7x7 (10. 778)

omnes vanitas: the puzzling thanatopsis of the paintings of David Bailly 

hbo in space: music made for television—see previously here and here  

journey to the west: in the Hall of the Monkey King 

trompe-l’œil: the hyper realistic paintings of John Frederick, see previously—via Messy Nessy Chic  

outside the frame: using LLM and AI to hear the rest of the story–not that we needed to 

velvet goldmine: the art collection of David Bowie—see previously here and here  

memento mori: an elaborate lie-detection apparatus from the 1920s

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sit tibi terra levis (10. 777)

Print magazine columnist Steven Heller directs us to an interesting project in the form of a series lithographic prints created from the rubbings (frottage) of the headstones of historic type designed—having to hunt down the final resting places of many of these influential yet sometimes forgotten and neglected individuals. Pictured is a detail from the grave marker of William Caslon I (†1766) interred in St Luke Old Street in London, who started business engraving gun parts before establishing a foundry. Inspired by Dutch Baroque fonts, his Latin types (also producing a character set in Coptic and Hebrew) in a very legible pica size were instantly popular among publishers and the reading public, used in the Cyclopaedia of 1728 and the Declaration of Independence’s version for distribution, that the phrase came about, “when in doubt, use Caslon.” Much more about the project on exhibition and more tombstones at the link up top.

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sancta maria ad martyres (10. 738)

Gifted to Pope Boniface IV by Byzantine Emperor Phocas and rededicated as a Christian basilica in honour of St Mary and the Martyrs on this day in 609, the ancient Rome temple, built half a millennia earlier by Hadrian and commissioned to replace an earlier structure that had burnt down during the reign of Marcus Agrippa (hence the inscription, M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM·FECIT, “son of Lucius made [me] during his third term as consul,” is unique for its rotunda and oculus skylight (telling the time like a sun-dial but with light instead of shadow) and counted among the best preserved works of Roman architecture by dint of its continuous use. Though probably not a shrine sacred to the every deity since it was prescribed that temples should be devoted to a single god or goddess lest a single building be struck by lighting or be otherwise desecrated and probably a popular nickname for the many statues that lined the portico or for the vaulted ceiling that opened up to the heavens. In order to dispel pagan demon worship and sanctify the space, twenty-eight cartloads of remains—said to be Christians put to death during the Diocletian Persecution—were brought up from the catacombs and reinterred in a porphyry tomb beneath the altar and stripped the interior of its decoration, shipping the ornaments off to Constantinople. Used also as a final resting place for members of the House of Savoy, the interior niches have been richly decorated over the centuries and structurally is one of the most architecturally influential buildings, typifying the neo-classic style and echoed in many government buildings and public institutions.

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9x9 (10. 600)

shepherds bush’s: a collection of vintage photographs from Peter Marshall  

hold my calls, i’m blogging: the life of the dedicated internet caretakers 

clubhouse goals: the creative compound of the Red Rose Girls of fin de siècle sisterly Philadelphia  

dynamo: labelling suggestions notes art: stunning sketches made in the Notes app—via Things Magazine  

clickbait: sixteen seven companies dominating search results—via ibīdem  

the cheops inclination: unbuilt mortuary monuments of London—see previously—inspired by Egyptomania 

i want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango juice: celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary of Red Dwarf  

cabmen’s shelter fund: the remaining few historical kiosks constructed so livery wouldn’t need to let unattended—see previously

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the great michigan pizza funeral (10. 592)

With the governor also coming to pay his respects, a sizeable crowd with members of the press came to the small town of Ossineke to witness the ceremonial disposal of nearly thirty-thousand frozen cheese and mushroom pies, buried in a five metre deep grave. In order to demonstrate personal accountability and generate a bit of publicity for his business, one of the most state-of-the-art and earliest operations of its kind in America, Mario Fabbrini, originally from Fiume, Croatia and fled Yugoslavia, proprietor of Papa Fabbrini’s Pizzas, was approached by safety inspectors from the US Food and Drug Administration and ordered to recall, out of an abundance of caution, nearly a week’s worth of manufacturing when a supplier of mushroom toppings had tested positive for botulism. A post-mortem revealed the pizzas to be free of the deadly bacteria.

