linus and lucy

Among many other creative differences between Charles Schulz, the producers and the network that was to air it, the 1965 Charlie Brown Christmas special was, per prevailing industry standards of the day to include a track of canned-laughter, just to make sure that audiences when where and how to respond to the humour.  Roundly unamused by this suggestion, Schulz simply left the room and did not return to the studio for several minutes, and finding no need for explanation, the matter was dropped and thankfully never discussed again.

phubbing or the bowed head tribe

BBC Future magazine has a really fascinating article examining how language invents novel labels to delineate the rules of etiquette and protocol and how to characterise those who are seen as the transgressors. Public and private manners when it comes to engagement with one’s immediate surroundings and interlocutors or recourse to something or someone more interesting to be found at the other end of the telecommunications æther is a topic that perhaps is a little too close for comfort and the inspired terminologies—classifications like the phoney taxia of a cartoon coyote and road-runner, the former never giving up and the latter always evading capturing like some mythological beasts—which can indeed skewer their targets.
In Asia cultures, they recognise tribal and clan affiliation for the distant and distracted, though it’s Germany that’s putting cross-walk warnings on the pavement to reach inattentive pedestrians. Moreover, Germany’s Youth Word of the Year for 2015 was “Smombie,” a portmanteau of smart-phone and zombie. I had heard variations of these names beforehand that range from the self-effacing to the ironic to the cantankerous, something that an old man would shout—possibly not without warrant, but what most interested me was a new word for the very old concept of phubbing from Australia: phone snubbing. We’ve probably all been perpetrators or victims of the phenomena of sitting with some physically present friends or family and ignoring them in favour of one’s on-line ones. There’s probably a modern fairy tale with a nice morale to be found there as well. What’s your favourite label for those constantly networking and what would you choose for yourself?

tarkin doctrine or not the excuse you’re looking for

In a move that’s really too far—since despite all our differences and the politics of polarisation, fandom was supposed to be something transcendent—apparently Trump supporters are calling for a boycott of the upcoming instalments of the Star Wars franchise for its anti-fascist message—which has surely been the over-arching theme since a long time ago, with multiculturalism fighting against hegemony.
It’s a little pathetic that it’s taken four decades for some to pick up on this not so subtle message, and even more so that they’d want to cushion themselves with a “safe-space” from triggering dissent (real and imagined) far, far way. To reinforce that fact, the hashtag movement was soon co-opted by the rebel scum and the radicalized fanatics of hokey religions whose vile behaviour is a serious affront to the feelings of the US Kraterocrat-elect. Not wholly immune Jedi mind-tricks, it’s also a nice tantrum to distract from other, more serious accusations derived from new evidence that Russia helped throw the US elections in Trump’s favour.

7x7

book of days: the mysterious and enigmatic Codex Seraphinianus enters the wall-calendar market

the beaming: a stage-adaptation dramatizes a veteran National Geographic correspondent’s encounter with a lost telepathic tribe in the Peruvian Andes

event horizon: a look ahead at some of the astronomical happenings of 2017

line in the sand: in honour of the seventy-fifth anniversary of its Cartography Centre, the US Central Intelligence Agency declassifies a cache of ordinance maps

everything old is new again: a revue of the most sought after Christmas toys since 1983

operation: the several incarnations of the Wound Man of the Middle Ages, sort of like the Helvetica Man of yore

cash on delivery: first introduced in Hamburg, one shipping service is bring pedal-powered delivery to select urban locations in the US