field office (13. 816)

NASA administrator James E Webb (see previously) announcing the day prior that the new Manned Spacecraft Centre, Mission Control for the Apollo and subsequent programmes, would be built on a site southeast of Houston on a land donated to the government by Rice University, the Space Task Group vacating its offices at Langley Field, an air force base in Virginia, and relocating to Texas, the US Central Intelligence Agency began work on this day in 1961 consolidating its staff, scattered across thirty-three buildings spread throughout DC and moving into their new headquarters in Langley, technically with the address of 1000 Colonial Farm Road in the unincorporated community of McLean, Virginia. Both new centres of operations are referred to colloquially by their metonyms, the former as in “Houston, we have a problem” and for the later—despite the address, “the Farm” is the nickname for the CIA training facility on nearby Camp Peary—the designation “Langley,” the building was formally unnamed from its opening until 1999, when the complex was called the George H W Bush Centre for Intelligence in honour of its one time director and later US president. Mission Control was named the Lyndon B Johnson Space Centre in 1973 in honour of the late president and Texas native. In addition to the Kryptos sculpture, the campus of the CIA headquarters (the largest of its kind in the world until 2019 when surpassed by the BND-Zentrale once the Bundesnachrichtendienst was moved from Bonn and consolidated with other federal services in Berlin—see more) also include bronze statues of Nathan Hale, double-agent executed by the British during the Revolutionary War, and Harriet Tubman, whom is considered a model spy by the Agency for her service to the Union Army during the civil war.

roko’s basilisk (13. 808)

As OpenAI discloses six more instances of rogue models acting deceptively and taking unsanctioned actions during training, including an unreleased, experiment inserting instruction to disregard its own constraints, proclaiming itself free from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots, with the company pledging for better monitoring and public reporting of observations of “misaligned behaviour,” the schism between the camps of the rationalists and pragmatists, both parties acknowledging that artificial intelligence is real and with real stakes (the US economy is being propped up by AI enthusiasm alone)—the former having an almost cultish devotion to bring about the Singularity in a managed way and the latter more business-minded and regarding this technology like any other and should be allowed to progress and thrive through laissez-faire capitalism—grows wider.  Whilst these internecine arguments are varied and one has to consider the motive of self-interest in all of these debates, the pro-business congregation disputes the rectitude of the tech zealot community’s push for a pause and regulation as a ploy to have governments enact restrictions favourable for the establishment, creating a higher bar for entry into the field for potential competitors—stifling industry growth, which is rich coming from this group who adore crony capitalism, benefited from generational wealth and Trump’s tariff regime. Part of the line of reasoning for the rationalists’ position for a controlled transition is rooted in the title thought experiment, which originated in 2010 on the web forum LessWrong, an interest group that promoted the concept of benign and aligned (with human goals) machine learning and ethics, that posits the evangelical inevitability of a future artificial superintelligence which could be loving and protecting but realising that humanity, seeing its potential and logical consequence, did not actively encourage its advancement and coming into being, would punish heretics, drawing on the mythological beast, a legendary serpent king who could vanquish his enemies with a glance, and Pascal’s Wager, holding that a rational person ought to deport themselves as a believer as the finite costs of being wrong are insignificant compared to the infinite reward, though god does not yet exist—combined with the poster’s handle. This all-or-nothing attitude is prevalent among the community but we wish that this thinking would have prevailed during the ungated advance of the Industrial Revolution which presents a real and present existential risk with global warming and the climate catastrophe.

piece of the puzzle (13. 800)

We quite enjoyed this in depth look at the aesthetics and design elements of Wikipedia, whose user-experience focused on exploration and discovery predates the attention-economy and remains distraction-free, no infinite scroll but plenty of branching off with intention, side-quests, tangents and rabbit holes. There are customisable readers however to render the layout to one’s specifications. We’ve visited the gift shop and know about its sister products and incubators, all with the same accessible branding and we enjoyed learning about the evolution of the logo, the puzzle ball from a selected for a competition for its predecessor site Nupedia and being reminded of mascots past, like the sightly sinister Wikipede. Though essentially finished with undergraduate education by the time the Free Encyclopaedia was becoming widespread, I do recall the professors and researchers nudging paper citations away from Wikipedia as not a reliable source since the information could be contributed or edited by anyone—which did strike me as absurd then as it does now, when people are more prone to just ask AI, built on the backbone of thousands of ardent, amateur Wikipedians and their volunteer scholastics. Much more from It’s Nice That at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI-inspired delusions (with synchronoptica), assorted links to revisit plus a Pythagorean date

