Having committed quite some thoughts on the subject and even echoed the quip from Voltaire myself without realising the provenance or shallowness of the observation—that it was “neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire”—we appreciated coming across this encapsulation of an introduction by Eleanor Janega on the anniversary of the beginning of the Congress of Vienna in 1814 when representatives and stakeholders of the former political union met to reconstitute European order and long-term peace after the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose campaigns spelled its dissolution after eight centuries of existence. There is vast a amount of history to cover, from Charlemagne and Henry Fowler to extension under the Hohenstaufen and the Hapsburgs but Dr Janega does a yeoman’s job in summarising the polity, which like under the Roman Empire enjoyed a good share of autonomy and retained local customs and culture.
Sunday, 1 October 2023
hre (11. 034)
Sunday, 3 September 2023
diskลพokej (10. 980)
Courtesy of Fancy Notions, we are directed to Czecho-slovakian animator Jiลรญ Barta’s 1981 short Disc Jockey, that documents the day in the life of a DJ with a day-job in a world dominated by circles (as opposed to rectangles) where their beats evoke the mechanisms of the gears of the daily grind—as consolation in kind for music fests missed due to the climate catastrophe. Specialising in stop-motion techniques, Barta created an adaptation of the Pied Piper fable whilst working in the studio of Jiลรญ Trnka and later became a member of the teaching faculty at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen in addition to continuing to produce projects in film and theatre.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a visit to the Saalfeld Fairy Grottos
two years ago: Gumbasia (1955), The Quadripartite Agreement renewed over a divided Berlin (1971), attempts to discredit the Pentagon Papers leak, more mushroom mania plus Ukraine at Thirty
three years ago: pioneering journalist Marguerite Higgins Hall, a peaceful transition of power in question in the US plus assorted links to revisit
four years ago: a diplomatic gaffe in Iceland, la Maison du Gouffre plus the founding of San Marino
five years ago: right wing activity in Germany plus more links to check out
Tuesday, 29 August 2023
7x7 (10. 970)
pagerank: Google has lost the quarter-century battle over overindexing versus useful search results—via Waxy

corner suite: a visit to a unique corporate headquarters in Czechia with an office in an elevator—see previously
lunar codex: an archive and time capsule of human creativity launched to the Moon—see also
motor overflow: sticking out our tongues during complicated manual tasks reveal truths about our brains’ connections—via Damn Interesting
gone to pasture: an abandoned luxury development in China overtaken by farmers and livestock—via Messy Nessy Chic
cryogenics: Wordpress offers to archive one’s digital estate for a century
synchronoptica
one year ago: another MST3K classic plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the chemical element meitnerium, the founding of Greenland, white-winged doves and saguaro cactuses plus introducing Nirvana (1991)
three years ago: mystic Manly Palmer Hall, Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn, inventor Otis Frank Boykin, liturgical cheese plus Netflix (1997)
five years ago: Trump lashes out against perceived social media bias against him plus Keith Houston on the history of emoji
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐จ๐ฟ, ๐ญ๐ฐ, ๐, ๐ข, ๐พ, ๐ง , libraries and museums, networking and blogging
Sunday, 7 May 2023
codex gigas (10. 725)
The largest extant medieval manuscript in the world, this “giant book” (Obลรญ kniha) was saved from destruction when the medieval royal palace of Stockholm went up in flames by being thrown from a window on this day in 1679. Taken from Prague as spoils of the Thirty Years; War by Swedish forces, the illuminated tome (weighing in at 75 kg) contains the complete Vulgate Bible and other thirteenth century reference material and is known for picture of the devil that takes up a full page with no other text—so prominently featured according to legend due to a pact with Satan by one of the monk scribes in exchange for allowing him time to completely transcribe the text before the source material was overdue.
Friday, 30 December 2022
mcmlxxxix (10. 370)
By dint of the limited permutations of the Gregorian, civil calendar, we discover that we can helpfully recycle (see previously) our calendars from 2017 or 1989 for the upcoming 2023. Not to be dismissive of the events bookended six years ago, the political turning points of the latter with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Perestroika, the Velvet Revolution, the uprisings in Romania and China, as well as the gradual dismantling of the apartheid government in South Africa, the return of democratic norms to Brazil and Poland and the first internet service providers seem to bode as auspicious points of correspondence. Having lived through it, may we may live in exciting times.
Sunday, 20 November 2022
8x8 (10. 321)
yotta, yocto: prolific data generation drives the need for uniform names for extremely large and extremely small numbers—see previously—via Marginal Revolution
quarantine caper: narrow escape from Jingdezhen just before lock-down

don’t copy that floppy: an overview of a few anti-piracy schemes of the late 1970s and early 80s
jpeg morgan: the rise and fall (and broader fall-out) of crypto bank and exchange FTX
infantry: Academy Award winning Czechoslovakian animated short Munro (1960) about a four-year old drafted into the army
fangcang: artist, after being identified as a “close contact” is confined in a remote hospital and transforms room into exhibition space
euler equations: computers make break-throughs in understanding fluid dynamics
Monday, 19 September 2022
many-eyed seraphim (10. 150)
The Multiocular O (give it googly eyes, lots of them) is a hapax legomenon in glyph form of the Cyrillic alphabet, occurring just once in the known lexicon as ะผะฝ҄ะพ๊ฎัะธััะน in Old Church Slavonic (previously). In addition to the reminder of how strange and monstrous biblical angels are supposed to be, there is a current petition to revise the Unicode representation to make it more accurate.
