police procedural (12. 584)

First heard on NPR’s news quiz Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, we learned that over the weekend, police in Wisconsin searched a vehicle with an individual with a warrant out for their arrest—after a drug-sniffing dog gave authorities probable cause. Iconically they found various paraphernalia, a loaded gun, an amount of fiat currency and cocaine in a bag labeled ✨Definitely Not a Bag Full of Drugs✨. The driver and passenger were arrested for possession and as a felon with with a firearm. The photograph of confiscated evidence also features a dice bag used for role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, which should definitely not be considered criminal behaviour especially in the home state of Gary Gygax. It does, however, seem like a scoff-law move not to have stashed their everyday-carry in the more iconic (though possibly more obvious) Crown Royal bag. The Canadian blended whisky introduced on the occasion of the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939 as the first reigning monarchs to visit North America, the purple velvet satchel with golden draw-strings has been part of the brand’s identity ever since and is a genuinely useful object to have handy—and I’ll admit to buying some Crown Royal just to have one around in case of need. One can also order personalised bags from the distillery or request a care-package—so packaged—send to troops abroad.

si vis pacem para pactum (12. 536)

As if Trump’s low turn-out, low-energy birthday parade was not already overshadowed by the poor juxtaposition of the crack down on protests in Los Angeles and the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, with no boots on the ground though America can hardly claim it’s not deeply entrenched, the politically motivated assassination of a Minnesota state legislator by a crazed MAGA evangelist still at large and with a kill-list of other politicians, the surprise from Israel on Iran gave some in the administration a chance to try to have it both ways. Like the false claims last month of brokering a cease fire between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, despite vehement disavowal of having anything to do with the strikes on Iranian cities and infrastructure, Trump is insisting that peace is contingent upon Iran settling the nuclear deal—talks scheduled to continue in Oman next week—as if Israeli incursions were leverage in the negotiations, if anything possibly a provocation to draw the US into the situation. The last time Washington DC hosted a military parade of comparable scale was in 1991 as a premature victory celebration for the hundred-day Persian Gulf War, what became a multipart quagmire squandering many lives and much treasure, the US resuming its push to remove Saddam Hussein after premised on the untrue narratives of Baghdad involvement with the 9/11 terror attacks and Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. America should have lost global trust and confidence back then. Now, with Iran having been only five years away from producing a ballistic nuclear missile for the past thirty years (and surely have been capable of making an arsenal but chose not to despite decades of conflicts with neighbours including Iraq and Israel), the Trump administration and his negotiators are using the WMD playbook once again and this time, the world is far more skeptical of their motives to stoke forever wars.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Dutch roll (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: more links to enjoy, Trump’s migrant detention centres, fear of palindromes plus Stephen Hawking interred with honours

eight years ago: Ford’s soybean car plus the feast of Corpus Christi

nine years ago: the UK’s proposed withdrawal from the EU, even more links, machine dreams plus the long-s

ten years ago: a visit to Gemünden am Main, the internet of trolls plus a church that resembles the courthouse from Back to the Future

gideon v wainwright (12. 505)

Arrested on this day in 1961 in Panama City Florida on suspicion of a committing a burglary at pool hall based on the testimony of a single witness who claimed to have seen the unemployed drifter at the scene of the crime that morning, Clarence Earl Gideon falsely charged with petty larceny and breaking and entering appeared in court alone for his trial, unable to afford a defence lawyer, and had to represent himself, the laws of the state only requiring counsel to be proved in cases of capital offences. Gideon correctly countered the judge citing the US constitution’s VI. and XIV. amendments but could not persuade him otherwise and was forced to stand up himself to the authorities bringing the charges and was ultimately remanded to five years in prison for a crime he did not commit. During his incarceration, Gideon researched the law in the jail’s library and on prison stationary (a handwritten petition for a writ of certiorari) requested review by the state supreme court, which rejected it and was subsequently appealed to the nation’s high court, bringing suit against the then incumbent secretary of the Florida depart of corrections, Louie L Wainwright, for violation of his constitutional rights. The Supreme Court issued its landmark decision two years later, assigning Gideon prominent Washington, DC attorney and future associate justice Abe Fortas of the firm Arnold, Fortas & Porter to argue his case pro bono, ruling that selective application of this entitlement, weighted factors like the complexity of the charges, illiteracy or low intelligence of the defendant were irrelevant (Gideon himself certainly lawyered up despite leaving school after eighth grade) and counsel for those who could not afford it was guaranteed in all proceedings to navigate the rules of evidence and admissibility. The decision informed the US public defender system for the indigent for help ensure fair trials and over two thousand incarcerated inmates in Florida were released in 1963, mistrials declared and found that their right to due process had been violated. Gideon himself opted to have his name exonerated with a speedy retrial, acquitted by a jury in less than an hour. Part of a series of court decisions that confirmed the rights of defendants at trial, the ruling was extended to police interrogation with Miranda v Arizona, this anniversary seems especially resonant now with unheard of retributive attacks on law firms and individual lawyers, which is placing a chilling effect on pro bono work and legal aid for those up against those virtually unchallenged and untouchable.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus candidate Bill Clinton on a late night talk show (1992)

