spin boldak

Although prior commitments and pledges had already set withdrawal from Afghanistan in motion and the US is made to face the parallels and comparisons to the fall of Saigon that it tried to dismiss or downplay, it was a grave failure of the imagination to be shocked at the thinnest veneer of stability and superficial democratic values that the West brought—standards imposed—and expect it to be robust or enduring and not swept away in the power vacuum filled by the resurgent Taliban government. Like regime change in American itself that vacillates between extremes that does not bode reliability or ongoing responsibility, the abrupt abandonment set off a military offensive in May that saw one regional capital after another be subsumed by Taliban forces. As belligerents approached the capital city of Kabul, president Ashraf Ghani relinquished control and fled to Tajikistan, disestablishing the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, replaced with the re-established Emirate, and the movement’s co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (released from a Pakistani jail in 2018 at the request of the US) assumed control, announcing from the busy airport where thousands are seeking to evacuate, that the “War is over!”

toast malone

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we learn of the supremely economical recipe included in the invalid cookery (medically restricted diets, see also) section of an 1861 volume on household management by one Isabella “Mrs” Beeton (still in print, a best-selling though highly plagiarised compendium formative for the middle-class image of the Victorian Era) for a toast sandwich, whose filling is unsurprisingly a thin slice of toasted bread, buttered with salt and pepper to taste.

typically tropical

Best remembered for the 1975 Song of the Summer “Barbados,” reaching its pinnacle of popularity on this day those decades hence, the duo comprised of recording engineers Jess Calvert and Max West, the track was covered by the Vengaboys in 1999 as “We’re Going to Ibiza.” Typically Tropical performed the song on Top of the Pops, rounding out an album called Barbados Sky, and three years later received a song writing credit for the Hot Gossip disco number “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper,” inspired by the Star Wars craze. “…Or are you like a droid—devoid of emotion?”

revolver

Released on this day in 1966 and accompanied by a double A-side single of “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yellow Submarine,” the group’s seventh and final studio album before retiring from live performances and touring is regarded as one of the most innovative and influential of all time. Embracing technological advances championed by electronic artists like Karlheinz Stockhausen, the Beatles’ recording is notable for its unique soundscape and diverse styles, with tracks including “Taxman,” “Good Day Sunshine,” and “And Your Bird Can Sing.”

8x8

westward ho: a publication that captured Southern California’s aesthetic with the help from Milton Glaser and others 

strangers on a plane: the all-star cast of the first in the disaster franchise Airport 1970—see previously  

tilt-shift: Little Big World explores the Erzgebirge—see also 

flowers of ukraine: a Brutalist greenhouse in Kiev that escaped the wrecking ball—via Things Magazine  

backwards compatible: a look at the development of plug-and-play technologies and its very forward-looking, consequential decisions 

going up: the explosive innovations investment in a space elevator (see previously) could bring about—via Kottke’s Quick Links 

gimme some starlight: the original lyrics to Thriller before being workshopped 

all signs point east: a branding and tourism campaign aims to inspire discovery, wonder and frolic

glossographia

Writing for Æon Magazine, Arika Okrent presents a compelling argument that the overwhelming inconsistencies of the English language in its written form has less to do with the mixing of peoples on the British Isles but rather the incidents and accidents of early-adoption of the printing press and with the attendant increase in literacy, conventions like adhering to uniform and phonetic spelling (previously) could be set and propagated by any author, especially with English falling out of common-parlance (see also) only to re-emerge after a hiatus of nearly three-centuries, only separated by a few generations the introduction of publishing.

queenhithe

The Gentle Author of Spitalfield’s Life directs our attention to a new, epic mosaic along the Thames path that illustrates two millennia and more of human history with the estuary’s natural course at the inlet named ‘the Queen’s Harbour’ after Matilda granted around 1104 the establishment of a dock there and the excise of duties on goods delivered. Learn more at the link above, including a treasury of panels from the procession, pictorial chronicle of the ages.

chevron of chain counterchanged argent, sable, argent

Winning entrant designed by vexillologist Gracie Sheppard in a contest sponsored by a local museum to create a symbol for the region, the flag of Black County was first hoisted in 2012—thereafter on this day to mark the invention of the Newcomen steam engine in 1712 that heralded the beginning of the Industrial Revolution with a county fête.

