i feel like singing a plot shanty

Originally lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000 on this day in 1989—later reprised in season three, a high-tech crime-fighting unit is called the titular Mighty Jack is formed to fight an evil criminal syndicate called Q, which retaliates by kidnapping one of the R&D professionals called Mister Atari to learn the secrets of their hybrid vehicles that keep foiling Q’s plots for world domination. Not an actual feature film but rather a couple of episodes of a 1968 tokusatsu action television series strung together and unlike Voltron and Ultraman, received the most exposure on MST3K.

bitmap bull finch

Via Present /&/ Correct, we really enjoyed these graphics of pixelated renderings of common birds of Japan (日本の野鳥一覧) and especially, vis-à-vis a pair of our recent posts, could firstly relate to the slander and naming conventions of obvious avian defamers and secondly to more personalised labels for new electronic file folders and its source catalogue.  Much more to explore at the links above. 

🗻

Via Spoon & Tamago, we learn that graphic designer Kenya Hara and Nippon Design Centre studios have released over two-hundred-fifty pictograms reflecting Japanese culture and lifestyle in support of the eventual return of tourism free for all to use. We especially liked the icons for sumo wrestling (相撲) and udon (wheat flour noodles, うどん) Some are even animated to convey the ritual relaxation of bathing at an onsen (see previously). Much more to explore at the links above and at the Experience Japan project website.

the one that got away

Via our peripatetic companion, Things Magazine, we learn about a centuries’ old Japanese method that fishermen used as a means of recordkeeping for logging their catch that is still employed though somewhat rarefied as an art form. 魚拓 (gyotaku, from fish + [stone] impression) is a printmaking technique which renders caught subjects as printing plates, brushing them with ink and carefully pressing a rice paper sheet over it. Details about the fish species, location and other conditions were captioned with the image along with an authenticating, notarising seal and traditionally a few gyotaku exemplars were prepared and dispatched to sellers as way of evaluating the quality of the harvest, which could also be thought of a regulatory measure to “brand” stocks and mitigate over-fishing. The detail transferred in the anatomy of aquaculture represents one of the first large scale nature studies.

jimoto made

Though not a big fan of the coffee magnate and its café culture hegemony, we can support this latest collaboration with local artisans to create distinctive mugs and tumblers that reflect the ceramic and pottery vernacular of the areas where it’s produced—and only available at local outlet. The title and project (地元) refers to the Japanese concept of being locally sourced, and pictured is porcelain cup from Ehime prefecture whose signature indigo patterns on bold white backgrounds are meant to be seen only when one takes a sip. More to explore with Spoon & Tamago at the link above.

6x6

fietsstrook: LEGO cycling lanes (see previously) on their way 

pay no attention to that man behind the curtain: Jeff Bezos to hand over the reigns of power at Amazon 

it’s a duck blur: an in depth, retrospective analysis of the 1989 Capcom video game Ducktales  

end effector: Boston Dynamics’ Spot gets an arm and gripper attachment 

nihon no shiro: abstract woodcuts of the castles and palaces of Japan—via Present /&/ Correct  

force multiplier: innovative, portable CLIP drive transforms any convention bicycle into an e-bike—via Swiss Miss

7x7

japandi: a lookbook overview of interiors that combine Japanese and Scandinavian aesthetic elements  

six arms strong and true: more machinalia from Boris Artzybasheff—see previously  

pharmaduke: re-captioning the Brad Anderson comic strip with psychedelic trip narratives, via Things Magazine  

high stakes: revisiting a quarter-century old public wager that technology would destroy society—via Slashdot  

vaccination venues: the architecture of public health promotion  

house of style: supermodel Cindy Crawford guides us through Paris Fashion Week in 1992 on her MTV show  

gradation: moving from binary to blended, a study of the spectrum of everyday objects commissioned for Japan’s award-winning children’s education programme Design Ah

7x7

dog and ferret sundries, etc: a fantastic hardware catalogue from the 1930s 

the roaring twenties: the Sea Shanty craze of a century before—via Strange Company 

midori: the relatively modern distinction between blue and green in Japan—see previously 

tag yourself: medieval owl alignment chart 

arkaphones: a resounding retrospective to artist Terry Adkins, who created sonic monuments  

for all the latest medical poop, call surgeon general c. everett koop: the fortune and failure of the post executive branch career of the doctor’s branded medical advice website  

ghost signs: self-appointed guardian of fading signage, collecting it before it vanishes altogether—we can all do this

