8x8 (10. 350)

gadgetbahn: displacing solid public transportation networks with amusement park rides won't address underlying traffic problems 

senior superlatives: the most interesting fonts and typefaces of the year  

👍: the ten best films of 2022  

seneca falls: the altruistic act that is said to have inspired It’s A Wonderful Life and other festive adventures in audio with Josie Long  

fæðingarsaga: listen again to an eleven-year-old Björk Guðmundsdóttir recite the Nativity Story in Icelandic  

as it was: some the most popular songs of the year  

shot sage blue marilyn: the most expensive works of art trading hands this year  

chief twit: abiding by results of a poll, Elon Musk announced he will step down as CEO of the social media platform as soon as a replacement can be identified

поручик киже (10. 349)

Premiering on this day in Paris as the composer’s first commission for a film soundtrack, the suite to accompany the eponymous Lieutenant Kijé (a Soviet comedy released in the US as The Czar Wants to Sleep about a non-existent officer under the eighteenth century Emperor Paul I, unpredictable and unpopular, the historical figure assassinated by his own elite guard) by Sergei Prokofiev quickly became his most popular work and became a standard of international concert repertoire. Elements and recognisable leitmotivs of the experimental five-movement have been incorporated into many film scores and popular songs of the Cold War era—particularly “Troika” as among the archetypal Christmassy songs.

and if you want to be free, be free (10. 347)

Premiering on this day in 1971, as our faithful chronicler informs, the romantic black comedy by Hal Ashby and Colin Higgins relates the narrative of Harold Chasen, an adolescent obsessed with the macabre, staging elaborate fake suicides, driving a hearse and attending the funerals of random strangers to the dismay of his wealthy, socialite mother, who goes to great lengths to try to make him more respectable, and Dame Marjorie Chardin, a seventy-nine year old he meets at a funeral mass, who counters his morbid demeanor and teaches him joie de vivre for the first time as their relationship develops into a more intimate one. The film’s soundtrack is provided by Yusuf Stevens. Producer and writer Higgins had expressed an interest later the decade after his work attained cult status after its initial mixed reviews in both a prequel, Grover and Maude wherein Maude learns how to break into cars and fence stolen property and a sequel, Harold’s Story about his life after meeting Maude though neither were pursued though was adapted into a Broadway stage play, a French made-for-tv-movie and a musical version.

01-811-8055 (10. 341)

Airing on BBC1 from for five seasons from 1982 to 1987—with a format matching its predecessor hosted by presenter Noel Edmonds, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, the children’s call-in programme featuring talent shows (more clips here) had many memorable moments, including the appearance of Margaret Thatcher taking questions ahead of a re-election campaign and being berated by a small girl who demanded to know the prime minister’s whereabouts in the event of a nuclear war and numerous musical guests, like Wham!, The Pet Shop Boys and Kate Bush or as on this Saturday morning in 1983, when Culture Club, Duran Duran and The Police all performed and were jury members judging the entrants’ talents. The episode is split into several clips but should play sequentially.

verse chorus verse (10. 388)

Released as a live double-album the following November after the death of singer Kurt Cobain, Nirvana’s Unplugged session—not wholly acoustic and unlike previous performances featured cover songs and lesser-known material and accomplished in a single take—MTV first aired the studio concert on this day in 1993. Acclaimed as transcend and retrospectively as a requiem, the album was certified multiplatinum and consistently ranks among the greatest records of all time.

tell me baby, do you recognise me—well, it’s been a year, it doesn’t surprise me (10. 387)

Released on this day in 1984 as a Double A-side record under the label Epic in the UK and described as a the apogee and apex of synthpop songcraft, the modern carol written and produced by George Michael for his duo Wham! would go on to be one of the most popular and widely-played Christmas songs, until displaced by “Fairy Tale of New York” in 2015. Composed during the holidays the year before when he and fellow performer Andrew Ridgeley (with that magical chord) while staying with Michael’s parents in Hertfordshire, it was held back from reaching number one on the singles charts by Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (for which Michael also performed) for a couple of weeks, the group donated all royalties in a related cause to Ethiopian famine relief.

