Born on this day in 1961 in Endicott, New York, writer, comedian, actor and sister of author and humorist David Sedaris, Amy Louise Sedaris. Disposed to making pranks and working as a waitress in a comedy club in Chicago, Sedaris toured with Second City’s company by the late 1980s, eventually moving to New York and joined with fellow member Stephen Colbert a fledgling cable television venture, Comedy Central, as a sketch artist, eventually given her own series, portraying a middle-aged woman, Jerri Blank who goes back to high school, based on her impression of 1970s era motivational speaker Florrie Fisher, a cautionary cult figure who lectured to students about her lurid past warning them about sex and drugs and falling under the influence of radical charismatics—a sort of scared straight scenario. More active than even, Sedaris has multiple roles, titles and accolades to her name.
Saturday, 29 March 2025
strangers with candy (12. 347)
Wednesday, 26 March 2025
kalaallit nunaat (12. 338)
As the autonomous overseas territory has been garnering some welcome and some unbidden attention lately with the US determined to annex the artic island and sending an entourage to engage in election interference and meddle with self-determination, Tedium presents a celebration of Greenland’s unique pop culture, informed but untethered from its history as a colonial dependency. From the first piece of cinema entirely produced on the island with a cast of local actors to the psychedelic, prog rock band Sumรฉ, critical of the Danish government, past policies of assimilation and an anthem for the independence movement, the national artistic output is couched on the struggle for recognition but also stands on its own outside of any context. There’s a coda linking back to the US vice-president through Richie Cunningham’s character enlisting in the army stationed at Ultima Thule—to get away from Happy Days—and director Ron Howard assaying Vance’s autobiography. Much more at the link above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: AI search (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: gerrymandering, suicide prevention plus the buccaneers of America
eight years ago: a coopted meme, studio MUTI plus more on technological redundancy
nine years ago: ambitious Hyper-Loop plans for Europe
ten years ago: crusaders sack Constantinople, a roundup of patriotic cartoons plus the rise of the smart-watch
Saturday, 22 March 2025
sylvanian families (12. 328)
First eleased on the Spring Equinox in 1985 and marketed elsewhere as the most concise translation of the play-figure line, Pleasant Friends of the Forest Epoch System Animal Toy (ๆฃฎใฎใใใใชไปฒ้ใใก ใจใใใฏ็คพ ใทในใใ ・ใณใฌใฏใทใงใณ・ใขใใใซใใผใค・ใทใซใใใขใใกใใชใผ after the Roman god of the woods Silvanus), I recall that haunting refrain (the jingle now come home to roost again) from the commercials and never really understood the concept, having missed out on their backstory as presented in a cartoon series by Haim Saban exclusively on American family-friendly/evangelical programming networks a couple years after their debut. Now, however, we’ve occasion to take a peak into the rather elaborate lore and legacy, thanks to Happy Mutant contributor Popkin, who informs that there is a theme park in Osaka (see also) that gives visitors an immersive experience of the franchise, set in Shirubania originally somewhere in North America though later revised as Great Nature patterned off of Richard Scarry’s Busy Town with firmly middle class anthropomorphised hedgehogs, foxes, deer, mice, rabbits, raccoons, etc running successful local businesses or with professional callings with a certain 1960s aesthetic with their nuclear, four-member families that were never inter-species. The characters, despite the decline of the toyline has been sustained throughout with a series of video games (see above), theme-restaurants and making the discontinued family clans mascots for various corporations and events. Accessories sold separately.
synchronoptica
one year ago: truth windows (with synchronoptica), the HTML Review plus pharmaceutical contraindications
seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, Outlook snitching on leakers, typographer Herb Lubalin plus Biden’s threat to beat some sense into Trump
eight years ago: The End of History, an appreciation of the VW bus plus Trump dismantles NASA
nine years ago: Walk of Life improves any movie ending, algae as a plastic alternative plus a terror attack in Belgium
ten years ago: more links to enjoy
Friday, 21 March 2025
tv.garden (12. 326)
Via the always stupendous Web Curios we are directed to a rather amazing resource that brings together thousands of live-streaming stations from around the world, covering nearly every country with dozens of free-to-air broadcasting for each. Point to a country and flip through the channels for a compelling glimpse of local reporting, talk-shows, soap operas, music videos and commercials with the obligatory home shopping networks. I’m not one to have television on in the background generally or with the patience to channel-surf but found this surprisingly absorbing and like a mini-vacation with a much broader selection than on hotel tv.
