9x9 (12. 381)

domestic box office: in response to escalating tariffs, China is curtailing the number of American films screened in the country  

redeployment: decision to reposition US troops stationed in Poland causing concern  

dixonary: improprieties in pronunciation among New Englanders 

 𐦉: the Latin alphabet expressed as hieroglyphics  

now is a great time to buy—$djt: social media posts and a spike in options activity may indicate insider trading within the administration  

א₀: physicist Dominic Walliman charts out the fields of mathematics and how the academic informs application 

from the gigantic bones displayed at roncesvalles: an adjective that should be brought part back into use 

a man, a plan: US defence secretary floats idea of reopening mothball military bases from the 1989 invasion of Panama 

trading floor: the history of the ticker-tape machine

reklama (12. 158)

Prior to World War II, the capitals of Eastern Europe were lit up with dazzling neon signage just as one would imagine in Western cities (see also) but destruction and depravation led to the loss of this nighttime illumination. About a decade into Communist rule under Soviet influence, however, we learn courtesy of 99% Invisible’s latest minisode (which also features a history on the alarm clock and the placebo button of the snooze bar) that there was a concerted government effort to brighten up cities, particularly Warsaw, through commissioning graphic designers to restore the light features in a more uniform and planned way, like the pictured symbol of the Polish capital, the Mermaid (Syrenka) wielding a sword a top an open book, to advertise a public library. The neonisation project extended to milk bars, hotels, shops and other government service. During the revolutions of the late 1980s, much of the signage was again lost to neglect and “recycling” campaign was instituted, but thanks to the conservation efforts of a singular institution, there is a reference base from which to launch a return of the aesthetic. Much more at the links above.

 synchronoptica

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

seven years ago: Oprah for US president, more Japanese New Year’s designer cards plus retiring household items in cross-stitch

eight years ago: more debates on immigration plus a cursed metro line

nine years ago: the statuary of Paris, ancient and artisanal pigments plus scratch circles

ten years ago: designer chicken coops, knotty language, Samuel L Ipsum plus fundamentalism and sharpening distinctions

oder-neisse line (12. 001)

Pending since 1945—though the matter had been de facto settled between the communist governments of East Germany and Poland as the line of demarcation of the Soviet zone of occupation since 1950, West Germany, regarded as the only legal successor state to the Reich did not recognise the DDR’s diplomatic self-determination and insisted that the border treaty could only be ratified by a future reunited Germany—the agreement was signed by German and Polish foreign ministers on this day in 1990, as a stipulation to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany as a pre-condition for full sovereignty. The treaty reaffirmed the boundaries of the Zgorzelec agreement of 1950 and pledged mutual respect for each others territorial integrity.

7x7 (11. 867)

urban glitch: a series of nostalgic, hyper-detailed paintings from Jeff Bartels 

ganz kleine nachtmusik: a previously unknown work by Mozart discovered in a Leipzig library archive  

promptographs: Mister François presents three hundred imaginative “secret car” models with the help of AI—Lamborghini school buses and Ferrari caravans  

warchitecture: the language of urbicide was developed to address the wanton destruction of Sarajevo’s build environment and continues in contemporary conflicts—see also  

do not show this travel pack to gdr or soviet officials: a 1989 British guide for West Berlin  

papyrological discovery: for his birthday in 480 BC, new lines of Euripides’ lost plays Ino and Polyidus uncovered—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest (much more to explore there)  

8-bit garden: dissolving digital artwork from Karol Polak of Gdańsk

omnis cellula e cellula (11. 781)

On this day in 1858, the Berlin publishing house of August Hirschwald released the foundational work Cellular Pathology by esteemed physician, sociologist and anthropologist Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow, which informed modern medical thought. Not only recognising the mechanisms behind disease, injury and healing broadly, Virchow was the first to describe and name ailments and disorders, including coining terms like leukaemia, thrombosis and spina bifida and helped to formalise the practise of autopsy and forensics. Drawing on his interest in ethnography and archeology (accompanying Heinrich Schliemann during some of his Trojan expeditions) and adopting it into his medical research, while teaching at the University of Würzburg, Virchow coined the maxim that medicine “is a social science, and politics is nothing more than medicine on a large scale,” pioneering public health campaigns to counter outbreaks, and perhaps aligned with this guiding aphorism rejected the germ theory of infections (believing that they were symptoms rather than causes and that poverty was the biggest cause of sickness and death—although contributing a lot to the study of macroscopic parasites) and adamantly disagreed with Darwinian evolution—recognising natural selection but rejecting the emergent theory as flawed—see the above teaching tenure. Also opposing the social Darwinism ideas of his student Ernst Haeckel as dangerous propaganda, Virchow—for all his drive to classify and categorise—went against popular contemporary thinking by declaring race to be a social construct and thus denying anyone their designs of primacy through a large-scale study of ethnic communities across Europe and beyond.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Wattstax (with synchronoptica), assorted links to revisit plus the first school strike for the climate

seven years ago: the first FedEx delivery van,  Total Eclipse of the Heart plus grace and favour appointments

eight years ago: an exoplanet in the Goldilocks Zone, Team Refugee to get its own Olympic flag plus trying to sprout Indian Bean Trees

nine years ago: an antique look at four-dimensional space

ten years ago: disruptive natural and unnatural disasters, Netpolitiks plus Gaulish conquests

