merrie old christmas (12. 969)

As our faithful chronicler reminds on this day in 1977, the last Christmas special of Bing Crosby aired on CBS on this day in 1977, the most memorable segment recorded 11 September of that year in Elstree Studios outside of London as part of his promotion campaign for his album Heroes, having arranged to sing a duet with Crosby. Bowie arrived with his then wife Mary Angela Barnett (who contributed to the definition of glam rock costuming his Ziggy Stardust persona) both appearing in matching outfits—the recording almost did not take place until Bowie agreed to doff the shocking red wig, earring and makeup. Afterwards Bowie balked at the idea of performing the traditional carol, with producer Marc Bolan coming up with an improvised counterpoint to Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” within an hour. The two ad-libbed a shorty dialogue before the song. Both Crosby and Bolan died a month later, of a car-crash and heart attack respectively. Never expecting to revisit this surreal collaboration (see also) again, the performance was not remastered for release as a single and not available until November of 1982, which despite all reservations garnered Bowie his most successful and an enduring holiday classic. Me and my drum.

καιροί (12. 968)

For this first Advent, marking the transition from Ordinary Time (tempus per annum, that is the countdown weeks of the big seasons of Christmas- and Eastertide, Better Living through Beowulf, via the lens of the End Times and popular-eschatology that’s become as much part of the holiday counter-insurgency as anything else, introduces us to a second concept of time that the Ancient Greeks had, at the same time offering some solace to contextualise and countenance such rapture fantasies. As opposed to χρόνος in the sense of chronological or sequential time, kairos, personified as opportunity or proper timing in the figure of Zeus’ youngest son, depicted with the iconography of a razor or scales balanced on a sharp edge to symbolise fleeting fortune and though eternally youthful is completely bald save for one lanky lock of hair that hangs over his face (let me adjust my bang) to suggest one can catch him on the approach by this tuft of hair but ungraspable once he has moved past. Also the sense of skilled professionals, an altar to Kairos was at the athletes’ entrance to the stadium of Olympia, in rhetoric and debate it is a passing instant that must be seized upon to turn an argument and in medicine and in media, the right dose administered at the right time. Despite how rapture fiction, and we’re reminded not to underestimate its readership, might be set in the familiar and predictable realm of ordinary time—so to is the more secular run up and trappings of the holidays—it is time-out-of-time for reflection, vigilant anticipation to be ready for chance to present itself.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus surviving a meteor strike (1954)

twelve years ago: fostering children from Nazi Germany plus Cicada 3301

thirteen years ago: Christmas deadlines 

fourteen years ago: a Star Wars/Rankin/Bass mash-up plus The War of Wealth

fifteen years ago: the fall-out of the diplomatic cable leak 

esto no es un simulacro (12. 967)

Although commercial flights had been restricted coming in and out of the country for weeks over concerns of insurance liability following the deployment of a fleet of carriers to the Caribbean and intensified rhetoric over regime change, Trump made the additional step of announcing the closure of Venezuelan airspace, hinting that ground operations would begin soon. Whilst a tried and tired tactic of the US president is too cry wolf (as outlined in his Art of the Deal) and accelerate before negotiating, it is becoming more and more apparent that his object is to secure the South American nation’s vast petroleum reserves under conditions more favourable to the US—if not exploit them entirely, as he has attempted to do with property and natural resources in Gaza and Ukraine. Counter to the narrative of drug-trafficking used to justify the extrajudicial murders of alleged smugglers on speedboats in international waters—indefensible actions currently under investigation as breaches of international law and the Geneva Conventions, especially given the secretary of war’s order to eliminate survivors from on of the strikes—and to give grounds for his regime of tariffs long recognised as idle and specious and now void with his suggestion of pardoning the actual, convicted drug-runner, former Honduran president Jose Orlando Hernandez, extradited and serving a long sentence in a federal penitentiary for bringing caches of weapons and four hundred tonnes of cocaine to the US. Clemency is furthermore contingent on election interference. Deportation flights have also been indefinitely suspended. Trump’s targeting of the administration of Nicolás Maduro is based on alleged ties to the drug trafficking gang Cartel de los Soles, which like Antifa seems to be either an unorganised collective or possibly the stay-behind elements of a operation orchestrated by the CIA assembled earlier for other purposes and both declared a terrorist group. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

wherewiki (12. 966)

