The regulatory body in Iceland, Kynhlutlausa—the national naming authority (see also), in addition to approving the names Ingalรณ, Sannรฝ, Gulla, Rรณma, Bertmarรญ, Estรญva, Gulla, Lucas, Theo and Sรธren has also enacted previously passed legislation that restricts names to specific genders and allows neutral assignment and can give themselves whatever name they choose. Some resistance circulated due to grammar and standard Icelandic orthography but such differences can be set aside.
Thursday 4 March 2021
matronym or organised kaos
Saturday 13 February 2021
7x7
the lady and the dale: a con-artist and the “car of the future”
the lovers, the dreamers and me: after a five-year hiatus Snarkmarket makes a return to analyse and discuss two songs from The Muppet Movie—via Kottke and RSS reader
i don’t want to be carrot man but i am carrot man: a delightful vintage guide on making costumes
act-out: one hundred eighty-five German stage, television and film stars stage mass coming-out in support for greater representation and gender diversity in roles, via Super Punch
like a small boat on the ocean sending big waves into motion: Trump’s legal defence wraps up a bizarre, specious rebuttal
the witch of kings cross: a dramatization of the persecution that a sorceress and healer faced in 1950s Australia—via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump
Tuesday 29 December 2020
mmxx
As a long-standing tradition here at PfRC, here is our annual recap of this most extraordinairy year. We‘ve come all this way together and here‘s to us ploughing on. Thanks for visiting and be good to yourselves and one another.
Friday 11 December 2020
7x7
repetition: an exploration of built-environments as an audio-visual landscape of infinite regression
a pigment of our imagination: the illusory nature of colour
nationally determined contributions: European Union agrees to more than halve its carbon emissions by 2030—via Slashdot
awesome sauce: a safari-pak of canned-meats from 1967
road gritters: track Scotland’s fleet of snow-plows in real time by name
training a generation of future karens: this scholastic kids books series are clearly coding adults as happy and confident with their life choices as monsters and misfits—via Super Punch
a universe of imagination: revisiting a classic and inspiring documentary (previously) on cosmology on its sixtieth anniversary
Tuesday 1 December 2020
die wรถrters des jahres
Collegially, the Gesellschaft fรผr deutsche Sprache (GfdS, see previously) has selected a range of words for 2020. In first place is Corona-Pandemie and second is Lockdown, fourth is Black Lives Matter and seventh is Triage. The remaining six selectees, however, need a bit of unpacking and interpreting, we think.
AHA—the three rules of keeping one’s distance (Abstand), practising good hygiene and wearing masks daily (Alltagsmaske)
systemrelevant emphasises the importance of a regulated approach and clear and consistent messaging
Geisterspiele are ghost games referring to the tournaments happening in empty stadiums
Gendersternchen is acknowledging the new practise of using an asterisks to refer to male and female occupations, affiliations or offices instead of the generic masculine or to assign a job a sexual identity, Kรผnstler/Kunstlerin (artist) to Kรผnstler*in, with the ensuing debate about article and case agreement
And rounding out the list is wish for continued good health in Bleiben Sie gesund!
Sunday 15 November 2020
sara josephine baker
Born this day in 1873, the Poughkeepsie, New York native and pioneering physician—while perhaps not a household name—contributed to literacy in hygiene, preventative medicine and the concept of public health with enduring impact matched only by Florence Nightingale. 
Baker, Doctor Joe as she was universally called, solely and significantly reduced infant mortality through aggressive educational campaigns and cheap and effective early interventions—remarking, not without controversy at the time that “Healthy people don’t die” and dedicated her practise to preventing people from falling ill. Not to overshadow the countless anonymous lives she saved and sent off with better future prospects, Baker also tracked down and remanded to isolation Mary Mallon—twice, and helped her colleagues accept that there could be such a condition as an asymptomatic carrier. Also petitioning fervently for the franchise, Baker was a feminist who spent a quarter of a century with her partner, Australian author Ida (“I.A.R”) Wylie, whom had more than thirty of her novels and stories adapted cinematically from the 1920s through the early 1950s (Keeper of the Flame, Four Sons, The Red Mirage). On retirement, the couple bought a ranch in New Jersey with their friend pathologist Louise Pearce, who developed a therapy to render sleeping sickness less fatal, saving millions in central and southern Africa. Read more at the WOW Report at the link up top.
Thursday 15 October 2020
the age of consent
Saturday 19 September 2020
rip rbg
As consequential and inopportune her death is and one hopes that her “most fervent” wish will be respected, one also hopes that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s departure (1933 – 2020) and vacancy in the US Supreme Court does not eclipse her life and career as a champion for justice, equality and access. One of my favourite details of her biography was her early desire to become an opera singer—before having any aspirations at law—and the eventual pop culture icon’s supernumery stage roles (extras—usually non-speaking parts but was once appointed to the judgeship in decide the case in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, bring justice for Shylock) and her regular attendance at shows in Washington, DC.