seven years ago: a visit to Kloster Veßra, ultimate Monopoly, Andy Warhol shot (1968) plus the revival of an ancient Sumerian religion

eight years ago: a four-dimensional toy box, a cove of abandoned ships, political gaslighting plus Trump rallies against Pride month

nine years ago: tensions between Germany and Türkiye 

ten years ago: more links to enjoy

memory alpha (12. 504)

Courtesy of Kottke, we are introduced to a wonderfully obsessive superfan whose meticulous interest and encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek: The Next Generation has translated to him becoming a stagehand and consultant for later incarnations of the franchise named Jörg Hillebrand, a mild-mannered German elementary school teacher by day, who has taken easter eggs from TNG and other series and worked in several callbacks for Star Trek: Picard. The book on display in the captain’s ready room is an edition of The Annotated Shakespeare, Volume One and is open to various pages during each episode, one time, with some close examination, revealing proof that not only does classical thespian Patrick Stewart existed in the show’s universe (see also) but that Jean Luc is aware of him, the spread in question featuring a still from a 1968 production of As You Like It with Stewart in the role of Touchstone. Much more trivia, hidden messages and recycled costumes and set-dressing at the links above.

after the sun goes down (12. 464)

Having spent much of my life overseas after a rather cloistered college experience, I discover quite often that there are large segments of pop culture that passed me by though I suspect in a lot of cases not missing much. And while I usually don’t harbour a strong urge to dive deeper or entertain a re-watch, I do get a strong measure of satisfaction from reading glosses and specialised wikia and I find it comforting that such research and documentation has gone into even lesser cultural artefacts. One such television show I had no idea existed was this syndicated spinoff, which only lasted two seasons, concluding its short run on this day in 1997, I think just as it was finding its legs. The original premise of the series revolved around a mid-life crisis and subsequent disillusionment of the resident police officer whose beat was to patrol the Los Angeles waterfront, who decides to leave the force and form a detective agency, a la Moonlighting. The former cop is joined by his friends from Baywatch, including David Hasselhoff (previously), and most cases of the first series involve characters going under cover in order to infiltrate gangs and trafficking rings, including posing as a female impersonator to apprehend individuals harassing members of a drag troupe and being hired by a wealthy cosmetics executive to investigate his son’s falling in with a band of roller-skating bandits. After disappointing ratings, producers retooled the show to introduce a paranormal element (a la, The X-Files) with a monster-of-the-week format involving sea-serpents, murderous mermaids, spell books, possessions, re-animated Vikings, voodoo curses and time travel—the penultimate episode, which a temporal vortex transports the stars to the year 2017.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica 

one year ago: a visit to the Aisch valley (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the original concept for Mario Brothers, a diagrammatic metro map plus the Wobblies’ song book (1909)

eight years ago: a brief history of the internet, Trump goes to the Middle East for his first foreign trip, photographing the post-Soviet building boom, Sgt Pepper at fifty plus Buckminster Fuller on Universal Basic Income

nine years ago: a visit to Stonehenge, caravanning through England plus a version of Islam sanctioned by the Chinese government

ten years ago: a visit to Schmalkalden plus assorted links to enjoy

8x8 (12. 460)

anachronymy: a shopping list of items, like pencil lead, that are technically misnomers but accepted by convention—see also  

