6x6

central solenoid: installation of a powerful giant magnet brings experimental fusion project a step closer to completion 

cléo from 5 to 7: discovering an Agnes Varda classic 

la société du spectacle: an update of the 1974 Situationist Guy Debord’s critique of mass marketing and estrangements of modern society  

raise high the roof beam: experience a house inside a barn 

wtc: a profile of architect Minoru Yamasaki, best known for designing New York’s World Trade Center  

ccs: Iceland’s carbon capture and sequestration plant (previously) goes on-line

space: 1999

Though only running for two seasons, the titular BBC programme (renewed the second year by ITC Entertainment) that premiered on this day in 1975 was quite ahead of its time and established among many other tropes the “cold open” scene that preceded the credit sequence, itself boldly a spin-off of a narrative in the Supermarionation production Thunderbirds by the same creative duo Sylvia and Gerry Anderson in non-puppet form. A radioactive waste dump on the far side of the Moon, detected by the research staff at Lunar Base Alpha, experiences a magnetic anomaly, which causes the material to reach critical mass and triggers a thermonuclear explosion 13 September 1999 and propels the Earth’s satellite into deep space. This spaceship Moon wanders into a black hole and several “space warps” to continue its exploration of the Cosmos.

6x6

roll for perception: the official video for the 1987 Rick Astley hit (previously) surpasses one billion views   

until proven safe: EURIDICE, the eponym from the mythological Eurydice who Orpheus failed to retrieve from the Underworld, is the acronym for European Underground Research Infrastructure for the Disposal of Nuclear Waste in a Clay Environment  

a clokey production: a bot scours Gumbasia for random screen-grabs

pelagic waters: exploring the oceans’ midnight zone beyond the reach of the sun’s rays

portrait of a teenage alcoholic: a 1975 after school special starring The Exorcist’s Linda Blair and Star Wars’ Mark Hamill  

an eternal golden braid: some crib-notes and a course on the 1987 classic Gödel, Escher, Bach

the manhattan project

The phenomenon of nuclear fission only just discovered and prompting the United States to eventually establish its own research programme, with the endorsement of Albert Einstein Hungarian physicist Szilárd Leó (*1898 - †1964) dispatched his letter to president Franklin D. Roosevelt on this day in 1939. Immediately comprehending the ramifications for energy production or warfare having conducted experiments with less fissile materials and unable to sustain a chain-reaction, Szilard first in mid-July thought to warn Belgium as their colony in the Congo held the largest known reserves of uranium and was fearful that the Germans could persuade them to part with it handily, not realising what they were trading away and had recruited Einstein to speak on his behalf through consular channels as Einstein was friends with the Belgian royal family. With the closing salutation, “Yours truly,” the letter began: 

In the course of the last four months it has been made probable – through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America – that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. 

Specifically citing the suspension of the sales of uranium from occupied Czechoslovakia and on-going research in German universities, Szilard further conjectured that while it probably was not feasible to miniaturise the components necessary for a nuclear reaction for portable bombs and mobile warheads, he did believe it likely that the process could be accommodated on board a ship that could attack a city from the harbour. FDR (his reply pictured) was delivered this executive summary plus a longer, more detailed explanation of the science underpinning his forewarning.

i feel the earth move

On this day in 1976 at the Avignon Festival—title taken from the post-apocalyptic novel about the aftermath of global thermonuclear war—the Philip Glass Ensemble premiered the four act opera Einstein on the Beach—see previously here and here—a trilogy of portraits of personal vision and transformational thinking that spurred revelation through ideas rather than brute force and might. This two-hour excerpt from 1979 faithful recreates the staging from the five-hour debut.

