slanguage (13. 071)

From New Orleans, the American Dialect Society is announcing its pick for overall informal word of the year for 2025 (see previously) but again their categories of contenders deserve special consideration with creative neologisms and portmanteaux ranging from amphifa (for frog costumed protesters) and affixes related to Charlie Kirk, to the political like DOGE, disappeared and the Kavanaugh stop referring to the supreme court justice’s option on a case that foreigners could be barred from entry into the US based on their social media history, to digitally rallying around a hypothetical movement known as the Great Meme Reset supposedly instigated by Gen Z at the turn of the year, with rage-bait among the most useful along with valid cashout for a justified mental breakdown and most likely to endure with glaze, bestowing effusive compliments, and -vibe as a combining form. What do you think will be the overall winner?

8x8 (13. 069)

leturfræði: an exploration of the graphic design heritage of Iceland through its greatest, recently departed historian  

shoyu-tai: a fibre-based soy sauce single-serve container as an alternative to disposable plastic droppers  

unfcc: Trump administration announces withdrawal from dozens of United Nations chartered organisations, saying their mission does not align with the US agenda  

i’m t?w?e?n?t?y?-f?i?v?e?: artist records one word per day for a reflection on the passage of time 

amour-propre: Chinese buzzword of the year 爱你牢记 (ai ni laoji, love yourself, my dear)—see previously 

hemlock: Texas university has forbidden a professor from teaching a course on Plato  

anodyne: a Singapore based technology company invents biodegradable, paper batteries that rely on no rare earths  

gobelins: the famed French school of animation has a YouTube channel that features student films

6 january 2021 (13. 062)

On this day five years ago, a mob of Donald Trump supporters descended on the Capitol in an abortive self-coup to prevent a joint-session of the US congress from tallying and certifying the 2020 presidential election, formalising the victory of then president-elect Joe Biden. Instigated by Trump himself to “stop the steal” with false claims of widespread voter fraud and election irregularities, a “Save America” rally (in parallel to pressing vice president Pence to overturn the results) was held at the Ellipse at noon ahead of proceedings, the park south of the White House, gathering a crowd of thousands of MAGA members, whipped into a frenzy and dispatched to the Capitol. “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Some two thousand individuals forcibly entered the building, occupying the vacant senate chamber while authorities evacuated representatives amid vandalism and violence. Though repeating false claims, Trump told the mob to go home in peace. Certification resumed and by the next morning, Biden was declared the winner. Whilst not acknowledging defeat, under pressure from his cabinet, Trump conceded to an orderly transition of power in a televised statement. A week later, congress voted to impeach Trump for a second time but the senate failed to convict him, allowing the out-going president to run for public office again. Over fifteen hundred rioters were charged with federal crimes for the insurrection but as the culmination of the revisionist narrative that was presented regarding the event, all were granted clemency under the presidential pardon power by Trump just after re-taking office in 2024.  A full-time and archived news reports (a bulwark against memory-holed resources) from NPR at the link up top.

8x8 (13. 057)

the gift of the magi: Better Living through Beowulf shares a Godfrey Rust poem for the Feast of the Epiphany  

wegmans: NewYork grocery store chain collecting biometric data, conversations of shoppers  

year of the fire horse: zodiacal facts about the upcoming annual cycle 

heavy sour crude: how realistic Trump’s designs on Venezuela’s reserves are—see more  

pea-brained: organoid culture research and experimentation raises ethical, philosophical concerns 

big brother and the holding company: the numerological and business significance of six-and-twenty  

john players’ special: the tobacco purveyor presents the celebrated gates of London 

mother superior jumped the gun: convert Elizabeth Ann Seton feted as first American saint for establishing the parochial education system in the New World

synchronoptica

one year ago: Trump does not want lowered flags for his inauguration (with synchronopticæ), the chaotic twin of Pi, the right attacks Wikipedia plus Mussolini’s Black Shirts

twelve years ago: vaping regulations, landmarks lost to progress, miniature artists plus hyperobjects

thirteen years ago: the push for green energy plus fake smiles

fourteen years ago: marginal victories plus Three Kings’ Day 

sixteen years ago: holidays unwrapped

seventeen years ago: New Year’s resolutions 

wall flower (13. 052)