The heavily industrialised area in the West Midlands after Birmingham has no single set of defined boundaries to the satisfaction of all with the most common being where the coal seam has come to the surface and refers to the layer of soot that covered everything from all the mining, mills and factories by the mid-1800s. Chain-manufacture was big business there, as was glass-making and brickworks. Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop established the region’s first literary conceit as a vicious hellscape in 1841 with others upholding it including J. R. R. Tolkien’s Mordor—elvish for dark land—corresponding with contemporary accountings, with some suggestion that activist and Communist and Labour party mayor of Bilston in Staffordshire, Ben Bilboe, was the inspiration and namesake for the hobbit character, the author’s family having roots in the West Midlands.

that weren’t no dj—that was hazy cosmic jive

Performing his new single Starman—his first charting hit since Space Oddity in 1969, David Bowie in the persona of Ziggy Stardust and band, the Spiders from Mars composed of Mick Ronson, Mick Woodmansey and Trevor Bolder, appeared on Top of the Pops on this day in 1972. Let all the children boogie.

fast car

Though released earlier in April as the leading single from her eponymous debut studio album, it was Tracy Chapman’s performance (previously) for Nelson Mandela’s Seventieth Birthday Tribute at Wembley Stadium on this day in 1988 that propelled the singer and song to international recognition. The folk rock narrative relates the story of the working poor struggling to escape generational poverty and the persistence of optimism.

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.

8x8

billboards and hoardings: the evolution of outdoor advertising  

ptychography: a high resolution imaging of atoms—see previously  

the village: lovely Mid-Century Modern accommodations in Portmeirion—where The Prisoner was filmed  

vqgan+clip: Picasso’s Persistence of Memory with Lisa Frank filter applied—via Waxy  

ems: composer and sampling pioneer Peter Zinovieff has passed away, aged eight-eight—via Things Magazine  

pulp tarot: a divining deck (previously) informed by Mid-Century illustrations from Todd Alcott

siss-boom-bah: a Japanese pyrotechnics catalogue (see also) from the 1880s  

indexing: a look at how the adoption of vertical filing helped ushering the Information Age—see also here and here

sleeping very soundly on a saturday morning i was dreaming i was al capone

Billed as Smile, the previous band of drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May under which the booking had originally been made, those two were joined by bass-player Mike Grose and Freddie Bulsara on lead vocals to perform publicly together for a charity fund-raising event at the City Hall of Truro in Cornwall on this day in 1970. Welcoming the singer, the group was convinced to change its name to Queen by a persuasive Mercury who also took that moment to redefine himself, inspired by the lyric, “Mother Mercury—look what they’ve done to me” for the draft that would become song “My Fairy King,” which would feature on their first eponymous record album. The ballad itself inspired by Robert Browning’s poem The Pied Piper, it quotes directly “and horses were born with eagles’ wings” and immediately preceding the lament, “Someone, someone has drained the colour from my wings / Broken my fairy circle ring / And shamed the king in all his pride / Changed the winds and wronged the tides.” The titular opening lines are from an early version of “Stone Cold Crazy” was among original material performed at the first gig, with a small show, under their new name, following in London on 18 July.

daylight robbery

Once again via Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this series of photographs from Andy Billman of bricked up windows from buildings across London that evoke the interesting and immediate aesthetic (see also) that falls into the category of being a Thomasson—that is, a preserved architectural relic without apparent purpose or historical significance—plus the contextualisation in the form of a window tax enacted the late seventeenth century, meant to be a progressive levy on the mansions of the wealthy but instead misapplied to tenement dwellings and prompted the restriction of light, view and ventilation, contributing to squalid conditions and spread of disease. Much more to explore at the links above.

