public law 94–67 (12. 635)

The culmination of the five year effort which saw the passage of US Joint Resolution 23, begun on the centenary of the 1870 death Confederate general and increased interest in the figure as evinced by growing tourism to Georgia’s Stone Mountain memorial site and other commemorations, on this day in 1975 Gerald Ford (previously) signed into law a declaration championed by senator Harry Byrd of Virginia to posthumously restore citizenship to Robert E Lee. In 1865, after the civil war concluded Lee was paroled and took an oath of allegiance to the United States, petitioning for the revocation of citizenship to be nullified. Portrayed by proponents of the bill as clerical oversight on the part of secretary of state William Seward for not processing the pardon application, thus leaving him a stateless individual, while detractors thought such a symbolic gesture strengthened the mythology and romance of the Confederate cause and was a legitimising acknowledgement of Lee’s status as an icon and cultural hero—something which Lee himself rejected as counterproductive to healing the rift of fighting the war. After the civil war, Washington, DC appropriated Lee’s mansion and grounds in Arlington, Virginia and designated it the National Cemetery, in part so Lee and his family would never be able to return home.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Trump assures Christian supporters that if they vote for him this once, they’ll never have to worry about voting again (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links worth revisiting 

twelve years ago: the Moses Bridge Stairs 

thirteen years ago: smoking is derpy 

fourteen years ago: the debt-ceiling and creative accounting 

pending adjournment (12. 633)

Though both Republicans and Democrats regularly engage in gerrymandering, depending on the party in power when it comes time for redrawing the boundaries of voting precincts (normally conducted during a pre-set period follow a national decennial census—which some states attempting to remove partisanship from the process of re-districting altogether by soliciting a neural third party to set apportionment), rarely has such a push been made off-cycle and so transparently to disenfranchise Democrat-leaning districts than what is now happening in Texas with Democratic state legislators having fled to Chicago in order that the bicameral congress does not meet quorum and cannot proceed with voting to affirm the changes to the electoral map. Through the state’s governor, Trump has explicitly ordered redistricting in order to eliminate solidly Democratic areas and redistribute a sixty-forty percentile spread over all voting precincts so as markedly reduce the chances of Democrats of the Congress retaining their seats in the mid-terms and not dilute historically GOP-leaning areas—based on a calculus of by what percentage Trump carried the districts. This extreme measure by Texas Democrats is only a temporary delay tactic as they cannot wait out the entire special session called for deciding this issue and face daily fines for the absence. Had they remained within the state and not this self-imposed exile, state troopers could summon them to the capitol and compel their participation. With only the narrowest of majorities in both the House and the Senate, state legislators of other jurisdictions may try this manoeuvres after seeing how Texas combats truancy and forces the matter. Meanwhile, the Democratic caucus is entertaining countermeasures in kind, acknowledging that changing the rules and demographic landscape ahead of the election in eighteen months is not how democracy works, but also realising that further sidelining the minority party by minoritarian strategies is more unacceptable and they can’t roll over again and again.

pizzaioli (12. 632)

 We enjoyed this travelogue on the quality control team that vet restauranteurs and ensure that their menu is in keeping with the standards of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, founded in 1984 to protect the status of the art of pizza-making in the Neapolitan tradition accord with its UNESCO inscription among the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. This month long certification process involves rigorous training to exacting standards and the agents also conduct covert follow up missions to authenticated pizzerias to ensure quality is maintained. Much more about the Naples-based association and pizza foodways from BBC at the link up top.

best picture ever (12. 631)

Witnessed on this day in 1990 by two unidentified hikers in the moors above Calvine in Perthshire, the pair later told their account of their encounter with a diamond-shaped craft hovering silently with Glasgow tabloid Daily Record, handing over their prints and negatives to the newspaper. The story was never published and the tabloid handed over the photographic evidence to the Ministry of Defence. Despite or perhaps because of the paucity of substantiating documentation or corroboration, rumours and speculation persisted over the years, teased by a partial acknowledgment on the part of the MOD, claiming to have lost the pictures that piqued researchers’ curiosity even more. One of the six lost photographs was discovered in archives in 2022 and published by the Daily Mail, close to the anniversary of the reported sighting. With an veneer of authenticity suggested by the ministry as undoctored and witnessed two days after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Calvine UFO has undergone various interpretations as proof of the semi-legendary Aurora reconnaissance jet, a secret black project supposedly launched by the US Air Force with stealth technology, and the subject, exhibit of a more recent American congressional effort to expose government knowledge about UAPs. 

