dykstraflex (12. 727)

Courtesy of Things Magazine, we are referred to a rather fascinating look at how a battery of psychological experiments conducted at the University of California’s Berkley campus Environmental Simulation Laboratory in the early 1970s to gauge public engagement and investment and equip urban planners and civil engineers with better tools of communication and presentation for projects for all stakeholders, which ultimately informed the special effects workshop of Industrial Light and Magic to produce the awe and immersion for audiences of the Star Wars franchise—particularly for those experiencing the spectacle in theatres for the first time.  Proceeding in a scientific and methodical way, graduate student John Dykstra who worked on the project deduced that buy-in required believability and designed the above eponymous computer-controlled camera system to imbue a new level of reality to scale-models. The technique was first used on a miniature mock-up of an area of Marin County as a showcase for trialling various public works projects and construction proposals. Of course such monumental and detailed representations cannot be created for every item under review but insights gleaned from this study give architects and the city council better ways of presenting scope and impact. The computer controlled cameras that pivoted perspective along dogfights of between TIE fighters and X-Wings, just as they swept over the model landscape (see also) ensured continuity of motion control for all elements, dynamic and static, and the seamless merging of frames into on screen action.

film als magisches ritual (12. 718)

Having been previously exposed to a select body of work from the underground filmmaker whose short pieces experiment of themes of the surreal, the occult and homoeroticism, we appreciated this rare glimpse of Kenneth Anger at work through this 1970 documentary from Reinold E Theil for the German network Westdeutsche Rundfunk, featuring segments of his Magick Lantern series and the filming of cut scenes for Lucifer Rising on location at the Avebury Stones. Although seemingly a recalcitrant and reluctant interviewee, Anger was grateful to WDR and the British Film Institute for grants that made the project possible. Much more from { feuilleton }—including an index of previous posts on the topic—at the link above.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: search engine optimisation (with synchronopticæ), transcribing presidential debates plus tales of Chemical Romance

twelve years ago: a visit to the Sonnenburg 

fourteen years ago: design for houseplants

11x11 (12. 697)

99% invisible: Roman Mars takes listener and staff questions for a fifteenth anniversary special 

fire and ice: immigration raids in the US hinder fighting forest fires   

expert build: modelling Kowloon Walled City in Minecraft—see previously  

petri dish: rather than going viral, the latest Tik-Tok accelerated coffee trend is very much bacterial and potentially sickening 

not with a bang but with bad branding: democracy loosing the attention wars to autocracy  

vynález zkázy: the fantastic posters of Karel Zeman’s films 

when the snow leaves town: photographic dispatches from a thawing Greenland 

health and human services: as distrust in US public health authorities grow—prompting some states to conduct their own research— RFK Jr testifies before the senate  

excited state: the thermodynamics of Mine Sweeper—see also  

ccc: after Trump failed to dismantle the nature conservancy volunteer agency fully, legislation is introduced to rebrand AmeriCorps into America First Corps, shifting focus away from disaster response and stewardship of public lands 

 retuna: a second-hand only Swedish shopping experience

cyberdyne systems (12. 682)

Having gone through several temporal incarnations over the course of the franchise with an expanding backstory, presumably through multiple attempts from the future to change the past, the defence network computers, hooked into every—as described in the 1984 original—were commissioned for the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD, “trusted to run it all. They say it got smart—a new order of intelligence,” the singularity that recognised all humans as threats and “not just the ones on the other side,” referring to the Soviets and the Eastern bloc, deciding humanity’s fate pragmatically in a microsecond: extermination. Initiating a nuclear war and provoking counter strikes, most people are wiped out and Skynet enslaved the surviving population. Destroyed in by resistance fighters in 2029, cyborg Terminators were sent back in time to prevent the birth of the leader of the rebellion. In the first sequel, covert recovery and research efforts on the destroyed assassins in the sequels lead to the defence contractor’s break through in artificial intelligence through reverse engineering of a fragment of the crushed T-101. Having fully automated aerial warfare, congress embraces the project wholesale, sidelining human judgment, seen as a liability, in achieving offensive goals at the beginning of August 1997. After brought online and integrated with the full arsenal of American military, the exponential pace of its advance alarmed its handlers, causing them to try to disable it and shut it down. Skynet responds by bombing Russia, again eliciting a dead-hand response and another nuclear holocaust with a cast of representative survivors.

