Derived from the Aymara word โbuy from meโ and evolving from an annual event pre-dating European contact that involved communal prayer for good crops and an exchange of staple goods, evolving over time to accommodate missionary teaching and colonisersโ sense of acquisition, the month-long fair in La Pazโand other Bolivian communitiesโhonouring Ekeko (Iqiqu), the indigenous god of abundance, begins today at noon. Similar to the paper votive offering given and received for Lunar New Yearโs celebrations, people purchase miniature plaster representations of luxury items that they hope to get in the coming year from artisans and have them blessed by shamans and local priests.
Friday, 24 January 2025
alasitas (12. 178)
Wednesday, 1 January 2025
Tuesday, 31 December 2024
effervescence (12. 128)
Having previously explored the physics of tiny bubbles, we enjoyed this deep dive that brings together the study of flutes and coupes, the fermentation process and the celebrated through probably apocryphal declaration by Dom Pierre Pรฉrignon that he was tasting the stars, which nonetheless has its place above earthly bounds insofar that the science behind it fizzy drinks also has applications in aerosols, cloud formation and carbon-sequestration on our planet and beyond. The article circles back to the glass and the toast with suggestions to optimise effervescence and all the factors, virtual sytnhesis of synaesthesia, that effect the palette. More BBC features correspondent Nicola Jones at the link above.
Wednesday, 11 December 2024
7x7 (12. 074)
watermark: a year in illustrations from Cory Doctorowโs Pluralistic
ๅคงๅนดไธๅ: due to a quirk in the lunisolar calendar, Chinese New Yearโs Eve will disappear for the next five years
<div>: web designer demonstrates the virtuosity of cascading style sheetsโvia Boing Boing
you have died of dysentery: a cinematic adaptation of the Oregon Trail computer gameโvia Kottke
liquidation: a bankruptcy judge voids the Onionโs purchase of Infowars, arguing there was money left on the table
dalgona challenge: McDonaldโs Australia introduces a Squid Game Happy Meal
special perils policy: the brilliant, dynamic typography of the Sanborn Fire Insurance mapsโsee previously
synchronoptica
one year ago: another MST3K classic (with synchronoptica), DJ Rikoโs X-Mas mix, Messiah of Evil (1974) plus a cosmetic automat
seven years ago: the French Revolutionary calendar, curvature blindness plus linguistic eggcorns
eight years ago: IKEA retail therapy, emoluments and self-dealing plus the legacy of Bauhaus design
nine years ago: LEGO Inferno plus assorted links to revisit
eleven years ago: Itโs A Wonderful Life
Sunday, 14 July 2024
shellyโs leg (11. 690)
For Bastille Day 1970, Seattleโs gastronomical scene arranged a dinner party and parade to showcase their establishments, and a freak accident involving an antique cannon loaded with confetti, which during the route had dipped from its skyward trajectory and fired into the crowd resulted in the establishment of the cityโs first discoโwe learn via the New Shelton wet/dry an all inclusive spaceโyielding a triumph, fabulous but short-lived and returning to tragedy, from this mishap.
Among the spectators was one Shelly Bauman, whom at close range sustained life-threatening injuries from the festive munitions and the eponymous (in the tradition of taverns of olde) leg had to be amputated. Confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, Bauman sued the municipality and event-planners for a settlement of several hundred thousand dollars and eventually used this as seed money to purchase a former hotel and turn it into a rather fabulous club scene and outreach centre, no expense spared and unapologetically gay, running from 1973 to 1977. Read more at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: the Talking Headsโ second album (with synchronoptica), molecule of the month, social summaries plus misquoting Marie Antoinette
seven years ago: Trump in Paris, personality quizzes plus the composite photographs of Fong Qi Wei
eight years ago: but let us return to our sheep at hand
nine years ago: wiping out the buffalo, assorted links to revisit plus the Greek economic crisis
eleven years ago: making banking scary again plus a visit to Bad Homburg
catagories: ๐ณ๏ธโ๐, ๐บ, ๐ฅ, 1970
Tuesday, 2 January 2024
and surely yeโll be your pint-cup and surely iโll be mine (11. 238)
In light of recent toasting and cheering and an earlier post on translation of popular lyrics, we enjoyed learning about the Japanese verses inserted into the Robert Burnsโ poem made into a New Yearโs tradition. Initially used for a completely separate purpose, Hotaru no Hikari (The Glow of a Firefly, ่ใฎๅ
) set to the tune of the Scottish folk song was used for school matriculations and graduations and played also as outro music at shops and restaurants to signal closing time for customers, a few lines from this other composition in Japanese are added to Auld Lange Syne to ring in the New Year. Much more at Language Log at the link above including various performances of the different versions.
