draft pick (13.155)

Courtesy of Strange Company, we learn that sometime in the early months of 1926, the exhibition basketball team that uses athleticism and comedy to break down racial barriers that exist in the professional sport was formed as the Savoy Big Five to promote flagging attendance at he storied jazz venue of the ballroom in Chicago’s South Side, rebranded independently as the Harlem Globetrotters (see previously) within a couple years and touring the US Midwest and Eastern seaboard, the international tournaments would not start until decades later but the name helped build their cosmopolitan mythos. Signalling a significant thaw in American-Soviet relations, they played a game in Moscow in 1959 with Khrushchev and fourteen thousand spectators in attendance (see also), with numerous media appearances, cross-over episodes, and their own Saturday morning cartoon (a later animated series gave them superpowers) and an soundtrack album produced by frontman Meadowlark Lemon, honorary membership has been extended to Henry Kissinger, Bob Hope, Nelson Mandela, Whoopi Goldberg, Popes John Paul II and Francis and Jesse Jackson, whom at first was highly critical of their style of showmanship but then in reevaluation decided that the franchise were overall ambassadors of goodwill and positive role models.

safelight (11. 875)

As part of an interesting ensemble of back to back posts from Kottke bookended with the explanation why older photographs or indoor sporting events have a nice hazy blue filter that one does not see on contemporary images (the ambiance is caused by cigarette smoke) and a nice primer on point-and-shoot technology that ushered in the age of the amateur shutterbug (amateur comes from the Latin to love originally and not a non-professional), we learn that at the turn of the last century, that the hotel amenity most in demand was a darkroom for guests (so called “Kodak fiends”) for developing their holiday snapshots. Starting as far back as the 1850s, innkeepers would accommodate itinerate photographers by allowing them space to rig up their own studios and labs, covering up windows, to supplement portable but possibly less reliable set-ups. By 1902, there was even an effort among hoteliers to come to a consensus on an international symbol that a darkroom was on the premises, like for fitness facilities, a pool and later television and wifi. By the mid-twentieth century, most hotels no longer offered such services and traveling photojournalists were issued kits that touted around in a suitcase that expanded into a sheltered workspace for developing film. Much more from Daniel J Schneider at the link above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

eight years ago: kinetic art, an Art Nouveau hotel in Brussels plus neighbourly civil engineering hacks

nine years ago: a visit to Bonn and environs, thanksgiving for a good harvest plus Queen Zenobia

eleven years ago: US government shutdown

twelve years ago: the Bavarian separatist movement 

i said young man, pick yourself off the ground

Founded on this day in 1844 by businessman (in cloth wholesale), philanthropist and great-great-grandfather of current (at the time of publishing) Prime Minister Boris Johnson Sir George Williams, in response to the appalling working conditions in London, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA, CVJM, Christlicher Verein Junger Männer jetzt Menschen auf Deutsch, now a pseudo-acronym or orphan-initialism with the letters standing for nothing) was based on the beliefs of Congregationalism including the Muscular Christianity movement that promoted the notion that the body is a temple and that the physical beauty of athleticism and self-discipline were a compliment to godly behaviour and deportment. Drawn to the cities by the Industrial Revolution, there was a considerable dearth of activities for the new recruits to occupy themselves with—other than taverns and brothels—and Williams, with the support of a consortium of fellow drapers, wanted to offer his workforce better accommodations and more wholesome activities and encourage better citizenship. Basketball, volleyball, racquetball and water polo are among the sports invented and formalised at YMCA facilities. Though still considered a para-ecclesiastical organisation espousing Protestant values, its mission and outreach has expanded and become more inclusive. You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, you can do whatever you feel.

6x6

berggeschrei: Saxon princes collected, modelled miniature mountains and enjoyed miner cos-play 

#oddlysatisfying: the hypnotic and self-soothing qualities of visual ASMR  

it’s not a cult thing: an interview with the real estate agent selling this ‘sexy funeral Goth house’ in Baltimore—via Super Punch  

erard square action: a tool that measures a piano key’s up- and down-weight  

slamilton: a basketball musical of Space Jam meshed with Hamilton—see previously—that works better than it should, via Waxy  

den hügel hinauf: Amanda Gorman’s inspirational US presidential inaugural poem (see also) will be published in German

6x6

nestbox: Czech firm designs a modular trunk extension to turn any car into a camper

kintsugi court: a rundown basketball blacktop restored with the ancient Japanese art that cherishes the cracked

your 2020 bingo card: researchers discover a population of sharks thriving in an undersea volcano

earth science: a treasury of minerals mapped out—via Maps Mania

green tea ice cream: Linda Diaz’ soulful rendition wins the NPR Tiny Desk competition

cosmic architechtonics: multipart exploration of Eastern Bloc monolithic housing estates

march madness

As the World Health Organisation (WHO) declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic, meaning there is little to no pre-existing immunity in the human population to this novel contagion, Trump—noted soi-disant germaphobe whom was ignorant of the fact that his own grandfather was a victim of the 1918 Influenza or that the flu could be fatal in general, declares a thirty day travel ban on foreign nationals coming to the US from twenty six European countries—the Schengen Area excluding the UK and Ireland and US citizens being repatriated, with the intimation that free movement exported the disease and that passports are personal protective gear—more and more public events are cancelled, including US National Basketball Association (NBA) games and political rallies ahead of the US presidential election. Given that there are already over a thousand confirmed cases in the United States and that military movements of America’s global army have demonstrated their efficacy as a reservoirs and spreaders, Trump’s efforts at quelling the outbreak is too little, too late and is pandering to base fears and insecurity as a means to assuage them rather than fight the infection and instead contributes to its comorbidities.

6x6

don’t seem to rouse themselves for anything besides the birth and death days of idolised rock stars: a Stasi guide of negative-decadent youth subcultures in East Germany

backboard: neglected community basket ball courts revived and rehabilitated as canvases for monumental paintings

sandbox: the development of electronic music owes a debt to songs aimed at a very young demographic

what pedantry is this: more questions and answers from the Chicago Manual of Style—via Coudal Partners

i’ll be waiting for you on the dark side of the moon: Earthrise from above the lunar far-side from the Longjiang-2 orbiter

tilt-shift: an immersive tour of the North Korean capital