most sacred and cherished symbol (12. 673)

Though just another feckless executive order and virtue signalling (plus a distraction) to his base—as President Bartlett said there’s no epidemic of flag-burning in protest after entertainer Penn Jillette stirred controversy with sleight of hand trick and asks deputy chief of staff, “What if we burned a flag, not in protest, but in celebration of the very freedoms that allow us to burn a flag—the freedoms that everyone who has ever worked in this magnificent building has pledged to preserve and protect?”—and against the 1989 landmark supreme court decision that affirmed such actions as protected speech under the first amendment, the Trump administration has directed officials in the justice department to prosecute flag burning in a way that does not violate the constitution, directing the attorney general to prioritise laws against desecration in connection with other crimes to allow for revocation of visas and deportation of foreign nationals, promising jail time for the offence and suggesting loss of citizenship. Describing the act as “uniquely offensive and provocative,” Trump has always had a particular preoccupation with such acts (see above case protecting “fighting words”)—whilst rubbish the principles behind it—and when a regime tells one what flags cannot be burned, it will next tell one which flags cannot be waved. Creeping—nay galloping—despotism aside, those who insist a symbol is sacrosanct and inviolable also keep it off their crappy merchandise. “Did you go to law school?” “No, clown school.”

diesel and dust (12. 662)

Released on this day in 1987, the sixth studio album from Midnight Oil is a concept record on the themes of environmental degradation and the struggles of Indigenous Australians, critically acclaimed and ranked amongst the best compilations of the 80s since its premiere. Drawing their inspiration from several months of touring the outback and playing in venues for remote Aboriginal communities—criticised by some as a one-off publicity stunt rather than a genuine effort to highlight lack of opportunity and low living standards leading to poor outcomes, the band decided to redouble their efforts to champion recognition and reconciliation. The chart topping single below is an indictment about how populations were subject to forced-removal and sparked a global discussion about land-rights and reframing narratives—with colonisers not the only one who get to write history, reprised several times with the expanded message of the impending climate catastrophe.

*     *     *     *     * 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: Snowden’s time in Hong Kong, Bitcoin and Germany plus cult sites of the Theban Legion 

thirteen years ago: artist Laurtis Andersen Ring 

fourteen years ago: mythical creatures and Addler stones 

gao and gulag (12. 607)

Trump is trying to cement case for ousting the chairman of the US federal reserve and install a more plaint comptroller who will lower interest rates according to the president’s will and make the trillions added to America’s debt slightly cheaper to borrow, advised that he can only dismiss the head of the independent central bank—whom Trump appointed during his first term—for cause, Trump is attempting to to cast budget overruns on the renovation of the reserve’s headquarters on Jerome Powell personally as an instance of fraud, waste and abuse. Sanguinely, Powell replied, in the this publicity stunt and set-up (see previously) that the cost of construction has sharply increased due to tariffs and that his figures were manifestly incorrect. Ahead of a meeting of the board’s policymakers to set the benchmark rate, it appears that the Fed will leave the percentage unchanged out of prudence in a chaotic environment, and having a central bank that is politically and economically aligned with the administration could very easily backfire, making investors and foreign holders wary about buying bonds and cause maintaining and taking on extra debt much more expense as well as further exacerbate inflation for consumers. Meanwhile, Trump has issued another executive order, which may be the most chilling yet—and that’s saying a lot for the catalogue of horrors already unleashed: Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets. The EO proposes to end “endemic vagrancy” by encouraging the civil commitment of unhoused individuals deemed to have an incapacitating mental illness that precludes self-care, ostensibly revamping the asylum-system but not in a Victorian fashion of disappearing undesirables in an environment that normalises undesirable behaviour but rather as work-camps (Arbeit macht Frei), like his Alligator Alcatraz—and reopening the Alcatraz actual. Not only are most Americans living in a very precarious paycheque-to-paycheque situation, not homeless by the grace of their inferiors, I suspect that after the initial roundups, foreign-looking individuals, protestors, dissidents—all in the estimation of the police-state—and the securely housed with assets to confiscate will follow soon after. We’ve seen this before. The order further goes on to detail how federal grants to cities will be prioritised that enforce prohibitions on illicit drug-use, urban camping, squatting and programmes to register and track the location of sex offenders. Wrecking the economy and tanking the job market—as outlined above—seem a perfect first step to create a sizeable population of malcontents.

