7x7

high dive: Casa Zicatela in the Oaxaca coastal region references Le Corbusier and the retro look of municipal swimming pools 

rip: legendary actor Christopher Plummer (*1929) has passed away 

polar flare: visualising the true size of terrestrial landmasses through cartographic distortion plus mapping countries as offworld colonies  

gulf stream: lack of circulation during ice ages past may have meant the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans had fresh water 

dataviz: sleek, informative infographics by the Great Grundini  

réseau pneumatique: an exploration of the pneumatic postal system of Paris—see also  

hq2: a preview of the new Amazon headquarters (previously) building in Arlington, Virginia

domestic agenda

Signalling a radical shift in policy priorities, Joe Biden for his first day and a half in office signed a tranche of executive orders reversing the direction that his predecessor (lest we forget the catalogue of horrors) had taken the country and the first steps to positioning America as a leader and innovative force. Redressing the pandemic crisis, Biden’s spending proposal for economic aid and relief and accelerating vaccination comes in at just under two trillion dollars, imposing a mask mandate on federal property and interstate transportation, extend student loan deferments and a moratorium on evictions and re-join the World Health Organisation. Moreover, Biden moved to bring the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement plus reimpose pollution restrictions recently relaxed and cancel the Keystone XL pipeline project that would shuttle a particularly pernicious type of petroleum from Canadian fields to American refineries. On immigration, Biden has directed the travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries to be repealed, reversed the inhumanly cruel practise of separating immigrant families at the border and ended the declared National Emergency that funded the Wall. In the Oval Office, the bust of Winston Churchill (previously) is replaced—in the background—by one of César Chávez.

¡no lupita!

Released on this date in 1959 in Mexico (in October of the following year internationally, in America markets  under the same title though sometimes distinguished as Santa Claus versus the Devil), this René Cardona and Adolfo Torres Portillo collaboration premises that Santa has a workshop in outer space and defeats a demon called Pitch who was dispatched to Earth by Lucifer to spoil Christmas by killing its spirit and cause all of humanity to do Satan’s despondent and joyless, and by defacto  evil, bidding. The movie received the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (see previously) on Christmas Eve 1993 and one can watch the lampoon in its entirety below.

alpha-beta

Not since the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (see alternatively) has the World Meteorological Organisation run short of names for storms for the year, having issued a list of twenty-one names with forecasters now predicting up to twenty-five significant events. 2005 called for the first six letters of the Greek alphabet—through Zeta (Ζ / ζ).

It being 2020 or that last best year with things only downhill from here on out, depending on how one frames we can halt and reverse climate change, we’ll see if that’s the Alpha and Omega. As history is yet good council even in these unprecedented times, today also marks the anniversary in 1971 when Hurricane Irene, having made landfall in Nicaragua weakened and dissipated, reconstituted herself (the first known instance since we had tracking capabilities) and remerged as cyclone Olivia, crossing from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts (see up top), raining out over Baja California. More recently, on the same day in 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico.

6x6

a jay ward production: rediscover the classic cartoon Hoppity Hooper

distance learning is the art of applying the bride to the child: Dorothy Parker’s (previously) take on remote kindergarten

long in the tooth: a Greenland shark is recognised as world’s oldest veterbrate type specimen: explore the extensive Letter Form Archive—via Pasa Bon!

nimby, yimby: mapping applications that reveal percentage of golf course and parking lots in your town

casa azul: a virtual exploration of Frida Kahlo’s Blue House—via Messy Nessy Chic plus the edible sunflower and a tiny tug

owls to athens: a look at how our avian friends influenced language and limn thought (see also)

saint cassian of imola, pray for us

Fourth century tutor and teacher, Cassian—whose martyrdom is venerated on this day (†303), refused to make sacrifices to the gods of the Romans—as was ordered by Emperor Julian the Apostate (the epithet a gift of the church he distrusted)—and so was turned over to his pupils, judging that their education and emendation should be an effective prescriptive. Cassian was bound to a stake and the students tortured him to death, stabbing him with their pointed styluses—eager to get revenge for the punishments and trials that their teacher had inflicted on them. This act is recounted in several contemporary cultural sources including the Annie Dillard novel The Living, John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces and the namesake of a teachers’ lounge at the Bethel College of Liberal Arts in Kansas and the parable open to interpretation. Cassian is the patron of the commune of Bologna, México City, Las Galletas in Tenerife as well as educators, stenographers and parish clerks.

