Listening to a re-run of This American Life on human spectacle introduced with widespread delusion of being an unwitting main character in a simulation, articulated by The Truman Show, the first segment “I am the Eggplant,” about an individual conscripted into a very public psychiatric experiment—that because of its vintage, really went from one extreme of the panopticon to the a much darker, tortured place with several addenda. The Nippon Network’s reality game show Susunu! Denpa Shลnen (้ฒใฌ!้ปๆณขๅฐๅนด—Do Not Proceed, Crazy Youth!) that aired from 1998 to 2002 was wildly popular and known for putting participants in rather extreme and absurd situations, and among the best known long-running contests (unbeknownst to the player) was called Prize Life, that recruited, abducted a young, aspiring comic called Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed Nasubi (ใชใใณ, eggplant) owing to his long face, after winning a drawing for a “show business related job” who as his reward was challenged to live in an apartment with no possessions (including clothing, which was censored for the audience with a strategically placed digital ๐, hardly compelled to be modest since he did not know he was being live-streamed the entire time—wondering if that’s the origin of the emoji’s double-meaning) or food and no contact with the outside world (see also) for fifteen and could subsist only from his “winnings” by from mail-in sweepstakes from magazines. These prizes turned out to be rather useless but after fifteen months in isolation (moved from an apartment in Japan to an identical one in Korea by the producers to keep the location hidden from the paparazzi) his winnings finally amounted to enough a million ¥ , to be declared victorious. Reality television has been a mainstay of entertainment for the past twenty years but the disorientation, disappointment and the glib cruelty made me draw comparisons to Squid Game. A feature documentary is about to be released on Nasubi and his ordeal but you should listen to the interview and thematically related acts first.
Monday 29 April 2024
kenshล seikatsu (11. 523)
Wednesday 10 April 2024
is this the leto boy i worked for? (11. 481)
Though advertised as a clip-show of highlights from the past hundred minisodes, an unexpected, rather absurd visitor, America’s newscaster emeritus, Dune-loving Tom Brokaw, steals the spotlight of the Flop House to pitch his musical version of the Frank Herbert epic—incorporating elements of Fiddler on the Roof—far superior to the HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s 1979 and 2001 revival parody A Shoggoth on the Roof by He Who (for legal reasons) Must Not Be Named, like the above lyric from the lament of mentat Thufir Hawat for his protรฉgรฉ Paul Atreides. In the tradition of the best musical homages from The Simpsons, there are some really clever numbers explored to a lesser or greater extant on the expense of the exasperation of the co-hosts. As the sequel premieres, Brokaw also teases a part two with the template of Sweeney Todd. We also very much enjoyed the leitmotif from A Baliset Player on the Sietch of the Bene Gesserit Gaius Helen Mohiam with the lines “How can I hope to make you understand don’t you move your right hand. Keep it that small box or I will land on your neck with my gom jabbar,” inspired by “Far from the Home I Love.” Listen and subscribe at the link above. Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dune.
one year ago: 12 Angry Men (1957)
two years ago: the first 3D studio release (1953), assorted links to revisit plus random ID cards
three years ago: the Thelema Book of Law, the Statue of Anne (1710) plus a glossary of television terms
four years ago: German and Finnish COVID-19 terminology, a memorial service for the Notre Dame fire, William of Ockham plus more links to enjoy
five years ago: vintage volvelles, a reversal on dollar coins, the Moka Pot reissued, shopping per horoscope, imaging a black hole plus punitive tariffs on the EU
Tuesday 9 April 2024
8x8 (11. 480)
chambre de bonne: disappearing top-floor tiny apartments of Paris
semifreddo: the origin of Neapolitan ice cream
the united states of division: a prescient 2004 release by Prince & The New Power Generationcourt dress: the pink sleeves of the supreme courts of Labrador and Newfoundland are in deference to the former summer robes for sittings in England and Wales—via Super Punch
geoengineering: Tennessee legislature outlaws (see also) so called chemtrails
bpm: Chechnya announces ban of music considered too fast or too slow
backsplash: mosaic of the day
warehouse-to-loft-conversion: a tribute to the last of New York’s artists’ dwellings—via Messy Nessy Chic
Saturday 6 April 2024
concours eurovision de la chason (11. 470)