  synchronoptica

one year ago: Trump belittles Harris (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links to enjoy

thirteen years ago: more Irish sheep counting plus more flea market finds

fourteen years ago: a return trip to Dresden 

fifteen years ago: a bus that towers over city traffic 

the stone door (12. 630)

We appreciated the extra insight into the influence and craft of Leonora Carrington through a review of her 1977 surreal novel about World War II narrated with the voices of the displaced and disappeared trying to return to a home and past that no longer exists through characters who vanish from the page as it unfolds—all stories are true; begin. A virtual witches bottle of dreams, the occult and a metaphysical, parasocial relationship between episodic interlocutors, one nameless and unclear who is trapped—much like Carrington’s art—behind the titular barrier, and an attempt to reconcile the rituals that limn the protagonists’ progress that correspond with the occult beliefs of the Nazis and not necessarily the spells of liberation that they sought after with magic just as likely to be found in transformative bureaucracy that made exiles, reducing individuals to stateless persons and statistics. Much more from LitHub at the link above.

no—they got the metric system over there—they call it royale with breeze (12. 629)

Via Kottke and though sadly the crisps that appear in the spot are not an actual product, we applaud alternative energy giant Vattenfall for teaming up with Samuel L Jackson to offer this taste of fossil freedom. This minute-long refutation of Big Oil and its campaign of misinformation and world-destroying legacy not only is a masterpiece for Europe wanting to reduce its dependence on Russia fuel following its invasion of Ukraine, it is also a strong rebuke of Trump’s asymmetrical tariff deal for the EU, demanding the purchase of American energy (previously), which is best undone with renewables, like wind-farming, to shut down a bullying tyrant of a failing petrostate. I’m sorry—did I break your concentration?

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: a return to the Frankonian Wine Islands (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: zebra stripes as dazzle camouflage plus mobile phones as point-of-sale devices

fourteen years ago: austerity in the US 

fifteen years ago: a rainy summer plus take-down notices for Wikipedia, possibly confusing it with Wikileaks

sixteen years ago: rejecting expertise plus political caricatures

medicare bears (12. 628)

The latest syndicated comic from Rubin Bolin for the CBS Saturday morning line up gets on notes and perfectly encapsulates the network’s obsequiousness to the regime in order to secure a merger between the Paramount and Sundance catalogue, welcoming in a demerit system for content that does not reflect its values and a hall-monitor for reporting in order to vouchsafe its capitulation in terms of journalistic integrity, targeted by the Trump administration’s federal communications commission (FCC) following allegations of editing an interview with candidate Kamala Harris as news distortion and paid a nominal settlement, even though the segment in question was not a debate and subject to standard practices of cleaning up prior to air. In addition to monetary concession, the network agreed to install an ombudsman to monitor CBS news for bias. Prior to the deal, the media clearinghouses had joint stakes in franchises like Star Trek and Mission: Impossible and Transformers, but Paramount wanted assets like Nickelodeon and SpongeBob to include derivative spin-offs. Critics have decried this blatant act of bribery for an acquiescent parent company (it seems a bit preferable when American TV was controlled by defence contractors and were capable of push-back.

8x8 (12. 627)

the people of 1925: a survey of a century ago through the lives of people we never knew—via Strange Company  

the zendian problems: a detailed cartographic study of an imaginary republic used to train cryptanalysts for a simulated invasion 

американка: recollections of a summer exchange programme of a Russian literature major—via Web Curios  

universal soundtrack: Ze Frank (previously) on crickets, katydids and grasshoppers 

sonderauftrag bayeaux: a fragment of the famed tapestry taken by the Nazi Ahnenerbe Society will be reunited when it goes on display in England  

megastrike: the longest measured lightening bolt stretched near nine-hundred kilometres across Texas and Kansas  

revelations of a wife: the longest novel you’ve never heard of, serialised over four decades with a readership of millions 

indecent exposure: photographs of individuals being cited on Rockaway beach in New York City in 1946

tavoletta (12. 626)

Courtesy of Strange Company, we are directed to the curious lay brotherhood charged with allievating the spirits of those facing imminent execution with painted panels held by a stick. From the Latin for small tablet (and carries in modern Italian among other meanings a bar of chocolate or toilet seat) the wooden panel decorated with scenes of the Crucifixion meant to assuage the dying and imbue the condemned with the final mortal thoughts of Jesus and resurrection and distract his mind from the gathered crowd of jeering gawkers and tearful loved ones. With prisoners often denied the sacrament of last rites, these chapters of comforters served an important role as counsellors—each company had a manual with a specific protocol for addressing stages of grief and protestations of innocence and mistrial (of which there were certainly numerous with heresy and sacrilege the most common capital crimes), they admonished, regardless of guilt, it was more important to get into Heaven and preserve the order of society—maintaining a justice system where all might be redeemed in the hereafter but were deemed worthy of death in this life.  More from JSTOR Daily at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: eye-chat with a stranger (with synchronopticæ),  a pommel horse champion plus an anagram generator

text-to-toy (12. 625)