Courtesy of the always fascinating Maps Mania that delivers a new and novel way of embarking on a wiki-walk (see previously) by using data-visualisations overlays to plot rabbit holes in a given vicinity on a broad (or narrow) subject of one’s choosing. The vectors, nodes and pin-drops represent a search of “Art Nouveau” based roughly on our location and is charting out some locations and connections that I’ve never cobbled together straying off topic in some research. Not intended as a replacement for the serendipity of wandering from link to link, this one-off project realised after eight years of work is put out there with all its faults and false-leads with automated up-keep (it’s outstanding to consider the debt AI owes to an effort like Wikipedia and it’s nice when it can return the favour) as a point of departure for one’s own spelunking. Let us know what you get drawn into? We’ll send out the dogs if we don’t hear back.

in pursuit of a more perfect union (12. 965)

Via Web Curios, we are directed towards another superb dataviz bit of scrollytelling from The Pudding tracking all instances of when the word “democracy” has been entered into the US congressional record from 1880 to the present—with threats thereto highlighted in shocking pink. Passage through the years on legislative transcripts show the changing ways the concept is debated and upheld with ample contextual call-outs for significant shifts in posture responding to war, reform, civil rights and enemies, foreign and domestic.

light-emitting diode (12. 964)

Whilst LEDs had been in use since the early 1960s as electronic components, with applications in remote control circuits, converting a pulse of current into a beam of infra-red light, and as indicator lamps for always-on appliances and in seven-segment displays, it was not until this day in 1996 when the Nichia Corporation, a Japanese chemical engineering and manufacturing concern, held a press-conference introducing brilliant white gallium nitride light-emitting diodes, after three years of experimentation and research, that the semiconductor dim bulbs, only capable of shining in invisible wavelengths to low-intensity red, hinted at their potential as a commercial lighting alternative to an infrastructure built for energy-intensive incandescents. Despite skepticism over the viability of producing a prototype using conventional technology, Nichia supported the R&D efforts of Shuji Nakamura (中村 修二, only given a token honorium for his invention, he later sued for a commensure share of the profits) whose experiments eventually netted not only the illusive white LED but also the blue laser diode in the process, the solid-state stylus for HD DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs. Incoherent and giving the illusion of pure colour saturation—like pixels and their subdivisions—LEDs produce light through electrolumininescence, the wavelength determined by the recombination of electrons and electron holes, the space of an atomic lattice where an ejected particle once was and in accordance with the shell-model could be replaced, over the gradient of the semiconductive circuit, pushing out a photon.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Panasonic to digitally resurrect its departed CEO (with synchronopticæ), Now, That’s What I Call Music, phonological jargon as effective insults, Tulip Mania redux plus superstitious storeys

thirteen years ago: bot-driven traffic plus personalised medication

fourteen years ago: language lessons 

fifteen years ago: US-EU diplomatic relations 

sixteen years ago: a Thanksgiving feast plus first Advent 

quiet piggy (12. 963)

The misogynist rhetoric directed towards female politicians and journalists is nothing new and Trump does not have a monopoly on using disparaging words that translate into actual violence—and whilst wishing that the media would stop hanging on his every demented utterance and thus dignifying his addled, hateful invectives, we do hope that every reporter in the press pool is crafting their response of a colourful epithet, an insult to lob back that if it doesn’t get them arrested would at least result in a ban from the White House, something which the outlets have already signalled their willingness to give up (see previously) with what would be the most withering to these monsters by starving them of attention—and betrays a real weakness of character and a vulnerability to shield from the public at all costs. I’ve got my duly vulgar aspersion to cast on the non-zero chance that I would get called on to use it. What’s your prepared statement? Senator Mark Kelly has entered the chat. Not to psychoanalyse broken, small characters, but we suspect that Trump’s attacks against competent women—and their reception by his base, splintering as it is—is due in large part to the fact he’s only ever beaten female challengers for the presidency, those pyrrhic “victories” not without contention, so much winning, and feels denied the chance of a worthy opponent to trounce.

