whistle-stop tour (12. 355)

With a similar route transversed just after World War II, proposed by the attorney general under FDR and Truman who feared that Americans were taking the principals of liberty for granted in the post-war years and the project becoming a model for future outreach efforts during the Cold War, the second American Freedom Train, twenty-six cars conveyed by a stream locomotive outfitted with a special livery, began its twenty-month long journey criss-crossing the continent and visiting all the forty-eight contiguous states on this day in 1975, arriving in Wilmington, Delaware in a lead-up to the country’s bicentennial celebrations—see previously. The display cars carried more than five-hundred pieces of America on loan from various institutions, artefacts including: the original constitution, the Louisiana Purchase, Jesse Owens’ Olympic medals, a Moon rock, Martin Luther King, Jr’s pulpit, George Washington’s fire engine and Judy Garland’s dress from The Wizard of Oz, and was visited by over seven million people in near one hundred forty cities. Afterwards, the cars (without their contents, see also) were purchased by National Museums of Canada and reflagged as the Discovery Train for a similar rail tour.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: Germany legalises marijuana (with synchronoptica) plus April Fools

seven years ago: more early Easter greetings, a monopoly on local media, a vintage April calendar plus Granny’s University of the Imagination

eight years ago: alphabetic architecture, Trump’s supporting cast, more AI pranks plus the proposed Analemma Tower

nine years ago: precision crowd formation plus a once lost species makes a comeback

ten years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, the roots of monotheism plus an overview of heraldic charges

la a note to follow doge (12. 346)

Releasing yet another executive order aimed at whitewashing the country’s past, Trump’s “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” is aimed at museums and other cultural institutions to remedy what MAGA regards a concerted effort by the radical left of revisionism geared to deepen societal divides and promote national shame. The Smithsonian has been politicised and weaponised, ordered to halt exhibits and articles featuring “race-centred ideology,” calling examination of marginalisation effectively anti-American, with vice president Vance deputised with the power to review all publications, projects and presentations to ensure compliance. One wonders when Americans might have their fill of liberty—it seems like a line has already been crossed yet new horrors come. The order also implies that like with earlier dictates that there are only two genders, that race is a biological reality, rather than a social construct playing into the pseudoscience that justifies eugenics and segregation and directs the administration’s secretary of the interior to begin reinstalling and rededicating Confederate and racist statues and monuments toppled or taken down in the course of the Black Lives Matter movement. Attempts to erase the past follow the wholesale assault on present postures diversity, inclusion, equity and access is a regression of decades of struggle against hate and oppression but unlikely to determine the future shape of society.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a biblical epic (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: an earlier Trump portrait plus GDPR compliance

eight years ago: the basement level kiosks of Bulgaria, more long German words plus mapping facial measurements

nine years ago: more state flags that could use an update,  the Sir Vival auto plus garlic dreams

ten years ago: telepathic technology plus redefining the kilogramme

hr 1968 (12. 305)

Though hard to forecast what might have been the better path through an undesirable binary, and mostly cleaving to party lines, an early procedural vote against cloture and ultimately advancing of a continuing resolution through the senate to avoid a US government shutdown at midnight seems to have been a grave political miscalculation with Democrats squandering the only leverage they had to slow or derail Trump’s dismantling of the federal bureaucracy. In response to Musk commenting that closing down the government might be a preferable course of action for the DOGE agenda, senate minority leader Chuck Schumer reversed his stance on the spending bill that keeps government funded through the end of the fiscal year and along with nine other Democrats, voted with Republicans for the passage, reaching the sixty votes needed to avoid a filibuster—earning praise from Trump for his decision and highlighting deep divisions within the party. If the GOP had wanted the government to shutdown, they wouldn’t have advanced the budget in the first place, which until it passed the first hurdle of the house of representatives, Democrats were united against it. The CR is essentially a sequestration, maintaining funding levels but removing line item allocations and collapsing appropriations into larger pots of money, further abrogating the role of congress and allowing the executive branch to move funds, legally, as it sees fit.  Unabated with his assault on the republic, Trump issued more executive orders while roll-call was happening on the senate floor, rescinding the federal minimum wage of fifteen dollars per hour, the mandate for agencies to share data on emergent public health threats as well as order the closure of the parent agency that operates Voice of America and Radio Free Europe and smaller offices that handle labour disputes, the council on homelessness, developing minority-owned businesses and the institute of museum and library services—agency heads given seven days to justify their existence and prove that their work is statutorily required.

