bess, you is my woman now

5x5

volley: ping pong champion lobs back balls with a variety of items, producing different noises

scorched earth campaign: perhaps the Silicon Valley mind-set is the bigger threat to civilisation than machine super intelligence, via Waxy

locavore: shipping container farming approaches cost parity with traditional methods

eec: not heeding warnings from central bankers, Estonia is launching a crypto-currency, hoping to further solidify its reputation as a digital nation

that’s no moon: mesmerising time-lapse showing the stages of construction for a Death Star

playthings

It seemed a much simpler when toys came to life by dint of their personalities and one’s imagination and whatever extra features or accessories were attached were just bonuses.
The pretend of yesterday, however, is approaching companionship and one has to wonder what it means to educate and then abandon for the next entertainment. Perhaps it is this ability to learn and keep us engaged that makes it less likely for us to move on—since I hope that we learn too that play is not just some frivolity that one matures out of. By the same token, we ought not to resign what we create to the same indenture as our own formative freedoms sometimes unobligingly enters into through circumstance and necessity (and cannot escape) and not make present toys tomorrow’s involuntary labour-force. What do you think? Not to be too serious over matters of fun and games, but our Yoda would indulge some philosophic-sparring and it does seem far less palatable to be trafficker than to be trafficked oneself and to be making inferiors with superior capabilities.

jai guru deva om

Against the advice of his gurus and meditative-betters, philosopher and author Robert Wright not only took notes to be later adapted into a book during his silent retreats, he also shared his feelings of inadequacies and failing when it comes to practicing mindfulness.  
Why Buddhism is True does not privilege it above other religious traditions and articles of faith are not addressed but is rather true in the sense that its core teachings and methods of coping—suffering comes from misunderstanding and meditation leads to liberation—work on a physical and psychological level because they allow us to transcend the inscrutables of billions of generations of evolution. The great chain of being that has led to you and your condition is miraculous but also has brought the hitchhikers of history which may have conferred advantage (Fear is the mind-killer.) at one point when our lives were more precarious but are now nuisances and sources of unbidden bias and anxiety. Perhaps not to be edited away could we identify the offending gene, the willingness to be still and confront and embrace the distressing renders it less powerful. The take-away is—by the way—that there is no wrong way of being attentive (Do or do not. There is no try.) and that daily practice yields daily reward.

la guerre des étoiles

While much of the epic space opera’s influences and homages have been studied and extolled in great detail, including Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and the comic Flash Gordon, there’s been little  acknowledgement for a French series of comics from the early 1970s, as Messy Nessy Chic helps us to uncover, that informed the arch of the story almost scene for scene at points. Artist Jean-Claude Mézières’ creation Valerian and Laureline is now starting to be accredited for its plot and stylistic contributions—including ice, desert and marsh planets, a Millennium Falcon-type ship, a hero encased in a resin and another held hostage by an overweight mobster who is forced to wear a metal bikini—after the characters are getting their own cinematic adaptation with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.  Though perhaps four decades overdue, Mézières’ role in establishing the saga is beginning to garner recognition.

6x6

phantom pavilions: more wire frame architecture from Edoardo Tresoldi

aragog: for the bold, a paralysing cocktail that includes tarantula venom, via Nag on the Lake

anchors away: dispatching with human crews will make shipping on the high seas safer, cleaner and cheaper—and be disruptive for sailors’ careers, via Super Punch

pardon and prophecy: as you can imagine, she is an expert on politics and predicts that whenever you decide to run for office you will be a winner

steering committee: a decency council to be assembled that will advise the Duma and help guide its decision-making

star wars, nothing but star wars: one cinema’s celebratory lead up to the fortieth anniversary of the franchise

princess leia’s stolen death star plans

Go ahead and say it aloud. For the fortieth anniversary of the launch of the Star Wars saga and incredibly for the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ monumental SGT Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I’m surprised these two cultural touchstones are only a decade apart), we’re presented (by way of Waxy) with the pitch-perfect musical stylings of Palette-Swap Ninja merging the two. Doing justice to both franchises with a five year labour of love, the complete album is set to new lyrics that tells the story of A New Hope. Check out all eleven videos at the band’s link above.

travelling matte

Via Kottke, we are acquainted with the artistry, which while far from being overlooked was strictly relegated to the background, of the painters who created the matte panels for the Star Wars trilogy and other franchises in an age before computer generated landscapes and digital photo-realistic manipulation. Of course, the technique does not begin with the 1970s space opera but quite a few wide-angle, panning and establishing shots executed with precision allowed audiences to remain in the fantasies being portrayed and stand alone as iconic, virtual sets.

