Descourtilz’ 1827 guide, lusciously illustrated with the lithographs of Auguste Cornillon. More from Public Domain Review at the link above.

counterpunctual or slashdot

Another kindred internet caretaker, TYWKIWDBI, picked up on an idea we were wondering about after an earlier encounter with site that distills one’s writing down to its constituent punctuation marks. 

While no refined work of literature or self-consistent as canon, we did wonder if there was a certain detectable cadence or scansion to our posts on PfRC—and indeed whether hypertext markup, virgules, separatrices, etc. counted or should be counted, but from the Latin to score with points, it does seem right to include after all.

st. gall

Traditionally counted among the twelve companions of Saint Columbanus on his mission from Ireland to win converts in the lands of the Franks—having been ejected from Gaul where they first landed by local chieftains who wanted nothing to do with Christianity—Gallus (*550 - †646) is venerated on this day. Patron of geese, poultry and birds in general (for no particular reason) and St. Gallen, the saint’s rather complicated iconography relates the legendary encounter he had with a fierce bear, who was said to be terrorising the local settlement as well, in the woods. The holy man rebuked the bear for its behaviour and compelled it thereafter to gather firewood and became Gall’s trusted sidekick.

spook it up

Through some experimentation with text style-changes—dialing-up the fright-factor—our artificial intelligencer (previously here and here) has been able to solicit recommendations for Halloween costume improvement, surpassing her initial concept in terms of keeping with the reason for the season.

More about methodology and algorithmic improvement at the link above, but we were particularly intrigued with the below prompt and response: 

Input: I’m dressing as a princess for Halloween! 

More interesting: You are preparing to confront the powerful Uber Faerie, one of the rulers of the week, he who commands the forces of week, including faeries, goblins, toadstools, lampposts, and fleas. It is to be your first confrontation with him, and you are secretly afraid. 

Whilst I might not be able to visual convey my distress, I do very well to better understand my character’s motivation. Be sure to check out how machine-learning altered the tone and tenor of a beloved Winne the Pooh theme song with the same parameters in mind.