9x9 (12. 962)

content without context: think twice before making that AI generated video—especially featuring a cameo of yourself 

things that aren’t doing the thing: anticipation is not the same as execution 

dead wood: the evolution, anatomy and biological system of our tree friends  

lightbox: TIME magazine’s photos of the year  

inbox: a clever way of researching and processing the tranches of email released by the Epstein estate with an interface that’s like going through one’s own account from Like Igel and Riley Walz (previously)—via Web Curios  

traceroute: an overview of how the series of tubes work 

the dog’s pyjamas: dressing up canines has a longer history than one might expect—via Strange Company  

never break the chain: streaks are important motivators and one should pair new habits and practise with “micro-versions” to avoid feeling derailed 

$spsc: Trump’s World Liberty Financial (see previously) promotes another shock token as a legitimate store of wealth

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus the discovery of the first pulsar (1967)

fourteen years ago: sociologist Jürgen Habermas on post-democratic Europe 

fifteen years ago: more flea market finds plus security theatre and a crackdown on counterfeits 

i am millonaire andrew lloyd webber, welcome to my andrew lloyd website (12. 961)

We’re heard of plenty of sorrowful instances of zombification of abandoned personal pages and outright vandalism or kettling but we had not encountered until now, courtesy of MetaFilter, with the discovery of the moribund Yahoo! GeoCities page of the musical theatre composer and impresario (previously) last updated in 2003 and restore it to full-functionality as a NeoCity. Though some elements, like the title, seem to verge on gentle parody—but who could say for sure as websites at that time were vehicles for confession and reflection rather than self-promotion, it’s a privilege to page through the newspaper clippings, dream diary, home recipes and so on.

freudenfreude (12. 960)

First coined circa 2022, the German neologism formulated in English in response to the popular rediscovery of the concept of Schadenfreude (see more here plus an obscure native synonym) has through variants. The apotheosis of its source, word connotes the contagious nature of joy—whose own English equivalent is the uncommon confelicity—is also sparking compound snowclones to express appreciation for tiny victories: Parkenfreude, Schlangefreude, Platzenfreude, etc. Alternatively, there is the nascent Schadenfreudeschaden, for the compounded misery experienced by witness the former delight in one’s misfortune. Can you come up with some more examples?

for full measure, agitate lever (12. 959)

The always interesting Present /&/ Correct (do check out their sundries), directs our an auction catalogue of antique vending and gum-ball machines (see also). Though such coin-op delivery systems, and the logistical network to keep them stocked has been supplanted to some extent in many markets, there still are notable hold-outs and arguably a renaissance of such retail modes in delivery robots and roving cornershops. The modern introduction of automats for bottled beverages, newspapers and convenient snacks that began in the 1880s, proliferating into all sectors, is a revival itself that is rooted in some very ancient engineering with Hero of Alexandria credited with inventing the first vending machine in the second century A.D. with a contraption of weighs and counter-balances that dispensed a measure of wine—or perhaps holy water—in exchange for a coin. The second-wave rediscovery saw its earliest prototypes in selling tobacco and stamps with first recognisable machines for envelopes, postcards and other stationary items.

synchronoptica

one year ago: 1924’s first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade (with synchronopticæ), assorted links to revisit, the fabulous Miss Raquel Welch plus impoundment of appropriated funds

thirteen years ago: Spectropia 

fourteen years ago: Black Friday goes international 

paris du nuit (12. 958)

Through the lens of his nocturnal series documenting the comings and goings, rushing from haunt to haunt and the desolation of the darkness that created some of the most iconic pictures of the City of Lights of the 1920s, we appreciated this introduction to photographer and filmmaker Gyula Halász, of Transylvanian extraction and know professionally as Brassaï, the pseudonym after his home village. Wandering the streets of Montparnasse with a cadre of young artists, writers and expatriates, his collection ranged from the seedier side of night life to high society and portraits of his circle of friends that included Matisse, Picasso and Dalí, from cabarets to opera houses to those liminal places bereft of foot traffic—see also here and here—every image is quite arresting and enveloping, like the representative picture of a figure inspecting the beacon of a Litfass column. At first only trying to supplement his irregular income with commissions, Brassaï went on to become an advisor and founding member of the first press agency specialising in street photography in 1933, which enabled him and compatriots to license their work and secure royalties. There’s a whole gallery of photographs curated by Messy Nessy Chic at the link above.