7x7

forty winks: this Pokémon Gengar sleeping companion 

flair: the outsized legacy of a 1950 graphic design magazine  

per my previous tweet: Trump silent on continued damage and defacement of federal monuments 

nangajo: ushering in the Year of the Metal Ox with this blended Japanese New Year’s tradition—previously  

👍: anti-social media removes ‘like’ feature (see also) from public-facing sites—via Slashdot

r/obscuremedia: enjoy this soothing VHS tape from 1984 “Escape to Nature’s Beauty” 

witchfinder general: King James’ other book—Demonology

sōsaku kanji kontesuto

Language Log shares some of the top entrants for this eleventh annual Kanji Creation Contest submitted from the general public and school age participants during this past year. Many of these modified character forms—absolutely brilliant in their subtle transformation to imbue them with more meaning—are of course informed by the year’s course of events, like the overall winner, a reworking of the standard glyph 座 (za—to sit). 

With social distancing in mind, the 人 elements are spaced further apart. Similarly, for 会 (kai—to meet), the bottom supporter has been replaced with a Z for Zoom. See more at the link up top, including some non-pandemic-related words that could be classified as sniglets—words (see also here and here) and symbols to convey concepts that ought to already exist yet don’t, leaving a lexical gap for the filling.

space waste

In order to combat the accumulation of more space junk and the inevitable future consequences of it returning to Earth, the company Sumitomo Forestry is collaborating with Kyoto University to create satellites with a wood housing, experimenting with what types of lumber fair best during launch and in orbit. Appreciating the long-term impact is particularly important as swarms of microsatellites are deployed with a very specific and limited life-span. There is presently some nine-thousand tonnes of human-made debris poised to rain down on us or leave us grounded someday.

mmxx

As a long-standing tradition here at PfRC, here is our annual recap of this most extraordinairy year. We‘ve come all this way together and here‘s to us ploughing on. Thanks for visiting and be good to yourselves and one another.

january: Bushfires rage across Australia, taking the lives of an estimated billion animals.  We had to bid farewell to historian and Monty Python member Terry Jones and veteran reporter and newscaster Jim Lehrer.  Tragically basketball star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna with seven others died during a helicopter accident.  Trump signs a trade deal with Canada and México to replace NAFTA.  The United Kingdom and Gibraltar formally announce their intention to leave the European Union, initiating an eleven-month transition period.

february: Veteran actor Kirk Douglas passed away, aged one hundred and three as well as fellow actors Orson Bean and Robert Conrad.  A detailed study of the most distant planetary body explored by a space probe, now called Arrokoth, is released.  World stock markets respond early to unease surrounding the spread of the novel SARS virus.  Luxembourg makes all public transportation free to the public. 

march: Actor and singer-song writer Kenny Rogers passed away and we said farewell to Max von Sydow. Playwright Terrence McNally (*1938), actor Mark Blum (*1950), architect Michael Sorkin (*1948), influential Indian chef Floyd Cardoz (*1960), Romanian dissident author Paul Goma (*1935) and saxophonist Manu Dibango (*1933) passed away due to complications of COVID-19.  Composer Krzysztof Penderecki (*1933) whose music scored The Exorcist and The Shining also succumbed after a long bout of illness as did musician Bill Withers (*1938, Lean on Me, .Lovely Day, Just the Two of Us) from heart complications. Breonna Taylor (*1993) was murdered in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky by police conducting a groundless, no-knock search of the premises. 

april: We had to say goodbye to award-winning musician Adam Schlesinger (*1967) of Fountains of Wayne fame, Alexander George Thynn, Marquess of Bath (*1932), veteran rhythm guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli (*1926), jazz pianist and educator Ellis Louis Marsalis, Jr (*1934), folk musician and storyteller John Prine (*1946) and polymath John Horton Conway (*1937), inventor of among other things of The Game of Life, and comedian Tim Brooke-Taylor (*1940) succumbing to COVID-19.  We say farewell to veteran actress Honor Blackman (*1925), known for her roles in The Avengers and in Goldfinger as Bond Girl Pussy Galore.  We also say farewell to teacher Harriet Mae Glickman (*1925), whom persuaded Charles M. Schultz to include a black character in his comic strip Peanuts, cartoonist and long-time contributor to Mad magazine Mort Drucker (*1929), veteran actor Brian Dennehy and lesbian and civil rights advocate Phyllis Lyon (*1924).

