font speciment (12. 048)

A kind of hot metal typesetting used for letterpress printing, the Ludlow Typograph issued a font catalogue in 1958—pictured a gallery of fourth edition scalable patterns to supplement their available collection of typefaces and font families. Metal slugs are cast by the system, melted down and recycled in a cauldron in situ—preferable to some printing operations, as opposed to Linotype, as it was smaller and more affordable and always had fresh matrices for a run without worrying about running out of any given sorts. Though not made since the late 1960s when printing press technologies changed, the company estimates around sixteen thousand models were still in operations around the world, and replacement parts still being produced. See a video of one of the machines at work and many more type samplers at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a gallery of visual anagrams (with synchronoptica) plus the coronation of Napoleon and Joséphine

seven years ago: alternating tread stairwells plus assorted links to revisit

eight years ago: Basil Brush endangered, rampant post-factual disinformation, hybrid cigarettes plus a plant leverages physics

nine years ago: Kraftwerk in concert

ten years ago: fossilised phrases in English Christmas songs

seventh heaven (12. 046)

Having visited the efforts of scholars to survey the domains of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy beforehand, we enjoyed coming back to the endeavour to map Purgatory, the Inferno and Paradise with the culmination of seven centuries of study with the 1855 edition and 1872 reissue by Michelangelo Caetani, heir to the princedom of Teano, an academic and a patron of the arts with a special talent for draughting jewellery design and commissioned the monks of Monte Cassino to produce colour prints of his topological learning aides with an early form of chromolithography. Much more from Public Domain Review at the link above.

monsterpiece theatre (12. 029)

Although a bit of a try-hard and with some definite tendencies towards this aesthetic, I always admired the Sesame Street character, one of the original cast members, Prairie Dawn—having developed a distinct, precocious personality out of an Anything Muppet—and aspiring journalist and director. We didn’t appreciate however how often she was shown reading (particularly during the late 80s and early 90s) reading, and not fictitious works that played on some classic title but actual literature well above her cohort’s reading-level, including A Room of One’s Own and Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Feminine Mystique, The Bell Jar and Anna Karenina.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the retroactive canonising of Disney (with synchronoptica), sculptor Roberto Cordone plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: a gender-neutral God plus emotional manipulation with alcohol

eight years ago: Turkey threats to open borders to transit refugees to the EU, a tacit challenge to uphold democratic values amid fake news plus colouring-books for grown-ups

ten years ago: Ottoman successors and Nazi predecessors plus eccentric aristocrats

eleven years ago: preserving traditional viniculture in the Rheingau 

8x8 (12. 028)

ofdon: US Defence Secretary nominee views the armed forces as means for promoting Christian Reconstructionism and the patriarchy  

fugatto: a new AI-powered audio editor claims to create sounds never before heard  

mrs french’s cat is missing: the 2008 Canadian horror film Pontypool about a viral outbreak that coopts language as a vector is a MetaFilter favourite  

cop29: members agree to an annual three hundred billion dollar stipend to help poorer countries cope with climate change as talks nearly implode  

virtual geoglyphs: the community of GPS artists transforming their daily perambulations into a kind of sky-writing

test kitchen: corporate casseroles and other industry influences on Thanksgiving—see also 

letters from england: Karel Čapek’s (see previously) impression of his host country in exile 

🎯: Elon Musk muses about purchasing the news network MSNBC, along with other shitposting

9x9 (12. 004)

if you really care about women having autonomy, you should stop questioning our decision to elect a guy who wants to take it away: sure, I voted for someone whose policies might kill you, but now’s the time to put aside our differences  

with some account of the judicial “congress”: John Davenport’s 1869 collected essays on Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs  

operation bear claw: four Los Angeles residents charged with insurance fraud for dressing in a costume and damaging luxury cars  

goldeneye: a tour of Ian Fleming’s estate in Jamaica where the author wrote all the Bond novels  

blue days, all of them gone—nothing but blue skies from now on: the alternative social network’s growth is attributed to privileging user choice over algorithmic engagement  

ai granny: telecom O2 has created a scambait protocol to keep fraudsters on the line as long as possible and away from potential human victims 

feat. rowlf as king herod: Muppet Christ Superstar—see also  

lysistrata: as Trump’s next term approaches, more women are seeking to disassociate themselves from the men in their lives, withhold sex  

subway therapy: the exhibition inviting New Yorkers to share their thoughts on the presidential election returns after eight years

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Sound of Music (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: The Book of Life: The Spiritual and Physical Constitution of Man

eight years ago: the lost art of correspondence plus WoTY: post-truth

ten years ago: lucid dreams plus a selection of random t-shirts

eleven years ago: the Asylothek, retro Christmas cards plus more fallout from US dragnet espionage tactics

peoples’ choice (12. 003)