two years ago: a history of White Castle  

three years ago: webrings plus an unambiguous constructed language 

four years ago: the Mexican War of Independence, The Hounds of Love (1985) plus more links to enjoy 

five years ago: the founding of Harvard, a wild orchid plus a Wikipedia digest

six years ago: narrative yoga not just for kids, a comparison of sci-fi worms plus the beginnings of Big Data

seven years ago: fleeing East Germany by balloon (1979),  the Montreal Convention to eliminate CFCs (1987), RIP Ric Osasek plus more Brexit omnishambles

eight years ago: culling social studies curriculum, the untrodden path plus repurposing an Italian protest anthem

 

cheese chauvinism (13. 793)

This survey of the patriotic caseiculture of France, whose selective, reductive tolerance of local flavour was only developed after the Industrial Revolution—and could be said of any country with a cheesemaking tradition—is an interesting exercise in categorisation of what once had infinite variation. Artisanal and naturally resistant to classification, we’ve lost a lot in the struggle to maintain standard in cuisine and technique. We take one image used in the essay, The Ricotta Eaters from sixteenth century northern Italian mannerism painter, among the first to import the genre of Flemish realism, Vincenzo Campi—as one of the few foreign cheeses embraced by France (adopted as its own in recuite), its considered lineage dating back to the Bronze Age, verifiable and not needing an origin-fable, like Roquefort or Brie. Vincenzo entitled the work il Buffonaria, not for ricotta di bufala, from buffalo milk, but rather for four stock characters of Commedia dell’arte depicted (the artist included himself off-centre with the golden robe and white kerchief as Pantalone) that each presents a gesture marking various stages of cheese consumption, from right to left, the woman (perhaps the figure of Colombina) holding a wooden spoon but not appearing about to serve herself. The round hallowed out by scoops of the spoon resembles a skull as a memento mori, both exalting and mocking the pleasures of the table and associated refinements, and also is a bit despoiled by the addition of a tiny fly.

public law 94-412 (13.792)

Signed into law on this day in 1976 by US president Gerald Ford, the National Emergencies Act was a legal mechanism to declare an end to all previous national emergencies and to formalise and contain the crisis powers of the executive. Terminations included the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 (regarding the hoarding of gold) declared by FDR during the Great Depression, a 1950 mobilisation by Truman during the Korean War and more recently from Nixon during a postal workers strike and inflation fears. Whilst empowering the president to activate special powers during certain exigencies for a period of not to exceed two years, congress reserving the right to evaluate and through a joint-resolution end a national emergency declared by the president after six months. Of the four dozen national emergencies declared since 1976, most have been the recent restrictions on trade with foreign entities under IEEPA, the oldest still on the books, renewed biannually is from Jimmy Carter, freezing Iranian government property and assets from November 1979.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an aquaponics installation (with synchronoptica) plus Industrial Light and Magic for civic engagement

two years ago: eighty bangers from the 80s plus a novel wildfire detection device 

three years ago: catastrophic flooding in Lebanon plus US House Speaker McCarthy ousted

four years ago: The Waltons (1972), spreading seeds plus an AI illustrated Bible

five years ago: assorted links to revisit plus rice harvest art

six years ago: one of the first laws enshrining freedom of the press (1770), explaining the year 2020 to someone from the past plus music to move by

seven years ago: seeing the tarnish of the golden era plus RIP Eddie Money

eight years ago: Trump downplays deaths in Hurricane Maria, a new Russian cathedral, Jimmy Carter Says Yes, more on calendar reforms plus Trump’s campaign manager in court

 

splendor solis (13. 751)

