factitious disorder

I spotted this poster that’s very much in the standard, pitched format of a German campaign poster that looked more than a little out of place—not so much for the candidate but that it seemed rather uncontested as no posters of an opposing party were to be seen. Even in election years, there are rather strict protocols to be followed that spare the voting public from campaign creep and banners can’t go up earlier than an established date a few weeks prior to the vote and there are equally well-enforced strictures on reporting and speculation.
Upon closer inspection, I recognised that this was a bit of clever satire on the part of the state culture office, throwing its support behind one Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchausen who’s life inspired the fictional nobleman’s narrative of his marvellous travels and campaigns in Russia. Having actually served in the Russo-Turkish conflict of 1735, the baron had endless war-stories to tell and embellish, putting to shame fellow-aristocrats who didn’t serve, becoming somewhat of a reputation as a teller of tall-tales and braggart—pathologically, a syndrome is named after him as well. Fearful of being sued for libel, the author of the novel, Rudolf Erich Rapse, published his novel under a pseudonym, in a different language and deferred ownership until after his own death—the Baron having already demonstrated his wrath to quell the idle chatter around his second marriage to a woman fifty-seven years his junior—later to sue her for divorce for bearing a child he was not convinced was his. The character Münchausen enjoined in much more fantastic flights, including riding a cannon ball into battle and travelling to the Moon to live among the Selenites and Sirius, the Dog Star, battles a giant crocodile (twelve metres) and survives being swallowed by a fish, and tends to get very agitated when anyone finds his exploits incredulous.

7x7

apex and apogee: the spacecraft graveyard at Point Nemo

thar she blows: conservation efforts to restore the longest painting in America, a scrolling panorama of whaling on the high seas around the world, via Nag on the Lake

pepijn en merjn: a Dutch suburb that’s styled itself after characters of Middle Earth

swaddling: cocooning technique from Japan purporting to alleviate pain and stiffness   

äitiyspakkaus: Finnish style cardboard bassinets are being issued to new parents in New Jersey, via Super Punch

curiouser and curiouser: anamorphic, mirrored pieces sculpted to commemorate the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

homersexual: how John Waters’ cameo on The Simpsons (twenty years ago) kicked off an inclusive revolution on television, via Kottke

genius bar

First spotted by the keen eye of Messy Nessy Chic, we learn of the Apple venture for reinventing the internet café that sadly never was realised—except in artist’s drawings, and are left to speculate what sort of cultural impact they might have had.
Digital music of course preceded the iPod as did wireless telephony the iPhone, but one has to wonder how differently we might interact with the world wide web interpreted as a global franchise, serving healthy fare and offering video telepresence with other outlets, located in a physical space instead of the whirring end points of private modems. What do you think? As persuasive as most of Apple’s designs have been, possibly the received pronunciation of the internet and its etiquette would be something quite different and maybe the untethering of the internet might have taken a much different course. Conceived circa 1996 (Beverly Hills, 90210 was on television for an astounding eleven years), had this enterprise taken off, we might all still be hanging out at the Peach Pit.

but her emails

Dear Leader acquired the sprawling estate that cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post had built in the 1920s in Palm Beach, Florida in 1995—transforming it into an exclusive golf resort and rather inclusive presidential retreat. Unlike with other properties that earned the distinction of being called the alt-White House, dues paying members were treated to the rather transfixing moment when their evening meal transformed from the usual dining experience to a bit of geopolitical dinner-theatre.
Informed that North Korea had just test-launched a warhead capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, Dear Leader and his table-mates which included the prime-minster of Japan—well within the reach of said launch, couldn’t be bothered to recuse themselves or have the other guests evacuated but carried on, consulting highly classified intelligence reports under candlelight, made easier to read when illuminated by the screens and torch-functions of an aide’s mobile phone—or the mobile phone of some random member of the wait-staff. Who knows?! Later, Dear Leader (not the North Korean one) said, “C’mon Shinzo,” and proceeded to take the Japanese prime minister over to congratulate a newly-wed couple that they’d encountered earlier that day on the lawn. The already priceless moment—priceless in the since that there’s nothing out of range for some—was made even better by Dear Leader’s offering to all and sundry that, “They’ve been members of this club for a long time. They’ve paid me a fortune.”