bibliophile

While we may have missed US National Tattoo Day, commemorated on 17 July annually (sharing the spotlight of the date with another form of expression), we can nonetheless appreciate these fine literary tattoos and the stories behind them, as found at the circulation desk of Miss Cellania, shared by the employees of  New York‘s Public Library System. We especially liked the ankle branding of one branch‘s services assistant of the emblem of the secret society VFD from Daniel Handler‘s Series of Unfortunate Events.

monochrome

Optical illusions, like this one from artist and software engineer Øyvind Kolås (note no gratuitous metal umlauts here) that illustrates the brain’s facility for colour assimilation (also called the von Bezold spreading effect for the Münchener meteorologist who first described it), have always engaged and captivated (see also) us because of their sheer pernacity in showing us how easily we’re fooled in a form that’s not so simply rebuffed or dismissed, like saying we’d never fall for this hoax or be a victim of that scam.  There’s no disenchantment in the explanation in a video at the link up top either, and maybe if you look hard enough you will see it’s a black-and-white photograph of a classroom overlaid by those chromatic grids.

rütlischwur

Inspired by the Federal Charter dated to early August of 1291 when three Alpine cantons committed to a pact of allegiance, the Old Swiss Confederacy, something semi-legendary and romantically depicted in Friedrich Schiller’s William Tell—since 1891 and codified as a public holiday in 1994 Switzerland has set aside this day (Schweizer Bundesfeiertag, Fête nationale suisse, Festa nazionale svizzera, Fiasta naziunala svizra) to recognise its founding.  The Rheinfall waterfall is illuminated for the observance and the Rütli meadow on the shores of Lake Lucerne where the oath is traditionally believed to have been sworn hosts an organised celebration as do municipalities across the land.

mons hadley

Commissioned and placed near their landing site on the lunar surface on this day in 1971 by the crew of the Apollo 15 mission, the aluminium abstract eight-centimetre figurine Fallen Astronaut by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck is the sole artwork (it’s debated whether the postage stamp sized ceramic wafer was really smuggled on-board in an astronaut’s suit and left behind) and poignant memorial on the Moon.
Keeping it a secret until after they returned to Earth, the laid the statuette on the lunar soil along with a plaque that records the names of fourteen astronauts and cosmonauts, regrettably omitting the sacrifice of Valentin Vasiliyevich Bondarenko and Grigori Grigoryevich Nelyubov as their deaths were not disclosed by the Soviet space programme and kept secret and Robert Henry Lawrence Jr, an Air Force officer and presumably considered a military asset as he was in training to be part of a crewed reconnaissance satellite experiment.