From the Greek แผฮฝฮฑฮฝฯฮฑฯฯฮดฮฟฯฮฟฯ for “I give back,” the ellipsis refers to a rhetorical device by which the gist of a saying is supported by its subordinate clause without mentioning it, like if the mountain won’t come to the prophet, when in Rome, a bird in the hand, if the shoe fits or when the cat’s away. As with the spoonerism I heard once and since incorporated “paying Peter to rob Paul,” I thought the former idiom (fabricated by Francis Bacon) was “Let the mountain come to Mohammed”—an anacoluthon, a disruptive thought expressed in reported speech by my favoured em-dash to mark the divergence—and is entirely missing the intention and making a postproverbial or preverb. The study of such maxims and their variants, dating back to Aristotle’s collections, is called paremiology, classing them into the categories of comparison, interrogation, their above misuse and metaphorical or allusory.
Thursday 25 January 2024
11x11 (11. 292)
liar’s dividend: digital propaganda and implausible deniability—via the New Shelton wet/dry
working cows dairy: a collection of superlative cheeses—via Kottke
the blazing world: a 1666 novel considered the first world of science fiction by a woman author
everglades jetport: uncovering the ruins of a failed supersonic runway floundering in the in the Florida wetlands—see previouslythe furby panic: US National Security Agency compelled to release a trove of documents outlining their ban of the toy as a potential instrument of espionage—via Waxy
press-gang: while most news outlets block AI crawlers used to scrape training data, right-wing media welcomes them—see previously
mac@40: a website showing every model of the Apple computer as it enters its fifth decade
winter in aizu: a woodblock series from Sosaku Hanga artist Kiyoshi Saito
you are both so much more than kenough: Hillary Clinton weighs in the Oscar nominations for Barbie—via Super Punch
time in a bottle: one bar’s water-clock has drained—though we’d not be adverse to a Harvey Wallbanger
white stork: the Ukraine war-sandbox and the rise of the AI-Military Complex—see previously
synchronoptica
one year ago: data-scrapping and copyright
two years ago: MediaWiki Day, more custom cars, Roman milestones plus an inexplicable fast food mascot
three years ago: your daily demon: Valac, assorted links to revisit plus the Torlonia Marbles
four years ago: vintage virtual dressing rooms, happy birthday Volodymyr Zelenskyy, more on the US Space Force plus Mendelssohn’s Wedding March
five year ago: photojournalist Jessie Tarbox Beals, a Droste homage, more links to enjoy, a Trump associate arrested plus cardinal notions
Thursday 18 January 2024
ascendant masters (11. 277)
The always excellent Linkfest from Clive Thompson directs us to revisit a 1905 theosophical volume co-authored by Annie Besant, orator, activist for Indian independence and atheist and later adherent of founder Madame Blavatsy, and CW Leadbeater, writer occultist and co-founder of the Liberal Catholic Church, called Thought-Forms, a study of how the human mind “extrudes” these visualisations of experiences, emotions and music into the external world, formed as subtle bodies observed by clairvoyants. Tinted by colour, sympathetic vibrations and the aether as expressions of quality, nature (like the pictured happy thoughts) and directedness, these manifestations are created either by feelings, experience, mediations or in their highest form, music, as in this vision formed from the operas of Charles-Franรงois Gounod. Whilst written for a specific, receptive audience, the astral diagrams have broader appeal and were influential to the world of modern, abstract art, particularly Wassily Kandinski, Piet Mondrian, and Hilma af Klint, and inform to an extent the concept of synaesthesia.
