finowsee, woblitzsee, drewensee und zurück (11. 891)

Leaving the habour, we hooked up and to the north through a narrow channel that led to the Greater and Lesser Priepert lakes through the Finowsee that forms a round bend in the river.We pasted underneath the Hausbrücke Ahrensberg, a covered bridge (one of the few intact in northern Germany) that spanned the crossing to Drewensee.

 

 

Taking a long canal through the forest, we arrived at the inlet to Woblitzsee and stopped in the small town of Wesenberg to walk the dog and have a late lunch. The place is dominated by a high Middle Ages hilltop fortress (Turmhügelburg).

 

The lock at the outlet turned out to be the the most powerful one in the network of waterways with the floodgates really powerful instead of the usual sinking and rising and ended up passing through twice in rather quick succession as the anchorage we planned to stay at on the way to Neustelitz was closed for the season.Rather than risk getting stuck somewhere after the locks closed, we headed back to the first camp by Fürstenberg, seeing some of the boating lesson in practise and navigating the buoys which warn of hazards and the course to take that switch depending on whether one is travelling up- or downstream, and arrived just at sunset.

one summer never ends, one summer never begins (11. 890)

Starring Sterling Hayden, Nancy Gates, Jacky Gleason and featuring Paul Frees in on his rare on-screen appearances, the 1954 noir (released on this day) is about a small eponymous town in California in turmoil when the president of the United States is scheduled to make a stump speech there for his reelection bid and a team of assassins overtake a home with an ideal vantage point to carry out their plan. Holding the occupants hostage, the contract killer (Sinatra) proclaims that his retainer is his only motivation and manage to foil the plot, after appealing to patriotism fails, by sabotaging the weapons. The writer of the original novel based his story on the actual whistle-stop campaign of Eisenhower through Palm Springs and went on inspire The Manchurian Candidate five years later, also with the same principal but this time working to stop an assassination and government takeover—with Frees narrating. According to studio lore, Sinatra bought all copies of both films when he learned that reportedly Lee Harvey Oswald was inspired by them to undertake the killing of JFK but is apparently untrue as both were released and still available. Moreover, due to a lapse in copyright renewal, Suddenly! is accessible in full as public domain.

*    *    *    *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: more vineyard adventures (with synchronoptica) plus Hamas launches a surprise incursion into Israel 

seven years ago: an intelligence service’s guide to semantics plus more terrorism from Trump

eight years ago: Ze Frank on the Angler Fish,  an amphibious camper, more vexillology, litter box beautification projects, more wit from Edward Gorey plus pin-up houses

nine years ago: human chess with refugees plus assorted links to revisit

ten years ago: potential scuba innovations, Dalí’s lollipop campaign plus AI rewriting photography

 

vom ellbogen see bis pälitzer seeplatte (11. 889)

Well provisioned and with a plan, we set out crossing a number of small and expansive lakes linked by a series of narrow canals through the woods and wetlands facing fairly soon our biggest fear—justifiably so—about navigating such a bigger boat with the locks, sluices (Schleuse) before us. All different given the landscape, some vessels one can secure by hand or hook—though I was feeling my arms loosed from their sockets by the end of the day and the preferred method is tying them down with ropes and despite being somewhat of a knot enthusiast and knowing the ropes as it were in the case etymology and terminology, logic was failing in practical application and made the experience more stressful than needed. Regardless, we made it—I couldn’t imagine doing so during full-throttle tourist season with other big boats piloted by amateurs and gaggles of canoes. 

 

 

 

Having stopped briefly in the village of Priepert to walk the dog—in my head I was calling it Pripyat like the Chernobyl disaster town, first no good reason and perfectly pleasant but not a lot outside the dock, we had to turn back from our goal towards Rheinsbergs in the southern reaches, as the sluices were already closing down early and many of the available harbours were shut for the public. We had to turn back in time to make the last connections and docked overnight back in Priepert.

synchronoptica

one year ago: more adventures in Frankonia wine country (with synchronoptica) plus proof of galaxies beyond our own

seven years ago: De Dion-Bouton four-wheeler, the storyboards of Sergei Eisenstein plus Trump visits Puerto Rico

eight years ago: Japanese joinery, a French driving hazard, a Mexican Bat Woman plus combatting typographical tofu

ten years ago: the demands of the Olympic Committee

eleven years ago: the Rushmore Syndrome 

bundeswasserstraße obere havel (11. 888)

H and I travelled north for a houseboating holiday on the Havel, which intersects with a few different national parks crossing the borders between Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg Vorpommern. 