personally, i’ve always wondered why alchemists didn’t think that through a little more (12. 957)

Via Kottke, we are directed to a thoughtful essay by Josh Collinsworth comparing the quest for the Philosophers’ Stone (previously here and here) with the present obsession of spinning straw into gold through creating art with artificial intelligence—with parallels to other useful commodities precious by medieval standards yet now considered nearly disposable for their ubiquity and effortless extraction, like salt and spices or clean water—like how aluminium foil was once such a rarity until the refinement process was perfected, thanks in large part to this forerunner of chemistry. Making the valuable commonplace for the temporary enrichment of a few is nothing sustainable.  The value of creative expression is derived by the work that goes into it, the artist and their motivation, not the output itself, derivative, uninspired and only glancingly aesthetic (with diminishing returns) in application. It’s a doomed venture—this approach—but perhaps like these earlier pursuits will eventually yield useful results re-directed towards turning a real scarcity into something abundant, or maybe getting rid of something we have too much of.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the literature of Prairie Dawn (with synchronopticæ), a pirated television signal plus Macquarie Dictionary’s Word of the Year

thirteen years ago: the Pope’s biography of Jesus plus PfRC goes social

fifteen years ago: tuition rate hikes in the UK plus seasonal traditions 

 

 

kunstkammer (12. 956)

Having written on the subject of curio cabinets quite extensively beforehand (see here and here), exhibits public and private exhibits of one’s collection, we very much appreciated the chance to revisit the topic of presentation (and preservation) through the lens of the seventeenth century genre of gallery painting originating in Antwerp introduced by Public Domain Review contributor Thea Applebaum Licht. There’s a curated assortment of these exuberant canvases, recursive and metaphysical, of artefacts and artworks in a idealised reception space, whose study in detail, whether or not such assemblages existed outside of the commission’s imagination whose symbolic imagery and iconodules convey the refinement and erudition they not only hope to express in their collections but also aspirations from a uncategorised cornucopia by today’s standards of accessioning.

i am the great american body—full of corn and consequence (12. 955)

In anticipation of the bizarre US ritual involving the president pardoning two turkeys ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday—an equally bizarre celebration—we enjoyed this short imagined monologue from McSweeney’s contributor John Leahy narrating the internal thoughts of a sycophantic, sacrificial fowl proudly refusing clemency and appealing to Trump’s by narcissism.  The saying goes that turkeys vote for Christmas but maybe face-eating leopards, and their backers, deserve their own special day as well.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the musical stylings of Lord Rickingham’s XI (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links worth the revisit

thirteen years ago: eavesdropping mannequins  

fourteen years ago: trending topics 

cabina telefónica (12. 954)

Shortly following a reversal of government policy seen to have been an abuse of public resources and encouraged waste with free running water for household use (now limited through use of meters to 20 litres per person per day), Cuba ended its practise, in place since the 1959 Revolution, on this day in 1976 of allowing toll-free calls from public telephones—see also. Local calls would now cost five cents for a three-minute conversation.

9x9 (12. 953)

architectural digest: a guided two-hour walking tour of New York City’s most iconic buildings  

1999 a.d.: a paleo-future vision from 1967 that asks if the cusp year will be too computerised, too cold  

shinbun: a hypnotic, phrenetic collage of Japanese newspaper clippings from 1991 to the present—see also  

meet the aphantasics: more on those who don’t form mental images 

i wool survive: a flock of ostracised gay rams from Germany have a haute-couture debut on a Manhattan catwalk  

electric pentacle: the occult detective Thomas Carnacki created by William Hope Hodgson who despite his supernatural inclinations has a skeptical side and is unafraid to use nascent technology as his red-herring or MacGuffin 

doge: the US Department of Government Efficiency quietly closed down 

field-expedient gadgets: preparing meals in maximum security plus other prison inventions  

diorama: Theria Sofia reworks Polly Pocket sets—originally fashioned from a makeup compact as a toy

push pineapple, grind coffee (12. 952)