⚐ (12. 589)

Reminiscent of the flag of South Vietnam, carrying nuanced meanings for the diaspora outside the communist nation and sadly coopted with little context by some pro-Trump elements, we learn via Web Curios that there’s a comparable battle over the flag of Iran. While the official tricolour adopted after the Iranian revolution of 1979 bearing the emblem in the centre with the name of God stylised as both a sword and a tulip, symbolising bravery and martyrdom. Other groups outside of Iran prefer the older banner of the deposed Shah, the personal flag of the Pahlavi dynasty with the ancient symbols of the Sun and Lion that goes back to Byzantine times, both in the pro-monarchy movement and those protesting the current regime as authoritarian as more inclusive. The older flag’s association with conservative monarchists movements and regime change moreover apparently informed Israel’s decision to name its war the with country Rising Lion. Yet other groups are partial to the three coloured bands with no shield as a way to acknowledge diversity of political allegiances and was historically championed by pro-constitutional, democratic counter-revolutionaries before outside intervention. The pictured further alternative is charged with the slogan Woman Life Freedom that emerged out of the 2022 protests that arose after Kurdish Mahsa Zhina Amini died in the custody of the Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police for not conforming to government standards of modesty in dress, with the message rendered in the same early Persian script, Kufic—cuneiform adapted to Arabic letters, that embroiders the official flag’s fimbriation as the takbīr (تَكْبِير ).

9x9 (12. 559)

the coffer illusion: studies in cross-cultural perception have insights behind their controversy—see previously  

rolling stock: new homeowner shocked to find a hidden model train alcove in the basement and has a new, unexpected restoration project—via Nag on the Lake  

reading the minutes: AI note-takers outnumber human participants in virtual meeting spaces  

remastered: British Film Institute hosts a rare screening of the original 1977 Star Wars on Technicolour reels  

no undo button for our fallen democracy: a chorus of responses to the cathedral-, not-in-our-lifetimes thinking that has replaced American exceptionalism  

hello stranger: a signature work of scrolly-telling from The Pudding of people who don’t know each other holding conversations—via Quantum of Sollazzo 

they’re all good boys: the golden retriever, Gilbert, assassinated along with the state congress representative and her husband lay in state at the Minnesota capitol 

heaven and earth magic: a 1962 cutout animation short by avant-garde filmmaker Harry Everett Smith made in residence at the Chelsea Hotel  

static spin: a superlative optical illusion

synchronoptica

one year ago: returning via Switzerland (with synchronopticæ) plus a new Labour government for the UK

twelve years ago: the US Mail-Cover Programme,  Stars Wars as written by Shakespeare plus America policing the world

thirteen years ago: a geography challenge 

le chemin du cadoudal (12. 556)

We went to the inland sea by the village of Locoal-Mendon to take a walk around a wooded spit of land reaching out into the estuary and landscape of oyster-culture.

The once secret path to the settlement of La Foret for smuggling out members of the clergy aligned with Royalists and counter-revolutionaries during the Terror that followed the founding of the First Republic as they had refuge until they could escape by boat was established by Georges Cadoudal (Jorj Kadoudal) to compliment their hidden base of operations.

Not a nom de guerre but rather a case of nominative determinism, the surname means in Breton “warrior returned from the fight” and was honoured as a mashal of France during the Bourbon restoration, the headquarters preserved in its grove and business of farming off shore continuing. The trail was lined with a collection of remarkable trees, gnarly and stunted from the salty winds.

quai de benjamin franklin (12. 553)

Returning to Belz, we stopped at the old eponymous fishing town straddling both banks of the river Auray—conversely the namesake likely being from Aula Régina applied to an older settlement from the Latin for royal court after the important shipping channel fell under the seigneurship of English king Henry II (confirmed by the Breton designation of An Alre—or simply Loc’h where the river can be raised to make it navigable to the sea.

