recap

Via Duck Soup, we are directed to another year-in-review told through the editorial board and camera pool of The New York Times, month-by-month of 2020, which serves as an incredible reminder to headline the lack of correspondence between the world depicted in the first quarter with what was just over the horizon. All captioned and curated, one can explore these pivot-points, especially those that receed apace from the present, in this interactive retrospective. As indelible as 2020 seems, it’s surprising what iconic images seem to belong to another time and place.

bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag

Via Everlasting Blört, we directed to another old friend’s find in this menacingly brilliant rhythmic rendition of the Villon Song by Stick in the Wheel, a recitation of the late Victorian poet and literary critic William Ernest Henley’s—best-known for his 1875 “Invictus” and being the peg-legged inspiration for the character Long John Silver of Treasure Island—translation, interpretation of fifteenth century Françoise Villon “Tout aux taverns et aux filles”—Villon’s Straight Tip to All Cross Coves. Henley is here represented by a bronze bust of him executed by sculptor August Rodin in 1868.

8x8

photos veritables: antique pre-prepared vacation picture albums  

necessitous men are not free men: FDR’s 1944 second, more equitable Bill of Rights 

conformal cyclic cosmology: Nobel winning astrophysicist Roger Penrose shares his Universe origin hypothesis 

la sape: Tariq Zaida documents the fashion of the sapeurs and sapeuses of Brazzaville and Kinshasa—reminding me of this other subculture  

author, poet, composer: the amazing virtuosity of Gordon Parks 

das neue europa mit dem dauernden frieden: revisiting an early proposal for the European Union, divided into Kantons converging on Vienna (previously) 

dss43: Deep Space Communication Complex re-establishes link with Voyager 2 

scarfolk & environs: a road & leisure map for uninvited tourist

iww

Marking the heightening tension between labour organisers and business executives in the US Pacific Northwest, the Everett Massacre, occurring on this day in 1916 was a flashpoint exacerbated by global economic downturn and depression. Dock workers and police authorities in service of commercial interests regularly clashed, and International Workers of the World members (Wobblies) were dispatched in support of an ongoing strike action and rally for fairer pay and better working conditions. In response to these demonstrations, local business enlisted and deputised more union-busting mercenaries and the standoff quickly escalated into armed conflict. The culpability for the violence and death is yet questioned, with some describing the IWW as a radicalised and over-zealous advocate for political and labour reform with other scholars and historians placing the blame on agents provocateur and corporate spies infiltrating the union members’ ranks.

i got an empty cup, pour me some more

Though attested in the figurative sense to mean unfinished business since the nineteenth century and associated with the deleterious effects of too much drink until the turn of the century and the end of the Victorian-era, it is most likely a folk etymology, a backronym popularised by George Orwell’s 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London that the term hangover came from the Two Penny Hangover—the reported practise of draping the homeless or inmates of workhouses over a length of rope for a night’s accommodations. More comfortable that sitting up for the night or on resting on the cold stone floor—also maximising the number of lodgers per square metre—but the rope was promptly severed at five in the morning with the unfortunates tumbling and sent on their way. Language check and illustration both bookendings from Messy Nessy’s latest peripatetic internet journeys—with a lot more to discover at the link above.

novemberrevolution

Lasting through August of the following year, the revolt and uprising that replaced the constitutional monarchy of Germany and led to the formation of the Weimar Republic (previously) began on this day in 1918 with the Kiel Mutiny (Kieler Matrosenaufstand)—a revolt by a sailors of the High Seas Fleet (Hochseeflotte) demoralised and defeated in a senseless war. As testament to the social tensions between the general population and the aristocracy, the movement expanded outward from the city’s port and garnered some forty thousand rebels from the ranks of the navy, the army (which had been dispatched to quell the situation) and sympathetic workers, and by the next day they were able to organise articulate fourteen points outlying the revolutionary council’s demands: resolutions and demands including the release of political prisoners, complete freedom of the press, halting censorship of correspondence, cessation of fighting and the separation of being on- and off-duty (see also). By the seventh, King Ludwig III of Bavaria capitulated and announced the creation of a People’s Free State, and by the ninth, Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated and went into exile and Germany was declared a republic.

the past is another country

Two years ago—after the mid-terms—the Centre for American Politics and Design conducted a meta-survey of recently concluded political races and challenges for all types of public office to better understand the role of typography and graphic design in voting and campaigning, and are doing the same for every jurisdiction and elected official on the tickets for 2020. Explore some of the data and sample the logos (from president to dog-catcher and everything in between) included at Print Magazine at the link.

7x7

whose side is justice department hunk trant finglepoz on, anyway: a treasury of Hallmark Channel movies counting down to the American election  

moving pictures: TIME magazine showcases one hundred of the most influential photographs  

malochio: an appreciation of the iconic, inspired CBS eye-logo  

giant steps: exploring the overlapping sensory experience of synaesthesia (previously) to the musical stylings of John Coltrane  

nazcat lines: archaeologists uncover a feline geoglyph in the Peruvian desert  

stranger danger: Patch the Pony transformed into a Halloween soundtrack 

fiscal cliffication: continued delays and deferment on financial aid will make it harder for the US economy to recover

hocus potus

Just as the Twitterati has formed broad cliques reflective of larger social orders, WitchTok—the portmanteau of TikTok for practitioners of hexes and witchcraft—is a real and popular phenomenon reportedly and is being credited by some with infecting Trump with COVID-19.

