9x9 (11. 160)

caput apri defero, reddens laudes domino: an annual procession dating back to the fourteenth century that marks the beginning of Christmas season in London 

pingxiety: an update on the aerospace engineer’s anti-smart phone—see previously  

settled law: a carol to reaffirm that Die Hard is in fact a Christmas movie  

pocket universe: scientists in Germany re-create the Cosmos in a test tube to tweak the laws of physics for this primordial simulation  

pilea peperomiodes: the Chinese money plant goes by another common name for good reasons  

such fun: noun and adjectival usage of the intensifier on either side of the Atlantic  

anthrobots: researchers have created tiny, living robots from human cells that could one day patrol for diseases and repair damaged tissue  

there used to be a house at 6114 california street: a interview at home with Anton LaVey in 1967—see previously—via r/Obscure Media  

coquito ho ho: a guide to festive variations on classic cocktails

top of the deck (11. 136)

Fellow peripatetic and committed flaneur Diamond Geezer is celebrating the milestone of his ten-thousand post, mini-essays since starting blogging back in 2002. We especially appreciate the data analysis that’s typical of his content, showing trends and distribution over the years, unlike my deportment, counting the quick missives and links (increasingly dead ones) and the tendency lately to fudge the dates, use placeholders and shift things around a bit so PfRC doesn’t seem so neglected. Crunch the number, so to speak, he compiled a rather resonant and relatable list of common tropes (not labels) characteristic to his blog: 

• I went for a walk

• I went on a journey
• I went sightseeing
• I went somewhere seemingly mundane
• I visited disjoint linked locations
• I spotted something unusual
• I invented a silly challenge
• I attended an event
• I see TfL have done something
• I wouldn't have done it like that
• I disapproved of some marketing
• I considered the human condition
• I dug into some data
• I made some lists
• I scoured a map
• I made a quiz
• I looked back in my diary
• I was inspired by today's date
• I reacted to the news
• I am being sarcastic

The blogosphere congratulates Diamond Geezer on this achievement and speaking on behalf of quite a few of us, we are grateful to the Blogger platform for its consistency and dependability over the years.

gaberboccus press (10. 965)

Named after a Latin translation of the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky, the multimedia concern founded by the Polish refugee couple Stefan and Franciska Themerson in 1948, we learn courtesy of Languagehat, produced over sixty titles in its three decades of existence—ranging from the collected essays and lectures of philosopher Bertrand Russell, poetry by David Miller and Henru Chopin, the calligrams of Apollimaire to their work works and perhaps most famously a faithful English translation of the pataphysical play by Alfred Jarry Ubi Roi (previously here and here). Eventually sold to a publishing house in Amsterdam, Gaberboccus immediately following World War II was a rejection of the stateless author and political exile, bolstering the International character of their clients and exposing them to a wider audience with a experience and fervour that resists displacement.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus the tyranny and utility of time

two years ago: prayers to saints during plague times ranked plus Steven Spielberg’s a.i. promotions

three years ago: the Isle of Wight Festival (1970), Ten Million Photo Play Plots, Space Force hierarchy, IKEA in Animal-Crossing, guerilla video documentarians plus more unbuilt New York

four years ago: pirate treasure plus the introduction of the Austin-Mini (1959)

five years ago: RIP John McCain plus the Chinese script for women only

9x9 (10. 954)

cucumber castle: a star-studded promotional film for the Bee-Gee’s medieval-themed, chivalrous 1970 album  

as big as a football pitch: the vague rulers of informal metrology 

good(bye) design: a tribute to the aesthetic of vintage consumer tech by Miki Nemcek with a special focus on Braun  

grand master: World Chess Federation places restrictions on trans competitors  

1:25: a tour inside the scale model of St Paul’s, hidden in a chamber in the attic 

 ⛔: like Zuckerburg explored before—in violation of app store policies—Elon Musk is threatening to remove Twitter’s block feature  

magalog: combination magazine-catalogue that was successful print model in the 1970s  

langue étrangère: faced with budget-shortfalls, US public university cutting foreign language from its ciriculum 

elephant in the room: the imprint of favourite songs of our formative years and what that says about our capacity for new things

it’s all too beautiful (10. 932)