there were tears brimming on her azure peepers, and tremulous grief twister her kisser: choice lines from pulp fiction detective story author Robert Leslie Bellem—see previously   

you’re all bilingual already even if you didn’t realise it before: polyglot professor addresses a high school assembly in studied Gen Alpha slang 

danglers: many hanging gerunds only do harm with a feat of imagination—see also  

breaking and entering: effraction is an antiquated synonym from the French 

it’s a breakthrough—one of them can speak: a human polyglot communicates with bonobos in their own language  

five corpulent porpoises: vintage pronunciation drills for prospective BBC anchors, including “Penelope Cholmondely rasied her azure eyes from the crabbed scenario” 

 linguistic relativity: studies of comparative conceptual specialities suggest that some cultures do have more words for snow and lava

spaghetti thriller (12. 437)

The cinephiles of the Flop House with a special guest deliver a very thoroughgoing treatment of the Italian murder-mystery film genre called giallo (the title an alternate native term) popular from the 1960s through the late 1970s—which although declined subsequently with other exploitation movies leaves a lasting legacy and influences in subsequent movements like slasher and supernatural narratives. Derived from a series of crime pulp novels published by the Milano-based Mondadori house who distinguished book themes by their cover colours, in this case yellow—including in their catalogue translated titles from Agatha Christine, whose And Then There Were None (originally called Ten Little Indians or Dieci piccoli indiani) was widely read and considered the template for the genre, laying out the essential elements later adopted by filmmakers of a killer hidden amongst a cast whose identity and motive are not revealed until the end—translated to the screen with psychosexual horror, an atmosphere of suspense, camp, lurid Technicolour, bombastic scoring (see previously here and here) and gratuitous violence. Suspiria is sometimes included for its stylistic similarities but rejected by purist for its supernatural character, though director Dario Argento made other films, with typically baroque and non-revealing titles, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, that are considered classic gialli. Another interesting artefact was the prevalence of J&B scotch whisky in the films across the range of directors as a signifier of sophistication and manliness—Justerini and Brooks Ltd, founded in Bologna in 1749 and receiving a royal warrant to supply wine and spirits to the aristocratic households of London and later purveyors to hotels and restauranteurs. With shifting values, condemned as misogynistic, gialli fell out of favour but their later homage has occasioned a reevaluation of their consistent, if not indirect, message of the victims, almost exclusively women, not being listened to when airing their suspicions and fears.  Be sure to listen to the podcast for expert movie recommendations.

she put the miss in misdemeanour when she stole the beans from lima (12. 404)

Although a bit too old for the PBS game show continuation of the franchise—though I’d defy anyone to not declare the theme song from house band (“Do it Rockapella!”—inspired by “Been Caught Stealing” by Jane’s Addiction) an absolute banger, I do remember the original educational computer game, Carmen Sandiego, released on this day in 1985 by Brøderbund software (whose catalogue includes Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing). Though upon reevaluation deemed edutainment, Carmen Sandiego and later incarnations were meant to teach geography in response to a significant portion of US children demonstrating a lack of basic knowledge when it came to the globe and atlas and questions were vetted and fact-checked by the National Geographic Society, a major underwriter of both the game and television version from 1991. The objective was for fledgling gumshoes of the ACME detective agency to thwart the organised crime ring of international art thieves headed by the titluar character using geography. The series was rebooted 2021 (see above) and Rockapella reprised their theme, though the production team criminally used another song. She’s a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery.

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

 

one year ago: the lost mixtape (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: more links to enjoy, David Bowie’s self-portraits plus Plain People on vacation

eight years ago: more bad flags, more terror attacks in Germany, a concept flying car, Trump dismisses the surgeon general plus Billy Butcher on love power ballads

nine years ago: breathing exercises plus pavement level pedestrian signals 

eleven years ago: populist politics plus TTIP and reciprocal tariffs

cruelties, collusions, corruptions and crimes (12. 336)