Saturday, 30 December 2023
dรฉfi de janvier (11. 223)
Introduced with various levels of societal and political traction since about a decade in the US and the UK, the abstinence campaign Dry January (translated as January Challenge) is not being endorsed by the government of France, contrary to the urging of addiction experts who want more to be done to address the risks of alcohol, as out-of-step with French culture and traditions. What do you think? A keen imbiber himself, the president is seen as a strong advocate of the wine industry and that a meal without it was โa bit sad,โ and at the same time overall consumption has been seen to drop rather precipitously.
synchronoptica
one year ago: 2022 in review, recycling calendars, the union of soviet republics, Swedish words of the year, more General Knowledge quizzes plus more year-end lists
two years ago: more calendar recycling plus an AI suggests New Yearโs resolutions
three years ago: assorted links to revisit, more calendrical correspondence plus Ra-Ra-Rasputin
four years ago: more words of the year from Sweden, more links to enjoy plus novelty New Yearโs eyewear
five years ago: intercalary days, In the Land of the Silver Birch, 2018 in review plus Starcrash
Tuesday, 12 December 2023
youโre going the wrong wayโdammitโthe bowโs underwater (11. 183)
As our faithful chronicler informs, the Irwin Allen disaster drama based on the eponymous novel by Paul Gallico from three years prior and capitalising on a spate of star-studded survival misadventures of the decade, like Airport and The Towering Inferno, had its debut in the US on this day in 1972. The acclaimed and high-grossing film featuring the talents of Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall and Gene Hackman follows the passengers and crew of the SS Poseidon on its final voyage during New Yearโs from New York City to Athens, where it will be decommissioned and scrapped. An undersea quake in the Aegean triggers a tsunami and the ship is capsized and turned upside down. Scored by conductor John Williams, the performance โThe Morning Afterโ (garnering an Oscar for best original song) became a hit single, prompting an album of the soundtrack to be released.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a modernist sanctuary plus more advances in fusion technology
two years ago: assorted links to revisit, the satellite Uhuru, the Human League plus Tilda Swinton as libraries
three years ago: your daily demon: Caim, vaccines and alcohol donโt mix, more Breton saints plus a daytrip to Bedheim
four years ago: Authority is a Necessary Evil, more words of the year, the Heritage Trust and Stonehenge, another UK General Election plus the etymology of Antwerp
five years ago: Persons of the Year, Beyoncรฉ as HTTP codes, an auto graveyard plus a computerised sneaker
Friday, 10 November 2023
9x9 (11. 110)
tragedy of the commons: Tokelauโs country-code top level domain (see also) turned the tiny Pacific island into a virtual den of thieveryโvia Web Curios
hanna-barbera educational division: a bizarre 1979 film-strip about getting home safe for latch-key kids featuring some ranger danger

suspense accents: add the sound of drama to your dayโvia Things Magazine
mixtape 2023: Cardhouseโs annual audio/visual revue
bjรถrn of the dead: Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson to play a starring role in an apocalyptic ABBA-tribute band horror movieโvia Good Internet
so red the nose, or, breath in the afternoon: an Oakland, California speakeasy bringing back drinks from 1930sโincluding Ernest Hemingwayโs favoured Champagne cocktail
merrie melodies: a snippet of the score for the cancelled Coyote v Acmeโsee more about the shelved project
legal autopilot: a neural network negotiated and finalised a contractโan NDAโwithout human intervention
Saturday, 7 October 2023
dschungelweg (11. 042)
Deciding to try again to find the route we were searching for yesterday but from a better trodden starting point and walked through the vineyards on another educational trail (Lehrpfad) that this time had information about the different varieties of grapes grown and harvested here with more views of Escherndorf, Nordheim and the Main valley, passing the Vogelsberg and the orchards on the other side of the Weinberg.
