6 january 2021 (13. 062)

On this day five years ago, a mob of Donald Trump supporters descended on the Capitol in an abortive self-coup to prevent a joint-session of the US congress from tallying and certifying the 2020 presidential election, formalising the victory of then president-elect Joe Biden. Instigated by Trump himself to “stop the steal” with false claims of widespread voter fraud and election irregularities, a “Save America” rally was held at the Ellipse at noon ahead of proceedings, the park south of the White House, gathering a crowd of thousands of MAGA members, whipped into a frenzy and dispatched to the Capitol. “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Some two thousand individuals forcibly entered the building, occupying the vacant senate chamber while authorities evacuated representatives amid vandalism and violence. Though repeating false claims, Trump told the mob to go home in peace. Certification resumed and by the next morning, Biden was declared the winner. Whilst not acknowledging defeat, under pressure from his cabinet, Trump conceded to an orderly transition of power in a televised statement. A week later, congress voted to impeach Trump for a second time but the senate failed to convict him, allowing the out-going president to run for public office again. Over fifteen hundred rioters were charged with federal crimes for the insurrection but as the culmination of the revisionist narrative that was presented regarding the event, all were granted clemency under the presidential pardon power by Trump just after re-taking office in 2024.  A full-time and archived news reports from NPR at the link up top.

spioenasiesindikaat (13. 051)

Sentenced on this day in 1942 with cumulative incarcerations lasting three hundred years, the Duquesne Spy Ring was the largest espionage case in US history with thirty-three members of a Nazi Germany network of covert agents convicted after a lengthy investigation by the FBI, with a majority of the indicted pleading guilty on all charges and the remaining tried by an American federal district court in Brooklyn. Under the leadership of Frederick “Fritz” Joubert Duquesne, German-Boer mercenary of British extraction and naturalised US citizen, game-hunter (escorting Theodore Roosevelt on safari), journalist, hippopotamus exporter, and escape artist, members of the group were channelled into key administrative positions for counter-intelligence and sabotage, working as anchor restauranteurs, delivery men, power plant workers, and airline stewards, establishing safe-houses and front-companies—but none installed as politicians—to monitor Allied activities. Their operation was uncovered in part by reluctant double-agent William Sebold (Gottlieb Adolf Wilhelm, an engineer and industrialist emigrating to the US after WWI), coerced first by the Gestapo, recruiting the services of other emigres, and then by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under J Edgar Hoover’s administration. Most were convicted for failing to abide by the Foreign Agents Registration Act and disclose foreign interests—FARA not prohibiting lobbying or any specific activities, it was codified in 1938 primarily to control Nazi propaganda.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the See of St Mark (with synchronopticæ), early eight-bit licensed games plus embroidery journals

thirteen years ago: a numerically unremarkable year plus antique motivational posters

fourteen years ago: future prospects for the Euro currency union plus the history of submarine warfare

sixteen years ago: predictions for 2010 

pale ale (13. 050)

As our faithful chronicler informs, on this day in 1876, the red triangle logo of the Bass & Co became the first colophon to be logged under the 1875 Act to establish a Register of Trade Marks when it came into force on New Year’s Day—which according to company lore, had employees queuing outside bureau offices on New Year’s Eve to be the first—strange for a bank holiday and Public Domain Day, as a demonstration of the brewery’s pioneering prowess in international branding and marketing. The iconic logo, simple yet pervasive, has been featured in over forty works by Pablo Picasso from his Cubist period as well as more contemporarily in James Joyce’s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom noting the triangle in the “Oxen of the Sun” (The Cattle of Helios in the Odyssey) episode and in Édouard Manet’s final painting (see also) Un bar aux Folies Bergère with the beer bottles depicted instantly recognisable and their conspicuous presence interpreted as an allegorical expression of anti-German sentiment following the Franco-Prussian war. Further achievements accomplished under the logo include being among the first corporate sponsors, licensing for production by foreign distributors and the earliest export entrant into the Japanese beer market.

listen to the cassandras (13. 044)

