history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes

Nag on the Lake has just acquainted us with an amazingly dedicated individual by the name of Alwyn Collinson that has recounted every pivotal moment in World War II as it happened for the past six years, concluding 15 August (1945, formally signed on 2 September) with the surrender of the Japanese Imperial Army and beginning another harrowing new cycle on 1 September (1939) when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, using the false-flag operation, the attack on the broadcasting tower in Gleiwitz, then part of Upper Silesia (Oberschlesien) that occurred the night before, by Schutzstaffel (the SS) provocateurs disguised as Polish separatists as pretense for shift retaliation. It’s fascinating to see how quickly matters accelerated in real time, as it were, and history pressing forward unmediated by the lens of history—plus it’s surely a brave and noble effort to be willing to relive these horrors over and over again—repeating them in the hope that we might not. Perhaps, like the Cosplay Caliphate, those aspirants to the Turd Reich would be dissuaded if they knew truly what they were making light of.

rock, paper, scissors

Marking perhaps a heartening turn in the tone of sabre-rattling rhetoric, North Korea appears in its latest propaganda video to be challenging America to a dance-off, as Gizmodo correspondent Matt Novak reports, rather than the usual fare of nuclear warheads striking Guam or San Francisco.  Of course, Dear Leader has produced many counterpoints to this spectacle and there is naturally such ill-will between the two as they are too much alike and need their egos protected.  The narrow characterisation of the North Korean regime does the rest of the world a disservice as the country understands very well that it has the strategic upper-hand at what is at stake, which is nothing short of global thermal nuclear war.

wedlock

The winding down of wedding season is a good time for reflection on the institution and the curators of the Ricco-Maresca Gallery in Manhattan furnish us with a captivating lens to view the changing conventions and trappings of matrimony with a collection of Victorian era cabinet cards that take a slice of late nineteenth century attitudes towards portraiture and keepsakes. These sombre, serious poses (a little haunted but typical for the time when photography was new and reserved for such special occasions and vows weren’t always exchanged out of love but rather for the sake of utility) are contrasted with a progression of wedding cake toppers from that time up to the present that reflect maturing outlooks and rituals that retain meaning in their fungibility.

campaign hat

In what’s surely to further unhinge Dear Leader in ways that we can’t predict, we learn from Super Punch, one major, disruptive retail outlet in selling knock-offs of the baseball caps (campaign hats are those typically worn by park rangers and Mounties) he’s been shamelessly promoting during press-conferences on the hurricane response and recovery in Texas for a quarter of the price. Although Dear Leader seems unable to move beyond campaign mode, apparently he can recognise when his merchandise has gone stale.