Via JWZ, the crew at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has regrouped after that initial and unending force majure of flooding the zone to again catalogue the daily horrors instigated by the Trump administration, like last time around, lest we forget. The atrocity legend has been updated with several new and dreadful categories to work into the schedule.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the calculus of Easter (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Woozle hunting plus a local beverage

eight years ago: art projects informed by the Rijksmuseum collection

nine years ago: digital colonialism,  an AI chatbot comes to a disastrous end plus the Satan-Leaf Gecko

ten years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus hipster animals

8x8 (12. 318)

first comes the performance, then comes the repetition, then comes the integration: thirty lonely yet beautiful acts of defiance—even including social media—via Kottke 

fubar: Muckrock presents its FOIA Foilies awards for 2025—probably too early—see previously  

not shuttered, per se, just considered complete: venerable UbuWeb started back up after closure last year  

audible enclaves: researchers have discovered how to beam sounds to a targeted listener—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

it’s peanut butter jelly time: froghorn.exe is an homage to what used to be the internet’s biggest draw  

programmable mutterer: the allure of magical thinking and how the displaced grace of AI could prove more analogous to markets and institutions steering better than individuals  

smoking gun: Trump declassifies a tranche of documents on the JFK assassination, unredacted and “ushering in a new era of maximum transparency  

greeks bearing gifts: Senator Schumer votes to let the wooden horse into Troy

understudy (12. 203)

Pending senate approval for Trump’s nominee Kash Patel as director of the FBI, two officials from the bureau were selected to run it on an acting basis. The White House however listed the wrong individual on their webpage and instead of correcting the mistake, hopeful that Patel would be confirmed soon—we learn from Super Punch, the two temporary appointees just swapped offices and titles. Career special agent Brian “the Drizz” Driscoll, originally tasked by the presidential transition team to be the deputy serving under the acting director exchanged roles with the intended individual, and against the backdrop of the purging of civil servants executed the order to dismiss senior executives and compile a dossier of thousands of others taking part in investigations linked to the January Sixth insurrection, including Driscoll himself and boss-cum-adjutant, though not without some laudable resistance. Though toning down the rhetoric during hearings and promising that there would be no political retribution, Patel has expressed enthusiasm bout weaponising the umbrella organisation of the Justice Department to pursue Trump’s opponents and to turn the Hoover Building headquarters in to a museum on the misdeeds of the Deep State.

synchronoptica

one year ago: renovating Hamburg’s air defence bunker (with synchronoptica), animator Jordan Belson plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: concentration camp chic

eight years ago: more links to enjoy 

nine years ago: tax-havens, gas prices at record lows plus persistence of vision

ten years ago: Beatles LoTR, TTIP and TAFTA plus even more links

 

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  

𒀸𒋩𒆕𒀀: 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 Sjöö (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

the genovese syndrome (12. 109)

On this day in 1974, ten years after the violent murder of resident Kitty Genovese outside the same apartment building in the Kew Gardens neighbourhood of Queens for which no one intervened or called the police in what was dubbed the bystander effect and was cited as a textbook case for decades—partially due to this second tragic death—until upon reevaluation it was revealed that the number of witnesses and their actions had been respectively over- and under-reported, fashion model (her profession was later retracted in articles but no correction was given) Sandra Zahler was beaten to death. Upon questioning by detectives a day and a half later once the bludgeoned body was discovered found that neighbours had heard screams and indications of a struggle but no witnesses—many of whom were present in 1964—came forward, either citing the holiday or expecting others to have heard the commotion and alerted authorities. Eventually the building’s elevator operator corroborated police suspicions for Zahler’s estranged boyfriend.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Godwin’s Law (with synchronoptica), a visit to a basalt factory plus The Sting (1973)

seven years ago: more holiday greetings

ten years ago: another Yule Log

eleven years ago: endangered specie 

twelve years ago: luck-bringers 

9x9 (12. 082)

blame on the whiskey: DJ Earworm’s 2024 wrapped  

nhtsa: Trump transition team recommends scrapping crash reporting regulations with Tesla among the biggest offender for car-related fatalities—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

swaddling clothes: removal of a keffiyeh from a creche at the Vatican demonstrates how Nativity Scenes are never neutral  

flashpoint: charting possible frontlines on the continent if Russia pushes further on the NATO alliance  

as above, so below: the ensemble of pyramids of the Giza complex have eight sides, visible only during the equinoxes 

theatre of thought: Werner Herzog contemplates the nature of the mind in his latest documentary  

big band: Glenn Miller’s 1944 disappearance without a trace is an enduring aviation mystery, second to Amelia Earhart’s  

ka$h patel: FBI director’s resignation may hinder Trump loyalist’s succession as head of the bureau 

there ain’t no us in the private trust: a folk protest song about the state of American healthcare

deny, defend, depose, diarrhea (12. 073)