1962-alpha epsilon 1

Launched into orbit just under a fortnight prior, the Telstar 1 communication satellite relayed the first live transatlantic television broadcast (see also here, here and here) on this day in 1962. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was supposed to give the inaugural address but the engineers acquired the signal before the US president was ready and to avoid dead-air filled the first few minutes with a televised baseball game from the Wrigley Field in Chicago before rotating through studios and field stations in Washington, DC, Quebec City, Cape Canaveral and the Seattle World’s Fair. Kennedy’s speech consisted of direct appeals to Europe that America wouldn’t devalue its currency and further frustrate plans for post-war recovery (see also) before giving the stage to news anchors Walter Cronkite (CBS, previously) and Chet Huntley (NBC) in New York and the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby in Brussels for a panel discussion of this marvel of technical achievement that they were part of. Later that evening, the first satellite telephone call was carried out between parties US vice president Lyndon Johnson and the head of AT&T (the company whose Bell Laboratories were primarily responsible for it) and in the following months, synchronised time between the continents and facilitating the first computer-to-computer data. By November, a casualty of the geopolitics that pushed such advancements as showcase and civilian applications, due to ongoing high-altitude nuclear testing that irradiated surround space, Telstar’s transistors were overwhelmed and eventually failed and could not relay signals. Though no longer transmitting, Telstar I and II (launched the following summer) are still orbiting Earth and will continue to do so for millions of years barring interference by another body.

so what if we do develop this solaronite bomb? we’d be even a stronger nation than now

Starring Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson, Dudley Manlove, Vampira and Bela Lugosi with narration by The Amazing Criswell (an American psychic renowned for his wildly inaccurate prognostication—personal spiritual advisor to Mae West, Criswell predicted that West would be the American president one day), Ed Wood’s sublimely rotten Plan 9 from Outer Space enjoyed its general release in US cinemas on this day in 1959 after a limited preview two years earlier in Los Angeles under the title Grave Robbers from Outer Space, workshopped and re-worked. Aliens initiate the titular plan to stop humans from creating a weapon that’s too powerful for them to wield by resurrecting the deceased and confront those embarking on this enterprise with an army of the undead.

ns savannah

Though following the first civil application of nuclear-power for civil maritime purposes after the atomic-fueled ice-breaker Lenin (see also), the first cargo and passenger liner, a flagship for the US president’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative (see previously), was launched on this day in 1959 by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. With several educational ports of call in US coastal cities, the vessel was a demonstration project on the safe and responsible harnessing of nuclear energy, including exhibits on the preservation of food through irradiation, x-rays and other medical diagnostics and other emerging technologies—like the microwave oven, and had the state rooms and galley and the other amenities of a regular cruise ship with swimming pool, promenade deck and lounge all decked out with Atomic Age styling. 

In 1964, the ship crossed the Atlantic for the first time, stopping in Southampton, Dublin, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Rotterdam on an international good will tour. Ultimately decommissioned in 1971, the Savannah is now a museum ship moored at Pier 13 in Baltimore, Maryland and can be visited by the public.

the starlight barking

Via Messy Nessy Chic not only are we given an appreciated reading tip in the comforting writing style of I Capture the Castle and One Hundred and One Dalmatians author Dodie Smith (*1896 - †1990) we moreover learn that Smith also penned a sequel to the 1956 novel—which has nothing to do with the Disney adaptations. A bit reminiscent of the Jellicle cats, Lord Sirius (the Dog Star) comes to Earth after putting humans into a deep slumber and granting canines supernatural powers in order to prevent nuclear war.

queequeg

Though not critically received as well as a project of this stature and pedigree ought to have been afforded, the epic retelling Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (see previously), directed and produced by John Huston with screenplay by Ray Bradbury and starring Gregory Peck, Orson Welles and Richard Basehart (Ismael and the narrator for Knight Rider) debuted in theatres in the United States on this day in 1956. The cinematic poster for twentieth anniversary re-release anachronistically references its summer box office revival and the screenplay places the whale’s home waters in Bikini Atoll—which is not in the text—to address the massive nuclear tests being conducted in the Pacific at the time of filming.

