First published as a German language translation on this day in 1493, the well-recognised illustrated, encyclopaedic incunabulum of world history as told through the lens of mythology and biblical accounts, originally printed under the above title (July of the same year) in Latin, English speakers call the work the Nuremberg Chronicle, after the location of the publishing house, is referred to in that native Sprachraum as die Schedelsche Weltchronik after the author Hartmann Schedel, humanist, scholar and cartographer whose work presents some of the first depictions of major cities of Europe and the Holy Roman Empire. The book divides human history into seven parts informed by canon—the first age aligning with the chapters of Genesis, from creation to the Deluge. The sixth age—the largest part—relates events after Jesus Christ up to the present, with the following chapter presenting outlook for the future and the End Times. Godson of the printer Anton Koberger, a young Albrecht Dรผrer likely contributed to some of the woodcuts and prints.
Thursday 23 December 2021
Sunday 19 December 2021
hickory-dickory
Sunday 12 December 2021
8x8
an den mond “genuss, lieber mond”: a completist sorts and ranks every composition of Franz Schubert—via the morning news
chaotic good: mapping the mythological creatures of the Baltic—via ibฤซdem
the two-thousand year-old man: more appreciation and acclaim for Mel Brooksbirds aren’t real: a satirical Gen-Z misinformation campaign (see Poe’s Law) turned merchandising opportunity
location scout: an assortment of movie maps
parallel path: rubbish corporatespeak that does not avail itself to the level of jargon and technical terms
combinatorics: base rate fallacies and why false narratives are easy to frame for the ill-numerate
sexting: “u ๐” in the style of several male authors
Friday 10 December 2021
everybody always confesses—you can’t help it
Slated to be released on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the original publication of nineteen eighty-four on 8 June 2023 and greenlit by the estate of George Orwell, the dystopian, cautionary tale will be retold from the perspective of Julia, Winston Smith’s erstwhile subversive, thoughtcriminal, inculcated to the Party at a young age and avid member of the Junior Anti-Sex League and the Two Minutes Hate directed against those who would betray the revolution but who quickly redirected her fervour to rebellion, though knowing they will eventually be caught and betray one another’s confidence.
nobelfesten
Cancelled for a second year due to the pandemic, normally the Nobel Banquet (previously here and here) is held annually on this day (the anniversary of the death in 1896 of its benefactor, inspired to become a philanthropist after reading a premature obituary of himself that described him as a war profiteer, indeed having amassed his fortune from dynamite), the fรชte hosted in the Blue Hall of the rathaus of Stockholm for 1971 would have included amongst its guests Willy Brandt, chancellor of West Germany, Pavlo Neruda, Chilean poet and diplomat, Simon Kuznets, responsible for turning economics into an empirical, cyclical science, and Gรกbor Dรฉnes, inventory of among other things holography.
Monday 6 December 2021
schleicher's fable
Dying this day of tuberculosis in Jena in 1868, (*1821, Meiningen), linguist August Schleicher informs our contemporary views on the Indo-European (previously) family of languages and attempts to reconstruct a common ancestor. Previsioning or at least parallel with the development and advancement of Charles Darwin’s evolution of species, Schleicher's comparative study was grounded in the natural descent and competition and pass through life-cycles as any living being among world language and established a system of classification based on the taxonomy of botanical varieties, modelling a Stammbaumtheorie, a family tree showing trunk, branch and twig. Working backwards to a common ancestor, the hypothetical and at times conjectural—though malleable and subject to revision, Proto-Indo European (PIE), Schleichter illustrated his concept, vocabulary and its antecedents and what inference can be made about cultural norms and outlook through reconstruction with a brief fable:
Using modern spelling conventions, his [The] Sheep and [the] Horses (das Schaf und die Rosse) is rendered:
H₂รณu̯is h₁รฉแธฑu̯ลs-kสทe h₂รกu̯ei̯ h₁i̯osmรฉi̯ h₂u̯l̥h₁nรกh₂ nรฉ h₁รฉst, sรณ h₁รฉแธฑu̯oms derแธฑt. sรณ gสทr̥hโรบm u̯รณวตสฐom u̯eวตสฐed; sรณ mรฉวตh₂m̥ bสฐรณrom; sรณ dสฐวตสฐรฉmonm̥ h₂แนแธฑu bสฐered. h₂รณu̯is h₁รฉkสทoi̯bสฐi̯os u̯eu̯ked: “dสฐวตสฐรฉmonm̥ spรฉแธฑi̯oh₂ h₁รฉแธฑu̯oms-kสทe h₂รกวตeti, แธฑแธr moi̯ agสฐnutor”. h₁รฉแธฑu̯ลs tu u̯eu̯kond: “แธฑludสฐรญ, h₂ou̯ei̯! tรณd spรฉแธฑi̯omes, n̥smรฉi̯ agสฐnutรณr แธฑแธr: dสฐวตสฐรฉmล, pรณtis, sฤ h₂รกu̯i̯es h₂u̯l̥h₁nรกh₂ gสทสฐรฉrmom u̯รฉstrom u̯ept, h₂รกu̯ibสฐi̯os tu h₂u̯l̥h₁nรกh₂ nรฉ h₁esti”. tรณd แธฑeแธฑluu̯แนs h₂รณu̯is h₂aวตrรณm bสฐuged.
A sheep without wool saw two horses, one slowly draughting a heavily-laden wagon and the other quickly carrying a man rider. Addressing the horses, the sheep said, “My heart pains me, seeing man driving horses. In reply, the horses said, “Listen sheep, our hearts pain us when we witness man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself, leaving the sheep with no wool!” Having attended to the lesson, the sheep fled into the plains. A version of this allegory appears in the Alien prequel Prometheus in a short exchange between an android and the ship’s computer to prepare for first contact with the “engineers.”
Saturday 4 December 2021
week-by-week
In what’s become an annual treat, Tom Whitwell again shares fifty-two items he has gleaned from the past year. In the compilation, drawn from experiencing editing projects for Fluxx / Medium, Whitwell’s shared new facts learned include that daily over a million images of coffee grinds are uploaded to a fortune reading app (the process of divination called tasseomancy), advice on how to solicit better answers, the MSG hoax, the truth behind the mystery seeds from China hysteria, and a few we’ve previously covered like how cowpox vaccine was transported around the world, traditional Japanese microseasons, how film was formulated to privilege lighter complexions, and how the threshhold effect applies even to a doorway on screen. Many more astonishing correlations at the links above—do let us know your favourites.
8x8
fauxliage: a superlative roundup of architectural photography projects
the ntf of dorian gray: a new, short take on Oscar Wilde’s cautionary tale
emoji for scale: objects represented by their glyphs from smallest to largest—via Waxy
life plus 50: a Public Domain Advent Calendar in anticipation of the expiring copyrights that the New Year ushers in with a new class of works free to enjoy however one sees fit
verrillon: revisiting the fragile glass armonica of Benjamin Franklin
thank you for your patronage: hackers are instructing receipt printers to spout off anti-work manifestos to draw attention to poverty wages
history is calling: a mobile phone museum—via Pasa Bon!
unbuilt architecture: mock-ups of ten modern monumental structures that were never completed—via Things Magazine
Wednesday 1 December 2021
๐️
Observed annually since being designated as an international day of awareness and mourning of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes the life threatening and in most cases fatal acquired immunodeficiency syndrome by compromising resistance to other diseases, World AIDS Day in 2019 marked the first recorded case of another pandemic, far more contagious and readily transmitted with the World Health Organisation picking up on a report published in the medical journal The Lancet documenting the onset of symptoms in Patient Zero for COVID-19 on this day of that year. The WHO verified this diagnosis with their own official reports on the novel corona virus within the week. There is no vaccine for AIDS, which has claimed over forty million lives and untold collateral damage and forty thousand people contract the disease annually, though improved access to antiretroviral therapies as well as broad acceptance of interventions and preventative measures has significantly slowed the spread and meant that many can live with the illness.