With the finale held on this day fifty years ago, held in the arts venue the Dome of Brighton with veteran television personality and presenter Katie Boyle—winner of the 1973 contest Luxembourg having declined the honour of hosting the event consecutive years in a row due to cost constraints for their public broadcaster, Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Tรฉlรฉdiffusion, some of the more memorable acts of the Eurovision Song Contest (previously) with an iconic and transporting recognition owing to the winners’ costuming and performance include an interlude by the Wombles, Olivia Newton-John, Mouth and MacNeal and entrant Pooky from newly admitted Israel, whose prog and jazz fusion would prove enduring. France did not participate that year out of respect for the national mourning period for the death of president Georges Pompidou, withdrawing a few days before, and contest was not aired until several months afterwards for fear that the country’s own submission, “Sรฌ” finishing in second place, might have influenced votes on a confusingly worded nation referendum on whether to keep or rescind newly introduced legislation (see above) that allowed for divorce in country—“yes” being the ballot initiative to outlaw the recently enacted liberty.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the UK tax year plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: artist Raphael, fungal communication plus playing around with a text-to-image generator
three years ago: Ping-Pong Diplomacy, the first Tony Awards, the Debatable Lands, plans to build the World Trade Center, duelling songs plus the modern Olympic Games (1896)
four years ago: more true facts from Ze Frank plus a cute typing tutor
five years ago: the Bavarian Socialist Republic (1919) plus a community Spring Cleaning
Wednesday 6 March 2024
over the psychic radio (11. 403)
one year ago: America’s Frozen Food Day plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: more links to enjoy plus a LIFE parody in poor taste (1970)
three years ago: your daily demon: Seere, the Zapruder film, a Banksy mural plus more links worth the revisit
four years ago: the Pillar of the Boatmen, the winnowing oar plus negative reviews of the great outdoors
five years ago: hauntology, the Period Table (1869), even more links, the fashions of Edward Gorey plus Soviet home computers
Friday 9 February 2024
zoozve (11. 335)
This is an excellent constellation about how our Cosmos is appearing much harder to classify than at first glance, language and definitions and the predictability and reproducibility of familiar models—even in our own backyard—which Kottke invites us to contemplate in a podcast from Radiolab about a mystery on a child’s poster of the Solar System. Better than a just-so story, it reminds us of the fictive hamlet of Agloe, New York, sort of a trap-street, that became a real settlement then vanished again. The companion satellite labelled for Mercury (a moonless planet as we learn in school) seemed to be sloppy work coming from NASA (the poster’s publishers)—or a bit whimsy—but meriting further investigation yielded some dead ends, googlewhacks or less, but eventually led to the discoverer of the quasi-moon, with the designation for the year of its finding 2002 VE68, the captured asteroid and the first found of its kind (see also) since renamed. Much more at the link up top.
Monday 29 January 2024
castaways (11. 303)
First airing on this day in 1942 on the BBC Forces station, conceived and originally hosted by presenter Roy Plomley (until his death in 1985) and still broadcast on a weekly basis—making it the longest running radio programme after the Grand Ole Opry which began in 1925—Desert Island Discs invites celebrities, politicians, scientists, journalists, authors and artists as guests to choose eight audio (originally gramophone) recordings, a book (castaways are automatically given a volume of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and the Bible or other appropriate theological or philosophical text) and a single luxury item that they would wish to have should they find themselves marooned, talking about their lives, careers and reasons for the titles selected. Over the course of three thousand episodes, guests have included Eartha Kitt, Bing Crosby, David Attenborough, Dave Bruebeck, Alfred Hitchcock, Liberace, Alec Guinness, Julie Andrews, Sophie Tucker, Cilla Black, Marlene Dietrich, Harold Pinter, Anthony Burgess, Magnus Pyke, Lauren Bacall, Elia Kazan, Burl Ives (who selected the I Ching), Norman Mailer, Bob Geldof, Stephen Hawking, Brian Blessed, Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Fry, Debbie Harry and Zadie Smith. Over the decades, the most requested piece of music has been “Ode to Joy,” the last movement from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Conceived with the sounds of crashing waves and the cries of seabirds as the introduction and conclusion, producers however insisted on “By the Sleepy Lagoon,” an instrumental by Eric Coates, composer of light music—see also.