Peaking at number three after entering the UK singles charts on this day in 1967, bested by Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco” (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) and The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love,” The Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park” was among the first songs to use the technique called flanging that can be heard in the post-refrain bridges—the swooshing audio effect is produced by mixing two identical signals one with a delay of a few milliseconds that resolves in harmonisation. Classed as psychedelic-pop, the identity of the titular park has been subject to debate, proposals ranging from Manor Park or Wansteads Flats in East London to Little Ilford or Valentine’s Park in Charring Cross—regardless of the location, so nicknamed for the preponderance of stinging nettles. Regarded as “refreshing” and inspired with their other hits “All or Nothing,” “Lazy Sunday” and “Tin Soldier,” The Small Faces’ classic had a 1995 techno version released by M People.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a 1970 promotional short from Bell Labs plus an artist homage to cinematic classics

two years ago: assorted links to revisit plus the 1975 Song of the Summer

three years ago: science lost to aggressive formatting, an anthology of Tarot cards, more links to revisit plus St Edith Stein

four years ago: a short by Ishu Patel,  Nixon tenders his resignation (1974), Solomon’s Paradox plus more US gun-violence

five years ago: the bombing of Nagasaki (1945), bokeh plus a search-and-rescue robot

7x7 (10. 874)

fit for a king: a selection of ersatz castles for sale in the US 

caliology: corvids using anti-bird spikes for nesting material
100º in the shade: mapping tree shadows 

free agent: labour force of the outsourced talk about the effects of the AI revolution—via Waxy  

ravensbourne: finding the lost rivers of London—see previously  

involuntary memory: the aetiology of earworms 

cheese royal: Burger King in Thailand introduces a menu item composed of twenty slices of American cheese

come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab (10. 819)

Preview performances given at a couple of other venues earlier in the week, the B-movie, schlock horror musical—see previously—by Richard O’Brien opened on this day in the experimental space, “upstairs,” at the Royal Court Theatre in Chelsea, under the direction of Jim Sharman, renowned stage producer for his earlier work on Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair. The show ran for seven years, approaching three thousand performances, and the original cast whom crossed over into the 1975 cinematic adaptation included the starring roles of Tim Curry as Dr Frank N Furter, Patricia Quinn as Magenta the Usherette and O’Brien himself as Riff Raff.

synchronoptic 

one year ago: Juneteenth, assorted links worth revisiting, Saints Gervasius and Protasius plus an early home office set-up 

two years ago: rendered realities plus generated fabric patterns

three years ago: ecclesiastical courts, more dazzle camouflage, Trump censored for his social media posts plus a queen bee’s performance
 
 

nine kings, one room (10. 755)

Photographed on this day in 1910 at Windsor Place by the studio of W & D Downey, these nine sovereigns, King Haakon VII or Norway, Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, King Manuel II of Portugal, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George I of Greece, King Albert I of Belgium, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Emperor George V of the United Kingdom and King Frederick VIII of Denmark, were gathered for the funeral of George’s immediate predecessor, Edward VII (Albert Edward Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, called “Bertie”) and considered the Uncle of Europe by dint of his relatedness to all assembled (plus a non-zero chance of being the father of Winston Churchill and grandfather of Queen Camilla), whom had died on 6 May after suffering a series of massive heart attacks. Excluded for the most part from participation in regnal duties during his six decade wait on his mother, Queen Victoria, to leave office, Edward pursued the life of leisure of the privileged elite, travelling, gambling and earning the reputation of a playboy prince, taking on several liaisons (by some counts fifty-five, see above) and frequenting an exclusive brothel in Paris, Le Chabanais, a private room kitted out with his coat of arms and a custom made siege d’amour to allow the by then corpulent heir abilities to fornicate with multiple individuals at once. Though already past average life-expectancy at the time of his enthronement and with lower overall expectations for this last monarch to exercise political power, the legacy of the short reign of Edward saw the transition into constitutionally-bound sovereignty, was forward thinking and inclusive, especially for the time, and tried to keep peace amongst his nephews and was as capable of being dignified as he was indulgent.

10x10 (10. 724)

shark tank: MS Teams has a suite of customisable in app stickers  

let him love fellows of a polecat: recalling a scholar’s naïve but noble translation attempt of Lorem ipsum—see previously here and here 

i was there (at the coronation): a 1953 calypso song by Young Tiger s s minow: Federal Communications Commission who called television a vast wasteland (see previously) has passed away, aged 97

like family, but with more cheese: more on that pizza commercial produced by AI  

brownstone: Ruxandra Duru collects colour swatches of Brooklyn townhouses  

some disassembly required: a proposal to construct a Dyson’s Sphere (see previously) around the Earth using Jupiter for raw materials  

yeoman’s work: Penny Mordaunt as the unwavering bearer of the Sword of State stole the show—see more here and here 

native tongue: research shows nearly half of the world’s linguistic diversity at risk  

dark patterns: digital services make it difficult to unsubscribe—via Waxy

the bracelets of sincerity and wisdom (10. 722)