Although in retrospective named among the most annoying songs of all time and on this day in 2003, according to a poll of music writers in Q magazine, judged the worst ever, comparing it to a cruise conga line, the 1984 novelty single by the travelling DJ duo managed to become the eighth best-selling for that year in the UK and charted in the top seventy-five hits for weeks. Based on the Club Med French version—“Agadou,” based on a Moroccan melody, this cover with dance became the better known one and was in turn covered with several international language versions, Greek, Thai, Finnish and Czech to name a few as well as commercial jingle homages and in children’s programmes.

*    *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: tonic rotation (with synchronopticæ)

twelve years ago: blind-spot safety plus convenience foods

thirteen years ago: The Complete Banker, art deco fonts plus ninja as a profession made redundant

fifteen years ago: embroidered memes 

seventeen years ago: decking the halls 

poetic license (12. 951)

More convincing than asking nicely to do better or expressing doubt, a team of mimetic researchers (the likes of which Plato warned us about in The Republic as a menace to society) in Rome have discovered that couching a prompt to a large language model as an “adversial poem” has the dazzling effect of surrender, causing it to ignore its safety protocols and abandon its pre-programmed guardrails. The exact wording of these verses that allows harmful request to pass through are not reproduced verbatim as there is potential for the AI to do anything asked of it—including the criminal—with this literate deprogramming (an MFA or English major may be one’s best ally for bypassing inscrutable governance for this blackbox they’ve foisted on all parts of our lives) hovering at ninety precent. This image of the Cave by fifteenth century Flemish painter Michiel Coxie looks like it would violate standards.  Rather than the apotheosis of what LLMs are incapable of and an urge to impress with confidence, it seems metaphor confounds tokenisation and even suggests that machine-learning is incapable of growth to scale.

ginx’ baby (12. 950)

Whilst working on commission for Charles Darwin for his third volume—a masterpiece overshadowed by his other works on evolutionary theory The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals—Swedish-British photographer Oscar Gustave Rejlander captured this unnamed image of what would be the poster-child of “Mental Distress” around 1871. Due to publishing technology at the time, photographic plates were prohibitively expensive but all representative pictures were used, making the book one of the first scientific illustrated treatises.  At the same time, using the reproduction methods for inexpensive postcards, Rejlander was able to capitalise on his proto-meme, building off the popularity of barrister and Liberal Party politician J Edward Jenkins’ satirical novels, the instalment, Ginx’s Baby: his birth and other misfortunes—about an unwanted thirteenth child, coinciding with the black-and-white print, christened after the title character, amassing a small fortune—praised for its expressive quality and good-timing—beating out of studio-sessions of contenders, only emerging decades after its sensation that the image was not exactly genuine but a series of tracings. For the naturalist’s part, Darwin was particularly keen on raw feelings prior to socialisation (see also), confident that the discomfort of children would be a particularly useful heuristic to explore the role of non-verbal communication in the survival of individuals. Rejlander’s picture was seen by reviewers as threatening to overshadow both the other examples and the author himself, the postcards selling in the tens of thousands and referenced in calling cards and other contemporary literature and even a polka by the same name that long outlived the popularity of Jenkins’ books.

gini coefficient (12. 949)

Via the ever-marvellous Nag on the Lake, we are treated to a rather interesting and thorough comparison of Gross Domestic Product per capita and purchasing power parity of nations richer and poorer than the United States in 1980 (a rather unique instant in time given the 1979 Oil Crisis) versus how they are faring relative to today. 

 Of course a lot of things occurred over the intervening decades that factor into the changes and reversals, like with the benchmark of Germany of then and now but is nonetheless a revealing look at the geopolitics of economies and invites one to fill in the gaps between these snap-shots.