Via Web Curios, we are directed to a rather thoroughgoing and detailed dissertation to temper shortcomings and disappointment over artificial intelligence, plus our collective, oblique anxiety over what’s going on under the hood, by acknowledging that the large language models that we collaborate with are ludic (from the Latin for ludus or ludi, games—in the creative and playful sense) technology. The central crux of the thesis by Venkatesh Rao is that we find fault in the onerous tasks we seek to automate by dent of outsourcing what we don’t find fun, unwilling to engage with those missteps and the same impatience manifests when it comes to our expectations, misplaced as the off-registered AI outputs when put to more serious work, in not recognising its toy-like nature. We’ve identified for the machine a continuum of identity and equivalence for a car, from a sketch, to logo, to image, to video footage, to a model, to an actual car all as the same concept but only the last is not the form of a car with all the inherent physical constraints and requirements, which the AI does not know—being wrong about reality and representation in the same way images and models are, in correspondence with the way we can be duped by deep fakes or confidently wrong answers. Threats to playfulness and toy-making, model-hobbying are instinctive in this context and compensated for through deprogramming, overcoming the perceived infringement on vaunted humanity and genuineness when we are as poised for play and abstraction—which entails taking command of a situation with imagination, marshalling our toy soldiers—and balanced expectations of what we are working with.

anthropoclastic rock cycle (12. 624)

A couplet of recent postings about synthetic geology caught our eye—first about the accelerated process of material formation reduced to decades instead of the usual millions of years in the cases of slag heap debris fusing into sediment along the English coast and colourful industrial waste prepared with concrete to solidify and stabilise it—allowing for easier disposal without the normal caretaking required for liquid toxic waste and instead leech it out over aeons. We wonder what future archeologists will make of this anthro-littoral strata.

the helsinki accords (12. 623)

Though not binding with status as a treaty to be ratified by national parliament, the attempted détente between the West and East was signed on this day in the Finnish capital by leaders of thirty-five countries, including Helmut Schmidt, Erich Honecker, Josef Tito, Leonid Brezhnev, Gerald Ford, Pierre Trudeau and all heads of state of Europe with the exception of Andorra and Albania under Hoxha lead to significant reforms and recognised the spheres of influence of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, sovereignty and self-determination and fostered universal respect for human rights. The declaration was divided into four baskets covering diplomacy; economic and scientific cooperation; promoting familiar integrity, freedom of marriage and travel, an unhindered press and cultural exchange; and the formation of a multinational committee to monitor implementation. Concessions for civil rights and open dialogue, however, came at a high cost, with the recognition of the Soviet Union’s annexation of the Baltic states and a continuation of the policy of broadcast jamming and censorship of Western media. Both Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter and challenger for the Republican party nomination Ronald Reagan accused Ford of legitimising the USSR’s domination of Eastern Europe and weakening the standing of the US as a foreign policy power during the 1976 presidential campaign. Although eventually seen as the catalyst for later peaceful revolutions, much of the diaspora and signatories were displeased with the outcome of their months of work.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Ford is prepped for his new role (with synchronopticæ),  the samplers of Lorina Buwler plus cartographic innovations

11 x 11 (12. 622)

ped x’ing: an urban hawk takes advantage of a crosswalk signal to shield it from view as it stalks its pigeon bounty—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest  

whispering gallery mode: peacock plumage can be induced to emit lasers—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

pix: US government going after Brazil’s native digital payment platform—calling it an unfair barrier to trade—meanwhile only President Lula da Silva is standing up to Trump’s tariff bullying  

showrunner: Amazon investing in AI start-up Fable that allows subscribers to make their own TV shows  

pro-somnolence: the technique of cognitive shuffling to quiet the mind and get back to sleep 

manifesto antropófago: a 1928 counter-colonialism and counter-appropriation movement venturing out of São Paulo 

the candy factory: the unique artists’ commune in New York City founded by Ann Ballentine—via Messy Nessy Chic  

query-agnostic adversarial triggers: feline-related textual asides cause marked increase in AI error rates  

one year ago, america was a dead country, now it is the hottest country anywhere in the world: Trump escalates trade war with Canada as Carney suggests they may miss the deadline  

living batteries: cable bacteria thriving in muddy harness chemical gradients to create and electrical circuit and get oxygen in an anoxic environment  

starling network: Benn Jordan saved a .PNG image to a bird by turning a drawing into audio which could be mimicked and reproduced, see also—via Waxy

endangerment finding (12. 621)