With our point of departure Röblinsee, leading to connections to the various lake districts (Seenplatten—including the Müritz where we visited years and years ago), we arrived at the harbor at midday and after orientation and a training module to operate the boat safely, it was too late to venture out before sunset and stayed in the dock in Fürstenberg overnight. 

The neighbourhood fronting the riverbank was lined with fancy villas and the industrial ruins of multipurpose food processing factory (Mischfutterwerk) was visible on the opposite shore. Three years prior to the Cuba Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union placed six armed launch for medium range R-5 Побе́да (Victory) nuclear warheads in early 1959–garrisoned troops left the small town in 1994. Behind the row of stately homes built originally for retirees from Berlin, a housing high rise for soldiers and their families stationed there. After an evening of planning and studying the channels and rotes, we were ready to head out.

dromomania (11. 887)

Returning to his hometown of Waseca, Minnesota from the west, having departed on his journey accompanied by his brother and a mule nearly four years earlier and setting forth eastward, on this day in 1974, having walked just over twenty-three thousand kilometres, Dave Kunst became the first independently verified individual to have circumambulated the globe. Received by Princess Grace in Monaco and by chance meeting fellow adventurer Thor Heyerdahl in a restaurant in Italy, the epic walkers solicited donations to UNICEF along the way. Denied entry into the Soviet Union, about midway through their journey, the team continued through India and Afghanistan, where the two were tragically ambushed by bandits who believed they were carrying the monies pledged to the United Nations’ emergency children’s fund, killing his brother John, but Kunst finished after months recuperation, joined by his older sibling Pete. After the loss of his mule in the Australian Outback, a schoolteacher, who Kunst became enamoured with and eventually married, towed his supplies with her car for a thousand miles at walking pace, Dave keeping up alongside. Kunst’s trip consisted of twenty million steps and went through twenty-one pairs of shoes.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: wine and quinces (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: drawing logos from memory plus biofuels from moss

eight years ago: turning Twitter into a public utility, ghost signs plus an unpopular file format

nine years ago: the Norman Conquest and the Divine Right of Kings

ten years ago: Roman tax regimes

project skydrop (11. 886)

Corresponding with the previous post, another treasure hunt has just concluded with the discovery of a golden trophy and pot prize of money that grew as hunters joined in, totalling at the end of more than one-hundred-thousand dollars. The radius where the prize was hidden shrank incremental from an area covering Washington, DC to New Hampshire, eventually going down to a square foot. Tension building as the search area got smaller, but not minuscule and still a sizeable amount of forested terrain to explore, the treasure was discovered by a local weatherman who took advantage of meteorological data embedded in a live-feed, and found the trophy through a process of elimination according to where it might be clear or overcast.

sur la trace de la chouette d’or (11. 885)

Via Meta Filter, we learn that the world’s longest ongoing treasure hunt with a single prize is reportedly over with an individual finding the buried owl statuette after thirty-one years of searching (the bronze replica redeemable for one crafted in gold, silver and diamonds and worth an estimated three-hundred thousand euro)—if verified that the treasurer hunter correctly deciphered a series of clues and didn’t happen on it by chance or with a metal-detector. Writing under the pseudonym of Max Valentin, Régis Hauser designed the challenge in 1993, publishing a notebook of secrets, riddles whose solutions gave hints on where to search—launching a line of other treasure hunts through the early 2000s, but this first one defied resolution—the subsequent ones being solved much quicker, leading to a bit of remorse on making this puzzle so complicated and having devoted so much time and effort into crafting it, not living to see it found, having died, aged 62, in 2009. A highly esteemed communications and marketing consultant and early adopter of technological advances, Hauser released additional clues to put treasure hunters on the right trail and steering them away from false leads, like Notre Dame or Mont Saint-Michel. Shortly after On the Trail of the Golden Owl began, Hauser introduced a Minitel (see also) server to field questions about the game, answering thousands of queries from the public and creating a community of loyal enthusiasts (chouetteurs) that sustained the mystery through the decades. The record for the longest ongoing treasure hunt is Byron Preiss’ The Secret, which challenges seekers to find twelve boxes hidden in cities in North America (connected to personnages who played roles in colonial history) dates to 1982 with only three found so far.

tunnel vision from the outsider’s screen (11. 894)