may: founding member of Kraftwerk and electronic music pioneer Florian Schneider (*1947) passed away after a prolonged struggle with cancer.  Entertainer and illusionist Roy Horn (Uwe Ludwig, *1944) of Siegfried & Roy, and Ken Nightingall (*1928), audio engineer and famously known as the Pink Shorts Boom Operator from Star Wars passed away after succumbing to complications of COVID-19.  Pioneering singer and performer Little Richard (*1932) died after a long struggle with cancer as did techno DJ and producer Pascal FEOS (*1968) and rhythm and blues singer Betty Wright (*1953), known for her ability to sing in the whistle register, above falsetto. Veteran actor and comedian Jerry Stiller (*1927) passed away, aged 92.  Monumental artist Christo (*1935 on the same day as his partner in life and professionally Jeanne-Claude, †2009, previously here and here) passed away of natural causes.  Costa Rica legalises gay marriage, the first Latin American country to do so.

june: Rallies and marches rage across the US in response to the brutal murder of Floyd George while being detained by police. Actor Ian Holm (*1931), known for his roles as Napoleon in Time Bandits, Ash in Alien and Bilbo Baggins in the Tolkien adaptations, died from complications of Parkinson’s disease.  Influential graphic designer Milton Glaser (*1929, previously) passed away on his ninety-first birthday.  Iconic comedian and fixture of Japanese television for decades, Ken Shimura (*1950) died of COVID-19.

july: Veteran civil rights activist and politician John Lewis (*1940) passed away after an extended bout with  cancer.  Founder of Fleetwood Mac Peter Green (*1946) has died. Actress Olivia de Haviland (*1916) died of natural causes in her home in Paris, aged 104. The US gross domestic product plummets by a third, prompting Trump to suggest that the November elections be delayed until such time as people can vote safely in person.  Long time Trump and Tea Party supporter and once-time presidential candidate Herman Cain (*1945) died of complications of COVID-19 after contracting the virus during Trump’s rally in Tulsa.

august:  Veteran actor and musician Wilford Brimley (*1934) passed away, dying in hospital suffering from multiple health issues.  John Hume (*1937),  architect of the peace accords in Northern Ireland and instrumental in passing the Good Friday Agreement, has departed.  A giantic explosion occurred in the port of Beirut when chemicals stored in a warehouse there detonated.  Actor and singer behind such standards as “If I Had a Hammer” and “Lemon Tree” Trinidad “Trini” López (*1937) died due to complications from COVID-19.  Media mogul Sumner Redstone who created the production company Viacom, recognising that content was king, passed away, aged 97.  Linguist and long-time contributor to Public Radio Geoffrey Nunberg (*1945) died after coping with a long illness.  The Joe Biden campaign selects Kamala Harris as its running-mate, and both parties hold their conventions virtually.  Kremlin-critic and chief opposition candidate to Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, is presumably poisoned on a flight back to Siberia and is subsequently medically evacuated to Germany.  Black Panther actor and humanitarian Chadwick Boseman (*1976) dies after a four-year battle with colon cancer. Long-time Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe announces his retirement from elected office over health reasons.

september: Economist and anarchist David Graeber (*1961) passed away at a hospital in Venice, dying from undisclosed causes.  After a short struggle with cancer and last months spent with family and contented reflection, accomplished actor Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg (*1938) has died.   Interviewed for a new expose by Bob Woodward, Trump admitted on tape months ago that he downplayed the danger of COVID-19, though this revelation seemed to barely rise above the general din of the news cycle and receded quickly in voters’ conscience.  The Polish-government allows twelve municipalities to declare themselves LGBT-ideology free-zones.  Protests continue in Belarus over the disputed reelection of long-serving, Russian-aligned leader Alexander Lukashenko.  Jurist and US Supreme Court associate justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (*1933) died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, leaving a court vacancy just before the presidential election.  A grand jury in Kentucky declined to file homicide charges against the police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor.  Australian singer and actor Helen Reddy (*1941) passed away after succumbing to complications from dementia.  During the first US presidential debate, devolving into a messy, nasty political food-fight, Trump refused to denounce white supremacist groups. 

