9x9 (13. 032)

christmas day storm: heavy rains and landslides batter Los Angeles area  

vertex summary: holiday reception by renowned fiddler in Nova Scotia cancelled due to AI search erroneous labelling the performer a sex-offender—via Super Punch  

soft cell: astronaut Tibor Kapu debuts geometries that can only exist in microgravity aboard the ISS  

high holidays: an assortment of newspaper clippings on confiscated marijuana Christmas trees of yesteryear  

autocoup: a viral fake video of an overthrow in Paris is throwing the government in turmoil  

daemon est deus inversus: the occult imagination of W B Yeats  

winterval: seasonal breaks and the signal most observed public holiday—maybe not the one you’re thinking of—from Quantum of Sollazzo  

neighbourhood watch: AI powered app issues false crime alerts across US, terrorising residents  

spirit of the season: US launches strikes against ISIS militants in Nigeria—accused of persecuting Christians 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ), Wild Strawberries (1957) plus a classic from Goorge Harrison

thirteen years ago: an antique Bible 

fifteen years ago: Boxing Day and Second Christmas 

one unidentified sleigh powered by eight reindeer (13. 029)

Although the US Air Force had issued a communiqué on Christmas Eve in 1948 that their emerging early warning radar net to the north had detected the above interloper, the former festive report was a one-off event and it was not until this day 1955 that the North American Aerospace Defence Command launched its annual NORAD Santa Tracker, as our faithful chronicler informs, an annual tradition since spawning many homages, in response to a newspaper advertisement with a misprint. A Sears department store affiliate in Colorado Springs invited children to call Kris Kringle with their wishes but ME 2-6681 directed them actually towards the switchboard of the Continental Air Defence Command Centre, a call reaching a commanding colonel, whom after speaking to the little girl’s mother, assessed the situation and directed operators relay the current location for Santa’s sleigh, and recognising the public relations opportunity pledge to continue to monitor and if necessary defend this “undoubtably friendly” against possible attack from those who do not believe in the spirit of Christmas, a hotline crewed by volunteers to keep the commanders’ red-phone free.

✨pausing for station identification✨ (13. 028)

We here at PfRC wish you and yours all good things and the biggest, brightest little Christmas yet. Take care of one another, and we look forward to seeing you all again real soon after a brief break. Happy holidays!

ho ho hustle (13. 025)

We quite enjoyed this McSweeney’s piece by contributors Anne Marie Wonder and Madeleine Trebenski imagining the ensemble of characters of secular Christmas celebrations taking on a side-gigs to make ends meet in this economy. Missus Claus is a trad-wife influencer and Heatmiser has monetised his podcast, hawking testosterone supplements between segments advocating how real men don’t ask permission to commit arson, and you know Dasher—or rather DoorDasher, of course.

synchronoptica

one year ago: fifty plus years of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn (with synchronopticæ) plus the etymology of fruitcake

seven years ago: the patron saint of Iceland, a glitter mystery plus the Extinction Rebellion

eight years ago: Project Blue Book plus motto misappropriation

nine years ago: walled-gardens 

ten years ago: international holiday customs, a Christmas ghost story, an embarrassing product recall plus a yuletide greeting

eleven years ago: Ship of Theseus 

thirteen years ago: mapping South Sudan, US austerity plus winter flooding

sixteen years ago: winter driving 

9x9 (13. 016)

brought to you by the inkjet lobby: the amount of redactions in the US justice department’s release of the Epstein files sparks outrage  

christmas and commerce: a David Sedaris holiday classic—see previously  

global building atlas: an ambitious project mapping all three-billion built structures worldwide  

grabenanlage: rescue archaeology in southwestern German town of Herxheim in 1996 suggests ritual cannibalism on a massive scale with research still ongoing  

your attention is all you have—wasting it is annihilating: Blackbird Spyplane on a life of screen-time—via Kottke

pithos: Roman amphora of sardines found in Switzerland 

orthorectified panorama: the Apollo transforming printer that developed cartographically accurate photographs of the Moon 

a christmas memory: Truman Capote recalls holidays past  

formerly known as the kennedy center: the history of the US national stage for the performing arts—see previously

exit through the gift shop (13. 013)