7x7

cabin-brew: brewery formulates a beer that’s optimised for enjoyment whilst flying

dynamo: the Earth core and magnetic field is powered by the crystallization of silicon dioxide

faster empire, strike, strike: a clever fan made a modern trailer for Star Wars Episode V

the night Chicago died: the story of how angry white men tried to destroy disco

lift every voice and sing: the lost, forgotten artwork of Augusta Savage

wiphala: the strikingly colourful mansions of La Paz

momofuku: a visit to the Cup Noodles museum in Japan

tusken raiders

Hasbro will be issuing a special fortieth anniversary edition of its iconic line of Star Wars actions figures—to include R5D4 and the other denizens of Tatooine. The poor Sand People are always made the scapegoats and get the blame for everything, like for the deaths of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru and the destruction of their moisture farm. Never forget, it was done by Imperial Stormtroopers who made it look like the aftermath of a Tusken raid.

mad libs or ready for prime-time

Writing for Kottke, Tim Carmody invites us to think broadly about the rhetoric television politics and how the different venues intersect and how the strategies of enabling agents wield their sophistry to blur, confuse and manipulate the normally distinct forums and platforms. Would that we could examine the quiver of the rhetorician academically with Lincoln-Douglas debate club stakes as it’s really a fascinating exercise that’s been debased to the regrettable but very necessary act of bullshit detecting and knowing when the weaker argument is made the stronger. Unfortunately, the ability to articulate how this is done is valued far less that the talent for making the specious or the deceptive believable. I wonder if Dear Leader’s majordomo is a better advisor and mouthpiece.

6x6

heart-shaped box: as part of its forgotten formats series, Ars Technica explores the history of the 8-track cartridge and its links to the Lear jet and Kurt Cobain

mall-walkers: sculpt one’s figure among the sculptures with a workout at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, via the always aesthetic Nag on the Lake

good fences make good neighbours: social media entrepreneur, eschewing privacy, sues hundreds to keep his Hawaiian estate pristine, via Boing Boing

road to nowhere: celebrating architectural fossils preserved despite apparent lack of historical value

assuage party: conservatives members of a Danish archipelago volunteer to host rumoured but inevitable US-Russo summit

yavin base: 1977 theatre audience reacting to Star Wars’ trench run

7x7

bowie.net: prescient 1999 BBC News Night interview with David Bowie regarding the emergent world wide web

urban league: a primer on why cities grew where they did

track 61: an intrepid team of urban spelunkers explore FDR’s custom train car underneath Grand Central Station, via the always marvellous Nag on the Lake

hic sunt leones: the Phantom Atlas chronicles how we filled in the gaps of our geographic knowledge with centuries of fictitious locations

time and tide: beach installation of mirrored poles captures the reflected sunrise and sunset

shyriiwook: woman goes into labour wearing a Chewbacca mask

curds and whey: a dairy factory in the western Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar boasts a circular viewing gallery around its central courtyard that offers visitors a demonstration of cheese-making

remember... the force will be with you, always

This cruel year is taking too much and has given precious little back—and I didn’t suspect that we’d all be so steadily churning out obituary columns in sad celebrations of amazing and inspiring careers.
I remember seeing Carrie Fisher in The Blues Brothers very young and couldn’t reconcile why Princess Leia had such a pivotal ‘cameo’ in that film, and I think Fisher wouldn’t want us to be able to reconcile it—as the ambassador not only of the type of Hollywood royalty that’s rare and precious these days but also the delegation from Alderaan, never feeling resentment over being type-cast with a role she was happy to reprise, as the heroine of an otherwise all-male adventure that wasn’t the distressed damsel just waiting to be rescued. Her status as an icon didn’t diminish her other talents and candour about the important stuff and will be profoundly missed, joining that ensemble cast of stars and oddities that live on in their legacies.