Symptomatic of far greater endemic problems with America’s labour and healthcare problems, individuals are submitting scathing reviews of one of the three McDonald’s franchises in Altoona, Pennsylvania that tipped off authorities regarding the whereabouts of the fugitive suspected of killing the CEO of a major insurance provider—see previously. Whilst his life is undergoing vivisection by the police and the press for his apparent act of retribution, the public is lamenting the selling out by an informant of folk-hero Luigi Mangione whose Monopoly money and manifesto speaks for everyone who has had a negative interaction with their insurance carrier by addle-brained employees who will never have coverage either (nor likely any other basic benefits, like paid leave or a pension) and won’t see the bounty as the tip went through local authorities and not the FBI hotline, no CEO stepping forward to reward this act of killing one of their own. PfRC does not condone this type of lawless vigilantism no matter how resonant and righteous, nor do we condone the above-the-law framework of for-profit healthcare and corporate welfare that props up businesses that rely on a woefully insufficient government safety net to make money and a parasocial system that is a feedback loop undermining people’s physical and mental well-being.

banco de portugal plot (12. 055)

Presenting a letter of introduction, credentialed and endorsed by the Royal Joh. Enschedé of the Netherlands, chartered maker of banknotes and other security documents, on this day in 1924 Artur Virgílio Aves Reis instigated one of the biggest financial frauds in history when he entered the offices of Waterlow and Sons Ltd, another respected and venerable printer of stock certificates, currency and postage stamps, and claiming to be on a secret mission on behalf of the governors of his native Portugal’s central bank, sought to fill a commission of two-hundred thousand, five hundred escudo notes (the cifrão $, from the Arabic for zero is a double-bar dollar sign, is the currency symbol and is used as the thousands and decimal point separator) for circulation and fund an infrastructure project in colonial Angola. Conceived during a short prison stint for illegal arms trade where he encountered his future associates and amid an absolute printing frenzy in Germany to counter hyperinflation, Aves Reis correctly wagered he could pull off a grand counterfeiting scheme, approaching both printers to produce the high denomination notes with identical serial numbers, then hiring an army of drones (zangões) back in Porto to launder the illicit millions, eventually establishing his own bank to expedite the process and avoid suspicion. The massive infusion of forged money, after having purchased a controlling share of stock in the central bank and nearly taking it over, was uncovered exactly one year and one day later with grave repercussions for the country’s economy and the ensuing financial crisis promulgating a collapse of the fragile first republic for a series of dictatorships.

summerisle (12. 013)

Having previously looked into the movie, The Wicker Man, inspired by true events, we enjoyed this interview with the documentary filmmaker Rupert Russell’s latest project in The Last Sacrifice investigating this unsolved murder from 1945 and the repressed mindset of inherently destructive natures, thrown into sharp contrast through the genre of British folk horror that the killing and subsequent reportage established and informed. Much more from Dangerous Minds at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: German mite cheese (with synchronoptica) plus the first laser show

seven years ago: dragnet surveillance unsecured on the cloud plus heritage per photograph

eight years ago: a hangover recovery bar, a referendum on public education plus how the parties got their colours

nine years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, the OED selects an emoji as Word of the Year plus Chinese hackers infiltrate the US Office of Personnel Management

ten years ago: legendary voyages plus a parting gift from Steve Jobs

minority report (11. 991)

With the possibility for insight but far more likely to skew towards red-herrings, misassociation and even dangerous omission, Anthopic’s Claude AI model (see previously) will partner with Palantir and Amazon Web Services to process and analyse classified information for undisclosed US defence and intelligence agencies. 