Via MetaFilter—and wishing we’d known about it sooner, we really enjoyed this assortment of holiday offerings from the Heritage Trust operated system of museums and historical sites, including an array of Christmas jumpers (read ugly sweaters, I suppose, like this one from the transportation authority with their range of mass transit and roundels) and tree ornaments inspired by their properties and collections. We’ll need to bookmark this for next year and really liked the nautical-engineering contribution for Brunel and the chessman bauble.

6x6 (13. 005)

jabrael shelbys: Afghan morality police arrest a troupe of young men for dressing like characters from Peaky Blinders for “promoting alien culture”  

holiday inn: the hidden history behind the 1942 Irving Berlin staple “White Christmas,” composed at the La Quinta hotel 

trump derangement syndrome: US president roundly condemned for his disparaging, disgusting remarks on the murder of Rob Reiner and wife Michelle, who photographed him for his Art of the Deal jacket—there is no line for that meathead and his followers  

the internet of beings: proprioception and web-enabled organs  

do you see what i see: tales of Winter Wonderland disasters  

cultural ambassadors: individuals from seventy countries offer their best imitations of US tourists—see also

synchronoptica

one year ago: suggestions for what US president Joe Biden could do with his remaining weeks (with synchronopticæ) plus more on vexillology

twelve years ago: a history of coffee bans plus a periodic table of cheese

thirteen years ago: slips and sits plus Bad Neustadt all decked out for the holidays 

fourteen years ago: poinsettias plus FACTA coming into force

sixteen years ago: the psychology of secret societies 

mister fezziwig (13. 001)

Though each time I picked up on the narrative again, telling myself I don’t have time to listen to a two-and-a-half-hour podcast, I did make it all the way through this dramatic reading of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas from The Allusionist host Helen Zaltzman. The novella, divided into five chapters—which Dickens calls staves, reflects and informs the zeitgeist at a time when Victorian England was reevaluating holiday customs and was his fourth attempt at the subject, first a serialisation called “Christmas Festitivies,” then a short story under the title “A Christmas Dinner” that appeared in his illustrated anthology Sketches by Boz and an episode in The Pickwick Papers, “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton”—a sacristan, a church superintendent charged with care and maintenance of the building and cemetery grounds, misanthropic but after being ransomed by the creatures undergoes a conversion, similar to Scrooge. Capitalising on its success, Dickens wrote another four holiday themed novels (The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain) but none of the franchise as beloved as his 1842 iteration. Familiar adaptations are true to Dickens but I realised I had never listened to original narrative in its entirety, rather excellently delivered (with a few, non-intrusive short asides to gloss antiquated meanings) and really enjoyed the decision to voice the Ghost of Christmas Present aptly as a South Park character. It is a banger of a story and of course you have time to indulge.

6x6 (12. 994)

helm of awe: taboos, tattoos and load-bearing iconography  

esta: the White House will vet the social media history of tourists from visa-free countries  

🕯️: holiday borders and decorative elements from an old Ricatype catalogue  

forty winks: sleep habits in the animal kingdom—see previously  

association football: Trump suggests changing the America name for the sport from soccer (with adjustments to current franchises) ahead of co-hosting the World Cup with Canada and Mexico  

water of the sky: two thousand Japanese words for rain—see previously

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus parental guidance suggested

thirteen years ago: people in space right now  

fourteen years ago: the 2012 US presidential race a year out 

8x8 (12. 990)

boîte aux lettres: a gallery of modernist mailboxes found around France—via Messy Nessy Chic  