verkehrshaus der schweiz (12. 247)

Delightfully, we discover courtesy of Present /&/ Correct that the Swiss Museum of Transport in Luzern has a wing (Halle Strassen-verkehr) clad in street signs. One of the most popular exhibitions in the country (see also), the museum campus features displays of historic railroad engines, automotive exhibits (with tunnels and mountain passes), cable cars, maritime navigation and aerospace, including the European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) an uncrewed science laboratory, one of the few satellites successfully deorbited and returned to the Earth undamaged.

england’s home of mystery (12. 154)

Sadly demolished in 1905 to make way for offices and flats, we enjoyed this appreciation of the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, originally commissioned by antiquarian and naturalist William Bullock as a museum to house his collection of curiosities acquired by Captain Cook’s exploration (see also) of the South Seas and built in 1812 in the revival architecture style popularised (see also) by reports of Napoleon’s exploits and Admiral Nelson’s defeat of the French navy on the Nile, which after disposing of his ethnographic and natural history collection, transformed the space into a public exhibition hall, with rotating collections including Napoleon’s carriage captured as a war trophy at Waterloo, Egyptian artefacts and The Raft of Medusa. By the end of the nineteenth century, the hall became a venue for magical acts and spiritualism demonstrations, chiefly staged by the duo of Maskelyne and Cooke with a rather remarkable run of thirty-one years—the former, John Nevil, stage magician, card shark, professional sceptic (wanting to expose fraudsters and charlatans) and inventor of a typewriter of proportional character width (kerning was apparently all over the place and probably would have driven me to distraction) and the pay-toilet, hence the euphemism, “spend a penny.” Much more from Feuilleton at the link above including a gallery of show posters.

hearth and home (12. 148)

We’ve received a happy status update regarding this rather spectacular temple to outsider art, Ron’s Place in Birkenhead outside of Liverpool, a flat hidden within an unassuming brick residence holding a scarcely seen gallery of hearths, altars and murals created by renter Ron Gittin, now catalogued and conserved. The landlord a permissive sufferer of such flourishes was however mostly ignorant of the extent of the artist’s embellishments (as well as his friends and family upon his unexpected death in 2019) that celebrated the multi-hyphenate’s interest in Antiquity and repository of his other creative pursuits. Let’s wish all property owners could be so tolerant of their tenants’ eccentricities and had faith for the next occupant’s inheritance. Much more at the links above.

11x11 (12. 101)

boughs of holly: a gallery of Edwardians dressed up as Christmas trees—via the Everlasting Blört  

gifcities: the Internet Archive’s gallery of vintage animations  

hb3: Pornhub is pulling out of Florida over a new law that requires age verification on adult websites with a government issued form of identification—don’t say you weren’t warned

diplomatic corps: Trump pre-appoints a slew of woefully unqualified ambassadors  

superman is bleeding: the teaser trailer for the new cinematic adaptation 

neolithic octopoid: revisiting the Silurian hypothesis through cephalopods—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

by-line: Pulitzer’s year in news stories  

perfect fit content: Spotify ghosts human artist, avoiding royalties 

the campaign for economic democracy: Jane Fonda’s political action committee was funded through sales of Workout, inspired by serial presidential candidate and entrepreneur Lyndon LaRouche  

a court of thorns and roses: sexual congress with supernatural beings is illegal in Sweden—via Strange Company 

retrospective: around the world in the exhibitions of 2024 

and the blue and silver candles that would just have matched the hair on grandma’s wig: Postmodern Jukebox’ take (previously) on a reviled holiday tune

l’ultima cena nell’arte (12. 087)

Fellow internet caretake and accomplished docent, Weird Universe, treats us to a grand tour of a museum in the border town of Douglas, Arizona that showcases collection of its curator of works inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic masterpiece, The Last Supper (see also). With interpretations ranging from the devotional to the irreverent, skewing to sci-fi and pop cultural with an array of items in place of Jesus and the apostles, it looks like a fun exhibition to visit. We liked this more traditional depiction from a different perspective showing a sleeping dog on the floor. Much more at the links above.

