opus 314 (11. 352)

Premiering on this day in 1867 with a performance of the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, the waltz by Johann Stauss II was originally met with a rather tepid response from the audience but has since become one of the most enduring compositions in the classical repertoire and an unofficial anthem for Austria—the national hymn “Land der Berge, Land am Strome” a tune by Mozart. The lyrics were added after the orchestral part was finished about a year earlier by the Männergesang-Verein’s resident poet Joseph Weyl as a carnival song, with eleven satirical verses lightly lampooning the country’s loss in the recent Austro-Prussian War:

Weit vom Schwarzwald her
eilst du hin zum Meer,
spendest Segen
allerwegen,
ostwärts geht dein Lauf,
nimmst viel Brüder auf:
Bild der Einigkeit
für alle Zeit!
Alte Burgen seh’n
nieder von den Höh’n,
grüssen gerne
dich von ferne
und der Berge Kranz,
hell vom Morgenglanz,
spiegelt sich in deiner Wellen Tanz

Prevalent in popular culture, in Austria, it is played at midnight on New Year’s as well as being the traditional sign-off tune for the end of the broadcasting day, a coda sung to Mexican birthday gatherings as “Queremos pastel, pastel, pastel” to serve the cake and played during the 1970s and 1980s over the PA systems of Chinese domestic flights as reassurance to passengers on landing. Die Donau so blau, so blau.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Amerika, a 1987 mini-series 

two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus the fist demonstration of closed-captioning (1972)

three years ago: Decimalisation Day (1971) plus another Roman holiday

four years ago: harnessing the power of falling rain, Japanese business jargon plus a trip to castle ruin Henneberg

five years ago: Trump sends troops to the Mexican border plus introducing OpenAI

saint mél (11. 329)

Son of Saint Patrick’s sister Darerca and eventually accompanying his uncle to Ireland for missionary work, this itinerate bishop with no fixed see during his ministry, this patron of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, supported himself through manual labour and subsistence farming, residing with his aunt called Lupait during a portion of his ministry. In order to quell rumours and preserve the good reputation of their evangelising work, Patrick went to investigate himself, with both aunt and nephew producing miracles (carrying burning coals and fishing a fish from a field) to prove the innocent and chaste nature of their relationship, and the two went to live apart—following the patriarch’s suggestion, who also raised the great hill called Bri Leith between their respective new settlements in Mél’s home parish and Druimheo, further east where Lupait relocated, they separated. Invoked by those falsely accused of incest, the feast of Saint Mél, venerated either today or on the seventh, has become a local holiday of singlehood (there being quite a few other saints devoted to the unpaired but all with the designs of marrying well) with customs including sending cards to oneself ahead of Valentine’s Day and hosting mixers that extol the good things about being confirmed bachelors and bachelorettes.

nichts der homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die situation, in der er lebt (11. 308)

Having premiered at the at the Berlin International Film Festival the prior year, Rosa von Praunheim’s It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse But Rather the Society in Which He Lives was broadcast for the first time on the television network Westdeutschen Runk on this day in 1972, the exposure to a wider audience considered emancipatory and resounding globally helped informed the Lesbian and gay rights movements in Germany and the rest of Europe and encouraged individuals, particularly following the liberalisation of Section 175 in 1969 of the German Criminal Code (see previously), to come out of hiding and be seen in a society becoming more tolerant and accepting. Despite criticisms that the film itself was not very good or revelatory (since reappraised for its historical and socio-political influence)—the narrative of a country boy meeting a city boy that in the capital is honest but perhaps not the most ingratiating with promiscuity thwarting attempts to copy the heteronormative lifestyle, though ultimately leading to community activism—it has had an enduring and impactful legacy. Watch the entire film with English subtitles here.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the first McDonald’s in Moscow (1990) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: more on the International Geophysical Year, St Geminianus plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: advocating a base-eight system, the Winter Soldier Investigations (1971) plus the first chimpanzee in space (1961)

four years ago: ancient aliens and the Gorn Hegemony, the UK leaves the EU, hidden thread plus Primal Scream (2000)

five years ago: a monument to Scrabble plus division bells

there’s a choice we’re making—we’re saving our own lives (11. 301)

Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, organised by Harry Belafonte and produced and conducted by Quincy Jones, the supergroup USA (United Support of Artist) for Africa (inspired by Band Aid’s success from the year before) gathered at A&M studios in Hollywood on this day in 1985 to record the charity single. Over forty-five of America’s most popular musicians and celebrities, including Billy Joel, Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen and Dionne Warwick, were involved in the project with solos and as part of the chorus—with more than fifty turned away—arriving to be greeted by a delegation Stevie Wonder and Charles, who threatened the artists if the song wasn’t done in one take, the two blind men, would be everyone’s chauffeurs for that evening, and a note pinned to the studio door to please check their egos here. Released five weeks later on 7 March, the song raised over sixty-three million dollars that went directly to relief funds for areas hardest hit by the famine affecting the continent and continues contributions through charitable foundations and tribute renditions for other humanitarian crises and has gone on to become among the most popular and purchased commercial singles.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a match monopoly, going to Canossa plus the Ceremony of the Keys

two years ago: another NFT minting operation plus a video game game show

three years ago: the execution of a Scottish witch 

four years ago: the musical stylings of Rupa Sen, train headboards, American Type Founders plus more on manicules

five years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, WiFi names, yellow jackets and red scarves, Trump lifts sanctions against Russia, Casa Décor plus propaganda kimonos

12x12 (11. 294)

brownstone: Gotham Gothic rowhouses as playing cards  

wall of eyes: Radiohead spinoff artist Jonny Greenwood’s latest album 

scrabblegram: a form of constrained writing using all one hundred tiles of the game  

blackula: a look at the brave inversion of exploitation cinema  

research purposes: profiles in the pornographers of Wikimedia who image and caption—see also—human sexuality, via Web Curios  

parks & rec: a map of sites in the US funded by FDR’s New Deal programme—via Waxy 

best laptop 2024: readership, AI and the collapse of media outlets  

nullification: Texas governor, alleging the US federal government has failed to protect the country from an immigrant invasion, hints at secession  

the compaynys of beestys & fowlys: revisiting how animal groupings (see previously on the subject of venery) received such colourful names—via the morning news  

schluckbildchen: sixteenth century edible devotionals  

mixtape: Kim Gordon, formerly of Sonic Youth, raps her grocery list in new song Bye Bye 

ephemerama: a growing archive of modern illustrations from circa 1950 to 1975—via Things Magazine

synchronoptica

one year ago: more trompe l’oeil paintings, assorted links to revisit plus pie-chart studies

two years ago: morphing logos plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: zorbing, the Council of Trent (1545), Australia Day, more links worth the revisit plus Tubman on the twenty

four years ago: modular, prefab kiosks plus the first television demonstration (1926)

five years ago: the longest government shutdown in US history, architect Sir John Soane plus all the world’s writing systems

anapodoton (11. 293)

From the Greek ἀνανταπόδοτος for “I give back,” the ellipsis refers to a rhetorical device by which the gist of a saying is supported by its subordinate clause without mentioning it, like if the mountain won’t come to the prophet, when in Rome, a bird in the hand, if the shoe fits or when the cat’s away. As with the spoonerism I heard once and since incorporated “paying Peter to rob Paul,” I thought the former idiom (fabricated by Francis Bacon) was “Let the mountain come to Mohammed”—an anacoluthon, a disruptive thought expressed in reported speech by my favoured em-dash to mark the divergence—and is entirely missing the intention and making a postproverbial or preverb. The study of such maxims and their variants, dating back to Aristotle’s collections, is called paremiology, classing them into the categories of comparison, interrogation, their above misuse and metaphorical or allusory.

refractive index (11. 291)

Opening on this day in 1955 in New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, sparking many revivals and alternative exhibitions, the curation of some five hundred images from all over the world was the culmination of the the career of Edward Steichen, director of the MoMA’s department of photography—having earlier played a significant role in legitimising the medium as a recognised art form—drawing record-setting number of visitors. The ambitious project’s title was taken from the stanza of the Carl Sandburg poem, written as a prologue for the show: 

There is only one man in the world and his name is All Men.
There is only one woman in the world and her name is All Women.
There is only one child in the world and the child's name is All Children.

