Mirroring efforts of the United States to disassociate Labor Day celebrations with socialism, on this day in 1923, fascist dictator Benito Mussolini directed the celebration of the founding of Rome, not observed since the times of the Empire, on the traditional anniversary of the city’s establishment in 753 BC—possibly in parallel attempts to suppress a far older fasti that also fell on this day, the Palilia dedicated to the cleansing of sheep and shepherds, to distance its newly attained cosmopolitan character from these rural and pastoral roots. With a military parade of fifty-thousand Black Shirts through the streets on a a route from the Forum to the Baths of Caracalla under the Triumphal Arch of Titus, Mussolini decreed that this holiday would replace International Workers’ Day.
Friday 21 April 2023
Thursday 30 March 2023
8x8 (10. 645)
maximum fun: Jessie Thorn is turning the podcast network into a worker-owned cooperative
gearing-ratio: a nifty explainer on the physics of riding a bike—via Waxy
glass-bead game: fascinating insights into the lunar water-cycle and stellar mist—see alsostop making sense: David Byrne on his Big Suit
retrotopia: Berlin’s Kunst-gewer-bemuseum explores Socialist design—see previously here and here
sit up & listen: a Thames Television station closedown (see also) routine
the panopticon effect: 99% Invisible explores the nineteenth century prison of Breda—see also
Sunday 19 March 2023
vereinte dienstleistungswerkschaft (10. 623)
Established on this day in 2001 as a merger of the congresses of five individual trade unions—with a membership of around two million workers, including postal, banking, insurance, health, education, public service, media and transportation sector employees, Verdi represents the professional interests of its members and successfully lobbies—through political clout, collective bargaining and strike actions—for better compensation and improved working conditions.
Friday 17 March 2023
tory scum (10. 616)
Via friend of the blog par excellence Nag on the Lake, we introduced to a new anthem by the Drop Kick Murphys, following a decades old tradition of reinventing unfinished works from the extensive archives of Woody Guthrie (previously) and plying the standards (with precious little alteration to the present) like with the sea shanty “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” and their 2022 album This Machine Still Kills Fascists, has reworked the union song “All You Fonies” to herald a conservative defeat in the United Kingdom after a string of mostly unelected prime ministers and austere government measures that has gutted social safety nets as “All You Tories.”
Tuesday 21 February 2023
das manifest der kommunistischen partei (10. 562)
First published without attribution on this day in 1848 by the Workers’ Educational Association (Kommunistischer Arbeiterbildungsverein) in Bishopsgate Without in London, the twenty-three page pamphlet authored by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels under contract of the Communist League is a systematic summary of class struggle and the estrangement of labour. While envisioning the potential future forms of political economy was beyond the scope of the brief synopsis, the invocation in the ultimate paragraph calling for the “overthrow of all existing social conditions” would go on to spark revolutions across the globe. With the initial revolts in Europe of the spring suppressed, the work did not reemerge until the early 1870s, culminating in the October Revolution in 1917.
Sunday 12 February 2023
ๅ ๅท (10. 544)
Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest (much more to see there), we are directed to an essay by rรซลt รดf wลrld contributor Yi-Ling Liu on the Chinese terms for burnout and the relentless push to get ahead—or just barely tread water with an assortment of phrases, some familiar and some novel—and how some of those buzzwords have inverted and signal despair rather than aspiration. We’d add the corollary shร ng ร n (making it ashore—getting a stable government position) to “jumping into the sea” and we’ve heard of the minor revolts of lying flat or letting it rot (with their analogues in the West quiet quitting, work-to-rule, Sciopero Bianco or generally a slowdown action) but the title term neijuan or “involution” was new to us as well. A loanword from an outdated treatise—which may have been a bit of political sublimation and apologetic for colonialism—that conjectures that agrarian societies, pointedly rice-growing ones, fail in achieving technological or political change because of intensive farming and increased pressures, externally and internally, to maintain this high yield with class structures meant to re-enforce that quota. Its original sense has been incrementally extended as a critique of income disparity—number two in the number of billionaires but also home to six hundred million others who subsist off less than $150 per month and of an exhaustive and overly-competitive work culture. The pictured, harried student of Tsing Hua University balancing his laptop on the handle bars of his bicycle has been adopted by the ‘Involuted Generation’ as their king.
