the winnowing oar

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we really enjoyed this thoughtful farewell send-off that the intrepid explorers at Atlas Obscura created for their out-going boss in a small shed on a plot of land not far from the crossroads of the historic highway Route 66 as a ritual repository inviting individuals, as their CEO did as the collection’s first contributor, to leave parts of their former selves behind to acknowledge and honour life’s transitions and pivot points.  We really liked this idea, especially after charting out so many curious places and compendia to have created a spot of their own. It reminds me of Tiresias’ instructions to Odysseus as an act of propitiation to take an oar from his ship and to walk inland until he reaches people who’ve never heard of the sea and mistake the implement he is bearing for a cradle to separate the wheat from the chaff (ἀθηρηλοιγός)—and there make sacrifice to Poseidon for making it home. Much more to discover with Atlas Obscura at the link up top. 

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barras de mono: vintage playgrounds of México

😷: Centres for Disease Control’s facial hair grooming recommendations for mask compatibility—see previously

open access: the Smithsonian Institution releases millions of images and model instructions into the public domain—via Kottke

mad props: a behind-the-scenes look at the exquisite visual artefacts Annie Atkins creates for cinematic productions—via Nag on the Lake

jodhpurs: these weirdly delightful inflating trousers on the catwalk

minitel: more on the ascent and decline of France’s early internet—see previously

cheesweet: an unlikely Swiss cheese candy that got a mention in a John Steinbeck anthology

gregg ruled

Via Everlasting Blört, we are directed to this wonderful and growing archive of near-contemporary, vintage and antique children’s school notebooks from around the world.
Reviewing the scholarship, penmanship, inner-thoughts (fights, field-trips, crushes, detentions, cataclysmic embarrassments that are all relatable) and doodles of pupils from all sorts of backgrounds is fascinating, and the sponsoring organization invites the public to contribute, donating their own or volunteering to translate and transcribe.

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solar max: amazing high-resolution imagery of the surface of the Sun

holyrood: the Edinburgh parliament will continue to fly the EU flag post-Brexit (plus votes for a second referendum for independence)

birth tourism: a woman planning to visit US territory of Saipan forced to prove that she was not pregnant

commonly known as the pipewort family: the stunning paepalanthus flowering plants

part of the troop: robotic gorilla infiltrates a family in the wild

bmc: a large cache of art and artefacts, largely never before seen, from Black Mountain College (adjacently)—staffed by among others Anni and Joseph Albers after they fled Nazi Germany—is being put on-line

agnus dei

Reminiscent of another recent case of restoring the artist's original vision after an intervening conservator had “fixed” it for them, Saint Bavo’s Cathedral of Ghent has just unveiled the newly returned to its original state altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, Het Lam Gods) created by Jan and Hubert van Eyck in the 1420s. This masterpiece, one of the most stolen in art history and considered the first major work executed with oil paint is a polyptych consisting of twelve panels and foldable wings—and in the centre lower register portrays a lamb sent to sent to slaughter—ecce agnus dei qui tollit peccata mundi, “Behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sins of the world.”
The revealed eyes and nose, however, after much research and consternation, are distinctly not ovine but rather uncannily human. The old look was a bit toned down but the van Eyck brothers’ vision wasn’t exactly terribly off-putting or haunted either. Perhaps public reaction is compounded by the reception of the rotoscope adaptation of Cats in theatres over the holidays that made people lose their minds.

missioners

In a rather revolting display of presumption and trouncing the principal of separation of church and state, the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion that’s receiving deserved condemnation, the Episcopal bishop suffragan of the US Armed Forces accepted a Bible donated from the Museum of the Bible (I think this opportunity for self-promotion and the prayvaganza for Trump were the big take-aways for this ceremony) to sanctify as the official one for the newly constituted Space Force at the altar of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.  Notwithstanding that the oath of office for any military branch is not sworn on any religious text, to privilege one narrative or worldview above another is completely antithetical to good order, discipline and cohesion. “Almighty God, who set the planets in their courses and the stars in space,” the chaplain beseeched, “look with favour, we pray you, upon the commander-in-chief, the forty-fifth president of this great nation, who looked to the heavens and dared to dream of a safer future for all mankind.”

les musées de la ville de paris

A consortium of Parisien museums have gifted the world a cache of over three-hundred thousand works to peruse and with over half of the collection already public domain, use however one sees fit. A running tally tracks the growing collection that includes van Dyck, Rembrandt, Cézanne, da Vinci and gives purchase for a constellation of lesser known artists to be discovered. The fourteen participating institutions count among themselves the Museum of Modern Art and the estates of Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac. Much, much more to explore at the portal here.

bunkermuseum

Travelling on a bit north of the Rennsteig (previously here, here and here) and taking advantage of the bright but frosty weather, H and I went to a part of the vast nature reserve known as the Frauenwald and took a tour of a compound that was once maintained by the East German Army (die NVA, Nationale Volksarmee) under the authority of the Ministry for States Security (MfS, die Stassi) as an emergency command-and-control bunker for continuation of governance in case of attack during the Cold War, established well behind enemy lines.

