magic kingdom (13. 842)

Beginning his work with Disney as a tweener—an animator who specialises in the intermediary, in between frames bookended by keyframes and thus responsible for the illusion of movement—helping bring features like Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians to life, Roland “Rolly” Fargo Crump is most celebrated for his chance reassignment to the Imagineering Department after Disney himself noticed some of the strange little mobiles and pinwheels Crump had crafted during his free time, we learn courtesy of Dangerous Minds. At the workshop, Crump was responsible for some of Disneyland’s most iconic attractions and shops including the Haunted Mansion, the Enchanted Tiki Room and It’s a Small World ride with the host of animatronic children. Staying with company until 1996. During his long tenure with the studio, Crump also in the 1960s designed a series of satirical, beatnik psychedelic posters for Los Angeles and West Coast bands and venues. More examples at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to Colmar (with synchronoptica)

two years ago: papabili plus assorted links worth revisiting 

three years ago: more links to enjoy 

four years ago: ethernet, Business!, assorted links to revisit, more on the Scunthorpe problem plus Putin addresses the nation

five years ago:  a very distasteful sitcom plus revisiting the Colossus of Rügen

six years ago: memorialising the shame of Canada’s residential school policy,  International Translation Day, passive voice and reflexive forms, digital world address maps, deconstructing American exceptionalism plus more botanical epithets

seven years ago: a farewell to Bauhaus, a remedial lesson on separating one’s trash plus the World Clock of Berlin’s Alexanderplatz (1969)

eight years ago: a recipe for mushrooms, BBC Radio 4 (1967), a Chinatown edition of Monopoly plus Leoind and Friends cover Earth, Wind and Fire

 

kill the wabbit (13. 826)

Via Kottke, we are directed towards an engaging essay on the enduring Merrie Melodies classic, a collaboration directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese, with the voice talents of Mel Blanc and Arthur Q Bryant as Bunny and Fudd respectively. Released in theatres in July of 1957, What’s Opera, Doc? still registers among the greatest cartoon of all time nearly seven decades on and in addition to its deserved reputation as introducing generations to classical music, Bugs pursued by Elmer through Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, Der Fliegende Holländer and Tännhauser, the project was exponentially more ambitious than the usual Warner Brothers’ fare. Those involved in its production, whilst denying that they were aiming to create a masterpiece, spent more than six times the budget and overtime, hidden by shaving hours and outlays from other assignments and retained the talents of background artist Maurice Nobel (see also here and here) to storyboard the narrative with over five hundred sketches, abstract and offset which became the signature of Looney Tunes going forth, his surrealistic and absurdist style rejected by Disney’s Silly Symphonies—his previous employer, whom worked on Fantasia and may have seen this film as his rebuke of suppression of his creative license. The title tags the Walkürenritt (Ride of the Valkyries) of the last act of the fourth epic from the Ring Cycle, the leitmotif of the figures who guide the souls of the dead to Valhalla (incidentally also the name of the North Hollywood cemetery where Bryant is buried—Blanc was lain to rest in Hollywood Forever grounds on the backlot of Paramount). This short was the last of three in which Elmer wins but shows regret and remorse this time for his adversary.

they thought he was a goner (13. 825)

We enjoyed this short film retrospective (plus a preview of coming attractions) of the works of Winnipeg animator Cordell Barker, showcasing his Oscar-nominated 1988 piece that was screened along with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in Canadian theatres. Based on the Tin Pan Alley song of the same name written by Harry S Miller in 1893 about an indestructible cat, Barker’s version is a bit less violent with injury and carnage visited only on Old Mr Johnson, the little yellow cat returning increasingly destructive after each failed and manic attempt to get rid of it. More from the NFB blog, the filmmaker a creative consultant retained by the National Film Board for animation projects.

for a fee, i’m happy to be your backdoor man (13. 817)