synchronoptica
one year ago: School House Rock! at 50, Dr Strangelove plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: more banned books, a Mozart opera, Axis of Evil, an AI creates bespoke colours plus more conspiratorial thinking
three years ago: an opera by Peter Josef von Lindpainter, more links to enjoy plus a digital demesne
four years ago: Mantra Rock Dance (1967), the Rubik’s Cube (1980) plus the Space Cat gets a monument
five years ago: the event that inspired Boomtown Rats, an excellent Rube Goldberg machine, Sleeping Beauty (1959), a Trump attorney’s political thriller plus artist Javier Riera
Friday 26 January 2024
12x12 (11. 294)
brownstone: Gotham Gothic rowhouses as playing cards
wall of eyes: Radiohead spinoff artist Jonny Greenwood’s latest album
scrabblegram: a form of constrained writing using all one hundred tiles of the gameblackula: a look at the brave inversion of exploitation cinema
research purposes: profiles in the pornographers of Wikimedia who image and caption—see also—human sexuality, via Web Curios
parks & rec: a map of sites in the US funded by FDR’s New Deal programme—via Waxy
best laptop 2024: readership, AI and the collapse of media outlets
nullification: Texas governor, alleging the US federal government has failed to protect the country from an immigrant invasion, hints at secession
the compaynys of beestys & fowlys: revisiting how animal groupings (see previously on the subject of venery) received such colourful names—via the morning news
schluckbildchen: sixteenth century edible devotionals
mixtape: Kim Gordon, formerly of Sonic Youth, raps her grocery list in new song Bye Bye
ephemerama: a growing archive of modern illustrations from circa 1950 to 1975—via Things Magazine
synchronoptica
one year ago: more trompe l’oeil paintings, assorted links to revisit plus pie-chart studies
two years ago: morphing logos plus more links to enjoy
three years ago: zorbing, the Council of Trent (1545), Australia Day, more links worth the revisit plus Tubman on the twenty
four years ago: modular, prefab kiosks plus the first television demonstration (1926)
five years ago: the longest government shutdown in US history, architect Sir John Soane plus all the world’s writing systems
Sunday 31 December 2023
don’t crash the pips (11. 232)
Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, on this day in 1923 BBC sound engineering AG Dryland, not allowed access to the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster, climbed onto a rooftop opposite the Houses of Parliament to with a microphone and transmitted the bongs of Big Ben at the stroke of midnight live, in a tradition that’s occurred with few but notable interruptions since. A few weeks later, the Greenwich time signal began accompanying the chimes on broadcasts at the top of the hour.
9x9 (11. 230)
unwound: a cartoon that speaks to the time-dilation of the Winterval—and the year in general
politics or otherwise: year’s end Can’t Let Goes from NPR’s podcast contributors
fast-forward: a century of New Year’s men’s party fashionsaitana lopez: the virtual, machine-generated influencers stealing jobs from humans
cap d’agde: the restoration of the Art Nouveau Chateau Laurens—a palace also known for its connections with Catharism
like a fridge in reverse: a visualisation of the science of heat-pumps—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
fondue chinoise: a variation on the Swiss holiday tradition inspired by the Asian hot pot
favourite global tech stories from publications not named rest of the world: like Bloomberg’s Jealousy List, staff compiles articles they wish they’d written—via Waxy
cartoon cryptozoology: explore a chaotic archive of the earliest animations
Wednesday 20 December 2023
telharmonic hall (11. 197)
To round out the podcasting year, 99% Invisible presents a selection of choice minisodes on a variety of topics ranging from practising architecture without a license, decimalising the clock, ghost kitchens and fascinatingly the primordial streaming service, dial-a-song, subscription-based amenity patented by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897. For a monthly fee, people could listen to an entire electric orchestra over the telephone lines. The massive analogue instrument that synthesised the immersive experience was called the telharmonium—also a product of Cahill’s genius—and was the precursor to the Hammond organ and other electronic keyboards. As popular as the novelty was—including live concerts—by 1907, streaming subscribers turned toward the medium of radio. Much more at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: snapshots of war, Harold and Maude plus more shibboleths
two years ago: assorted links to revisit
three years ago: more links to enjoy, It’s a Wonderful Life, Missus Martin Luther, new plant species discovered, 2020 in review plus human hiberation
four years ago: the Battle of the Bastonge (1944) plus Brexit passes
five years ago: a new edition of Euclid’s Elements, typewriter art plus a reminder that when the service is free, you are the product
Friday 15 December 2023
radio silence (11. 189)