áramótaskaupið: two decades of explaining the smells and bells of the holiday season in Iceland  

semiquaver: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is a fine carol but lacks punctuation—via Miss Cellania 

k-id: Australia begins to enforce the world’s first social media ban for under sixteen-year-olds  

there is consensus to merge republican makeup into this article: Mar-a-Lago face, a plastic surgery trend among American conservatives has its own Wikipedia entry—via Nag on the Lake 

zipf’s law: a collection of nearly universal facets of human language  

linus and lucy: A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered on this day in 1965—see previously here and here  

intermodal container: the history of compartmentalised freight and how one innovation in transportation can influence another

kalle anka & c:o (12. 986)

Mental Floss brings us reporting on another imported holiday tradition (same procedure as every year) in the annual ritual on the afternoon of Christmas Day in that liminal time-slot after dinner and before super after the excitement of the gifts are baked in with over a third of the households in Sweden sitting down on the sofa to engage in a bit of nostalgia by watching the broadcast of a 1958 made-for-tv Disney anthology clip show called From All of Us to All of You, hosted by Jiminy Cricket, known locally as “Kalle Anka och has vänner önskar God Jul”—despite Donald Duck being only one character out of a cast of many. First aired on the Sweden channel SVT1 in 1960, it has grown into a yuletide custom more or less without change or commercial interruption for over six decades.  The entire programme can be found here.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Unwort of the Year (with synchronopticæ), King William College’s Winter Break quiz plus the narrative murals of a luxurious Roman villa

fourteen years ago: memes of the year 

fifteen years ago: carbon chauvinism  

sixteen years ago: a visit to Colditz 

9x9 (12. 981)

on average there are only 0.061 haunted locations per square mile in the uk: ghost mapper 

forty winks: an appreciation of sleep and everyday aesthetics  

married to the sea: CEO of US military contractor Palantir argues case for making war crimes constitutionally allowable  

grunts and thwops: cetologist share their first chat with a humpbacked whale named Twain—see previously 

the dangerous christmas of red riding hood: a 1965 revisionist fairytale from the Wolf’s perspective, starring Liza Minnelli  

ar 4294: giant sunspot cluster on par with the concentration that sparked the Carrington event pointed directly at Earth—via Damn Interesting  

mixtape: a growing repository of found cassettes from around the world with content and provenance—via Web Curios   

enhanced vetting: Trump’s state department directed to deny visas for fact-checkers and content-moderators in defence of free-speech absolutism  

mycology mapped: an engrossing explainer of the fungi kingdom and its place in the ecosystem 

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Ze Frank on molluscs (with synchronopticæ), a digital advent calendar plus gift ideas for the holiday office party

thirteen years ago: a gaslit whistle-blower 

fourteen years ago: Eurozone credit downgrades 

fifteen years ago: net neutrality and IMF priorities 

seventeen years ago: Christmas decorations 

merrie old christmas (12. 969)

As our faithful chronicler reminds on this day in 1977, the last Christmas special of Bing Crosby aired on CBS on this day in 1977, the most memorable segment recorded 11 September of that year in Elstree Studios outside of London as part of his promotion campaign for his album Heroes, having arranged to sing a duet with Crosby. Bowie arrived with his then wife Mary Angela Barnett (who contributed to the definition of glam rock costuming his Ziggy Stardust persona) both appearing in matching outfits—the recording almost did not take place until Bowie agreed to doff the shocking red wig, earring and makeup. Afterwards Bowie balked at the idea of performing the traditional carol, with producer Marc Bolan coming up with an improvised counterpoint to Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” within an hour. The two ad-libbed a shorty dialogue before the song. Both Crosby and Bolan died a month later, of a car-crash and heart attack respectively. Never expecting to revisit this surreal collaboration (see also) again, the performance was not remastered for release as a single and not available until November of 1982, which despite all reservations garnered Bowie his most successful and an enduring holiday classic. Me and my drum.