7x7 (10. 543)
epicentre: Tรผrkiye-Syrian earthquake opens a huge fissure over three hundred kilometres long—donate to help with recovery efforts here
down with gravity: legislation in Montana would restrict scientific instruction to “scientific fact”
monocle: a compact Augmented Reality device that does not wholly remove one from the here and nowditchley park: secret bi-partisan talks on the failure of Brexit taking place
radar anomaly: fighter jets down another unidentified flying object over Canada’s Yukon Province
child-labour: Iowa state legislature abolishes most working-age restrictions, allowing fourteen-year-olds to do dangerous jobs at exploitative wages
search and rescue: as the death toll climbs to thirty thousand with little hope of finding more survivors, a happy montage of a few saved from the rubble—more options for donations here
Tuesday 7 February 2023
7x7 (10. 531)
business vulnerable: dress codes for your wedding to confound invited guests
boom and bust: in stark contrast to last year’s showcase dubbed Crypto Bowl, no cryptocurrency ads have been purchased for Super Bowl Sundayfanilect: more eggcorns and mondegreens in misheard lyrics to Taylor Swift songs
gaming like it’s 1927: annual public domain table-top project playing and remixing expired IPs—via Things Magazine
overworld theme: beatboxer recreates the songscape of Super Mario Bros. 2
only the shadow knows: a noir short by Fabrice Mathieu
family dining: Facebook to open Metaverse to children to try to rehabilitate flagging interest
assistant to the regional manager: the Great Resignation and unethical reclassification practises helped create inflated job titles
Thursday 26 January 2023
money to burn (10. 497)
Once seized as the counterfeiting scheme of a mysterious Frenchman, Public Domain Review contributor Dorinda Evans reassesses the hyperrealistic paintings of Victor Dubreuil of US paper currency as a social critique of capitalism and exploitative working practises at a time when few were openly questioning the status quo. These still lives with dollars and trompe l’oeil paintings of legal tender enjoyed some contemporary popularity in addition to scrutiny by the US for the starving artist but most missed the anti-imperialism, anti-kleptocractic allegory of Dubreuil. Find a whole gallery of his works at the link above.
Thursday 12 January 2023
7x7 (10. 410)
salt of the earth: a tour of Ukraine’s Soledar salt mines—presently under siege
black mass: Boston is hosting the Satanic Temple’s SatanCon—see previouslyverpertilio-homo: what the Great Moon Hoax of 1835 reveals about contemporary misinformation
lhs 475ฮฒ: JWST discovers its first exoplanet—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
discretionary time off: salaried Microsoft employees given unlimited vacation leave
jot and tittle: an unorthodox scholar ferrets out biblical forgeries
russie d’aujourd’hui: a look back at Soviet boosterism and propaganda publications
Tuesday 10 January 2023
6x6 (10. 403)
camera obscura: the fantastic, “historical” photography apparatuses of Mathieu Stern
all maps at once: interesting and interactive cartographical overlays with the open-source viewing standard
murphy desk: the flow wall workspace designed by Robert van Embricqs
this is the sound of a gavel: a litany of concessions in exchange for the House Speakership
Monday 9 January 2023
word of the day: gongoozler (10. 401)
Ostensibly from canal workers’ jargon to describe an observer watching the narrowboats ply by—from the Lincolnshire dialectical terms for gaping and staring, and interesting as its etymology is completely removed from gondolier, it’s now used as a gently chiding, reflexive way to describe such practitioners (see also) and their pastime—and by extension, any sort of keen spectating without appreciable contribution.
catagories: ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ, ๐ฌ, labour
Wednesday 4 January 2023
and now for something completely different (10. 387)
Via Kottke, we are given over to ruminate on all the ways we can rush through reading, research and watching and optimising our time—our output and personal curation left in the able and dull-dealing hands of automation and outsourcing—and compelled to beg the natural and consequent question to what end. I have no pretensions about what others might call a good work ethics is just my motivation to be done with the tedious bits and to get to sneak away a little time for something that’s more interesting—and often not related to work and would entertain a degree of algorithmic enhancement if that might help me get swifter and better. While career wise, I wouldn’t exactly mind being made—regardless the inevitability and having little choice in the matter, this drive to get on to the next, equally loathsome chore is resonant and suggests being in the wrong business, addled and attended fairytales of endless growth and unbound productivity. See more from Alan Jacobs at his blog The Homebound Symphony at the link above.