Accredited to scrape data up to secret, the contract is being criticised for being in opposition to Anthropic’s motto of “show, don’t tell” oriented toward safe and ethical use of AI, and comes after a demonstration project by Peter Theil’s analytics platform (named for the magical, scrying palantíri, the far-seeing stones, of The Lord of the Rings used for communication across space and time—or to spread propaganda) for an insurance underwriter which cut down claims processing time from weeks to hours—the company also not disclosed and with no independent assessment of its success rate—and strikes one as something akin to a credit score and equally non-perspicacious. Another way of saving on man hours it takes to conduct this type of undertaking is to throw one’s workload in the garbage.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a WWII musical documentary (with synchronoptica), an ancient supermassive black hole discovered plus the diplomatic tactic of constructive ambiguity

seven years ago: Carnival season begins plus the outsized influence of Futurama

nine years ago: the retirement crunch

ten years ago: more on the Fifth Season 

eleven years ago: extremophile bacteria that survive in space, a trip to Oppenheim plus more on combatting light pollution

varietà antica (11. 976)

Via Pasa Bon!, we are directed to the Italian scientist Isabella Dalla Ragione who scours medieval archives, cloistered orchards and Renaissance paintings for produce that has disappeared from daily cuisine to bring some diversity back to the table in the form of gnarled but hardy and delicious apples, pears, peaches, quinces, grapes and other forgotten heirloom fruit. Dalle Ragione’s family home with its ancient grounds has become a showcase and incubator for this effort as the interviewer acts as a docent through a quite remarkable gallery of art works that display this culling of an overwhelming abundance of cultivars down to monoculture, hoping to reverse the trend. With a little detective work, an amazing catalogue of outmoded varietals emerge from generally overlooked details, instilled themselves with symbolism and hence the importance of accurate representation to convey the message. Much more at the links above.

the candy man (11. 948)

On this day in 1974 in Deer Park, Texas, optician and Baptist deacon Ronald Clark O’Bryan poisoned his eight year old son Timothy with a Pixy Stix laced with cyanide, ostensibly collected during neighbourhood trick-or-treating, to collect on a life-insurance claim and ease the family’s financial difficulties, O’Bryan having accumulated one-hundred thousand dollars in debt having problems holding a job longer than six-months and defaulting on several loans. While fears over tainted Halloween loot and accepting candy from strangers had been on the minds’ of parents beforehand, this gruesome, callous and senseless murder has perpetuated anxieties and is why candy is x-rayed for razor blades and carefully inspected for signs of tampering. Despite trunk-or-treat, the only occurrences have been cases of filicide with parents pretending it was the work of some mad poisoner. In order to make his crime seem plausible, O’Bryan and his son and daughter accompanied their neighbours and their children on the outing, and visited an apparently vacant house. No one answered the door and having grown impatient, the party left with O’Bryan catching up a few moments later, producing five packets of the sweet and sour powered confection that one pours into one’s mouth. Saying that they came to the door, O’Bryan distributed them amongst the children. On returning home, O’Bryan urged his son to eat some of the candy, claiming he chose the Pixy Stick—an unlikely first choice. Less than an hour after consuming the poison, a dose large enough to kill three adults, the son died, convulsing on the way to the hospital. The other children had not touched the poisoned candy (again, garbage candy). There was panic nationwide over the possibility of poisoned treats and investigators did not suspect O’Bryan initially, until his story began to fall apart—none of the homes in the two block radius of their trick-or-treating had given out Stix (...) and eventually locating the house with authorities that was slow to answer, O’Bryan maintained that the door only opened a crack and a man’s hairy arm emerged with the deadly candy but in implicating the owner, an air-traffic controller who had been working late that evening and had a solid alibi, police began to doubt his version of events. Undertaking a thorough inspection of his accounts and career history, authorities learned that O’Bryan was about to be dismissed from his current job and hid assets were on the verge of foreclosure and repossession—plus the high value of the policies he had taken out on his children and the purchase of two kilograms (the smallest unit of sale) of potassium-cyanide. O’Bryan was sentenced to death (given the title monicker and “the Man who Ruined Halloween”) and a decade later was executed by lethal injection.

synchronoptica

one year ago: International Savings Day (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: a mythological horror plus the CIA and wax museums

eight years ago: campaign music, phreaking and toll-fraud plus Tales of the Unexpected

nine years ago: pale blue dot plus the hunt for the tomb and treasure of a Visigoth king

ten years ago: a prototype ambulance drone