not-ready-for-primetime players (12. 790)

Although there has already been much celebration marking the long-running topical and comedy sketch show’s fiftieth season, its actual semicentenary anniversary occurred on this day in 1975 when the network aired the first episode of NBC’s Saturday Night Live (to distinguish it from competing time slot Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell—see above). Hosted by comedian George Carlin with Billy Preston (“Will it Go Round in Circles,” “Nothing from Nothing”) and Janis Ian (“At Seventeen,” “Society’s Child,” “Fly Too High”) were the first musical guests. The cast lived in the studio for the first season and had their footing and direction by the fourth episode, introducing regularly occurring segments and characters.

dilemma of the video age (12. 778)

Via MetaFilter, we are directed to this odd cinematic time-capsule from a 1991 Entertainment Week listing of a hundred superlative obscure titles. It’s a pretty solid catalog that stands the test of time, although many have become better known as a cult classics in the intervening decades, like The 5000 Fingers of Dr T, Zardoz, Withnail and I and Xanadu, there are yet critical acclaimed sleeper hits to be rediscovered. The language and tone of the summaries seems more dated than one would have expected and the titular scenario is described as the following: “You walk into the local rental store, see that all sixty copies of Ghost are rented out and scan the aisles with dread,” which is both a reflection of our currently curated embarrassment of choices and an indictment on the siloing of content across channels and streaming services and media with many movies otherwise unavailable and the concept of owning a film library a legacy out of reach for most—the coda of the article inviting cinestes to invest in membership in a mail-order club, predating Netflix. Which of these films do you remember?

synchronoptica

one year ago: Suddenly (with sybchronopticæ) plus more boating adventures

thirteen years ago: life lessons from mythology

fourteen years ago: cruciform variations plus corking fun

sixteen years ago: travels in the States 

 

we now return to regularly scheduled programming already in progress (12. 776)

For the first time in television history in the United States on this day in 1975, the three major television networks declined a request to interrupt broadcasts and pre-empt their line-up for a speech delivered by the American president. Gerald Ford’s nationwide address was only carried by ABC and was a relatively anodyne presentation regarding fiscal discipline for an economy just emerging from a recession, laying the blame of inflation and job scarcity squarely on an “overzealous bureaucracy” and urged congress to make federal tax reductions permanent to encourage hiring with a commensurate cut to government spending, threatening to veto any legislation passed in in keeping with a balanced budget. This decision by TV executives was seen as the first challenge to the use of the bully pulpit of the president and the reach of high office to the public ear. The next day, congress and the senate overturned Ford’s veto by an overwhelming margin bi-partisan support to extend federal school lunch and nutrition programmes.

synchronoptica

one year ago: more adventures on the Mecklinburgischer Seeplate (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: the Venetian independence movement, more flea market finds plus twinned-towns

fourteen years ago: computer lab plus thirty-one days of Halloween

fifteen years ago: customary Nobel cool-off period 

8x8 (12. 775)

toastbusters: Florida woman relates the story of her demonically possessed appliance on nationally syndicated morning television in 1984 

less cowbell: short-form AI generated videos flooding social media incite confusion, nihilism  

hot stuff, hot postula: vintage American cheerleading calls and college yells  

dob, doa: statically, one is slightly more inclined to die on one’s date of birth—via Nag on the Lake—see previously 

ghost waltz: a Louie Zong spooky season tradition—see previously 

in this economy: venerable coffee roaster—also under assault from tariff-pricing—changes its name to something more achievable  

uav: mysterious drone sightings across Europe are signs of collective anxiety (see more) and echo the panic over Chinese spy balloons over North America  

workplace etiquette: the story of the woman who xeroxed her bottom, becoming front page news

wonderful world of colour (12. 756)