10x10 (12. 325)
isolated dictatorship: Canadian MP urges citizens to avoid travel south of the border
sykkelinfrastruktur: an amazing bike tunnel in Bergen
incel camino: a new make and model for the Swasticar for all the domestic terrorists
four of swords: Hyperallergic’s tarotscope for the coming of Spring
fabio and the goose: Bobby Fingers (previously) reconstructs the encounter of harlequin novel author and pin-up’s encounter with a migrating bird whilst on a rollercoaster
arbour day: tree planting activities cancelled over anti-DEI posture
cats in outlines: the strangely gratifying effect of felines freezing in place
sorry—not sorry: a study of apologies gleaned from reality television
scylla and charybdis: the millennia-long aspirations to link Sicily with the mainland may soon come to pass
pin: an unnerving psychosexual horror Canadian horror film from 1988
Sunday, 16 March 2025
the hostess with the mostess (12. 311)
Dying on this day in, aged 76, in 1975 at her home in Oklahoma City, Perle Meste heiress to an oil fortune from her late husband—widowed since 1925 from the one of the original participants in the Land Rush of 1889 on the former Indian territory (Boomer-Sooner)—is best known in Washington, DC high society for her lavish parties that included artists, celebrities and national political figures from both parties and was portrayed in the title Playhouse 90 CBS anthology feature by Shirley Booth, as well as by Ethel Merman on Broadway and the cinematic adaptation of the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam. Eventually relocating to the capital in 1940, feeling out of place elsewhere, Mesta was active in the National Women’s Party, an early champion of an Equal Rights Amendment and an ardent campaigner for Harry S Truman—for which the administration awarded her the ambassadorship to Luxembourg out of gratitude. An invitation to one of her many gala parties was highly coveted and a sign that one had reached the upper echelons of DC high political society, bringing together senators and congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle. And while continuing to host glamorous soirรฉes through the 1960s, Mesta ceded her role to Jacqueline Kennedy when it came to bipartisan entertainment. Featured on the cover of Time magazine (note the candelabra on the Washington monument), the Black Russian was created by barman Gustave Tops in 1949 as Mesta’s signature cocktail, who frequented the Hotel Metropole in Brussels during her time as ambassador.
Saturday, 15 March 2025
10x10 (12. 306)
i don’t belong here: reactions of first time listeners to Radiohead’s “Creep”
auragraphs: a look at the psychic paintings of Flora Marian Spore, received visions from departed relatives—see previously
overton window: why some find humour in embracing fascism—see also, see previously
all in the wrist: a memorable mnemonic device for learning the carpal bones from Michelangelo’s Snowmen—see also
i’m just gonna dance all night: a joyful behind the scenes peek at SNL writers’ room from a decade ago—via MetaFilter
orbital group: astronomers find Saturn has one-hundred twenty eight additional natural satellites
the pen is mightier than the sword: the end of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (previously) after forty-two years—via Miss Cellania
persona non grata: US state department expels the South Africa ambassador, buying into Musk’s false narrative of confiscating land from white plantation owners
the medium is the message: Alan Turing and other Cambridge academics obsession with ghosts and spiritualism
hootie & the blowfish: an oddly effective mashup with The Smiths
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica), the first AI lab, Geoguessr savants plus serendipitous directories
seven years ago: The Inland Printer, Trump’s fabricated trade imbalances with China and Canada, the Anthropocene era’s golden spike plus more links to enjoy
eight years ago: embodiment and Singularity, LEGO tape plus Australian war time propaganda
nine years ago: more Liartown, USA, English as the official language plus Sir Thomas Moore
ten years ago: the Comic Code plus further crusading misadventures
Saturday, 1 March 2025
7x7 (12. 267)
dromedary: Ze Frank’s True Facts (previously) about the camel
client state: secretary of defence Hegseth orders Cyber Command to halt Russian contingency planning

rosmรฅlning: the decorative doll houses of Amy Balfour—via Messy Nessy Chic
pulmonic ingressive affirmative: the Gaelic Gasp or how the Irish inhale their yeses
hydro integrator: Vladimir Lukyanov’s unique water computer designed in the 1920s to improve the durability of reinforced concrete
musk or us: lessons from the ostracising of apartheid South Africa is a resonant learning moment lesson in how boycotts can overcome evil
capri candela was some ginchy chick, daddy-o: Wilbur’s Place from Peter Gunn—see also
Sunday, 16 February 2025
12x12 (12. 237)
little sisyphus: a challenging NES-style side-scrolling game—see previously—via Waxy
behind every robot that turns evil there’s an engineer that installed red diodes in its eyes in anticipation: Meta wants to create AI powered robots to do your chores
quipu: the largest known superstructure in the Cosmos, named for the corded knot accounting of the ancient Inca culture—via Strange Company
parataxis: storytelling loves a list
i will say this only once: John J Hoare responds to a video take-down notice for reposting an old clip—that suggests that YouTube is focused on hate speech against Nazis

pump and dump: nothing to see here, just another perfectly normal president pulling the rug out from under his country with a memecoin