Constructed in parallel a nearby rest-and-recuperation resort constructed for soldiers on leave, the nearly thirty-six hundred square metre complex was mostly above ground but designed to be sealed off from the outside environment and stocked with provisions to keep its compliment alive for four weeks before restocking was needed.

The installation was decommissioned and mothballed after 1989 and run as a private venture since 2004. The narrow corridors and vaults was like being on a submarine—especially mindful of the point of this exercise and keeping it self-sufficient, uncontaminated as it were, prepared for all contingencies including chemical, biological and nuclear strikes—and the period dioramas recalled us to the museum once housed in the Colossus of Prora.

The past is a foreign country.  The former situation room was especially poignant with original furnishings and woodchip on the wall and not much different than the legacies centres still in operation (contrary to how they’re portrayed in the movies) and imparts a since of relief that somewhere so delicate and relatable was not ultimately conscripted to be part of mutually assured destruction and hope that such redundancy might inform the geopolitics we are heir to.

the constitutions of clarendon

Beginning just ahead of the eight hundred-fiftieth anniversary of his murder in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170, the British Museum is hosting a series of events and exhibitions on the life and legacy of Thomas Becket (previously).  Acting on what they interpreted as an express order from Henry II, four knights brutally killed the archbishop (see link immediately above) and this palace intrigue which went on to inspire sainthood and pilgrimage, solidified by his earlier exile for crossing the king—whose later inversion and disfavor helped curry the Protestantism and the fledgling Reformation in the bulwark of Henry VIII (see also). Read more about the special collections at the links above and at the museum’s own blog and watch this space for further updates.

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rebirth of a salesman: revisiting a 1969 documentary that revealed how evangelism and door-to-door sales converged

новогоднее дерево: the evolution of the Yolka New Year’s Tree—from its pagan roots to Soviet anti-religious symbolic staple (see also)

mamurluk: also home to the Museum of Break-Ups, a new gallery space dedicated to hangovers opens in Zagreb

now that’s a name i’ve not heard in a long time: a fan-made Obi-Wan Kenobi Star Wars story

intern’yet: reportedly, Russia successfully unplugs from the world wide web and replaced global portals with domestic ones

bergkristall: Adalbert Stifter’s timeless, beloved 1845 novella

open conference bridge: a team of volunteers are retrofitting and reviving a network of payless, pay phone booths to bring community cohesion

palm house and parterre or bulletin of miscellaneous information

Underpinning nearly all life on Earth and comprising a majority of the planet’s biomass, the kingdoms of plants and fungi are constantly yielding up new discoveries that we must cherish and preserve as best we can, for their own sake and to mediate on the strange and novel adaptations and chemical magic that Nature has developed, some habitats lost before we could fully appreciate or even identify what sorts of treasures we’ve destroyed. Curators at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew have selected ten superlative finds out of the some one hundred and nine newly, officially recognised species all across the globe to highlight this wonderful and surprising realm, including a berry that has the effect on the human palette of turning sour tastes to sweet (Synsepalum Chimanimani) and a tenacious shrub confined to a single waterfall that produces its own adhesive to stick to rocks and prevent it from being swept away.

sunday best

To celebrate a centenary of public ownership, the BBC reports, the English Heritage Trust—the charitable organization that manages over four hundred historic properties, included in its portfolio manor houses, Roman fortifications, Tintagel Castle and oversight in the Blue Plaques programme of London, solicited from visitors family snapshots of Stonehenge.  Included in the contributions that numbered over a thousand was this circa 1932 outing amongst the stones and one image capturing a family picnic from the summer of 1875. The gallery showcases not only changing fashion and access to the monoliths but also how people’s relationship to the camera has evolved—how they mug and pose and what constitutes keeping—all against a backdrop that’s remained ageless.

peanuts gallery

Having had this top detail of a comic strip panel inhabiting my image archives for some time now and not really understanding where it was from, I appreciated having it put into context with this nice, grateful recollection of the eminent author and visit to a past exhibition that brought some insight to the interior (both mental and stylistic) of Charles M Schulz’ characters (see also) that particularly underscore questions of generational divides and how perspective is born of attention as much as intention.
One might not have paid much notice to backgrounds of comics (and cartoons) that contemporary eyes might label as sparse and minimalist but they were really couched in a MidCentury Modern sentiment that informed the entire aesthetic. Note the furnishings by Ray and Charles Eames and other iconic designers in the  panel (March 1953) to your right alone, which was faithfully recreated with actual artefacts of the age, and more will creep into focus next time you peruse the funny pages.

keydesk and console

A little sad to have read earlier in the week that the future of another local speciality museum might be in jeopardy, I decided it was time to finally make the time to visit a nearby institution whose fate might also be in question should it not attract enough patronage, and I was glad that I did.

Housed in the fifteenth century Gothic Schloß Hanstein—the manor originally called Kemenate that remains as testament to the past prosperity and importance of Ostheim vor der Rhön, the Orgelbaumuseum presents over nine hundred years of pipe organ history from the court of Charlemagne onward, honouring the nearly four-hundred-year tradition of pipe organ expertise, innovation and manufacture specific to this area.

