7x7

snuggling cygnets: avian photography of the year, also known as b-poty for short—via Colossal  

untitled pizza movie: documenting change in New York City slice-by-slice  

aqen the ferryman: Cairo hosts a parade for a score of royal mummies moving to a new museum—via Super Punch  

salvator metaversi: art historian turns supposed last Leonardo into an NFT to help out the family who sold it to unscrupulous art dealers 

theatre of machines: intricate gear illustrations from Agostino Ramelli (see also here and here)  

scenes from a mall: footage from the Southdale Centre’s grand opening in 1956  

knock knock: a swan terrorising a neighbourhood in Northampton—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links

6x6

spongmonkey: though not a cultural shibboleth for myself personally, this history of the Quiznos’ submarine sandwich franchise’s mascot was an interesting object lesson in internet culture—via Miss Cellania  

backmasking: fun with that portrait animation application, via Super Punch  

puce chintz alert: a truly cursed McMansion built in 1978  

micro-face: a fascinating, multistage look at the process of acquiring a super hero with the Planet Money podcast  

garage mahal: vlogger pays house-calls to the ostentatiously wealthy, asks what they do for a living

previous tenants: buildings that used to be a Blockbuster video rental shop—in the tradition of This Used to be a Pizza Hut—via Things Magazine

ping-pong

Originally created by programmer Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assignment from Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell (also the businessman responsible for Chuck E. Cheese restaurants—establishing a venue and a franchise for arcade games), Pong—the table tennis themed video game, was released on this day in 1972, having been prototyped at a local bar in Sunnyvale, California since August of that year.

Patrons visited Andy Capp’s tavern just to play the game, at a quarter per play with each unit projected to generate forty dollars a day, quadruple the revenue of other coin operated entertainments like jukeboxes and pinball machines. Among the first commercially successful ventures in the field, Pong was instrumental in establishing the industry of gaming and drove emulation and competition.

putt putt to the pizza hut

We rather enjoyed the brand-recognition and the now expanded font specimen associated with the franchise Pizza Hut—which until recently was restricted to the seven letters under that red roof, in this brief appreciation from Print Magazine. Since the first restaurant opened in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, their logo and corporate image has gone through quite a few permutations and experiments (see also here and here) that reflected the aesthetic of the times but the classic, iconic hut was used from 1967 until 1999—only to be reprised last year.

power pellet

First appearing in limited release in Tokyo arcades on this day in 1980 and originally called Puck Man (see also) from the onomatopoetic gobbling om-nom paku paku taberu—though that was changed once developers realised that the potential and temptation for defacement would be high, especially in foreign markets, Pac-Man was an instant and transformative hit with players, helping to expand and legitimise the video game industry. Working for Namco, programmer and game designer Toru Iwatani was inspired to make the protagonist by a pizza with a slice taken out. Much more gaming history and lore at Kotaku at the link above.

pizza arbitrage or avoid the noid

First rejecting the characterisation of the whole house of cards of mail order schemes that pushes no cost merchandise in exchange for favourable reviews and nights on the town fuelled and funded via recommendations as too unsustainable to be believed and then learning of the seemingly contradictory exorbitant fees that food delivery aggregators charge to restaurants for membership, I was really taken aback by this bit of trading and markets incongruity that seems to be an example of business working for exposure.
Essentially the delivery service that a pizzeria proprietor uses undercuts the price paid per pizza taken from the order-in diner—the result being, experimentally verified, it being more profitable for the eatery to order their own pizzas and netting the difference. Of course, this mismatch and spreading out risk wouldn’t be sustainable with a network of restauranteurs capitalising on this sort of scheme but it’s the bubble and burst cycle that’s reflected in macroeconomics all the time—strange as it seems on this level. These platforms and the exploitative gig empire, a sheen of refinement, sophistication and technical skill but all held together with great effort and with the most precarious and vulnerable doing the most work, are subsidised by bigger platforms and by our own delusions of taking part and conceits of convenience.