Saturday, 9 July 2022
praลพskรฝ most
On this day in 1357 on the banks of the Vltava in Prague, Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (Charles of Luxembourg born Wenceslaus / Vรกclav / Wenzel) helped lay the cornerstone of his namesake bridge—Karlลฏv most (see previously)—construction completed nearly a half-century later. According to local lore—strongly informed by the emperor’s belief in numerology and the significance of auspicious dates—the foundation stone was laid at precisely at thirty-one past five o’clock in the morning to form a palindrome and numerical span—1357 9/VII V 31. For over four-hundred years the only river crossing and linking the castle to the Old Town market, this connection made the city an important trade hub between eastern and western Europe.
catagories: ๐จ๐ฟ, ๐, ๐ , Middle Ages, ⓦ
Friday, 3 June 2022
your hit parade
The cover of the standard ล koda lรกsky (Wasted Love) by Jaromir Vejvoda known in the German Sprachraum as Rosamunde and released for English-speaking audiences under the title “Beer Barrel Polka” by accordionist and bandleader Will Glahรฉ topped the charts in the United States on this day in 1939, selling over one-million copies by 1943. Glahรฉ, prohibited by the Chamber of Culture of the Third Reich from spelling his name with an accent from 1934 to 1945, had toured internationally and were particularly popular in America and achieved further successes with his “Liechtensteiner Polka” and “The Cuckoo Waltz” and performed with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and Fats Domino.
Thursday, 26 May 2022
8x8
nebeskรฝ most 721: a walkway spanning two peaks in in eastern Bohemia
shunpikes: byways constructed to bypass toll roads, like spite houses

i guess i have to put your flat feet on the ground: astronaut Sally Ride (*1951)
imagen: Google tool turns input text to images—see previously
security detail: firearms off-limits during Trump’s speech to the National Rifle Association Leadership Forum—via Boing Boing
fahrenheit 451: Margaret Atwood’s fire-resistant edition of The Handmaid’s Tale—see previously
liminal places: a portrait of the Estonian border town of Narva on the frontier of the EU and NATO and the Russian Federation
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
vilnius group
Constituted in May 2000, member countries Slovenia, Slovakia (having already undergone its Velvet Divorce in 1993, the date falls on the anniversary of the 1990 compromise that ended the so called Hyphen War, Pomlฤkovรก vojna, started in 1989 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union on what to call themselves and how to share a territory with two identities) Romania, North Macedonia, Lithuania (its capital the namesake), Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Albania to lobby as a group for NATO inclusion, all aspirants acceded to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on this day in 2004 with the exception of Albania, Croatia and North Macedonia (under the Adriatic Charter) joining in 2009 and 2020. The former association closely maps with the composition of the Visegrรกd Group, another former pooled campaign for European Union membership and presently a regional economic cooperative.
Monday, 14 March 2022
prvรก slovenskรก republika
Under considerable pressure from Nazi Germany, the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia declared independence and became a client state of the Third Reich on this day in 1939. The next day Germany invaded and occupied Bohemia and Moravia, establishing a protectorate administered from Prague castle, having annexed the bordering Sudetenland in September 1938 following the Munich Agreement. Slovak troops were conscripted into fighting resistance forces in Poland and against Russia, and liberated (having attempted their own revolt and uprising in August 1944) by the advancing Red Army in 1945, the territory was reincorporated into Czechoslovakia. Again securing independence on New Year’s Day 1993 in what’s called the amicable Velvet Divorce, the Republic of Slovakia does not consider itself the successor state to the war time puppet regime but rather the Czechoslovakian government-in-exile of Edvard Beneลก. History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Wednesday, 9 March 2022
8x8
catwalk: the home of architect of Vittorio Garatti in Milan—via Messy Nessy Chic
inktrap: a Japanese typeface design book from 1957—via Present /&/ Correct
east-enders: a retrospective look at women protesting for peace in the 1980s in London
river antban country club: blindly, an AI tries naming golfing ranges (see previously)
carrousel: Logan’s Run plus spin-offs—see previously
bones mccoy: a compilation of Deforest Kelley pronouncing
not chav: a fresh perspective on London’s council houses
Monday, 7 March 2022
c/1973 e1
Sighted on this day in 1973 by namesake astronomer Luboลก Kohoutek the approaching comet was hailed by the media as the “Comet of the Century,” and rather unfairly when the Kuiper-belt object that only visits every seventy-five thousand years failed to live up to the hype and expectations became a metonym for a colossal let-down—a sort of Al Capone’s vault for the decade though the discoverer made may other contributions to astronomy in the form of minor planets and nebulae, and even rejected by a doomsday cult when it appeared as barely visible in the night sky. In rapt anticipation and in response to the subsequent underwhelming estimation the comet was the subject of several musicians and artists including a story arc in Peanuts, an R.E.M. ballad, a Burl Ives’ number, a Sun Ra concert and the below Kraftwerk song, Kometenmelodie:
Saturday, 19 February 2022
๐๐จ
Via the always interesting Web Curios, we are quite impressed with the comprehensive skill demonstrated by a AI museum docent called Digital Curator and its ability to instantly assembly a sizeable exhibition sourced from the collections of institutions in Austria, Germany, the
Czech Republic and Slovakia to explore the evolution of the depiction of an object, artefact or theme across the ages, styles and movements. Of course one can select from a range of parameters and enter one’s own key terms (however disparate and juxtaposed)—or like this gallery generated for the nonce, ask for a random curation. Try it out and be sure to send us an invitation to your showing.
