who ever heard of a snozzberry?

Via Messy Nessy Chic’s latest virtual lost-and-found, we discover that there is a museum that exclusively curates discarded and retrieved shopping lists. The collection is approaching four thousand pieces of ephemera and shows that we are not alone in standing at the check-out line with non-sequitur items, not always being able to retrieve the proper name for something and that penmanship and spelling can be tough things.

vorrat

While it is always sound advice to “prepare appropriately for a development that could threaten our existence and cannot be categorically ruled out in the future” it does smack as pretty frightening and foreboding (especially in German), and the directive to citizens to stockpile food as an element of a broader civil defense plan does raise one’s spider-senses.
The timing of the announcement, which was last issued during the Cold War, does not, I think, indicate some imminent attack but rather a general precaution—especially as it is customary to make a trip to the neighbourhood market an almost daily occurrence and not buying in bulk—nor cue people to change their lifestyles. What do think? While not down Tornado Alley exactly or contending with tremours, German does have its share of natural catastrophes as well, without leaning on the threat of war or terrorism. Surely this plan was months in development and includes increasing the budget for emergency services and increasing hospital capacity, and there was no intent to cause panic or stoke conspiracies or the admission that multiculturism and inclusion is something to cower before.

can you picture that?

For their first live festival performance, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem rocked the audience at Outside Lands in San Francisco, a music, comedy and wine showcase that transforms Golden Gate Park every August into something otherworldly. Be sure to check out the link above from Laughing Squid for full-footage of the feature-act and more information about the venue.

walled-garden or class-war/cola-war

Just in case you missed this latest incarnation of patron-generated guerilla-marketing, one soft-drink empire is inviting consumers to craft sleek little animations of whatever “tasting the seeing” means to them—launched off the equally dubious platform of enjoying this beverage of choice from a personalised aluminium can that bears one’s name.
I would not want to dally long in this corporate, branded wall-garden but I suppose that I am missing the point then. People certainly were quick to RSVP to this call for mockery but regrets-only were limited, it seems as the company presciently censored most words and phrases that might prove disparaging. The crack investigative team at The Atlantic that tried to finagle their way through this Orwellian call for submissions attempted to create an advertisement that invoked the “late stage capitalism” meme, which is s fitting one and a prediction of Marxist thinking, holding that despite capitalism’s opportunistic nature, there comes a point of market super-saturation and a point beyond which the system cannot continue, without new buyers—most likely aliens, since we’ve already tried selling contact-anxiety and convincing everyone to be entrepreneurs in the worst, cloying ways. Other taboo subjects included politics, religion, health and medicine. It is not only the cola-warriors who’ve assayed this life-style form of suggest, however, what with a large chain of coffee houses eager to have imagined loyal loiterers share their life experiences or a fast food franchise that floated the idea of accepting paying-it-forward in lieu of actual cash-money. It seems that most venues are like this. What do you think? Would you like to play in this sort of world?

rarebit or why do we call them comics

Atlas Obscura presents a really fascinating essay that deconstructs a constellation factors that make up the hallmarks of modernity through the lens of a turn of the century comic strip that centres around midnight-snack, indigestion fuelled nightmares with the blame laid squarely on an “imported” (the focus seems to be mostly from an American perspective as the caricatures were but is surely of a universal character since internationally people were experiencing similar cultural shocks) delicacy called “Welsh Rarebit,” basically cheese-toast soaked in beer as a sort of hair-of-the-dog ballast for late-night revellers.
Assiduously, Winsor McCay, under the consultation of his series “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend,” documents the development of rather Freudian fantasies as carried out in the restive slumber of the indignant, whose psyche and drives might be explained mechanically as an assault by cheese as heartburn. Far from funny, at least to contemporary viewers—much like a lot of the reserve content of the funny pages—McCay portrays secret and vengeful scenes that one would rather not disclose, lest one shows his or her vulnerabilities and suppressed desires. As easily, however, people were willing to adopt a litany of compromise to gain modern conveniences—the electrified dwellings that invited staying up through the night, the logistical coordination that allowed people to live in growing urban-settings (to cultivate such routines and support surplus consumption), I believe that the illustrator though that his readership could recognise that something other was driving this feeling of being unsettled besides just alcohol and cheese, unlike the spectre of Jacob Marley who was initially dismissed as a spot of gravy gone bad. Such fiendish behaviour reflected perhaps made the world more receptive to adopting new customs and paradigms, like the psycho-analysis and other accommodations (and necessary back-lash) that came in its wake. Check out the thesis for further details and panels. Turophiles, what do you think?