Not only has the world’s biggest polluter under the Trump administration sought to abrogate its responsibilities for damage to the planet that does not respect borders through rolling back of regulations and cancelling vital science programmes that monitor and measure greenhouse, it has undone the underpinnings of the accepted science that conducted during the Obama era that is the foundation of a host laws and environmental regulations. The EPA investigation determined, pursuant to several court cases, that six key greenhouse gases (see previously) threaten both the health and welfare of current and future generations and is the basis for the US Clear Air Act. Industries at the time raised strong objections but most businesses have since made peace with the posture for their image and the public good (see also) and have built in mitigating factors into manufacturing and distribution to lessen their impact. After failing during Trump’s first term, the current EPA administrator rescinded the landmark finding at a truck stop in Indiana to much fanfare, an ideological win for staunch denialists which make up much of the MAGA base that stands in stark contrast to decades of evidence and near global consensus. For its part, the agency charged with protecting the environment and averting the climate catastrophe has resigned its commission, offering that because climate change is not localised, it lacks jurisdiction for enforcement, maintaining that the finding failed to balance adverse impacts on manufacturers and distributors (see negative externalities above), or alternately giving up, saying that no policy could make a dent in the problem anyway. Not yet finalised, the decision is already facing legal challenges.

agrovoltaics (12. 620)

Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest—with back links to previous research on the topic, we return to the subject of growing crops underneath solar panels, addressing some of reasonable objections to industrial scale solar-farms (see previously) taking up arable land. Colocation provides numerous mutual benefits that are only beginning to be factored in—not least of which is public support for solar when it’s dual-use but also the symbiosis between plants and their artificial photovoltaic counterparts, many plants growing better with the added shade and the panels trap water vapour, yielding quite impressive leafy greens and the photovoltaic array also get the advantage from the undergrowth by regulating ambient heat and helping to maintain an optimal operating temperature by their off-gassing. Much more at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: mandatory voting in Australia (with synchronopticæ), psychometric scales plus prosperity and apocalypse

twelve years ago: daily affirmations plus more fairy tale Germany 

fourteen years ago: goblin holes plus toponymic etymology

fifteen years ago: for profit privacy 

lolita express (12. 619)

Half-way into Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, narrator Humbert Humbert, recounting his obsession, victimisation and eventual kidnapping of a twelve-year old girl after becoming her step-father, pens a poetical classified:

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand and three hundred days
Profession: None, or Starlet.

Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze,
I cannot get out, said the starling).

Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?
What make is the magic carpet?
Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?
And where are you parked, my car pet?

Who is your hero, Dolores Haze?
Still one of those blue-caped star-men?
Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays,
And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen!

Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts!
Are you still dancin’, darlin’?
(Both in worn Levis, both in torn T-shirts,
And I, in my corner, snarlin’).

Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Ploughing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.

My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?

L'autre soir un air froid d’opéra m’alita;
Son félé—bien fol est qui sy fie!
Il neige, le décor s’écroule, Lolita!
Lolita, qu’ai-je fait de ta vie?

Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying.

Officer, officer, there they go—
In the rain, where that lighted store is!
And her socks are white, and I love her so,
And her name is Haze, Dolores.

Officer, officer, there they are—
Dolores Haze and her lover!
Whip out your gun and follow that car.
Now tumble out, and take cover.

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
Ninety pounds is all she weighs
With a height of sixty inches.

My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.

The fragrance mentioned in the seventh stanza Soleil vert (Green Sun, Humbert was previously an ad copy writer for the industry) is a fictional perfume but is also the French title of the 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! and the cinematic adaptation of Soylent Green set in the year 2022 (close), in possibly another authoritarian manoeuvre to normalisation and acceptance—after all Romeo and Juliet were underage. I suspect that Nabokov did not suspect that his work would, unironically, become such an American cultural touchstone, ignoring the observations on culture and becoming the same monster of incuriosity as the protagonist, sanitised and made family-friendly like what may be yet to come.