Weird Universe points us to an event that took place in mid-August 1924 in the US that reminds us this other potential coordinated effort to make astronomical observations more successful and reminds how from the earliest days of the communication medium, forerunners like Guglielmo Marconi, Lord Kelvin and Nikola Tesla believed that radio transmissions could be exchanged with extraterrestrial civilisations, the existence of intelligent life on Mars being widely accepted. With the Red Planet approaching its closest point to the Earth for nearly eight decades, scientists at the Naval Observatory used a blimp to lift a “radio-camera” to an altitude of three kilometres and arranging with broadcasters along the eastern seaboard to observe an hourly five-minutes’ cessation of transmissions in order to eliminate interference from terrestrial sources and increase the chance of intercepting a message from Martians. Military cryptologists were on stand-by to decipher any alien signals.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus Last Christmas
two years ago: Gingerbread Dreamhouses, artist Brad Holland plus more links to enjoy
three years ago: more links worth the revisit, Esperanto Day plus Trivial Pursuit
four years ago: more links, the Nobel banquet plus Lisztomania (1975)
five years ago: even more links, the mythos of Zermatism, Wort des Jahres plus early Home Office
Sunday 26 November 2023
7x7 (11. 143)
sonic deconstructions: 1950s radio broadcaster’s album of Foley art, “Strange to Your Ears”
onfim’s homework: a Wikipedia rabbit hole inspires an individual to get a tattoo of an eleventh century Novgorod pupil’s writings and illustrations discovered preserved on birch bark—via Hyperallergic’s Required Readingyear in review: Time magazine’s one hundred top images of 2023—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to explore here)
amaterasu: scientists detect an ultra-high energy cosmic ray—the most powerful in thirty years of observation
<!--: a collection of historic HTML innovations—see also
kenough: the story of Denny Fouts, hustler and literary muse for Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Christopher Isherwood
pie hole: a silly twenty-year-old vocal exercise that holds up
Friday 27 October 2023
maps.fm (11. 080)
This is a really premium idea—via ibฤซdem—we have this highly granular mapping application of over a million podcast episodes from a host of contributors that allows one to listen-by-location and discover more about site-specific history, community news, tourism, foodways and local culture. Of course concentration and coverage is uneven and there are plenty of neglected corners of the world (perhaps you can fill in the gaps and perhaps find your podcasting niche), but given the general problem with the uptake and discoverability for the medium (as obscure and middle-of-nowhere on the dial as some of the places visited), this a perfect tool for taking a deep-dive in some local colour.
Sunday 24 September 2023
10x10 (11. 020)
osiris-rex: fulfilling a seven-year mission (previously) a space probe to collect samples from an asteroid—with further adventures planned
succession: Rupert Murdoch’s departure from News Corp is a cold-comfort for the millions brainwashed by Fox and Friends
be the first to like this post: more on the meaning and origins of the chain of riders and horses dispatched to send missives—see previously
project cybersyn: more on Salvadore Allende’s plans to build a socialist internetfanfare: the history and physics of the trumpet
shear madness: 1980 reportage on a cutting-edge hair salon in Kensington
the joke and dagger department: an appreciation of the genius of Spy vs Spy, a political cartoon that wasn’t a political cartoon
3r’s: the Swedish educational system has a renewed emphasis on handwriting, quiet reading time
omni consumer products: New York City police lease a robocop to patrol Times Square subway station as a trial run
all these worlds are yours—except europa, attempt no landing there: the JWST detects carbon on the surface of the Jovian moon
Friday 22 September 2023
6x6 (11. 013)
schedule f: Trump and the Heritage Foundation’s plan to dismantle the administrative state, replacing federal workers with sycophants—via Miss Cellania
chinoiserie: a grand tour of Rococo era architectural follies as homage and aspiration to Eastern aesthetics—see alsodisco demolition night: more on the publicity stunt that incited a riot and brought down a whole genre of music
agrostology: of grasses and lawns
we’re safety now, haven’t we: US federal consumer safety commission drops an album that includes some bangers—but hardly for the first
time swing time for hitler: new audio book by Scott Simon explores how Nazis banned jazz as degenerate art and repurposed it to dispirit the Allies—with more on Lord Haw-Haw and other propagandists
synchronoptica
one year ago: MERS-CoV (2012), the premier of West Wing (1999), Putin addresses the public and announces a draft plus an early Hobbit computer game
two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus Fiddler on the Roof (1964)
three years ago: Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in state, the last day of summer, more links to enjoy plus dazzling skylines made of dot-stickers
four years ago: exploring the Messel Pit plus a highly idiosyncratic language
five years ago: rehabilitating coral ecosystems with electricity, an AI makes college course catalogues, typhoon naming conventions plus an M-class exoplanet
Friday 15 September 2023
9x9 (11. 002)
you deserve to sit: a comedian’s silly song about their favourite inactivity
๐ธ: visit a random feline friend featured on Wikipedia—via Pasa Bon!