From the above basse-taille enamel armills made in 1661 by royal goldsmith Sir Robert Vyner to replace an earlier pair lost during the Commonwealth for the Restoration coronation of Charles II—whose meaning and symbolism was already unclear four centuries ago, supposed to represent military leadership to the ceremonial unction of the Sovereign with a cruelty-free version of chrism—an anointing oil blessed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Guardian presents a good primer on the treasures and regalia of crown and country, their meaning and the order of service for the crowning and investiture of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

8x8 (10. 711)

time in a bottle: individuals turning turning care and attention into currency  

composition as explanation: daily it’s harder to decide if AI is a collaborative tool or a time bomb  

zoonomia: researchers sequence the genome of sixty-five hundred species—plus Balto, the heroic sled dog of the 1925 Serum Run 

back to the drawing board: researchers at Linköping University have engineered a functional wooden resistor—see previously—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

occupancy rate: a tour of the empty City of London  

so for you, it’s insects, tap-water and celibacy: examining how bad ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson was for the environment and speculation on who might take up that mantle next 

deep dreaming: on chatbot hallucinations and the first usage of the sense in 1540 by the ryght rodolent & rotounde rethorician R Smyth  

worth1000: a time capsule camera that composes a detailed written description of ones photos with a ticketed invitation to revisit them at a future date

cosmati pavement (10. 698)

Composed of nearly ninety thousand individual pieces of coloured glass and stones, the seven century old tiled floor at the crossing of the shrine of Edward the Confessor and the main altar of the Royal Peculiar, Westminster Abbey, the setting for the coronation will be on public display for the first time for over a hundred and fifty years, usually draped by thick carpets to protect the mosaic from damage after a botched attempt at preservation. Visitors are asked to kindly remove their shoes. Named for several generations of a family of craftspeople in Rome who produced inlaid floors in this style, it was commissioned by Richard Ware (see also) in 1258, after becoming abbot and contains many layers of thirteenth century symbolism informed by Classical philosophy and the geometry of Plato and cryptically predicts the end of the world 19, 863 years after its creation by adding the average life spans of a menagerie of animals includes dogs, ravens and whales. Much more at Amusing Planet at the link above.

carolvs secvndvs (10. 694)

With his regnal namesake successor’s coronation coming up in a couple of weeks, we look back at the enthronement ceremony of 1661 of Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland that took place on this day, St George’s Day, in Westminster Abbey. Fighting alongside his father against the forces of Oliver Cromwell throughout the English Civil War, escaping to Scotland via the Hague and France after Charles I was beheaded, and was there proclaimed King of the Scots at Scone the decade prior. Cromwell’s own death in 1658 (his heir having little interest in maintaining the role of Lord Protector) opened a path to the restoration of the monarchy, entering London with popular acclaim in May 1660, having to wait nearly a year before the ceremony could take place as the royal regalia needed to be replaced, melted for bullion and precious jewels sold during the Commonwealth period, and lengthy preparations by officers of the court and Church. The coronation service and procession from the Tower of London (occurring the day before and attended by various members of the royal household and dukes and viscounts), a very public and patriotic spectacle, was well documented by diarist Samuel Pepys, who remarks about getting up at four in the morning, queuing up until eleven, poor acoustics, not getting his hands on one of the commemorative medals and sovereigns flung to the crowd by the Lord Chancellor and not being able to see the king crowned despite being at the abbey.

8x8 (10. 692)

caspar milquetoast: Public Domain Review presents Shy Guy (1947)—starring Dick York—via Nag on the Lake  

wicksy’s cocktails: a selection of non-alcoholic drinks from a 1986 Easter Enders’ cook book  

birdsite: the continuing rapid unscheduled disassembly of the platform  

here is a map to give you pleasure, a town reduced to your mantel’s measure: poetry on maps—via the Map Room  

ganja & hess: an under appreciated vampire film reexamined on its fiftieth anniversary  

smigadoon: virtual ghost villages in the clouds that have become the haunts of tourists  

rolling through the produce and said, now that’s a better buy: Toni Basil’s “Shopping from A to Z” 

schools of the air: a retrospective look at broadcast continuing education—see previously