People! flung wide and far, born into toil, struggle, blood and dreams, among lovers, eaters, drinkers, workers, loafers, fighters, players, gamblers. Here are ironworkers, bridge men, musicians, sandhogs, miners, builders of huts and skyscrapers, jungle hunters, landlords, and the landless, the loved and the unloved, the lonely and abandoned, the brutal and the compassionate—one big family hugging close to the ball of Earth for its life and being. Everywhere is love and love-making, weddings and babies from generation to generation keeping the Family of Man alive and continuing.  

If the human face is “the masterpiece of God” it is here then in a thousand fateful registrations. Often the faces speak that words can never say. Some tell of eternity and others only the latest tattings.  Child faces of blossom smiles or mouths of hunger are followed by homely faces of majesty carved and worn by love, prayer and hope, along with others light and carefree as thistledown in a late summer wing.  Faces have land and sea on them, faces honest as the morning sun flooding a clean kitchen with light, faces crooked and lost and wondering where to go this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Faces in crowds, laughing and windblown leaf faces, profiles in an instant of agony, mouths in a dumbshow mockery lacking speech, faces of music in gay song or a twist of pain, a hate ready to kill, or calm and ready-for-death faces. Some of them are worth a long look now and deep contemplation later.

Embarking later on a global, goodwill tour partly under the auspices of the United States Information Agency (see also), a manifesto of peace during times of turmoil and division, the images were selected to communicate a story and the gallery of faces engendered mutual recognition and seemed to look back at the audience, inspiring tributes, sequels and re-examinations, beginning with West Germany’s 1965 Weltausstellung der Fotografie and some critical revisions, re-appraisals to shift perspective and build inclusivity and exposure on the intent. Ultimately inscribed to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, the physical catalogue of prints is displayed (according to the original set-up) and archived at Clervaux Castle of curator Steichen’s native Luxembourg.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: drawing lessons from an ukiyo-e master, the US army leaves the Rheinland (1923) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: more on Saturn’s moons, a WWII holdout (1972) plus the Young Poland art movement

three years ago: geneticist Beatrice Mintz

four years ago: negative harmonies, City Roads, more synthetic humans, a belle époque residence plus French territories in Jerusalem

five years ago: the micronation of Sealand, a 1960 documentary on the Cosmos plus an impressive cultural centre in Tīanjīn

goody goodwife (11. 286)

Written as an allegory for McCarthyism, the Red Scare during which left-leaning views were repressed and politicians and private individuals were systematically repressed over fear of Soviet infiltration and Communist influence with most accusations ultimately found to be exaggerated if not outright false, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible had its premier performance on this day in 1953 at the Broadway Martin Beck Theatre. Speculating with the opening narrative (following on with each act) that the theocratic society of the Puritans, isolation and unstable conditions contributed to the paranoia and hostility, the play is set in colonial Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Though some liberties were taken to fully limn out the litigants and the sentenced, most of the names and events are dramatised from court records.

synchronoptica

one year ago: US Supreme Court rules on Roe v Wade (1973) plus artist Sophie Hollington, AI on fantasy glam rock plus the door gods of the Lunar New Year

two years ago: the new normal (2003), Our Town (1938), AI suggests breakfast cereal plus a 1972 interview with David Bowie

three years ago: the death of Queen Victoria, another MST3K classic plus unnamed implements

four years ago: assorted links to revisit,  the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb corrected, Trump and the tabloids plus an upcoming auspicious date

five years ago: artist Max Guther, a celebration of blank video cassettes plus Apple’s 1984 commercial

2001 odyssey (11. 283)

Released in November of the previous year with the premier of the film, and was until the debut of Thriller by Michael Jackson in 1982 the best-selling album in history, the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever began a twenty-four week run on the top of the US charts—with comparable success in international markets on this day in 1978. A nineteen-year-old Tony Manero (portrayed by John Travolta, see previously) escapes disillusionment by in his working-class Brooklyn neighbourhood by escaping to the a local disco (above) on the weekends, where he rules the dance-floor and longs for a better life in Manhattan, just across the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge. Showcasing the musical talents of the Bee Gees, Yvonne Elliman, Kool & the Gang, The Trammps amd KC and the Sunshine Band, the Brothers Gibb’s group and many of the other artists were not involved with the project until post-production, after the deal fell through with the recording label for Boz Scaggs (denied because the song “Lowdown” had recently appeared in another disco film Looking for Mister Goodbar, which is hard to describe as a dance drama but Saturday Night Fever has a complicated plot with a lot happening as well) and much of the choreography had to be redone after the movie’s producer commissioned the Bee Gees as understudies, with the lead tracks written and recorded over the course of a single weekend at a French château.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit, Mika’s Grace Kelly plus Space Songs, an educational LP

