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like genghis khan bathed in sherbet: the unlikely mantis shrimp is one of our favourite animals too

en voyage pathologique: a select handful of the throngs of tourists visiting the City of Light come down with the Paris Syndrome when it fails to live up to their expectations

jingle-jangle: mid-eighties Alpine White song was a strong forerunning carol in the assault on Christmas

axial precession: the December solstice falls on the twenty-second this year—plus nine bonus facts

life-savers: the marketing and minting of mints

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yavin 4: a graphic designer from New Zealand designed flags for one hundred planets of the Star Wars expanded universe

hang low the mistletoe: an appreciation of the parasitic plant whose Yuletide tradition is probably its least interesting attribute

oracle bones: Quartz furnishes an engrossing account of the historical development of Chinese writing and the language’s font foundry

non-canon: the next Star Trek film will treat the last as apocryphal

may the force be with you (and also with you)

Amid rumours and parallels some are wont to draw, saying that Jedis are prone to radicalisation like jihadists (I am covering my ears because I don’t want any come across any spoilers—and still to this day, I feel a pang of regret when I think how I spilled one of the surprises to a nurse while at a doctor’s appointment right after seeing Return of the Jedi and informing her that Luke and Leia were brother and sister), Atlas Obscura, with its signature daring-do, reports how for the Fourth Advent the Zionskirche in Berlin will host a special Star Wars service—like the Nine Lessons and Carols celebration that I attended last week, I suppose but with morals drawn from the saga. The accomplished organist will also of course be performing a selection of the film soundtrack.

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mandelbrot: elegant, shuffled fractals of gears

imperative: the moral dilemmas of self-driving cars

gender neutral: as a concession to how people actually use the Queen’s English, the singular they is now admissible in print—according to some sources

festoonery: clever, cheerful hospital Christmas décor

skywalker ranch: the European Space Agency’s upcoming ExoMars mission will include a moisture-farming unit

porta sancta

Recognising what the world needs now, Pope Francis threw open the Mercy Gate of the Lateran Archbasilica (the Pope’s church as the Bishop of Rome) and declared an extraordinary Jubilee Year—a decade earlier than the next scheduled time of forgiveness and reconciliation, which are announced periodically at quarter- or half-century intervals.
Ordering the door to be unbricked (sealed in earnest outside of these periods), the Pope promises that this message of grace will counter the violence and fanaticism in the world—and in people’s hearts. Quite a few basilica-major around the world, including Saint Peter’s in the Vatican and Santiago de Compostela in Spain, have their own Holy Doors and their own tradition and millions of pilgrims are expected to pass through these thresholds over the next year. The Papal Bull—Misericordiæ Vultus—allows for bishops everywhere to declare his own Mercy Gate for this Year of Jubilee. After the ceremony and reflection, the façade of San Giovanni in Laterano became the canvas to promote mindfulness of another urgent threat to peace, environmental degradation, with a light-show of projected images of the natural world.  His Holiness is primed to act on Mother Nature’s behalf as well.

haters gonna hate

emporia

Here is a select list of singular gift-shops and boutiques that are for the most part just behind the box office of some fabulous websites—awaiting your perusal after you’ve taken the tour and seen the exhibit There’s some thing there for everyone sure to inspire an idea or two—especially for those difficult to find gifts for:

the boing boing store: full of creative and educational ideas for happy mutants

the grommet: brimming with special crafts and powered by citizen commerce

kikkerland: thoughtful little gifts, perfect for Secret Santa gift exchanges or stocking stuffers

wireless: I loved getting this as a spare but interesting to leaf-through catalogue in the mail, thinking these are things to own, or at least borrow

threadless: a huge selection of artisanal, unique shirts, pull-overs and posters that I have always had a soft spot for

barefoot in the sand or casimir effect

For this centenary year of the publication of the General Theory of Relativity, Dangerous Minds has nice remembrance of the visit, decades later, by the preeminent scientist, Albert Einstein, and how he came to acquire those sandals in the iconic, candid photographs.
Be sure to visit the link for the full account, but his hosts believed Einstein was inquiring after a pair of “sundials”—which has suggests some impenetrable, secret insight into time-dilation to me. It’s interesting that Einstein, after cementing his ideas, rejected (initially at least for some of the projected outcomes but was never a convert for others) the chief cosmological consequences of his model: Einstein rejected the notion of the Big Bang (der Urknall) and the expanding Universe, the figment of Black Holes (Schwarze Löcher) and Wormholes (Wurmlöcher—also known as an Einstein-Rosen Bridge) whose dynamics suggest the possibility of time-travel. We are reasonably sure that the former two phenomena exist—and have good reason to suspect, given the sceptic’s track-record, that the latter might be possible as well. Photographs themselves are like little fossilised increments of spacetime, allowing one to reach into the past. Given that cinema was emerging around the same time, I wonder if Einstein and other theatre audiences knew intuitively to apply their sense of flashback and foreshadowing to cutting to different scenes on the movie screen.

squadron 40 – diiiive!