A bit late to the party, World Introvert Day, founded in 2011 by psychologist and author from Heidelberg, Dr Felicitas Heyne, was designated for 2. January to acknowledge the toll that the season of revelry and socialising can take on the quiet ones and as an opportunity to raise awareness for the personality type and the challenges experienced by expectations and conditioning for those who are not shy or anti-social—just mentally exhausted by extroverts—and for introverts to take stock of their unique talents and perspective. Suggested ways of celebrating include leaving everyone alone.

spioenasiesindikaat (13. 051)

Sentenced on this day in 1942 with cumulative incarcerations lasting three hundred years, the Duquesne Spy Ring was the largest espionage case in US history with thirty-three members of a Nazi Germany network of covert agents convicted after a lengthy investigation by the FBI, with a majority of the indicted pleading guilty on all charges and the remaining tried by an American federal district court in Brooklyn. Under the leadership of Frederick “Fritz” Joubert Duquesne, German-Boer mercenary of British extraction and naturalised US citizen, game-hunter (escorting Theodore Roosevelt on safari), journalist, hippopotamus exporter, and escape artist, members of the group were channelled into key administrative positions for counter-intelligence and sabotage, working as anchor restauranteurs, delivery men, power plant workers, and airline stewards, establishing safe-houses and front-companies—but none installed as politicians—to monitor Allied activities. Their operation was uncovered in part by reluctant double-agent William Sebold (Gottlieb Adolf Wilhelm, an engineer and industrialist emigrating to the US after WWI), coerced first by the Gestapo, recruiting the services of other emigres, and then by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under J Edgar Hoover’s administration. Most were convicted for failing to abide by the Foreign Agents Registration Act and disclose foreign interests—FARA not prohibiting lobbying or any specific activities, it was codified in 1938 primarily to control Nazi propaganda.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the See of St Mark (with synchronopticæ), early eight-bit licensed games plus embroidery journals

thirteen years ago: a numerically unremarkable year plus antique motivational posters

fourteen years ago: future prospects for the Euro currency union plus the history of submarine warfare

sixteen years ago: predictions for 2010 

pepperidge farm remembers (13. 049)

With acknowledgment to Tom Whitwell and other franchises that have gotten into the tradition, Nancy Friedman presents fifty two more things she gleaned week by week in 2025. Trivia facts and lessons, among our favourites meriting further investigation were the etymology of plonk—cheap, disappointing wine—coming from British soldiers stationed in France during WWI mispronouncing vin blanc, the Old English term for affable is wordwynsum, the industry awards for excellence in podcasting are called the Ambies—from “ambient sound,” Samuel Clements considered other pseudonyms before settling on Mark Twain, including Rambler and W Epaminondas Adrastus Blab, Elon Musk is named for a character in a novel by Wernher von Braun called Marsprojekt, an orphan-crushing machine is a shorthand term for human interest stories that praise resilience and charity (like retirees working at fast food restaurants or successful funding campaigns to pay for vital medical procedures) that fail to question the underlying societal conditions that make such heroism needed to begin with, the Kellogg’s brand has a rooster for its mascot—connoting a hale and hearty early riser—but also suggested by touring Welsh harpist as ceilog is a homophone for the breakfast cereal magnate and that Goldfish crackers were inspired by zodiacal sign the original Swiss creator’s wife, a Pisces.

mmxxvi (13. 046)

 Happy New Year! Frohes Neues!

lexical innovation (13. 039)

Whilst we had known that the term meme was minted with Richard Dawkins’ couching of evolution accelerated by discrete units of cultural transmission in The Selfish Gene and that in general neologisms cycle through with the years, taking time for each coinage to garner recognition, we hadn’t appreciated that it’s approaching its fiftieth anniversary along with twenty other thoroughly modern sounding words and phrases reaching that half-century milestone in the coming months. Among others first recorded in 1976, we have wuss and wannabe, skeevy (from a Tuscan dialectical word for disgust), the Butterfly Effect describing a chain-reaction of accrued small events and trail-mix, re-christened by marketers from its customary name of gorp—with the completing etymologies of either to scarf down with relish or possibly a backronym for “good old raisins and peanuts,” core ingredients usually eschewed by contemporary purveyors. More from Mental Floss at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Pop Tart Bowl (with sychronopticæ), assorted links worth revisiting plus Peter Pan (1924)

twelve years ago: chef surprise 

thirteen years ago: more year-end superlatives 

fourteen years ago: 2011 in review plus a tribute to those we’ve lost

fifteen years ago: mashups and remixing

seventeen years ago: too much online plus telepresence  

viral moments (13. 035)