καιροί (12. 968)

For this first Advent, marking the transition from Ordinary Time (tempus per annum, that is the countdown weeks of the big seasons of Christmas- and Eastertide, Better Living through Beowulf, via the lens of the End Times and popular-eschatology that’s become as much part of the holiday counter-insurgency as anything else, introduces us to a second concept of time that the Ancient Greeks had, at the same time offering some solace to contextualise and countenance such rapture fantasies. As opposed to χρόνος in the sense of chronological or sequential time, kairos, personified as opportunity or proper timing in the figure of Zeus’ youngest son, depicted with the iconography of a razor or scales balanced on a sharp edge to symbolise fleeting fortune and though eternally youthful is completely bald save for one lanky lock of hair that hangs over his face (let me adjust my bang) to suggest one can catch him on the approach by this tuft of hair but ungraspable once he has moved past. Also the sense of skilled professionals, an altar to Kairos was at the athletes’ entrance to the stadium of Olympia, in rhetoric and debate it is a passing instant that must be seized upon to turn an argument and in medicine and in media, the right dose administered at the right time. Despite how rapture fiction, and we’re reminded not to underestimate its readership, might be set in the familiar and predictable realm of ordinary time—so to is the more secular run up and trappings of the holidays—it is time-out-of-time for reflection, vigilant anticipation to be ready for chance to present itself.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus surviving a meteor strike (1954)

twelve years ago: fostering children from Nazi Germany plus Cicada 3301

thirteen years ago: Christmas deadlines 

fourteen years ago: a Star Wars/Rankin/Bass mash-up plus The War of Wealth

fifteen years ago: the fall-out of the diplomatic cable leak 

light-emitting diode (12. 964)

Whilst LEDs had been in use since the early 1960s as electronic components, with applications in remote control circuits, converting a pulse of current into a beam of infra-red light, and as indicator lamps for always-on appliances and in seven-segment displays, it was not until this day in 1996 when the Nichia Corporation, a Japanese chemical engineering and manufacturing concern, held a press-conference introducing brilliant white gallium nitride light-emitting diodes, after three years of experimentation and research, that the semiconductor dim bulbs, only capable of shining in invisible wavelengths to low-intensity red, hinted at their potential as a commercial lighting alternative to an infrastructure built for energy-intensive incandescents. Despite skepticism over the viability of producing a prototype using conventional technology, Nichia supported the R&D efforts of Shuji Nakamura (中村 修二, only given a token honorium for his invention, he later sued for a commensure share of the profits) whose experiments eventually netted not only the illusive white LED but also the blue laser diode in the process, the solid-state stylus for HD DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs. Incoherent and giving the illusion of pure colour saturation—like pixels and their subdivisions—LEDs produce light through electrolumininescence, the wavelength determined by the recombination of electrons and electron holes, the space of an atomic lattice where an ejected particle once was and in accordance with the shell-model could be replaced, over the gradient of the semiconductive circuit, pushing out a photon.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Panasonic to digitally resurrect its departed CEO (with synchronopticæ), Now, That’s What I Call Music, phonological jargon as effective insults, Tulip Mania redux plus superstitious storeys

thirteen years ago: bot-driven traffic plus personalised medication

fourteen years ago: language lessons 

fifteen years ago: US-EU diplomatic relations 

sixteen years ago: a Thanksgiving feast plus first Advent 

11x11 (12. 118)

nuclear dawn: a 1984 mural in Brixton, part of the Londonist tour of great public art in the city  

winterval: a spot on take of the week between Christmas and New Year’s  

tedium’s tedium awards: celebrating the protest songs of Jesse Welles, beating Tetris and more  

omnibus: more year end lists from Miss Cellania—this one focussing on science  

designated checkpoint: document-free travel being trialled, the passport replaced by one’s phone biometrics  

holiday helper: repurposing classic cocktails for the festive season  

encomnia: remembering the celebrities and artists lost in 2024  

pizza day: recreating a school cafeteria staple with pourable crust—via Boing Boing 

h-1b visas: requested immigration carved-outs for the tech sector pit Musk against MAGA  

post-holiday blues: anticipating returning to work can evaporate that time off peace of mind  

our century hasn’t been as free with words of wisdom as some others: Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s 1988 address to people living a hundred years later