aggregat 4

During a test launch taking place on this day from the proving grounds of the Peenemünde Army Research Centre (Heeresversuchsanstalt) of a V-2 / A-4 rocket, a manufactured object for the first time passed the Kármán line defining the edge of atmosphere and outer space (the after-the-fact boundary usually placed at one hundred kilometres above the surface of the Earth) and reached an apogee of one-hundred and seventy-six kilometres before falling back to the ground, not designed to attain orbital velocity. This particular achievement was the greatest vertical distance covered by a projectile thus far but the team of scientists, under the leadership of Werher von Braun, were more proud in with their 1942 feat of having penetrated the rarefied thermosphere—about eighty kilometres above and where ultraviolet radiation creates ions and the charged atmosphere allows radio wave communication to be transmitted and received beyond the horizon. Coincidentally one year later to the day, in 1945, the US Secretary of State and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved a secret recruiting programme called Operation Overcast to bring scientists from Nazi Germany to America to assist in shortening the war with Japan and augment post-war and peacetime rocketry applications. Interviewing US Ordnance Corps officers would attach a paperclip to the files of those they wanted to be brought to the States for work, importing through 1990 more than sixteen hundred researchers as intellectual reparations claimed by the Allies (minus the Soviets that had their own recruitment campaign) with an attendant $10,000,000,000 worth in associated patents and industrial processes.

obverse

Whilst I’ve been the recipient of my share of military unit coins with varying levels of swagger, ridiculousness and bombast, outside of the prematurely issued commemorative one issued for Trump’s summit with North Korea, I was unaware of the minting of “victory coins” by US government agencies and so was intrigued by this artefact from the CIA (via Super Punch) for memorialising the over-throw of the regime of Fidel Castro in April of 1961 through the arming of exiles and dissidents. The abject failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion raised tensions significantly between the USA and the USSR and led to the Cuba Missile Crisis and inchoate nuclear war.

ws3

Via Waxy, taking some numbingly tedious (low-stakes) annual training and always failing to recall the difference between nuanced jargon—plus not paying close attention to the presentation before the post-test, I’ve encountered such flash cards and drills that promise the right answers if one types in the question verbatim but I never expected peers to help out one another (eyes on your own test) with the same crib notes for the safety and security of nuclear armaments. Responsibly redacted in the exposé, the practises and protocols of US weapons stockpiles overseas were breached through these tutorials, and while the existence of this forward operating bases and their host nations was somewhat of an open secret, spillage of alert procedures, security norms and panic words strikes as pretty grave and just as embarrassing as being outed by one’s pedometer.

9x9

segmentation and targeting: A/B testing “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”—see also 

light house customer: we appreciated the chance to revisit a new and improved version Lights at Sea—via Nag on the Lake—both times  

nice.walk.ruined: award-winning global addressing scheme what3words (previously) subject to some juvenile humour with locations mapped in smutty language, both real and bespoke  

isotopia: a high-brow 1950 ballet and pantomime presented to the steering committee of the Atomic Energy Association to extol nuclear power from Weird Universe  

apartment d3: seven printed homes around the world  

l’art de payer ses dettes et de satisfaire ses créanciers san débourser un sou: credit culture in nineteenth century France 

alpha version: drag and drop personal, old school websites from mmm—via Kicks Condor 

sovietwave radio: broadcasting a selection of the sub-genre’s best space age and syntho-pop—via Dark Roasted Blend 

the writers’ block: a suite in Chelsea Carlyle mansion home to Henry James, T. S. Eliot and Ian Fleming on the market

up and atom

Via Present/&/Correct, we are referred to a curated cache Nuclear Engineering Wall Charts and vintage reactor diagrams from the collection of the University of New Mexico. The pictured diagram features the Biblis B Kernkraftwerke (AKW) near Worms, both A and B blocks were closed in March 2011 following the Fukushima and since permanently shut-down and slated for decommissioning. More to explore at the links above.

cinematic titanic

Starring Rex Reason, Faith Domergue and Jeff Morrow, the 1955 sci-fi vehicle This Island Earth, its concurrent critical acclaim was in part—not to detract from the pretty solid script—due to the novelty of Technicolor, was given a second lease on life with its MST3K treatment as the show’s first feature film, premiering on this day in 1996. With elements of The Last Starfighter, Earthling scientists are recruited, abducted by extra-terrestrials from the planet Metaluna to perform the alchemy necessary to defend themselves from an invader alien called the Zagons, learning too late that this effort only covers up and conspiracy to relocate a doomed population to Earth along with their irreconcilable differences.