synchronoptica
one year ago:the High Committee of the French Language plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the musical stylings of Manuel Gรถttsching plus time flies
three years ago: Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday and Martin Luther King Jr
four years ago: railbanked railroads, separating entertainment and news plus more links to enjoy
five years ago: more links worth the revisit plus performance of the Diva Dance from Fifth Element
Wednesday 17 January 2024
10x10 (11. 276)
durianrider and banana girl: a personal account of joining a fringe diet community and subsequent de-programming
curricula: an archive of Japanese school books from 1898
i’m feeling lucky: a mostly facetious collection of laws about discourse from Osmo Antero Wiio that posits that communication usually fail except by accident
it’s not your imagination: research shows that Google search, overrun by competition for rankings, has gotten worse—along with other indexing enginesflickr commons: sixteen stories for the image platform’s sixteenth birthday—via Waxy
pps: Chuck Wendig warns against using AI to enhance one’s creative outlets
chevron v natural defence council: US Supreme Court posed to overturn a forty-year precedence on regulators and agency enforcement—more here
rewatch: Netflix is airing a bevy of classic films, celebrating their milestone anniversaries
reference desk: as part of an “inappropriate content review,” a US school district is banning dictionaries and encyclopaedias
the ouroboros of the passive-income scam: an escape from a get rich quick cult
Sunday 14 January 2024
stepford authors (11. 265)
We really were in agreement with this comparison of AI plagiarism to the 1975 horror film premising that the human wives of Stepford, Connecticut are having their identities transferred to more able cyborg replicas (to excel at household chores, cooking, sexual acts) without all the shrewish, independent aspects of their personalities that make the slightest bit objectionable to their husbands, having dispatched their biological templates and replacing them. Substituting a human writer with a synthetic one, for the publisher—or any employer for that matter—strikes one as far less bothersome. Meanwhile, the tech giants’ behind large language models arguments for “fair-use,” that machines are digesting and learning from the written word in the same way human readers do and not merely copying them is keeping lawsuits at bay within a legal-framework wholly unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with wholesale violation and lacking attributions—insufficient to even form a rigorous standard to hold the robots to.
one year ago: the Human Be-In (1967), Davy Jones changes his professional name (1966), ten years of Question Hound plus assorted links worth revisiting
two years ago: Davie Bowie’s Low (1977), a short by Gรฉrald Frydman plus training an AI on vintage Batman comics
three years ago: a celebration of donkeys, Trump’s second impeachment, Laocoรถn, the US Congress’ electronic voting machines, marijuana and the munchies, premium pluralisation plus more on snail compasses
four years ago: forty-five-plus years of Fresh Air, US-Iranian relations, for America, separation of Church and State is becoming blurred plus Germany’s Un-Word of the Year
five years ago: pop-up poetry, view from a bus plus Cherubrashka
Thursday 11 January 2024
dune messiah (11. 258)
Via Super Punch, we learn that a journalist writing for Wired! has uncovered the half-finished script treatment for David Lynch’s sequel to Dune, a follow up to the albeit flawed and disowned but beloved by many—considered canon and cult—to the director’s 1984 adaptation of the epic novel by Frank Herbert. Originally planned as a back-to-back shooting of both the second part and the third in the trilogy, Children of Dune, for 1986 with the same cast and starting pre-production work on models for special effects before the box-office failure to bring this saga ambitiously to the big screen, Max Evry had heard rumours of the lost screenplay while researching his book on Lynch’s version and was bowled over to actually track down and read the artefact. Although aspects of Dune II would appear even more unfilmable with the palace intrigues and most of the narrative focusing on the introspection of Paul Atreides as a “benevolent” but reluctant ruler, Lynch unfinished work suggests he could have pulled it off cinematically, with all the shape-shifting, reanimating and spell-binding arts in lieu of technical craft of the book. Much more at the links above.
one year ago: the first state lottery, voice-sampling, social media and mental health plus candid shots from the set of Hackers
two years ago: assorted links to revisit, The Night Stalker (1972) plus the Metric Marvels
three years ago: your daily demon: Orias, more links to enjoy plus a mechanical computer toy to teach logic
four years ago: Koyaansiqatsi in GIF form, more Roman holidays plus pet moss
five years ago: planned reforms for the US Patent Office
Friday 5 January 2024
book revue (11. 244)
As our faithful chronicler informs, on this day in 1946, the Looney Tunes short directed by Bob Clampett was released in theatres as a preview reel before the main feature on this day in 1946. Set in a book store where the characters come to life after midnight, it features a zoot-suited Daffy Duck (voiced of course by Mel Blanc) in one of his zaniest performances.