catagories: ๐ค, ๐ฅธ, ๐ง , labour, networking and blogging
Monday 26 December 2022
my company takes the entire delivery fee. you were a capitalist until five minutes ago—you should know how these things work. (10. 364)
Regular contributor to McSweeney’s Steven Ruddy presents a delightfully Dickensian gig-economy, Uber Eats retelling of the Christmas Carol, specifically the concluding scene when Scrooge cries out to a boy in the street, ecstatic that he hasn’t missed Christmas Day and attempts to dispatch a prize turkey to the Cratchit home, though has difficulties fulfilling his order. “Delivery fee is two crowns, sir.”
Friday 23 December 2022
ice cream assassins (10. 356)
Again with the distinction between neologisms and characters and courtesy of Language Log, we are directed towards an omnibus listing of internet slang that dominated social media in China (see previously) this past year. The title (้ช็ณๅบๅฎข) refers to the sticker-shock of the frozen treats associated with inflation and the pictured “let it rot” cites the trend of leaning into a situation that’s failing apart rather than trying to salvage it and like lying flat signals a generation growing weary with social competition in the face of a possibly bleak future. We also quite liked the incantation—Tuรฌ! Tuรฌ! Tuรฌ! ้!้!้!, to banish an unpleasant presence in one’s life.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐จ๐ณ, ๐ฌ, labour, networking and blogging
Wednesday 23 November 2022
ๅคๅดๆ่ฌใฎๆฅ (10. 327)
As the modern, post-war incarnation of an ancient harvest festival that celebrated the reaping of the Five Grains, a group of farmed cereals essential to agriculture and social development, Labour Thanksgiving (Kinrล Kansha no Hi) is an annual public holiday, falling on this day, occasioning the rejoicing of productivity and hard work and as an expression of gratitude to one’s coworkers and colleagues. Commemorations generally include school children distributing cards and gifts for public sector workers and companies review their accomplishments over the past year and fete their staff.
Sunday 21 August 2022
1.d4 (10. 074)
Not discounting the possibility of promotion—or queening—or underpromotion in scenarios when too many queens would cause a draw over a stalemate, we enjoyed learning that in medieval gaming traditions, each pawn was assigned a common occupation, ranging from the king’s rook’s to the queen’s rook: farmer, smith, notary, merchant, physician, innkeeper, watchman and town crier. These roles were handed down to us in the collected sermons of mid-thirteenth century Dominican friar from Asti, Jacopo da Cessole, who authored a morality book through the pieces and protocols of the game—the Book of Chess, De ludo scachorum. First printed a century and a half after it was written, it became one of the most popular early books, possibly even rivalling the Bible for its life lessons and accessible social allegory, and became the basis for printer William Caxton’s The Game and Playe of the Chess, only the second book published in English. More at Futility Closet at the link above.
catagories: ♞, ๐, labour, Middle Ages
Monday 15 August 2022
ferragosto (10. 062)
Originating from the Roman holiday Feriae Augusti instigated by Caesar Augustus, Octavian, to reward
Sunday 31 July 2022
so we spin (10. 029)
Published in part at the link, we enjoyed this introduction to the graphic design portfolio of Elinor and Joe Selame in their 1971 data-visualisation (see also here and here) volume that poses the question whether one is a wheel or a cog and demonstrates the discipline’s commitment to limning socio-economic realities and communicating an class and ethnographic truth. Widening inequalities create a thesis and antithesis that can be convey clearly in a family of symbols, which not only project and reflect society, the technique can also help one to understand one’s role within the context of community. More at Print Magazine at the link above.
Saturday 9 July 2022
8x8
carina nebula: first five subjects for JWST announced
a pharmacopeia with balneological appendix: a primer and point of departure for the mysterious pre-Renaissance volume, the Voynich Manuscript—see previouslyputt-putt for the fun of it: a time-capsule of miniature golf courses
trap daddy: spoof Russian history on Chinese Wikipedia introduces us to a catch-phrase for the deception hoax—see also, see previously
jubilee: inflexibility applied to finance and debt contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire
spatter platters: morbid 1960s teen tragedy songs
hushed-tones: a neural network makes a nature documentary about ants
hudf: JWST takes deepest image of the Cosmos without even trying plus other space news briefs