el topo

Meaning The Mole in Spanish, with direction, scoring and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky in the titular role, the genre-defining acid Western is a cult classic—one of the first midnight screenings—enjoys many prominent devotees ranging from Yoko Ono to Kanye West and everyone in between. Bizarre as the film about a gunslinger’s quest for enlightenment who bests his philosophical betters through luck and treachery rather than skill is aiming to leave an indelible imprint on the audience from a creator that eschews psychedelics as superfluous, it is considered to be Jodorowsky’s most accessible and enduringly popular. Learn more from BBC Culture at the link above

zoot suit riots

On this day in 1943 in Los Angeles and continuing for the next five days, US sailors and Marines stationed there (either on rest and recuperative or transitioning for deployment to the Pacific theatre) and white residents, enervated by sensational coverage of the so-called Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of the summer prior, and ostensibly over the extravagance of their flamboyant clothes and accessorising that was seen as using up valuable fabric during wartime rationing, clashed with Mexican-American youth.
The attacks spread to other industrial cities across the US, expanding to other minority populations. The violence subsided by mid-June but tensions remained high and concern for the economy of southern California was brought to the forefront, given its reliance on the inflow of inexpensive labour in order to harvest produce, eventually leading to the papering-over of the underlying problems, with local authorities squarely assigning blame to delinquent and idle youths rather than systemic racism contrasted with the inquiry launched by the federal government into the riots which had the aims of determining whether Nazi or Axis agitators were not stoking unrest and sponsored the protestors. The defiance of the Zoot Suitors in the face of this unrelenting violence and antagonism is regarded as a pivotal moment for El Movimiento and related civil rights movements to combat institutional racism and disenfranchisement. As young men, civil rights leaders Cesar Chavez and Malcolm X were both Zoot Suiters.

el gaucho goofy

As problematic and painful as past, back catalogue portrayals depicting racist and stereotyped can be and deserving of being called out, discussed and carrying warning labels, it is unsettling how versions offered as unadulterated can yet be revisionistic and casting a positive pall on iconic characters, Paleofuture’s take down of Disney’s cleaning up a scene of one of their old guard personalities smoking in its 1942 live-action and animated featurette Saludos Amigos mentions a foot-note behind the cartoon’s existence in the first place that bears investigation as well.
The US State Department commissioned Walt Disney and others to peddle the soft diplomacy of Mickey Mouse and company to counteract ties that Central and South America was forming with Nazi Germany—a job that Disney and much of Hollywood readily accepted since European markets were closed off to them due to the war. The propaganda film by most estimates was well received by audiences in both Latin America and domestically, instilling a sense of continental cohesion and giving US cinema-goers a taste of some the refinement of the culture and scenery that they’d been previously ignorant of—and was enough of a commercial success to inspire a sequel The Three Caballeros two years later. Curiously the version of the film currently on offer contains a warning about tobacco-use being depicted—despite the smoke rings being edited out—and we can only surmise that refers exclusively to parrot José Carioca chomping on a cigar. Addicted to the habit and eventually succumbing to lung cancer, like Disney, himself, the voice actor Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig Sr (*1892 – †1967) whom played Goofy was a vocal anti-smoking campaigner whose efforts were instrumental in getting Surgeon General warnings on packs of cigarettes in the US. Past behavior, judged through the lens of the present, is less than model in a lot of ways but it cannot be discussed and condemned if it’s not visible and addressing the off-colour and antiquated can be productive in establishing an enduring change in attitudes.