Tuesday 26 December 2023
9x9 (11. 218)
inukshuk: CGP Grey grades the flags of the Canadian provinces—see previously
omnibus: a compilation of the best books of the year52 things: Kottke shares some inspired, superlative gleanings from the past twelve months
black smokers: hydrothermal vents evolved to prey on benthic Santas
editors’ picks: some of NPR’s favourite, possibly overlooked stories of the year
in a big country, dreams stay with you: assessing the size of YouTube—via Waxy
there are two kinds of bubbles: speculation on the speculative nature of artificial intelligence from Cory Doctorow
font foundry: the year in typography
first nations: the contentious, selective display of tribal flags at the Oklahoma state capitol
Saturday 23 December 2023
11x11 (11. 208)
mmxxiii: the year in anniversaries, including the debuts of Question Hound, Casablanca, the World Wide Web, The Exorcist and the Yom Kippur War
seasons greetings: decades of off-kilter Christmas cards from John Watersexplainer: five video essays worth your holiday downtime
tl;dr: public nominates longreads worth revisiting
enigmatic chemical reactions: runaway chaotic catalysts are heating up two massive landfills near Los Angeles
cash-on-deposit: leaving money in your bank-account also contributes to one’s carbon-footprint
lithub: the biggest literary stories of the year
a year in illustration: the collages accompanying Pluralistic posts
re:view: Dezeen’s annual top tens
et exaltavit humiles: a medieval token likely dispensed by a Boy Bishop, who held authority from the feast of Saint Nicholas through the Day of Holy Innocents, was discovered in Norfolk
2023: the year in review from the Financial Times
Tuesday 19 December 2023
in the stacks (11. 195)
Whilst the institution remains open to the public and its collection of manuscripts and rare books remain securely archived and conserved, the total collapse of the British Library’s digital infrastructure that made its entire catalogue freely accessible to all worldwide following a malicious cyberattack on Halloween is almost as grave as loosing the originals. A ransomware gang, auctioning off personal data of patrons and staff alike, has rendered its services largely unavailable even for those readers and scholars geographically close enough to visit in person and makes potential and present patrons reflect on nature of this sort of institution and how theft of connection is as bad as theft or destruction of knowledge itself.
synchronoptica
one year ago: A Christmas Carol plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: celebrating two decades of The Lord of the Rings, a literary clock plus more links to enjoy
three years ago: Dalรญ holiday cards, more links worth revisiting plus an angel on Mars
four years ago: Trump impeached, Clinton impeached (1998) plus map haikus
five years ago: even more links, French carols, sonic shades plus Trump withdraws from Syria
catagories: ๐, ๐, ๐ฅธ, libraries and museums
Friday 8 December 2023
7x7 (11. 170)
recueil de la diversitรฉ des habits: a 1562 volume of national dress from around the world—including the costumes of mermonks
psychedelic cryptography: a contest to make hidden messages that only can be deciphered in a state of altered consciousness—Waxy
schallloch: the acoustic development of violin f-holesthus the unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude: a dedicated, careful reading of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake
hiveopolis: a project to create hybrid, smart bee colonies with robots tasked to defend the queen
fluid dynamics: winner of the American Physical Society’s visualising science goes to the process of making marbled paper—see previously
smock-frock: the hidden history of the outer garment traditionally worn by shepherds and waggoners
synchronoptica
one year ago: Hotel California (1976) plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: the depths of Wikipedia plus a hackers’ collective
three years ago: your daily demon: Alloces, Mobil Armoured Strike Kommand, more links to revisit, the death of John Lennon (1980) plus the third emblem of the Red Cross
four years ago: more links worth visiting
Monday 4 December 2023
a shark-infested rice pudding (11. 163)
The Morning News directs our attention to loving and thoroughgoing curation of neglected, overlooked or otherwise forgotten works of literature, like the title collection of three novellas by Sylvia Wright. Uncategorisable as an experimental reflection on the craft (and inability) to write fiction, despite publishers trying to dress it with a cover that vaguely suggested a romance novel, though Wright’s single work of “fiction” made be highly obscure, we are familiar with Wright’s linguistic contributions in the capacity of a columnist for Harper’s and coining the term mondegreen, which relates back to her stream-of-thought trilogy. More neglected books and forgotten authors at the link above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Council of Trent plus a mysteriously abandoned ship