9x9 (11. 590)

priority seating: an account jammed packed with patterns for mass-transit upholstery—see previously—via Kottke 

ux: in the age of AI, perhaps it’s time to retire the term “user” 

voter turn-out: historically high temperatures in parts of India may skew election results 

🙂‍↔️: this year’s bracket for most misinterpreted emoji  

described herein as a beverage carrying assembly: a patent for a beer puppet for festivals and sporting events  

the second soul: a thoroughgoing essay by Anton Howes on the history of salt—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

instructions to the jury: closing arguments in the Trump trial and deliberation begins  

wasteful by design: digital technology and internet habits are becoming major contributors to the climate catastrophe 

transakcja: an endearing animation on courtship rituals in 1950s rural Poland

żuraw (11. 355)

Via Strange Company, not only do we learn that a medieval token of affection, a tin badge in the shape of a turtledove with the inscription “Amor vincit omnia” was found by the port crane of Gdánsk, we also find out that its discovery is owing to an extensive renovation project to preserve the thirteenth century technological and architectural marvel on the Motława. The crane, human-powered by crew running hamster wheel fashion on treadmills was capable of hoisting cargo and shipbuilding materials weighing several tonnes, has been closed to the public since 2020 but will soon reopen with new exhibits on the city’s mercantile history with holographic docents and period characters to act as guides. More from t he History Blog at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: conspiracy theories about walkable cities plus sending a terminator back in time to save the human internet

two years ago: Saint Mesrop Mashtots plus Chess ‘72

three years ago: first and final frames, ten rules of good design plus more bardcore

four years ago: custom facial coverings

five years ago: AI-generated faces plus new names for very large and very small numbers

6x6 (11. 091)

in front of the children: a Betamax find from 1983 on the BBC’s six decades of television for younger audiences 

ofrenda: a shrine on All Souls Day to the recently departed Paul Rubens, (clap! clap! clap!) deep in the heart of Texas 

terraces: an obscure 1977 made-for-television movie about tenants of a high-rise featuring Miss Julie Newmar, Jane Dulo and some gay neighbours  

forest friends: a profile of ecologist Simona Kossack’s three-decade residence in a secluded primeval wood  

now and then: The Beatles release their final song  

goldar: the late 60’s Japanese tokusatsu series, Ambassador Magma—the original Transformers, that achieved cult status in foreign markets as The Space Giants

the devil’s ball (11. 084)

With introductory remarks on how artists are rebelling against having their works and style scraped and assimilated often without attribution or respect and are fighting back, Fancy Notions directs us to a spooky Halloween treat, fever dream in the form of the uncut animated short from pioneering stop-motion storyteller Władysław Starewicz from 1933. The original was considerably edited for length prior to release and many of the film segments are lost but using AI to help fill in the gaps, the original story of this le Fétiche (the Mascot) series has been restored. The surreal cast of creepy toys and re-animated bones (Starewicz’ earliest experiments used dead insects articulated with wires, which reviewers believed were expertly trained bugs) coming to life and vie for a prize orange. Later filmmakers, like Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mister Fox (Starewicz’ most acclaimed work was Le Roman de Renard) or Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas, pay homage to the artist’s influence.

9x9 (11. 055)

the witch of positano: a portrait of Bohemian original Vali Myers who inspired Tennessee Williams and danced for Donovan’s signature song, charging one Nubian goat for her performance  

hotel california: legacy luxury in Kabul now jointly run by the Taliban and their quiet dissenters—via Web Curios  

the mysterious land of the grimaults: another look at The Saga of the Viking Women and their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent  

the rest vs the west: proven tech ventures that rival occidental offerings 

my coffee with niles: a meta episode of Frasier remade in the style of one hundred thirty animators and filmmakers  

watermeal: world’s smallest flowering plant could play an outsized role in interplanetary exploration  

don’t crash the pips: the Canadian Broadcasting Company discontinues the long dash time signal—see also  

unauthorised build: this “illegal” LEGO construction bends conventions  

nightclub school: The New Romantics and 80s youth subculture  

synchronoptica

one year ago: another MST3K classic,  the world’s first personal data protection law plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: your daily demon: Focalor, The Style Council plus a psychedelic design collective

three years ago: a fashion show with puppets plus Witchtok community doing the Lord’s Work

four years ago: the introduction of the Ampelmännchen (1961), more links to revisit plus more mushroom finds

five years ago: democracy by lottery, vintage Sainsbury’s packaging plus a music video from Bob Sinclar

méthode polonaise (11. 054)