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8x8 (10. 413)

rummaged in the roots: with only the dead in their graves as witnesses, we learned that the Hardy Tree of St Pancras succumbed to blight, via Strange Company  

terracotta army: archeologists are hesitant to unseal the tomb of China’s first emperor—and for good reason, via ibīdem, more here 

genuary 2023: a month of generative coding to make beautiful AI artefacts—via Web Curios  

alphaputt: this typographical, twenty-six hole course

know your meme: incredibly, there has never been an indexed search engine of the internet image macros—via Waxy

fossil fuel: industry scientists had a preternaturally accurate grasp on the consequences of burning oil five decades ago—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

ucluelet: the largest Rogue Wave on record—see previously  

vauxhall: a tour of south London in the 1980s—via Things Magazine

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homeotherm (10. 411)

Declared legally dead on this day in 1967, University of California psychology professor and author of several influential works of occupational counselling, Dr James Hiram Bedford became the first individual whose body underwent cryopreservation. With the expectation of being revived and treated when medical science could cure a presently terminal illness, Evan Cooper’s Life Extension Society offered to treat and store a body in a state of suspended animation free of charge as a promotion to advance their line of research. Dying of kidney cancer that had metastasised and spread to his lungs, Bedford volunteered but not entirely taking up the foundation on its munificence but importantly providing in his will funding for his continued preservation. Though there is some debate on the efficacy of the methodology and whether through various transfers the vital temperature was maintained, a cryogenics lab is still Bedford’s caretaker to the present day.

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9x9 (10. 379)

run with us: Lisa Lougheed vocal talents showcased for the Canadian animated television series The Raccoons—1985 to 1992  

the number 23: Tedium looks forward to the dawning year  

artisanal bitcoin: crypto mined with only slide rules and graph paper  

rip: this more inclusive, Sgt Pepper’s style (previously) obituary of those we lost in 2022—to include the very recently passing of Anita Pointer, Barbara Walters and Pope Benedict 

next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual: a literary guide to New Year’s resolutions and more from Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links 

web 1.0: a clarion call to bring back personal blogging—also the upteenth time this appeal has circulated since 2007—via Kottke’s Quick Links  

penny-farthing: a pocket-sized battery that can enhance a mechanical bicycle  

magic clock: a 1960 Mel-O-Toons classic reminds us it’s late than we think  

fever ray: a selection of new musical artist from Super Punch

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and if you want to be free, be free (10. 347)

Premiering on this day in 1971, as our faithful chronicler informs, the romantic black comedy by Hal Ashby and Colin Higgins relates the narrative of Harold Chasen, an adolescent obsessed with the macabre, staging elaborate fake suicides, driving a hearse and attending the funerals of random strangers to the dismay of his wealthy, socialite mother, who goes to great lengths to try to make him more respectable, and Dame Marjorie Chardin, a seventy-nine year old he meets at a funeral mass, who counters his morbid demeanor and teaches him joie de vivre for the first time as their relationship develops into a more intimate one. The film’s soundtrack is provided by Yusuf Stevens. Producer and writer Higgins had expressed an interest later the decade after his work attained cult status after its initial mixed reviews in both a prequel, Grover and Maude wherein Maude learns how to break into cars and fence stolen property and a sequel, Harold’s Story about his life after meeting Maude though neither were pursued though was adapted into a Broadway stage play, a French made-for-tv-movie and a musical version.