catagories: ⚕️, ⚖️, ๐ณ️๐, ๐ , ๐
Wednesday 24 November 2021
his grooms and companions, the autobiography of a horse
Though considered the foundational work of pony fiction--that genre of juvenile novels involving teens and learning equestrian skills—Anna Sewell’s final work published on this day in 1877 by Jarrold & Sons, Black Beauty, the first non-human memoir was not necessarily targeted to an audience of children. Instilling sympathy and respect for animals as well as people, the enduring best-seller recounts the stages of the narrator's life--first as a foal, a colt, then a working-horse pulling cabs whose hardships and experiences reflect those of his drivers and passengers in London before being put out to pasture for retirement.
Saturday 20 November 2021
sopรฒt
Once the weather seemed to stabilise, H and I took a short train journey to the seaside resort city on the Bay of Gdaลsk to take in the sights and learn about the history of the place, first meeting the home army mascot Wojtek the Bear (more here) memorialised in the churchyard visited by John Paul II in 1999. Among the first spots in the modern era to cultivate thermal cures and health-tourism, Sopot / Zoppot recovered quickly from the war with enduring institutions on balneotherapy and reoccurring music festivals—from Wagner to jazz. The main, pedestrianised thoroughfare is dedicated to the memory of the Battle of Monte Cassino, the costly and destructive stand-off to break the Winter Line with the regrouped Polish II Corps joining Allied forces against Nazi Germany to advance into Rome—the tumult and violence later inspiring American bomber who participated in the razing of the ancient monastery to pen A Canticle for Leibowitz, and whose heroes counted among their ranks our above ursine friend. The main street includes several shopping arcades and Krzywy Domek (the Crooked House), a fairy tale-inspired mall and terminates with the lighthouse and similarly constructed Church of the Holy Saviour and Grand Hotel on the beach, yet extends over half a kilometre further out over the sea with the longest wooden pier in Europe and among the longest in the world.
Monday 8 November 2021
9x9
poppy watch: juxtaposed recruitment campaign for lorry drivers looks like a cheesy Whovian villain (previously)—via Super Punch
if past is precedent: a comic illustrating vaccine requirements in public schools—via Nag on the Lake
voleur de grand chemin: literary correspondence for Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
wurzelkindern: a delightfully illustrated 1909 children’s book about when the root children wake up—via Everlasting Blรถrt
greatest movie never made: storyboard, note for Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, to star Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson and Salvador Dalรญ, up for auction
nitt witt ridge: an eccentric castle on a hill—via Messy Messy Chic (lots more to see here)
could’ve been an email: a concise plan for shorted, more productive meetings from John Cleese in 1976
high-fidelity: a patent for a playback stylus that moved the needle rather than the record in the form of a VW Bulli
mop and smiff: the Saw-See annual, a nostalgic diversion from BBC1 uncovered
Wednesday 3 November 2021
6x6
fought and sold: the evolution of military recruitment advertising campaigns
modern classics: in the vein of abstract vintage paperback cover art, eighty-four works of literature as postage stamps
sleight of hand: objects from the Ricky Jay collection—more here, via Things Magazine
20/20/20: revisiting a retrospective of the work of Afrofuturist Bodys Isek Kingelez
every time they hear der bingle croon: episode two of Radiolab’s Mixtape miniseries explains why early entertainment was live and not Memorex
america’s moveable fighting man: new G.I. Joe action figures available for pre-order
Thursday 28 October 2021
travels into several remote nations of the world. in four parts.
Through his amanuensis and alter-ego Lemuel Gulliver (First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, see previously here, here and here), Anglo-Irish author and clergyman Jonathan Swift published his multipart novel satirizing social foibles and the obsession with travelogue through London-based printer Benjamin Motte on this day in 1726. An instant best-seller with widespread and ingrained cultural influences and literary legacy, Gulliver’s Travels explores petty and doctrinaire differences magnified, the inherent innocence or corrupt state of human nature and a reinstatement of the struggle between Modernity and Antiquity and associated totems and taboos, each part opposed to the themes explored in the preceding-macrocosm, microcosm, insight, innocence.