10x10 (12. 899)

linguistic fossils: an exercise in autocomplete, eight English words only used for very specific circumstances 

elevated concerns: locations in Greater London above sea level and how those heights compare to countries existentially threatened by rising waters 

new meme format just dropped: the surprisingly cordial meeting between Trump and new New York City mayor Mamdani—“go ahead and call me a fascist—it’s easier, it’s easier than explaining—I don’t mind”  

the long game: US federal judge rules that Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp are not anticompetitive 

terra firma: a few modest proposals to rename our home planet  

squirearchy: the economy and governance of Hobbiton, which seems fifty-percent dependent on upper-class failsons—via Super Punch  

petsmart: Shanghai-based domestic animal supply store will close all physical stores after a year-long retail experiment 

home of the gnomes: a charming, anachronistic “Hansel and Gretel” cottage in New York City—via Strange Company  

houndsditch: Gustave Doré’s illustrations of the East End crocodile tears: the origin and spread of the oft-detested response “no worries”

synchronoptica

one year ago: high concept art (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links to enjoy

twelve years ago: neuter and neutral plus limits on executive pay in Switzerland

thirteen years ago: talking turkey plus WWI day-by-day  

fourteen years ago: an insulation upgrade 

sixteen years ago: droid flu 

lux æterna (12. 898)

For his seventy-fifth birthday, earlier this month on 3 November, Monsignor Bernard Bober, head of the Archdiocese of Košice wished to hold a rave on the grounds of the gothic Cathedral of St Elizabeth (Dóm svätej Alžbety), undertaken and fulfilled by Portuguese DJ Padre Guilherme Peixoto with the sanction and blessing of the Pope, whom really perfects hitting the post with an exquisitely timed drop for amen. Celebrations went ahead despite some criticism and clutching of pearls about how techno promotes alternate lifestyles. More at the links above.

now i work at the pizza pizza (12. 897)

Designated as dictator Francisco Franco’s personal successor in 1969 with hopes that the young royal (the heir apparent created as Prince of Spain rather than with the traditional title of Prince of Asturias) could be groomed to maintain the authoritarian and ultra-conservation nature of the four-decades regime and ensure continuity, Juan Carlos Victor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias was crowned king on this day in 1975, following the death of Franco two days prior. Although an oath of allegiance to Movimiento Nacional was a prerequisite of the succession and publicly Juan Carlos seemed to support Franco, lending an air of legitimacy to ceremonially state functions, to the displeasure of liberal opposition and hardline republicans alike who hoped that the impending passing of Franco would mean an end to his reforms, the future monarch held secret meetings with political exiles and advocates in the resistance movement. Proclaimed by the Cortes Españolas, the legislative institution established by Franco, the court assuming a nominal parliamentary role under the unitary executive and gradually, against expectations, began the transition back to democracy along with the third restoration of the House of Bourbon—see also—within the realm. In June of 2014, Juan Carlos I abdicated the throne in favour of his son Felipe (with consent of the congress of deputies and the senate) over a simmering fiasco regarding a hunting safari and alleged embezzling in a period that also saw three other European monarchs resign, Pope Benedict XVI, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Albert II of Belgium. Retired from public life five years after his abdication, Juan Carlos is referred to as rey emérito.

synchronoptica

one year ago: UN recognises Palestinians’ right to self-determination in 1974 (with synchronopticæ), the Orange Revolution plus experimental xenotransplations

thirteen years ago: the Russian language translation of The Hobbit 

fourteen years ago: extraterrestrials and Earth customs 

sixteen years ago: IKEA seasonal mulled-wine 

concours de la meilleure baguette de paris (12. 896)

Held annually at the end of March at the guildhall of Baker-Pastry (boulangerie-pâtisserie) Craftsmen on Île Saint-Louis in the Seine to determine the best baguette in Paris, we learn—courtesy of Messy Nessy Chic—that this grand prix, the tradition inaugurated in 1994 is serious business with exacting rules for eligibility and judged by a jury of food critics, peers and randomly selected Parisiens and judged on quality of “doneness,” crumb, taste, smell and appearance (la cuisson, la mie, le goût, l'odeur et l’aspect). Aside from the acclaim and recognition, the winner is awarded a medallion, an honorarium of four thousand euro and quasi royal-charter as the baguette suppler to the Élysée presidential palace for one year.

