Only associating Wolfenbรผttel with the digestif Jรคgermeister, we were grateful for friend of the blog Nag on the Lake for letting us also know about the town’s console furniture (Tonmรถbel) factory that specialised in housing and cabinets for radio, record players and televisions. In operation from 1948 to 1972, the pieces often integrated into one luxury home entertainment unit, founded by inventor and entrepreneur Gerhard Kubetschek (*1909 - †1976), like the pictured model, a true status-symbol and epitome of Mid-Century Modern. More to explore at the links above.
Saturday 11 September 2021
trip odometer
Via Things Magazine, we enjoyed pursuing this gallery automobile digital dashboards from the 1980s, which focused more on dazzle and filling the cockpit with placebo gauges and skeuomorphs exemplified especially in this wildly over-engineered 1987 Cadillac Allante designed by the venerable Italian studio Pininfarina.
Thursday 9 September 2021
7x7
terrorstorm: the garbage documentaries that fulled the cult of conspiracy theorist, fragility and New Age Paranoia
chestbursters and facehuggers:an official Alien xenomorph cookbook to liven up the dinner table
en hobbits รคventyr: Moomins’ creator Tove Jansson illustrates Tolkien’s workskeuomorphs: vestigial, hidden parts of consumer electronics
docudrama: a guide to making a Netflix style serial on the topic of one’s choosing
next sunday a.d.: a neglected remix, compilation of the MST3K Satellite of Love theme
white rabbit: redpilling (previously) and the regime
Tuesday 7 September 2021
pantry and pageantry
Via Things Magazine, we are directed towards a thoroughgoing article about the social engineering behind of the relatively new field of kitchen design and how a whole—though not necessarily comprehensive and to the exclusion of many—spectrum of political and philosophical alignments, communists, feminists, capitalists, have tried, with various degrees of success and endurance, have essayed this part of the home that only garnered attention in the twentieth century once domestics started to be less common. We especially appreciated the chance to revisit the Frankfurt Kitchen and its designer, whom was also an early advocate for planned-obsolesce in order to encourage continued manufacture and innovation and the Cold War battleground of model home-making. Much more at By Design at the link above including the consequences of home economics, reinforcement of gendered roles and expectations, how labour is valued and the under representation of minorities of kitchen-utilisers that together makes up the majority.
Friday 3 September 2021
6x6
mmorpg: a thought experiment that ponders whether dark energy might be the by-product of alien quantum computers
abbatars: after four decades, ABBA is getting back together, first performing as hologramsrole models: China bans men not deemed masculine enough from television
fonarnye bani: a renovated spa in St. Petersburg
push pins: an exhibition of the iconic poster art almanac
wise 1543: unique old, cold orphaned brown dwarves may be ubiquitous in the galaxy
Wednesday 1 September 2021
6x6
ร la recherchรฉ du temps perdu: wondering how Marcel Proust’s Instagram might look is a pathway into memory in the age of social media
melts in your mouth: the long and cursed history of the sexy green M&M—via Things Magazine
development hell: scores of unfinished films that we would watch
sit a spell: a visual essay on the American porch
latch-mediated spring actuation: scientists engineer a robot that packs the wallop of the powerful punch of the mantis shrimp
Tuesday 31 August 2021
a smattering of spots
Our thanks to Fancy Notions for referring us to this reel of cartoon commercials from the animators at Storyboard, Incorporated, the studio of John Hubley (*1914 - †1977, creator of Mister Magoo and under the employ of Disney painted backgrounds for Snow White, Fantasia and Bambi as well as director for the animated adaptation of Watership Down) with a cavalcade of 1950s advertising—no product endorsement intended or implied.
Saturday 28 August 2021
outside the lines
We very much appreciated the introduction to surrealist photographer Arthur Tress whose portfolio was informed by the pivotal year of 1964 in politics, segregation and civil rights via his series of antique colouring-book collages paired with complementary or juxtaposing found photography, likely sourced from the same flea markets. Tress’ sense for mismatch went on to aid him in delivering his commission for the US Environmental Protection Agency to document and publicise the social pressures and injustice underpinning lax ecological stewardship. More at Collectors’ Weekly at the link up top and at the artist’s website.
Tuesday 24 August 2021
7x7
roll out the barrel: eighteen spots that celebrate beer
what fresh hell is this: a 1894, illustrated updating of Dante’s Infernocontraption: a soothing pinball drop render—see also
kurzgesagt: a guided tour of our Solar System, unsere zu Hause im Weltall
sifl & olly: the United States of Whatever (1999)
landsat 9: a retrospective look at how the past five decades of satellite imagery has informed and transformed our world view
klosterbrauerei: a visit with Germany’s last beer-brewing nun—see also
Sunday 22 August 2021
easy-bake coven
Via the Awesomer, we learn that the gag children’s book cover parody has been expanded into a whole series of retro-inspired educational texts for precocious young witches and warlocks and other delinquents—see also. Be sure to Steven Rhodes’ complete Sinister Seventies line and My Little Occult Book Club collection at the links above.