Polls open now through 28.November, the OED presents its shortlist of nominees for the Word of the Year for 2024, with only one actual neologism in romantasy (see previously, albeit the portmanteau for the literary genre dates back to 2008 when the German arm of publisher Random House tried to categorise its translations of English romance romances with an element of fantasy). Other contenders include brainrot, a term first used by Henry David Thoreau in his 1842 Walden; or, Life in the Woods, and dynamic pricing, a calque of the Swedish coinage of economist Gunnar Myrdal in 1927 as dynamiska prisbildning which has also seen a revival this past year with heightened public awareness of surges, gouging and exploitation in retail spaces and for gig-workers. More older words with new meanings are lore, slop and demure. Which one is your pick?

9x9 (11. 997)

dr tj eckleburg: how The Great Gatsby influenced Robert Moses and transformed New York City  

tether: although the material technology is not quite there for a terrestrial one, a lunar space elevator might be feasible  

ssccatagapp: Russia moves to ban all content deemed to promote a childless-lifestyle—via tmn  

cleromancy: spiritual taverns that combine tarot and I Ching with cocktails are seeing growing popularity in China 

jeu de puce: fleas, chips and other observations on the 9ᵉ édition du Dictionnaire de l’Académie française just published 

talking head: Pentagon and US allies in shock over Trump’s intent to nominate a Fox News commentator as secretary of defence 

sobriquet: the twenty-eight European cities claiming to be Venice of the North—see also—via Messy Nessy Chic 

collectives: a series of aerial photographs of junkyards and graveyards neatly organised by Cássio Campos Vasconcellos—via Things Magazine  

a remembrance of things past: Proust and The Breakfast Club

synchronoptica

one year ago: a medieval large language model (with synchronoptica),  a new family of goblin spiders, a novel way to hack light pollution plus block printing personal narratives

seven years ago: tariffs on Chinese aluminium, revolutionary terrariums plus using AI to minimise road-kill, disruption to migration

eight years ago: RIP Leonard Cohen

nine years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus emoji syntax across different platforms

ten years ago: more on the spread of Indo-European languages

so it goes (11. 973)

Illustrator Igor Karash reimagines the disassociation and chiaroscuro of Kurt Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse-Five, following protagonist Billy Pilgrim’s time-jumps across a far-flung utopian planet, a mundane existence as a suburban eye-doctor and World War II Dresden during the fire-bombing. The commission coming as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, Karash drew from his experiences of reluctant, ridiculous conscription and connections to a besieged land, finding Vonnegut’s message and mantra PEOPLE DO NOT LEARN FROM THEIR PAST particularly resonant—also drawing from his many readings of the author’s work, being available in translation in the Soviet Union by dent of his criticism of the West and anti-war message.

10x10 (11. 957)

þjappað vinnuviku: Iceland’s experiment with a shorted working week  

dénouement: examining the kishōtenketsu arc of narrative and its structure in world literature 

indirect allorecognition: injured comb jellies will fuse with another to allow one to heal—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest

climate solutions: just a shower thought probably better shared on this website, could we reduce CO₂ concentration by making the atmosphere bigger?  

celestial symphony: the icon and ingrained theme from the 1986 Chinese television adaptation of Journey to the West—see previously  

oracles of astrampsychus: ancient tools of divantion included drawing lots, bibliomancy and a sort of algorithm—via Strange Company  

goonies in space: the latest Star Wars spinoff, Skeleton Crew  

denaturalised: Elon Musk could have his US citizenship revoked if it’s confirmed that he lied on his immigration application—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

the gaudí of mita: Keisuke Oka’s hand-built tower, the Arimaston Building in east Tokyo  

sweethearting: AI-powered facial recognition monitors for suspicious friendliness between customers and staff may be the next phase in retail security theatre

if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same (11. 947)

This is premium advice from Better Living through Beowulf. Though I did cancel our subscription over the decision for a non-endorsement and this is no apologetic for the owner’s behaviour, we could be swayed to rejoin by one disappointed but not defeated columnist’s argument that cites not only the accolades that the publication has been awarded and the as yet relative newsroom independence that the paper has enjoyed (the agnostic Bezos is no Musk and the Washington Post is no vanity project) but also the stoical 1895 poem “If—” by Rudyard Kipling—not only as a stance and signal for freedom of the press but moreover a way to combat election anxiety:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and ‘em up with worn-out tools…

“If you can keep your head when all about you  /  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” recalls those above false councillors are not the ultimate arbiters and no victory or defeat is ever final; the struggle goes on and we have work to do.

peabody visual aids (11. 899)

Courtesy of Messy Nessy Chic, we enjoyed perusing this gallery of antique library infographics salvaged from the trash in 2003. Making use of the Dewey decimal system, the reference and the periodical desk less daunting for students, these posters which date from the 1930s and 1940s (see also) and were designed by Professor Ruby Ethel Cundiff who pioneered the use of multimedia and cooperation between school libraries and the classroom in a career spanning five decades, defining reference collections and library science during her tenure at the Peabody College for Teachers, now part of Vanderbilt University.