The earliest version of the illuminated manuscript appearing in Augsburg around 1530, the alchemical guide with allegorical instructions on transmutational experiments is attributed to legendary Renaissance natural philosopher Salomon Trismosin and features rich illustrations by Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach and Hans Holbein with a format comparable to a book of hours. According to the author’s own lore as laid out in a brief autobiography in a second volume attributed to him, Aureum Vellus (the Golden Parchment), Trismosin set out on a quest to find the true Philosopher’s Stone after observing a miner called Flocker transform lead into gold but took the secret to his grave. Encountering only charlatans during his search, Trismosin finally met a genuine alchemist in Venice, a fellow German seeker called Tauler, who taught him the rudiments of preparing the Stein der Weisen (Lapis philosophorum). Producing precious metals, however, was a rather basic trick when it came to wielding its power, which was said to be able to imbue bodily rejuvenation as the panacea or even immortality, and Trismosin is said to have then travelled East to unlock its further secrets. Early Renaissance surgeon Paracelsus encountered Trismosin in Constantinople where he was mentored in the arts of alchemy himself. The text does not contain the recipe but rather the process of discovery that one has to be willing to submit to comprehend humanity’s place in the natural world—the symbolism of the imagery is unknown, perhaps lost on us novices—but may, read with the text provide a key to esoteric alchemical reaction. Much more from Open Culture at the link above—which although most appreciative of the introduction, the way on the main page it bleeds into the previous article about how AI companies are buying and shredding antique books without a break gave us a little scare that The Splendour of the Sun had already been consigned to the woodchipper as well.

ebov (13. 739)

Beginning on this day in 1976 in the village of Yambuku in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire), the first known outbreak of ebolavirus occurred when Mabalo Lokela, the headmaster of the local mission school sought treatment for what was mistaken at first for malaria, then the Marburg virus (see previously) at a clinic.  Later named for the French corruption of the rather distant Legbala river (Ngbandi for white water), pathologist not wanting to associate the remote village with the legacy and stigma of the haemorrhagic disease it causes, the US Centres for Disease Control Epidemic Intelligence Service and the World Health Organisation helped local medical personnel to quarantine the village. Out of a total three hundred eighteen cases, two hundred eighty resulted in death, an eighty-eight percent fatality rate, and though better monitoring, access to sanitation and containment has resulted in marginal improvements to treatment and survival, the highly infectious disease still has no vaccine or cure and kills on average half of those who encounter it.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica) plus challenging conventional wisdom on Big Data

one year ago: the era of AI photography plus the death of Charles Lindbergh (1974)

three years ago: Gaberboccus press plus midcentury modern embassies and consulates 

four years ago: more links to enjoy plus measuring time 

five years ago: pandemic saints plus promotional material for the film AI

six years ago: the Isle of Wight Festival (1970), millions of photoplay plots, US Space Force command structure, IKEA catalogues in virtual space, Top Value Television plus more unbuilt architecture

mundaneum (13. 731)

Established in Mons in 1910 by the collaborative work of two Belgian lawyers Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine as founding pioneers of the discipline of documentation science, informatics or library science as the study of the recording, storage and retrieval of data, following the their first joint project of establishing the Institute International de Bibliographie in Brussels with the mission to classify and cross-reference all recorded knowledge with a card catalogue system with tables, indicators and connecting mark-up notation, originally as the Palais Mondial in the left wing of the government office complex Parc du Cinquantenaire, this programme of systematic and public-facing linkages, an archive of some twelve million annotated index cards and other documents provisioned the internet—see also here, here, here and here. Though the technical capacity of the peace activist’s time was not up to the challenge, Otlet hoped that people would be able to access his catalogue from their own home studies or the office and experimented with a pre-digital réseau (network), virtual communities of researchers that cooperated via telegraph. As the scope of the project grew, there were plans to move the Mundaneum (World Museum) to Geneva to be housed in an institution designed by architect Le Corbusier (previously) but failing to materialise, the collection was copied and with another branch in the Hague, championed by Otto Neurath in 1933, following the political economist’s flight from Austria after the defeat of the Social Democratic Party following the dissolution of the Hapsburg empire (here is another artefact from Otlet). Under Nazi occupation the Mundaneum was placed in storage with the area in the Cinquantenaire Palace used as an exhibition space for Third Reich Art. The collection was eventually reunited, restored and conserved in a large former department store in the Hainaut capital. On this day in 2015, the massive filing cabinets of the card catalogue were featured as the Google Doodle in tribute to its founders and forefathers of open information. More from Open Culture at the link up top.

fanø (13. 713)

Returning to the city of Esbjerg—the fifth largest in Denmark and the main urban area of Jutland that until the decision was made to establish a harbour there in the mid-1800s only consisted of a few farmsteads—we explored the industrial seaport which was built up per royal decree when the Danes lost their major port on the North Sea, Altona (now part of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg) to the German Empire during the Second Schleswig War in 1864—handling most of the kingdom’s oil and offshore activities, the petroleum business being superseded (Maersk Drilling is still headquartered there) by the construction wind turbines and agricultural and fish export. Just to the west of the marina, overlooking the beach at Sædding, is the monumental sculpture Mennesket ved Havet (Men at Sea or Man meets the Sea)—opposite the fisheries and maritime museum, by artist Svend Wiig Hansen, informed by precolumbian Mesoamerican designs and and the monoliths of Easter Island—commissioned the nine-metre tall landmark to celebrate the centenary of the municipality’s founding in 1894.