Whilst returning to his Park Avenue apartment on this day in 1986, veteran news anchor Dan Rather was assaulted by an individual demanding to know, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?,” repeating the question and pummelling and kicking Rather, the bizarre and dubious encounter remained a mystery for more than a decade until a television critic connected the suspected assailant to man convicted of killing a gaffer working for a rival network’s morning show in 1994 for the stagehand’s alleged complicity in beaming messages into the attacker’s brain, storming the studio to try to ascertain the frequency so he could block it. The escalated inquiry was the subject of the REM track from their ninth album Monster, released the same year as the manslaughter incident that solved the earlier mugging. When the band came to Madison Square Garden for a concert in the venue, Rather was invited to rehearsals and the outtakes were aired on late night talk show David Letterman.

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to Marktbreit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the continent of Zealandia plus assorted links worth revisiting

eight years ago: cocktails as still-life paintings, a vintage interior design catalogue plus St Dymphna

nine years ago: a visit to the Bamberg fleamarket

ten years ago: a visit to the Bamberg fleamarket 

einheitswippe (11. 893)

Long in planning, the Freedom and Unity Monument slated for Berlin (see previously) has missed another opportune inauguration and seems to be teetering towards collapse amid contract disputes with its designers. Conceived as a sort of seesaw where when enough people congregated on one side it would pivot towards revolution and reconciliation, it was planned to open in 2019 in deference to 1989, and while the foundations for the ramp has been installed and ready for the steel shell, the architects have had disputes with subcontractors and federal government fearful of what a failed dedication—with one’s thumb on the scales, so to speak—might project.

hello ghosties (11. 892)

Via Waxy, we find that Laura E Hall, for the tenth year in a row uploading the tradition, is issuing her occasional, popup newsletter chocked full of spooky and ghoulish citations for the season. Like a zombie hand emerging from the grave, it is reanimated every October, withdrawing as the enchantment of the month recedes to return next year. So far there are some seasonal soundtracks, a primer on David S Pumpkins and a survey of haunted hydrology.  Follow along at the link above.

now, how your daddy don’t mind (11. 891)

Inspired by the memory of trying to encourage a date to remain out past her curfew, Maurice Williams penned the tune seven years earlier, aged fifteen as the more compelling argument came to him all of a sudden lyrically, in 1960 recording the song as a demo track with his doo-wop group the Zodiacs. Picked up as a single by the label Herald Records and re-recorded (removing the verse “Let’s have another smoke,” so it could be played on commercial radio) in August, on this day that same year, “Stay” entered the Billboard Hot 100 on its way to top the charts on 21 November. The lightly pared down version at one minute and thirty-six seconds (extended recent rendition by the band below) is the shortest tune to reach the number one spot. Inclusion on the soundtrack for Dirty Dancing revived its popularity. 

 

  *     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus the US Speaker of the House ousted

seven years ago: who played It better,  a uniquely American problem plus EU jargon

eight years ago: the physics of light-sabres, shifting zodiacal signs plus the US Motor Voter Act

nine years ago: the Crimean War, the voice acting talents of Paul Frees, actor Melina Mercouri plus more links to enjoy

eleven years ago: America in turmoil over Obama Care

big horn (11. 890)

Reminiscent of the bonkers Nazi plan to produce a quarry worthy of Nazis to hunt by bringing back the extinct aurochs, we learn that a gentleman in the US state of Montana has been sentenced and fined for his efforts to create a giant hybrid sheep though cloning and selective husbandry with Asian sheep as big game. Struggling to find a punishment to fit the crime, the judge settled on a suspended term—for lack of a criminal record—and imposed a hefty remittance to the US Fish and Wildlife Service for the upkeep of the Montana Mountain King, confiscated and in care until it can be transferred to a zoo, to discourage others from meddling with ferrel populations for trophy hunting.

we had a bomb scare in the bronx yesterday, but it turned out to be a cantaloupe (11.889)

Released on this day in 1974, with its title derived from the subway train’s radio call-sign, the downtown number 6 express originating from Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23, the hostage thriller by Joseph Sargent and Peter Stone, based on the eponymous novel from the year prior was acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. Starring Walter Matthau, four men in disguise ransom the passengers, eighteen hostages, demanding a sum of one million dollars be delivered or in an hour lest one will be killed every minute that handover is delayed. The score by David Shire (Saturday Night Fever, All the President’s Men) was also lauded for its inventive nature. Most of the filming took place at the abandoned Brooklyn Court Street station, the location of several movies including Death Wish, The French Connection and the 2009 remake and later becoming the Metropolitan Transit Authority Museum, the MTA at first not cooperating with the production as it reflected badly on city governance and retired that particular call-sign. The colour-coded ransomers names is paid tribute in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