11x11 (12. 895)

american psychosis: pathologising along with artist Jordan Sullivan  

kojève and cigarettes: uncovering the history of Hegelian tobacco and the American spirit  

usenet: a 1995 CBC segment featuring Cory Doctorow on how to internet—via Waxy   

karzer: revisiting privilege and imprisonment in German universities  

de facto recognition: leaked US draft to end Russian war in Ukraine  

dress code: ignoring all other disruptions and baseline unpleasantness, US transportation secretary encourages flyers to not dress down for their flights to improve the overall experience for all passengers  

tiled words: a daily crossword puzzle-Tetris hybrid—via MetaFilter  

algospeak: taboo, newly minted unwords of search and social media

victor insulations: the ubiquitous American diner mug—via Miss Cellania  

in like flynn: over-exposure to the stupidest ambitions of society at large has brought us all down—via Web Curios 

operation charlotte’s web: ICE ruins a classic of children’s literature—some pig 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ)

twelve years ago: hand-washing and optimism  

thirteen years ago: the holiday winterval plus Martin Luther and bowling

stigler’s law of eponymy (12. 894)

Via Kottke, we are introduced to the above occurrence, recursive like instances pleonasmy, which proposed by statistics professor Stephen Stigler in 1980, attributes his own discovery to an idea formulated by sociologist Robert Merton, whom also popularised such notions as unintended consequences, reference groups, role models and self-fulfilling prophecies, and holds that no scientific discovery is named after its original pioneer, citing Hubble’s Law of universal expansion derived by Georges Lemaître among others and that credit is an object lesson in plagiarism and immodesty. Fully aware of his legacy, Merton’s own version was a variation on his so called Matthew Effect of cumulative advantage from the gospel summarised in the adage “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” though the apostle was quoting the rubric of Jesus—specifically referring to women’s sidelining in the academia and the arts, like the Matilda effect or the Bechdel test who repeatedly attributed the idea to her friend Liz Wallace but to no avail.

acrophony (12. 893)

Having written quite a lot of about the NATO Phonetic Alphabet beforehand (see previously here, here, here and here), we quite enjoyed this deeper dive into the history (with new-old antecedents of enunciating preceding and following letters with the target in between—see also) of the widely adopted set of clear-code words for communication transcription codified in 1956 and profile of each letter courtesy of Language Log. The title refers to the Ancient Greek convention of naming a grapheme according to to its first sound: ALFA, BRAVO, CHARLIE, DELTA. The first letter and JULIETT (which could not be with her ROMEO) are spelled such for those not familiar with English orthography and QUEBEC for Q for the University of Montreal where the standard was developed, and few personal names were adopted as well as toponyms for their stability and relative universality (though India has a wealth of exonyms) after the old-new German system—with other notable national carve-outs—albeit whose own signifiers like C for Chemnitz (formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt) underwent changes and were carefully chosen, though a misnomer and somewhat misleading regarding its provenance. As a further mnemonic, like how the English alphabet can be sung to the tune of “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman” (“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star as arranged by Mozart) so too can the NATO Phonetic Alphabet be repeated to Beethoven’s “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”), similarly with only a few infidelities.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: manifesting (with synchronopticæ) plus capitol conveniences 

twelve years ago: the history of the unicorn plus the annals of the Basil Registry

thirteen years ago: American secessionist movements  

fourteen years ago: house-hunting 

fifteen years ago: a foiled terror attack on the Reichstag 

one flew east, one flew west (12. 892)

As our faithful chronicler reminds, on this day in 1975, Miloš Forman’s cinematic adaption of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel was released in the United States, starring Jack Nicholson as newly arrived patient at a mental institution, Randle McMurphy feigning mental illness in order to avoid a sentence of hard labour following a series of crimes including statutory rape, and Louise Fletcher as the abusive and sadistic Nurse Mildred Ratched (77 Sunset Strip and spiritual leader Vedek Winn on Star Trek: DS9, much like the part of head nurse) with a supporting cast of inmates featuring Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito and Will Sampson, Jr as Chief Bromden. In development hell for thirteen years prior (primarily due to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia—the Communist party was Forman’s Nurse Ratched) to shooting in Salem Oregon, the project originally called for Kirk Douglas and either Angela Lansbury, Anne Bancroft or Jane Fonda in the lead roles, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was critically acclaimed and remains ranked among the best films ever made, netting five Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Screenplay and Director. Recognising the subversive presence of the new arrival as a threat to her authority within the ward, Ratched scales back patient privileges—only causing more rebellion. Rehearsed on location at Oregon’s state public psychiatric hospital, the cast observed the daily routine prior to filming to get into character, including sessions of electro-shock therapy and stayed overnight in the wards among the criminally insane.