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brion sanctuary (10. 379)

Via Messy Nessy Chic, final resting place for the commissioning widow, her late husband, founder of an Italian consumer electronics company called Brionvega noted for their futuristic design and the designer himself, Carlo Scarpa—never officially credentialed as an architect as he refused to sit before the state board of examiners—the monumental extension to an adjacent municipal cemetery is considered to be a masterpiece of Modernism. Completed in 1978 after a decade of construction, the chapel and sacrophagi outside of Treviso is a mediation in concrete that evokes the cross-cultural influence of nearby Venice, incorporating Byzantine tiles and mosaics and the signature motif of vesica piscis or mandorla—the lens formed by the intersection of two circles, suggesting in Latin, the bladder of a fish or in the Italian, an almond. Restored last year, it was a filming location of the second part of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune shot over the summer.  More at the links above, including many pre-conservation photos and more projects by Scarpa.

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7x7 (10. 344)

canopic jars: a mummy called Pachery is the only individual found so far with his internal organs intact—via Messy Nessy Chic    

hardbottom communities: researchers work to preserve Florida’s coral reef    

nightfall: researchers discover two new minerals sourced from a meteorite strike in Somalia    

thirteenth studio album: imaging a fantasy concept record after 1970’s Let It Be for the Beatles    

kraft dinner: a Florida woman is suing Macaroni & Cheese over misleading preparation time    

crown of thorns: some Australian politicians take issue with the ‘endangered’ status for the Great Barrier Reef—see previously    

khufu: an interactive virtual tour of the Pyramids of Giza—via Maps Mania

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8x8 (10. 271)

make it another, double, old-fashioned please: a definitive, festive guide to whisky cocktails 

born in arizona, moved to babylonia: a new book on the King Tut’s parents, Akhenaten and Nefertiti  

elf-on-the-shelf: the shrine to departed Dobby in a nature reserve can remain but visitors asked to refrain from leaving mementos  

planchette: the intersection between profit and superstition revisited with a look at the story of the Ouija borad—see previously  

toynbee tiles: an enduring urban myth—see previously  

they’ve got it all on uhf: Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliff appearing in musical biopic parody of Weird Al Yankovic (previously)  

palimpsest: peeling back the layers to rediscover ancient manuscripts recycled as early modern incunabula

limoncello: a doubly lemon aperitif in the ‘Amalfi Dream’

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kv62 (10. 270)

On this day in 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter and team, sponsored by patron George Herbert, Earl of Carnavon, discovered the first step leading down to the tomb of Tutankhamun, inspired to continue the search after other burial goods were discovered bearing the name of the pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt were found by excavators contracted by Egyptologist Theodore Davis in ancillary chambers before the Great War. Digging proceeded at pace throughout the month, reaching the antechamber and unsealing the vault on 26 November, exceeding all expectations and lending heretofore unknown insight into royal funeral rites. The media frenzy following that gripped the public imagination was known as “Tutmania,” influencing styles and decorative arts as well as informing Egypt’s struggle for independence from Britain by reconnecting it with its past.

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8x8 (10. 261)

allhallowtide: the artwork of Mike Egan that references elements of Día de Muertos—via Everlasting Blört  

famous artist dies penniless and all alone: the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s archives of artists’ obituaries   

fps: visualizing sweeping across the globe at the speed of light  

forma: Federal Occult Range Management Administration  

mapping out the month: the thirty day charting challenge returns  

eleições gerais: Brazilian artists herald the return of President Lula  

ghost bride: a centuries-old tradition practised in some communities in Kerala  

ofrenda: a guide to making an altar to celebrate the lives of loved ones who’ve passed

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unblogged crete (10. 254)

A few bits of miscellaneous reflections on traveling in Crete that didn’t quite fit elsewhere: Like the German practise of erecting crosses at the roadside to memorialise a tragic death in an auto accident, in Greece, they use these miniature concrete churches, often with a small shrine inside to those lost and are mass-produced.

There are cats everywhere that belong to no one and will congregate around one at a restaurant, and generally have very good table manners and will not beg or harass but will sit quietly and mildly look at you.