The trade centre established in the older quarter is centred on the port of Saint-Goustan whose actuarial records extend back to the fourteenth century and document commerce in foodstuffs, cloth and Biscay steel. Expanded in the mid-1600s due to a more sophisticated commerce network, the new wharf was named later in honour of diplomat Benjamin Franklin who landed here on 3. December 1776to entreat France for support in their war of independence. Today the habour has been rehabilitated as a marina and a quasi estuary for water fowl and is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region.

si vis pacem para pactum (12. 536)

As if Trump’s low turn-out, low-energy birthday parade was not already overshadowed by the poor juxtaposition of the crack down on protests in Los Angeles and the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, with no boots on the ground though America can hardly claim it’s not deeply entrenched, the politically motivated assassination of a Minnesota state legislator by a crazed MAGA evangelist still at large and with a kill-list of other politicians, the surprise from Israel on Iran gave some in the administration a chance to try to have it both ways. Like the false claims last month of brokering a cease fire between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, despite vehement disavowal of having anything to do with the strikes on Iranian cities and infrastructure, Trump is insisting that peace is contingent upon Iran settling the nuclear deal—talks scheduled to continue in Oman next week—as if Israeli incursions were leverage in the negotiations, if anything possibly a provocation to draw the US into the situation. The last time Washington DC hosted a military parade of comparable scale was in 1991 as a premature victory celebration for the hundred-day Persian Gulf War, what became a multipart quagmire squandering many lives and much treasure, the US resuming its push to remove Saddam Hussein after premised on the untrue narratives of Baghdad involvement with the 9/11 terror attacks and Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. America should have lost global trust and confidence back then. Now, with Iran having been only five years away from producing a ballistic nuclear missile for the past thirty years (and surely have been capable of making an arsenal but chose not to despite decades of conflicts with neighbours including Iraq and Israel), the Trump administration and his negotiators are using the WMD playbook once again and this time, the world is far more skeptical of their motives to stoke forever wars.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Dutch roll (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: more links to enjoy, Trump’s migrant detention centres, fear of palindromes plus Stephen Hawking interred with honours

eight years ago: Ford’s soybean car plus the feast of Corpus Christi

nine years ago: the UK’s proposed withdrawal from the EU, even more links, machine dreams plus the long-s

ten years ago: a visit to Gemünden am Main, the internet of trolls plus a church that resembles the courthouse from Back to the Future

11x11 (12. 529)

somewhere beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see: Reuters’ delivers a deadpan juxtaposition of Trump’s attendance at a showing of Les Misérables just after sending in the US marines to quell demonstrations  

💩: defecation syncope and other perils of pooping 

renascidos: a cosplay parenting craze with hyperrealistic dolls has captivated Brazil, prompting some legislation against their appearance in public  

tin roof rusted: a VH-1 Behind the Music style documentary on the importance and influence of The B-52’s 

artek: the upcoming centenary of Crimea’s famed Soviet youth camp that once hosted Samantha Smith—see also  

have you tried clearing your cache: a concept artist with a reputation for the mischievous develops a dating website based on harmonious browsing history  

pomp and circumstance: a preview of Trump’s grand military parade to be held this weekend—previously  

more cow bell: artist Margareta Sarvana performs the Schalger song Itke en lemmen tähden (Nur nicht aus Liebe weinen) on a Swedish variety show in 1973—via Pasa Bon! 

the schwatz awakens: a preview trailer of the Space Balls sequel to premier in 2027, when Mel Brooks turns 101

simple article summaries: Wikipedia suspends an experiment that would display AI generated synopses after editor and contributor opposition  

i’m michael barbaro, see you tomorrow: California governor Gavin Newson interviewed by the New York Times on Trump’s ICE raids

synchronoptica

one year ago: counting crows (with synchronoptica), a Minoan archaeological discovery, emotion-cancelling technology, Trump’s revenge agenda plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: internet freedom index, more movies scripted by AI, Reagan tells Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall (1987) plus a meeting of Dear Leaders

eight years ago: memory holes, courtroom sketch artists, waste-water popsicles, mobility and mobile devices plus a surrogate social network

nine years ago: Citigroup tries to copyright the word Thanks, carbon sequestration plus more on the Trump travel ban

ten years ago: Erasmus and free-will, more links to enjoy plus Jung and Freud

the stand in the schoolhouse door speech (12. 528)