While we don’t think that’s how magic works, we’ll certainly let them cast their spell and encourage more, seeing that that coven that claimed to curse Trump the night of the inauguration might need to check their work. Oh yes, and please vote—unless you want more of over-reliance on homeopathy essential oils and accusing ones neighbour of suffering a witch to live out of deep desperation as ones healthcare and jobs disappear.

pyongyang on the potomac

Not to rest on his laurels in his escalating pursuit of photo-opportunities—not content with gassing a gathering of peaceful protesters to pose, uninvited in front of a church holding a Bible or turning a nomination ceremony into a superspreader event without remorse or going for a joy ride, skipping out of the hospital in an armoured, hermetically sealed vehicle with a retinue of Secret Service agents while highly contagious to wave at small crowd of well-wishers, an impeached, still contagious and steroid-addled Trump was discharged from Walter Reed Medical Centre and remanded to the White House, ascending, gasping for breath a few stairs and dramatically whipped off his mask in a gesture that’s to be interpreted as triumph and full recovery.

Audaciously insulting to the over two hundred thousand Americans who’ve died from COVID-19 complications, the untold millions of affected families and those who’ve lost their livelihoods due to the ensuing economic collapse, he released in a recorded message shortly after his appearance: “Don’t let it dominate you—don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines, all developed recently.” Medical insurance is tied to employment in the US and the situation is quite fraught on both fronts right now, and the level of tax-payer supported housing and healthcare is of course not available to the average citizen and most will experience very different outcomes.

unprocessed cartoons

PRINT magazine contributor Steven Heller has a nice retrospective appearance and remembrance for an underground political cartoonist often overshadowed by his contemporary R. Crumb in R. Cobb. While many might more readily recognise the Cheap Thrills that duly excoriated our modesties of the former, we might not be as familiar with the latter, who recently departed (*1937) after a long bout of dealing with dementia, whose extensively syndicated illustrations laid bare how the governments—most pointedly the US establishment—was eroding civil rights, liberties and the environment.

Cobb turned his talents to raising awareness and championing social justice causes after being dismissed as redundant by Disney studios in 1957 once the animation of Sleeping Beauty was complete—notably the last film to use hand-inked cels. There are an embarrassment of panels from the late-1960s that are very resounding and correspond, appearing in the Freep plus more mainstream outlets, with what we face at present (see a whole gallery at the source up top), but we are choosing to highlight the ecology symbol Cobb created—combining e (environment) and o (organism) into a θ-like glyph that gifted into the public domain and was adopted by the conservation movement. After his career as a cartoonist, Ron Cobb designed conceptual art for science-fiction films such as Star Wars, Alien, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unfinished Dune, The Abyss and Total Recall.

$750

Whilst specifically reporting that Trump’s tax-filings did not reveal any insights into previously unknown connections to Russia, the leaked documents to the New York Times do reveal how broken the US tax code is in allowing the wealthy and powerful to engage in tax avoidance and the industry that that activity has created plus perhaps most importantly that the fake billionaire and impeached phoney president has hundreds of millions of loans coming due in the coming years—what could potentially be during his second-term in the White House.

Much of this credit was extended to Trump by a particular bursar at Deutsche Bank (see previously here and here). Sadly even if the characterisation of Trump’s desire for re-election as an unpleasantry to be stomached for the sake of turning country into a theocracy that upholds the status quo and undermines any real or perceived threat to it is only a cover for Trump to continue his career as grifter-in-chief and support welfare programmes and executive socialism that benefit his himself and his cronies with rugged, unforgiving capitalism for the rest is shown to be the sham it’s been all along, it won’t matter to his persecuted throngs of supporters nor change any minds, so long as their demagogue hates and punishes the same people that they have been emboldened to hate and punish.

7x7

cut-throat competition: gig workers are tethering their smartphones in trees to gain an edge of miilliseconds over others for a limited number of contracts

the hackney year: season after season of recorded back garden bird song and other sonic gems via Things Magazine

october surprise: a cynical campaign ploy threatens to erode public trust in science and medicine

a transparent corridor in the air: a design firm completes the longest glass-bottomed suspension bridge along the approach to Three Gorges

ascii art: artists creates “typicitions” on his vintage typewriter

snitches get stitches: the prohibition against social gatherings are polarising college campuses

eula: monopsonistic on-line retail giant deploys union-busting tactics to perpetuate myth of “freelance” work-force and maintain their impressment

porozumienia sierpniowe

Today celebrates the August Agreement—otherwise known as the Gdańsk Social Accords—reached on the last day of August in 1980 between striking dockworkers on the Baltic and the Polish government over untenable demands, poor working conditions and continual shortages of essentials. The labour strikes had the immediate effect of changing the country’s leadership and revealed endemic corruption and mismanagement that had culminated in the dysfunctional economy and legislature and further led to reforms in the market, freedom of expression, civil rights and launched the Solidarity Movement.