october: After White House aid Hick Hopes tested positive for coronavirus, Donald and Melania Trump were also screened and found to both be carriers.   The nomination ceremony for the US Supreme Court justice to replace the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the White House rose garden turned into a superspreader event.  Iconic fashion designer Kenzō Takada (高田 賢三, *1939) died from complications of COVID-19.  Singer Eddie Van Halen (*1955) passed away after a long battle with cancer.  The FBI in conjunction with other domestic law enforcement authorities foil a plot by a white supremacists to kidnap the governor of Michigan.  Jacinda Arden remains Prime Minister of New Zealand after her party wins the election in a land-slide victory.  Space probe OSIRIS-REx (previously) arrives at asteroid Bennu and collects mineral samples to bring back to Earth.  Magician and scientific sceptic James Randi (*1928) passes away, aged 92. Despite the US presidential election only being a little more than a week away, the Republican-controlled Senate rush through the confirmation of a young, conservative justice with questionable qualification and adjourn until after the ballots close, leaving those negatively impacted by the continuing pandemic no fiscal relief package.  Actor Sean Connery passed away, aged ninety.  

november: Terror incidents occur in Paris and Vienna.  With most of Europe entering a second quarantine as a firebreak to slow the spread of COVID-19, Germany goes into lockdown-light for the month.  Election Day comes for the United States with nearly one hundred million voters casting their ballots early.  The election is called in favour of Biden and Harris.  Team Trump refuses to concede.  Long time television game show host Alex Trebek (*1940) dies after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.  Veteran Middle East negotiator Saeb Erekat dies, aged sixty-five, from complications of COVID-19.  The purge of the Trump administration continues with the dismissal of the Defence Secretary for not authorising the mobilisation of the army against protesters and the chief of cyber-security for countering Trump’s false narrative and rightly proclaiming the election the best safeguarded vote in modern US history, and halving troop levels in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan by executive decree.  A historic Hurricane Iota ravages Central America, having barely recovered from the last, Hurricane Epsilon.  Not conceding defeat Trump allows the Biden transition team to begin its work.  Argentine footballer, one of the greatest of all time Diego Maradona (*1960) dies of a heart attack.  

december: Courts, including the US Supreme Court, rebuff Trump’s efforts to overturn election results in a nacent coup attempt.  Massive protests in reaction to legislation that liberalises farming practises leave India paralysed.  The first vaccinations against the SARS-CoV-2 virus are administered.  With last-ditch Brexit negotiations poised for failure and the UK to crash out of the EU with no deal, Britain moves to deploy naval warships to protect fishing stocks in its national waters.  Pioneering Country and Western singer Charlie Pride (*1934) passes away due to complications from COVID-19.  Intelligence officer and master of the spy novel, John le Carré (*1931) has died.  French president Emmanuel Macron contracts COVID-19 and goes into quarantine.  The archbishop of Canterbury tells parishioners, especially the vulnerable, that it is not necessary to attend church services on Christmas day, echoed by the Pope and other religious leaders.  Compounding Brexit uncertainty, the final week of the year sees the UK cut off from much of the rest of the world over concerns about a new coronavirus strain that is significantly more transmissable.  A final deal was arranged for the UK leaving the EU at the last minute which spares Britain the worse fate of crashing-out with no deal but is significantly not as good of a trade pact had the UK remained in.  A powerful earthquake shakes Croatia.  French fashion designer Pierre Cardin passes away, aged ninety-eight.