It’s always going to be a hard slog picking out those highlights and nadirs of trending topics that gained a lasting—or at least defining—purchase on the past twelve months, but we nonetheless appreciated this albeit highly Anglo-centric and non-controversial assortment of virality that we made didn’t have the tolerance or time for when they presented themselves and mostly receded from public purview. A mix of marketing and memes, the Blue Origin flight to the edge of space with Katy Perry, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe (former rocket scientist), civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn and Jeff Bezos’ then-fiancee Lauren Sánchez and the Labubu phenomenon—a reprise of the Beanie Baby craze with a much protracted trajectory—was the hardest to ignore, with the latter though claiming to draw from Nordic folklore, specifically admitting to be a knock-off of the good luck trolls (Gjøltrold), and free from occult practises, more than one polity has banned the collectible over concerns that the familiars could influence children into summoning demons and has been associated with the Mesopotamian malevolent deity Pazuzu (𒀭𒅆𒊒𒍪𒍪), mainly over the similarly snarled expression and the blind-box nature of the spirit, protective but unpredictable, and whose likeness was a popular amulet of the ancient civilisation. We could well relate to Beyoncé’s incredulous reaction to her long overdue Grammy win, however.

the story so far (13. 034)

A photographic retrospective of the moments that have defined the first quarter of the twenty-first century, we quite enjoyed this feature from The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland taking up the mantle of chronicler of those who have encapsulated, bookended the history of the previously century and those saying we’ve reached the end of it. A challenge no doubt to distill the past-present down to a few dozen watershed events, illustrated by arresting and indelible images, this survey meets the task—from the representative picture captured by Susan Meiselas in Liberty Plaza’s Zuccotti park Manhattan as debris from the Twin Towers was raining down with the life-sized bronze of a business man (sculptor John Seward Johnson’s 1892 commission Double Check of a well-appointed executive taking stock of the contents of his briefcase before going to the office) sitting sedately amid the fear and chaos. Meiselas did not know at first whether this still figure was a person or a statue and since became a makeshift memorial for the office workers lost during 9/11. The anthology, year by year, covers the Iraq war, the rise of social media, natural disasters, the Great Recession, mass-migration, Brexit, COVID, Trump, etc. And so it goes.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a starquake (with synchronopticæ), the mathematical properties of the year plus the life and career of Anna Banana

twelve years ago: Russian discontents plus historic maps of the Americas

thirteen years ago: privacy screens for traffic accidents to prevent rubbernecking 

fourteen years ago: Samoa adjusts its timezone 

seventeen years ago: Hey Ya and the Peanuts 

9x9 (13. 032)

christmas day storm: heavy rains and landslides batter Los Angeles area  

vertex summary: holiday reception by renowned fiddler in Nova Scotia cancelled due to AI search erroneous labelling the performer a sex-offender—via Super Punch  

soft cell: astronaut Tibor Kapu debuts geometries that can only exist in microgravity aboard the ISS  

high holidays: an assortment of newspaper clippings on confiscated marijuana Christmas trees of yesteryear  

autocoup: a viral fake video of an overthrow in Paris is throwing the government in turmoil  

daemon est deus inversus: the occult imagination of W B Yeats  

winterval: seasonal breaks and the signal most observed public holiday—maybe not the one you’re thinking of—from Quantum of Sollazzo  

neighbourhood watch: AI powered app issues false crime alerts across US, terrorising residents  

spirit of the season: US launches strikes against ISIS militants in Nigeria—accused of persecuting Christians 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ), Wild Strawberries (1957) plus a classic from Goorge Harrison

thirteen years ago: an antique Bible 

fifteen years ago: Boxing Day and Second Christmas 

public domain review (13. 021)

In anticipation of Public Domain Day 2026 (previously), here is a preview of the selection of literary and artistic works from 1930 and musical compositions from 1925 (under US jurisdiction, songs have a full century until IP lapses under current law) whose copyrights expire and are released to whomever and for whatever purpose. Artists’ works include Piet Mondrian’s Composition II, the pictured untitled work by Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Abel Lafleur’s Jules Rimet Cup—the original trophy of FIFA, along with countless works in the Art Deco movement registered in that year. Among dozens of cinematic works, All Quiet on the Western Front, the Three Stooges’ Soup to Nuts, The Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers and Savadore Dalí’s and Luis Buñuel’s L'Âge d’or are counted in, as well as audio recordings by the Gershwin brothers like “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You,” “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,”Leo Robin’s “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” the inspiration for the Star Trek theme (see also) and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Comics and cartoons include Betty Boop, Disney’s first appearance of Pluto (as Rover) and Flip the Frog and other characters created by Ib Iwerks after he left the studio. More from Duke Law School at the link up top.