two years ago: more links to enjoy, planning a rendezvous with Oumuamua, the DeLorean (1981), a new album from Neil Young,  more Wikihow illustrations plus a podcast miniseries on the comic Cathy

three years ago: Bernie Sanders at the inauguration plus Biden undoes Trump’s executive orders

four years ago: a field guide to wildflowers at speed

five years ago: more links worth the revisit

erfundene mittelalter (11. 262)

Via Strange Company, we find ourselves directed to a real rabbit-hole of a conspiracy theory wrapped in the guise—possibly earnest and wholly without cause (like the counterfeit Donation of Constantine)—of scholarship articulated by academician Heribert Illig in 1991 known as the Phantom Time Theory, positing that events occurring in a three-century span from 614 to 911 were fabricated, advancing the Anno Domino dating system ahead in order to place the rule of either Pope Sylvester II, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III (plus legitimising his claim to the throne) or Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in power during the millennial of the death of Christ and ruling at the moment of the return of Jesus. Otto and the Pope made it but not Eastern emperor.  The fact that many manuscripts from the time are acknowledged copies of lost originals and including forgeries (see also), the preponderance of Romanesque architecture present after the influence should have abated and the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, adopted in phases, did not mathematically correct its predecessor (the reform was never intent on correcting and revising the the length of the year back all the way to its inception in 45 BC but rather to its state during the Council of Nicaea—covering this supposed three century discrepancy—when tying the date of Easter to the vernal equinox) and a fact that an alliance between the above three rulers, each preserving his magesteria, was likely, led Illig to conclude that personages and events like Charlemagne and his dynasty (for whom Otto had specious claim as no Caroligian, Frankish heir) led Illig to conclude that this period of history was an elaborate fraud, with retrograde, retroactive chronicles created and a populace willing as well to spring forward in time to be present for the Second Coming, though later the loss of a couple of weeks (or an hour) was seen to draw popular ire.  The alliance amongst these three potentates was strong enough, the theory suggests, to collaborate to create a revised timeline, though the idea is refuted as pseudoscience by medievalists, archaeological evidence, dendrochronology and of course recorded histories outside of western Europe.

hey marge, remember we used to make out to this hymn? (11. 242)

We are treated to the musical stylings of virtuoso organist, composer and conductor Anthony Newman through his 1974 album (just one entry in his prodigious discography), whom despite his quite liberal interpretations of Baroque compositions met with scepticism and criticism at first but is now generally accepted as allowable, influential variations. Over his long current (still playing), Newman has gone on to collaborate with noted musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Itzhak Perlman and Wynton Marsalis.

new echota (11. 222)

Signed on this day in 1835 in the American state of Georgia in the tribal capital, negotiated between a presidential administration favourable of Indian removal—the coerced expulsion had been in the works since the 1820s but John Quincy Adams was a strong proponent of tribal sovereignty—and a minoritarian faction of the Cherokee people, without the involvement or consent of the principal chief nor the national council, the treaty’s terms provided a framework for the annexation of all Indian lands east of the Mississippi watershed and relocate tens of thousands to territories further west, displacing other indigenous populations. Ratified the following March, the treaty became the enforcement and authorisation for the Trail of Tears, the assenting party hoped to secure the best possible terms for their removal after Georgia lawmakers had abolished independent governance of Cherokee lands and severely curtailed civil rights, including due-process, arguably and possibly correctly assumed that it would be taken from them regardless.

aïda (11. 211)