Retaining the same format, Walt Disney Presents switched networks after twenty-one years, in part to take advantage of NBC’s capability of colour broadcasts (with prescience having filmed many of its earlier episodes produced to air on ABC in TechniColor for re-broadcast on its new station, like the BBC’s footage of the coronation of Elizabeth II in 3D yet mostly unseen as the technology has not been widely adopted) and also owing to ongoing tensions between ABC and Disney over the channel’s refusal to divest itself from the latter’s theme parks as a large stakeholder, premiering on this day in 1961 with the new anthology series introductory pilot (presented by Ludwig von Drake, voiced by Paul Frees, on the visual spectrum and colour theory with the National Broadcasting Corporation’s peacock mascot assisting) and his nephew Donald in Mathmagic Land as the second part. The debut is credited with doubling the sales of colour televisions and for placating Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N Minow and turning around his opinion after his pronouncement that television in America was a “vast wasteland” with an educational and informative instance of the media that promised more quality programming.

8x8 (12. 749)

ephemeral 80s: a side project from Curios British Telly  

informal collaborator: methods of surveillance and monitoring by the Iron Curtain  

consumer expenditures: Bureau Labour Statistics, under pressure from the Trump administration’s push for a rosy economic outlook postponed releasing a key annual report—see previously 

the vela incident: a mysterious double flash in the India ocean was detected on this day in 1979, thought to be an undeclared nuclear test 

just look where you’re walking or you’ll get ko’d by the gauntlet of misshapened zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above: it’s that time again—see previously   

estᴰ: an archive of derelict shopfronts from the 1970s and 1980s of East London  

disgruntled nomenclature: a list of American college presidents—drawn from a 1973 yearbook of higher education—are particularly interchangeable and revealing of patriarchical power structures 

upstairs, downstairs: seven decades of ITV on the anniversary of its founding, breaking the BBC broadcast monopoly

synchronoptica

one year ago: Bilbo Baggins’ birthday (with synchronopticæ), St Mauritius, first contact plus a presidential assassination attempt (1975)

twelve years ago: Singapore’s Super Trees, bad real estate photographs plus untamed houseplants

thirteen years ago: promoting women executives 

fourteen years ago: safe overtaking plus the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

fifteen years ago: a classic iPad sleeve 

sixteen years ago: our little travel blog 

seventeen years ago: de-logistics 

this week tonite (12. 741)

Via Super Punch, we glean this little fact of television heritage and show-DNA, though mindful that this is the news and crisis that the US administration wants us to be talking about rather than war, trade, financial misdeeds or sex-crimes: Live! hosted by comedian Jimmy Kimmel debuting in January of 2003 was the mid-season replacement for Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect when ABC (under its then newly acquired parent corporation of Walt Disney) cancelled the late-night panel show after the moderator took exception with US foreign policy and with the characterisation by the Bush government that the 9/11 terrorists were “cowards”—“although terrible people,” they were not cowards, “What was cowardly, Maher rebuked, “was America’s relationship with the rest of the world.” Too soon perhaps but far from a full-throated endorsement of al Qaeda, causing complaints to roll in and advertisers retreat from the programme. Of course back then, there was also no coercion from hypocritical government officials to self-censor editorialising or free-speech.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Oscars of US government workers (with synchronopticæ), getting to philosophy, Israel attacks Hezbollah with booby-trapped walkie-talkies plus sinkholes and megaslumps

thirteen years ago: a theme song for a blog plus auditory cues

fourteen years ago: Germany’s Pirate Party 

fifteen years ago: Moore’s Law and quantum computing 

seventeen years ago: a turn in the weather 

pious fictions (12. 737)

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency contributor Carlos Greaves shares an uncharacteristically sobering flowchart, decision-tree on telling the difference between a lone wolf and a coordinated effort by the radical left. The parallel construction triangulates with a lecture series by tech oligarch Peter Thiel embracing the language of the apocalypse—rebuffing, redirecting worries over AI godhead with talks that appeal to particularly American obsessions of naming the Antichrist and belief in angels and demons (environmental activist Greta Thunberg is a favourite target of the influential billionaire for the Great Satan—in the parlance and policing of y’all Qaeda) and the censoring of media outlets with producer son David of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison looking to acquire CNN after taking over Paramount-Skydance with consequences already apparent, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission bullying ABC-Disney into cancelling another popular late night talk show critical of the administration, the divestiture of US TikTok to a MAGA cadre to transform it into a propaganda mill far worse than any hand wringing over China, and the Washington Post dismissing a veteran journalist for reporting the news and calling out sophistry.