Via Kottke, we are invited to bookend this tumultuous year in geopolitics by taking a look back and a look forward to those who saw all this coming but were dismissed and maligned as scare-mongers by a growing movement of anti-alarmists through the lens of Greek myth appropriate for this tragedy befallen illiberal democracy. Writing for The New Republic, Toby Buckle addresses our collective infuriation by asking the reader to imagine being transported back in time to July of 2015, just after Trump announced his candidacy against Clinton. With the gift of hindsight but the curse of Cassandra—footnotes to Homer, you cannot prove you are from the future and are at a loss to convince anyone to take your warnings seriously. Were you to disclose the horror of the next decade, Trump’s election, the botched job handling the pandemic, the January Sixth insurrection, Trump’s reelection, the MAGA takeover of the Republican party, DOGE, soldiers on the streets, realignment of the world order, mass deportations, deflection, overturning civil and reproductive rights, etc, etc, etc and arriving at the Epstein files and at full-on fascism after eleven months, you would be rightly dismissed as hysterical, delusional to past people and regarded like the prophetess of Troy, given the ability to foresee events by Apollo but condemned never to be believed for not requiting the deity’s advances. Cassandras of course are not all women or the marginalised (though there is a certain element of pathologising misogyny with its anti-alarmist corollary being seen as masculine and reasonable) but comprise a majority of individuals of all sorts of backgrounds, but it’s a pejorative term used to shut down insight—and dialogue—and when used by the press as a scold is essentially a concession to meet the Nazis half-way. Though her story is the more familiar and sadly repeated to no effect one, Cassandra did have one lesser known compatriot, partisan in believing the Trojan horse was bad news in high priest Laocöon (see above), sharing Cassandra’s suspicions and begged his countrymen to light a fire under the horse to prove it’s not a trap. For his meddling, Laocöon was struck blind by Athena, whom was not on the Trojans’ side, and then he and his sons were strangled by a pair of sea-serpents for dramatic effect. The denizens rather took this divine punishment as proof that the priest was wrong to doubt the beneficence of Greeks bearing gifts. “Boy do I hate being always right…” more individual profiles in courage from Buckle at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a year’s worth of data-driven observations (with synchronopticæ) plus more on effervescence 

twelve years ago: Norwegian New Year’s greetings 

thirteen years ago: New Year’s greetings 

fourteen years ago: pyrotechnics plus a bleak economic assessment for the coming year

fifteen years ago: lucky charms 

sixteen years ago: 2009 in review

public domain review (13. 021)

In anticipation of Public Domain Day 2026 (previously), here is a preview of the selection of literary and artistic works from 1930 and musical compositions from 1925 (under US jurisdiction, songs have a full century until IP lapses under current law) whose copyrights expire and are released to whomever and for whatever purpose. Artists’ works include Piet Mondrian’s Composition II, the pictured untitled work by Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Abel Lafleur’s Jules Rimet Cup—the original trophy of FIFA, along with countless works in the Art Deco movement registered in that year. Among dozens of cinematic works, All Quiet on the Western Front, the Three Stooges’ Soup to Nuts, The Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers and Savadore Dalí’s and Luis Buñuel’s L'Âge d’or are counted in, as well as audio recordings by the Gershwin brothers like “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You,” “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,”Leo Robin’s “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” the inspiration for the Star Trek theme (see also) and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Comics and cartoons include Betty Boop, Disney’s first appearance of Pluto (as Rover) and Flip the Frog and other characters created by Ib Iwerks after he left the studio. More from Duke Law School at the link up top.

9x9 (13. 016)

brought to you by the inkjet lobby: the amount of redactions in the US justice department’s release of the Epstein files sparks outrage  

christmas and commerce: a David Sedaris holiday classic—see previously  

global building atlas: an ambitious project mapping all three-billion built structures worldwide  

grabenanlage: rescue archaeology in southwestern German town of Herxheim in 1996 suggests ritual cannibalism on a massive scale with research still ongoing  

your attention is all you have—wasting it is annihilating: Blackbird Spyplane on a life of screen-time—via Kottke

pithos: Roman amphora of sardines found in Switzerland 

orthorectified panorama: the Apollo transforming printer that developed cartographically accurate photographs of the Moon 

a christmas memory: Truman Capote recalls holidays past  

formerly known as the kennedy center: the history of the US national stage for the performing arts—see previously

as a student of history, many were written directly by the president himself (13. 012)