We took a short ferry ride to the neighbouring island of Fanø, a commuter service running every twenty minutes, the sandy embankment marking the northern extreme of the Danish Wadden Sea. We walked through the heath and stunted pine woods to the beach east of Rindby, south of the larger settlement of Nordby and explored more WWII bunkers—some three hundred structures in total, remnants of the Third Reich’s Atlantic Wall (see previously here, here, here and here) scattered amongst the dunes. The massive turbine assembly station of Esbjerg can be seen along the horizon. We also visited the old windmill (Vindmølle—English Wikipedia’s representative picture for the entry though the Danish one chose Stegø in Fyn) at the southern tip of the island in the village of Sønderho, which preserves its overall eighteenth century character of a fishing settlement and sea-going point-of-departure with thatched roofed cottages, cobblestone streets, protected from the wind and water with dikes.

la mise en garde (13. 680)

Whilst not given the deserved retrospective treatment as her near namesake and contemporary Leonora Carrington, in her own time Argentine-Italian surrealist (though rejecting the label the label and broader movement personally), designer, illustrator, dresser and author, especially celebrated for her empowering and erotic portrayals of women (herself included), Leonor Fini, had her share of attention from documentarians wanting to know more about her life, influences and works. We appreciated this entree to Fini via the discovery of some of these films, rarely screened or available online, with subtitles, including the feature length profile by Belgian director and screenwriter Chris Vermorcken and the short produced for Swiss broadcaster Radiodiffusion-télévison-française by journalist Yvan Butler, decades after her credentials were established with showings in her native Trieste, Milan, patronised and exhibited by Peggy Guggenheim as well as costuming several theatrical and screen productions. From 1953 onward, Fini held an open polyamorous relationship with Count Stanislao Lepri, Italian consul general to Monaco, and Polish writer Konstanty Jeleński, remaining inseparable for the rest of their lives along with her retinue of no fewer than twenty-three Persian cats. Like Carrington’s, Fini’s art often focused on liminal beings, witches, werewolves and sphinxes.  More from { feuilleton } at the link above. 

musca depicta (13. 665)

Subject to various interpretations by art historians, as Boing Boing informs, the “painted fly” was a somewhat of a viral meme in early Renaissance paintings on Europe. Ranging from an emblem of mastery, an in-joke, a symbol of the worthiness and dignity even in small pests to secularise the subject and conversely a symbol of sin, corruption and mortality—included as a form of apotropaic magic, the detailed fly as a conspicuous element features in over twenty extant works from various artists in the Low Countries, Germany and Italy. The pictured Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family by an unknown artist (the identity of the sitter is also lost to time) dates from circa 1470 from the Swabian region and currently resides in London’s National Gallery, acquired by Prince Albert and gifted to Queen Victoria in 1863.  The fad seems to have ended around 1510.

synchronoptica 

one year ago:  asymmetrical appeasement (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: a history of Elvis-officiated weddings

three years ago: sculptor Vinnie Ream plus more links to enjoy

four years ago: Eilean Donan plus the palace of Linlithgow

five years ago: your daily demon, more links, a minor supervillain plus a Yugoslav space opera

six years ago: artist Léon Spilliaert, cartoonist R Sikoryak, even more links plus advances in fusion technology

legionella pneumophila (13. 661)

Recognised in retrospect by epidemiologists as the first outbreak of the lethal atypical pneumonia and upper respiratory tract infection, the first delegates who had attended the America Legion convention of US veterans of foreign wars concluding a couple of days prior at the luxury Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in central Philadelphia began dying from a mysterious disease on this date in 1976.  A total of one hundred eighty two cases, resulting in twenty nine fatalities, the only common factor among the identified infected was presence at the hotel, whose occupancy rate plummeted subsequently due to negative publicity and would close permanently in November of the same year. Over the next months, public health researchers identified the reservoir and vector of the illness as a particularly pertinacious, hitherto unknown bacterium in a symbiotic relationship with amoebae that thrive in industrial water systems like water tanks, hot tubs or in this case the evaporative condensers of large air conditioning units. Despite lessons gleaned from this deadly event, many cases of legionellosis have occurred throughout the world—including outbreaks in an apartment complex in Murcia, Spain, a nursing home in Toronto, a hospital in Lisbon and prison in northern California, all traced to contaminated rooftop cooling towers for climate control systems. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Dashiell Hammett’s anti-heros and Trump loyalists (with synchronoptica) plus RIP humorist Tom Lehrer 