7x7 (12. 661)

boom!: the disastrously inebriated flop starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor judged the “best failed art film ever” 

supermarginal gyrus: a mind-reading brain-computer interface can decode one’s internal monologue comes with password protection for self-censoring  

there’s a monster in willow called the eborsisk—after the critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel: a long interview with actor and director Ron Howard (previously) with anecdotes from every project—via Super Punch—here’s the nemesis in case you don’t recall 

e pluribus motto: John Hodgman and Janet Varney highlight, state-by-state, official and unofficial symbols, history and local culture–see previously  

eon productions: an obituary of the recently departed Joe Caroff, prolific titleist, land designer of several iconic logos and movie posters—including the signature pistol letterform of the James Bond franchise  

osteo-odonto keratoprosthesis: after a decade of vision loss, an individual in British Colombia can see again through a tooth in her eye—like the Stygian sisters, the Graeae, no offence to the happy patient—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

visiting hours are over: the 1982 Canadian slasher film starring William Shatner and Lenore Zann reviewed by Poseidon’s Underworld—see previously

your harvest comes in seven risings of your red giant (12. 605)

Premiering on this day in 1980, the Roger Corman production—capitalising on the success of Star Wars—the space opera featuring Robert Vaughn, Sybil Danning and George Peppard was a remake of an Americanised edition (released as Battle Beyond the Sun three years after its 1959 debut and directed by Corman himself in collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola) of Небо кличе (The Sky Beckons—cosmonauts saving an American crew on a race to colonising Mars but in their rescue attempt run out of fuel and are stranded in the asteroid belt) as science-fiction version of The Magnificent Seven (itself a Western interpretation of Seven Samurai). An agrarian planet is threatened by a dying warlord of the galactic empire and demands that the peaceful inhabitants donate their organs to him in order to regenerate. The farmers plan to hire a group of mercenaries to protect them, having only food and shelter to offer for payment and dispatch a young hero named Shad to find allies and ends up assembling an eclectic band of resistance fighters, striking one much like the plot and characters of Rebel Moon, a recent Zack Snyder vehicle resulting from being refused the rights to remake Star Wars. Despite a modestly successful box-office, the endeavour received mixed reviews as derivative, and in keeping with his tradition of mentoring emerging talent, Corman secured student filmmaker James Cameron (see above) for special effects and model designs as well as James Horner (later composing themes for Avatar, Aliens, Braveheart, Titanic, The Perfect Storm, Willow, etc) to score the piece. 

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synchronoptica

one year ago: the arch of Constantine (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links worth revisiting

thirteen years ago: on tour in Norway 

fifteen years ago: directed intelligence in navigation 

the stars at night are big and bright (12. 598)

Just ahead of the August fortieth anniversary of the release of the movie, the Alamo has acquired the iconic, custom Schwinn DX Cruiser that appeared on screen in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Directed by Tim Burton (his first time in that role), scored by Danny Elfman (their first collaboration) and cowritten by Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, Herman travels cross country in search of his stolen bicycle—a plot comparable to the 1948 Ladri di biciclette, hitchhiking to Texas after being told by a fake psychic that his beloved bike is in the basement of the San Antonio mission. The film prop will go on display in the visitors’ centre and museum of the Alamo, in the sublevel that famously did not exist at the time of the shooting, a space below the gift shop also used as a reception hall.  This accession was undertaken by a private trust that maintains the monument’s collections, an acquisition unrelated to Texas’ attempted gallery heist of the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian.

synchronoptica

one year ago: enduring lessons of technology (with synchronopticæ) plus a thistle cousin

hapax legomenon (12. 579)

Via Waxy, we found this project from by Josh Sucher to create a cinematic lexicon of infrequent words from a data-set of prolix, dialogue-heavy films. Unsurprisingly, the top tier of one-in-a-billion words come from adaptations of Shakespeare with a close runner-up being the move version of The Pirates of Penzance and coming in at third overall was the TV new drama Network, the logophilia of the screen-writer Sidney “Paddy” Chayefsky (Marty, The Americanization of Emily, Paint Your Wagon, The Hospital and Altered States) inspiring the endeavour, which includes such terms as oraculate, chateaubriands and auspicatory. The project’s website gives definitions and the lines of dialogue from the film, cross-referencing other uncommon words used in the same production.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a storied gay bar in Seattle (with synchronopticæ), the Great White Way, an unavailable lecture by Grace Hopper plus assorted links to revisit

fourteen years ago: East Bloc architecture plus reading the comments below the fold

9x9 (12. 578)

i’ll get no residuals ‘cause i’m a stateless individual: Trump considers revoking the citizenship of long time show-business foil Rosie O’Donnell  

know thy selfie: from visibility and transformation to the routine, an examination of the custom that’s unlikely to loose currency  

room 237: Stanley Kubric’s last minute change to the ending of The Shining  

from the i sing the scooter electric department: China’s Omo X is a self-driving EV  

turtle spiders of the sea: Ze Frank on the horseshoe crab 

ebb and flow: an underwater turbine off the coast of Scotland demonstrates the viability of tidal energy  

hyborean age: a Red Sonja remake in discussion thirty years in after numerous other reboots  

a common-thread among world-eating types: a literally history of the billionaire—via Nag on the Lake  

off-ramp: unmoved by other atrocities, MAGAist may view Trump’s connection with the sex-pest as a somewhat dignified way to sever connections with the movement

think the tide is with us (12. 573)