7x7 (10. 386)

de-evolution: Dangerous Minds interviews Devo’s Gerald V Casale  

santa baby: Cher’s 1975 Christmas Show—see previously  

risky ebay alternative: a round-up of poorly considered gift ideas from Tedium 

👁️‍🗨️: an infinitely recursive Game of Life—see previously—via Waxy  

going to be out of pocket today: a Gen-Z lingo quiz—via Language Hat⊙  

december will be magic again: a 1979 BBC Kate Bush Christmas Special with guest star Peter Gabriel  

crack that whip: the group’s signature song was inspired by Thomas Pychon’s Gravity’s Rainbow

eh-oh! (10. 382)

Reaching number one on the UK singles chart somewhat inexplicably on this day twenty-five years ago for a two-week run and remaining in the top seventy-five for some thirty two weeks, the hit is a remix of the children’s series theme song with a few nursery rhyme bridges thrown in. We won’t make you watch the video.  Beating out the Spice Girls in the holiday race to be the Christmas number one, a prized annual distinction in the run up to the season. Following the success a Dutch version came out the following month, “Teletubbies zeggen ‘A-Oh!,’” reaching number twelve.

we are programmed to receive (10. 371)

Released by the label Asylum on this day in 1976, the Eagles’ fifth studio album would go on over the years to become one of the highest ranked records of all time, certified twenty-six times Platinum in the US alone and selling over thirty-two million copies worldwide and within the year alone winning several Grammy awards and bested only by Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the title track as well as “New Kid in Town” and “Life in the Fast Lane” receiving many accolades. The concept album features a throughline of songs, lyrics chiefly written by Don Henley with contributions from Glenn Frey, that explore ideals realised and thwarted and the loss of that sense of naiveté that things balance out in the end. Despite remarkable commercial success, the band’s best selling album remains Their Greatest Hits (1971 – 1975).

8x8 (10. 362)

under attended: when only two individuals show up to a new author’s reading, much of the establishment commiserates and share words of encouragement—via Super Punch 

giving face: Poseidon’s Underworld takes a moment to reflect after a month’s sabbatical  

postcards of dead birds: more on strange Victorian Christmas greetings—see previous here and here  

monochrome: an AI tool to colourise black-and-white images—see previously 

government attic: Things Magazine reminds of us this great aggregator of FOIA logs—see previously 

the christmassy chord: a deconstruction of iconic holiday standards 

the tartarian empire: an introduction to a bizarre architectural conspiracy theory—via ibīdem  

rsvp: journalist was one of six attendees who showed up for an expensive Metaverse party hosted by the European Union

jeremy’s hammer? (10. 355)

Britney Spears, the Princess of Pop, is the only perfect anagram of Presbyterians, a mainline American Protestant denomination. Although Ms Spears never to my knowledge took the occasion to employ this anagrammatisation as a pseudonym like Jim Morrison did in the Doors song “LA Woman” as Mr Mojo Risin, born this day—coincidentally—in Mississippi in 1981, she was born into a milieu of socially conservative evangelicalism and quickly retreated from those influences.

8x8 (10. 347)

da ba dee: a bardcore version of Eiffel 65’s ‘Blue’  

palace intrigue: a cracked encoded missive sent by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to his French ambassador—via Language Log  

correctional facility: unearthed cache of photographs of San Quentin prison taken by inmates—via tmn  

circumnavigation: a recreation to explore Ferdinand Magellan’s trip around the world—via Pasa Bon!  

antidisestablishmentarianism: the UK is demographically no longer a majority Christian country 

still-life: a study of meta-trolling—see also  

eadburg: eight century individual scribbles in a medieval manuscript  

boards of canada: psychedelic ‘Aquarius’ remixed with Deforum Stable Diffusion

up, up to the sky (10. 345)

Sharing the anniversary with many other sundry events of pith and circumstance, our faithful chronicler reports that on this day in 1975, the single from Silver Convention hit number one on on the Billboard Hot 100, holding the spot for three weeks before being unseated by CW McCall’s Convoy. Despite the paucity of lyrics (six words, which is an accomplishment in itself) owing to the fact that the German disco group didn’t speak so much English, it’s acknowledged to be the first avian themed song to reach the top of the charts, only followed by Prince’s When Dove Cry in 1984.