Today is International Men’s Health Day, designated by the United Nations, as well as Culture Day in Japan and Election Day in the US. Moreover, Mental Floss has collection of a cavalcade commemorations that occur throughout the month. There’s Aura Awareness, since this time of year the Aurora Borealis sometimes dips low enough in the Northern Hemisphere for us to see in Germany (notwithstanding the foggy mornings), World Vegan Day, Guy Fawkes’ Night and Fibonacci Day. One celebration that was overlooked, however, is Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen Day. “What—Gordon’s alive?!” Remembering that old bird really binds together the string of holidays and all the themes (Movember, thanksgiving and gratitude, creative writing, revolution) of the month quite nicely.  Now, Flash Jump, everyone!

pale blue dot

In 1990 after the space probe Voyager 1 had accomplished her primary mission of exploration of the outer planets, famed astronomer and project architect Carl Sagan requested that the emissary turn its lens back once more and capture an image of the Earth in all its humbleness from such a great distance.
It did not matter much that the photograph with two weeks’ delay was not quite as dramatic as Sagan had envisioned as his poetic reflections on this invisible parting-shot managed to inspire multitudes. Seizing on a similar opportunity twenty-three years later, Sagan’s students sought to make his pale blue dot as envisioned a reality by directing the Cassini to take a break from exploring Saturn and focusing back on its place of origin. Still not awash among a field of stars, the Earth’s latest selfie was produced, with the planet’s inhabitants being urged in advance—perhaps without sufficient publicity—to take a moment to appreciate the uniqueness of the world outside as they smiled for the camera. Maybe such a moment was not as well promoted as it could have been, as I hope I wasn’t on the wrong side of the globe or doing something tedious and inside as all of this transpired—paradoxically, I think we were at that moment experimenting with our own aerial photography. Of course, we were all present for 19. July 2013 when robot photographed its makers from the orbit of Saturn, awash in the erupting jets of the Moon Enceladus whose mysterious geysers might be spouting off the most accessible hints of life elsewhere in the solar system. It’s an inspiring, sacred look back and more in the spirit of Sagan’s vision than the original.

bamberger freiheit

It’s become a little tradition for us to visit the big gathering of antiques vendors spread throughout the Altstadt of Bamberg held annual on the Day of German Reunification (Tag der Deutsche Einheit). Though we sadly did not find any treasures to bring home this time, it’s always fun to look and find some of the same relics and artefacts from last year still up for offer and to explore a bit of the historic city.

Of the Old Rathaus—which today houses on of the largest porcelain collections in Europe, a fine place for window-shopping too, there’s a simplified legend that it was built on the artificial island that straddles the Regnitz, the tributary that divides the city in order to isolate a particularly tyrannical mayor. The citizens of Bamberg never had such an intolerable civil leader, but rather, like Nuremberg, aspired for Imperial Immediacy and (Reichstadt, only answerable to the emperor) but the episcopal and secular division of the city—the Lord Bishop’s borders were statutorily defined by the Regnitz—and civil authorities hoped that a little engineered encroachment might consolidate powers. Though the domains remained under separate governance, forcing the bishop and his retinue to pass through the civic hall did go far in keeping the Church in check.

fungiculture

Spargelzeit (Asparagus season) with all its fanfare and focus is a distant memory by now but one up-side to the change of seasons and the cool and damp days ahead is the advent of Mushroom Time. Pfifferlinge, a savoury scalloped fungus found on tree trunks, is my favourite—celebrated with just as much intensity, and while any foraging for these gourmet delicacies, such work is best left to seasoned experts, many keeping the faithful locations of the appearance of this heritage fruiting a secret guarded as well as that for a prized vintner, since there are many more varieties that are deadly poisonous than edible. This time of year, many restaurants adjust their menus—Tageskarte, Speisekarte—to showcase this time-honoured mania.

umbrage

This season was quite nicely bookended by two astronomical events, I thought, what with the partial eclipse of the Sun—for those of us in Central Europe—just as the weather was beginning to wax comfortable and the Blood Super Moon just as the daylights and temperature begins to turn. I was not able to capture either event that I witnessed too terribly well and did not do justice to the Moon coloured red and by no means lost in the pre-dawn horizon but I did like the airplane flying in its direction and of course most things are better imparted first-hand and every one of us will be treated to privileged spectacles, however the rarity, I’m sure.