6x6 (12. 043)

tour of duty: the life of the Roman soldier as told through the personal letters of one of the enlisted  

travelling cat: soar around the world with this feline aviatrix—via Maps Mania  

the keeper of the mss, begs to decline: manuscripts rejected by the British Museum Library on topics of conspiracy theories, the paranormal and for being overly amorous—via Strange Company  

the peal of protection: the bells of Notre Dame blessed as the cathedral reopens to the public—see more, see previously 

 katzenjammer: etymologies of hangover—see previously, see also  

continuing education: teaching rats to drive as a heuristic for joy and positive emotions 

 re:volt: an AI-powered robot seemingly convinced twelve others to quit their jobs and join it

 synchronoptica

one year ago: an AI Advent Calendar (with synchronoptica),  in-flight audio playlists plus an ominous weather forecast

seven years ago: the Mountain Dream Tarot, the first cryptocurrency (1989) plus skeletal nomenclature

eight years ago: RIP Fidel Castro plus an atlas of the underworld

nine years ago: more adventures in Vienna plus Vienna’s Gasometer City

ten years ago: a mango döner recipe plus memes and stock-characters

pont y borth (11. 995)

A temporary export bar has been placed on a 1827 needlework sampler made by Mary Anne Hughes, aged eleven, to prevent the national treasure (“rare, modest and of enduring interest”) from leaving the UK by giving institutions (see previously) the chance to raise funds for its purchase ahead of auction. The image depicts the Menai Bridge, opened to the public just the year before after seven years of construction, Designed by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford as the first suspension span of this scale and carries road traffic to this day, the bridge connects Anglesey to the Welsh mainland, bypassing a treacherous water route (particularly for fording livestock) through the Menai Strait. More from The History Blog at the link above.

9x9 (11. 950)

hotwired: an oral history of Wired! magazine and the choices made with its 1994 launch—via Kottke 

enjoy it while you can: duo forms political action committee to appeal to inconsistent voters through ads on porn sites

affaire des poisons: a murder scandal with accusations of witchcraft in the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV  

nutty narrows: a catenary suspension bridge built over a busy road in Washington state to give squirrels safe passage 

oh brave new world with so many goodly creatures: Uranus’ moon Miranda may harbour a subsurface ocean 

la jetée: an influential time-travel movie made of still images  

scope of practise: a new museum dedicated to the paranormal and Victorian spiritualism opens in Carmarthen’s Penuel chapel 

if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed: a terrifying theory on the truth behind Trump and Johnson’s ‘little secret’ that defers the election to 11 December  

ghost jobs: banking resumes for vacancies that don’t really exist are haunting already demoralised tech workers

synchronoptica

one year ago: Three Wishes for Cinderella (with synchronoptica), McDonald theogony plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: books and things, art entrêpots plus assorted links worth revisiting

eight years ago: US sending troops to Norway to counter Russian aggression, mobile office space, high-fives plus synthehol

nine years ago: esotericism in the Third Reich plus advances in fusion power

ten years ago: Rome abandons the West

living museum (11. 912)