Friday, 21 January 2022
6x6
wheelie bins: a collection of municipal-issue recycling bins from across the UK—via Pasa Bon!
filmovรฝ plakรกt: a gallery of vintage Czech movie posters
1 000 trees: drone footage showcases Heatherwick studios’ Shanghai shopping centre
northwoods baseball sleep radio: a fake game with no jarring sounds designed for podcast slumber
holkham bible picture book: a 1330 curiosity that illustrates select passages from the Old and New Testaments
the great british spring clean: projects and programmes (see also) sponsored by Keep Britain Tidy
Tuesday, 21 December 2021
summa doctrinรฆ christianรฆ
Venerated on this day on the occasion of his death in 1597, Dutch-born Jesuit priest Saint Pieter Kanis is regarded as a Doctor of the Church and a major figure of the counter-Reformation and successor to Saint Boniface as apostle to the Germans. Falling in with the Society of Jesus during college in Kรถln, Canisius became an influential preacher and writer, touring the university circuit through Austria, Moravia, Bohemia, Poland and Switzerland, at a pivotal time in church politics. Many intellectuals championed Protestantism throughout Europe, reducing the esteem of Catholic doctrines and making it seem to be the faith of the unenlightened and ignorant, but Canisus’ persuasive arguments (widely translated and propagated) reinforced beliefs that Catholicism was reasoned and rational and won back lapsed converts in Bavaria and other enclaves. Adopted in the official catechism during the Council of Trent, among Canisius’ contributions include adding the invocation “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners” to the Ave Maria prayer.
Friday, 26 November 2021
7x7
limerent limerick: help in recognising unhealthy obsessions and how to work one’s way out of intrusive thinking—hopefully through bawdy rhymes
there and back again: Gene Deitch’s animated short The Hobbit—the first such adaptation
roll for perception: a collection of resources, a florilegium from a Society for Creative Anachronism member for the LARP community—via Mx van Hoorn’s cabinet of hypertext curiosities
avenue of the sphinxes: a restored promenade between Luxor and Karnak opened with fanfare
opiate for the masses: drug use in Antiquity
mlhavรฝ: Martin Rak’s fog-draped forests in Saxon-Bohemia—see previously
here’s mud in your eye: a select glossary of beer and imbibing terminology—via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump
Saturday, 9 October 2021
7x7
the boy on the bike: a trip down Golden Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset with a beloved bread advert directed by Ridley Scott with music by Dvoลรกk
the hauntening: various AIs try their hand at spookifying, exorcising Victorian mansions—previously
outbreak: a timelapse of COVID-19 cases in the United States over the past eighteen months
just the punctation: what text without words reveals to authors about their style—via Waxy
abecedarium: a 1968 Alphabet (previously) of the Dada movement hosted by Hans Richter (caution, some rapid, flashing images)
raลกรญnovo embankment: revitalised Prague riverfront features vaulted arches for cafes and gallery spaces
Saturday, 7 August 2021
bildersturm
Due to the above titled iconoclasm movement that left many Catholic churches bereft of their religious symbols and saintly relics from Protestant furore that sought to destroy what was regarded as idolatrous figures (see previously) during the Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Vatican ordered suitable replacements be found and promptly installed.
Thousands of skeletal remains were exhumed from the catacombs of Rome, lavishly dressed and decorated, like this day’s celebrant, Donatus of Mรผnstereifel, reportedly a second century Roman soldier and martyr. Quickly rising through the ranks after enlisting, Donatus (sharing his feast day with several other liked-named saints) was part of the famed XXII. Legion—known as Fulminatrix, the thundering ones, and was assigned to the personal security detail of Marcus Aurelius (previously). Engaged in the Marcomannic Wars on the Danube march, the legion was outnumbered and nearly defeated until saved by a sudden storm that frightened off the Goths and Samaritans. Although the emperor wanted to credit his magician with summoning the storm, Donatus insisted it was his Christian prayer circle and gave thanks to God. The emperor had them all killed. Said to have been entombed in the Catacombs of Saint Agnes, Donatus’ remains were re-discovered by Pope Innocent X in 1646 and translated to the town on the Rhein near Bonn, acclaimed patron and protector from lightning strikes and invoked for a good grape harvest. Popular throughout the Rhineland as well as Donauland, Donatus also enjoyed a cultus in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Luxembourg, Slovakia and Austria.