Pedagogue and prominent adherent of Transcendentalism, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody founded the first kindergarten in the United States, and a vocal advocate that play over rote memorisation ought to be privileged in education and introduced many new ideas into the standard curriculum and public discourse, including the rights and roles of women in society and especially noted for the so called Polish System of Antoni Jażwiński popularised by engineer General Józef Bem. This grid system with a prescribed colour and symbol key to follow that although forgotten in modern teaching but very much en vogue for a time across Europe by allowing students to visualise and intuit the assigned chronology, as with parallel methods (see also) of making historical events readily approachable, optically, using their eyes and homework as “feeders to the reservoir of the mind.” These centographs were coded in a similar fashion to flow charts to indicate conflicts, conquests, conspiracies, unions and truces to make otherwise inaccessible historical events (beyond the grasp of living memory) a creative exercise in plotting and more conducive to learning. More from Futility Closet at the link up top.

gaberboccus press (10. 966)

Named after a Latin translation of the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky, the multimedia concern founded by the Polish refugee couple Stefan and Franciska Themerson in 1948, we learn courtesy of Languagehat, produced over sixty titles in its three decades of existence—ranging from the collected essays and lectures of philosopher Bertrand Russell, poetry by David Miller and Henru Chopin, the calligrams of Apollimaire to their work works and perhaps most famously a faithful English translation of the pataphysical play by Alfred Jarry Ubi Roi (previously here and here). Eventually sold to a publishing house in Amsterdam, Gaberboccus immediately following World War II was a rejection of the stateless author and political exile, bolstering the International character of their clients and exposing them to a wider audience with a experience and fervour that resists displacement.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus the tyranny and utility of time

two years ago: prayers to saints during plague times ranked plus Steven Spielberg’s a.i. promotions

three years ago: the Isle of Wight Festival (1970), Ten Million Photo Play Plots, Space Force hierarchy, IKEA in Animal-Crossing, guerilla video documentarians plus more unbuilt New York

four years ago: pirate treasure plus the introduction of the Austin-Mini (1959)

five years ago: RIP John McCain plus the Chinese script for women only

8x8 (10. 730)

grift for the mill: New York congressional representative George Santos (previously) surrenders to federal authorities for arraignment on thirteen counts of criminal deceit and defrauding donors 

choose or loose: following the shuttering of Buzzfeed and the uncertain future of Vice, Paramount shuts down MTV News, cutting a quarter of its global workforce—see more, see also

in-go-nom-pa-shi: a Plains Indian Sign Talk primer—via Nag on the Lake 

i want to believe: UFO-hunters’ grassroots surveillance network project to scan the skies 

past-exonerative tense: copaganda and other choice of tone that normalise police violence—see also  

królewiec: Poland renames the Russian exclave with a native endonym, in what is deemed a hostile act by Moscow  

content farms: AI chatbots being used to generate dozens of breaking news sites to draw advertisers—via the new shelton wet/dry  

townhall: CNN takes a big risk in giving Trump a platform with a live studio audience—see previously

sankt florian (10. 719)

Fêted on this day on the occasion of his martyrdom by drowning in the River Enns in the year 304, Florianus from the ancient Roman outpost of Ælium Cetium—modern day St Pölten, in the province of Noricum north of the Danube—is the patron-protector of Linz, Oberösterreich and Poland as well as soap-makers, brewers, firefighters and chimney sweeps. Rising in the ranks to commander of the imperial army, Florian had the extra detail of organising fire brigades (there no long being a monopoly on public safety) but once rumours spread that Florian was not enforcing restrictions against practising Christianity among his soldiers, Diocletian opened an inquiry. Summarily, the emperor’s ombudsman ordered Florian to be burned at the stake for defy the edict, but after scoffing at a death by fire, the executioners instead tied a millstone around his neck and tossed him into the water. Invoked against fire, flood and the pains of Purgatory—in Austria and Germany used as the universal call sign for a fire emergency—a saying, Sankt-Florians-Prinzip, in the Sprachraum has developed following the sentiment of the fantastic word Οὐκᾰλέγων out of a slightly ironic prayer “O heiliger Sankt Florian, verschon’ mein Haus, zünd’ and’re an”—that is, Saint Florian, spare my house and set another alight.