As our faithful chronicler reminds, AC/DC released their third studio album on this day in 1976, the title track being an advertisement for a hitman who will help clients solve their problems, ranging from lecherous bosses and teachers to unfaithful partners, at low costs with services including concrete shoes, cyanide poisoning, electrocution and explosives—TNT and High Voltage referencing tracks from their previous albums. The name of the song is an homage to the cartoon Beany and Cecil—Angus Young was a young fan of the 1960s show—with the villain character Dishonest John (mostly referred to by his initials) handing out a business card reading, “Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Special rates for Sundays and holidays.” Other minor baddies but recurring characters from the series include Go Man Van Gogh (voiced by Scatman Crothers) as a stereotypical beatnik, Jacques the Knife, a jazz singing sawfish with a heavy French accent, and Rin Tin Can, a robot dog, whom all deserve to be the backstory of a hardrock anthem in our opinion. The record was certified Platinum six times over but still ranks third among the Australian band’s work with Highway to Hell and Back in Black selling more copies. In 1981, a household in Libertyville Illinois filed lawsuit against the record label for a quarter of a million dollars, claiming distress caused by crank calls for their phone number inclusion in the song lyrics, 36-24-36 followed by a “hey!” which could be interpreted as eight. What the heck, DJ! You dirty guy!

synchromy № 4 (13. 803)

Piggy-backing from a recent post, we are pleased for having made the acquaintance of pioneering experimental filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute, who created some of the first electronically generated montage for her visual music, whose abstract shorts, many in collaboration with Scottish-Canadian animator Norman McLaren, whom also produced commissions for the National Film Board (NFB) and UNESCO outreach projects, were shown in special venues, like Radio City Music Hall as well as projected in cinemas before the main features. Influenced by contemporaries like Len Lye and Oskar Fischinger together creating a whole new genre that culminated in Fantasia and derivatives, a selection of Bute’s compositions are at the link above from MetaFilter contributor peppercorn, including her 1958 non-musical, non-animated short film The Boy Who Saw Through starring a young Christopher Walken with x-ray vision.  

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synchronoptica

one year ago: hedgehog highways (with synchronoptica), impossible captchas, an outrageous exchange rate error, a pivotal moment in the life of Frida Kahlo plus the radical left

two years ago: a versatile French pronoun 

three years ago: Outward Bound (1923), West German Star Trek plus assorted links to revisit

four years ago: the debut of M*A*S*H* (1972), assorted links to revisit, Emperor Norton I plus a consequential forgery

five years ago: The Persuaders!,  rewilding one’s attention plus more links to enjoy

six years ago: Hildegard von Bingen, tour guides, words with only plural forms, the musical stylings of Ady Zehnpfennig, the illustrations of Rex Whistler plus the microscopic world announced

seven years ago: The Handmaid’s Tale, previously unreleased pictures of David Bowie, spoon-hanging plus more language hapaxes

eight years ago: the space shuttle Enterprise (1976)

 

talk of the town (13. 801)

For over a decade, David O has been blogging the Manhattan weekly from the beginning in 1925 on a schedule that mirrors when each issue would have gone to print, placing the current posts in the mid-1930s, we learn courtesy of MetaFilter. Though founded as a more sophis-ticated humour magazine originally, distinguished from cornier publications, with reviews and reportage about local happenings, it established itself as a preëminent forum for fiction, essays and long-read journalism after World War II, and has been lauded as an effective conduit for introducing a sizeable readership to modern literature. We didn’t have a stack of back issues at home—National Geographic, yes—but I know I had a subscription at one point and am drawn to any article that revisits an old catalogue or periodicals (I think it was The Awl, also based in New York City that had a regular segment about flipping through magazines from the early 1990s), but this guided tour of editions receding from living memory is even better than sifting through the archives, with context and a bit of history and contemporary analogues, like highlighting the first instance of the Medusa trope for its cartoons followed up with other artists carrying on the tradition through the decades. Scrolling along with Eustace Tilley (see above) a far better use of one’s time with more potential for serendipity than one’s social feeds.

les trente-six vues de la tour eiffel (13. 785)

