Via Messy Nessy Chic, we are exposed to the impressive portfolio of photographer Emile Ducke through his series on medical trains that service the vast reaches of Siberia with annual whistle-stops at each station to perform diagnostic exams and prescribe medicine to remote communities who otherwise go without regular health car. The locomotive Saint Lukas (Luke of Antioch, patron of surgeons and physicians) has for its caboose a chapel wagon. More to explore at the links above.
Tuesday 9 March 2021
Wednesday 24 February 2021
6x6
street legal: these stunning automobile illustration are from a 1930 Soviet children’s book by Vladimir Tabi—via Present /&/ Correct
conferment ceremony: Finnish PhD students receive a Doctoral Sword and Hat on graduationa coney island of the mind: Beat Poet and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti passes away, aged 101
train ร grande vitesse: Roman roads of Gaul presented in the style TGV routes across France, Belgium and Switzerland—see previously
epilogue: French electronic music duo Daft Punk disband after twenty-eight years
usps: design proposals for the next generation US mail truck
Sunday 7 February 2021
one-way ticket
Via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (much more to explore here), we receive a lightly macabre update to the former dedicated rail-line in London that transported the departed and mourners from the overcrowded city out to a cemetery in Woking with news that the purpose-built Waterloo Necropolis station built in 1854 (expanded in 1901) will be transformed into a suite of flats. The seal is that of the company granted the charter to construct the grounds and arrange the logistics and transportation. Though large portions of the building were destroyed in World War II during a 1941 air raid, what remains is witness to the automation of the funerary arts with halls designed for private service and hydraulic lifts to bring the briers on to the loading docks below, a shift towards hygienic awareness (a dread cholera epidemic decades earlier had overwhelmed London’s graveyards) and separate entrances that showed that even the dead were expected to be class conscious.
Wednesday 21 October 2020
take the a-train
Monday 5 October 2020
ฯ ฯฯ ฮบฮฑฯฮฑฯฮบฮตฯ ฮฎ
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ท, ๐บ, ๐ท, ๐, architecture
Wednesday 2 September 2020
u-bahn
As Futility Closet informs the transit map of the metro network of the city of Stuttgart, subways, trolleys feeding into on the railways and airport, commissioned in 2000 is uniquely projected thirty degrees askew to create a three-dimensional isometric layout. Other peculiarities of the transport scheme include the only urban Zahnradbahn (cogwheel railway and nicknamed Zacke) in addition to a Standsielbahn (see also here and here) a funicular narrow-gauge track that ascends a forested hill. This clever representation, however, has since been replaced by more conventional diagrams.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐, ๐บ️, ๐, Baden-Wรผrttemberg
Saturday 29 August 2020
schwebebahn
With unreserved enthusiasm, Dan Schindel of Hyperallergic recommends us to indulge in this admittedly outstanding restored footage from 1902, another superlative highlight from MoMA’s Film Vault Summer Camp, of Wuppertal’s flying, suspension train (mentioned previously but have yet to make that trip plus see also) shortly after going into service. This clip is two-minutes in length and the entire circuit through the city, which one can still take today, lasts around half-an-hour, calling at ten stops. Much more to explore at the link up top.
catagories: ⚖️, ๐, libraries and museums
Friday 21 August 2020
ๅผๅฝ
Present /&/ Correct showcases a nice collection of vintage ekiben wrappers—a portmanteau of the words for railway and bento boxed meals (้ง
ๅผ).
The latter came from a Chinese term meaning convenience and around since at least the thirteenth century. Though there was a decline in quality and artfulness of these prepared snacks for train passengers with quicker journeys and the increased popularity of flying, ekiban are seeing a revival as on onboard food option and have since been at least offered as take-away fare inside stations, department stores and airports. Given this longevity (prior to the age of transporation), these boxes are bearers of a lot of culture, expectations and performance and several other specialty types have been developed, including shidashi—a catered meal ate a social occasion like a wedding or a funeral, kyaraben—a bento meant to resemble a favourite cartoon character, and a shikaeshiben (ไป่ฟใๅผ)—that is, a revenge bento, where the preparer uses the boxed lunch to get back at the recipient by writing confessions or insults in the food or by making it inedible or possibly poisoned.
Saturday 15 August 2020
gumball machine
Designed and branded as Kenelstand by Akira Mabucho, these surreal souvenirs are targeted towards adults with some practical items and many more tiny, collectible keepsakes like miniature versions of bespoke furniture, other luxury goods—at times bordering on the surreal—and a range of domestic and international tourist attractions. Much more to explore at the links above.