rest in power (13. 020)

Via Laughing Squid, we are directed to the dedicated visual eulogy from Chris the Barker (see previously) with his memorial montage in the style of the cover art for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with his tenth and final instalment of the series, beginning the project in 2015 after the deaths of Leonard Nimoy, Cilla Black, Christopher Lee and Lemmy Kilmister). It’s surely a taxing task to relive all these deaths at the end of the year, hopefully with no revisions or additions. Click through for the complete obituary, which features prominently Manianne Faithful, Hulk Hogan, Val Kilmer, Diane Keaton, Patricia Routledge, Prunella Scales, George Foreman, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lynch, Pope Francis, Ruth Buzzi, the Aga Khan, Rob Reiner, Loni Anderson, Jane Goodall and Dick Cheney among many others.

terminal velocity (13. 018)

Though I think not taking all the factors of Newtonian physics into account, Infinite Ball Drop is a fun visualisation of the of the countdown (first spotted by Waxy) as the ball makes its descent from a special mast atop One Times Square (normally only sixty seconds and a controlled drop of one-hundred and thirty-nine feet down the pole)projected to the present time to ring in the New Year—currently some two-million feet above Manhattan with nine-hundred thousand seconds left to go. Past the thermosphere already, one can track it as it slowly plunges below the orbit of the International Space Station and the edge of space—the Kármán line (see also). The first New Year’s Eve party took place on the cusp of 1907 and 1908 and continues to this day and has inspired another similar drops and raises in places across the world through all time zones.

talk to me (13. 009)

DJ Earworm (previously), aka Jordan Roseman of San Francisco, presents his annual United State of Pop in a quite longstanding and well established, since 2007, tradition of mashing-up the most vaunted albums of the year. And whilst admitting I must have aged out of the top-twenty for some time now—and recognised zero percent of these songs but a few of the artists, I appreciate the artistry of the precise mixing and sampling of contemporary culture as a hook to make me want to find out more.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: Chinese names and the challenges of Romanisation (with synchronopticæ), a survey of superyachts plus euro coins starter packets

twelve years ago: the evolution of Santa Claus plus holiday long-distance commercials

thirteen years ago: the coat of arms for Frankfurt am Main 

sixteen years ago: ring-fatigue 

toscanini, dacron (13. 007)

Eventually garnering a Grammy award for Record of the Year, Billy Joel’s eleventh studio album reached the top of the charts in domestic markets on this day in 1989 (cover art featuring a billowing storm warning maritime flag flown to signal the highest intensity gales on the Beaufort wind scale). Featuring tracks including “I Go to Extremes,” “Leningrad” (Joel’s take on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and “That’s Not Her Style,” it was the single “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (previously) that stood out as most memorable. Having just turned forty, Joel was inspired by a chance encounter with a friend of Sean Lennon at a recording studio half his age, reflecting that it was a terrible time to be twenty-one, with a litany of contemporary dilemmas. Joel encountered he had his own at that age, which his interlocutor dismissed, saying he had grown up in the 1950s, a rather halcyon pause in their mind at least when nothing happened. Joel came back with a few headlines of the time and conceived a catalogue of all the impactful, formative events, cultural and political, that had occurred between the year of his birth, 1949, to the present—in mostly chronological order (see above). One hundred-eighteen people, artefacts and circumstances are listed in the song, which upon re-evaluation are panned lyrically, almost to the point of disavowal, with absolute refusal for extra verses by the artist. Only four named individuals are still alive—Brigitte Bardot, Bob Dylan, Bernie Goetz and Chubby Checker.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Towering Inferno (with synchronopticæ), assorted links worth the revisit plus a museum dedicated to depictions of The Last Supper

twelve years ago: seigniorage and inflation  

thirteen years ago: trim up the tree with Christmas stuff, US school shootings, lucid dreaming plus O Antiphons

fifteen years ago: the legacy of Cablegate 

the play’s the thing (12. 988)