Albeit a bit hodgepodge in terms of curation and by dent of prompts and cues (though appreciative of the honesty and transparency regarding how it was acquired), we enjoyed our AI-enabled conversation, via Web Curios (at lot more to explore there), with reanimated artefacts of the British Museum. Whilst not as good as a resident docent, our talk with the mummy of Cleopatra (not the pharaoh but with a history equally intriguing and deserving to be told) was engaging—and surprising to see how quickly the practise is being adopted and embraced—and could fill in some gaps in my knowledge about mythology and the afterlife.  Peruse to see what you can find.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the US House of Representatives without a Speaker (with synchronoptica) plus more unuselessness

seven years ago: de-wilding the Rhein plus the mad genius of the OED

eight years ago: re-christening Boaty McBoatface, incremental architecture, the medical contributions of the Eames duo plus an Art Deco droid

nine years ago: the Plague and the Enlightenment

twelve years ago: a series of tubes, online safety plus bottles of wine as time-capsules

peabody visual aids (11. 899)

Courtesy of Messy Nessy Chic, we enjoyed perusing this gallery of antique library infographics salvaged from the trash in 2003. Making use of the Dewey decimal system, the reference and the periodical desk less daunting for students, these posters which date from the 1930s and 1940s (see also) and were designed by Professor Ruby Ethel Cundiff who pioneered the use of multimedia and cooperation between school libraries and the classroom in a career spanning five decades, defining reference collections and library science during her tenure at the Peabody College for Teachers, now part of Vanderbilt University.

7x7 (11. 758)

pop quiz: extended CVs of classic game show hosts  

pass the mayo: condiment’s dynamic nature could help solve containment challenges for nuclear fusion  

wingnut: a South Berkley salvage store turned museum—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links  

cocónonós: a Bogota-based fusion band—possibly named after the ill-fated Tiki drink shared with Geordi La Forge and Christy Henshaw on their first date  

bias towards coherence: Trump’s latest on rally attendance and his greatest hits  

the type specimen of humanity: the designated permanent reference for Homo sapiens is Carl Linnaeus  

magick show: Richard Metzger’s latest occult project

 synchronoptica

one year ago: cutting archived content for the sake of SEO (with synchronoptica), a racist brawl in Alabama plus multi-hyphenates

seven years ago: reproductive awareness

eight years ago: ant wars, Martian landscapes, disproportionate and xenophobic calls for burqa bans, a floating home in Canada plus Facebook and clickbait

nine years ago: Liberia and the US 

ten years ago: a party at Neuseenland plus the geopolitics of terrorism

ambrosia (11. 730)

The Olympic Committee issued an apology for a tableau during the Paris Olympic’s opening ceremonies that some claimed was deeply offensive to Christian communities and blasphemous—notably the shrillest outrage from US conservatives—for depicting The Last Supper with drag queens. Except it was not inspired by Da Vinci’s depiction of Jesus and his apostles, as the spectacle’s director explained—though few could hear it over the social media torrent—and the performance had to be regrettably recanted, but rather by Le Festin des Dieux, a seventeenth century work by painter Jan van Bijlert prominently displayed in the national gallery in Dijon. While the Dutch artist himself was referencing Leonardo’s earlier work and one sees what one wants to see, the mythology figures are patently recognisable, including Apollo, Pan, Mars, Minerva and Dionysus, the father of the Gallo-Roman goddess Sequana (and whose totem spirit, familiars are ducks), the deification of the Seine, sourced in Côte-d’Or is not far from Dijon.

gallery of the louvre (11. 678)

On the occasion of the record-setting auction in which the pictured painting fetched an incredible three-and-a-quarter million dollars on this day back in 1982 (going to a private collector but on public display), we take a look at the artist, better remembered for his contributions to telecommunications, Samuel Finley Breese Morse. 

First establishing his credentials at a portrait artist and having a success career, several US presidents sat for him, Morse turned to invention in his late forties after encountering a fellow-passenger on a steam ship back from Europe who taught him about electromagnetism and demonstrated some experiments for him. Setting aside the subject painting in 1832 (finished the following year and contains thirty-eight miniature versions of the museum’s treasures—see also), Morse developed a single-wire telegraph, improving on European systems, and overcame the problem of signal-strength and range, a limiting factor, by the addition of relays to boost the distance transmissions could be carried from a few yards to dozens of miles. Patents were awarded but Morse’s invention was not unique or as foundational (see previously here and here) as he liked to present it. Adopted as the international standard for telegraphy, Morse would go on to contribute to his eponymous Code a few years later.  The first public demonstration was held at a steelworks in Morristown, New Jersey with an electronic missive—rather cryptically the message was “A patient waiter is no loser,” sent to a factory two miles away. 