*     *    *    *    *  

synchronoptica

one year ago: the dissolution of the Papal States (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Catalonian session

eight years ago: the debut of Peanuts,  Trump cashes a cheque, the etymology of culprit, assorted links to revisit plus Miss Cora Gated

eleven years ago: Swiss war-games plus more on the US surveillance state

thirteen years ago: banking elsewhere plus exposing Brussels lobbyists

upselling (11. 888)

Although to an extent we get why both websites and increasingly waitstaff, dependent on positive reviews, recommendation, and the former sidelined, scraped, abandoned, bereft of revenue and cajoled into a subscription model, places and spaces one has given a minute of their attention to voluntarily are not enough and demand another minute amongst the vortex of algorithmically curated feeds and forced notifications—and the minute after that, no longer allowed to engage and explore on one’s own terms. Nick Heer presents the very apt allegory of a dining experience ruined by an aggressively intrusive server:

Would you like to see the menu again? Here, try this new thing. Here, try this classic thing we brought back. Here is a different chair. How about we swap the candles on the table for a disco ball? Would you like to hear the specials again? Have you visited our other locations?

Such an encounter is highly relatable and corresponds with newsletters, paywalls, diversions that lock one into walled-gardens and promoted content and detract from the whole venture.

bop spotter (11. 887)

Via JWZ, we learn of Riley Walz’ project that coopts the rather depressingly insidious programme called Shotspotter (™️ presumably and run by subcontractor touting benefits for public safety and security but failing to deliver) that detects and ranges gunfire by arrays of microphones installed in cities across America—though some police forces have cancelled their subscriptions due to cost and the diminishing returns on investment of random bullets—with a hidden phone attuned to picking up songs from street level perched somewhere high above San Francisco’s Mission District. Shazam is an application that can identify music from a short clip and adds the song to the playlist. When first launched in 2002 in the UK, people would text “2580” on their mobile phones and hold it up to the radio or television to get a piece recognised, getting a text back with the title and artist.

botober (11. 886)

Back by popular demand, our trusty AI Wrangler, Janelle Shane (previously), produces a list of art prompts for the month of Drawtober, traditionally a daily sketching challenge (see below), generated by AI. This time however the list is an homage to the early days of very tiny language models and neural networks—not gluttonously siphoned from the public internet but rather hand-feed from carefully curated data, including past exercises like heirloom apples and Halloween costumes. Predictably no fun, here is the illustration that ChatGPT came up with for today’s cue, Collide Loopstorm. Maybe it would be more perplexed by some of the others like Deathmop, Hallowy Maples or Hobbats but these must be worked in chronological order, lest one awakens the curse. Much more at the links above.

digital divinity (11. 885)

Via Waxy, we enjoyed reading excerpts from this series of articles from the Rĕst ôf Ŵǭrld’s correspondents on how technology intersects with religion and is transforming the way people around the world worship and find communion in an illuminated manuscript that documents how communities are using platforms for outreach and influence as well as revitalise ancient faiths. The accounts are categories by faith and topic, presented in the the Book of Altered Reality, the Books of Apps, the Book of the Unexpected, the Book of AI and the Book of Influence. The virtual shires, electronic tithing and the TikTok monks and nuns seem especially interesting.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: botober (with synchronoptica), the life and times of Claire Rayner plus an introduction to the Holy Roman Empire

seven years ago: a master of disaster, tweets into poetry plus turning leaves

eight years ago: continuing resolution plus a celebration of physical knobs, dials and buttons

nine years ago: Count Lucker—Sea Devil,  assorted links to revisit plus electric cars dominate trade shows

ten years ago: a celebration of grandparents, venerable trees plus slabs of the Berlin Wall

8x8 (11. 884)

glamos: Switzerland and Italy agree to redraw their borders due to melting glaciers 

a purrfect storm: the childless cat lady trope goes back to the origins of female suffrage and political participation—see previously  

main character syndrome: a need for recognition and validation fuelled by technological change drives self-mythologising whether or not there’s an audience—see also  

daily affirmation: fifty years of Saturday Night Live title cards and graphic design  

viscawide-16: a Wiki dedicated to vintage and antique cameras—via Pasa Bon!  