8x8 (12. 618)

eight limes, no more: a list is a map, a compass, a prayer—via MetaFilter  

ключевская сопка: volcanic eruption in Russia’s far east sets off earthquake and tsunami warnings  

windrunner: turbine manufacturer—in defiance of Trump’s claim that windmills are killing us—building world’s largest aircraft (see also) to transport huge blades to remote wind-farms  

foredone: useless etymology and some very cromulent words

twin primes: pairs that only are separated by an even number in between grow rarer as one looks at greater ranges of values but no one knows if they run out altogether  

evrópusambandið: Iceland considering resuming accession talks with the supranational body  

this guy is taking people from the spa: Trump reveals to press-pool that falling out with Epstein was over him stealing staff  

an oral history of atlantis: a conversation about metafiction with author Ed Park

made man (12. 617)

On this day, at some time after 15:00 local time, James “Jimmy” Riddle Hoffa, American labour activist and president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in Bloomfield Township, Michigan—a suburb of Detroit. Involved with organised crime and the Mafia since his early years working with the union, making accommodations and compromises with gangsters that often controlled trucking and warehouse guilds through the 1930s in order to leverage strength in numbers and consolidate disparate associations for collective bargaining, though the influence of the Mafia increased as membership grew.

Various allegations of bribery, fraud and corruption cast a pall over his tenure from 1957 through his 1963 indictment for jury tampering, prosecuted by Attorney General Robert F Kennedy. Despite harsh sentencing, Hoffa was reelected to a third term as the Teamsters’ president, resigning from office in 1971 while still in prison as a condition of a presidential pardon, Nixon commuting his sentence of thirteen years to time served, less than five, pledging not to engage with any labour organisation for a period of nine years. The unions endorsed Nixon’s 1972 reelection bid, breaking with tradition of supporting the Democratic candidate. By the following year, Hoffa sought to return to union leadership and unsuccessfully sued the administration to invalidate those restrictions, and undeterred planned to regain his role—despite his parole and vocal opposition from dons and caporegimes of prominent criminal syndicates. Hoffa had arranged a meeting on the afternoon of 30 July at the Machus Red Fox restaurant, venue of his son’s wedding reception, in order to make peace with two of those Mafia families. Hoffa was stood up however when none showed at the appointed time, documented by a call home from a payphone, and friends found his unlocked car in the restaurant’s parking lot early the next morning. Extensive searches, surveillance and depositions yielded no leads, and Hoffa was declared legally deceased by a judge on the anniversary of his disappearance in 1982 with no individuals charged. Not infrequent excavations in the Detroit area and perennial indulges from The Irishman to Bruce Almighty sustain the mystery and haunt America’s attitudes toward the labour movement and unions to this day.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus Monty Hall enlightenment 

twelve years ago: sci-fi author Hugo Gernsbach

fourteen years ago: a trip to Aquitaine and Medoc 

fifteen years ago: metamorphoses plus Big Tech’s partnership with spy agencies

mama appelsap (12. 616)

Delving the depths of Wikipedia, we learn that in Dutch, with a much more contemporary and relatable mishearing than the seventeenth century Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray (see previously), the concept of mondegreen is customarily referred to as the above, “Mommy apple juice,” from the 1982 Michael Jackson song Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ with the lyrics “Mama-se mama-sa ma-ma-coo-sa”—popularised by a long-running radio call-in segment where listeners were encouraged to contribute their own misheard music under that name. More formally referred to auditieve pareidolia, the Jackson song’s coda is sampled from Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango’s 1972 disco hit hit “Soul Makossa,” whom later sued for a monetary settlement for copyright infringement. Although I am disinclined to believe the prevalence of the name—it sounds like something I would make up in my head, the Wikipedia goes on to inform that in Germany mondegreens are informally called Agathe Bauers—misinterpreting the refrain from the song from Snap!

handelsbilanz (12. 615)

Aside from getting an ostensibly raw and lopsided tariff deal out of Trump—though far from finalised and terms and conditions could always change—using trade as foreign policy tool, a particularly blunt and inappropriate instrument as Trump as done in order to bypass more traditional channels, the EU’s capitulation has proved to be not only a disappointment among academics and the press but also leaders and is representing a split in solidarity in the already fractious bloc, with many regarding the submission as a concession to German industry at the expense of the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors. The onerous commitment riding on the deal to purchase over a trillion dollars in US energy and weapons is an assurance that Brussels can not compel members to do—so there’s that Ausfahrt, and moreover very little of these burgeoning conflicts address the consumers’ role in the opening of markets, who do indeed collectively punch their own weight—with the notable exception of Canada, also under threat of annexation. Flooded with cheaper, lower quality American goods, shoppers can still choose to boycott them and retailers will no longer stock them. Individuals can also forgo an albeit more entrenched and harder to avoid US dominance on financial and internet services—which for the American rentier economy—would send an even bigger message though a bit of inconvenience and creative work-arounds, refraining from using credit cards and payment clearing houses and American internet companies.