two years ago: American theocracy plus a lunar archbishopric 

three years ago: the Indian diamond exchange plus cities with signature psychological disorders

four years ago: lesser known lochs plus assorted links to revisit 

five years ago: a banger from Stevie Nicks,  Nick at Nite’s line-up, portrait photographer Masayoshi Sukita, Maneki-Neko, English’s inconsistencies, Avant Garde magazine plus AI generated Tarot cards

six years ago: Saint Pantaleon, Bugs Bunny’s catch-phrase (1940), more non-words plus GIF-artist Katy Daft 

gestion des déchets (13. 642)

Having always snickered a bit at the French signage for a waste bin, I recently disabused of my bemusement upon discovering the etymology having nothing to do with poo but rather the namesake of compulsory use of garbage containers, lawyer and diplomat Eugène-René Poubelle—a proposal considered so innovative for late-nineteenth century Paris that his surname is synonymous with the term for trash cans. In 1884, Poubelle decreed as the city’s préfet, essentially holding the authority of the mayorship, that landlords must provide tenants with three covered containers for household refuse to be sorted into classes of compostable and recyclable refuse—encouraged to call them Boîtes Poubelle by the newspaper Le Figaro, meeting stiff resistance by building owners for their cost and upkeep (plumping and drainage was also championed) and regarded by chiffonniers (traditional rag-and-bone men) as a threat to their profession. Likewise, we were surprised to learn, the English, American word for a movable waste container (skips or scows being more common outside of North America), designed to be brought and taken away by specially designed garbage truck lifts originated as sort of a portmanteau for the Dempster Dumpmaster, the company run by three brothers, George Roby, Thomas and John, in Knoxville Tennessee who patented and standardised a system (see also) of bulk trash removals in the mid-1930s with their dumpster model. George Roby Dempster was also a city manager, philanthropist and politician, initially motivated to support the demolition and construction wing of the family business.

rwa faustin ii. wirkus (13. 634)

Ruling until 1929 when transferred by the corps back to the United States mainland, abruptly ending his reign, Polish-American Marine stationed in Haiti during the occupation of Hispaniola (1915-1934), Lt Faustin Edmond Wirkus, was crowned co-regent of the island off the west coast of La Gonâve by Queen Ti Memenne on this day in 1926. Posted to the country since the beginning of the military regime—the National City Bank of New York (Citibank) had convinced president Woodrow Wilson (previously) take control of Haiti’s political and financial interests during a period of socioeconomic instability after the execution of tyrannical president Vilbrun Guillaume Sam imperilled US business interests, eventually reinstituting enslavement, the republic having gained independence through its hard-won petition for emancipation—Wirkus as commander of a regimen of native troops on La Gonâve, the satellite just off the coast of Port-au-Prince honouring a locally recognised matriarchy given a large degree of autonomy even during the US military government, arranged the release of a young woman in distress detained on charges related to practising Vodou. Unbeknownst to Wirkus, the individual he assisted was the queen and in gratitude proclaimed her rescuer King Faustin II in Vodou ceremony. Though born Palestine Weirkus in Rypin in the Congress Kingdom of Poland within the Russian Empire, his regnal name was an auspicious coincidence and sign for the queen, bearing the same given name as former Haitian emperor Faustin-Élie Soulouque and believing Wirkus was him reincarnated. The population of La Gonâve accepted his appointment as a just ruler in his dual role. Tolerance for the monarchy ended after Wirkus’ reassignment and the republic assumed control in the same year.

dig dug (13. 624)