two years ago: more German words of the year, Smoke on the Water, fifty-two more lessons plus a fun town-builder
three years ago: assorted links to revisit, the Feast of St Barbara, a duct tape prom plus Washington disbands the Continental Army
four years ago: the 1913 modern art show at the New York Armoury
five years ago: RIP Spongebob creator Stephen Hillenburg, a robot crewmember joins the ISS plus a superlative collection of alternate cartography
Tuesday 28 November 2023
9x9 (11. 146)
the big easy: Bonapartist diaspora had designs for Napoleon to retire in New Orleans—via Messy Nessy Chic—see also courtesy of Super Punch
holiday emporium: Kottke’s annual gift guide returns after a hiatus
triple word score: players and lexicographers are a bit mortified with Scrabble’s new tournament rulescolophon: the rise and fall of Borders Books
moonlight towers: during the infancy of electric lighting, there was a predecessor to serial lamps
pump and dump: insurance companies are exacerbating the climate crisis
fiat: during the bank strikes of Ireland in the 1970s, pubs stepped in to fill their function—via the new shelton wet/dry
ai garage sale: haggle with robots for real items—via Waxy
pas de goulots d’รฉtranglement dans la production: a strange 1940 diagram from linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf presenting French as a factory assembly line
Sunday 26 November 2023
7x7 (11. 143)
sonic deconstructions: 1950s radio broadcaster’s album of Foley art, “Strange to Your Ears”
onfim’s homework: a Wikipedia rabbit hole inspires an individual to get a tattoo of an eleventh century Novgorod pupil’s writings and illustrations discovered preserved on birch bark—via Hyperallergic’s Required Readingyear in review: Time magazine’s one hundred top images of 2023—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to explore here)
amaterasu: scientists detect an ultra-high energy cosmic ray—the most powerful in thirty years of observation
<!--: a collection of historic HTML innovations—see also
kenough: the story of Denny Fouts, hustler and literary muse for Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Christopher Isherwood
pie hole: a silly twenty-year-old vocal exercise that holds up
brothers grimmaverse (11. 141)
Apparently there’s a not so subtle effort on the part of Disney to retroactively canonise their range of intellectual property to make every character a part of the same cinematic, fairy tale paracosm. In the new musical fantasy film Wish (made to celebrate the company’s centenary), the protagonist Princess Asha and her rival King Magnifico (with plenty of other references to Snow White) have a final encounter (spoiler alert, I guess) to stop the corrupt sorcerer ruler in this wish-granting based economy concluding as an origin story with the former becoming the Fairy Godmother to Cinderella and the latter trapped in a mirror dimension for eternity and the servant, council of the wicked and cold-hearted stepmother of Schneewittchen. We wonder what other connections might be forced (to get in on the Pixar Theory where events do seem to occur in a shared univere) down the road and mucking about with the timeline. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Aldi’s aisle of shame, Casablanca (1942), the first Christmas film (1898) plus a century (+ 1) of Charles Schultz
two years ago: an undeciphered message hiding in plain sight, assorted links to revisit, a flag-pole maker plus When Harry Met Santa
three years ago: another MST3K classic, more links to enjoy, a sketch a day plus an Austrian village with an explicit name
four years ago: calling a contested presidential election (2000), Anarchy in the UK (1976), criticism directed towards the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the aesthetics of vapourwave plus IKEA designs homeware for Martians
five years ago: merit-based immigration, a map of Britain’s fictional places, the Scandinavian “snowflake” pattern, clever Christmas decorations plus more links worth the revisit
Wednesday 8 November 2023
syllabus (11. 102)
Though familiar with the foundational novel, lore and later adaptations, one forgets that Frankenstein’s Monster was not a mindless brute with no internal life or ambitions, it’s easy to forget that unlike in many film versions, the Creature is portrayed by Shelley as sensitive and contemplative, literate and even eloquent, and so we appreciated this reading list of Bildungsroman that the Creature stumbles across and finds particularly resonant, informing the search for humanity through the humanities with a brief but indelible curriculum. The books discovered in a satchel that introduced our monster to literature were Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Strum und Drang epistolary work The Sorrows of Young Werther, John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Plutarch’s parallel biographies—which when written on the spine I always read as Plutarch LIVES!, as in the experiments of Dr Frankenstein. More from Public Domain Review at the link up top.