Friday, 6 October 2023
mainschleife (11. 040)
Driving around a bit for provision, we stopped at a rather uniquely outfitted supermarket on the outskirts of Volkach. Whilst this chainโs affiliates are family-run and thereโs a degree of individual decorโlike the franchise at home that has a rather offensive figurine of a banana boat loader standing proud over the produce section dating from a time when this kind of caricature was more toleratedโbut this style of decoration was decidedly strange, like it inherited the stock of a Bed, Bath & Beyond with throw pillows piled high at every aisle and fixed to the walls and a bank of music boxes that one could attach I guess to oneโs trolley and randomly placed oversized plush llamas.
Thursday, 5 October 2023
days of wine and quinces (11. 039)
From the campground in Escherndorf, we took the dog on an extended hike up through the vineyards to the Vogelsberg perched atop the Weinberg. A thirteenth century monastery built on the foundations of a much older Celtic fortification (Burgstall), it was deconsecrated in favour of the neighbouring Carthusian chapterhouse in Astheim but has since been restored as an active religious community under the bishopric of Wรผrzburgโwhich also assumed the wine production and includes a restaurant and guesthouse.
Saturday, 12 August 2023
7x7 (10. 940)
glas musterbuch: an unending catalogue of antique glassware
bob hope presents the chrysler theatre: a star-studded television anthology airing from 1964 to 1967

numa numa: Gary Brolsma recreates the viral dance video to the O-Zone song nineteen years laterโvia Waxy
if youโre not paying, then you are the product: Zoomโs new terms of service agreement grants it perpetual rights over the contents of your meeting in exchange for turning it into an email with AI
take two: slant board setting that allowed actors to rest in between shooting without getting out of costume
ti 5100: before the iPhone, calculators were regarded as aspiration personal electronicsโsee also
Saturday, 31 December 2022
but my friends, theyโre waiting in the lobby (10. 425)
Though no one can say quite sure why Dinner for One (previously), an eighteen minute British sketch from Lauri Wylie and starring comedians May Warden and Freddie Fronton recorded in 1962, has been made a Jahreswechsel broadcast and standard New Yearโs Eve and New Yearโs Day televisionโperhaps owing to one of penultimate lines delivered by manservant James (posing as one of the no-show guests Mister Pommeroy) wishes Miss Sophie a Happy New Year, since New Yearโs Eve 1972, it has been continuously aired, first by the Norddeutscher Rundfunk based in Hamburg, since attaining cult status with even Netflix producing a short remake of this obscure tradition with characters from their most popular series and a German film consortium planning a prequel mini-seriesโpossibly a murder-mystery โfor the end of 2023.
Friday, 30 December 2022
mcmlxxxix (10. 420)
By dint of the limited permutations of the Gregorian, civil calendar, we discover that we can helpfully recycle (see previously) our calendars from 2017 or 1989 for the upcoming 2023. Not to be dismissive of the events bookended six years ago, the political turning points of the latter with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Perestroika, the Velvet Revolution, the uprisings in Romania and China, as well as the gradual dismantling of the apartheid government in South Africa, the return of democratic norms to Brazil and Poland and the first internet service providers seem to bode as auspicious points of correspondence. Having lived through it, may we may live in exciting times.