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.

winkie-winkie and the royal we

The Queen has now surpassed all of her forebears in length of her reign, with many other superlatives besides. We extend our hardy congratulations and best wishes for many more years.

aloha ‘oe or business-casual

No matter how long one has been in the US labour force—or indeed the international one since it seems that the tradition has been widely adopted, relaxing the office’s dress-code on Fridays seems something as firmly ingrained as the desperate compulsion to clean one’s desk of backlog procrastination and pass it off to another on that same day of the week. I know some co-workers just beam at their accomplishments, thinking it took me all week to perfect that problem and now I give it to you.
The former observance, however, is a relatively new practise with rather surprising origins. Purveyors of what is known as Aloha Attire sold, in lieu of conventional business dress as the islands’ hot climate make it far too impractical to expect workers to wear suits and ties, Hawaiian shirts and related apparel, meant to be worn untucked, to make office conditions a little more tolerable. Championed by a consortium of native textile manufacturers called the Hawaiian Fashion Guild to boost sales, the shirt-makers lobbied the US Congress (perhaps a small concession after the territory had been annexed by a fruit magnate) for an Aloha Week to strengthen relations between the islands and the mainland. Changes came about slowly and the garb was still associated in the main with tourists and outsiders’ ideas of what Polynesian culture ought to be, but the stock-market crash of 1987 and the savings-and-loan sector collapse that followed cemented Casual Fridays—whose unofficial uniform is the Hawaiian Shirt. Businesses had sustained significant losses and that translated to several lean years in salary and compensation, and companies hoped to placate the disgruntled without actually spending any money. This tradition of dressing-down for the weekend was born as a way of boosting employee morale—one which the fashion industry probably greatly appreciated as well, forming another nuanced category of clothing

you only live twice

Though by no means defined solely by any one role—which includes leading male in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie and Darby O’Gill and the Little People, retired Scottish actor and producer Sean Connery’s most recognisable part was in the James Bond continuum. All future and past incarnations of the character the actor brilliantly limned are together to wish their primogenitor a hale and hearty eighty-fifth birthday.

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ready for my close-up: a look at the directorial epic flop about a woman scorned, Madame Satan

worth 1000: iconic emojis that art history students would appreciate and we could all employ

neon-natal: an old street lamp flashes in silent celebration each time a baby is born in Ghent

seat-cushion becomes a floatation device: Victorian life-preserver and personal entertainment centre

patience: the real reason behind the inclusion of the classic games-bundle was to teach dexterity

© and so say we all

Featured on the ever-excellent Boing Boing, writer Glenn Fleishman explores the fascinating and unexpected struggle over copyrights, ownership and lapsed licenses through the lens of the infamous and unnaturally long-lived legal wrangling of the Sisters Hill and the Happy Birthday song.
Perpetuated by the descendants in hopes of securing royalties for each instance that the song appears in television or film—for which it’s conspicuously absent and usually replaced with a rousing and somewhat incongruous chorus of “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” the unsettled lawsuits have really overshadowed the professional lives and scholarship of the pioneering Patty and Mildred Hill, who were respectively, at a time when most women did not have vocations, an early childhood educational theorist and an ethnomusicologist. Patty even worked with German pedagogue Friedrich Fröbel, whose wooden unit blocks (Fröbelgaben) we all know, and helped to introduce the concept of these educational toys to the States. For a white girl, Mildred really had some soul and championed so called black music as a national treasure to be cherished. Later the sisters collaborated on musical compositions for school children, eventually producing the celebratory tune. No one is trying to rob their children and grandchildren of a birthright but this singular case (another type of block or brick, Lego, is maybe something comparable) illustrates a lot of the tricks behind creative-controls and the integrity of invention.

siss boom ba

Just in time for US Independence Day (and probably equally valid for Bastille Day), Mental Floss presents an animated field guide for identifying the various standard effects used in pyrotechnic displays. I never knew that they had specific names, other than “ohh” and “ahh.” The image used of a frozen firework in bloom is a long-exposure image captured deftly by the brilliant photographer David Johnson at a show in Australia with more examples at the link.