one year ago: Take My Breath Away (1986), The Cher Variety Hour, assorted links to revisit plus an orchestra recreates Berlin’s soundscape
two years ago: the Tree of Tรฉnรฉrรฉ, the history of Sanctuary Cities plus more links to enjoy
three years ago: a false-friend, more minimalist movie posters, hyper-realistic art, the first internet murder plus an audio recording of a sadly extinct, unique dialect
four years ago: more links worth the revisit
five years ago: Trump’s Attorney General resigns, Leipzig by street car, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, attempts to suppress the Church Committee on intelligence abuses plus the Beer Hall Coup (1938)
Wednesday 1 November 2023
drei haselnรผsse fรผr aschenbrรถdel (11. 087)
The Czechoslovakian-East German co-production of the Bohemian variation of the fairy tale (Tลi oลรญลกky pro Popelku, Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella) opened in theatres on this day in 1973. Enduring and shown around Christmas time and making the circuit through the channels much like It’s A Wonderful Life the primary filming location was Schloss Moritzburg between Meissen and Dresden. The village is in a frenzy as the royal entourage will be stopping en route to their nearby castle, with rumours that the eligible Prince (portrayed by Rolf Hoppe) will choose a bride during the local fรชte. Cinderella’s step mother keeps her busy with menial and seemingly impossible chores in order to keep the competition to a minimum and showcase her less attractive and wicked step-sister. Doves, however, come to Cinderella’s assistance and finishes the tasks, affording her the free time to wander in the woods and encounter the prince and his hunting party, who are impressed with her equestrian skills. Later gifted three wish-granting filberts, Cinderella is able to regale herself with various disguises to become the King-of-the-Hunt as well as the belle of the ball.
synchronoptica
one year ago: another penny black, assorted links to revisit plus the Word of the Year
two years ago: another Word of the Year plus a starting point to restore our burning world
three years ago: The Mask (1961), the Sistine Chapel opened to the public plus indigenous characters in comics
four years ago: a space odyssey, World Vegan Day, more mushrooming plus Blade Runner
five years ago: Trump activates the army to guard the border, movie ratings, an Ansel Adams’ photograph plus a bio brick
Sunday 22 October 2023
11x11 (11. 070)
post-amazon era: monopsonic retailer’s workers’ are writing about the dystopian company to fight back—via Slashdot
sublet: tech startups are relinquishing office space office space back to their landlords
stop making sense: negative manifestos, rule-breaking and by defined by what one is not
deci-lon 10: an outstanding collection of slide rules curated by the analogue computer’s appreciation society—named after their seventeenth century inventor, William Oughtred of Cambridge—via Web Curiosdancing delicacies: 3-D printed plate and nano technologies promise interactive meals
primer simposium tecno: a 1981 electronic music concert in Madrid
piramida: updated plans for the restoration of Tirana’s Brutalist landmark
destroilet: an automatic combustion plumbing solution popular in the 1960s and 70s
down in the underground: agencies of the subsurface
fiver: a new adaptation of Watership Down as a graphic novel
proposition m: San Francisco passes a punitive tax of vacant housing speculation
the faanmg index: the blush has worn off Amazon’s rose—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lot’s more to explore there)
synchronoptica
one year ago: brittle egos bristling at Karen’s Garden plus modern sundials
two years ago: the International Meridian Conference of 1884, The Last Picture Show plus an early alternative currency
three years ago: the father of psychophysics, red food dye, another failed doomsday prophecy plus the Humument series
five years ago: the US Gun Control Act of 1968, the WWII bombing of Kassel, the spread of disinformation, anticipatory libraries for other worlds plus RIP to the inventor of the Little Library
Sunday 8 October 2023
folio (11. 045)
Sunday 1 October 2023
hre (11. 034)
Having committed quite some thoughts on the subject and even echoed the quip from Voltaire myself without realising the provenance or shallowness of the observation—that it was “neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire”—we appreciated coming across this encapsulation of an introduction by Eleanor Janega on the anniversary of the beginning of the Congress of Vienna in 1814 when representatives and stakeholders of the former political union met to reconstitute European order and long-term peace after the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose campaigns spelled its dissolution after eight centuries of existence. There is vast a amount of history to cover, from Charlemagne and Henry Fowler to extension under the Hohenstaufen and the Hapsburgs but Dr Janega does a yeoman’s job in summarising the polity, which like under the Roman Empire enjoyed a good share of autonomy and retained local customs and culture.