panda, cyborg, jesus

Though the libretto to the leitmotif “Duel of the Fates” (the recurring theme from the Star Wars prequels) is reportedly a fragment of an ancient, fourteenth century Welsh poem Cad Goddeu (Battle of the Trees) about the legendary enchanter, Gwydion fab Dôn, who animates the trees of the forest to do his bidding translated and then performed in Sanskrit (unlikely), our thanks to Miss Cellania for revealing to us the true lyrics.  Follow the bouncing ball.

rubric

Like when learning there was an algorithm, a certain method to solve for Sudoku, I lost interest in it without really having given a try—dismissing it as an unworthy challenge, I think I was guilty of adopting the same attitude towards Ernő Rubik’s ingeniously engineered, elegant puzzle and could appreciate the correspondent’s initial outlook attending an educational outreach workshop ran under the auspices of the toy.
The brute numbers gave me my dénouement: there are forty three quintillion possible positions, which at a rate of trying each every second (as a computer would do) would take over a trillion years to arrive at the single solution out of those seemingly infinite possibilities. Unsure whether it could even be solved, Rubik played with his prototype for a whole month before arriving at a solution. Some of us are virtuosi while many of us just plod along but with persistence and a willingness to step outside of one’s self we can all be the cube.

i am elmer j. fudd, millionaire, i own a mansion and a yacht

During what could be characterised as the height of the Red Scare in post-war America, fearful over the brittle state of the capitalist model—executives with General Motors commissioned a trio of propaganda cartoons from the creative cast behind Looney Tunes, which marked quite a departure from the usual antics and took a decidedly classroom tone to inculcate impressionable minds.
It’s hard to say how seriously they took their assignment and perhaps only did so as to not draw undue attention to their studios. “By Word of Mouse” (1954) told the tale of a German country mouse, Hans, visiting an American city mouse cousin who lived in a fashionable department store called “Stacy’s” and mostly features Hans being dazzled by the abundance and selection of inventory available to the common worker, with a professor mouse explaining that free market competition of “Rival Department Store” drives prices down to the benefit of both producers and consumers. “Heir Conditioning” (1955) features Elmer Fudd acting as a financial advisor to Sylvester the Cat after inheriting a large sum of money, encouraging him to invest it rather than sharing it with his fellow alley cats. Learn more and watch all the cartoons on Dangerous Minds at the link above.

in order to form a more perfect album

Via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals, we discover the quite brilliant civics project from WNYC (the call-sign of New York’s Public Radio station) studios that curates twenty-seven songs that do a pretty spot-on job of representing each of the amendments to the long-lived and fungible constitution of the United States of America.
Yes—there are songs even about the more obscure ones (perhaps outside of the manumission and franchise clauses and the gun one, most of them are pretty obscure for most) like the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1903 which provides for the direct election of senators. This working document is testament to a law of the land that can withstand the whims of the moment, yet admit growth and change and this anthology has lessons and footnote that accompany the score and make the objectives and historical milieu and legacy clear and accessible. Many talented artists have lent their voices to this collection, which is a playlist that I certainly would not object to having in my regular circulation.