Far more intense and immersive than a cat cafe, only once when we were the sole guests at a criminally under-partonized establishment did they bother us, until an older woman riding a motorbike arrived and with distinct Ernest Hemingway Martha Gellhorn energy produced a bag of cat food and proceeded to portion it out on the railing and announcing that she wanted to eat in peace and requested the waiter bring her “fish and white wine.”

There is also seemingly a preponderance of distressed and half-finished property developments, single-family homes ready for a second storey but with stairwells to nowhere, skeletal foundations, uncompleted resorts and obviously orphaned restaurants. Such commercial ruins make a strange landscape.

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the levelled churchyard (10. 227)

Strange Company’s invaluable Weekend Link Dump invites us to pass an hour in the cemetery of Old St Pancras—not only famed for its connection to the literary circles of Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and Mary Wollstonecraft as well as the iconic telephone box via the tomb of Sir John Soane but moreover attracting visitors to what has been deemed the Hardy Tree, after the former junior architect turned novelist involvement with the expansion of the train network (see also). The building of the Midland Railway necessitated the removal of many graves, a number of the headstones of them were rummaged in the roots of this tree, inspiring the author later to reflect in the titular poem, “We late-lamented, resting here,/Are mixed to human jam,/And each to each exclaims in fear,/‘I know not which I am!’” Much more to explore at the links above.

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castillo del diablo (10. 184)

While visiting Rosarito in Baja California, friend of the blog, Fancy Notions, stumbled upon a most usual six-storey beach house bedecked with gargoyles and monstrous statuary and crammed to the brim with antiques that is yet uncompleted obsession of a real estate developer called Tony Wells. This Gothic residence chocked full of period furnishings, coffins and chandeliers has become quite the draw for tourists and there are plans to convert property into a museum, relenting to the throngs of visitors who wanted a peek inside. Much more at the link above.

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last post

Whereas the B♭ version might be more familiar, the E♭ variation is employed by the State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry and the particular flourish was acquired by British troops garrisoned in the Netherlands (see also), drawing on an older Dutch custom called taptoe—root of a military tattoo or send-off and the North American version of “taps”—signalling the end of the duty day, the solemnity of the taptoe itself adopted as an extension of last call, Doe den tap toe—a reminder to make sure that the beer spigots were closed before shutting down for the evening. More coverage of the historic state funeral, including this ceremony, from the BBC and the Guardian. 

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6x6 (10. 122)

derivative art: online communities are rejecting AI-generated images 

compostable mushroom shroud: when Luke Perry passed away in 2019, he requested that his mortal remains leave no trace—only it didn’t work—via the morning news  

forms of address: the title culture of German—and the UK—via Marginal Revolution 

remember-tini: a Virginia country club is facing backlash for a planned 9/11-themed seafood Sunday brunch—via Super Punch    

temenos: every four years a screening of experimental filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos’ eighty-hour Eniaios is held in the Peloponnese that his magnum opus could spiritually cleanse our over-polluted media diets  

multi-level marketing: the online community bent on undermining crypto-scams and bitcoin pyramid schemes

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8x8

can i pet your dog: a short-lived 1971 talk show, The Pet Set, hosted by Betty White  

particle zoo 2.0: revved up Large Hadron Collider discovers three new exotic quark-pairings—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

plastic mero: artwork installed on a beach in Funchal crafted on salvaged ocean waste speaks to the plight of the Atlantic goliath grouper and fellow fish 

onomatopoeia: a collection of nonsense words invented by bird-watchers to convey calls and songs 

gol gumbaz: a resplendent seventeenth century mausoleum in Bijapur is called the Taj Mahal of Southern India  

denton, denton you’ve got no pretension: a photoessay of the Texas city in the 1970s  

gravitational waltz: tracing the orbits of stars near super-massive black hole Sgr A* (previously)  

golden girls 3033: BoJack Horseman director Mike Hollingsworth creates an animated pilot using splices of original dialogue

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