the death of emmett till

On this day in 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmet Till (see previously) was murdered in a brutal fashion by two vigilantes after for his alleged offense of a white woman at her family’s grocery store in Money, Mississippi.
His violent death and the subsequent acquittal of his killers focused attention to the persecution and injustice of American apartheid and galvanised the burgeoning civil rights movement. Two years later on the anniversary of the killing, segregationist senator Strom Thurmond representing the state of South Carolina dishonoured Till’s memory by staging his twenty-four long filibuster to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The stunt only forestalled the vote until September when it was signed into law. On the same day in 1963, organisers held the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom with Martin Luther King Jr delivering his “I Have a Dream” address from the Lincoln Memorial, this non-violent rally and calls to end systemic racism formative in the ways the US and the world view equality and the catalyst for the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voter Rights Act of the following year.

an act to prevent pernicious political activities

Passed in August of 1939 and amended most recently in 2012, the US federal law prohibits all government employees of the executive branch—with the exception of the president and vice president—from engaging in most forms of political activity and advocacy, the Hatch Act (see previously), named for the bill’s sponsor Democrat senator representing the state of New Mexico Carl Hatch (*1889 – †1963), was instigated by accusations by Republican members that the opposition party—Hatch’s own—were utilising employees of the Works Progress Administration (WPA, a New Deal recovery project to employ millions in public works and conservation activities to lift the US out of the Great Depression that followed World War I) as a political machine to influence elections, especially in swing-states like Tennessee and Kentucky. The main thrust of the law is to prevent intimidation or bribery of voters by office holder, the uniformed military and other authority figures and establish ethical norms—moreover precluding federal employees in general from aligning with extremist groups on the far left or the far right that advocates the overthrow of the government, specifically to discourage membership in the Communist Party and the German-American Bund.

6x6

cassandra drops into verse: a thoroughgoing appreciation of Miss Dorothy Parker (*1893 – †1967)

jazz pigeon: from the same creative studio that asked “Are you tired of being a bird?”—via the Link Pack of Swiss Miss

going postal: the United States may soon see the return of post office offering financial services—see previously

it’s not the heat but the humidity: meta-study suggests that dry air may help the corona virus propagate

the gosling effect: another example of machine pareidolia, wherein a computer detects the Canadian actor’s face in a fold of a curtain—like seeing Jesus in a burrito

susan b. anthony: champion for women’s suffrage rejects Trump’s offer of a pardon for her arrest and fine in 1872 for voting illegally

comrade gulliver

Print Magazine’s regular feature, The Daily Heller, introduces us to the Marxist and committed social justice activist whose polemic art illustrated the American Socialist movement of the 1930s and 1940s through his project, which the author, Hugo Gellert (Grünbaum Hugó, *1892 – 1985) declares as direct descendant and philosophical heir to Jonathan Swift’s satirical Lemuel Gulliver (see previously), with his misadventures in the strange lands of the United States were “even more fantastic than the experiences of my forefather” far more arbitrary and unaccountable than any government or class-structure that the Blefuscudians could imagine. The Budapest native was also was a staff artist for The New Yorker and later for such political periodicals as The Liberator and New Masses. The comic goes on to explore various aspects of capriciousness of station and labour and the inequities in America through the lens of a befuddled outsider and through this lightly shaded allegory highlights the mortal failings of the system and underpinnings of capitalism. Much more to explore at the link up top.

public law 88-352

Originally proposed by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in June of the previous year but forestalled by a filibuster in the US Senate, his successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, pushed forward the legislation and signed the anti-discrimination Civil Rights Act, rigorously debated but eventually approved by Congress, on this day in 1964. Aside from outlawing difference in treatment or preference based on heritage, religious background or sex, the eleven entitlements of the act guarantee uniform application to voting rights and burdens of exercising them, prohibits segregation, promotes equal employment opportunities and affirms and improves upon prior similar legislation by providing a host of evaluation and enforcement measures.

volksaufstand vom 17. juni 1953

Observed annually as a public holiday in West Germany up until reunification as a sign of solidarity with the strikers, the East German Uprising of 1953 began with group of construction workers at two sites in East Berlin, Stalinallee Block Forty and Hospital Friedrichshain, whom were left betrayed and confused by contradictory announcements to shift away from heavy industry and the privations that that strategy had precipitated to more balance and consumer goods which despite relaxation of the command economy in some sense, developers would still be allowed to impose an expectation of more productivity on them with no equal compensation.
The demonstrations quickly spread to over seven hundred locations all over the capital and beyond to the DDR’s larger cities. Soviet tanks were deployed once local authorities were unable to contain the marchers with the protests finally subsiding after a week. Many became disillusioned with the party and the labour movement once they realised the lengths that the government would go to in order to suppress the strike action to include deadly force (thirty-four demonstrators and bystanders were killed as well as five security personnel), although to an extent the protests achieved their aims and quality of life standards and wages improved. The holiday in the Bundesrepublik was known from 1954 until 1990 actually as German Unity Day (Tag der Deutschen Einheit) until translated to October to commemorate the Wiedervereinigung.