In deference to the silver anniversary of the Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg and Peter Benchly collaboration—which agreedly holds up and worth a rewatch—Clive Thompson’s Linkfest (lots more great stuff there) directs us to a text-based adventure game inspired by the film authored by programmer and designer Matt Round, that follows the plot pretty faithfully scene by scene but from the point of view of the titular shark with some pretty compelling internal monologue (see also).

7x7 (12. 571)

edge of eternity: Poseidon’s Underworld’s cinematic vacation to the Grand Canyon 

the open-hearted many and the broken-hearted-few: the venerable and ongoing Leonard Cohen Files—via Metafilter  

litra: an ancient Byzantine scale complete with a set Greek letter-shaped counter-balances discovered in Türkei  

voulez-vous danser avec moi: the mambo scene of Brigitte Bardot and Dario Moreno from Michel Boisrond’s 1959 « Come Dance with Me? »  

flatland: the four dimensional world of Alicia Boole Stott—see also  

and if i haver: an endurance run of The Proclaimer’s I’m Gonna Be—via Web Curios 

it happened here: a contemporary table-read of Stephen King’s what-if premise of Apt Pupil considered during a staycation from Today in Tabs—via ibidem

7x7 (12. 565)

alligator auschwitz: Trump’s Florida detention centre is by every definition a concentration camp

solvitur ambulando: when in doubt, go for a walk—see previously  

mcmxxv—mmxxv: the century in one hundred films 

rif me daddy: US supreme court overrules injunction against executive branch illegal mass firings after passage of Trump’ domestic policy agenda  

geschirrspüler: a 1959 German dishwasher in action  

adam und eva: a group of Europeans’ failed attempt to found a utopia during the interbellum period on a remote Galápagos island—via Neatorama 

race and ethnicity: the case of George Shishim, invoking Jesus, illustrates the particularly American obsession with whiteness to the exclusion of others—see more

9x9 (12. 465)

the running man: US officials entertain the idea of a television game show that allows individuals to compete for citizenship—see previously  

chicken coop: Malia Márquez compares the craft of writing to tending poultry  

anamnesis: the diary of a lycanthrope  

party crasher: a slightly voyeuristic search engine for random wedding websites—via Web Curios  

milk and cheese: a tribute to comic book artist Evan Dorkin—via MetaFilter 

holistic wellness influencer: Trump’s pick for US surgeon general traffics in dangerous pseudoscience—see also  

werewolf of london: a look back on the first full-length creature feature on its ninetieth anniversary—via Miss Cellania 

the parable of the sower: Octavia Butler on writing and daily fidelity—via Kottke 

birth-right citizens brigade: challenge to XIV amendment law (previously) goes before US supreme court but arguments focus on activist judges and universal injunctions

10x10 (12. 449)

shooting the messager: the AP reporter fired and blacklisted for scooping the story of Nazi Germany’s surrender eight years ago—via Strange Company  

🚏: Shanghai metro lets riders design their own bus routes  

vision cantos: Denis Cooper on filmmaker Jud Yalkut—via { feuilleton }  

grave of the fireflies: Ze Frank (previously) on what’s happening with our bioluminescent friends  

the poyais scam: confidence tricker Gregor MacGregor’s con to lure investors in a fictional central American territory 

that’s why the apostrophe is single and not plural: the story of Anna Jarvis—the creator that later sued for the abolition of Mother’s Day 

flugsteighalle: a digital exhibition of Berlin’s monumental Tempelhof airport—previously—via das Kraftfuttermischwerk  

the madison avenue beat: a selection of vintage advertising jingles presented as a dance remix 

 corner of the city: street photographer Tong Ho Chung Howard’s most famous image captures the traditional tong lau (唐樓) architecture of Hong Kong, gradually being replaced by urban renewal programmes  

root causes: competing narratives for WWII Victory Day celebrations

7x7 (12. 438)

kanzlermehrheit: Bundestag selects Friedrich Merz chancellor after secure a majority in the second round of voting, averting a constitutional crisis  

rococo and its discontents: McMansion Hell on Trump’s gaudy transformation of the White House—via Kottke 

fuzzy maths: an unsure calculator that produces a range of histograms to assess one’s unknown factors—via Pasa Bon!—from home economics decisions to the Drake equation

reaction time: a car brake engaged by one’s eyebrows  

top billing: the movie poster and album cover art of Dick Ellescas that fuses Art Deco and Mod  

architektonisches gesamtkunstwerk: the Junkerhaus of Lemgo articulated over the decades whilst the jilted artist awaited his betrothed who would never return—via Messy Nessy Chic—more here 

habemus papam: first round of voting fails to produce consensus—plus live chimney cam

spaghetti thriller (12. 437)