Friday 20 August 2021
miniature life
Courtesy of the always excellent Kottke, we really enjoyed the chance to revisit the creative tiny landscapes of Tatsuya Tanaka (็ฐไธญ ้ไน, previously) crafted daily out of everyday objects in a way that makes us regard our microcosm and macrocosm differently and peopled with proportional figures. Be sure to check out the link up top to see a video of Tanaka at work and connect to calendar pages, diary-entries dating back to 2011.
Tuesday 17 August 2021
fantasmagorie
Caricaturist and member of the mostly forgotten art movement the Incoherents (les arts incohรฉrents in opposition to les arts dรฉcoratifs—contributions later described as surreal) รmile Cohl (*1857 - †1938) created was is commonly accepted as the world’s first animated film, debuting at the Thรฉรขtre du Gymnase in Paris on this day in 1908. Consisting of seven hundred hand-drawn images on glass-plates (cels) and running about two minutes, it is evocative of the magic lantern shows from which it takes its title and is executed in a stream of consciousness style without narrative.
Saturday 14 August 2021
fractal and form constant
Thursday 12 August 2021
la borsetta
We had noticed this handbag in the style of a Barilla pasta package circulating for a few days, and finally took the time to check it out, learning the inspiration for this limited edition leather mini-purse grew out of the tedium of night after night of trusty but monotonous fare during the height of lockdown and the antecedent panic-buying that perhaps left many cupboards stocked with a surfeit of penne.
place your slag somewhere safe, as you might want to melt it again to remove excess silver
We found this developing narrative for the Wikihow article (see previously) on silver smelting, smithing a delightful example of storytelling and elaboration that we hope to see continue—eventually limning out an entire cinematic universe and franchise for the character, who could be either a safety-conscious crafty Christian, vampire-hunter or both.
Wednesday 11 August 2021
8x8
united states of wildfire: as the climate emergency escalates, more North American residents are moving into the path of destruction unwittingly
fitting in: Ze Frank (previously) reveals that even the coolest, calmest and most collected of us are all trying, coping
d’oyly carte: an islet in the Thames with a derelict mansion built for an opera impresario will be restored to its former glory—via Things Magazinecaped crusaders: Batman’s sidekick Robin finally comes out
constrained systems: a tool-kit of alternative image editing effects—via Waxy
matchi bล:a mesmerising stop-motion study of a magic match stick from Tomohiro Okazaki—via ibฤซdem
bubblegum pop: the Osmonds 1968 song “Groove with what You Got”
ฮฑฯฮฟฮบฮฌฮปฯ ฯฮท: Greek capital, archipelago beset by flames
Tuesday 10 August 2021
d’une figure de proue
Via Fancy Notions, we are introduced to Belgian animator and educator Raoul Servais (*1928) through the lens of his 1968 dystopian short on humanity’s siren song—the totems of exploitation, globalisation over-fishing. His 1979 horror-comedy piece featuring trying to live with another legendary creature, Harpya, which innovatively mixed live-action with cartoons took the Palme d’Or at Cannes that year in that category. The source title refers to a 1964 British horror film by Roger Corman that was part of a series of adaptations of works by Edgar Allen Poe about a widower whose Atheist wife’s soul was purloined by a demonic cat.
Monday 9 August 2021
9x9
form follows function: a Bauhaus poster generator—see previosly—via Kottke
reddy made magic: a gallery of images plus the Walter Lantz theme song for mascot and industry shill, Reddy Kilowatt
dining car: vintage railway menus (see also) illustrate the evolution of American cuisine—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
ฮด ฮด ฮด, can I help ya, help ya, help ya: a guide to joining the right sorority this falljeux de la xxxiii
attention k-mart shoppers: Americans emerge from the pandemic less patient, less empathetic than before and the service industry culture that fuels the cruel fantasy
cycles pour animaux: a 1907 patent for a bicycle for horses to amplify their speed and le cheval-vapeur
divergent association task: help science gauge creative reflexes by thinking up ten words as different as possible (in English only for now)
betaplex: colourful retro cinema space in Ho Chi Mihn City recalls Saigon’s Art Deco architecture
Saturday 7 August 2021
dazzle camo
Via the always brilliant Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this look into this demonstration project with automotive camouflage (see previously, see also) not necessarily meant to conceal but rather confuse and overwhelm the proliferation of prying eyes, perhaps containing a hidden QR code to throw ubiquitous spyware off the trail and send it down the garden path. Prior to the ubiquity of spy technology, the article also contains an interesting aside regarding how auto manufacturers first explored this type of detailing in order to combat corporate espionage when sleuthing photographers tried to capture images of road-testing prototype vehicles before their R&D was ready for market and perhaps steal their design—these concept cars out in the wild published under the caption, catagory Erlkรถnige (with the less poetic English translation, development mule) after the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ballad about the Fairy King with the opening line Wer reitet so spat durch Nacht und Wind—Who rides so late through night and wind? to refer to the drivers who thought they were being stealthy when they were just rather conspicuous.
Friday 6 August 2021
regimental colours
Via the lens of heraldic conventions developed over centuries of colonisation and exploitation, we are afforded a glimpse into the complex history and socio-economic relations of the traditional companies of warriors of the Akan culture—called Asafo—of Ghana and the Ivory Coast (see previously) that pledge to defend the land through resistance to assimilation and care for their community, like ward custodians. Reminiscent of latter day Afghan war rugs (an example pictured here), learn more about the flags’ history and legacy at the link up top.