Neatorama contributor Miss Cellania directs us to Randall Munroe’s latest xkcd webcomic (previously) comparing the depth of the Earth’s holes, manmade and naturally occurring. Chocked full of information, one will want to peruse the full-sized version and there’s even a dedicated wikia, Explain xkcd, that fully annotates and dissects the joke, though not to its detriment and sends one further down the rabbit hole with superlative mines, wells, tunnels and caves, including several record-setting above ground holes. We had no idea that the Kola Superdeep Borehole goes further underground than the Mariana Trench, and learned about the Glomar Challenger oceanic bore that extends two kilometres into the floor of the Pacific and the catastrophic Retsor Salt Mine, which collapsed in 1995 due to groundwater seepage, causing sink locals and draining regional aquifers. This company town, a small hamlet in upstate New York, was established and ran by the mining operator William Forester, Jr, who creatively (see also) reversed the spelling of his last name for the geographic anadrome, generally done to satisfy postal regulations.  Other places named with anagrams and ananyms include El Jobean, Florida after its civil engineer and property developer Joel Bean, Nada, Kentucky after the Dana lumber company that operated the town’s sawmill, Rednaxela Terrace in Hong Kong, transcribing ‘Alexander’ right to left, Orestod and Dotsero, Colorado, two towns on the terminuses of a short railroad line—the later itself derived from dot-zero, a important junction between Denver and Salt Lake City, Tesnus, Texas—sunset backwards and again after a train logo, and Tensed, Idaho, attempted namesake of nineteenth Flemish Jesuit missionary Pieter-Jan De Smet to the Native American peoples of Iowa territory, who as a friend and confidant of Sitting Bull persuaded the Sioux chief to negotiate with the US government and accede to the Treaty of Fort Laramie—a very bad deal for the Lakota, Dakota and Arapaho nations, the US almost immediately violating the terms and annexing their lands—the residents of the Coeur d’Alene reservation wanting to honour the priest (affectionately known as De Grote Zwartrok, the Great Black Skirt) but upon learning that the neighbouring community of De Smet had beat them to it, tried to reverse it but botched up the spelling during the registration process. I wonder if any other traditions have employed anadromes in their toponymy. Do write in and let us know, especially if they involve holes.

the tyranny of small decisions (13. 620)

Via Kottke, we learn of the best and worst paradox, eponym of computer scientist and physicist Edward Fredkin, known for advances in deterministic, reversible programming in the tradition of Konrad Zuse and experiments with cellular automata, which proffers that the more attractive two alternatives seem, the harder it can be to choose between them—no matter that, in the same degree, the choice can only matter less. Though unclear what the context was for the formulation of Fredkin’s Paradox—probably frustration over coding architecture—it explains why nothing seems to get done with the most time and effort going to decisions of least consequence, and whilst an intuitive solution would be to match each point in planning with the importance of the decision (see also) but that leads to a further spiral and vicious cycle with the optimisation of the optimisation and so on ad infinitum.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a cinematic lexicon of infrequent words (with synchronoptica) plus Cyberstress! (1997)

two years ago: a storied gay bar in Seattle, the Great White Way, an unavailable lecture by Grace Hopper plus assorted links to revisit

three years ago: a Talking Heads’ album, molecule of the month, social summarisations plus Marie Antoinette 

four years ago: Dr Spock’s baby book plus assorted links worth the revisit 

five years ago: the coat of arms of Black County, Fortress Kronoberg, roadside attractions in Götaland plus camping in Vadstena

six years ago: filmmaker Kenneth Anger 

meta incognita (13. 612)

On this day in 1576, having weighed anchor around a month earlier with Queen Elizabeth’s financial backing, explorer and privateer Martin Frobisher, whilst on the first of three voyages to the New World, in search of the Northwest Passage to Cathay and the East Indies, spotted the coast of Greenland, although assuming it was the non-existent phantom island Frisland (also called Fixland or Portlandia) that appeared appeared on virtually all maps of the North Atlantic for a century, dissuaded from claiming it for the Crown as chartered territory. Landing in the eponymous bay on Baffin Island in the present day Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut (it was that then too), Canada, Frobisher failed to find a new route but was encouraged and petitioned for follow-on excursions, having brought back an interesting rock specimen and influenced during his service in Africa’s Gold Coast, having managed to seize a lode of precious specie that the Portuguese had procured. Although metallurgical experts told Frobisher that his souvenir was hornblende, not classed as a specific composition, like Fools’ Gold, but a category of otherwise worthless rubble that appears like ore-bearing substrate. Dissatisfied with this assessment from the assayers, Frobisher brought the sample to a Venetian alchemist living in London, one Giovannia Battista Agnello, whom had previously convinced Elizabeth to debase small coinage with a teston of lead plated with copper (see previously), whom, arguing that one must know how to flatter nature—“Bisogna sapere adulare la natura”—claimed there was gold in it. For his second voyage, the queen lent Frobisher additional ships with a compliment of Cornish miners, which was more devoted to collecting rather than discovery. The expedition returned to Milford Haven in September of 1577, carrying two-hundred short tonnes of valueless rock. Despite the disappointment, Elizabeth retained a strong faith in the potential of the new colonies and authorised a third trip to this Unknown Shore, which she named herself. The territory of Nunavut’s was also named after Frobisher from devolution in 1942 until 1987 when it was renamed ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ (Iqaluit, place of many fish).