chryons (12. 720)

Via Waxy, and perhaps a better way to absorb the shock of breaking headlines that one can otherwise manage to avoid and tune-in voluntarily to the outlet of one’s choice, which presents a roll of live but not scrolling, automatically refreshing and unlinked screen grabs of the lower third of selected news sources (see a sister-project for front pages here also from Riley Walz), a graphic overlay or ticker that appear in the bottom portion of the screen (not necessarily taking up that much attention real estate), in the title-safe area, the margins of display. The above synonymous title term is a genericised trademark—see previously—of the Chyron Corporation, the company founded in 1966 that pioneered broadcast titling and graphic generators, named after the superlative mythological centaur for the integration of text and pictures on live TV. Whilst on the one hand hand making one chase after what’s next with this format and time-stamp, it also it a nice governor and a meditation on how headlines undergo fossilisation in the media onslaught.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a nineteenth century puppet theatre (with synchronopticæ), New York’s Chelsea Hotel, branding wild horses plus Haile Selassie deposed (1974)

thirteen years ago: corporate welfare, Swiss banking secrecy toppled plus a consortium of European museums goes online

fourteen years ago: reflections on 9/11 plus fiscal discipline and fiduciary disciples 

fifteen years ago: Arianne Huffington on America’s decline 

seventeen years ago: more reflections on 11 September 

film als magisches ritual (12. 718)

Having been previously exposed to a select body of work from the underground filmmaker whose short pieces experiment of themes of the surreal, the occult and homoeroticism, we appreciated this rare glimpse of Kenneth Anger at work through this 1970 documentary from Reinold E Theil for the German network Westdeutsche Rundfunk, featuring segments of his Magick Lantern series and the filming of cut scenes for Lucifer Rising on location at the Avebury Stones. Although seemingly a recalcitrant and reluctant interviewee, Anger was grateful to WDR and the British Film Institute for grants that made the project possible. Much more from { feuilleton }—including an index of previous posts on the topic—at the link above.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: search engine optimisation (with synchronopticæ), transcribing presidential debates plus tales of Chemical Romance

twelve years ago: a visit to the Sonnenburg 

fourteen years ago: design for houseplants

mending fences (12. 705)

Broadcast on a 12 September episode of The Tonight Show whilst a congressional inquiry and a JAG inquest into the commanding officers involved in the incident were still on going—ultimately reinstating the lieutenant colonel to his position of command and clearing him and subordinates of all charges of wrong-doing—on this day in 1961, host Jack Paar of the long running NBC late-night talk show taped a segment in West Berlin in front of the Brandenburg Gate with four television cameras interviewing a group of some sixty US soldiers, along with panelist and announcer Peggy Cass (Agnes Gooch from Auntie Mame) whom brought along their Jeeps and guns, augmenting the staff of six usually assigned to guard the checkpoint complete with extra artillery and armaments just as the Wall was being erected. Veteran Army sergeant Parr interviewed several of the gathered guests while East German border patrol monitored the situation with bewilderment. The chief complaint of the Pentagon and the senate was such an uncoordinated stunt for the cameras could provoke an international incident (see also) or worse. Critics regarded the airing of the footage underwhelming, produced in conjunction with Radio Free Berlin, a disappointment considering all the trouble caused, inspiring no patriotic pride nor real entertainment value.

mister bean and the smear campaign (12. 686)

Via Nag on the Lake and Memo of the Air—although we could not really really find any affinity—nor notes for—this catalogue of the weirdest and worst novelty songs, to have been graced with music videos, we did appreciate the presentation from Vole Television with clever interstitials like classic bumpers from MTV. The title track—“(I want to be) Elected”—was produced by Bruce Dickinson (not a single-issue voter and well before Rowan Atkinson became one) for the Red Nose comic relief charity and was included in the closing coverage before purdah by BBC Parliament in 1992. Going through more of the playlist, we do find that there are VH-1 pop-up video style commentary and factoids and also features Lieutenant Pigeon, so maybe some measure of kindredness.  Tag your favourites.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the dissolution of East Germany (with synchronopticæ) plus a banger from George Harrison

most sacred and cherished symbol (12. 673)