ultraviolence: Trump proposes sanctioning a day of lawlessness, akin to the plot of The Purge or Kristallnacht to end criminal behaviour  

we are the trampions: the annual European street car driver competition—see previously  

industrial age: UK shutters last coal-fired power-plant, ending a one hundred forty two year era

sede vacante (11. 883)

Having recently happened upon this sort of rather singular seating chart with the shortest pontificate, it was serendipitous, via Strange Company, to discover that the conclave blueprint, a programme for interested parties to monitor the intrigues and progress of the electors (the papabili and ineligible amongst them) confined to the Sistine Chapel until a new pope was chosen, like the handwritten gossip tabloids called avvisi that reported on votes with a fair degree of speculation and imagination. Such reconnaissance was indispensable for influence-peddlers, like monarchs and bankers and lower clergy who tried to sway the outcome. As the process wore on, conditions for the cardinals was made less comfortable, outside observers had a detailed, God’s eye view of the proceedings, able to track the odds, see whom their delegate was bunked next to and who had the better accommodations, some spots being considered more auspicious than others.   More from JSTOR Daily at the link above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Mid-Century control rooms plus Hurricane Maria

eight years ago: professional hermits

nine years ago: the ongoing process of German reuinification 

ten years ago: East Germans sought asylum on the grounds of the Czechoslovakian Embassy plus Rome’s Secular Games

and that my friend is only the beginning of how this makes america great—you’ll be so overwhelmed with all the winning that you won’t know what you’ve lost until it’s too— (11. 882)

Via Memo of the Air, we are directed towards this rather brilliant reminder of the illiberal horrors contained in Project 2025—which Trump disavows though his agenda fits the blueprint point-for-point—as an homage to Schoolhouse Rock, which despite reaching the series fifth decade, the 1950s that it would transport back the United States to is far darker, distant and regressive. For the rest of the world, enduring America’s seemingly endless whinging about its democracy is taxing, and it will be over within weeks—either with the country crowing with pride as the untoppled beacon for freedom, when even at the best of times its record is not so perfect, or else an insular and fascist theocracy with the hollow procedural trappings of free elections—but either way, America will throw its weight around and have serious consequences globally, impacting everyone. The lyrics (though missing some major curtailments of rights and norms, like support for the arts, banning pornography, support for veterans, etc but I guess the song would never end otherwise) helping cite the pages where each proposal appears and has the coda of how to overcome this bleak future. Draping the Statue of Liberty in a Handmaid’s costume was a nice touch too.

eye of the storm (11. 881)

As Hurricane Helene moved inland levelling destruction across Florida, Georgia and North Carolina from the Gulf of Mexico, satellite radar revealed a splotchy mass in the normally calm and clear centre of the cyclone. Meteorologists soon realised that they were seeing the signature of thousands of migrating seabirds caught in the middle of the towering thunderstorms that make up the boundaries of the eyewall and were circling the moving tranquil region unable to escape. The flock at the focus of this unusual but not undocumented phenomenon will dissipate as the storm weakens.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an impending shut down of the US government (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: another photogenic tree chopped down, more on the gig-economy plus Garbage Patch passports

eight years ago: the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards plus assorted links worth revisiting

nine years ago: more links to enjoy

ten years ago: philosopher Alan Watts on timing and being present plus Leipzig 1989

il sorriso di dio (11. 880)

Speaking of brief pontificates, Albino Luciani (who assumed the first regnal double name of John Paul in honour of his predecessors and adopted by his successor) was discovered dead on this day in 1978 on what would have been his thirty-third day in office. Given the above monicker, the smile of God, for his contagious gregariousness his death proved quite a shock and due to very real scandals happening in the Vatican Bank at the time, inconsistencies in the Church’s account—and the fact that it marked the end of the long dynasty of Italian popes—gave rise to unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding the papacy. John Paul was beatified by Pope Francis in September of 2022, after the confirmation of a miraculous recovery through his intercession after the medical and scientific explanations of the Devil’s Advocate were overruled by members of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

antártica (11. 879)