snapshot

Via their excellencies Nag on the Lake and Everlasting Blört, we are directed to a profound and touching curation and salvage operation a decade on launched by local photographer Munemasa Takahashi in the Lost & Found project, wherein volunteers gathered and conserved photographs scattered among the destruction caused by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant disaster that struck Japan on 11 March 2011. Ranging from candid snapshots, vacation photos, wedding portraits and class pictures, over seventy hundred and fifty thousand pictures have been preserved and digitised with almost half-a-million reunited with those who lost them along with everything else in the catastrophe. Prints and framed photos are of course fragile things exposed but the damage that they sustained and personal connections they represent in whatever form speak to how this disaster upended lives.

your house is on fire and your children are alone

Courtesy of a film recommendation by one of our favourite podcasts, The Flop House, we learn of the 1963, Oscar-nominated film by Frank Perry that analyses the psycho-social toll of the Cold War that really speaks to the uncertainty and the fears harboured over our current collective crisis and what totems we rally to preserve through selective ignorance. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis (previously) from just a year prior, following the protocol of classroom drills, teachers escort their students home at a rural elemental school after a warning siren sounds. Absent independent verification on the veracity of the alarm, no one is sure whether it is a false warning, a test or not. Some of the students’ parents dismiss these distant, abstract events as they frantically search for a fall-out shelter that can accommodate them all. One girl is ejected, with the claim there is not enough space and goes off to take refuge in a discarded refrigerator—introducing that trope, though her classmates don’t abandon her or forget about her altogether.

honoured guests

Through this 1982 tribute by artist Roger Brown (*1941 – †1997), known for his portrayal of society, entertainment and politics with bold and distinctive storyboards, we are reminded of the individual selfish acts of heroism when it came to saving passengers of Air Florida Flight 90 that crash-landed on the frozen Potomac on this day the same year as the picture was created in honour of Washington, DC Congressional Budget Office employee Lenny Skutnik, whom didn’t hesitate to dive into the icy waters to save Priscilla Tirado, representing one of the hundreds of brave bystanders whom intervened.
Two weeks later, Ronald Regan invited Skutnik to attend the State of the Union Address and sit in the presidential box with First Lady Nancy Reagan, with the president acknowledging his heroism as the embodiment of the American ideal. Since then, other members of the public attending the State of the Union or other similar joint sessions of Congress at the invitation of the president and so honoured have been referred to by the generic name of “Lenny Skutniks.” Before reality television set in with the game-showification of the government and bully-pulpit of incumbency, though previously not universally without contention or political statement, the guests were usually limited to one or two individuals worthy of recognition, and not a singled-out victim vilified whose problems were at least in part systemic to US policies and priorities in the first place. The other subject of Brown’s piece is anti-nuclear weapons activist Norman Mayer, who was shot by police while threatening to dynamite the Washington Monument on 9 December of the same year, two diametrically different events bookending 1982 in the capital, unless a serious dialogue be held on the topic of disarmament and achieving peace.

when the wind blows

Premiering on this day in 1986, the animated adaptation of the eponymous Raymond Briggs’ comic book—previously introduced to the public as a BBC radio play—marked the artist’s follow-on collaboration with the studio and directorship of Jimmy Murakami and musical stylings of David Bowie (Roger Waters of The Who thanks Dad Pink Floyd, Genesis, Squeeze and Paul Hardcastle also contributed to the soundtrack) after their 1982 success with The Snowman—another tune I regularly hum to myself. Based on Briggs’ own parents, the narrative accounts the efforts of a rural couple to maintain normalcy and survive in a nearby nuclear bomb blast. The attack portrayed was meant to be collateral from the escalating conflict of the Soviets in Afghanistan, and despite the bleak subject, the presentation encouraged viewers to stick with it until the end. Here is the trailer below and full version of the graphic novel read through here and the full score at the link.