stonehenge free festival

Though possible precursors began a couple of years prior—and down through ancient times too of course, the first well-documented modern music fair to be held at the prehistoric monolith (previously) was held on this day, the Summer Solstice, in 1974—after disbanding the Winsor Free Fest and itself suppressed after a decade’s run of gathering at the stones, a victim of its own popularity. Participating bands included Thompson Twins, Dexys Midnight Runners, The Raincoats, Killing Joke and several counter-culture representatives like Circus Normal, the Peace Convoy and New Age Travellers. A wealth of pictures, first-person accounts and ephemera from those years through 1984 and related events are at the resource at the link up top.

black to the future

Recommended by Fresh Air’s jazz critic Kevin Whitehead, we very much enjoyed discovering the musical stylings bandleader and saxophonist and clarinet player Shabaka Hutchings through his recent sessions leading a reed quartet called Sons of Kemet. Much more at the link above.

procol harum

Reaching number one on the UK charts on this day in 1967 a little under a month after its release, this achievement of A Whiter Shade of Pale, remaining at the top for weeks, is considered the beginning of the Summer of Love in Britain, the Chaucerian prosody and Baroque accompaniment (Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Air on the G string”) speaking to an up-and-coming but disaffected generation. Subsequently this anthem has become the single most publicly played song in UK history with the single featured in the soundtracks The Big Chill, Breaking the Waves and Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary The Vietnam War. Over nine hundred cover versions have been performed by other artists over the years.  Though according to one anecdote the band is called after the rather sophisticatedly-named Burmese cat named Procul Harun—Arabic for warrior lion, there is no authoritative source and other suggesting it being bad Latin for “beyond these things,” whereas properly it would be procul hīs.

toponymy

Via Web Curios (a lot more to see here), we are presented with this sophisticated name generator, which draws from a randomised list of English place-names—suburban area, villages, hamlets (see previously)—to suggest an ideal company name for one’s venture or concern. Barcheston Moneystone, LLP. Play with the toggle buttons and let us know the name of your next partnership.

vitae bonifatius

Feted on this day on the occasion of his martyrdom (*675) on this day in 754 near Dokkum in Friesland, Boniface, from the Devon village of Crediton, was a leading figure of the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Frankish Empire and whose influence, reforms and alliances-including the union of the papacy with the Carolingian dynasty and the successor transnational organisations, like the Holy and Roman Empire of the Germans and the EU, and is celebrated as a missionary and uniter and peace-maker, the Apostle to the Germans acclaimed almost immediately after his death as patron of the country and Fulda, his major shrine. The basilica minor is not far away from the modern day town of Fritzlar where Boniface reportedly, dramatically chopped down the Donar Oak (considered sacred to Jupiter through interpretatio romana) to illustrate that no punishment would be meted out for this perceived desecration and went on to build a chapel dedicated to Saint Peter from the lumber. Winning converts, Boniface encouraged widespread destruction of pagan sites, especially sacred groves. Though probably only an inventive story, the saint is sometimes credited with the invention of the Christmas tree as a way to coopt and supplant native customs. Boniface and his retinue were killed by highway robbers en route to Frisia, hoping to find more followers in the north, their attackers sorely disappointed to find only books and manuscripts instead of treasure.

the original new timbral orchestra

The Expanding Head Band at the helm of TONTO, the ENIAC and ENIGMA mainframe of modular synthesisers, fronted by pioneering electronic duo Malcolm Cecil (†2021, pictured) and Robert Margouleff, as Things Magazine informs, produced few recordings themselves but widely and extensively collaborated with artists of all backgrounds and genres to help their signature psychedelic (see also) sounds gain a purchase in mainstream music. They worked with Stevie Wonder, the Isley Brothers, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Randy Newman, Quincy Jones, Ravi Shankar and the Doobie Brothers—just to name a few. More at the link above and enjoy their 1971 album Zero Time below.