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from Andrew Bird (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: the aphorisms of Syrus, vintage London Underground posters plus a compendium of dark magic

eight years ago: celebrating the life and career of Carrie Fisher plus reflections on post-truth

nine years ago: feudalism and engaged citizenry, remote human settlements plus a look back at phony outrage

ten years ago: Pangea with current geopolitical borders, space-time fossils plus a Grumpy Cat Christmas

8x8 (12. 112)

carnian pluvial event: that time it rained for two million years  

acme corporation: eight technological failures of 2024  

double-harvest: Christmas tree farmers exploring mycoforestry to raise timber and mushrooms on the same plot of land 

 🐜: how the world of ant geopolitics mirrors that of human colonisation and globalisation  

9.3 m_w: the Boxing Day Tsunami that cost a quarter of a million lives twenty years on

royal warrant: chocolatier to British crown Cadbury is delisted after generations for continued business operations in Russia  

woty: the Fritinancy edition—via Kottke 

wax wings: researchers awaiting telemetry back from the Parker Solar probe (previously) after historic approach to the Sun

synchronoptica

one year ago: DJ Earworm’s annual (with synchronoptica), The Glass Menagerie (1944) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: a banger to time for New Year’s

eight years ago: a charging stretch of road, outer space vodka plus 2016 in review

nine years ago: 3D printing as a cottage industry, Quentin Crisp shares their favourite gangster films, Jesus in Japan, lions and lionesses plus Aleister Crowley’s manor

eleven years ago: Second Christmas plus a tuxedo vest

pause for station identification (12. 108)

We at PfRC wish you and yours a all good things and a very merry holiday season!  Thanks for visiting and take care of one another and come back real soon!

fruitcake (12. 105)

Language Log featured recently a duo of Christmas confections from Italy and Germany and while the latter in the Stollen might have a more robust etymology, derivative of the verb stellen—to put—and from the Ancient Greek στήλη, stēlē, to support, as in the beams constructed in a mine shaft to prevent a tunnel from collapsing (see also here and here), it is the former in the mildly sweet and far less dense (fluffy as compared to the Stollen’s consistency of a neutron star) the panettone that has a more intriguing composition as a augmentation of a diminutive, big little bread. Fettuccine is the reverse formation in little big slice, and there’s a single-serving variant called a panettoncini, a diminutive of the augmentative of the diminutive. More at the links above.

11x11 (12. 101)

boughs of holly: a gallery of Edwardians dressed up as Christmas trees—via the Everlasting Blört  

gifcities: the Internet Archive’s gallery of vintage animations  

hb3: Pornhub is pulling out of Florida over a new law that requires age verification on adult websites with a government issued form of identification—don’t say you weren’t warned

diplomatic corps: Trump pre-appoints a slew of woefully unqualified ambassadors  

superman is bleeding: the teaser trailer for the new cinematic adaptation 

neolithic octopoid: revisiting the Silurian hypothesis through cephalopods—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

by-line: Pulitzer’s year in news stories  

perfect fit content: Spotify ghosts human artist, avoiding royalties 

the campaign for economic democracy: Jane Fonda’s political action committee was funded through sales of Workout, inspired by serial presidential candidate and entrepreneur Lyndon LaRouche  

a court of thorns and roses: sexual congress with supernatural beings is illegal in Sweden—via Strange Company 

retrospective: around the world in the exhibitions of 2024 

and the blue and silver candles that would just have matched the hair on grandma’s wig: Postmodern Jukebox’ take (previously) on a reviled holiday tune