& let it stonde .1. nyght or .2.: a medieval recipe for meadmontage: the animated collages of Alice Issac
shrinkflation: a French supermarket chain displaying advisory labels to alert consumers
word alienation and semantic satiation: one of the laureates of the thirty-third Ig Noble Awards—see also here and here
consult our extensive archives: veteran broadcaster—and BBC’s first podcaster, Melvyn Bragg celebrates one thousand episodes
pagliacci: a pizza chef turns melodramatic over a cursed request
synchronoptica
one year ago: Our Lady of Sorrows plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: forest mascots (1971) plus a Star Trek: TAS classic
three years ago: more Trek with “Amok Time,” illustrations from the children of Charles Darwin, rousing public sentiment following the Gunpowder Plot, life signs on Venus plus a COVID movie-night
four years ago: more on Jupiter’s moons, a hot Colonel Sanders, public crucifixes, Lovecraft in the style of Dr Seuss plus Graphis Press
five years ago: an AI names apples, the Ig Noble Awards, the Great Recession’s Lost Decade plus legalising marijuana confounded by travel regulations
Thursday 10 August 2023
gallon of scallops (10. 933)
We thoroughly enjoy one of the latest instalments of the podcast Judge John Hodgman that entertained cases submitted on codified language usage, idiolects and otherwise rampant pedantry with guest Merriam-Webster lexicographer Emily Brewster for its discussion on words but especially liked the tangential exchange on marriage customs with the new modern wedding anniversary gifts that diverge after the first five of paper, cotton, leather, linen and wood that hit all the show’s running gags: “And then the sixth anniversary, hotdog. Seventh anniversary, sandwich—because they’re not the same thing [some sources including Merriam-Webster infamously equate the two]…The eighth is Kung Pao chicken.” And so on, all needing citations for the unacquainted. The twentieth is separate bedrooms.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Treaty of Verdun (843) plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the opening of the Louvre (1793), the animation of Raoul Servais plus historic medically restricted diets
three years ago: a public bath in Stockholm, the first Blues hit (1920) plus on being a joyful rule breaker
four years ago: You are Here plus more on the former border between East and West Germany
five years ago: strained relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia, the very model of a modern age millennial, the disappointment that comes with the realisation that one’s travel experience is far from unique
Friday 4 August 2023
10x10 (10. 924)
manufactured crises: distractions and moral panics fabricated by the US GOP and associates
sachal jazz: Pakistani musicians perform a rendition of David Brubeck’s “Take Five” on tabla and sitar with orchestral accompaniment
illuminated text: an unfinished medieval manuscript reveals a step-by-step manual for its making
finishing the hat: Stephen Sondheim’s (previously) Turtle Bay townhouse is on the marketsmiley head: custom screws requiring a special driver—via Pasa Bon!
f-91w: fully-function ring watches from Casio
blogoversary: JWZ turns twenty-five
the partridge family 2200 a.d.: a round up of animated spin-offs
super fun pak: the novelty cards of Pee-wee’s Playhouse
now you’re cooking with gas: the culture wars come to the stove
synchronoptica
one year ago: the invention of champagne (1693), the Zone of Galactic Obscuration plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: an infamous bugging device discovered (1945), the Lady of Elx, pipe architecture, working against one’s own self-interest plus assorted links worth revisiting
three years ago: more miniatures from Tatsuya Tanaka, St Sithney, the patron saint of dogs plus the birthday of Helen Thomas, Barack Obama
four years ago: sounds lost to lossy compression plus bouba or kiki
five years ago: interviews with author Philip K Dick
Sunday 30 July 2023
chick tracts (10. 914)
99% Invisible turns our attention to a strange and virulent form of evangelising in the form of an oddly collectible and exhaustive series of Christian comics from erstwhile cartoonist and Born-Again Jack Thomas Chick. First published in the 1960s from its headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga, California and continuing through to today, this pocket-sized artefact of conservative mainstream Protestant theology that’s become a self-parody veered at times to hate-speech and attacked Catholics, Masons, queer-people, socialists, Communists, drug-users, trick-or-treaters (collect them all!) and denounced non-conformists and non-Christian faiths as devil-worshipping as well as stoking ugly conspiracy theories and paranoia. The back-panel of each tract includes a blank spaces for churches to stamp their name and contact information as well as a bespoke salvation prayer for sinners to recant their ways. More at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the Norse goddess Freyja plus recreating classic screen-savers
three years ago: the microcars of Robert Hannoyer, pioneering oceanographer Marie Tharp, special edition Canadian coins, fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto (RIP), St Hatebrand plus the rich tradition of Japanese souvenirs
four years ago: algorithmically-directed decisions and the architecture of choice, disruptive jewellery plus non-overlapping magisteria
five years ago: Outsider Art from Austria, BBC’s sound archives plus building a Martian base in situ