7x7 (10. 344)

canopic jars: a mummy called Pachery is the only individual found so far with his internal organs intact—via Messy Nessy Chic    

hardbottom communities: researchers work to preserve Florida’s coral reef    

nightfall: researchers discover two new minerals sourced from a meteorite strike in Somalia    

thirteenth studio album: imaging a fantasy concept record after 1970’s Let It Be for the Beatles    

kraft dinner: a Florida woman is suing Macaroni & Cheese over misleading preparation time    

crown of thorns: some Australian politicians take issue with the ‘endangered’ status for the Great Barrier Reef—see previously    

khufu: an interactive virtual tour of the Pyramids of Giza—via Maps Mania

thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me (10. 328)

Beginning on this day in 1975 and lasting for nine weeks, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, the six-minute, multi-part musical suite referred by author Freddie Mercury as a “mock opera” released as a lead single (B-side, “I’m in Love with My Car”) from their studio album A Night at the Opera hit the top of UK’s charts. For the promotional video—credited with spurring on the complementary medium—and for the band’s UK tour, Mercury played on a Bechstein concert grand piano, which was—according to lore—the same one that Paul McCartney used for recording “Hey Jude” and David Bowie’s “Hunky Dory.”

everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey (10. 326)

The plain white sleeve in contrast to the band’s previous record with its layered artwork, the eponymous double album with its wide and fragmented range of genres, The Beatles, was released on this day in 1968. Composed chiefly during a transcendental mediation retreat in India, many of the tracks were drafted with an acoustic guitar—the only Western-style instrument available to the group then—and retained this origin in the final recording. Typical of those session, “Dear Prudence” was written about Prudence Anne Villiers Farrow Bruns (Mia’s sister) whom was committed to the TM practise and rarely left her room.

strawberry alarm clock (10. 322)

Reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1967 and holding the top spot for a week, the song by the psychedelic rock group Thee Sixpence was not their favourite, mostly due to the lyrics (which came out of a rhyming dictionary), and originally released on the B-side when the single came out in May of the same year with “The Birdman of Alkatrash,” a reference to the notorious criminal who studied ornithology in prison but was not allowed to keep birds once relocated to Alcatraz who had recently died in jail. Earning far more radio play, however, and raising the band’s profile, the Los Angeles-based act was convinced to switch the order on re-release and change their name to the titular name to distinguish themselves from another local act with a similar billing.

kit kat klub (10. 320)

Wildly successful, with the award-winning musical reprised for subsequent productions in London (Dame Judi Dench playing the original Sally Bowles in the West End version and Jane Horrocks, “Bubble” from Absolutely Fabulous in the 1993 revival) and New York and a 1972 cinematic adaptation, Cabaret, with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb with book by Joe Masteroff and based on Christopher Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical accounting of the end of the Weimar Republic and the Jazz Age in the early 1930s, Goodbye to Berlin, had its Broadway premiere on this day in 1966 at the Broadhurst Theatre. Chiefly narrated by the club’s Master of Ceremonies, whose numbers depict the privation, chaos and upheaval of the interbellum times and the impending catastrophes to come with the Nazis gaining political power.

7x7 (10. 314)

umwelt: a short video to compliment Ed Yong’s exploration of animal cognition—previously 

what9whos: a proprietary geocode system based on the names of the actors who’ve portrayed the Doctor from Gallifrey 

lexical lists: the index, the listicle are the oldest forms of narrative  

commit to being extremely hardcore: the Twitter exodus continues  

speaker of the house: after two decades of party leadership in the lower chamber, Nancy Pelosi is stepping down 

chart-topper: a collector has amassed every single number one single in the UK—see previously  

mockingbird: you’ve likely been fooled by an avian friend––see also

cinebox (10. 303)

I was wracking my brain and hitting an internal googlewhack over the audio-visual jukebox short films (finally found what I vaguely recalled blogging about before—an overview of the technology and content that spanned the history from the pre-WWII Soundies and Panorams to their revival in the late 1950s by a French company) that less mainstream performers used to promote their latest singles and see that it also inspired a search by friend of the blog par excellence Nag on the Lake, who preening through a lot of unfortunate link-rot, discovered and shares a great repository of scopitones. Check out the links above for more of these precursors to music videos and streaming whose particular style (Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walking” is a less obscure epitome) prompted essayist Susan Sontag to nominate them for inclusion as part of the “canon of Camp.” Let us know your favourites.