8x8 (10. 628)

springfield, usa: a map of places in America with the same names with a locus of which locality most likely meant—via Kottke  

kościół: modern and Brutalist churches of Poland  

panspermia: researchers studying samples from the Ryugu asteroid find traces of a RNA component, supporting theories that the building blocks of biology were incubated in space 

before karen, there was nellie oleson: the propagandising of homesteading in Little House on the Prairie  

gemüths- und augen-ergötzung: the microscopic illustrations of Martin Frobenius Ledermüller  

reliable sources: Microsoft and Google’s chatbots are using each other as professional references, calling into question the ecosystem of the internet’s information 

quo vadis: a monastic brotherhood outside St Stephan’s in Vienna has set up a tattoo parlour—see also  

bracket: a more relatable March Madness

9x9 (10. 596)

destination berlin: a Royal Military Police guide to the divided city from 1988—see also

geodomesticeerde: one Dutch rancher spearheading the protest against livestock reductions 

gado gado: the Indonesia version of the cult Cobb salad that may be the best in the world—via Digg 

fret and fingerbøard: a guitar nearly exclusively sourced from IKEA furnishing elements—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

paratethys sea: the ancient lake that stretched from the Alps to the Arals was the world’s largest lake  

florilegium: botanical collages by an eighteenth-century septuagenarian—via Kottke  

mar yousef’s: the “pizza church” of Jordan imparting Iraqi Christian refugees with marketable skills—via Miss Cellania  

heritage graziers: regenerative agriculture, no farmstead required  

orange alternative: how a diminutive graffito helped bring down the Soviet Union

9x9 (10. 526)

famous one hundred twenty-three metre spire of salisbury cathedral: Polish coast guard rescues divers near critical infrastructure who were searching for amber 

macroagression: some GOP members in the US congress have switched their American flag lapels for tiny assault rifles—see also  

backbox: watch composer and sound designer Suzanne Ciani, Diva of the Diode, create a soundscape for a pinball game  

donks: a new animated short from Felix Colgrave explores lost cargo, avatars and adaptive bottom feeders  

mastodon flock: find your following—via Waxy  

cel-ray: a peppery, celery soda that one can still find for sale  

rosetta stone: two trilingual ancient clay tablets rediscovered help scholars decipher a lost Canaanite script  

brought down by the left-wing economic establishment: Liz Truss attempts to revive her political career with a long screed in the Sunday Telegraph  

sæstrengur: Iceland developing contingency plans in case the undersea cables connecting it to the rest of the world are severed

mcmlxxxix (10. 420)

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. 

rząd rzeczypospolitej polskiej na uchodźstwie (10. 404)

Established in 1939 after the invasion and annexation by the Nazis in September 1939 and exerting considerable influence diplomatically and militarily throughout World War II and subsequent occupation by German and Soviet forces which effectively ended the Second Polish Republic, the government-in-exile, first based in Paris and Angers and following the Fall of France, continued its caretaker role—albeit it with waning internation recognition after the formation of the Provisional Government of National in 1945, opposed by the majority of the diaspora as demonstrative democracy and the chance for Communists to assert power—a suspicion that proved correct, until its dissolution on this day in 1990, when president in exile Ryszard Kaczorowski passed the responsibilities, constitution and state seals to Lech Wałęsa of Poland’s Third Republic during a special ceremony at the royal palace of Warsaw.

red baron or what do you want on your tombstone?

Vaunted as the ace-of-aces of the Great War, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen was shot down and killed on this day in 1918 after scoring his seventy-ninth and eightieth air combat victories the day prior. Previously we had poked about Wiesbaden’s Südfriedhof in search of the Red Baron’s resting place and thought it appropriate to visit today. Already elevated to legendary stature in life and subject to hero-worship that Richthofen was wont to indulge as well as respected by his enemies, the circumstances surrounding his death are a matter of controversy and speculation, coming to the aid of his cousin, another member of the elite Flying Circus (see above), Lieutenant Wolfram von Richthofen, who was taking enemy fire. The source of the fatal bullet is uncertain with several vectors entertained. As was
customary, the commanding officer of the Royal Airforce combatant squandron accorded the Baron a military funeral with full-honours, near the spot where the fighter pilot fell in Bertangles in the Somme—and had a more active than usual career in death, disinterred and reburied in the German Military Cemetery at Fricourt in Picardie, brought to Berlin by his brother Lothar (a site that was later relegated to a no man’s land on the boundary of the Soviet zone of occupation and often pelted with stray bullets in attempts to stop people from fleeing for the West—his brother’s gravesite in their hometown of Świdnica too was levelled once Silesia was restored to Poland after World War II) and finally in 1975 transferred to the family plot in Wiesbaden.