Best known for his picture series of the Eifel Tower (see previously), with the seasons changing, we appreciated this gallery of Henri Rivière’s lithographic works spanning the first decade of the twentieth century, capturing other quarters of Paris. Somewhat of a departure from the earlier project that was a faithful interpolation of Japonisme and Japanese printmakers in terms of layout and presentation, these vignettes still maintain the traditional minimal palette and outlines and previews the coming ligne claire style adopted by European comic artists like Hergé. Rivière also painted scenes of Breton and a study in waves, like his inspiration, Hokusai.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a customisable chyron roll (with synchronoptica), more synthetic geology plus AI as a calculator for words

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

three years ago: The Blob (1958) 

four years ago: the Chaos Computer Club (1981), medieval dog names plus the beach photos of Philip Barlow

five years ago: the Battle of Marathon, a sudden revelation plus more nearby abandoned places

six years ago: doom loops, traffic planning and civil engineering, Lascaux Cave rediscovered (1940), flights to nowhere plus the invention of the written word

seven years ago: Bonanza (1959) plus the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (1990)

 

10x10 (13. 777)

futura is a favourite and we’re always going to root for her, but then for legibility you can’t go wrong with frutiger: the very model of a modern day typographer—see previously  

if every girl had a diary: filmmaker Sadie Benning’s quiet confessions to her confident Pixel Vision camera delivers a powerful message from the shelter and safety of her bedroom  

leisurama: the prefabricated Mid-Century Modern vacation home of Montauk, Long Island  

learning to live with an elephant: a 1968 animated short from Terry Gilliam—see previously  

 

movie maps: worldwide cinematic address—comprehensive but missing our village’s cameo—via Nag on the Lake 

insecta odonata: dragonflies migrate over long-distances, comparable to Monarch butterflies 

 🛂: the world’s current one hundred ninety-nine passports mapped as a data-visualisation—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

last and first men: the 1930 science fiction work from Olaf Stapledon who examined humanity from a height of two billion years  

only major western capital without a monumental arch: groundbreaking to begin for the Arc d’Trump in two weeks—see previously

synchronoptica

one year ago: Stravinsky’s Serenade in A (with synchronoptica), protests in Nepal plus more revelations on the closeness of Trump and Epstein

two years ago: voting from space, split-screen campaigning plus British holiday camps 

three years ago: assorted links worth the revisit plus traditional Palestinian embroidery 

four years ago: a banger from The Stone Temple Pilots (1994) 

five years ago: statehood for the US capital district, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9), a rewilded oasis in DC plus more links to enjoy

six years ago: the founding of Washington, DC (1791), the dispute over Hans Island, a celebrated lighthouse plus AI-generated super villans

9x9 (13. 759)

it-narratives: the imagined inner lives of inanimate objects  

inwats: the history and use-case of the 1-800 number  

du big bang à mardi matin: Claude Cloutier’s overview of the evolution of life on Earth in his signature animation style reminiscent of aquatint printing  

shadowology: more art installations from Vincent Bal—see previously  

the decade you’ve been waiting for: Paste magazine’s contention top hundred songs of the 80s—via MetaFilter, see previously  

after the fire: Los Angeles residents moving entire homes to burnt out, vacant lots as a cheaper alternative to rebuilding 

it’s fantastic! it’s futuristic! it’s fatalistic! it’s science fiction: a 1973 BBC Omnibus documentary by Harley Cokeliss  

escape claudes: two chatbots placed in a recursive loop—see previously 

hack’s law: the hidden maths of rivers that calm the waters—via Kottke

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to Geraberg (with synchronoptica), woodblock printer Sekino Jun’ichirō plus the branding of the US Civil Defence Corps

two years ago: a pivotal moment in the Star Trek timeline, aspiring travel-writers, assorted links worth revisiting, a trip to Schwickershausen plus the largest aerospace exhibition 

three years ago: ten-thousand digits, danger signs, the Goring Gap plus more links to enjoy

four years ago: a banger from Tina Turner plus legibility and semi-vowels

five years ago: an attempt was made with AI for a mash-up, the Carrington Event (1859), the Cod Wars (1958) even more links plus reskilling as a swan

six years ago: a Banksy-sponsored rescue boat, Church rejects modernism plus saints named Hyacinth 