пицца хат

Nearly as strange and forgotten as the time when Pepsi Cola had the second largest naval fleet in the world, Miss Cellania reminds us of the time in 1997 when Mikhail Gorbachev was promoting an international pizza franchise (see also).
It can be a bit treacherous for leaders to outlive their countries or for celebrities or politicians to otherwise survive beyond their careers when there’s little prospect for a next chapter and every time a moment like this appears in a collection of clips of embarrassing star endorsements, it does leave a bit of a breadcrumb of clickbait behind, yet there’s a truly complex narrative and history encapsulated in this sixty-second spot that’s more respectful than most advertising to geopolitics and recent history and one worth exploring in detail.

secret agent man

While better known for his role as the music director for the Godfather franchise of film and for his award-winning score for Pizza Connection (1985, originally called The Sicilian Connection until realising that that title had already been taken, composer Carlo Savina (*1919 – †2002) was incredibly prolific, behind the soundtracks of dozens and dozens of movies, including for numerous Spaghetti Westerns, Sword-and-Sandal dramas (previously, known as pepla in Italian, after the Greek full body gown, ὁ πέπλος, a period costume from those movies) and the later profusion of Eurospy features of the mid 1960s. This 1966 Goldsnake ‘Anonima Killers’ (with plenty of alternate titles for foreign markets) is a good number to start with. More to explore at the link above.

8x8

surveillance cinema: iconic movie scenes from the perspective of security cameras, via Kottke’s Quick Links

take this job and fill it: a satisfying gallery of resignation letters

sight safari: a map application that draws on Wikipedia’s proximity function (previously) to generate the most scenic routes

fortress america: Trump wanted to fortify border wall with snake- and alligator-filled moats

🍕: a startup in Seattle demonstrates a mobile robotic chef that makes up to three hundred pizzas an hour, via Slashdot

flyover: a cache of gorgeous, high-resolution images of our planetary neighbour courtesy of the Mars Express orbiter

biogarmentry: living apparel made from biofabricated textiles photosynthesise

pareidolia: a surveillance camera detects a face in the snow and won’t shut up about it

7x7

gooey, crunchy, cheesy, yummy: Pizza: the Musical by Anthony Clune, Sarah Fiete and Eric Tait, via Everlasting Blört

craft master: paint by numbers with Dan Robbins, an appreciation from Nag on the Lake plus lots more to discover

bauhaus 100: Dezeen continues its special series on the upcoming centenary of the art movement with a profile of Walter Gropius

corporate identity: a retrospective look at the design studio of Massimo Vignelli (previously) and cohorts

rock, paper, scissors: agitating militia groups expected to surge at the border present a more dangerous challenge than the refugees

ghastlygun tinies: MAD magazine remixes Edward Gorey’s macabrely doomed children for the era of school shootings, via Boing Boing

the shape of water: vintage illustration of the alien beauty of the nudibranchia (previously here and here)

sloppy joes

A quick read of the tea leaves on how the US Department of Agriculture—the agency responsible for maintaining the integrity of America’s foodstuffs—might relax some of the stricter standards put in place to ensure that public school meal programmes (for comparison, here are some global examples) were healthful and nourishing, Naked Capitalism hit upon an interesting, adjacent campaign combatting food-waste.
Many of the dissenting voices who’ll advocate classifying catsup the tomato paste of pizza as a vegetable say that kids end up throwing away big portion of these healthier meals and while the problems that afflict institutional lunches are not new and schools have challenges staying in compliance, some districts are engaging their pupils by setting food sharing and donation programmes to reduce the amount of food that gets thrown away. Students are required to fill their trays with a balanced meal—including a portion of vegetables, a carton of milk, et cetera—but after passing through the line, they are empowered to trade something unwanted (within reason) for an extra helping of something desired and know that they are giving food away to the hungry and disadvantaged of their communities. Instead of ingratiating processed foods at a formative age, it’s probably a far more important lesson to imprint that waste and choice has consequences.

neapoliatano or avoid the noid

Though the pedigree and provenance might not be as directly royal as this bit of apocrypha relates, there’s no reason to doubt the deliciousness of pizza, which via Mental Floss legend holds was first delivered in 1889. The king Umberto Ranieri Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Fernando Eugenio di Savoia and the queen consort Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna of a newly united Italy were on a good-will mission, touring every region of their kingdom.
The couple who represented the continuation of the Savoy dynasty were on a hearts-and-minds stint in Naples, where he had survived an assassination attempt a decade prior, when the queen expressed a loss of appetite for their usually fancy French-influenced fare and longed for some authentic, local cuisine—which has some claim to the dish as a matter of national pride. The story goes that the most renowned local chef was commissioned to deliver to the royal residence a selection of what would appear on a peasant’s menu—for which three pizza-pies were prepared. The queen found the simple combination of white mozzarella, red tomatoes topped with green basil to be by far the most delicious—arranged purposefully with the colours of the banner of the united peninsula. The basic pizza, the margherita was supposedly named in her honour.