Though just another feckless executive order and virtue signalling (plus a distraction) to his base—as President Bartlett said there’s no epidemic of flag-burning in protest after entertainer Penn Jillette stirred controversy with sleight of hand trick and asks deputy chief of staff, “What if we burned a flag, not in protest, but in celebration of the very freedoms that allow us to burn a flag—the freedoms that everyone who has ever worked in this magnificent building has pledged to preserve and protect?”—and against the 1989 landmark supreme court decision that affirmed such actions as protected speech under the first amendment, the Trump administration has directed officials in the justice department to prosecute flag burning in a way that does not violate the constitution, directing the attorney general to prioritise laws against desecration in connection with other crimes to allow for revocation of visas and deportation of foreign nationals, promising jail time for the offence and suggesting loss of citizenship. Describing the act as “uniquely offensive and provocative,” Trump has always had a particular preoccupation with such acts (see above case protecting “fighting words”)—whilst rubbish the principles behind it—and when a regime tells one what flags cannot be burned, it will next tell one which flags cannot be waved. Creeping—nay galloping—despotism aside, those who insist a symbol is sacrosanct and inviolable also keep it off their crappy merchandise. “Did you go to law school?” “No, clown school.”

7x7 (12. 671)

many happy returns: belated happy blogoversaries to Miss Cellania and Art for Housewives 

then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the areopagus: Peter Thiel’s lecture series sponsored by Acts XVII Collective  

oh the huge manatee: dugongs are making a return to the South China Sea after being declared functionally extinct  

cavlinball court: Justic Kentanji Brown Jackson has a name for her lawless SCOTUS  

no brat, no hot girl, no barbenheimer: trudging through the exhausting Summer of Nothing 

sadopopulism: Trump and the Marquis  

diastros, emergencia, ruin: a weather spot from The Fast Show, a BBC2 sketch comedy airing from 1994 to 1997

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus a visit to Hermannsfeld 

fourteen years ago: junk drawers and stockpiling 

fifteen years ago: a medical scare 

medicare bears (12. 628)

The latest syndicated comic from Rubin Bolin for the CBS Saturday morning line up gets on notes and perfectly encapsulates the network’s obsequiousness to the regime in order to secure a merger between the Paramount and Sundance catalogue, welcoming in a demerit system for content that does not reflect its values and a hall-monitor for reporting in order to vouchsafe its capitulation in terms of journalistic integrity, targeted by the Trump administration’s federal communications commission (FCC) following allegations of editing an interview with candidate Kamala Harris as news distortion and paid a nominal settlement, even though the segment in question was not a debate and subject to standard practices of cleaning up prior to air. In addition to monetary concession, the network agreed to install an ombudsman to monitor CBS news for bias. Prior to the deal, the media clearinghouses had joint stakes in franchises like Star Trek and Mission: Impossible and Transformers, but Paramount wanted assets like Nickelodeon and SpongeBob to include derivative spin-offs. Critics have decried this blatant act of bribery for an acquiescent parent company (it seems a bit preferable when American TV was controlled by defence contractors and were capable of push-back.