9x9 (13. 725)

⛒: the mostly true story of hobo code—see previously here and here  

bury the axis: an independent 1943 anti-fascist stop-motion film   

blackball: a variation on the grandfather paradox with billiards  

cow comes: roundly ridiculed Niu Lai (牛来) becomes a box-office hit  

home taping is killing music: the banality of streaming and the lost joy of music piracy—via Things Magazine—see previously  

diesel dazzle: GM archives reveal costume designs from the Golden Age of industrial musicals—see previously  

casserole culture: Melissa Joseph’s woollen impressions of Midwestern niceties 

lampchop after dark: ventriloquist Shari Lewis‘ raunchier days on the comedy circuit  

hailing frequency: a 1951 prototype beeper in the form of a wearable garter buzzer

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from Midnight Oil (with synchronoptica) plus the Dumbarton Oaks conference (1944)

two years ago: assorted links to revisit 

three years ago: Cars by Gary Numan

four years ago: the rules of chess, more links to enjoy plus a banger from Oasis

five years ago: rude toponyms plus The Baltics are Waking Up (1991) 

six years ago: limited patronage, Comrade Gulliver, antique ballots, Italy’s Hundred Horse Chestnut plus vintage Japanese boxed meal wrappers

jug band (13. 659)

We enjoyed this cover version of Raymond Scott’s animation studio staple Powerhouse (see previously) as performed on blown-bottles. The background music for chase and assembly line scenes for Warner Bros cartoons, featured in over forty shorts, first debuted on CBS Radio’s Saturday Night Swing Club in early 1937 with the same first take by the quintette (actually a sextette with piano, saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, double bass and drums but called the former to keep one’s mind on the melody)—this and “Toy Trumpet” remaining in the band’s repertoire for decades and has been sampled by numerous other franchises, including The Simpsons, SpongeBob and Ren & Stimpy, and in musical homages, such as Devo and They Might Be Giants since. Other popular session titles were “Twilight in Turkey, “Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner” and “War Dance for Wooden Indians,” and whilst best known for his jazzy improvised production pieces, Scott is also considered a pioneer of electronic music and audio engineering, developing multi-track and layering techniques, plus inventing the Electronium and Clavivox as well as consulting with peer Bob Moog on the synthesiser and working with Jim Henson in his later years and composing experimental songs for the Muppets and Motown record producer Berry Gordy. See more renditions by the trio GlasBlasSing, currently touring Germany, from Laughing Squid at the link above.

9x9 (13. 655)

all the queens houses: the eclectic architectural vernacular that makes up the New York City’s most diverse borough  

everything counts in large amounts: the moral imperative to understand big numbers, however unimaginable—via Kottke   

incendie de forêt: over a quarter million residents in France and Spain are evacuated from encroaching wildfires  

question de forme: the geometric animation of René Jodoin—see also, see previously

concurso de belleza: Trump cites his beauty pageant credentials to claim to be the competent authority when Venezuela is ready for elections  

plotlines: charting the journey of the protagonist in select classic novels with period maps—via Language Hat 

devil dog: Poseidon’s Underworld (previously) reviews the 1978 made-for-television star-studded spectacular about a satanic litter  

interstitial: Western science seems to recognise the meridians and subtle body of acupuncture and Ayurvedic traditions with a popular article on human anatomy’s third circulatory system  

cornell, 1965: filmmaker Lawrence Jordan’s 1978 profile of peer and colleague Joseph Cornell of Utopia Parkway, Flushing Queens

the diffusion pilot (13. 645)