Tuesday 1 September 2020
divinisation or pompatus of love
We enjoyed reading this short, collective hagiography that profiles several saints named Hyacinth, including one from Fara: “A martyr about whom nothing is known,” but we were more intrigued by the footnote for namesake flower (Giancinto, Jacinto, Hyakithos) and its mythological origins in a handsome Spartan prince and his fatal love-triangle.
Hyacinth was the lover of Apollo, but he had the attention and advances of a host of other suitors including the famous Thracian singer Thamyris, Zephyrus and Boreas—respectively the West and North Winds. Hyacinth preferred the company of Apollo and together in a chariot drawn by swans, they had adventures. While playing a round of frisbee (discus), Hyacinth was struck in the head and perished, the eponymous blossom rising up where his blood was spilled—a trope appropriated by Christianity as a symbol of renewal. Devastated Apollo blamed himself but there is strong suspicion that the winds conspired to punish the prince out of jealousy, and the god wanted himself to become mortal to join him after his healing powers failed him. The Spartan month that coincided with early summer when the flowers bloom was named in his honour and included three days of festivities. Hyacinth was eventually resurrected and joined the pantheon of the gods. This attainment of godhood is apotheosis and usually in Antiquity heroes were accorded local status alone, whereas in Imperial Rome, a deceased ruler was generally recognised by his success, decree of the senate and popular consent—though some ridiculed this practise as it also included the corrupt and inept—satirised by referring to the tradition with another Greek borrowing apocolocyntosis—that is, pumpkinification with accompanying lampoon that features Claudius and Caligula in the underworld.
Tuesday 14 July 2020
the inauguration of the pleasure dome
Via Weird Universe we are acquainted with the portfolio and curriculum vitรฆ thus far of underground filmmaker and author Kenneth Anger (*1923) whose anthology of short works explore Thelema and its adherents through his eponymous 1954 (remastered in 1966 for 1978 for wider audiences as Anger’s original concept included projecting the action on three screens simultaneously) through the cinematic filters of surrealism, the occult and homoeroticism.
Playing the goddess of magic Hecate himself, the short also stars Anaรฏs Nin as Astarte (Ishtar) and fellow director and pioneer of New Queer Cinema Curtis Harrington (*1926 – †2007, whose credits include numerous television series—Baretta, Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels and also Orson Welles’ unfinished The Other Side of the Wind) was in the role of Cesare, the somnambulist from The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and was inspired by the ritual fancy-dress parties that founder Aleister Crowley would host that invited guests to come as their madness and a recitation of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s atmospheric poem. More to explore at the links above.
Saturday 27 June 2020
out of the closet and into the street
A year to the day after the Stonewall uprising—with several other antecedents including systemic workplace discrimination among civil servants and work-camps for Cuba for homosexual men, the last Saturday of the month, the Chicago Gay Liberation organised the first Pride March from Washington Square Park up Michigan Avenue.
What was to become an annual ceremony was seen as a matriculation for younger members coming to terms with their identity to come together and celebrate a chain of tradition and struggle to understand the past and what was overcome. Other parades, put together by chapters of so-called homophile societies, soon followed across the country, including on the very next day in New York City, Los Angeles and Philadelphia and quickly thereafter proliferated to many places worldwide.
Wednesday 17 June 2020
17-1618 or equal opportunity omission
Rather than relying on hit-or-miss labour protections different in every jurisdiction (or lack thereof) or the charity of corporate policy, the Supreme Court, against expectations and the judge-stacking efforts of Trump and the Stepford Republicans that have tolerated his antics to push their social agenda, ruled earlier in the week that gay and transgender individuals (LGBTQ+) are protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in a landmark case that protects (having not universally fallen under the covered categories before) them from employment discrimination on a federal level.
Sunday 17 May 2020
idahot
Originally in deference to a subsection of German Basic Law and penal code § 175 with colloquially homosexuals sometimes referred to as einhundredfunfundsiebsiegers (twice the fun, see previously) and the association reinforced by the decision of the World Health Organisation to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder on this same date in 1990, since 2005 and expanded in 2009, a human rights coalition has commemorated this 17 May as the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia to mobilise and raise awareness of discrimination and repression of individuals in that community.