mmxvi: annus horribilis, annus mirabilis

december: Pioneering US astronaut John Glenn passed away, as did America’s TV Dad, Alan Thicke. Doctor Henry Heimlich also left us, as did Zsa Zsa Gabor. Over a billion user accounts are compromised by a once pioneering search engine. Carnage and destruction continue in Aleppo as Syria, all the global powers’ proxy-war, is poised to fall to the entrenched government.  A truck ploughed through a crowded Christmas Market in Berlin.  Sadly, singer George Michael passed away as well as icon Carrie Fisher with her mother, Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, joining her the next day.

november: Donald J Trump defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton as the forty-fifth presumptive to the office of President of the United States of America. We had to say farewell to America’s TV Mom, Florence Henderson. Janet Reno died, and we had to say good-bye to Andrew Sachs, who played Manuel on Fawlty Towers. Retro funk and soul performer Sharon Jones passed away as did Leon Russell though not of precisely the same genre. Poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen left us. Fidel Castro expired aged ninety, on Black Friday and cause of death was declared as America’s return to greatness.

october: It was announced that Bob Dylan will be awarded the Nobel prize for literature. Hopefully prematurely, obituaries for the Great Barrier Reef circulated, the cause of its demise being coral-bleaching.  A craze of dressing as scary clowns and frightening people has spread globally.

september: Meaningful global climate accords held in Paris are put into force, although later in the month carbon dioxide levels surpass anything experienced in the course of human events. NASA launches a probe to study and return with samples from an asteroid with a high potential to impact the Earth—in the twenty-third century, possibly either nudging it closer or pushing it further out of bounds.

august: Gene Wilder left us. Brazil hosted the Olympic Games. The actor that portrayed R2-D2 Kenny Baker sadly departed, as did host and political discussion moderator John McLaughlin. Costa Rica powered itself with renewable energy for one hundred days and hopes to wean itself off of fossil fuels completely.

july: A wholly solar-powered aircraft becomes the first to circumnavigate the globe. We had to say good-bye to Elie Wiesel. During Bastille Day celebrations, an atrocious terror attack occurred on promenade of Nice, setting off a summer of terror across Europe. An abortive coup d’état rocked Turkey and a political purge followed, exacerbating an already tense situation. The African Union’s fifty-four member nations issue a single passport that allows holders to travel visa-free within the bloc.

june: After two decades of construction, the Gotthard Base Tunnel under the Alps in opened. The UK voted to leave the European Union. The promising actor Anton Yelchin who played the new Chekov was struck down far too early. Boxer Muhammad Ali departed.

may: Presidential elections in Austria are too close to call, and the contenders a member of the Green party and a far-right candidate will hold a run-off later in the year. Nationalism is on the rise throughout the world. Super Tuesday’s delegates are awarded to Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump.

april: The pop megastar Prince passed on. Der Süddeutsche Zeitung along with a consortium of other news outlets publish millions of leaked documents implicating many heads of state and prominent figures in the Panama Papers scandal. For the first time in history, capital punishment is outlawed by more than half the countries in the world.

march: Coordinated bomb attacks take over a hundred lives in Lahore and Brussels, and ISIS claims responsibility. Sadly, comedian and show-master Garry Shandling passed away. World-renowned architect Zaha Hadid also left us. Myanmar sworn in its first democratically elected president in half a century.

february: For the first time since the Great Schism of 1054, the leaders of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches met and committed to an Ecumenical Declaration. Writers Umberto Eco and Harper Lee passed away on the same day. Heretofore theoretical gravitational waves were observed for the first time.  A huge swath of Canadian temperate rain-forest will be protected forever and called Spirit Bear. Bolivia and Peru also reached a deal to protect Lake Titicaca.