Occurring on this day in 1963, as our faithful chronicler reminds, possibly as a staged event to allow the governor whom promised to his constituents upon his inauguration for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” to save face, George Wallace (previously) blocked the entry of into the University of Alabama’s Tuscaloosa campus for two matriculating students, Vivian Malone and James Hood—the former the first Black graduate and the latter returning years later in a teaching position after being forced out by racists and both given a death-bed apology by the former governor. The state national guard federalised by executive order (EO 11111, see above) compelled Wallace to step aside and allow the new students to complete their registration, providing “assistance for the removal of unlawful obstructions of justice” across the state and allowed students to enrol in previously all-white schools. The Kennedy administration afforded Wallace this publicity stunt over warnings for repeated counter-demonstrations and violence like that that had occurred in Mississippi with desegregation, and while not able to ultimately quell all riots did focus attention on Wallace and his arguments for states’ rights versus civil rights.

flaming mo (12. 527)

The fleet of self-driving murderbots already incendiary enough in both the figurative and literal sense have been making for some spectacular footage of Trump’s made-for-tv crackdown on dissent playing out in Los Angeles. Tear-gas canisters are generally not used on the streets because they can cause traditional petrol-powered automobiles to explode and possibly are far more flammable for a vehicle that stores ninety kilowatt hours of chemical energy in the battery array—the equivalent to some eighty kilograms of TNT that can cause a runaway reaction through the engine at over a thousand degrees centigrade. A battery aflame can require up to forty times the amount of water to extinguish that a regular dumpster fire. Waymo autonomous cars have attracted special attention—though as above not necessarily the work of protestors—as a symbol of rage against the technocracy that is more and more aligned with and facilitating the police state with well established contracts with authorities like ICE and other policing agencies to provide real-time surveillance with casual and passive use. To see these marauders circling the block for a potential client has supposed prompted some to hail a ride to commit arson once they show up, not to destroy dragnet evidence but rather punish the collaborators. Someone, I’m sure will use this as an argument against electric vehicles—and for individual ridership at the expense of mass-transit, then have it—but it’s far more a critique against their extractive nature (subscription services are a revenue-multiplier), deregulation and the spying of course.

underground press (12. 482)

The masthead logo of the counter-culture alternative newspaper in print from 1966 to 1973 featured the image of vampish 1920s silent film start Theda Bara—intending to use a picture of the It Girl Clara Bow of the same era but didn’t stop the presses over that mistake and left Bara through its thirteen year run, the International Times having been cowed into shortening its name into an initialism standing for nothing (like KFC, an orphaned acronym) after the threat of a lawsuit by the venerable newspaper the London Times. Featuring regular contributions from William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Germaine Greer along with kindred publications also based in London—Oz under the editorship of Felix Dennis, who later became a more mainstream publishing mogul of Maxim, Stuff and Blender, and Durham’s own Muther Grumble issues challenged the UK obscenity laws and were an outlet covering everything from the environment, emerging bands, sex, drugs, protesting the Vietnam War, feminism and social justice and the trio of newspapers were accused of corrupting the youth of the city, offices raided on multiple occasions which temporarily halted distribution—but as ever, a sign that you are doing something right. More at the archive links above and from Print Magazine’s Daily Heller.

heidelberger spargelessen (12. 474)

The culmination of tense relations between traditional collegiate fraternities and members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (with its student league, NSDStB), the series of public demonstrations began on this day in 1935 at the University of Heidelberg directed against the leadership of Adolf Hitler. While many student groups had expressed views aligned with Nazi ideals and outlook, many university associations were targeted as elitist and counter-revolutionary, their self-administration and hierarchy (see also) as contrary to the Führer principle of Gleichschaltung. The rally began when members of the Corps Saxo-Borussia gathered at a local student pub, Seppl, to heckle a radio re-broadcast of Hitler’s “Friedensrede” (Peace Speech, stating that they only sought to build up marine forces to the level of thirty-five percent of that of British naval tonnage). Though excused for their riotous behaviour after an apology, the same fraternity, emboldened by being let off easy and press coverage, the same fraternity provoked patrons further with harsher criticisms during an asparagus dinner at the guesthouse Hirschgasse (a popular hangout), and saw their organisation immediately banned with members subject to expulsion and senior leaders arrested. Portrayed as reactionary and bourgeois, fraternities were dissolved later in the summer and reformation outlawed.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: countries shifting to fare-free mass transit, inherited learning, graphic designer Reagan Ray, artist Josef Albers plus the movie posters of Bill Gold

eight years ago: DC’s boundary stones, drone photography, superlative new species plus scientist Clair Cameron Patterson

nine years ago: a class-action lawsuit against the Devil, Venice of the North, shock graphics for cigarette packs plus a visit to Glastonbury

ten years ago: more links to enjoy

the war is over (12. 448)