synchronoptica

one year ago: JD Vance’s sofa memoirs (with synchronopticæ), nobody reads ads, twirling towards freedom, a phoney controversy over the Olympics opening ceremony plus Friday Night Videos (1983)

twelve years ago: derivative blockbusters, stormy weather plus a visit to Gelnhausen

fifteen years ago: smoking ban in Bavaria plus word clouds as CVs

8x8 (12. 614)

ieepa: class action lawsuit from small businesses affected by Trump’s tariffs could prove to be a significant challenge to his economic model 

lambretta boogaloo: a new single from Big Boss Man Los Res and the Bongo Fuzz label   

geodesy: astronomers triangulate Earth’s location in the Universe using black holes but WiFi is interrupting the signal  

at most ten-percent syncopation: Nazi era rules for jazz musicians—via Nag on the Lake  

aldeh: Greater Manchester chain keeping temporary name in honour of Oasis reunion tour after attaining status as cultural landmark  

sing what happens: a sedately risqué Japanese karaoke televised game show—via Memo of the Air 

tas: Strange New Worlds to have a fully Muppetised episode courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop—still, cancel Paramount 

church and state: US to allow federal workers to evangelise in the work place

tilting at windmills (12. 613)

Although failing to secure a ten percent flat tariff on European as the UK had reached—despite Brussels’ belief it could achieve the same nuisance levy—and following the capitulation of NATO members to increase defence-spending to five percent of their domestic output with commitments to purchase US armaments as well as American fossil fuels, the EU’s very asymmetrical appeasement of Trump is seemingly not to win a trade war, the terms keep shifting and preciously little surety has been accomplished with questions remaining on pharmaceuticals, steel and the tech and financial services hegemony. This undignified negotiation seems only to privilege German manufacturing above, though markets are open to cheaper US imports, accepted without pushback avoids more escalation—one should stay up to bullies however, particularly when there’s no substance nor compulsion behind his policies and posture, but maybe to suffer humiliation in order to preserve the global order is a small price to pay—economically the announcement affects little in the end other than temporarily enriching the petrostate and weapons manufacturers with the commitments—and Trump has already significantly advanced his deadline for new Russian sanctions and is showing daylight between himself and Netanyahu. Such men, small and common, cannot be trusted or invested with such sweeping powers, however.  They’re killing the beauty of our scenery—our plains, and I’m not talking about airplanes—they won’t let you bury the propellers.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a history of Elvis-officiated weddings (with synchronopticæ)

fifteen years ago: contentious Olympic venues and the keyholders of the internet 

poisoning pigeons in the park (12. 612)

Language Log directs our attention to the obituary and encomium of the recently departed satirist noted for his nimble lyrics and insufferably cheerful accompaniment with a decidedly dark streak, Tom Lehrer (1928 - 2025)—dropping the act in the 1960s but going on to teach mathematics and musical theatre and was a regularly contributor of political lampoons for That Was the Week that Was and an inspiration for Randy Newman, Dr Demento and “Weird Al.” Relinquishing all copy- and performance-rights of his songs in 2022, Lehrer’s music is in the public domain and probably best known for his “Elements”—itself often repurposed for any given subject, set to the tune of Pirates of Penzance and the particularly maudlin “We Will All Go Together When We Go” about universal bereavement—an inspired achievement should someone drop the bomb. In keeping with the Log’s mission, here’s an orthographic track produced for The Electric Company. Much more at the links above.

red harvest (12. 611)

Robin Bates at the irreplaceable Better Living through Beowulf invites us to try to understand the mentality and modus operandi of Trump and his enablers through the lens of Dashiell Hammett’s protagonists, anti-heroes, particularly in their cultist fantasy of dismantling a system deemed as corrupt and biased against them, despite being the most privileged and unaccountable class and beneficiaries of said system that they would like to see burnt down. A card-carrying Communist that was blacklisted and served time in prison for failing to name names, Hammett’s support was not unconditional and was a vocal critic of Marxism in practise, the author’s hard-boiled detective characters that defined the Noir genre are a type—their foils too—but not the calculating kind, and whilst this flawed authenticity may be appealing, it’s cautionary at best and certainly not a model for analytical thinking. Trump and the people he surrounds himself with are disruptors of the worse kind, destroying what underpins what they don’t understand, unleashing consequences ignored as too difficult to deal with and style themselves as martyrs for an inherence of their own unmaking, like with Ukraine, Gaza, the economy, trade and tariffs, the shrinking of the administrative state—and unlike gumshoe Sam Spade or the crime boss can be checked with commission (mandate), guardrails, shame or blackmail.