Sunday 23 February 2020
6x6
ร la russe: a guide to Russian Paris
turntabling: musical pairings of diverse songs that sound the same
grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves: soft drink giant ravages communities already water-insecure to produce more of its product and raise the next generation of loyal customers—see also
#beardedbuttigieg: many people are advocating for US presidential candidate Mayor Pete to grow facial hair and helpfully previewing his new looktwo-up two-down: a home in Osaka with sixteen levels the beauty of real food is that it gets ugly: to promote its cutting of artificial preservative, one fast food giant features a mouldy hamburger, as compared to this exhibit
shortlisted: a gallery of some of the images to advance to the next round of judging in the Sony World Photography Awards
Sunday 12 January 2020
de spirituali amicitiรข
Historian, hagiographer and diarist with some rather explosive confessions for his time and station (supported by contemporary biographers), the feast day of Aelred of Rievaulx is observed on this day, marking his death in 1167 (*1110) at his abbey in Yorkshire.
The monk and abbot rather a folk saint have not been formally vetted by the canonisation process—though venerated in both the Catholic and Anglican faiths—is the patron for kidney stone sufferers (confined to bed in his later years from this affliction and arthritis) and has been adopted by several LGBTQIA+ organisations as the champion for his frank admission of conscious homosexual orientation and how its consenting exercise was a profound expression of Christian theology, laid out in his expansive treatise “On Spiritual Friendship.” While never censored per se, until the twentieth century, Aelred’s reputation as a historian—writing the vita of Saint Edward, King and Confessor among others—was emphasised over his theological work.
Tuesday 19 November 2019
8x8
mudras: nifty exercises for your hands and wrists
holy rollers: A reformed, formerly anti-LGBTQ fast food franchise announces it will make amends
konmari: life style guru and evangelist of de-cluttering now wants to fill that tchotchke-shaped void in your soul
between two ferns: eight-two famous and infamous interviews animated
anti-archiv: a massive cache of photographs and home movies from the DDR, via Things magazine
discerning audiences: light entertainment from 1972
self-policing: a browser extension uses machine learning to highlight AI generated content, via Waxy
Tuesday 1 October 2019
registreret partnerskab
Passed into law by the Folketing on 7 June of that year, legal recognition for same-sex domestic partnerships came into force in the Kingdom of Denmark on this day in 1989. The first legislation of its kind, registered couples were accorded almost equal rights and responsibilities as opposite sex married couples with the proviso that one member either be a Danish citizen or that both parties be in residence for at least two years. The definition of a resident was expanded extraterritorially for the purposes of the law to cover Norway, Iceland and Finland, extending the jurisdiction as far as they could. On 15 June 2012, the partnership law was repealed and replaced by a gender-neutral Marriage Act (รgteskabsloven).
Sunday 8 September 2019
dadt
On this day in 1975, the cover of TIME magazine featured decorated Vietnam War veteran TSgt Leonard Matlovich (*1943 – †1988, see below), the first service member to out himself to protest the US military’s ban on gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen.
The first time in the American press that the topic was seriously addressed in a national publication, Matlovich’s struggle to continue to serve in the Air Force openly was a very public battle and Matlovich along with Harvey Milk were likely the only openly gay men known to the American public during the decade. The branch secretary refused to relent, despite his record and reputation, and confirmed his general (though not other-than-honourable, given that the Air Force and other branches had fairly ill-defined regulations on the matter and considered extenuating circumstances common enough to recognise, like maturity, drunkenness or one-off experimentation—known as the “Queen for a Day” exception) discharge in October. Unrelenting, Matlovich fought the decision and five years later on appeal had his separation upgraded to honourable and received compensation and back-pay. Fellow Air Woman Reservist Fannie Mae Clackum (*1929 – †2014) had previously successfully sued for lost pay back in 1960. A lifelong activist, he campaigned for equal rights until overcoming himself due to complications from AIDS/HIV and was interred in a special corner of Washington, DC’s Congressional Cemetery that he had helped establish.
Thursday 4 July 2019
annual reminder
Staged at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall yearly since 1965 to admonish the government and the public that gay people did not have basic civil protections and reputations and careers were precarious and subject to the caprice and prejudice of others, the final march of picketers took place on this day in 1969. After Stonewall, organisers decided to hold the subsequent parade on its anniversary, the last weekend in June, to commemorate the riots and moved the venue to New York City, holding the first Christopher Street Liberation Day in 1970.
Friday 28 June 2019
stonewall
During the early hours of this morning fifty years ago, members of the LGBT community in Greenwich Village staged a spontaneous uprising to protest a police raid of the Stonewall Inn.
This stand along Christopher Street, between West 4th Street and Waverly Place, marked the beginning of a long and ongoing struggle for gay rights and equal treatment under the law in the US. Pride parades world wide have occurred around this anniversary. Though the relationship is not causal and to suggest otherwise would dampen rising tensions and dangers faced daily by lesbian and gay people, the night before was the funeral for the iconic Judy Garland who had passed away earlier in the week in London from “an incautious self-overdosage”—held at a chapel on Madison Avenue which remained open through the night so twenty-thousand members of the public could pay their respects. Though no one recalled it being acknowledged during the riots, that sort of turn-out surely helped mobilise at least a few mourners and fans.
