In order to comply with an executive order purportedly with the goal of “defending women from gender ideology extremism” not only are public websites and resources off-line to scrub and shunt down an Orwellian memory-hole language pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity (CTRL-F), overhaul prompts that ask for preferred pronouns, cancel training or policies promoting such topics, and “ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls or females (or for men, boys or males) are designated by biological sex and not gender identity,” this erasure (under the harmful trope—perverted by conservatives just like their version of “critical race theory” that elides over America’s apartheid—that identity is a belief and choice, rather than a right, and propagandised) is also extending to archival material and large data sets maintained by the US census bureau on household composition and the Centres for Disease Control longitudinal studies to remove reference to that demographic, compromising their use in research and understanding public health. The same assault is occurring for programmes that address accessibility for handicapped workers and promote equity, diversity and inclusion. These are not white flags.
Friday, 31 January 2025
outward facing media (12. 197)
catagories: ⚖️, ๐ณ️⚧️, ๐ณ️๐, ๐️
Thursday, 23 January 2025
you can basically just be gay and you are fine in thailand (12. 174)
Joining Taiwan as the only other country in the southern Asia to recognise marriage equality for same-sex unions, hundreds of couples in Bangkok and elsewhere held wedding ceremonies as the legislation passed by the National Assembly in June 2024 came into effect, written into law by King Maha Vajiralongkorn following a long campaign and petition decades in the making by the country’s community for rights and respect. Though many obstacles and ostracism remain domestically and regional, this moment sanctified of the movement marks historic progress.
catagories: ⚖️, ๐น๐ญ, ๐, ๐ณ️๐
Monday, 2 September 2024
8x8 (11. 811)
two minutes of hate: Trump stokes more violence against the press at his rallies, hosted at former/current sundown towns
don’t ask, don’t tell: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews the 1969 film The Gay Deceivers about two straight men’s attempts to avoid conscription
crate digging: one individual’s project to rescue forgotten songs from oblivion by persuading labels to release them online—via tmn

big rigs: electric-powered excavators and other heavy machinery convincing more industries to de-carbonise—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
the treaty of aigun: Taiwanese president Lai says if China was concerned over territorially integrity, it should begin with Outer Manchuria ceded to the Russian Empire in 1858, including what’s now known as Vladivostok (ๆตทๅๅดด, Sea Cucumber Bay)
dumpster diving: the modern archeology of trash
choose your gear: the evolution of the action movie poster and how it reflects our view of masculinity
ultra vires: season two of Rachel Maddow’s series (previously) on the history of assault on democracy profiles senator Joseph McCarthy’s beginnings as a Nazi apologist—well before the Red Scare
Monday, 29 July 2024
ambrosia (11. 730)
The Olympic Committee issued an apology for a tableau during the Paris Olympic’s opening ceremonies that some claimed was deeply offensive to Christian communities and blasphemous—notably the shrillest outrage from US conservatives—for depicting The Last Supper with drag queens. Except it was not inspired by Da Vinci’s depiction of Jesus and his apostles, as the spectacle’s director explained—though few could hear it over the social media torrent—and the performance had to be regrettably recanted, but rather by Le Festin des Dieux, a seventeenth century work by painter Jan van Bijlert prominently displayed in the national gallery in Dijon. While the Dutch artist himself was referencing Leonardo’s earlier work and one sees what one wants to see, the mythology figures are patently recognisable, including Apollo, Pan, Mars, Minerva and Dionysus, the father of the Gallo-Roman goddess Sequana (and whose totem spirit, familiars are ducks), the deification of the Seine, sourced in Cรดte-d’Or is not far from Dijon.
catagories: ๐ซ๐ท, ๐จ, ๐ณ️๐, ๐คธ♀️, libraries and museums
Sunday, 14 July 2024
shelly’s leg (11. 690)
For Bastille Day 1970, Seattle’s gastronomical scene arranged a dinner party and parade to showcase their establishments, and a freak accident involving an antique cannon loaded with confetti, which during the route had dipped from its skyward trajectory and fired into the crowd resulted in the establishment of the city’s first disco—we learn via the New Shelton wet/dry an all inclusive space—yielding a triumph, fabulous but short-lived and returning to tragedy, from this mishap.