11 x 11 (12. 622)

ped x’ing: an urban hawk takes advantage of a crosswalk signal to shield it from view as it stalks its pigeon bounty—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

whispering gallery mode: peacock plumage can be induced to emit lasers—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

pix: US government going after Brazil’s native digital payment platform—calling it an unfair barrier to trade—meanwhile only President Lula da Silva is standing up to Trump’s tariff bullying  

showrunner: Amazon investing in AI start-up Fable that allows subscribers to make their own TV shows  

pro-somnolence: the technique of cognitive shuffling to quiet the mind and get back to sleep 

manifesto antropófago: a 1928 counter-colonialism and counter-appropriation movement venturing out of São Paulo 

the candy factory: the unique artists’ commune in New York City founded by Ann Ballentine—via Messy Nessy Chic  

query-agnostic adversarial triggers: feline-related textual asides cause marked increase in AI error rates  

one year ago, america was a dead country, now it is the hottest country anywhere in the world: Trump escalates trade war with Canada as Carney suggests they may miss the deadline  

living batteries: cable bacteria thriving in muddy harness chemical gradients to create and electrical circuit and get oxygen in an anoxic environment  

starling network: Benn Jordan saved a .PNG image to a bird by turning a drawing into audio which could be mimicked and reproduced, see also—via Waxy

9x9 (12. 588)

may every day be another wonderful secret: a round up on the Epstein files and Trump’s tantrums—for MAGA, Nazis are cool but they’re drawing the line here—at least there’s a line, hopefully  

infra-realism: off-the-spectrum photographs of Palm Springs California by Kate Ballis—see previously  

power of the purse: a much diminished US legislator’s concessions to the directive of the administration not only slashes the budget for public broadcasting and foreign aid, it also signals their redundancy as a rubber stamp for the executive branch 

let’s go fly a kite: instead of windmills, Ireland tries an alternative to harness energy  

there’s a little frank lloyd wrong in all of us: a horrendous split level property in North Carolina gets the McMansion Hell treatment—previously, via Neatorama  

photovoltaic array: a gallery of images from China showing the future of clean, renewable energy  

fascism for first time founders: the broligraghy, the dictator trap and the invisible brain-drain 

long photographs: contemplative landscapes from Noah Kalina 

 the colbert report: CBS cancelling The Late Show next summer after host openly criticised the settlement between Trump and parent company Paramount—though cites purely financial reasons

9x9 (12. 578)

i’ll get no residuals ‘cause i’m a stateless individual: Trump considers revoking the citizenship of long time show-business foil Rosie O’Donnell  

know thy selfie: from visibility and transformation to the routine, an examination of the custom that’s unlikely to loose currency  

room 237: Stanley Kubric’s last minute change to the ending of The Shining  

from the i sing the scooter electric department: China’s Omo X is a self-driving EV  

turtle spiders of the sea: Ze Frank on the horseshoe crab 

ebb and flow: an underwater turbine off the coast of Scotland demonstrates the viability of tidal energy  

hyborean age: a Red Sonja remake in discussion thirty years in after numerous other reboots  

a common-thread among world-eating types: a literally history of the billionaire—via Nag on the Lake  

off-ramp: unmoved by other atrocities, MAGAist may view Trump’s connection with the sex-pest as a somewhat dignified way to sever connections with the movement

8x8 (12. 561)

willis wonderland: an appreciation of an influential designer that defined the aesthetic of the 80s 

 

husband-and-wife slices: the thorny problem of translating Chinese dishes—the apotheosis of Chinglish on menus 

 

social mountaintop: a hot-take about the rise of MAGA and its charismatic figurehead 

destiny of the republic: a new biography on James Garfield, US president for two hundred days 

border control: Norwegian visitor barred entry for verboten JD vance meme 

crockett and tubbs: a compelling Miami Vice and Star Wars crossover 

borenstein back to blogging: an appreciation of the format and schedule—via Language Hat 

kunstler tapeten: wallpaper inspired by the Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburg classic film The Red Shoes—via Nag on the Lake

rewatch (12. 539)

Via MetaFilter, as one—like we are accused of in this generation who has not watched an episode faithfully or chronologically since the early 2000s and have a different, rosier esteem for the long-running show fossilised somewhere and anxious that the series had concluded without my noticing, new lobby cards seeming wholly made-up—we really appreciate this rather epic retrospective episode by episode in reverse order that’s been ongoing since 2011 (and retroactive to 1989) for a show that means a lot to a lot of us for just existing in syndication. Detailed synopses for each with ratings, critiques and relations to others, reliving like all of us growing up and aging with these ageless but contemporary characters.