Dubbed the walk of fame, the colonnade of the White House communicating between the executive residence and West Wing and passing the paved-over rose garden, designed by Trump in September, inspired by a similar concept he’d seen whilst staying at a hotel, was finished recently with the gallery open to inspection by visitors and journalists with the addition of bronze plaques, reportedly dictated by the US president, reflecting his personal and political assessments of predecessors. Barack Obama is captioned as one of the most divisive political figures in US history with his “unaffordable” care act, accession to the Paris Climate accords, personal responsibility for the spread of the ISIS caliphate and repeats the conspiracy theories that he was spying on Trump’s campaign through the microwave; though credited with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, George W Bush is criticised for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; Clinton’s includes blaming Republicans to the legislative success of his agenda and mentions Hillary’s lost to Trump; and Reagan’s entry, full of praise, cites that he was a fan of “President Donald J Trump” long before his political career began. The most vitriol is directed to Joe Biden, repeating claims of a stolen election and labelling him as the worst president in history, replete with exclamation marks.

gelt (13. 010)

During a Hanukkah reception held at the White House, Trump invited Israeli-American mega-donor Miriam Adelson, widow of billionaire businessman, serial entrepreneur and casino and media magnate Sheldon Adelson whom was already the president’s largest single benefactor for his 2016 and 2020 campaigns and established a legal defence fund to shield Trump from fallout during the Mueller investigation, to join him on the dais, saying that when someone can give you a quarter of a billion dollars, “I think that we should give her the opportunity to say hello”—echoing the same sentiment nearly verbatim he said of Elon Musk during his re-election. Though constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, it’s hardly been a prohibition that he’s flaunted all along, and Trump intimated (with ample enough, indirect corroboration) that the generous two-hundred and fifty million dollar contribution would go toward his 2028 campaign, prompting riotous cheers from the assembled guest of four more years. Even if this horror of a moribund leader, like Israel had with prime minister emeritus Ariel Sharon, were to come to pass, with a very pliant supreme court and still time for a constitutional amendment—or convention, and as this gift, bribe (a relatively low one as the president’s a cheap date) or election is being directed towards a political war-chest for a future run that at present against the law, regulation on campaign finance funding do not apply and can be used however the committee sees fit, redistributing to other races or used personally to enrich the Trump estate.

grand prix (12. 992)

Joining Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Ireland, Iceland’s national broadcaster, RÚV, has voted to boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest scheduled to be held in Vienna over the decision of the organising committee, the European Broadcasting Union, not to expel Israel for its conduct of the war against Hamas and occupation of Gaza. The announcement coinciding with International Human Rights Day, Iceland cites that “give public debate in the country…it is clear that neither joy nor peace will prevail” regarding participation. Members of the EBU voted in a general assembly last week to adopt stricter rules regarding alleged ballot manipulation favouring Israeli contestants during the last Eurovision but fell short of banning them, with the mounting walk-outs casting a pall over what’s supposed to be a feel-good cultural exchange (though it has never been wholly apolitical) with diminishing acts and those remaining seeming like a whitewashing of recent events.

sounds about white (12. 984)

In contrast to last year’s officer holder, Pantone’s Colour of the Year (see previously—it’s truly not an annual tradition to keep a close eye on, though in this case, it’s not just the lower the stakes, the stronger the conviction) of Cloud Dancer seems a rather bland, neutral choice at first blush and a reversal of its previous pick of “Mocha Mousse” (someone said 2025: poop 2026: toilet paper) but then an interesting one given the political climate in the US specifically and has instead courted controversy, given the election of Trump to a second term, accidental Nazi salutes, immediate assaults on programmes working towards diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility both in the federal government and then followed by private industry, revisionist histories including erasure of Black contributions and America’s past of slavery, enabling racial-profiling and unleashing armies of immigration officers on cities to terrorise people whom appear to have non-caucasian heritage, freezing immigration while offering refugee status to Afrikaners and the courts again set to hear the administration’s argument in favour of overturning birthright citizenship, just focusing on the solely racist actions. It seems the trend institute was not just throwing in the proverbial towel—though we contend that they well could have just been calling it in with the selection and exalted copy sounding suspiciously machine-generated.