Among the spectators was one Shelly Bauman, whom at close range sustained life-threatening injuries from the festive munitions and the eponymous (in the tradition of taverns of olde) leg had to be amputated. Confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, Bauman sued the municipality and event-planners for a settlement of several hundred thousand dollars and eventually used this as seed money to purchase a former hotel and turn it into a rather fabulous club scene and outreach centre, no expense spared and unapologetically gay, running from 1973 to 1977. Read more at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Talking Heads’ second album (with synchronoptica), molecule of the month, social summaries plus misquoting Marie Antoinette
seven years ago: Trump in Paris, personality quizzes plus the composite photographs of Fong Qi Wei
eight years ago: but let us return to our sheep at hand
nine years ago: wiping out the buffalo, assorted links to revisit plus the Greek economic crisis
eleven years ago: making banking scary again plus a visit to Bad Homburg
catagories: ๐ณ️๐, ๐บ, ๐ฅ, 1970
Friday, 12 July 2024
blowed ‘em up reeeeeal goooood (11. 685)
As our faith chronicler reminds, one this night in 1979, the US baseball team the Chicago White Sox playing in their home stadium of Comiskey Park against the Detroit Tigers, held as a promotional event to attract flagging fans during a poor season Disco Demolition Night—previously. In exchange for bringing a record that they wanted to see destroyed, the audience was extended a discounted admission of ninety-eight cents—a reference to the frequency of some popular local radio stations seen as betraying their rock credentials and base by playing the now mainstreamed genre, the host team engaging local shock-jock and fervent anti-disco advocate Steve Dahl to capitalise on the polarising matter of taste in music, with disco’s normalisation to the point of saturation seen by some as degenerate and rooted in gay culture—for frigid women and effeminate men and minorities, whose activism had already stoked riots. With more individuals coming to see the spectacle rather than the game during a pause in play, DJ Dahl collected the albums in a crate and detonated it on the field. Due to damage to the outfield by the explosion and an ensuing onslaught of rowdy fans, the White Sox were made to forfeit the game for the damage to the Tigers. Though already on the decline, disco’s growing unpopularity coincided with this biblioclasm, with artists and labels rebranding it as dance music and many stations returning to a rock format.
catagories: ⚾️, ๐ณ️๐, ๐ , ๐บ, 1979
Tuesday, 9 July 2024
in the year twenty-twenty-five (11. 676)
By inference, example and declaration, the American people and the world has been warned repeatedly, relentlessly of what a second Trump term would entail, a conservative agenda of policy proposals that failed to coalesce on the first attempt radically transforming the republic into a regressive evangelical hypocracybased on the rule of tribal grievance and restoring the patriarchy. With the express aim of purging what’s characterised as “woke propaganda” in regulation and curriculum under a Trump regime, emboldened and enabled, the administration not only is plotting to gut the administrative state under a unitary executive with autocratic powers, eliminate environmental regulation (framing global warming as a hoax), consumer safety, civil liberties and protections (framing affirmative action and equality as “reverse racism”), mass deportations, stripping of citizenship, abortion access, pornography as well as no-fault divorce—essentially rolling back the hard-fought progress of the past seventy years and this all, with the extensive blueprint pre-positioned, might happen on day one.
