suburbia or go to bed old man

With the exception of our feisty Pope and a few others only paraded-out on special occasions with due pomp, I find myself groaning at the appearance of news anchors and their avatars, those manipulative boorish cosmopolitan figures that are the subjects of their reporting who seem more and more shameless about their intent to run us all into the ground.
 Lately, I find it an off-putting challenge to organise my thoughts around anything contemporary without feeling weary and a bit vain over it. The tragedy of the eleventh arrondissement of Paris over a caricature, the near-miss in Oberursel, a suburb of Frankfurt, when police laudably foiled a potential terror-attack, and the latest shooting in a satellite of Dallas, I think however, triangulate tensions with a peculiar and rending precision. The demographic milieux, attitudes and relations could not be more different, contesting a mind-set shared among the perpetrators.
The decision of Garland, Texas to host a draw the Prophet competition is a tacky and misguided memorial at best, which ostensibly provoked retaliation (never justifiable), but looking more closely into the sponsors and the community suggest something far darker and more devious than the tactless message of unwelcome. Fighting the droning fatigue of these daily petitions of terrorism is something to take to task as well.

honest abe

It’s a fact: without the senatorial votes (before the odder system of the electoral college was rigged) of the applicant organised territory of Nevada, who were Republican and staunchly Unionist, Abraham Lincoln would not have secured a second term as president of a divided nation at war.
The fledging state had satisfied all other requirements, except that in order to formalise ascension, Carson City had to send an plenipotentiary to the national capital, a journey that could not be undertaken in time to met statutory deadlines prior to the election. Thus, Orion Clemens, one and only secretary of the territory and brother of one who went by the nom de plume Mark Twain, negotiated what was taken to be an acceptable alternative at the time, though now the use of the auto-pen raises controversy, in the form of the new-fangled telegraph. At considerable effort and expense, the Nevada constitution and articles of confederation was sent painstakingly by Morse code via the wires. One can learn more about this crucial improvisation and other bits of profound and challenging curiosities on the brilliant Futility Closet, which treats all trivia with appropriate and due awe. This seems to me to be quite a story and at the very least would have deserved the treatment of a Star Trek episode or two, like when Mister Data meets Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and Mark Twain in old New Orleans and preserves the time-line as we know it. At minimum, it strikes me as one of those epic cross-over episodes with special guest-stars, like the Harlem Globe-Trotters on Gilligan’s Island. Learning of such an unlikely chain of events (plus thinking about how any detail might have been out of place) makes me wonder if there are not some journeymen-embellishers correcting history. Let’s do celebrate this tweaking. What event do you think is too well orchestrated to be left up to contemporary-hands?

futurama

This aesthetic and consumer culture known as populuxe, distinct from Mid-Century Modern, was an exclusively American phenomenon, typified by the look of a retrograde future which brought technology and optimism sharply in focus. To discover more examples, check out the brilliant web-presence of curator James Vaughn (X-Ray Delta One) for an endless gallery of architectural models, industrial landscapes, movie posters, glamourous advertising and other ephemera of the age.

five-by-five

vegetative states: curious and bizarre world of intelligent flora

ensemble cast: famed photographer Annie Lebovitz shoots Star Wars - Pew, pew!

paste-bin: an homage to the wastepaper basket and to the office of yesteryear

shrinks and spooks: an expose of the CIA’s white-elephant specialists

flotsam and jetsam: monumental artist Christo to bridge Lago d’Iseo