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
yulehole (10. 367)
Via Language Hat, we are referred to a love letter to obscure and superannuated wordsโlike the above that refers to the slacker notch in oneโs belt that might be necessitated by the attendant feasting that goes along with the Festive Seasonโfrom Guardian contributor and logophile Paul Anthony Jones who offers a selection of Christmas-related terms like bounโthat is, to dress with evergreen boughs, the snowballing effect of rolling across a field to accrue size is a hogamadog (also the name of a nascent snail shell that matures into something substantial), bull week, the period preceding the holiday and a time to sort out the rest of oneโs business and particularly the Tudor-era term for a hangover, a barleyhood.
Thursday, 13 October 2022
8x8 (10. 220)
punto di ebollizione: pasta maker introduces โpassive cookerโ meters

a shropshire lass: four decades of mushrooming in England and Wales
friluftsliv: the term for the Danish tradition of unwinding in the wilds popularised by playwright Henrik Ibsen
perfect for roquefort cheese: all about blue cheesesโsee also
yes sirah: origins and production of wine grape varietals around the globeโvia tmn
wormsign: building a functional Fremen thumper
hasta la pasta: the Italian influence in Argentinian cuisine
Friday, 7 October 2022
la fin de la fรฉe verte (10. 201)
The production or sale prohibited until the first of March of 2005, as a result of a referendum that took place in 1908, absinthe containing thujone, wormwood was banned in Switzerland on this day in 1910, prompted by a rather sensational murder that made headlines all over Europe and informed and heightened a moral panic associated with the drink. A heavy alcoholic named Jean Lanfray, a labourer who worked at a vineyard in the canton of Vaud, murdered his family in a drunken rage. Though Lanfray drank up to five litres of wine daily and as a lunch time refreshment on the day of the violent killings partook of seven glasses of wine, six cognacs, a brandy coffee, two crรจme de menthes, then two shots of absinthe as a digestif after a sandwich, vintners were hoping to shift the blame squarely on the latter.
Thursday, 4 August 2022
she keeps her moรซt & chandon in a pretty cabinet (10. 035)
Though unclear if the attribution is entirely accurate as sparking did not become the dominant style of the wine region until the nineteenth century, this day in 1693 is the traditional date ascribed to the invention of Champagne by Benedictine monk and cellarer Dom Pierre Pรฉrignon at the Abbey of Saint-Pierre dโHautvillers and our abbot can certainly be credited with innovating the techniques and practises of in bottle fermentation, which beforehand was an acute occupational hazard since if wine was bottled prematurely, they would become literal time-bombs liable to explosion due to an excess of carbon dioxide. Pรฉrignon further championed purity in wine-making and prescribed a set of protocols for harvesting and crushing grapes. The popular quote of Pรฉrignonโs first impression of drinking his Champagneโ ยซ Venez mes frรจres, je bois des รฉtoiles ยป (โCome quickly my brothers, I am tasting the stars!โ)โis also unfortunately a fin de siรจcle marketing myth meant to distance the drinkโs associations with decadence and tie it to the diligence of a hard working monk.
Sunday, 12 June 2022
good wine needs no bush
A shared image of a Japanese supermarketโs libations section seems at first to illicit a mangled, machined translation or poor command of English whereas this example is no case of Engrish to be
ridiculed but rather a pretty apt quotation from William Shakespeare in, recursively, the epilogue to As you Like It. With the term bush denoting the sprigs of a grapevine that symbolised a vintnerโs shingle, the phrase meant that quality speaks for itself and does not need to be advertisedโwith the reference all but lost to English-speakers: delivered by Rosalind, โIf it be true, that good wine needs no bush, โtis true, that a good play needes no Epilogue.โ The French equivalent, still in common-parlance, is ร bon vin point dโenseigne or the Germanโnot beating around the bushโgute Ware lobt sich selbst.