Just following the announcement of the cessation of fighting after the Fall of Saigon by US president Gerald Ford, one hundred thousand spectators gathered in New York’s Central Park for a final rally with congress member Bella Abzug and concert organised by Paul Ochs (previously) with a lineup featuring Pete Seeger, Odetta, Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and others. After a duet with Baez of the ballad “There but for Fortune”, the concert closed his Ochs’ famous protest anthem, overshadowed by but not to be confused with John Lennon’s song with a similar same name, which was inspired in part by poet Allen Ginsberg’s 1966 declaration that the Vietnam war was over and that it could be ended by simply saying so (“if you want it” like the above) and stripping it of legitimacy—Och’s final public performance, though Lady Gaga sang it for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Angry artists painting angry signs
Use their vision just to blind the blind
Poisoned players of a grisly game
One is guilty and the other gets the point to blame—pardon me if I refrain

With the choral response: I declare the war is over
It’s over, it’s over

Suffering mental health problems exacerbated by heavy drinking that ultimately led to his suicide in April of the following year, friends and family say that Ochs died many deaths, lastly taking on the persona of one John Butler Train, telling people that this impersonator had murdered him and had replaced him—and in 1968, politically with the violence of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, in 1972, professionally, after being strangled in Tanzania and deciding he could no longer sing, on 11 September 1973, spiritually, when the government of Chile was overthrown by US involvement and finally mentally with this psychotic break. Ochs’ legacy continues with numerous tributes and cultural references as well as a strong influence on subsequent artists.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica) plus the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1927)

seven years ago: Muggertonian star charts, Russian electioneering plus Gaslight (1944)

eight years ago: wood libraries, Trump deflects from ties to Putin, bringing back the Microlino plus mathematical music

ten years ago: the brotagonist of this story, a visit to Hanau plus a visit to the Leipzig Zoo

eleven years ago: rebooting Star Wars plus Kierkegaard’s Either/Or

kriegsgräberstätte (12. 432)

Scheduled to be in Bonn for the G7 summit during the week of the fortieth anniversary of V-E Day celebrations, US president Ronald Reagan agreed, as a demonstration of the strength and steadfastness of West German-American relations—feeling he owed Helmut Kohl a photo-opportunity for the public and political backlash the chancellor suffered for conceding to host ballistic weapons—to visit a military cemetery logistically close to the joint airbase of Bitburg. Although planned months in advance, the ceremony intended to commemorate the end of hostilities and the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht to Allied Forces, the event was overshadowed by controversy once discovered that forty-nine of the two thousand German soldiers interred at the site at Kolmeshöhe were members of the Waffen-Schutzstaffel, drawing condemnation from Jewish activists and others worldwide. An impromptu and unscheduled visit to the memorial Bergen-Belsen was added to the itinerary to limit the leaders’ time at the cemetery, a stop which met with resistance by the president’s handlers as it might awaken old memories. The botched execution on both sides strained relations between the White House and the Chancellery, both sides blaming each other and not helped by Reagan’s statement equating those “drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis” suffered “just as surely as the victims of the victims of in the concentration camps.” In response, the Ramones recorded the single “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” in June of that year, the co-starring chimpanzee of “Bedtime for Bonzo” employed as an epithet for the former actor.

synchronoptica

one year ago: alien autopsy (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

eight years ago: a natural battery spanning a Norwegian valley, Valerian and the City of a 1000 Planets plus a clever and effective flyer

nine years ago: on tour in Cornwall 

ten years ago: The Meaning of Liff, more links to enjoy, populuxe design plus assorted trivia that sounds untrue

eleven years ago: fetishising fruit

this five-hundred word bumper sticker on my tesla explains why i’m not a bad person (12. 417)

After reading about an entrepreneur earning a small fortune with a collection of significantly less apologetic and succinct stickers (not pictured), we quite enjoyed this imagined screed plastered on the rear of a Tesla by one owner from McSweeney’s contributors Lia Woodward and Leah Folta: 

Does it help to know that I always return my shopping cart to the designated area? What about the fact that I’ve never been to a Chick-fil-A? Or that I commissioned this bumper sticker from the Etsy shop of a woman who was fired from the EPA?