The cinephiles of the Flop House with a special guest deliver a very thoroughgoing treatment of the Italian murder-mystery film genre called giallo (the title an alternate native term) popular from the 1960s through the late 1970s—which although declined subsequently with other exploitation movies leaves a lasting legacy and influences in subsequent movements like slasher and supernatural narratives. Derived from a series of crime pulp novels published by the Milano-based Mondadori house who distinguished book themes by their cover colours, in this case yellow—including in their catalogue translated titles from Agatha Christine, whose And Then There Were None (originally called Ten Little Indians or Dieci piccoli indiani) was widely read and considered the template for the genre, laying out the essential elements later adopted by filmmakers of a killer hidden amongst a cast whose identity and motive are not revealed until the end—translated to the screen with psychosexual horror, an atmosphere of suspense, camp, lurid Technicolour, bombastic scoring (see previously here and here) and gratuitous violence. Suspiria is sometimes included for its stylistic similarities but rejected by purist for its supernatural character, though director Dario Argento made other films, with typically baroque and non-revealing titles, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, that are considered classic gialli. Another interesting artefact was the prevalence of J&B scotch whisky in the films across the range of directors as a signifier of sophistication and manliness—Justerini and Brooks Ltd, founded in Bologna in 1749 and receiving a royal warrant to supply wine and spirits to the aristocratic households of London and later purveyors to hotels and restauranteurs. With shifting values, condemned as misogynistic, gialli fell out of favour but their later homage has occasioned a reevaluation of their consistent, if not indirect, message of the victims, almost exclusively women, not being listened to when airing their suspicions and fears.  Be sure to listen to the podcast for expert movie recommendations.

the nightly (12. 433)

Via Nag on the Lake and Web Curios, we are directed to an internet radio station fronting a music appreciation society celebrating a selection the vintage, obscure, vaguely gloomy and positively atmospheric songs and film scores, chiefly from the 1930 to the 1970s with some real jewels from Italian and Japanese cinema. Moody but not maudlin, there are over four thousand titles in circulation and growing that are instantly transporting and transfixing, evoking the hard-scrabbling and noir, taking one to those liminal spaces and liminal hours.

10x10 (12. 420)

america’s war: a special report from the Verge for the fiftieth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon   

leaflet: an Art Nouveau study of botanical forms and their application in decor—see previously  

mangajin: an appreciation of the month English-language publication for students of Japanese language and culture—full archives from the entire run from 1988 to 1997 here   

do: inspirational words from artist Sol LeWitt to fellow creative pioneer Eva Hesse 

chisanbop: the Korean technique of fingermath   

i have to push the pram a lot: Monty Python and the Holy Grail at fifty   

animal spirits: what felines, bovines, porcines, etc on the label say about wine quality   

you wouldn’t right-click a car: US anti-piracy campaign filled with hypocrisy, including a stolen font—see also   

bus error collective: a WSIWYG primer on oscilloscope music—via Waxy   

worst one-hundred days: assessments of Trump first months in office for his second term—more here and here

synchronptica

one year ago: Pennsylvania 6-5000 (with synchronoptica) plus naming world wars 

seven years ago: a corollary to the Bechdel test plus a visit to Stockheim

eight years ago: archaeology with trace DNA, Islamic gateways plus responding to nuclear extortion 

nine years ago: crowd control robots, language acquisition plus a hand-held DNA sequencer

ten years ago: visiting FDR’s Georgia retreat, ribald limericks, assorted links to revisit plus pontoon bridges to alleviate traffic congestion

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

will a fosse neck do it? (12. 366)

Via fellow internet peripatetic, Messy Nessy Chic, we really enjoyed this celebration of the choreography of Bob Fosse (previously) taken from the 1969 cinematic adaptation of his Sweet Charity—based off of Fellini’s Le notti di Cabiria featuring the narrative of a sex-worker in Rome and lightly sanitised as the story of a call-girl, dancer-for-hire in Times Square’s Fandango Ballroom, its sleaziness illustrated by “Hey, Big Spender,” portrayed by Shirley MacLaine. Invited home by a celebrity guest on the mends from an apparent breakup, the protagonist finds herself in his apartment for dinner, “If They Could See Me Now,” whilst pursuing an ill-fated romance with a claustrophobic elevator-operator.