We enjoyed this interrogation of the medium that reflects on artistic control and authorship partnered with the rapid pace of the infusion of generative AI in everything, neither celebrating nor wholly condemning the technology, in this animated short by Aurelijus Čiupas. By turns overpowering and empowering, the piece, divided into two distinct halves seems to ask, if the traditional animator creates the magic motion out a series of static images, what is their role with an infinite number of them? Caution, the video below contains flashing images. More from Aeon Magazine at the link above.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: the bicycle from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure on display at the Alamo (with synchronoptica) plus the Epstein files

two years ago: enduring lessons of technology plus a thistle cousin

three years ago: Mary Magdalene 

four years ago: the Firth of Cromarty, a banger from Take That plus the North Coast 500

five years ago: Plan 9 from Outer Space 

six years ago: white Jesus 

8x8 (13. 637)

founder and ceo of edgars industries: 1995 episode of Babylon 5 sums up the political situation in the US rather eerily  

decoy: an ambiguous, superimposed typeface that hides from AI  

add “crack spread” to your economics vocabulary: an explainer on the disconnect on the price of crude versus petroleum-derived products  

presque vu: the latest batch of new emoji seem familiar—via Waxy  

my father was a barn burner: a PSA from the Norwegian Consumer Council on why we can’t have nice things—see previously  

benford’s law: the counterintuitive observation that helps catch financial fraud—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

dazzle camouflage: more on adversarial apparel, clothing designed to confound and encourage public dialogue on the surveillance state and privacy—via MetaFilter—see more 

it’s show-time, synergy: the Flop House on the quintessentially 1980s cartoon—the funniest lines came out over the mid-season theme song replacement, to the tune of Fame, “Jem—I’m gonna live forever! I am a hologram!”

synchronoptica

one year ago: Sylvanian Families sues over defamation (with synchronoptica) plus a mothballed West German army garrison 

two years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus Geraldine Ferraro accepts her party’s nomination (1984)

three years ago: a banger from Genesis (1986), English occupations in 1881 plus assorted links worth revisiting 

four years ago: a ferry to Newcastle, the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games plus arriving in Scotland

five years ago: a visit to Bohuslän 

six years ago: the Upping of the Swans plus a tour of Rhöngrabfeld 

pause for station identification (13. 551)

Via Swiss Miss, we are invited to tune in to a range of virtual televisions that host programming by decade from the 1950s though the aughts with thousands of channels on the dial. There is a guide to consult and one can select from a list of genres, soap operas, cartoons, drama, trailers, commercials, music, sitcoms, news, talk shows, game shows, etc—though those modern day luxuries does not factor into the nostalgia and we think it’s much more rewarding to sit with the random shuffle as one surfs to see what’s on already in progress. The ads alone make this worthwhile. It’s of course saturated with mostly North American broadcasts but I think there’s some UK shows as well—the individuals behind this project seem to have crafted it with care and new media is being added on a regular basis. Let us know what forgotten gems you find.

orkopedic (13. 547)

Courtesy of Miss Cellania, we are directed towards this short quiz from Alamo Drafthouse, which for a certain demographic that grew up with the line of Mattel toys and animated franchise, a half-hour “cartoon commercial” that spawned many to adopt the same marketing strategy and whom now as adults shop at the Swedish home furnishings giant, may either prove a breeze to ace or become frustrating with how similar the names become. Eternia or Ikea combines one of our favourite topics, the store’s nomenclature—see previously here, here, here, here and here, with the sword-and-planet paracosm of He-Man (don’t forget She-Ra) and the Masters of the Universe, characters we never identified with but were certainly aware of and have since gained an encyclopaedic appreciation for.  How many can you guess?  The incidental is music “Tijuana Taxi” by Herb Alpert.

give us magnification vince (13. 540)