isla fantasma

Reminiscent of the curious case of Hy-Braʃil positioned in the Atlantic west of Ireland and perhaps perpetuated as a trap-street, a sort of water mark, we enjoyed learning about the phantom islet called Bermeja that appeared on sea charts from the sixteenth century up to the mid-nineteenth century off the coast of the Yucatán peninsula before abruptly disappearing from the map.
The origins and the fate of this would-be strategic land-mass, since its existence would accord México drilling rights to a massive undersea oil reserve, are disputed and range from a simple surveying error repeated in subsequent editions, the island sinking due to climate change or an earthquake—or more sinisterly, as one theory proffers, Bermeja was destroyed by US intelligence services to expand America’s economic zone and fishing-rights. More to explore from Boing Boing at the link above.

el bosque

We are presented with the verdant, vertical urban forest concept of the architectural firm of Stefano Boeri to be built in the near future on a tract of land just outside of Cancún that was formerly zoned for development as a sprawling shopping centre.
Happily the area will instead be home to new model city (see previously), one hundred and thirty thousand human residents cohabitating with some seven million carbon-sequestering plants. Project leaders plan for the settlement, campus to become a showcase hub of research and education with facilities focused on redressing coral reef degradation, lessening the impact of agriculture as well as demonstrating the integration of mobility, robotics and renewables into civil engineering and urban planning, backwards planning to bring these reforms and innovations to communities and infrastructure already extant. Much more to explore at the link up top.

ultimate rendering

Via our peripatetic pal Everlasting Blört, we are shown a gallery of artists’ final works, curated with a bit of context and perspective for their parting paintings. Quite a few seem a little too on the nose as to otherwise deny the creator their reflection and prescient swan song, like this still-life executed by Frida Kahlo (previously, 1907 – †1954) with watermelons (síndria) part of the iconography of El Día de Muertos and completed eight days before the Mexican artist’s death. Watermelons were also the subject of the last painting of Diego Rivera (*1886 – †1957), whom took Kahlo as his third wife.

8x8

getränkekiste: photographer Bernhard Lang features bottle crates from novel perspectives, via Nag on the Lake

россумские универсальные роботы: a 1979 children’s book series illustrated by Mikhail Romadin (*1940 – †2012) of Tarkovsky studios, whom went on to draw for Ray Bradbury and others

uranometria: stars captured on older stellar charts now seemingly vanished could point incognito alien civilisations, via Strange Company

accessory dwelling unit: architecture graduate creates prefabricated homes out of Hawaii’s problematic, invasive Albizia trees

fiat tender: giving cash as a gift but at the same time keeping the personal touch

i demand a recount: “Me and the Boys” voted community choice Meme of 2019, followed closely by “Woman Yelling at a Cat”

chinampa: a look at the fading, ancient practise of floating farming along the canals of Xochimilco

64x64: favourite photographs of the year by as many photographers

monster mash

While somewhat deflated to learn that the secret ingredients of horror icons Boris Karloff’s and Vincent Price’s respective recipes for guacamole sauce (a redundancy since the spread is Nahuatl for avocado sauce) was not the exotica of a magic potion or witches brew, I was quite happy to encounter another instance of people engaged and enraptured not by what’s on the menu per se but rather by how one does food and how there are given set of norms for behaviour and etiquette.
I can’t say whether or not it’s a phenomenon specific to any one culture or subset but it strikes me that Americans are particularly sensitive to it—with the deportment of presidential candidates scruntised for “authenticity” by the way they wield fairground fare more memorable than any excerpts from debates. I wonder what that says about the state of the polity. Do check out the recipes at the link up top but also know that placing the avocado pit in the bowl of guacamole, contrary to testimony, will not keep it from turning brown.