andorian ale

Thanks to Wikipedia (and it cannot receive enough encomnia in my opinion) I learnt that the producer of Star Trek—unlike inventing the teleporter to forego having to film landing scenes, insisted that the series be shot in colour and thus placing it in the prime-time schedule (because of the expense) of America’s pioneering broadcasting triumvirate so audiences could appreciate the green skin of the Orion slave girls.
Later contributors to the programme considered the Orions a little too risqué and perhaps deviant to afford them continued appearances. The Andorians, although founding members of the Federation of Planets and acclaimed for their libations, were excluded as well. In the expanded Universe, however, they became symbols of sexual liberation and figure large in stark opposition to the predominantly heterosexual milieu and deflector shield ceiling of the canonical storyline.

6x6

onionoise: the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra performs Radioaktivität from Kraftwerk

placebo button: expecting more underneath the casing of a fire alarm

one teaspoon of unicorn tears: excerpts from absurdly challenging gourmet recipes

maltese falcon: interesting abstract of ancient forgeries

free-range: a look at different fruits, vegetables and nuts growing in the wild, via Presurfer

washington, this is kallstadt calling: Spiegel International visits candidate Trump’s ancestral family home in a village near Mannheim—the same place whence the Heinz dynasty hails

6x6

tactile: using ultra-sonic puffs of air, researchers in Japan have created holograms that one can feel 

odeon: a tour of the documentation and preservation project sponsored by the Goethe Institute to catalogue the classic movie houses of Africa

nasa-eames: 1970s conceptions of the future of space colonies, via Puppies and Flowers 

mâché: beautiful and inspired paper reliquaries  

potnonomicaphobic: though holiday left-overs are nearly spent by this point, here’s a nice celebration of words for acute food phobias

procrastination: tsundoku is Japanese for letting books pile up on one’s shelves without being read

mmxvi

Happy New Year, Turophiles! Best wishes to you and yours as we welcome 2016 and we have a quick survey of designated, predicted and scheduled events and commemorations for the upcoming time.
To recognise their nutritional significance, the United Nations has declared this year the international year of pulses—that is, your beans, black-eyed peas and other legumes. The Summer Games will be held in Brazil. The Orthodox Church will convene a Holy Synod. Most of the world will be treated to Venus transiting the Sun and the Juno space probe will arrive at Jupiter. Russia is planning to launch an orbiting hotel for space-tourists. Not so many bold assertions or much commitment there. It seems that only astronomical matters are the only safe-call for the world’s reluctant and conservative Nostradamuses, citing the inevitable march of time. There’s that which is called self-fulfilling prophesy. Maybe resolutions are for, after all. What are some of your forecasts?

5x5

purl two: upon request the BBC would send out the knitting instructions for the Fourth Doctor’s iconic scarf

uppruni: a young Björk reads the Nativity story for an Icelandic television audience

food pyramid: Vox examines at different ways nutritional guidelines are influenced and imparted globally

zodiaco: Salvador Dalí’s astrologic menagerie plus a hint into the obsession the artist had with his departed elder brother, Salvador Dalí

tween: proposed EU rules would raise the social media age of majority to sixteen

haters gonna hate

5x5

spectropia: this Victorian séance guide promises to deliver ghosts everywhere, and of any colour

the bitten word: fantastic recipes from a couple resolved to put their cooking magazines through the paces

osmosis: researchers in Sweden radically create the world’s first cyborg plant

rub-a-dub: the king of Sweden calls for a global ban on bathtubs for environmental reasons

but first a word from our sponsors: at least one internet giant is moving to ransom access to email unless subscribers disable ad-blocking software

5x5

poll of inaccessibility: eschewing the big cities and iconic sites, photographer Gert Verbelen travels to the geographic-centre of eighteen euro-zone countries

case-mod: a look at what happens when one begins designing phones for people and not companies

stencil: animal cut-outs with stunning, natural backdrops

tater-tot: vintage Russian potato toy ideas

yodel-ay-ee-oooo: ladies and gentlemen, the Chicken Yodeling of Mister Takeo Ishii