synchoronoptica

one year ago: American theocracy (with synchronopticæ) plus a lunar archbishopric 

twelve years ago: a spherical typewriter, more diabolical architecture, whistle-blowers and press-freedoms plus mysteries and Macguffins

fifteen years ago: digital rights management 

celosia cristata (12. 610)

H got a nice bouquet of chiefly sunflowers and mixed greenery with garnishes of ficus leaves—and on closer inspection, flourishes of a this velvety bunched red bloom that resembles the gyri (folds) of a brain—like in a sponge or coral.  Commonly known in English as the cockscomb for its similarity with a rooster’s crest and waddle, the species (also called Brandschopf in German, from κήλεος, burning for the flame-like flowers), the hearty yet endangered plant native to the tropics was saved through cultivation for ritual purposes, tended near temples and slowly increased its range thriving through the world, and as not only ornament serves as a nice compliment to the sunflowers as edible, grown as food for the leaves and inflorescences particularly in India, South America and western Africa.

par for the course (12. 609)

Amid vocal protests that refuse to let the issue of the Epstein files go away quietly, Trump and entourage has returned to his Scottish golf course and resort (see previously) to discuss tariff and trade deal as well as immigration policy and rehash his NIMBYistic complaints about wind turbines with the UK and the EU. Meanwhile, as Trump attempts to deflect reporters’ questions regarding the above scandal, a US Justice Department official, former Trump defence attorney in a blatant case of witness tampering and quid pro quo for a pardon, has been sent to interview convicted sexual predator and longtime pimp for Epstein and associates, Ghislaine Maxwell, presenting a list of a hundred named individuals for review in an apparent exchange for clemency on her prison sentence from a fellow felon. One could safely assume that the list mirrors closely anyone on the syndicate’s hit list, including Obama, the Clintons (Bill and Hillary recently subpoenaed to testify regarding the client list which supposedly does not exist), the Bidens, LTC Vindman, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Reality Winner, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Rosie O’Donnell, ex-best buds Musk and Putin, the aforementioned windmills, sharks, Greta Thunberg and anyone else who dared cross him, hoping such a catalogue will satisfy dissenters within the MAGA movement. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Paris Games opening ceremonies (with synchronoptiæ)

twelve years ago: speech cannibalisation plus charting literature

fifteen years ago: shock and awe and the quagmire of forever wars 

sidecar, side-quest (12. 608)

Via Web Curios, we are directed toward the rather epic, years’ long adventure of one Adam Aaronson—the would be the first—to sample every cocktail on the registry of the International Bartenders’ Association (IBA). Notably not binge-worthy and assayed with refinement and purpose, research and travel, Aaronson drank all one hundred two concoctions inscribed since the list was established in 1961 to bring a standard and uniformity to the profession of mixology which includes three broad categories: the Unforgettables, like the martini, Manhattan, Americano and Between the Sheets; Contemporary Classics, like the Black Russian, Sex on the Beach the Bloody Mary; and New Era Drinks, like Naked and Famous, Southside and Three Dots and a Dash. Past versions of the list, drinks de-accessioned for going out of favour and not standing the test of time also offer an insight into changing tastes—with historic, former cocktails removed like the Screwdriver and a personal favourite, the Harvey Wallbanger. Aaronson shares anecdotes for many drinks and the bars where he tried them, reformulating the data in compelling ways and as a point of departure, he begun mixing his own.

gao and gulag (12. 607)

