toppop

A debt of gratitude is owed to Dangerous Minds for acquainting us with the Dutch answer to the UK chart show Top of the Pops—in some ways even exceeding the format’s original imperator in terms of variety and taking the programme to the artists.
During its run from 1970 to 1988, nearly every musical act were sure to include TopPop on their European circuit and the venue also boosted the domestic scene, giving rise to a genre called Nederpop.  Production often included making music videos, which were of surpassingly good quality and sometimes were appropriated by the performing artist—a notable example being Nena’s 99 Luftballons where she is trekking through a bleak lumberyard near Hilverslum in north Holland was used as footage for the official video. Much of the show’s archive is available online for your viewing and listening pleasure.  More to explore at the links above.

SENĆOŦEN

The orthography of the First Nations Saanich people from British Colombia and Washington state employs (with the exception of ‘s’ which acts like an apostrophe) only uppercase letters, making it one of the unicameral alphabets, like Hangul, Arabic, Georgian and Tamil, something rare for a Latin-based script though all languages start out with just a single case. The International Phonetic Alphabet uses only lower case Latin and Greek letters, so a second example, though not a genuine writing system but rather something epiphenomenal. Created by linguist Dave Elliott in 1978 to conform to the sound and grammar of the language, it saw a resurgence and renewed interest around 2011 when its unfamiliar characters (Ⱥ and Ⱦ) received their own Unicode range and a texting programme was developed.

wedged wonders

We really enjoyed reviewing this alluring photo-session from Docubyte (the moniker of James Ball) who captured the aura of the golden age of Italian avant-garde automotive design in the collections of the carrozzeria of Turin, Milan and Marese.  Many of the profile vehicles were never put into mass-production, like this angular Ferrari 512 Modulo by Paolo Martin that debuted at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, and represent one-of-a-kind experimentation.

hinomaru

After affirmation in both houses of the Diet a few days prior, Japan’s Act on National Flag and Anthem became enforceable and binding on this day in 1999. Having unofficially represented the kingdom and empire since the late 1800s, the flag—known commonly as the hinomaru (日の丸, circle of the sun) and national hymn, Kimigayo (君が代, His Majesty’s Reign) —both severely restricted after World War II under American occupation though later relaxed, were accorded legal status as symbols not without controversy, as many felt that they harkened back to the country’s militaristic past. Proponents of the bill’s ratification, whom ultimately prevailed, argued that the symbols would be restorative and a source of cultural pride.