10x10 (11. 852)

analogical harmony: Edwin Babbit’s Principles of Light and Colour (1878)  

riding the rails: a guide to a cross-country trip on America’s Amtrak

world level zero: how well travelled are you—see previously  

porifera: an appreciation of the barely understood sea sponge  

me and my aero: one inventor invented both the flying ring frisbee and an innovative coffee press—via Kottke  

type tuesday: Microsoft’s new default font (see previously here and here) and more typographical briefs  

the cry of cthuthu: Poseidon’s Underworld reads the July 1979 anniversary issue of Starlog—see previously

small world: kinetic microphotography captures biological processes and microbes in never-before-seen ways  

road trip: charting the longest possible drivable distance through Eurasia  

come up off your colour chart: Taylor Swift lyrical swatches

synchronoptica

one year ago: faithless electors (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: the stage play that coined race plus a legitimising veneer for populist prejudice

eight years ago: a visit to the Hessen Landtag

ten years ago: Roman emperor Hadrian 

eleven years ago: a photographic scavenger hunt in Leipzig plus gifting votes

7x7 (11. 838)

the hemicycle: an exhibition on the European Union parliament’s plenary sessions from 1952 to the present—see also here and here 

i’m feeling lucky: to google as a verb losing traction, younger users preferring search—I have to watch my stories 

matrix: a split-screen tool that converts video to ASCII characters—via Web Curios  

buzz-bar: a global roller coaster database—via ibīdem  

we have no idea the ripple effects we will have in this world: the revolutionary Waite-Colman Smith tarot deck—see previously  

palimpsest: multispectral imaging the Voynich Manuscript (previously) might reveal clues about its origins

holiday creep: US government facing another shutdown showdown ahead of the coming fiscal year, reporting earlier than usual

synchronoptica

one year ago:  a Russian-North Korean summit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the new town square

eight years ago: microbeads and microplastics, the extinction illusion plus the thematic apperception test

eleven years ago: bees still under threat plus a US imposed clearing house for all international bank transfers

twelve years ago: corporate hegemony, banking secrecy plus a consortium of European museum collections digitised

222 west 23rd (11. 835)

The historic Queen Anne Revival accommodations in the Manhattan neighbourhood of Chelsea was originally a housing cooperative through the early 1980s before being gentrified into its present form, and the residential hotel was home to many up-and-coming luminaries until such time, including Jack Kerouac, Andy Warhol, Sherwood Anderson, Henri Chopin, Quentin Crisp, Ethan Hawke, Miloš Forman, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Marian Faithfull, Bette Milder, Isabella Rosallini, Eddie Izzard, Jane Fonda and numerous others. In 2011, we learn, a lesser-known but long-term resident, Jim Georgiou and his dog Teddy, was evicted for failing to pay his rent and was temporarily unhoused. The following year during renovations on the building, he saw construction workers tossing out some of the old, white-washed and graffitied doors, which Georgiou managed to salvage and research, connecting them to the suites of different neighbours. After years of work, fifty-two doors were auctioned off, with the proceeds going to organisations that help New York City’s homeless in 2018.

7x7 (11. 830)

cat lives matter: US vice presidential candidate JD Vance propagating false and inflammatory rumours about migrants abducting and eating family pets 

beany leeky greens with greeky rampy beans: recipes and foodways becoming a bit less twee, more straightforward—via tmn  

an agony, in eight fits: James Earl Jones (RIP) reads Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark  

may the gods give you everything you asked for: backhanded benedictions and predictions about what AI does next 

 esh: how AITA took over the internet

a melodrama in three acts: Five Star Finale and other pre-code screenplay original sources  

crowd size: Harris-Walz campaign advertisement airing on Fox News

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: silphium, more on the Voynich Manuscript plus a visit to Trump’s ancestral home

eight years ago: Birobidzhan oblast,  fantasy doubles tennis plus the 1970 movie The Phynx

nine years ago: more links to enjoy 

ten years ago: WWI periodicals a century on 

mss (11. 824)

Having a bit of a preoccupation with the discipline of diplomatics, we enjoyed going through this collection of missives from Letters of Note when correspondence becomes self-aware and ashamed, feeling the need to excuse itself for bad penmanship—the motor control and coordination to commit words to a page (undiminished we agree by their appearance however verging on the illegible) an important feedback loop in the exercise that’s not much practised lately, and lamented in this vintage selection. Particularly telling is this letter (not pictured—that’s Franz Kafka) from American poet laureate Louise Bogan addressed to essayist and New Yorker magazine editor William Keepers Maxwell with the post script, “Isn’t my handwriting queer? I lost my old one, typing for years; and this one showed up last winter. Odd!” Much more from Sean Usher at the link above.