5x5

kankyō ongaku: the ambient music (see also) of Hiroshi Yoshimura 

solstice sun: locate where and when in your locality where the streets align with the sun’s path at dawn and dusk as they do for Stonehenge—see also  

star with royal beauty bright: afterwards, check the skies for the Great Conjunction where Jupiter and Saturn appear as one celestial body  

solarwind: a look into the extensive cyber breach of US government networks and what information may have been compromised  

blob opera: a fun experiment with a musical quartet—via Boing Boing

8x8

don’t wait for me beneath the mistletoe: the Allusionettes compose a festive carol for 2020 

ashika: chubby seal pillows  

extravehicular activity: a brilliant infographic of every spacewalk undertaken—from Voskhod 2 onward 

your branches green delight us: a stunning abstract Christmas tree in Tokyo crafted from a thousand corded mizuhiki balls 

solargraph: a forgotten pinhole camera took the longest exposure photograph on record

oină: archiving images of a ubiquitous red ball with white polka dots in Romania’s recent past 

disbarred: US attorney general to step down before Christmas  

boughs of holly: a round-up of seasonal plants beyond the tree and trimmings

sanmitsu

Aligned with the prescription of our previous post, the language committee that has been nominating and selecting Japan’s buzzword of the year since 1984 (previously) has announced the above 3 C’s to avoid confined spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings as representative for 2020. Also in the running as an honourable mention was our friend Amabie, a mythical sea creature from the Edo era, held to be an omen for both suffering and prosperity.

8x8

regolith: British R&D company working on process to extract oxygen from lunar soil and using the by-product to three-dimensionally print a moon base—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

gentle giant: David Prowse, the British weight-lifter and character actor who played Darth Vader, has passed away 

person, woman, man, camera, tv: Sarah Andersen’s funny take on our future senility  

kung-fu grip: new research suggests that Neanderthals did not use their hands and thumbs in the same way as Homo sapiens 

 handkerchief flirting codes for post-humans: Janelle Shane (previously) trains a neural network on late Victorian courtship etiquette 

wilmarsdonk: the remains of a village in the middle of the Port of Antwerp, mostly vacated for the busy shipping hub’s expansion  

social harmony: queuing guests practise distancing on a length of music notation, producing a movement from Gymnopédie  

pareidolia, apophenia: brain neurons juxtaposed with galactic clusters connected by filaments of dark matter

7x7

a midnight train going anywhere: take the nightline through an infinite metropolis—via JWZ  

炬燵: a giant, living room sized electric blanket from Japan called a kotatsu 

pop culture c-span: mining the US government archives for movie and television references and reviews—via Waxy  

doctor zaius, doctor zaius: researchers splice human genes into embryonic marmosets to increase their brain size 

just a little plastic bag with little handles on it: the arbiter of packaging 

peripheral drift: an interesting rotating circles optical illusion  

zoomquilt: follow the thread for an infinite exploration—via the New Shelton wet/dry

⛩️

Reminiscent of this earlier modular feline environment, we are quite enjoying these cardboard shrines for cats in the Shinto style for the further deification of one’s worshipful beloved. With a variety of configurations possible, one can easily adapt the housing in a number of ways for the safekeeping of the sacred. Learn more at Spoon & Tamago at the link above.

8x8

politicians are not engineeringly-minded: an unrealised but extensively planned and covered technocratic utopia that the media dubbed Laboratory Land 

not enough hours in the day: an interesting look at the way people around the world keep time 

karen and donald are out of the running: a look at popular (perhaps too soon) baby names for 2020—via Miss Cellania’s Links    

swan song: sad footage of the last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō singing to attract a mate that will never come—more on Endlings here 

u-kiyoe: the lovely drawings of Kitao Masayoshi (北尾 政美)—via Things Magazine    

narrowing, widening, metaphor, metonymy: a refreshing reminder to revisit Merriam-Webster’s time machine (see previously) to see the year words first appeared in print 

prickly business: maintaining this hedgehog network binds a village in Oxfordshire together—via Messy Nessy Chic (with much more to explore on their latest aggregation, curation)  

oh brave new world with so many goodly creatures: Facebook’s Prospero I solar array (see also) will fuel fracking operations in Texas—via Super Punch

silvicultural practise

Similar in technique and results to the woodland management practises of coppicing and pollarding, we learn—via preeminent friend of the blog Nag on the Lake, that the artistic and practical application was developed in fifteenth century Kyoto as daisugi (台杉, platform cedar) as a way to redress a timber shortage. Cutting a young tree down to its stump, if done correctly, will result in numerous shoots and can prevent deforestation.  Learn more at Spoon & Tamago at the link above.