Sunday 17 October 2021
the tragical death of an apple pie, who was cut to pieces and eaten by twenty-five gentlemen, with whom all little people ought to be acquainted
In the midst of the season for apple picking and pie baking, Spitalfields Life presents us a rhyming Abecedarium (also called battledores, from the wooden tablet or paddle used in the classroom for instruction that resembled the racket from the game of shuttlecock) first in print in the late seventeenth century and then republished by prolific printer Jemmy Catnach (*1769 - †1813) at the end of his long career, whom produced thousands of chapbooks and affordable literary material, in the form of educational pamphlets, political satires, poetry revues and other ephemera to surfeit a voracious and newly literate public in the Seven Dials (named for the horological devices strategically placed there to record the hour with the sun for the rest of the city, which was not necessarily free of the impediment of shadow) district of London. Go through the whole alphabet with much more to explore at the links above.
Saturday 16 October 2021
7x7
pour homme, femme, et grenouille: Amphรญbฤซa, Kermit the Frog’s signature scent from 1995
hampsternomics: a look at how the attention economy has matured through the lens of a quarter-century old meme—see previously
a day without rain: Endless Enya (previously) from Mischief Magazine—via Web Curiosmemento mori: a treasury of macabre reminders of death’s inevitability
corvid catalogue: counting crows of literature
sneakernet: non-existent virtual trainers dreamed up by artificial intelligence (see also)—via ibฤซdem
pietra per pizza: a deep-dive into the history of the cooking accessory convinces one individual it isn’t just a trendy gimmick
atlas des champignons: comestibles, suspects et vรฉnรฉneux
Unsuccessful in our foraging this year (and usually coming up with the suspect varieties, if not outright poisonous ones), we appreciated pouring over the detail and descriptions from physician, botanist and accidental chronicler of the Haitian Revolution Michel รtienne Descourtilz’ 1827 guide, lusciously illustrated with the lithographs of Auguste Cornillon. More from Public Domain Review at the link above.
counterpunctual or slashdot
Another kindred internet caretaker, TYWKIWDBI, picked up on an idea we were wondering about after an earlier encounter with site that distills one’s writing down to its constituent punctuation marks.
While no refined work of literature or self-consistent as canon, we did wonder if there was a certain detectable cadence or scansion to our posts on PfRC—and indeed whether hypertext markup, virgules, separatrices, etc. counted or should be counted, but from the Latin to score with points, it does seem right to include after all.
catagories: ๐, ๐ฃ, networking and blogging
Thursday 14 October 2021
eine deutsche volkssage
Presaging the studio's most technically advanced and expensive production by a year, F.W. Murnau's silent epic (see previously) Faust premiered this day in 1926 at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin. The director's last German film before moving on to Hollywood and upheld as an example of filmic Expressionism, it is a cinematic retelling of the downfall of elderly alchemist-resulting from a bet between a demon Mephisto and the Archangel, with the former wagering that he can corrupt any righteous soul and drive out any touch of divinity. Despite the odds stacked against our protagonist and literary precedent, there is a Hollywood ending with true and chaste love ultimately prevailing over diabolical forces.
Tuesday 12 October 2021
horticultural dingbat
In announcing the winner of contest held in honour of Punctuation Day, adopted and embraced as an international observance, Shady Characters gives us a brief but thorough education in the dual-use glyph, used both as a form of punctuation and as a typographical ornament known as the printers’ flower, Aldus leaf (after Renaissance publisher Aldus Manutius of the the Aldine Press), the hedera symbol or most commonly as the fleuron—❦. Similar to the pilcrow (¶, Middle English pylcrafte and ultimately from the Greek paragraphos), it was used in ancient manuscripts to divide paragraphs in a block of text and fill the space of indentation. In modern bookbinding and pagination, it is used similarly to the asterism to denote line- and page-breaks as well as borders. Couched in the title conventions, they are referred to as “floral hearts.”