fiat or take and bake

Pizza is an acceptable form of tender for settling debt, both public and private, a court in Padua has ruled. A divorced chef may pay alimony to his ex-wife with the equivalent of three hundred euro worth of pizza per month, the judge decided after examining the husband’s income. This would have been a funnier story if the alimony did not include child-support and the pizza chef was just exacting revenge on an avarice ex-, but at least the man is making the effort to ensure that his family is provided for.

casual dining

Heard on National Public Radio, I learnt of this quirky and humourous blog project to document the demographic shift in fast-food culture by charting the demise and repurposing of one of the more recognisable architectural follies of a certain franchise. The standard blue-print of a Pizza Hut with its distinctive mansard roof is hard to hide once the former proprietors vacate the building and it is masked by new tenants, ranging from other fast-food restaurants, chapels, car-rentals, to mortuaries.

It’s certainly strange to consider how the failure of one market can be mapped due to the figure it limns—though most new franchises are installed in non-custom places now, and in part, I guess the lovely ruins are testament to the shift in diners’ taste, preferring to order-in rather than dining out. Also, while the popularity of pizza is not exactly on the wane, I suppose people are more health conscious—or at least make the requisite noise to pretend to be—what with the campaign against gluten or the reversal on fats, eschewing buffets, etc. and that’s a factor as well. Though it’s far too late for these transformed huts, with charging awareness and created taboos, there also seems (of late at least) a certain degree of fetishising the forbidden that one sees in the deep-fried anything and everything, the glutinous portmanteau of the cronut or making vaping something fashionable but maybe such fixations will make for a neo-classic revival for such red roofs.

hors d'oeuver or hors taxes

There is an apparently flourishing business for pizza and for others in the meals on wheels service on the German side of Swiss borderlands.

This scheme, however, is threatened by a new requirement to electronically file customs declarations for cross-border deliveries. It was already worthwhile for those kitchens and customers positioned to do so to comply with the tariffs, saving some ten francs or more compared to domestic fast-food and a system for collection was already in place but to force bankers' hours on an industry that's spontaneous and relies on people's sloth and failure to plan many times could prove disastrous for some opportunists. Diners and delivery personnel would be treated like smugglers. I wonder what kind of antics might ensue to keep up with demand and I wonder how the official assigned to that toll-house might feel about his or her job.

what do you want on your tombstone? pepperoni and chease

I know that selecting a heavily processed frozen pizza makes could call ones judgment into question to begin with, but usual foregoing the American shopping experience—at the company-store, and opting to mostly buy groceries on the so-called “economy,” I was a little aghast and amused with the detailed, cradle-to-grave instructions on the packaging. One has to wonder what sort of horrendous lawsuits prompted such directions. Every once and awhile, it's worth it to have the reminder that there are far superior alternatives, readily available and even with the premium of far fewer special ingredients, unless one insists on a taste of home. Naïvely, I used to believe that such fortification with preservatives was a result of some rigourously honest admission and was required to maintain freshness for a long journey overseas, but now I think otherwise—especially considering the re-imported items on the shelves. I refused to believe that German beer, brewed hereabouts, was actually sent to the States, only to be sent back and sold at a discount, denominated in American dollars and with no visible taxes, to someone.
Just before the holidays, I noticed an expanded assortment of champagne, prosecco and Sekt, and I thought it was to supplement demand at first—that is, until I noticed this label (with mandatory warnings) on a effervescent beverage produced and bottled quite literally just around the corner. Lured by a bargain, I am now finding this more than a bit unconscionable. Though I am glad that there's an export-market for goods that seem very local, this indirect route to pass the savings along to you seems rather wasteful—whether or not specially outfitted for the journey.

sticky fingers or mother’s little helper

Not that we only make store-bought pizzas, but this little spoon rest that my sister sent me as a gift would come in handy then too. When not in use (and I’m one to clutch on to something rather than put it down in some place where it might be in the way or make a mess) I could hold it up to my mouth and sing Brown Sugar and She’s so Cold or “I’ll never be your pizza burning.”