return to forever: Chick Corea and friends at the forty-third Jazzaldia festival
stairwell of the quarter: more on the design efficiency of alternating tread stairs
nanook of the north: Robert J Falherty’s 1922 documentary on the Inuit
how many department of government efficiency employees does it take to screw in a lightbulb: a look at DOGE at work—via Nag on the Lake
windows, icons, menus, pointers: a cursor dance party—via Pasa Bon!
Thursday, 13 February 2025
advance compliance (12. 229)
Disney, amid a board shift in DEI posture among American corporations, having already relented with a fifteen million dollar settlement plus profuse apologies for character defamation when an anchor said the garbage sex-pest had been found liable for rape rather than abuse, we learn via JWZ has reverted from the more thoughtful content warning introduced in October of 2020 for its vintage catalogue: This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe—to its previous terse disclaimer for classics that haven’t aged well, “This programme is presented as originally created and may contain stereotypes or negative depictions.”
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
we have this unelected fourth, unconstitutional branch of government (12. 225)
Journalists from the Associated Press were barred from attending an Oval Office event, a signing ceremony for yet another executive order—newsworthy for its magnitude and ineptitude—with Elon Musk in attendance to announce agency heads were to undertake preparations, working with DOGE to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce after “billions and billions of dollars” in fraud, waste and abuse had been uncovered, for not referring as the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in its syndicated articles, and reporters would continue to be excluded from the White House press pool until such time as wire service aligns its language with that of Trump’s. An EO banning the use of paper straws in federal facilities was also signed. Several news organisations have rallied to the AP’s defence, saying that the president cannot dictate reporting or editing decisions. This follows other attacks against the press, including suits for supposed libel and deplatforming and banishing several outlets from the Pentagon, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and NPR as well as threatening the same group’s broadcasting licenses over newsroom and network diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives characterised as promotion “invidious forms of discrimination” that will not be tolerated.
Saturday, 8 February 2025
11x11 (12. 214)
traitor tots: Musk’s merry band of pickpockets and the corporate raids behind the Putsch and purge
temper tantrum: extinction burst behaviour is one accounting of the ascendancy of MAGA intolerance
fifty-first: Trudeau warns Trump is serious about annexing Canada—insultingly offering it statehood before Puerto Rico and DC
isolation mode: after three decades, Baltic nations are switching to the EU power grid, getting off the Russian network
nosotromo: the high school play adaptation of Alien
endless jeopardy!: hourly answers, honours go to the best, most creative questions—via Waxy
expo 67: revisiting centenary celebrations in Montreal—see previouslyre-apartheid: Trump administration launches volley of complaints against South Africa, cutting of foreign aid and promote the “resettlement of of Afrikaner refugees”
center for the performing arts: Trump declares himself chairman of the Washington, DC cultural institution and dismissing board members who disagree with his taste
hr@opm.gov: unencrypted mass email to CIA operatives offering them the chance to resign may have compromised the agents’ identifies with serious counterintelligence concerns
federal communications commission: Trump threatens to shut down the CBS television network, calls for the firing of journalists critical of the administration and for doxxing one of Musk’s minions
synchronoptica
one year ago: vintage hotel luggage tags (with synchronoptica) plus a banger from Billy Ocean
eight years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus augmented metrics
nine years ago: the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s charter, neologisms and nomonyms plus the Lunar New Year
ten years ago: LARPing at large plus more links to enjoy
eleven years ago: targeted political advertisement, Russian ban on genetically modified foods plus sugar-based batteries
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
be my valentine, charlie brown (12. 190)
Premiering on this day in 1975 on the CBS television network, the thirteenth prime-time animated special based on the Peanuts comic strip, deals with the subject of rejection and heartbreak when Sally first misinterprets Linus’ heart-shaped box of chocolates for his teacher as an overture
for her non-requited affection and our protagonist receiving only one treat, a chalky candy heart with the message “FORGET IT KID!” during the class party—the teacher departing early with her boyfriend. A belated greeting arrives from the Little Red Haired Girl and Charlie Brown gets a regifted card from Violet. Optimistic that these pity Valentines might sustain a trend and he’ll get more next year, but Linus warns his friend not to get his hopes up. The score with the opening theme “Heartburn Waltz” was recorded by Vince Guaraldi’s Orchestra. The card which Sally reads and acted out by Snoopy is the entirety (see also) of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (№ 43), which opens with “How do I love thee? Let me me count the ways.”