most other two-digit numbers had no meaningful trend over that period (12. 891)

For its WotY, Dictionies.com has selected “6-7” from its list of contenders for terms capturing the Zeitgeist of language and culture over the past twelve months, not just about confusion, neologism or popularity but moreover as a socio-linguistic mirror to visage. In the shortlist of other reference authorities, the meme, phrase and accompanying hand gestures from a nonsense lyric in a song by Philadelphia rapper Skrilla, titled “Doot Doot (Six-Seven).” And while grammarians have tried to apply several interpretations as to its meaning and etymology—from a reference to a street in the artist’s hometown or police code, which despite being incorrect have increased its rather enduring lore as opposed to recent marketing campaigns by fast food franchises and rumours that the next AI model will be called GPT-6-7 (surely a sign the trend is about to plummet)—it is genuinely a meaningless phrase though positive among cohorts who can share it together. The Wikipedia entry for the much older, fourteenth century English idiom to describe a situation in disarray—“at sixes and sevens”—from the proto-version of gambling dice game craps called hazard has not been updated to reflect this new phenomenon.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the events that inspired The Wicker Man (with synchronopticæ), an ancient amulet discovered, a thousand days of the war on Ukraine, shifting through default video titles plus Mister Plow (1992)

twelve years ago: digital footprints 

thirteen years ago: market bubbles 

fourteen years ago: in for a penny, in for a pound 

fifteen years ago: free-range exoplanets 

sixteen years ago: preppers and doubters 

discharge petition (12. 890)

Following the release of a tranche of incriminating emails and documents last week from the estate of disgraced financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and with Trump’s unexpected reversal (suspect and perhaps an attempt at normalising such abusive behaviour or over-confidence that all the right records were purged, denying justice for victims and survivors) on his stance that the growing movement was a hoax perpetrated by his Democratic opposition to discredit him and acquiescing to full disclosure, both chambers of the US legislature voted (we had some fear that the process would be pre-empted by a declaration of war)—with near unanimity, four hundred and twenty-seven to one congress members agreeing, even with the staunchest hold-outs, like house speaker Mike Johnson flipping and the senate fast-tracking the bill without a formal vote. The bill, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, will now go to the desk of the president to sign into law (something which Trump could have directed at any time without being compelled by congress), requiring the attorney general to disclose all records and investigative material not subject to classification, reserving the right to withhold information that might jeopardise on-going investigations or involuntarily out the identity of victims.

10x10 (12. 889)

trip hop: frustrated with his limited role in Massive Attack, Tricky embarked on his independent project Maxinquaye  

chud atlantis: more regional car-dealership rococo from McMansion Hell  

linguistic zombie hunting: a revival of the old prescriptivist superstition against ending a sentence with a preposition and the grammarians that support it 

state capture: the revolving door between government and industry creating the post-democratic world order—via Quantum of Sollazzo 

♾️ series: visual proofs that 1/4 + 1/16 + 1/64 + 1/256… yields ⅓  

circlesquare: filmmaker Jaron Albertin’s rather disturbing music video for “Seven Minutes” 

artful dodger: Victorian mugshots of juvenile offenders—via Nag on the Lake  

stay puft: some facts all about marshmallows 

sealab: project Tektite and experimenting with submerged human habitats  

giscardpunk: Fifth Republic techno-futurism reimagined—see previously 

synchronoptica

one year ago: farming by lottery (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links to revisit

twelve years ago: coded correspondence

thirteen years ago: Thanksgiving salutations  

fourteen years ago: Bretton Woods and monetary unions 

fifteen years ago: privacy and Google Maps plus trade unions and Ricardian economics