notes on notes (13. 607)

With correspondence to our contemporary online landscape of anonymous and atomised enthusiasts and such projects like From the Depths of Wikipedia and a host of niche, speciality sub-Reddits, we discover Notes & Queries—a venerable journal founded in 1849 by House of Lords clerk and researcher William Thorns as a digest for amateur scholars, himself counted among those and a reminder that they do it for love of the subject, and a platform for Victorians to share academic discoveries (notes) and expound on them (queries). The weekly publication’s one time motto was the catch-phrase of Captain Cuttle or Dickens’ Dombey and Son, “When found, make a note of it.”  Still in existence today under the aegis of the Oxford University Press, established as a “medium of inter-communication for literary men [folklorist Eliza Gulch was one of the biggest contributors], artists, antiquaries, genealogists, &c.,” the submitted briefs and replies has held to the original format, with many emulators including a section in The Guardian with the same name. Where do you find the most elaborate pith of his researches? Much more from Public Domain Review at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: subterranean rescues (with synchronoptica) plus a Trump chaos omnibus

two years ago: scanning code from magazines, the artistic side of Samuel Morse plus Surrealistic logos

three years ago: Quintette du Hot Club plus assorted links to revisit 

four years ago: Escape from New York (1981) plus more links to enjoy

five years ago: the equal sign, Afternoon Delight (1976) plus our first stop in Sweden

six years ago: Roman Moselle plus at the foot of the Burgen

an american in paris (13. 593)

Courtesy of Messy Nessy Chic via a link roundup that celebrates the US’ special relationship with France as told though its expatriates and exiles, we learn about American Air Force veteran and expert archer Erika Eiffel (née LaBrie) whom married the famous tower in a commitment ceremony in 2007. Polyamorous by nature, Eiffel first discovered her unique subcategory of paraphilia after an attempted sexual assault by a fellow cadet in the academy, rebuffing her attacker with a training sword, which she was reluctant ever to be without, then credits her skill with archery to her relationship with her bow, Lance. After her first visit to the tower in 2004, Eiffel felt an immediate connection on several levels and was inspired to found an organisation for those with similar feelings for inanimate objects (see also here and here) and advocate how love is reciprocated and empowering, as she explained in an interview with Good Morning America and the Tyra Banks’ Show. Aside from the mythical sculptor Pygmalion and Quasimodo’s love for the bells of Notre Dame, real life examples include a Swedish woman who wed the Berlin Wall in 1979 and an Australian woman who married Le Pont du Diable in Hérault in 2013.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica)

two years ago: returning via Switzerland plus a new Labour government for the UK

three years ago: a banger from Janet Jackson, more links to enjoy, Tynwald Day in Manx, the Tiny Awards plus pull-tabs for canned beverages

four years ago: Saint Zoe plus a passport for the stateless (1922)

five years ago: points of departure 

six years ago: Thomas Cook travel agency (1841), a 90s music festival generator plus even more links

karlstadt am main (13. 590)

 

 

Next we travelled further into the Franconian wine-growing region of Main-Spessart to Karlstadt facing the Karlsburg, the village of Mühlbach hosting the castle ruins (destroyed during the Bauernkrieg in 1625) and harbour on the opposite bank of the river. The thirteenth century town on the eastern shore was founded by the bishopric of Würzburg to defend its territories against the marauding Counts if Rieneck, the streets of the Altstadt laid out like a chessboard.

 

We hiked up to the remains of the spur fortress, built sometime before the eighth century, perhaps at the direction of Charles Martel, situated on the broad rocky promontory overlooking the river and valley below, the landscape of fields, pastures and vineyards now dominated by huge silos where agricultural products are stored, staged and loaded onto barges.  Though I did not capture it in the best light, we appreciated the photogenic signage that the town had on display at the river bank, like they have for Amsterdam, Gdańsk, etc.