5x5

twilight of the gods: Nina Hagen, Grace Jones and others feature in a Biblical Rock Opera, Gutterdämmerung, who strive to return the Earth to a state of vice

dyson’s sphere: luminous fluctuations in a distant star’s brightness could be signs of ancient alien technology

marylebone: BLDGBlog ponders the supposed funerary teleportation grid of Greater-London

scrumptious: venerable art foundation raises funds for galleries and museums with edible masterpieces, via the splendid Nag on the Lake

babel: a few odd, nuanced (but expeditious) terms found in EU English

humbug or the great pumpkin

Although the annual, apparent retrograde motion of seasonal marketing campaigns (though by now I suppose that we have entered that time-frame for which it might be appropriate to begin thinking about one’s costume—at least in those places where Halloween emerged organically—if these items hadn’t been on display and promoted since weeks now) might be off-putting and fatiguing enough any traditionalist who enjoyed the anticipation, no matter what transpired in the end. I always had a spare bag of chocolates in case we ever got a visitor. Sußes oder Saueres! I want keep the spirit of the season, however exported and commercialised (that’s a tortured old saw), always.

5x5

pork rembrants: Liartown, U.S.A. now offering an Apple Cabin calendar, chronological accuracy guaranteed

everyday-carry: illustrated evolution of common objects by decade

victory garden: hobbyists were encouraged to irradiate fruit, vegetable and flower seeds in the 1950s and 1960s and see what mutations thrived

fire dance with me: arcade game dance-off to celebrate the weird genius of Twin Peaks

citizen science: the Pocketlab is an affordable Tricorder to conduct ad hoc experiments

badenov, godunov

Though for some the names Mel Blanc and Tex Avery are more instantly recognisible among the luminaries of animation, there was another Man of a Thousand Voices that gave life to as many memorable characters during his long and varied free-lance career.

The name Paul Frees with mention of his collaborator Natasha Fatale and their mission to capture moose and squirrel for Fearless Leader probable starts to materialise right away, but there is an endless succession of equally jarring, cameo performances: Frees was also voiced Morocco Mole in Secret Squirrel (never realising those two phrases were associated with same actor), the Pillsbury Dough-boy, the Ghost Host of Disney’s Haunted Mansion, Toucan Sam, Burgermeister Meisterburger, the Tree, Rook and the Cat of The Last Unicorn, styled John Lennon and George Harrison in the Beatles cartoon series, various villains for the Superman, Aquaman, Banana Splits Adventure Hours, the Knight Rider’s nemesis K.A.R.R, plus countless other narrations and re-dubbing to clean up the garbled lines of other actors.

ernte

Though the official start of Fall in the Northern Hemisphere began earlier this week and the cue to breakout one’s wicker and seasonal articles has come and gone, I was able to take a nice stroll through Wiesbaden in the early autumn sun—appreciative how attractive this city can be, even under the light that one can detect is angled, skewed towards colder weather, and had the chance to visit the Herbstfest that has been going on all week. Traditionally, the first weekend after the change of seasons is designated as Erntedankfest—a thanksgiving for a good harvest, and the people of Wiesbaden held one on the lawn in front of the State Opera House, replete with all the trappings and trimmings.

chivalrous or back in the saddle again

The Norman Invasion of England in the year 1066 utilised the same technological advance in order to prosecute the same sort of vast capturing of land as Mongol Horde had used to gain territory on the liminal edge of the known world almost eight hundred years prior (and with latter day iterations as well). Though somewhat taken for granted due to its patent simplicity—particularly among the horsey-set, the stirrup proved probably as significant force in shaping civilisation as the introduction of printed word in the West, enabling mounted warriors to manoeuvre the battle-field with much greater speed and stability than had visited the defeated beforehand.
The stirrup is just a loop of leather that hangs to the side of a saddle, enabling riders to mount their steeds quickly and keep their balance. As just a small detail, it took some people quite a long time to notice and appreciate this modification that imparted significant advantage to the cavalry of the foot-solders. These more agile mercenaries that took up specialised arms and steeds became the professional landed knights under the feudalist system of the Norman conquestors and their Frankish overlords and sought to broaden the pyramid-scheme wherein defenders pledged oaths of fealty to a certain tract of property and to a certain lord. In order to maintain this allegiance, the knights—which were called then chevaliers (from the French term for horse), lived by a certain, defined code of conduct, which was called chivalry. This transformation makes me think of the way one’s portion of meat was translated from the field (grimy old English barnyard words for swine in the sty) to the dinner plate (expressed in refined French words for haute-cuisine, like pork).

5x5

dormit in pace: Bob Canada’s Blogworld (always worth the visit) pays tribute to horror mastermind Wes Craven

second features: campy, unrealised filmography of Elvis Presley

internationale: mid-century modern design’s roots in revolutionary Russia

no yoke: US government conspiracy against mayonnaise with no animal products

pity the fool: that time Boy George was a guest star on the A-Team