january: Davie Bowie tragically passed away, as did musicians Glenn Frey and Natalie Cole. There’s an outbreak of the Zika virus, causing panic in the sub-tropics and prompting many couples to postpone having children, due to the risk of birth-defects. Brutal and powerful Mexican drug-trafficker Joaquín Guzmán is re-captured after his escape from a high-security detention facility. The International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran has complied and dismantled its nuclear weapons programme and instructed the UN to lift sanctions. 

force-sensitive or non-canon

Though this ruling will probably not rock the faith of the hundred seventy thousand self-identified Jedi knights in the UK (according to the latest census figures), the Charity Commission found that the Temple of the Jedi Order fails to promote moral or ethical improvement to qualify as a charitable institution and lacked the necessary spiritual or non-secular element—questioning its cogency, cohesion and seriousness—that are the hallmarks of a religious system. Adherents of the seventh most popular religion in the UK took issue with this ruling but it will not deter them from continuing their outreach and charitable operations and re-applying. What do you think? Should a system of believe that’s based on a space opera be judged as something frivolous compared to other religious traditions? The commission was also concerned that Jedi practitioners did not positively impact broader society and fostered a world-view focussed inward on its members—which made me wonder if that wasn’t a veiled swipe at other institutions.

7x7

so disappoint: vast gallery of retail fails of products that did not live up to expectations, via Boing Boing

a la carte: NYC Public Library system is transcribing historic menus to see how diets and tastes have changed over the years, via the always marvellous Nag on the Lake

exhibition, exposition: collection of creative art installations from the past year

found footage: honoured among the worst films ever made, Turkish ‘Star Wars’ is being conserved

no static at all: despite lack of enthusiasm from the listening public, Norway’s FM radio broadcasts are about to sign-off

entropy, zoetrope: hypnotic biological simulations that are collaborations from Max Cooper and Maxime Causeret

intercalary: artsy and hopeful collection of calendars for chronicling 2017 

tarkin doctrine or not the excuse you’re looking for

In a move that’s really too far—since despite all our differences and the politics of polarisation, fandom was supposed to be something transcendent—apparently Trump supporters are calling for a boycott of the upcoming instalments of the Star Wars franchise for its anti-fascist message—which has surely been the over-arching theme since a long time ago, with multiculturalism fighting against hegemony.
It’s a little pathetic that it’s taken four decades for some to pick up on this not so subtle message, and even more so that they’d want to cushion themselves with a “safe-space” from triggering dissent (real and imagined) far, far way. To reinforce that fact, the hashtag movement was soon co-opted by the rebel scum and the radicalized fanatics of hokey religions whose vile behaviour is a serious affront to the feelings of the US Kraterocrat-elect. Not wholly immune Jedi mind-tricks, it’s also a nice tantrum to distract from other, more serious accusations derived from new evidence that Russia helped throw the US elections in Trump’s favour.

7x7

how about a nice game of chess: Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s platform for discussion on the way machines handle moral dilemmas

dantooine: Rogue One to digitally resurrect Peter Cushing to reprise his role as Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin

flippy mcflipface: from Amusing Planet’s archives, a US naval research ship that can flip from a horizontal to vertical orientation

take this job and shove it: what if we’re deluding ourselves by praising the discipline and structure that work supposedly furnishes?

senior superlatives: humourous high school year book quotations and tag-lines from 1911

champagne wishes and caviar dreams: an essay by Dave Pell examining how celebrity distorts the institutions of justice and democracy, via Kottke

treble clef: clever, colourful tableaux illustrated on vintage sheet music from Russia duo People Too

wookieepedia

Billed to fans as indeed the exhibition that they are looking for, London’s O2 arena is host to a show called Star Wars Identities, the Londonist informs, that features costumes, models and props from the saga as well as extensive biographies and profiles of the different life forms that populate that Universe. There’s even a sciency aspect to the exhibition in collaboration with neurologists, sociologists and exo-biologists to reach an understanding about the cultural cachet of the franchise and find your Star Wars spirit animal—figuratively and not literally a Womp Rat or Nerf-herder.