Trump is trying to cement case for ousting the chairman of the US federal reserve and install a more plaint comptroller who will lower interest rates according to the president’s will and make the trillions added to America’s debt slightly cheaper to borrow, advised that he can only dismiss the head of the independent central bank—whom Trump appointed during his first term—for cause, Trump is attempting to to cast budget overruns on the renovation of the reserve’s headquarters on Jerome Powell personally as an instance of fraud, waste and abuse. Sanguinely, Powell replied, in the this publicity stunt and set-up (see previously) that the cost of construction has sharply increased due to tariffs and that his figures were manifestly incorrect. Ahead of a meeting of the board’s policymakers to set the benchmark rate, it appears that the Fed will leave the percentage unchanged out of prudence in a chaotic environment, and having a central bank that is politically and economically aligned with the administration could very easily backfire, making investors and foreign holders wary about buying bonds and cause maintaining and taking on extra debt much more expense as well as further exacerbate inflation for consumers. Meanwhile, Trump has issued another executive order, which may be the most chilling yet—and that’s saying a lot for the catalogue of horrors already unleashed: Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets. The EO proposes to end “endemic vagrancy” by encouraging the civil commitment of unhoused individuals deemed to have an incapacitating mental illness that precludes self-care, ostensibly revamping the asylum-system but not in a Victorian fashion of disappearing undesirables in an environment that normalises undesirable behaviour but rather as work-camps (Arbeit macht Frei), like his Alligator Alcatraz—and reopening the Alcatraz actual. Not only are most Americans living in a very precarious paycheque-to-paycheque situation, not homeless by the grace of their inferiors, I suspect that after the initial roundups, foreign-looking individuals, protestors, dissidents—all in the estimation of the police-state—and the securely housed with assets to confiscate will follow soon after. We’ve seen this before. The order further goes on to detail how federal grants to cities will be prioritised that enforce prohibitions on illicit drug-use, urban camping, squatting and programmes to register and track the location of sex offenders. Wrecking the economy and tanking the job market—as outlined above—seem a perfect first step to create a sizeable population of malcontents.

turophilia (12. 606)

 No notes—via the venerable Card House, estᴰ 1994.

your harvest comes in seven risings of your red giant (12. 605)

Premiering on this day in 1980, the Roger Corman production—capitalising on the success of Star Wars—the space opera featuring Robert Vaughn, Sybil Danning and George Peppard was a remake of an Americanised edition (released as Battle Beyond the Sun three years after its 1959 debut and directed by Corman himself in collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola) of Небо кличе (The Sky Beckons—cosmonauts saving an American crew on a race to colonising Mars but in their rescue attempt run out of fuel and are stranded in the asteroid belt) as science-fiction version of The Magnificent Seven (itself a Western interpretation of Seven Samurai). An agrarian planet is threatened by a dying warlord of the galactic empire and demands that the peaceful inhabitants donate their organs to him in order to regenerate. The farmers plan to hire a group of mercenaries to protect them, having only food and shelter to offer for payment and dispatch a young hero named Shad to find allies and ends up assembling an eclectic band of resistance fighters, striking one much like the plot and characters of Rebel Moon, a recent Zack Snyder vehicle resulting from being refused the rights to remake Star Wars. Despite a modestly successful box-office, the endeavour received mixed reviews as derivative, and in keeping with his tradition of mentoring emerging talent, Corman secured student filmmaker James Cameron (see above) for special effects and model designs as well as James Horner (later composing themes for Avatar, Aliens, Braveheart, Titanic, The Perfect Storm, Willow, etc) to score the piece. 

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: the arch of Constantine (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links worth revisiting

thirteen years ago: on tour in Norway 

fifteen years ago: directed intelligence in navigation 

splashdown (12. 604)

On this day in 1975 with the re-entry of the American spacecraft, with the Soviet capsule landing a few days earlier in the steppe of Kazakhstan after the successful joint mission, the Apollo programme came to an end. The international docking manoeuvre and orbital handshake between the two rivals was seem as a moment of détente for the polarised world during the Cold War, leading to later collaborations like the International Space Station. A technical triumph and symbolic of the cooling tensions between the super-powers, in keeping with the spirit of the Space-Race, the link-up with Soyuz-19 went unnumbered by NASA to avoid confusion with the failed Moon landing of Apollo-XVIII, and the mission’s only tense moment was during re-entry with propellants accidentally vented into the astronauts’ chambers. The US engaged in no further orbital ventures until 1981 and there were no more splashdown landings until August of 2020 with the Space-X Crew Dragon demonstration.

the sands of time (12. 603)

Via Boing Boing, we enjoyed this partial listing of superlative hour-glasses, including the pictured Sanduhr encountered on a museum tour of Mainz crafted in 1984 by Schott Glasweke for the city, flipping hourly. One of the largest permanent installations is the Timewheel (Időkerék) of Budapest. The sixty tonne granite and steel time-piece was created to commemorate the accession of Hungary into the European Union on the first of May 2004. Standing on a site that formerly hosted a statue of Lenin, it was rebalanced shortly after its unveiling to measure out the year and is turned one hundred eighty degrees by a crew of four at the stroke of midnight on the first of January. Several large hour-glasses were installed in large cities in the state of São Paulo to mark the seventh of August 2009 enforcement of smoke-free workplaces progressively throughout Brazil—presumably to mark the next cigarette break.