Established in April of 1984 with the second person born on the continent in November of that year, we learn via Nag on the Lake of the larger of two permanent settlements just north of the Antarctic Circle on King George Island that is not a research outpost. With about one hundred fifty inhabitants during the summer and eighty hardy souls in the winter, the remote Villa Las Estrellas which arguably seems to exist in order to legitimise the Chilean claim against the overlapping British and Argentine ones—the latter having founded Base Esperanza in 1953, the community of fourteen homes has several amenities, though some like the school, souvenir shop, hostel and the post office which formerly was a significant draw for philately fans seeking to have a stamp cancelled with an Antarctic post mark seem to have closed in recent years at least temporarily, but the infirmary, fitness facility/cultural centre and library remain to support the community. More southerly and significantly smaller with a civilian population of only ten families, the Argentine settlement seems better outfitted.

gods and monsters (11. 878)

Having to unfortunately access our dear Blört by proxy (get me to a hotspot, anon, and wishing a belated, incredible twenty-fourth blogoversary), courtesy Web Curios we are directed towards another veteran website (established in 1999), the portal (please mention it by name when praying) not only offers a daily deity, information for various and obscure panthea, a running tally of the most popular divinities but also extensive mythological resources and research material. We enjoyed very much learning of the Greek mountain nymph Chelônê (Χελώνη) who is considered the personification of lateness, for failing to show up at the wedding of Zeus and Hera, an occasion for which the groom dispatched his messenger to summon all animals, men and gods to the event. Secretly disdaining their matrimony and mocked Zeus for his sister-wife, Chelônê chose to sit it out and fearful of attracting the ire of the couple, Chelônê said she never received an invitation. Clearly on the guest list but not bothering to RSVP much less to show up, Hermes took this accusation as personal affront and transformed this attested home-body into the creature that would forever bear her name, tortoise (via the Latin testudo)—an condemned to carry her house on her back since she liked it so, and would never have to leave home again. A variant on the curse—or blessing—comes from a later fable in which Momus, satirist of the gods, questioned the wisdom of giving man the gift of architecture for building shelters for their otherwise vulnerable bodies since they were fixed and had no wheels for escaping troublesome neighbours, and praised the snail’s petition to carry her home—when Zeus was doling out gifts at the dawn of creation—which proved to be no burden at all.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the Sycamore Gap tree chopped down (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the anniversary of the premier of Star Trek: TNG, more custom cars from George Barris plus rice paddy landscape art

eight years ago: the Voice of America radio service

nine years ago: passports for the stateless,  a Blood Super Moon plus mushroom season

twelve years ago: illustrating the international date line

urbanus vii (11. 877)

Despite having the shortest reign of any pope, Urban VII, dying on this day in 1590 of complications from malaria, nonetheless after a long and illustrious career as archbishop of Rossano in Calabria, papal legate and apostolic nuncio made notable impact. Elevated during the conclave following the death of Sixtus V less than two weeks prior, Urban fought vigorously against nepotism, competing against a Medici and his predecessor’s grand-nephew—instituting a standing policy in the Curia, and continued his subsidies to bakers to feed the poor under costs. The papacy of Urban also saw the first public smoking ban—levying excommunication for anyone partaking of tobacco in any form inside a church or within proximity of its entrance. His successor, Gregory XIV—also a short-timer with just under a year in office—still had the chance, no small feat, to order the emancipation of native Filipinos consigned to enslavement by colonisation, also under pain of casting out of the religious community and thus a legitimate compliance factor as the ousted were not allowed to continue commerce with Catholic members in good standing.

it‘s all a rip off! i can't even get a lousy babysitting job—everybody wants references! (11. 876)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we are reminded that on this day in 1976, NBC aired the made-for-television drama by Randal Kleiser (directing credits include Grease, Big Top Pee-wee) starring Eve Plumb, playing the principal fifteen-year-old who leaves home for Hollywood, following an embarrassing incident with her alcoholic mother during a school dance. Naïve and with no prospects, protagonist Dawn turns to prostitution under the tutelage of a cohort of fellow sex-workers and their pimp and protector, Swan. Though not part of the original series run (this was quite a disabusing Mandela Effect moment for me and always remembered the understudy the same way as Darren on Bewitched or Becky on Roseanne), Plumb’s commitment to shooting the special did not allow her to appear on the continuation of the franchise, The Brady Bunch Hour, and caused the producers to enlist another actor, Geri Reischl, to play “Fake Jan,” a label Reischl (later cast as the original Blair in The Facts of Life pilot but forced to relinquish the role due to obligations to breakfast cereal company General Mills) embraces as her personal brand.