 There are two factories in town associated with the museum that outfit and offer maintenance services for churches and other venues and it’s a matter of pride to expect that whenever there’s any news having to do with the instrument, installation or repair work, the institution is involved and gets a mention.

There are reproductions of workshops from different eras that illustrate the technical development and mechanics of performance and fidelity, which really makes one appreciate the scope and skill of craftsmanship, and quite a few antique units on display—including a few models that one can play and learn about how the sound is produced and modified. The miniaturisation and mobility that delivered the box organ for use in private homes is also pretty astounding. Try if you can to get out and patronise your local institutions to let them know that they are appreciated.

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four-score: an exploration how the language of counting might influence numeracy

sundowning: museum visits as therapeutic interventions seem to ease symptoms of dementia

look, a fruit-loop: the actual libretto—you’ve been singing Dies Iræ all wrong (see also)

satellite nyetwork: a retired gentleman elaborately decorates receiver dishes informed by traditional Russian folk art, via Nag on the Lake

dataviz: Information is Beautiful curates the year’s superlative infographics, via Kottke’s Quick Links

zero-to-sixty: a century of evolving European motorways as part of the Victoria & Albert’s series on Accelerating the Modern World, via Things Magazine 

card catalogue

Via another peripatetic friend, Things Magazine, we are introduced to the cautionary stacks of Awful Library Books and reminded of the importance of culling for the sake of circulation and that “hoarding is not collection development.”
Among recent submissions that have thus far eluded the curatorial eyes of professional bibliothecopgraphers we really enjoyed discovering that God loves Mimes through Susie Kelly Toomey’s 1986 instruction book on silent but potentially equally obnoxious evangelism, The Psychotherapy Maze (1991): A Consumers’ Guide to Getting In and Out of Therapy, the volumes on crafting for niche audiences, obsolete technology, fad diets and beauty treatments are to be uncovered in the site’s extensive archives maintained by a consortium of librarians.  A lot of the jackets and covers could be from today’s self-published marketplace. I think I’ll be returning for more exploration and to check for regular updates real soon.

goulden eeuw

In attempts to be more inclusive, “polyphonic” about its storied past, Amsterdam’s museum system is dropping the non-contemporary term Golden Age from its exhibits going forward, instead using the label of seventeenth century.
While some are cautioning against judging the past by modern standards or historic revisionism, Rijksmusum director Taco Dibbits (previously) believes it is neither but rather tempering the celebration of the era when the Netherlands was at the forefront of trade, art and the sciences with the acknowledgement that not everyone was the beneficiaries and others paid the heavy toll of accomplishment—wars, exploitation and trafficking.

the ghost of a flea

Sadly unrecognised during his lifetime, poet, painter and free love advocate, William Blake (*1757 - †1827, see also here and here) produced a large and diverse body of work under the ethos that to exercise the human imagination and push its limits was itself next to godliness. Misunderstood and dismissed as mad, Blake’s single showing while still on this plane was disastrous, one critic calling him an ‘unfortunate lunatic whose personal inoffensiveness secures him from confinement.’
The retrospective exhibition currently at London‘s Tate Gallery (see also from friend of the blog, Nag on the Lake) is certainly a belated vilification and underscores the resonance of his vision.  Perhaps most well known for his illustration of The Book of Job and Dante’s Divine Comedy, like the pictured vignette of Capaneus the Blasphemer, a besieger of Thebes whom Zeus struck down with a lightning bolt for his arrogance, and is confined to the Seventh Circle of Hell with the other souls whom have committed violence against God, though the form of his extinction make him impervious to the torture of the flames and as a pagan he addresses the deity as Jove and still curses him. The titular episode refers to a miniature panel inspired by a vision that came to his friend and collaborator John Varley during a séance and evokes comparison to Henry Fuseli’s 1781 The Nightmare.

on the other hand

Permanently exhibited perched atop a Christchurch gallery, Ronnie van Hout’s colossal sculpture Quasi will now dominate the skyline of Wellington, New Zealand for the next three years from the rooftop of the capital’s civic centre, an Art Deco building that was formerly a library.
A reference to Quasimodo the Bellringer, the disembodied hand (see also) has a face that is a toned-down self-portrait, the installation for some has a menacing, vaguely Lovecraftian, body-horror quality to it and it remains unclear whether it becomes re-animated after night falls, and for others the sculpture is endearing (like the loathsome hero that’s its namesake) and a source of civic pride.

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back to school: an assortment of usual college campus landmarks not to miss

exosuit: engineering shorts to amplify power for walking and running

meanwhile, back at the agora: an animated short about Hyptia, the last known chief librarian of Alexandria’s repository of human scholarship, murdered by a mob of suspicious Christian monks

architektura sakralna: Poland experienced a post-war church building boom

jordfästning: from the delightfully macabre Art of Darkness, Swedish funeral candies

mecspiquer: reflecting on a quarter of a century since the passage of the legislation to protect the French language