Saturday, 15 June 2024
8x8 (11. 632)
anabolics: the mainstreaming of casual steroid use

rank and file: a woodland-themed chessboard that rolls up into a log
the imitation game: researchers claim that GPT-4 has passed the Turing Test—see previously
london underground: spelunking through the strata of the ancient city
non-playable character: determinism versus emergence and the question of free will
ticino: a cache of five-thousand photographs spanning from 1900 to 1930 taken by a poor seed-peddler captures life in a remote, Italian-speaking Swiss canton
food that makes you gay: stereotypes and gender in what we eat—via Web Curios
Thursday, 13 June 2024
7x7 (11. 626)
senza vergogna: some notes for Martha-Ann Alito on her anti-Pride flag (see previously)

prospecting: Norwegian mining firms discovers Europe’s largest cache of rare-earth metals
adaptive force controlled shaving demonstration: a robot barber in Shanghai
daily bread: an overview of the staple foodstuff’s contribution to civilisation
hydrant directory: colour palettes of New York’s suppression points—via Pasa Bon!
gruppo dei sette: following EU elections, the G7 forum begins in Puglia
one year ago: a top album by Alanis Morissette plus an early world-traveller
two years ago: a chronic case of the hiccups, a hit by Paul McCartney plus international crisps flavours
three years ago: the G7, Shangri La the musical, St Anthony plus two very prolific travelogues
four years ago: illustrator Wilbur Husley, assorted links to revisit, the Pentagon Papers (1971) plus a banger from Mungo Jerry
five years ago: the elusive American Middle-Class plus x before x-rays
Thursday, 21 March 2024
eo 9835 (11. 439)
Also knowns as the “Loyalty Order” and instituted to combat supposed communist infiltration in the echelons of the federal government, the executive order was issued by US president Harry S Truman on this day, primarily in response to criticism that the Democrat administration had been too lax about suppressing Soviet influence, fuelled by ongoing investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Although Truman hoped that this move might placate his dissenters, it quickly snowballed, leading to the creation of the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organisations and a sweeping FBI inquiry of all three million federal employees—three hundred were ultimately dismissed as security liabilities—warranting further research if the subject was disposed to disloyalty in the form of sabotage, espionage, treason, sedition or advocacy thereof. The order was ultimately revoked in stages by Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and repealed entirely under Bill Clinton in 1988, eliminating fealty in favour of allegiance, which had become entrenched as discriminatory hiring policies that barred gay individuals from foreign service positions and that required that gay charitable and educational organisations applying for a tax exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service publicly disclaim that homosexuality was a “sickness, disturbance or a diseased pathology.”
catagories: ⚖️, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ณ️๐, ๐ฅธ
Saturday, 3 February 2024
9x9 (11. 319)
thinking of you. i mean me. i mean you: a new exhibition on the artist Barbara Kruger advances her legacy up to the present—see previously
hi neighbour: Johnny Costa introduced jazz to Mister Rogers along with his audience

baud per second: Eclectic Method’s dial-up modem song
unexcused absences: obstructionist state senators cannot run for re-election in Oregon after constitutional amendment—via Super Punch
unwatering: researchers find the solution the Richard Feynman’s hypothetical reserve sprinkler
amateuraufnahmen: colour footage of Berlin, Leipzig and Bad Schandau from the 1960s
please don’t try to print it: unlocking the page dimensions in Adobe to create a PDF larger than the entire Universe—via Kottke
friend or foe: Clownfish count stripes to keep out adult interlopers from their territory—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links—see also strange sex lives of the species
Wednesday, 31 January 2024
nichts der homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die situation, in der er lebt (11. 308)
Having premiered at the at the Berlin International Film Festival the prior year, Rosa von Praunheim’s It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse But Rather the Society in Which He Lives was broadcast for the first time on the television network Westdeutschen Runk on this day in 1972, the exposure to a wider audience considered emancipatory and resounding globally helped informed the Lesbian and gay rights movements in Germany and the rest of Europe and encouraged individuals, particularly following the liberalisation of Section 175 in 1969 of the German Criminal Code (see previously), to come out of hiding and be seen in a society becoming more tolerant and accepting. Despite criticisms that the film itself was not very good or revelatory (since reappraised for its historical and socio-political influence)—the narrative of a country boy meeting a city boy that in the capital is honest but perhaps not the most ingratiating with promiscuity thwarting attempts to copy the heteronormative lifestyle, though ultimately leading to community activism—it has had an enduring and impactful legacy. Watch the entire film with English subtitles here.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the first McDonald’s in Moscow (1990) plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: more on the International Geophysical Year, St Geminianus plus more links to enjoy