9x9 (11. 814)

unpodcasted: one hundred ninety nine ideas about etymologies, idioms and eponyms that Helen Zaltzman has not produced an episode for—yet  

book club: Oprah Winfrey’s upcoming special on Artificial Intelligence with Sam Altman, Bill Gates and other AI-evangelists has critics of the tech sector up in arms  

blue chip index: Intel’s earnings slump could see it removed from the Dow, possibly putting a wrench in plans to increase US domestic manufacturing

sleepy grendel’s mother: Beotrump by Christopher Douglas  

jevons paradox: even if autonomous vehicles worked perfectly, they will still lead to more pollution, congestion and accidents—see previously—via tmn  

oslo—is it even a city: a wonderful bit of anti-advertising for the Norwegian capital plus more news and jokes 

intel inside: Pentium microprocessor as Navajo weaving—via Waxy 

nanowrimo: the organisation behind National Novel Writing Month criticised over labelling aversion to generative texts as classist and ableist 

unblogged: fellow flâneur Diamon Geezer lists a month’s worth of explorations not posted

 synchronoptica

one year ago: The Eye of the Tiger (with synchronoptica),  Kenneth Anger’s first film plus hot labour summer

seven years ago: the Little Ben of Victoria station

eight years ago: a visit to Churfrankenland plus an ant colony thriving in nuclear waste

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit plus algorithmic eavesdropping

eleven years ago: Germany votes plus pirate patches

the tour of dr syntax through the pleasures & miseries of london (11. 806)

Published anonymously in 1820 but believed to be authored by William Coombe and illustrated by Robert Cruikshank (see previously), the popular comedy epistolary series is about a rural school master and pastor who attempts to make his fortune by travelling and then writing about it. Coombe—or often Combe—was himself an adventurer produced most of his works from debtors’ prison, with his first success dispatch from behind bars was a satire called The Diaboliad that attacked and defamed his creditors with thinly veiled allegory, and due to others trying to capitalise and plagiarising his Dr Syntax character (including as Derby porcelain figurines), the author, in the style of Cervantes and the false Don Quixote, put out a collection of spurious letters attributed to the fictional late Lord Lyttelton of Syntax’ continuing misadventures aboard—the plagiariser’s supposed correspondence taken as an admission to seditious speech against the government of King George III but later scholarship confirmed it was another tout to push pamphlets. More from Spitalfields Life at the link above.

republic of letters (11. 802)

Via Super Punch, we are reminded of the notoriously weird and incongruous book covers (previously) of academics publisher Routledge, founded in 1836 to capitalise on the market of holiday by train and known as the “Railway Library” and later acquired the rights for printing the collected works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton before after flirting with insolvency entered the scholarly field buying out the the backlists of several university presses and journals and acquiring the imprint of several influential humanities and social sciences titles. The image references last year’s meme about the frequency among men thinking about Ancient Rome.

10x10 (11. 783)

zener cards: the phenomenon of population stereotypes help mentalists seem genuine to their audience—via The New Shelton wet/dry 

null island: the nation of Kiribati (see also, see previously) straddles the four hemispheres  

mycobbuoys: a natural anchored float to help ween aquaculture off of plastics and keep them out of the oceans  

gisnep: a hybrid jumble, Connect-Four and cross-word game—via Neatorama  

vanquish surveillance, not democratise it: California legislators’ deal to have Big Tech sponsor local journalism causes concern it may affirm monopolies rather than break them up  

who’s telling trump he might be seeking one of those black jobs: former US first lady Michelle Obama taunts the GOP candidate for his comments about immigrants taking away supposed targeted employment opportunities 

seven-segment display: the fast technological progression from the incandescent numitrons to the liquid crystal display—see previously  

dishonourable mentions: winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest—see previously  

veni, vidi, vici: discover Roman antiquities in your area—via Satyrs’ Link Roll  

miss cleo knows the truth: confessions of psychic hotline operator—via tmn

synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from Gary Numan (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: staunch Prohibitionists

eight years ago: cross-species friendships, taxidermied instruments plus healthy microbiomes

nine years ago: the scramble for the poles plus asylum problems in Germany

ten years ago: Pallas’ Cat