As our faithful chronicler reminds on this day in 1966, the Star Trek:TOS episode “The Conscience of the King” (S1:E13) was originally aired with the USS Enterprise diverted three light years off course to ostensibly investigate a synthetic food source developed by Captain Kirk’s childhood friend Dr Thomas Leighton on Planet Q as a novel way to remedy dire shortages on Cygnia Minor. Both among the survivors of Kodos the Executioner, former governor of the Earth colony of Tarsus IV—who ordered the execution of half the settlers during a famine to prevent more starvation with the ensuing resistance precipitating an all out massacre, just days before a relief ship arrived—it is revealed that Leighton’s deception was a coded ruse to lure Kirk to confirm or deny his suspicions that an actor of a touring Shakespearian troupe might actually be the revolutionary provincial leader, Kirk and Leighton among the handful of survivors ever to see Kodos in person. Though convinced that Kodos was killed during the uprising, Kirk’s curiosity is piqued and returns to the surface to attend a cocktail hour held at the Leighton estate, hoping to encounter the supposed fugitive and in the meantime courts the actor’s daughter, the suspect not in attendance, excused as her father does not socialise. Strolling the desert grounds, they come across the murdered body of Leighton and Kirk contrives to strand the company on the planet. Spock conducts independent research and learns that the other eyewitnesses of the elusive governor have died in mysterious circumstances when in proximity to the acting company. More evidence is gathered and the Enterprise offers to ferry the players to their next venue, whilst the ship’s theatre club is rehearsing Hamlet, which the guest stars join, performing the play-within-the-play. Despite the non-fatal poisoning of another crew member who also survived the killings, tampering with Kirk’s phaser and the actor’s apologies in defence of the actions of the colony’s leader, Kirk remains hesitant to forward his accusations until his daughter reveals that she has been executing witnesses, unbidden, to help her father escape his past and whilst attempting to shoot Kirk, phasers her father, having jumped in the beam’s path, and like Ophelia with the accidental death of Laertes, descends into madness, attended by Dr McCoy. The episode also marked the last appearance of Grace Lee Whitney as yeoman Rand until brought back for the movies in that role, giving a resigned dirty look to Kodos’ daughter knowing it was her last scene, a fellow blonde and herself released so Kirk could pursue other love interests, and this show plus “Day of the Dove” (S3:E11), responding to another distress call that pits the Enterprise a in pitched battle with a Klington Bird of Prey gave Simpson’s producer Matt Groening the characters of Kodos and Kang.

t-1500 (12. 975)

In anticipation of the fiftieth anniversary of the introduction of its first digital wrist watch, the world’s first multifunction model, the Casiotrom X-1, the company has curated a gallery of all its models from 1976 to today with a brief history for each point on the timeline. I have my retro classic but am also really intrigued about their innovative wearables, like the 1985 “Data Bank” that had a rolodex and calendar function or a universal remote for TVs and VCRs and analogues of contemporary smart watches with pedometer and pulse-check capabilities and even a calculator with touch-sensitive display and an advanced horologium decades ahead of its time. Check out the whole catalogue from Casio at the link above. The model with a face that flips open like a compact for extra features and input is pretty cool but apparently not currently on offer.

fifty two weeks make a year (12. 972)

Tom Whitwell treats us to another catalogue of facts, lessons and observations—see previously below—gleaned from the past twelve months. It’s well worth your while to peruse the retrospective list in its entirety and some of things new to us included (5) the use of meteor bursts in point-to-point terrestrial communications, harnessing the ion trails of microscopic debris burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere to transport compressed data-packets with fidelity over thousands of kilometres, used to keep in touch with off-shore rigs and with other applications, (29) to encourage tax compliance and accurate reporting, every printed receipt in Taiwan bears a lottery number with a quarter-million pound jackpot and (45) the government of Denmark pays an honorarium to amateur metal detectorists for archaeological artefacts in accordance with a law on the books since 1241 called the Danefæ. A few others we had come across in our own meanderings—like how a gram of silica gel has the surface area equivalent of two basket ball courts but there is not much cross-over—and yet very much appreciated learning how another arrived at these fascinating and unexpected facts.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Ludlow Typograph (with synchronopticæ), assorted links to revisit plus more obscure words

twelve years ago: China’s lunar missions plus poverty thoughts 

thirteen years ago: seasonal hot drinks 

fourteen years ago: EU sovereign debt crisis 

sixteen years ago: the iconoclasm of climate change