Sunday 9 August 2020
7x7
r.o.u.s. (rodent of unusual size): a LEGO Princess Bride playset
fifteen men on the dead man’s chest: beach sand skeletal impression kit
colouring london: an ongoing project amassing architectural statistical data from Maps Mania
antimandering: redistricting software that illustrates the trade-offs of proportional representation, via Waxy
splinternet: discouraging trend championed now by the US towards compartmentalising the once global web—via Slashdot
duly appointed rounds: another one of Trump’s antithetical department heads bent on dismantling the institution he is in charge of (see previously)
mind the gap: subway and metro announcements from around the world
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ฌ, ๐บ️, ๐ฅธ, ๐, networking and blogging, sport and games
Saturday 1 August 2020
sustine bona
Fans and aficionados of London Underground services have taken to masking up in style with facial coverings that keep themselves and their fellow travellers safer with protective coverings inspired by the durable and enduring moquette and upholstery (see previously here and here) that adorns their usual and preferred form of public conveyance. Much more to explore at the Londonist at the link up top.
Friday 17 July 2020
i get lockdown
Whilst initially sad to learn that a work by Banksy (previously here and here) on the Underground would be rather uncere- moniously wiped away before it could be properly appreciated, it was doubly upsetting to realise that this message of solidarity included a reference to the song Tubthumping by Chumbawamba. “If you don’t mask—you don’t get it.”
Thursday 16 July 2020
8x8
houstonia: a century of the Texas city told though iconic photographs—via Things Magazine
bovine flatulence: a strange fast food campaign touts its efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and improve animal welfare
triple word score: a Star Wars round-up including Scrabble tiles in the script of Galactic Basic, Aurebesh (previously)
eggs over easy: an introduction to Britain’s influential pub rock scene of the 1970s and its lasting legacy
when she walks, she’s like a samba: a deconstruction of the complex Girl from Ipanema (see also July 2019), the second most covered song in history
le vetture tranviarie: engineer Arturo Tedeschi redesigns a tram car for social distancing (see previously)
eponymous first album: quarantined residents in of a senior assisted living centre recreate iconic record covers
unclaimed baggage: more on the small town Alabama store (previously) that resells the world’s lost luggage—via Duck Soup
Thursday 2 July 2020
9x9
toccata und fuge in d-moll: table settings scatter and repair to Bach’s virtuoso piece
tapรณn del dariรฉn: the gap in the Pan American Highway that may never be bridged
hording: USA buys up all available stock of a drug treatment for COVID-19, leaving none for the rest of the world—unclear whether it is an effective intervention, via Super Punch
double-decker: panoramic people mover designed for physical distancing
dr-dr-draugur: Icelandic utility company contracts an exorcist (see previously) to clear neighbouring farmstead of ghosts
we’d call them farmers’ markets: the indispensable role of China’s “wet markets” in food logistics and how they’re unfairly stigmatised
afrofuturism: Sun Ra’s syllabus from a 1971 UC Berkley “African American Studies” course
oppression of scale: a gallery of evocative large construction projects
various artists: another look at the New Age anthology Pure Moods, via The Morning News
Monday 29 June 2020
whistle-stop or i am the operator with my pocket calculator
Via these chiptune renditions of arrival and departing flourishes and leitmotifs used in Japanese railway stations (see also) we learn about train music (็บ่ปใกใญใใฃ), composed in such a way as to prime the senses and move passengers, whether daily commuters or reunited families. Probably the first instance of such a jingle and musical cue and accompaniment dates back to the mid-nineteenth-century with Charles-Valentin Alkan’s Le chemin de fer, an รฉtude that gave the same signals.
Friday 3 April 2020
seat check
From Present /&/ Correct, we are referred to another resource for vintage Japanese railway ephemera and memorabilia (see previously) in this collection of tickets and fare information. Though much of this fantastic design have become relics due to electronic ticketing, there’s no reason we can’t appreciate the craft and incorporate the same level of artistry into contemporary conductor inspections as well.
Thursday 20 February 2020
priority seating
Via Super Punch, we are directed towards a growing feed that curates public transportation upholstery from mass transit systems around the world (see previously here, here and here). We were especially taken with this textile pattern detail from the extensive, well-serviced transport network of tramlines in the city of Krakรณw. Much more to explore at the links above.
Wednesday 12 February 2020
eking out an existence or the best of the rest
Tuesday 28 January 2020
express limited
Saturday 28 December 2019
fundbรผro
Via Dave Log v.3 (broken link unfortunately) we’re well acquainted with the Unclaimed Baggage Processing Centre in Enterprise Alabama that sells on lost and never claimed luggage from the airlines and more recently were given a tour of Paris’ but we were heretofore unfamiliar with the logoistics behind reuniting when possible, warehousing then auctioning off lost items from Germany’s railways as told in this visual storyboard from the New York Times.
Nearly a quarter of a million items, from the mundane to the esoteric and inexplicable—steeped in more mystery when one considers how one might lose track of certain treasures much less be unable to follow up on their whereabouts, are found every year in stations, on the platforms and left in the trains. A team of a dozen curators headquartered in Wuppertal try to deaccession their collections through research and detective work and find their owners.
Once all efforts have been exhausted, items go under the hammer, auctions held weekly on Platform 1. Though it would be a bit of a railway journey in itself but I’m going to resolve to check the city and the Bahnhof for the clearance event out one Thursday afternoon soon.