dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life

Via Hyperallergic’s Required Reading links comes the fascinating and forward-thinking tale of how the Artist solved the dilemma of branding himself with a symbol that was unpronounceable and naturally was not in the ASCII or Dingbats gallery of glyphs. Having resolved to commit to his new moniker, Prince designed his own font and began to send out hundreds of publicity diskettes (with instructions) from Paisley Park to media outlets in 1993.
Some believe that this move was a passive-aggressive way at getting back at his recording label, unhappy with his contract, but the Artist formerly known as Prince was able to get the magazines and newspapers to play along, at a time when the on-line world and graphic-interface was just emerging and no one spoke in emoji. I really appreciated this artefact and remembrance and as with the loss of another legend earlier this year (2016 needs to seriously stop killing musicians but we know there are some wondrous jam-sessions happening in Heaven right now), sometimes it’s easier to pick out and latch on to the minute details (like the equally pioneering bowie.net) in order to esteem careers that are too momentous to celebrate with the standard obituaries.

rosencrantz and guildenstern

For the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of playwright William Shakespeare, Kronsborg castle—the inspiration for Elsinore, where the tragedy of Hamlet was set, was open for an overnight stay for one lucky and devoted fan for the first time in a century.
The winning application was in the form of a clever to the Bard in iambic pentameter. Runners-up and local gentry were wined and dined earlier in the evening with a fancy banquet—and that would have sufficed for me since I don’t know about staying the night in such a haunted place. There are some pretty keen hotelier promotions happening lately, and we do trust that the couple slept soundly, but this opportunity strikes me like bedding-down in the head of van Gogh.

lèse-majesté

The leader of the Berlin faction of the Pirate Party was detained by law enforcement for conducting a literary analysis of the infamous poem about the Turkish president on the street in front of that country’s embassy (the Turkish mission to German in der Tiergartenstraße, Berlin, mind you, and not in Ankara) over the weekend.
This development comes just after the Chancellor expressed second-thoughts on her initial condemnation of the comedian’s satire though still feeling that the case of the prosecution should go forward. The last time paragraph 103 from the German book of criminal code (Strafegesetzbuch—essentially a left-over from the days of European monarchy, criminalising the insult to the dignity of a foreign head of state, lèse-majesté) was invoked was by the Shah of Iran in an attempt to muzzle the critiques among the Iranian diaspora settled in Germany, and perhaps the Chancellor, announcing the intent to sunset the antiquated law within two years, was quietly hoping that it would similarly backfire. Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, who have comparable laws in their penal codes (and constitutional monarchies all), announced that they would be repealing them post-haste.

hingucker oder slow news day

Apparently others took an interesting in our temporary displacement and our tented house—like the circus had come to town, made the local papers and caught the notice of passers-by. We don’t care for the extra attention for our secret head-quarters but the caption didn’t reveal too much and was not published until after the fumigation was finished, so as not to attract Nosey Parkers. People remarked that the colourful tent reminded of them of the summer of 2006 when Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup games and various venues all across the country saw games and hosteled visiting teams.