6x6

directors’ cut: prints of iconic filmmakers informed by elements of their movies plus a lot more poster art

radiohead has 18 webrings: the Avocado reads Yahoo! Internet Life’s February 2001 issue

republicans, democrats, in-betweeners looking for high crimes and misdemeanors: a Schoolhouse Rock style cartoon primer about impeachment  

mister green jeans: Lowering the Bar deconflates kangaroos and courtrooms—see previously

chiclets: during political exile after losing territory to the Republic of Texas brought General Antonio López de Santa Anna brought the world chewing gum, via Strange Company

a rhetorical question: Betteridge’s Law of Headline writing

startling stories and thrilling wonders: a gallery of pitch-perfect mashups of musical touchstones and pulp ephemera—via Nag on the Lake

relaciones geográficas

In order to have a better insight into the distant and vast domain that his conquistadors took by force, King Felipe II of Spain, Portugal, Naples and the Two Sicilies commissioned bureaucrats in the 1580s to produce a land survey through a fifty topic questionnaire to solicit descriptions of cities and settlements from the indigenous population.
Their responses came in the form of detailed manuscripts that told the history of their home towns and assigned by one question to visually describe their municipality, those polled answered with these fantastic maps and charts that captured geographical details as well as natural resources. Much more to explore with the intrepid adventurers at Atlas Obscura at the link above.

videojuego

We enjoyed perusing this gallery of vintage and antique sporting and summer travel posters going under the hammer. We were especially taken with the vibrant and angular design of artist Josep Renau Montoro exhibited in this 1941 commission for the Revolutionary Games held at the behest of Manuel Áliva Camacho. The artist was most famous for his murals and political propaganda during the Spanish civil war before being exiled first to México and then to East Berlin. There are other painters of note to be found in the auction preview including Sergio Trujillo Magnenat, Boris Artzybaseff and others.

endonymy

From one of our favourite weekly features, Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links, we are invited to ruminate over the fact that while most countries are named after one of four things—often tautologically, especially in translation—that are sometimes not very consequential to present geopolitics, there are some notable mavericks that defy or really lean into categorisation.
With nearly all countries named in deference to either a cardinal direction, a distinguishing geographical feature, a tribe or clan or an important personage, we’d wish that the campaign to make America great again was an effort to improve scholarship on the Latinised name of a fifteenth century Florentine cartographer from the Vespucci family but alas and alack.  There are nonetheless some notable (and notably disputed too) outliers as well. Our favouites being Malta named for bees (Μελίτη, honey-sweet), Mexico after a simplification of an Aztec city (Mēxihtli) that meant in the navel of the Moon and the Pacific island nation of Nauru, possibly derived from the native conjugation anáoero, I go to the beach.

milagro

Nag on the Lake directs our attention to an exhibit that features a moving collection of Mexican religious icons known as retablos (previously)—from the Latin retro-tabula for “behind the altar” or votive offerings of gratitude meant for display and inspection by the congregation, that document in painting and some captioning turning-points in the lives of those who’ve been on the recipients of divine intercession, which was for many in this show miraculously safe passage crossing the border into the US. Peruse a whole gallery and find much more to explore at the links above.

los tributos o el traje nuevo del emperador

Against the advice of his handlers who, despite how much that they might like focus to be deflected away from the Mueller press conference and Michael Flynn’s turning of states’ evidence, Trump announced a new raft of punitive tariffs against Mexico if it did not quell illegal immigration.
Already betraying his profound, stultifying ignorance of economic principles—tariffs are a kind of tax but a regressive one that US consumers pay, not the Chinese, Europeans or Mexicans—to pander to those who might vote for him a second time by appealing to the lowest common denominator of bigotry and insecurity—a sacrifice owed his base, there’s of course no indication how progress towards satisfying the requirement might be gauged nor who is to impose these sanctions on cross-border trade, nor whether this brash announcement is in violation of the trade deal Trump negotiated to replace the NAFTA accords he withdrew from.