synchronoptica
one year ago: USA for Africa’s We are the World (with synchronoptica) plus the zombification of the abandoned internet
seven years ago: pedometers and privacy, Thamesmead Housing Estate plus Aloha Wanderwell
eight years ago: governance per Tweet, assorted links worth revisiting plus Little Englanders
nine years ago: a time-capsule apartment in Chicago, ranking passports plus the game Go
ten years ago: hydrophobic materials plus a superb cartographical collection
Sunday, 26 January 2025
13x13 (12. 185)
embossed: turn of the century tactile teaching aids for the visually impaired for lessons on nature and geography
lab-leak theory: US Central Intelligence Agency embraces controversial vector for COVID-19 pandemic, discounting zoonosis factors
ghostwatch: the supernatural horror BBC mockumentary broadcast on Halloween (see also) 1992 and never shown again due to the panic it elicited
sb593: Oklahoma legislature introduces bill to “restore moral sanity” and criminalise production, distribution and possession of adult material—see previously
minimoog: a fully-functional analogue synthesiser in LEGO
haptics and macros: an idea to add gait gestures to one’s smart phone—we can hardly do the right kind of fake kick to open the rear hatch on our car
mox nix: language borrowings from German propagated by US and UK soldiers stationed there post WWII
electric garden: a run-down lodge transformed into a living museum mapchat: interact with AI shopkeepers for local businesses—results may vary
wassergรถttin: prehistoric figurine from the Hallstadt culture found in 2022 in Lower Franconia goes on display at the Bavarian State Archaeological Museum in Mรผnchen
walk without rhythm and you won’t attract the worm: graboids—see also—the other in-jokes that Tremors leans into
underrepresentation: as part of order to eliminate DEI programmes, US Food and Drug Administration curbs clinical trials aimed at diverse populations for cancer research
switchmen: the sign language of railroad workers
Saturday, 25 January 2025
info nuggets (12. 183)
We really enjoyed this appreciation from Open Culture of VH-1’s Pop-Up Video, the sister-network and alternative to MTV launching on New Year’s day 1985, premiering over a decade into the channel’s run in October of 1996, pitched as antidote to shortening attention spans attributed to rise of MTV itself with barely the audience stamina for suffering a four-minute music video. The parent company expressed initial scepticism as then owners Blockbuster rental outlets felt they knew little enthusiasm for foreign films interpreted as viewers not wanting to read on screen dialogue in subtitles. The pilot, featuring Tina Turner’s “Missing You” with other standards on rotation, nonetheless, proved compelling and the show continued, expanding its profile with anecdotes and facts (classified by the above title), of varying relevance, sublimating as dialogue bubbles—all before there were forums for such trivia, requiring a good deal of research and cold-calls to artists, producers and grips involved in production. The meta-commentary was compared to the contemporary phenomenon of MST3K (see previously), as a programme for “TV-people who-are-sick-of-TV.”