…how could you possibly predict that someday he will say and do those same things a lot louder and more often?

kvinnan med handväskan (12. 387)

Photographed on this day on 1985 in Växjö by journalist Hans Runesson features the subject of Danuta Danielsson protesting against a Neo-Nazi rally with her handbag, captured at a decisive moment of resistance when Communists were prepared to deliver their rebuttal to Nordic Realm Party supporters and drove out the latter, the residents driving them to hide in the train station toilet until authorities transported them away. Danielsson was of Polish Jewish heritage and her mother survived internment in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, but kept her identity anonymous until 2014 when a number of statues were proposed and commissioned illustrating her act of defiance.

 

synchroptica

one year ago: a self-righting ship cabin (with synchronoptica), a return visit to a local castle plus the cats of the Mexican presidential palace

seven years ago: homonyms, assorted links to revisit plus day names in north west Africa

eight years ago: cultural ambassadors, the overview effect, the Summer of Love, doodling with AI plus a real life medical tricorder 

 

nine years ago: fashematics plus a visit to a local museum

 

eleven years ago: internet gods plus a collection of map pins

 

 

u is for upper canada, where the poor slave have found rest after all his wanderings, for it is british ground (12. 302)

This 1846 hand-coloured primer was printed as an abecedary (see previously here and here) for the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Fair, authored and distributed by a pair of activist Quaker sisters, Mary and Hanna Townsend, realising that change could only be affected by including the young before they were inculcated otherwise with racist and oppressive ideas handed down. This volume was conserved and shared by the State of Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the whole alphabet, the rhyming couplets are reflective of the time and a bit paternalistic but worth reading, is showcased courtesy of Kuriositas at the link up top. I is the Infant, from the arms / Of its fond mother torn, / And, at a public auction, sold / With horses, cows and corn.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a psychoanalytic board game (with synchronoptica), Pi Day plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: celebrating the life and achievements of Stephen Hawking, the Norwegian Porridge Feud plus more praise for Professor Hawking

eight years ago: Trump’s rentier economy, more links to enjoy plus the thawing of the tundra

nine years ago: six-plus decades of space exploration, the making of 2001 plus the statues of Dublin

ten years ago: Iceland drops its bid to join the euro-market, even more links to revisit plus the digital attention deficit

eponym (12. 299)

Born on this day in 1832 in Norfolk, Captain Charles Boycott lent his name (see also here and here and here) to the term during the Irish Land War (Cogadh na Talún, an agrarian uprising that began in 1879 under UK rule) as an agent of an absentee landlord in County Mayo. Ostracised by tenant farmers over rents levied after a bad harvest when he tried to evict the protesters. Rather than resort to violence, the farmers instead organised to socially shun Boycott and his lieutenants, stopping work, causing short-term economic hardship locally and isolating the estate. The tactic worked and Boycott was unable to hire anyone who would work the fields under his charge and the neologism, spread by the press, swiftly entered common-parlance, identifying a linguistic lacuna and the meaning became more generalised.

♀ (12. 293)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we learn that on this day in 1914 suffragette and activist Mary Raleigh Richardson walked into the National Gallery and attacked The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez with a meat cleaver in protest of the arrest and incarceration of movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst the day prior. After slashing the canvas, apprehended and sentenced to the maximum allowable for vandalising a work of art of six-months, Richardson issued a statement to the press: “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history,” her actions further embellished in the papers in violent terms and framed as a callous murder of a actual person—an enduring problem when most female eponyms bestowed on places are not for actual figures but rather goddesses and deifications and more defamed by the omission, see also here and here. Velázquez’ 1651 work, successfully restored after the attack but again vandalised in 2023 by Just Stop Oil activists, was rather singular as one of the few nudes to come out of Spain during the Inquisition (Richardson also objected to the way gentleman gallery-goers leered at the image) and the motif, often copied, gave rise to the psychological, depictive departure known as the Venus Effect (cf, titular planetary symbol) with the goddess contemplating her reflection with back turned to the audience, seeing her face though not directly behind her, the intuitive framing often used in cinema to better frame an actor looking in the mirror.