When originally approached by the Ottoman Pasha Isma’il of the Khedive of Egypt to produce an opera celebrating the opening of the Suez Canal—see also, Giuseppe Verdi declined. Later, however, presented a libretto set sometime in the Old Kingdom, a stretch of three millennia, by famed French Egyptologist and archeological authority Auguste Mariette, the composer ultimately conceded. Delayed by the ongoing Franco-Prussian War (see above) that prevented the elaborate scenery and costumes from being shipped from Paris, the opera eventually debuted in Cairo on this day in 1871. Egyptians forces have captured the titular Ethiopian princess and her captor, military commander Radamès, is caught in a love triangle with the pharaoh’s daughter, whose affections go unrequited, his desire for his prisoner and loyalty to his king and country. One of the most famously choreographed scenes is the Grand March from act II, below, when Radamès enters triumphantly, the chorus chanting “Gloria all’Egitto, ad Iside (Glory to Egypt and to Isis),” through the Gates of Thebes and is granted anything he wishes as a reward for his services.

from the depths of wikipedia (11. 207)

Via Super Punch, not only do we learn that Colonel Sanders guest starred on the soap opera General Hospital (on National Fried Chicken Day in 2018, which also exists), there is also a chaotic, esoteric—but serviceable programming language called Malbolge (see also), named after the eighth circle of Hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Malebolge, for fraudsters. The level of the inferno itself is divided into ten concentric trenches, bolgias, to segregate the panderers, mediums, grafters, grifters from the thieves and hypocrites and is guarded by a horde of torturing demons called the Malebranche. Someone is trying to kill Sanders to obtain the secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices and has placed a detonation device in the hospital. Because the Colonel knows Malbolge, he is able to disarm the bomb and stop the destruct sequence. Though not such a deep rabbit-hole, earlier in the week we also learned that aptly none of the original text from a 2003 entry on the philosophical quandary “The Ship of Theseus” remains.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Chinese internet slang, how to draw Christmas plus more data-visualisations from Daniel Huffman

two years ago: Latinisation of Chinese, Tibb’s Eve, coal-mining operations in Essen cease (1986), the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), graphic designs of Uruguay plus the coat of arms of Paul McCartney

three years ago: assorted links worth revisiting 

four years ago: hortatory Antiphons

five years ago: St Thorlak, investigating glitter plus the Extinction Rebellion

copycat (11. 205)

Born on this day in 2001, the product of a collaboration between researchers at Texas A&M (Agricultural and Mechanical College) University and Genetic Savings & Clone, Inc, a brown tabby kitten called CC was the world’s first clone pet. A demonstration project to see if it was commercially viable and safe, CC—pictured with her genetic donor, Rainbow (bottom centre), displays an interesting discrepancy in the calico pattern due to random differences in tortoiseshell phenotypes from epigenetic re-programming on implantation (having dispensed with the usual determinants of fertilisation), lived a healthy and happy life, a perfectly normal feline giving birth to her own litter of kittens in 2006, dying aged eighteen years in March of 2020, still residing in the laboratory in College Station with her human caretakers.

akademie (11. 204)

Held on this day in 1808 at the venue of Theatre an der Wien, the benefit concert—orchestral symphonies at the time referred to as academies and because of the year’s performance schedule and booked out concert halls (no summertime performances were held as the influential aristocracy left the city over those months for their country estates and space was given over to rehearsals for operas as the higher status productions during the winter with only the weeks of Advent and Lent available for purely musical concerts)—of Ludwig van Beethoven, conducted by the composer himself and incredibly debuting his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Choral Fantasy and Fourth Piano Concerto, for the musicians’ “deserving widows” fund was a four hour affair in the bitter cold of the theatre and suffered in terms of audience reception. Rather incensed with the shoehorning of so much new material into one block, Beethoven’s former teacher Antonio Salieri organised a counter-concert—on the same day—with proceeds going to the same cause, although the relationship between the two warmed again shortly afterwards—Beethoven’s fame spreading by those who had been in attendance and admittedly overwhelmed by the scope of the evening (too much of a good thing) and eager to have a chance to digest individual movements more slowly and at one’s leisure. The entire programme as performed as been recreated a number of times since.

the ancient yuletide carol (11. 200)