synchronoptica

one year ago: America’s first electric vehicle (with synchronopticæ), celebrating a century of Dick van Dyke, St Ambrose, the fallout of AI replacing hyperlinks plus Scrooge’s tombstone

fourteen years ago: US state department announces it will no longer tolerate homophobia plus an end-of-the-year-figure-with-wings

fifteen years ago: disingenuous transparency 

sixteen years ago: COP 15 plus cable conglomerate to acquire NBC

trans erasure (12. 983)

More despicable and insulting than the childish substitution of the official portrait of Joe Biden with a crude picture of an auto-pen, in the gallery of past leaders of the US Health and Human Services department—a cabinet-level agency of the executive branch focused on public health—the former assistant secretary and surgeon general of the preventative medical corps, Admiral Rachel Levine, appointed by Biden, has been dead-named with an altered caption under her picture—to, according to Alabama urologist and current director, to ensure that the HHS both internally and externally reflect a gold standard of science guided by biological realities.

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.

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 

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 

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 

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

legislation considered pursuant to a rule (12. 875)

Following Sunday night’s vote in the senate which saw eight political safe Democrats side with Republicans to overcome the filibuster threshold on a bill to reopen the US federal government after a stalemate of over forty days, in exchange for the protecting the right of the Government Accountability Office to sue the president for misappropriation of funds against the wishes of congress and a hollow promise to vote on whether to extend expiring health care subsidies (citing hardships and potential ruined holidays that were nonetheless being redressed by other means), which was the instigator of the standoff in the first place and now seems all for nothing, a self-own when the Democrats were ahead with their strategy and rather chuffed over a slate of election victories, the measure was returned to the house of representatives, recalling them from a recess of seven weeks to avoid the swearing in of an Arizona member whose vote in favour of releasing the Epstein files could force the matter to be brought to a floor vote, despite the speaker’s directive. Congress was recalled, again delaying the swearing in of the new representative and focusing on the legislation that they were just handed, with the bi-partisan oversight committee releasing a tranche of new documents, including some rather incriminating emails that refute Trump’s claim over a split with the pedophile and disgraced financial fixer. Whilst members on both sides of the aisle are enraged about postponing the discharge petition, it has also come to light Ghislaine Maxwell, already serving her sentence in a minimum security, is seeking a full commutation for her crimes. The president for his first meaningful interaction with the legislative branch outside of approving cabinet nominations, has cleared his schedule to sign the continuing resolution once it reaches his desk. The house is set to vote later in the afternoon but the entire ordeal is poised to repeat at the end of January when funding again runs out and it remains unclear whether the bill will pass, the Republican caucus only able to suffer no more than three defections and a provision to outlaw hemp-based products may cause some from agricultural states who have grown reliant on this industry to vote against the measure as it stands and torpedo its chances.

9x9 (12. 872)

climate change is no longer a threat of the future—it is a tragedy of the present: COP30 opens in Belém at the edge of the Amazon rainforest  

splice: following resignations, Trump threatens to sue BBC for one billion dollars over January Sixth documentary  

french windows: the animation of Ian Emes that defined Pink Floyd’s signature visual style 

epoch and era: geologists reject the Anthropocene age but it is still a valuable lens for understanding our present and future  

industrial organisation: the perpetuated belief that vertical monopolies and monopsonies are good for the consumer  

victory is mine again trebek: a clip reel of a Jeopardy! category  

so you’ve been bitten by a radioactive spider: a survival guide for the Marvel universe 

punt: anything other than a clear CR, US senate concludes debate and return the bill to congress for passage to reopen the federal government—including provisions for members to seek half-a-million dollars in compensation for having their phones searched for the January Sixth investigation (plus more pardons) and a ban on hemp  

money talks: Bill Gates apparently reverses stance on near-term emission reduction goals

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI espionage (with synchronopticæ), RFK Jr’s future role in Trump’s cabinet plus the lead narrows in the US congress

thirteen years ago: toothpaste for dinner, the architecture of choice plus making an animated gif

fourteen years ago: double-eleven 

sixteen years ago: new wheels