Sunday, 19 January 2025
the man from another place (12. 193)
We enjoyed this appreciation of the soundscape of the filmography of transcended director David Lynch compiled by NPR correspondent Hazel Cillis. Covering Lynch’s own composition “In Heaven” from Eraserhead to the orchestral soundtrack to Dune (see previously), all tracks from Toto (the band best known for their hit “Africa”) except Brian Eno’s ambient contribution in the “Prophecy Theme” and all moody and atmospheric numbers in between, the playlist embodies the surreal and mysterious essence of the creator, especially in the use of standards to disabuse the audience from thinking they know what they’re hearing just because it’s familiar.
Saturday, 18 January 2025
movin’ on up (12. 190)
One of the longest-running sitcoms in television history and the second spin-off of All in the Family—after Maude—Norman Lear’s The Jeffersons follows the lives of the former neighbours of the Bunkers who were able to relocate from Queens to Manhattan (a deluxe apartment in the sky) due to the success of the couple’s dry-cleaning chain. The Jeffersons itself had one short-lived spin-off featuring their housekeeper, Florence, who takes a job as the team chief of a luxury hotel cleaning crew, and has continuity with the hospital drama E/R (the CBS production, lasting only one year, before being picked up by NBC a decade later in 1994 as ER, as developed by writer Michael Crichton, with the same cast of principals of George Clooney and Mary McDonnell). A traditional sitcom, the show occasionally had episodes covering serious subjects, like racism, gun-control, gender-identity and alcoholism and generally high ratings—though suffering from switching time-slots—it was ignominiously cancelled by the during the summer-break of its eleventh season in July 1985 without warning to the cast, Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley, and without a series finale.
Friday, 17 January 2025
canonicity (12. 187)


Thursday, 16 January 2025
cultural attache (12. 184)
It was refreshing how in the Roman Empire dictators would prolong their term by declaring a holiday, instead we have a president-elect in the United States as Los Angeles continues to smoulder and burn appoint three special envoys to Hollywood, not to help with repair and recovery from the devastation but rather act as celebrity legates to revitalise a failing industry and bring back its Golden Age. Ceremonial sine cure titles were awarded to actors, known for their MAGA boosterism, to Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone (see previously)—assuredly to the disappointment of others to hitched their star to that movement—Trump announced his special ambassadors to “a great but very troubled place” which has “lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries” as his eyes and ears, pledging to get done what they suggest. The equivalent of DOGE for the movies, its unclear how they might brooch this situation and what countries are undermining Tinsel Town and whether it is a problem at all and not another manufactured crisis that’s in their modus operandi to invent and then pretend to solve with a new code of standards to appeal to grievances—if anything the industry is under threat from AI, studio greed and independent cinema.
10x10 (12. 183)
compliments of the season: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews 1973 British anthology series Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries
hagiography: breathtaking hidden murals in the Cathedral of Angers depicting the life of local saint called Maurille, who fled due to embarrassment for failure to perform a miracle, unveiled for the first time
wmw: a list of endangered historic and cultural sites for 2025, around the world and beyond
infinite nonsense honeypot: a lure for AI scrapers
there is a plot—what would be the point of just a bunch of things: legendary director David Lynch dies, aged 78—see previously
run the bricks: a mother in New Zealand completes a hundred metre sprint barefoot over a track of Legos—setting a Guinness Record—via Metafilter
but is it like the old playboy magazine—do you have essays there by the modern day equivalent of gore vidal and william f buckley jr: US supreme court justice Samuel Alito asks if people visit PornHub (previously) for the articles—via Super Punch
cozy rewatch recommendation: the 2003 New Wave film The Dreamers (Innocents) that follows the exploits and adventures of an American university student in Paris during the 1968 riots—via Messy Nessy Chic
๐ธ๐ฉ๐๐: a paranoid ruler’s illiteracy and a torched library behind a glimpse of everyday life in the Assyrian Empire
celebrity is a broad church: BBC1’s 1985 entertainment magazine Friday People
synchronoptica
one year ago: artist Monica Sjรถรถ (with synchronoptica), generational perceptions, an ethnographic study of bathroom graffiti, another banger from ABBA plus words for lighthouse
seven years ago: laser-cut note pads, Madrid reinstates direct rule on Catalonia plus free-floating exoplanets
eight years ago: theatres protest the inauguration of Trump
nine years ago: a slipper-shaped wedding chapel
ten years ago: misattributed quotations plus McDonald’s new slogan