Via Marco McClean’s Memo of the Air, we enjoyed finding this vintage vinyl abridgement of the profoundly strange Disney feature The Black Hole as an audio LP. I remember such adaptations were popular and a way to tide one over with a teaser when a rewatch was something not so easily summoned up and an extra vehicle to showcase dialogue and sound effect through a radio drama that relied more on imagination than memory. The voice actors who played V.I.N.CENT. LF-396 (Vital Information Necessary Centralised Labour Force) and Old BO.B. LF-28 (Bio-sanitation Battalion), however, respectively Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens, respectively, went uncredited in all versions. Sigourney Weaver was initially considered for the role of Dr Kate McCrea, the expedition’s ESP-sensitive scientist, but the casting director found her name too unusual going instead with actor Jennifer O’Neill, despite her reluctance to cut her hair for the zero-gravity scenes  Eventually relenting after the studio agreed that O’Neill could bring own hairdresser on set, Vidal Sassoon, she allowed her hair to be cropped short, easing the trauma by consuming several glasses of wine, resulting in a drink-driving accident after the first day of filming.  O’Neill was removed from the project and replaced with understudy Yvette Mimieux as the ship’ psychic.

the jig is up (13. 509)

Via Language Log, we are treated to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal’s latest one panel comic—with mouseover title shown—that provides a funny take on the AI Effect, moving the goal-posts as artificial intelligence advances to redefine what “real” intelligence is, with a tendency to conclude that once a problem is solved, like besting a human grand master at chess, it’s all brute compute and no longer a reliable metric of what it’s gauging, and Moravec’s paradox—the observation that whilst computers can excel at maths and in a bounded game environment, they struggle with perception and mobility. Rather than siding with the scientific consensus that this counterintuitive skill-set is owing to the limits of disembodied cognition and how we take what took billions of years of experience, evolution and gravity to learn effortlessly and automatically for granted, the comic supposes that like an adolescent prodigy that is too smart for their own good, AI is making a conscious decision to avoid doing chores.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Israeli defence forces launch an aerial attack on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities (with synchronopticæ), AI as stone soup, hip hop party fliers plus variations on the impossible trident

twelve years ago: a visit to Lucca 

thirteen years ago: US army headquarters in Europe moves to Wiesbaden plus protests in Istanbul

fourteen years ago: EU playable characters plus Germany government scandals 

sixteen years ago: a mosaic of photos of Istanbul 

 

bi-stable curious (13. 440)

Celebrating the return of his favourite recurring character with his latest panel, frequent cartoon contributor to the New Yorker Paul Noth, as we are informed by Things magazine, shares his fascination with optical illusion, including his signature duck-rabbit, first appearing in the humour publication Fliegende Blätter by an anonymous artist in 1892 and soon being ensconced in common parlance by Ludwig Wittgenstein, describing the phenomenon as a bi-stable (or multi-stable) percept, philosophically put “seeing that” versus “seeing as” with an intermediate study in psychology and the original paradigm shift. Much more at the links above.

blacklight special (13. 418)

The aesthetic associated with a certain lifestyle and very much of an individual age particular era, we are introduced to the ubiquitous output of a defunct company in Houston, Texas that was once the biggest producer and distributor of experiential and mostly ephemeral wall art in the blacklight poster, printed with phosphorus ink that fluoresce when exposed to the otherwise invisible ultra-violet spectrum. Though the Day-Glo Colour Corporation had produced the pigment in 1932 with mainly military applications, it was the Houston Blacklight & Poster Company founder in 1969 that solidified the technique’s association with counterculture and drug use, popular in dormitory rooms, garage hangouts and advertising in concert venues, as something that could simulate and stimulate the visual distortions and hallucinations produced by an LSD experience or marijuana high. Regarded as disposable and a relic of the 1970s—though seeing somewhat of a revival in recent years, the city’s university special collections library, aside from rare books and ancient manuscripts, also holds, as we learn courtesy of { feuilleton }, an extensive archive of the company’s posters, ranging from the puerile to the promotional to the truly transfixing, with a tour arranged by a docent or trip-sitter now that the the behaviour has been pulled from the fringes of society whose talent, influential, went on to work in the animation field, bringing their style to Star Trek: TAS among others after the company dissolved within a few short years.