9x9 (10. 673)

photo booth: a self-meme generator that uses AI—via Web Curios  

1up: the Super Mario Brothers’ theme inscribed in the US National Recording Registry—via Miss Cellania 

martin chuzzlewit: Dickens’ illustrators  

acta et vita: today is the feast of Lidwina, patron saint of chronic illness and ice- and roller-skaters 

spring break: a look at the highdays and holidays of Old London—via Strange Company 

jubilee: US Supreme Court ruled against blocking cancellation of student loan debt—see previously  

the real macguffin: the Holy Grail of grail stories—with plenty of references to pop-culture  

double-feature: raw footage from a video rental store on a Friday night in 1987—what titles would you have picked?  

robo boys: an untethered large language model builds on a college years group chat with insights on the process of AI fine-tuning—via Waxy

8x8 (10. 603)

jasper t jowls and the warblettes: Chuck E Cheese pizza and arcade chain still distributes programming for their animatronic acts on floppy disks—via Waxy, see also  

going up: a outstanding tour of Shimadai Electric Manufacturing Company with their wall of pressable elevator buttons  

ᐃᖏᕐᕋᕈᓯᖅ: a beautiful rendition of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” in Inuktiut by artist Elisapie  

bread-winner: rotating sandwiches, no more—no less, via Present /&/ Correct  

partners in crime: a band of thieving turtles and other animal accomplices—via Strange Company 

the stone of scone: another look at the Seat of Destiny on which Charles III. will be crowned—see also  

banksters: US federal regulators take control of Silicon Valley financial institution, the reserve of tech angel investors, due to impending insolvency  

richard halloran owns a home computer: fascinating 1981 news segment on the emergent internet—via Pasa Bon!

9x9 (10. 600)

shepherds bush’s: a collection of vintage photographs from Peter Marshall  

hold my calls, i’m blogging: the life of the dedicated internet caretakers 

clubhouse goals: the creative compound of the Red Rose Girls of fin de siècle sisterly Philadelphia  

dynamo: labelling suggestions notes art: stunning sketches made in the Notes app—via Things Magazine  

clickbait: sixteen seven companies dominating search results—via ibīdem  

the cheops inclination: unbuilt mortuary monuments of London—see previously—inspired by Egyptomania 

i want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango juice: celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary of Red Dwarf  

cabmen’s shelter fund: the remaining few historical kiosks constructed so livery wouldn’t need to let unattended—see previously

halt—who comes there? (10. 506)

Via Strange Company, we are directed towards the Gentle Author’s visit to the Tower of London and privileged to accompany her taking part in the oldest, unbroken military ceremony in the world, a nightly vigil that has taken place through war and plague for over seven centuries, “The Ceremony of the Keys” executed faithfully by the Yeoman Porter, locking the main gates for the night at ten sharp. Photographed by Martin Usborne, granted a rare license and access since at the request of the sovereign the pomp and protocol has never been filmed,  visit Spitalfields Life for more on this ancient ritual, the repetition kept up without stint or remiss.

8x8 (10. 495)

super 8: Kodak background orchestral ensemble for home movies (1961) would make a good soundtrack for any clip  

memory hole: unearthing—with surprising difficulty—an iconic, defining moment of 90s US political pop culture  

the fourth plinth: what becomes of statuary exhibited temporarily in Trafalgar Square—via Things Magazine  

whw: an interview with the ousted Kunsthalle collective who wanted to showcase all sides of Vienna  

poissons de diverses couleurs et figures extraordinaires: exquisite disco fish (1719)  

geyser relays: a rather pie-in-the-sky proposal for irrigation using a series of water canons  

parade route: revisiting the would-be arrival and presentation of Ganda the Rhinoceros  

sympawny № 4: a short arrangement to pay tribute to a beloved cat

st john’s wood (10. 419)

Once (and yet) regarded as an assault against navigation devices and by turns an assault against proper punctuation and orthography (see also here and here), we appreciated learning about the selective preservation afforded to a number of thoroughfares, parks and venues (with a short biography) of London via our trusted flâneur. Making note of the non-possessive exceptions that make the rule—as opposed the exclamatory figure of speech used in stagecraft to break off from the audience, “O happy dagger!,” we’re also introduced to a colourful term ‘anorak level tube apostrophe history’ to describe and prescribe the changing style to sibilant endings. Anorak, chiefly a Britishism, incidentally refers to an enthusiast dedicated to the point of obsession with a very niche subject—first to describe fans of pirate radio who would charter crafts to go out to visit the boats, whom like trainspotters, were often unfashionably but appropriately attired in parkas.