three years ago: advocating a base-eight system, the Winter Soldier Investigations (1971) plus the first chimpanzee in space (1961)
four years ago: ancient aliens and the Gorn Hegemony, the UK leaves the EU, hidden thread plus Primal Scream (2000)
five years ago: a monument to Scrabble plus division bells
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
latrinalia (11. 272)
Via the peripatetic online explorations of Messy Nessy Chic, we are referred to the doodle books, Klotterbรถckers—a five volume collection, of Stockholmer Bengt Claudelin, professionally an assistant to a wealthy art-collecting countess (whom eventually bequeathed her collection along with Claudelin’s research to the state though first censored then forgotten in the archives), of the graffiti in public conveniences, documented in his free time. There’s the usual toilet humour and bragging (see also for another ethnographic study) but an overwhelming preponderance of propositioning and profusion of male prostitution. Although the entries (often illustrated which Claudelin faithfully copied) are anonymous—one group in particular stood out: soldiers, for whom it was not uncommon almost a century earlier to offer sexual favours for sale, particularly given the low wages and dearth of obligations during the duty week, to have some extra spending money for the weekend and a proper date. Claudelin’s patron, Wilhelmina Hallwyl, donated her home and collection on the condition that it would remain unchanged and always kept together in 1922, offering like her secretary’s hobby, a unique insight into the lifestyle of the Swedish nobility of the era.
catagories: ๐ธ๐ช, ๐ณ️๐, ๐, libraries and museums
Saturday, 6 January 2024
you can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, you can do whatever you feel (11. 247)
Topping out at number two on Billboard around the same time, the Village People’s only single from their 1978 studio album Cruisin’ reached number one on the UK charts on this day in 1979. Rhythmically complex and with lyrics full of double-entendre, the singer-songwriter Victor Willis has affirmed that the song is to be understood on many levels and not just a celebratory anthem but also praising the diversity that the organisation fostered, the boarding house function originally founded in the 1880s to provide affordable rooms for people from rural areas coming into the cities to look for work had by the time the song was composed had seen a demographic shift to the unhomed urban population and displaced youth cohabitating with the older, more typical tenants, with a not insignificant proportion who were gay. Initially, the YMCA was going to sue the band for besmirching their name but later settled and came to embrace the enduring number for singing the praises of the institution. Inscribed by the US Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry as culturally important and “proof that disco never truly died,” the number and routine is a popular cheer for sporting events and over the eventual objection of The Village People, featured in Donald Trump’s campaign rallies—see also. Once defeated, YMCA was adopted by supporters of his challenger Joe Biden and was blasted on loudspeakers as Trump boarded Air Force One for the last time to leave Washington ahead of the inauguration of his successor.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus FDR’s Four Freedoms (1941)
two years ago: a figure skater assaulted (1994), Soylent Green (1973) plus the Night of the Big Wind (1839)
three years ago: your daily demon: Amy, photographer Ute Mahler, more links to enjoy, the South Sea Bubble, an airline safety campaign, the Bad Drawing Club plus the US Capitol stormed
four years ago: US threatens Iran, First Nations’ custom emoji plus artists’ final works
five years ago: more links to visit
catagories: ๐ถ, ๐ณ️๐, ๐บ, 1978, 1979
Friday, 22 December 2023
one summer never begins, one summer never begins (11. 206)
Featuring the acting talents of Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Katherine Hepburn, the cinematic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play of the same name (screenplay by Gore Vidal), the last in a trilogy to get the treatment for the silver screen of works dealing with homosexuality, following A Streetcar Named Desire and A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, premiered on this day in 1965, as our faithful chronicler informs. Under the direction of Joseph L Mankiewicz, special dispensation was granted by the National Legion of Decency and the Motion Picture Production Code administration to depict—decidedly off-screen—the perversion of one of the main characters since it dealt with the lifestyle choice as a tragic flaw and leading to his own downfall. Reviewed by some as one of the more bizarre films to come out of Hollywood, the narrative centres around a prospective lobotomy (to hide the embarrassing truth) for the niece of a wealthy young woman after witnessing the violent and inconvenient death of her cousin whilst vacationing in Spain the previous holiday season. Her cousin uses her as bait to attract young men in desperate situations as his own conquests to much success. When planning to depart, however, the fleeing visitors are pursued by a gang of past lovers until finally her cousin is cornered only to be ripped apart and consumed. Despite somewhat similar themes of loss and transformation and coincidentally released during the same month as Williams’ death in 1983, the Motels—having never seen the movie nor the play—chose the title for its alliterative quality.