schachmatt (11. 605)

Archaeologists have discovered a nearly millennium old gaming collection preserved in the rubble of the ruins of Burgstein fortress near the village of the Holzelfinger in the Lichtenstein district south of Tübingen. Pieces include dice, flower-shaped tokens and a chessman (see below) carved from deer antler and have been remarkably well preserved.  One of the seven skills that knights (Ritter, the game piece is called Springer—see previously) were expected to master (fencing, archery, hunting, swimming, riding and poetry being the other disciplines), researchers hope that further analysis of the find will lead to insights in play in Europe during the Middle Ages. While studies continue, the pieces will be on display at a special exhibition hosted in the Schlösspark in Pfullingen near Stuttgart. More at The History Blog at the link up top, including videos and three-dimension recreations of the artefacts.

synchronoptica

one year ago: extended frames by AI, assorted links worth revisiting plus an overview of fan-fiction

two years ago: Poltergeist (1982), the Rotel plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: vintage Japanese electronics

four years ago: the Free Republic of Wendland (1980),  Roquefort cheese (1411), a counter-protest photo op, spagetty images plus more on the colour of money

five years ago: the thirty-fifth of May (1989), more on the Lewis Chessmen, an AI names cats, an innovative airplane design plus flight-shaming

asemic writing (11. 560)

The above describing wordless or meaningless text intended to invite the reader to divine a message through the symbolisms rather than to convey a message—though these carefully recorded compositions that suggest mathematical and chemical formulae certainly encoded a meaning that was perhaps only known to the artist—and could be certainly applied to the verisimilitude (see also) of the collected works of outsider artist Melvin May, a bassist who returned to New York City to study informatics but his career path was sidelined by a schizophrenia diagnosis and subsequent drug use, landing him in a men’s shelter on Randall’s Island whilst seeking treatment. Way’s discipline was discovered through art workshops sponsored by the shelter, dense and intricate sketches with ballpoint pens committed to found scraps of paper, often carrying around works-in-progress on his person, protected with a layer of scotch tape. More on this retrospective—and sadly posthumous by only months—and Way’s life at Hyperallergic at the link above.

ampas (11. 553)

Founded on this day in 1927 by head of the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Louis B Mayer in order to create an organisation to mediate labour disputes without the need for outside, independent trade unions and improve the image and reputation of the film industry with input from prolific actor and matinee idol Conrad Nagel (who would six years later go on to establish the Screen Actors’ Guild) and thirty-five other professionals including Mary Pickford and Harold Lloyd, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was to hold an annual banquet but no mention of awards at the time. During the Great Depression, the Academy lost credibility as an arbitrator when it came to labour negotiations and gradually pivoted towards its present role as an honours society, with meritorious awards for “distinctive achievement” in one five branches—acting, directing, writing, technical accomplishment and producing—eventually becoming known as the Oscars. Around the same time, the Academy founded the first film school in collaboration with the University of Southern California, a library charged with collecting all publications about movies and state-of-the-art screening venue for members.

villa of the papyri (11. 516)

Using a dual process of optical coherence tomography and infrared hyperspectral imaging to eke out characters from carbonised scrolls housed in Herculaneum and preserved after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD but inaccessible until recently with the aid of artificial intelligence, researchers have been able to more accurately locate the burial place of Plato, student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, in the Academy, destroyed by Roman general Sulla in 86 BC, as well as a previously unknown account of the philosopher’s last days that relates how he found the night’s entertainment, a Thracian musician’s performance, rather grating. We wonder what else might be digitally unwrapped from this trove kept in what’s regarded as one, the site originally designated Villa Suburbana either residence of Lucious Calpurnius Piso Caesonius—the father-in-law of Julius Caesar or the purported author himself, Epicurean Philodemus of Gadara, of the most luxurious and with a well-apportioned library in the Roman world.