Though conventions of the neopagan Wheel of the Year observes the holiday on the Winter/Summer Solstice, traditionally Yule fell later on the calendar and centred around Midwinter Night, a distinct date that falls several weeks later and corresponds to the first full Moon of beginning the month of Æfterra Gēola (Second Yule, roughly corresponding with the Julian month of January). We know of this rescheduling due to documentation in the Saga of Haakon the Good of Norway, ruler during the Christianisation phase in the mid-tenth century, king and country mutually hiding their faith from one another to avoid friction, and synchronising yuletide festivities with Christmas, and mandating that all Norwegians celebrate under punishment of fines. Once Haakon solidified his power and earned the trust of the people, the king imported bishops from England and had them preach throughout the kingdom.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Czar Wants to Sleep, assorted links to revisit, the American insurrection that nearly happened over WWII plus works entering the public domain

two year ago: the breakaway Republic of Fredonia, Peter Canisius, Jack Russells plus season’s greetings from Tolkien 

three years ago: vévé symbols plus the world’s first crossword puzzle

four years ago: more links to enjoy

five years ago: negative fireworks, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright inscribed in the UNESCO register plus a very Rex Factor Christmas

radio silence (11. 189)

Weird Universe points us to an event that took place in mid-August 1924 in the US that reminds us this other potential coordinated effort to make astronomical observations more successful and reminds how from the earliest days of the communication medium, forerunners like Guglielmo Marconi, Lord Kelvin and Nikola Tesla believed that radio transmissions could be exchanged with extraterrestrial civilisations, the existence of intelligent life on Mars being widely accepted. With the Red Planet approaching its closest point to the Earth for nearly eight decades, scientists at the Naval Observatory used a blimp to lift a “radio-camera” to an altitude of three kilometres and arranging with broadcasters along the eastern seaboard to observe an hourly five-minutes’ cessation of transmissions in order to eliminate interference from terrestrial sources and increase the chance of intercepting a message from Martians. Military cryptologists were on stand-by to decipher any alien signals.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  assorted links to revisit plus Last Christmas

two years ago: Gingerbread Dreamhouses, artist Brad Holland plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: more links worth the revisit, Esperanto Day plus Trivial Pursuit

four years ago: more links, the Nobel banquet plus Lisztomania (1975)

five years ago: even more links, the mythos of Zermatism, Wort des Jahres plus early Home Office

cloudland (11. 166)

Via Kottke guest-blogger Edith Zimmerman, we are treated a random cool old song with a performance of Pere Ubu 1989 song “Breathe” on Sunday Night, a Michelob Presents Music Hour sadly only running for two season and hosted by Jools Holland and David Sanborn showcasing jazz and eclectic artists, from their seventh studio album—the title record named after (see also) a resort village in northwestern Georgia that became a getaway destination for vacationing Florida residents to escape some of the summer heat. More recommendations worth checking out at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a Vogue issue featuring Darth Vader plus assorted links to revisit 

two years ago: Flash Gordon (1980) plus the art of Matt Semke

three years ago: Krampus Night, World Soil Day, a boatswain pipe plus more Yuletide customs

four years ago: Pantone’s colour for the coming year plus icy atmospheric phenomena

five years ago: the Bermuda Triangle plus some local Christmas Markets

the peace ship (11. 165)

With detectable parallels to modern day technological utopianists and branded altruism, industrialist and automaker Henry Ford launched his chartered vessel Oskar II from Hoboken, New Jersey on this day in 1915 on as trans-Atlantic mission to petition for a cease-fire in Europe and a de-escalation (anti-preparedness) in armaments. Inviting prominent pacifists to join, Ford hoped that the audacity of the act would spur a truce among belligerents, Ford’s plan was at first greeting with respect by the press and public, however opinion began to sour on this attempt at amateur diplomacy with in-fighting amongst the activist and fabricated claims that the European powers were willing to negotiate, at the behest of Ford or anyone else, fears that such antics might make the situation worse—and for embarking during an influenza pandemic, which spread through crew and passengers during the five-day voyage. Violently ill and receiving a cold reception from skeptical delegates in Oslo, Ford retired to his hotel suite, granting one talk with reporters (not mentioning the Peace Ship) before convinced to seek out of the county by way of a steamer departing from Bergen. Despite the organiser’s conspicuous absence and the inability to secure any meetings of consequence with any officials with influence, there were several other ports-of-call around Europe, under the banner of the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, still financed by Ford up until 1917 when it became clear that US entry into fighting was inevitable.