catagories: ๐ช๐ธ, ๐ฌ, ๐ณ️๐
Monday, 18 December 2023
looking for his love and mercy should not be subject to an exhaustive moral analysis as a precondition to receiving it (11. 192)

one year ago: a Paul Rand Christmas
two years ago: Assassins (1990), St Winibald plus pingxiety illustrated
three years ago: St Sebastian, The Nutcracker (1892) plus a special Nativity Scene for the Vatican
four years ago: the moons of Saturn plus the self-injuring Anglo-Saxons
five years ago: postage art, a clock that requires maths plus a miniaturising ray
catagories: ๐ป๐ฆ, ๐ณ️๐, ๐️
Sunday, 26 November 2023
7x7 (11. 143)
sonic deconstructions: 1950s radio broadcaster’s album of Foley art, “Strange to Your Ears”

year 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, 10 November 2023
welcome to the pleasuredome (11. 109)
Released at the end of October and assured a chart entry due to advanced sales of over a million records, the debut studio album of Liverpudlian synth-pop group Frankie Goes to Hollywood climbed to the top spot in the domestic market on this day in 1984, coinciding with their first US television appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing the tracks “Two Tribes” and “Born to Run.” Though incredibly commercially successful, the record drew some criticism for being heavy with remixes and cover versions (“Relax”) of their repertoire that had already received a lot of airplay, songs like the below ballad have given the album enduring, iconic status.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ถ, ๐ณ️๐, 1984
Friday, 27 October 2023
9x9 (11. 078)
page rank: the SEO trend of naming establishments X Near Me seems to actually drive customers—via Waxy
cyanea pohaku: a species of tree discovered right before it was driven to extinction
saint eom: the psychedelic compound of folk artist and fortune-teller Eddie Owens Martin outside of Buena Vista in the US state of Georgia and listed on the National Register of Historic Places

saob: the official Swedish dictionary published after one hundred forty years of work
the united states of guns: another sadly evergreen post about how an armed society is not a free society
happiness hotel: a luxury kennel once occupied the grounds of New York City’s Lincoln Center
report
of my death having been most industriously circulated by several of the
london daily newspapers, would the times permit me to contradict the
same through your valuable columns and refute the account: sculptor John Ternouth, designer of the plinth for Nelson’s Column, was surprised to learn of his premature demise—via Strange Company
i am altering the deal—pray i don’t alter it any further: Amazon’s Alexa is ending inoperability support with severe punishment for those who try to hack their way around it
Sunday, 1 October 2023
claire rayner’s casebook (11. 033)
Accomplished nurse and prolific author, the broadcaster is probably best known for her public advocacy and outreach in the form of her advise column, frank and often controversial in dealing with taboo subjects in a non-judgmental fashion that encouraged dialogue. Graciously sharing a rare Betamax find after sifting through hours of old video tape, Curious British Telly introduces Rayner through an episode originally airing during the first week of October of 1983 on the subject of homosexuality, featuring her own son—which although dated and a product of its time, is still insightful and relevant. More Ben Ricketts at the link above.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ณ️๐, ๐บ, 1983