made man (12. 617)

On this day, at some time after 15:00 local time, James “Jimmy” Riddle Hoffa, American labour activist and president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in Bloomfield Township, Michigan—a suburb of Detroit. Involved with organised crime and the Mafia since his early years working with the union, making accommodations and compromises with gangsters that often controlled trucking and warehouse guilds through the 1930s in order to leverage strength in numbers and consolidate disparate associations for collective bargaining, though the influence of the Mafia increased as membership grew.

Various allegations of bribery, fraud and corruption cast a pall over his tenure from 1957 through his 1963 indictment for jury tampering, prosecuted by Attorney General Robert F Kennedy. Despite harsh sentencing, Hoffa was reelected to a third term as the Teamsters’ president, resigning from office in 1971 while still in prison as a condition of a presidential pardon, Nixon commuting his sentence of thirteen years to time served, less than five, pledging not to engage with any labour organisation for a period of nine years. The unions endorsed Nixon’s 1972 reelection bid, breaking with tradition of supporting the Democratic candidate. By the following year, Hoffa sought to return to union leadership and unsuccessfully sued the administration to invalidate those restrictions, and undeterred planned to regain his role—despite his parole and vocal opposition from dons and caporegimes of prominent criminal syndicates. Hoffa had arranged a meeting on the afternoon of 30 July at the Machus Red Fox restaurant, venue of his son’s wedding reception, in order to make peace with two of those Mafia families. Hoffa was stood up however when none showed at the appointed time, documented by a call home from a payphone, and friends found his unlocked car in the restaurant’s parking lot early the next morning. Extensive searches, surveillance and depositions yielded no leads, and Hoffa was declared legally deceased by a judge on the anniversary of his disappearance in 1982 with no individuals charged. Not infrequent excavations in the Detroit area and perennial indulges from The Irishman to Bruce Almighty sustain the mystery and haunt America’s attitudes toward the labour movement and unions to this day.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus Monty Hall enlightenment 

twelve years ago: sci-fi author Hugo Gernsbach

fourteen years ago: a trip to Aquitaine and Medoc 

fifteen years ago: metamorphoses plus Big Tech’s partnership with spy agencies

mama appelsap (12. 616)

Delving the depths of Wikipedia, we learn that in Dutch, with a much more contemporary and relatable mishearing than the seventeenth century Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray (see previously), the concept of mondegreen is customarily referred to as the above, “Mommy apple juice,” from the 1982 Michael Jackson song Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ with the lyrics “Mama-se mama-sa ma-ma-coo-sa”—popularised by a long-running radio call-in segment where listeners were encouraged to contribute their own misheard music under that name. More formally referred to auditieve pareidolia, the Jackson song’s coda is sampled from Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango’s 1972 disco hit hit “Soul Makossa,” whom later sued for a monetary settlement for copyright infringement. Although I am disinclined to believe the prevalence of the name—it sounds like something I would make up in my head, the Wikipedia goes on to inform that in Germany mondegreens are informally called Agathe Bauers—misinterpreting the refrain from the song from Snap!

handelsbilanz (12. 615)

Aside from getting an ostensibly raw and lopsided tariff deal out of Trump—though far from finalised and terms and conditions could always change—using trade as foreign policy tool, a particularly blunt and inappropriate instrument as Trump as done in order to bypass more traditional channels, the EU’s capitulation has proved to be not only a disappointment among academics and the press but also leaders and is representing a split in solidarity in the already fractious bloc, with many regarding the submission as a concession to German industry at the expense of the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors. The onerous commitment riding on the deal to purchase over a trillion dollars in US energy and weapons is an assurance that Brussels can not compel members to do—so there’s that Ausfahrt, and moreover very little of these burgeoning conflicts address the consumers’ role in the opening of markets, who do indeed collectively punch their own weight—with the notable exception of Canada, also under threat of annexation. Flooded with cheaper, lower quality American goods, shoppers can still choose to boycott them and retailers will no longer stock them. Individuals can also forgo an albeit more entrenched and harder to avoid US dominance on financial and internet services—which for the American rentier economy—would send an even bigger message though a bit of inconvenience and creative work-arounds, refraining from using credit cards and payment clearing houses and American internet companies.

synchronoptica

one year ago: JD Vance’s sofa memoirs (with synchronopticæ), nobody reads ads, twirling towards freedom, a phoney controversy over the Olympics opening ceremony plus Friday Night Videos (1983)

twelve years ago: derivative blockbusters, stormy weather plus a visit to Gelnhausen

fifteen years ago: smoking ban in Bavaria plus word clouds as CVs

8x8 (12. 614)

ieepa: class action lawsuit from small businesses affected by Trump’s tariffs could prove to be a significant challenge to his economic model 

lambretta boogaloo: a new single from Big Boss Man Los Res and the Bongo Fuzz label   

geodesy: astronomers triangulate Earth’s location in the Universe using black holes but WiFi is interrupting the signal  

at most ten-percent syncopation: Nazi era rules for jazz musicians—via Nag on the Lake  

aldeh: Greater Manchester chain keeping temporary name in honour of Oasis reunion tour after attaining status as cultural landmark  

sing what happens: a sedately risqué Japanese karaoke televised game show—via Memo of the Air 

tas: Strange New Worlds to have a fully Muppetised episode courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop—still, cancel Paramount 

church and state: US to allow federal workers to evangelise in the work place

tilting at windmills (12. 613)

Although failing to secure a ten percent flat tariff on European as the UK had reached—despite Brussels’ belief it could achieve the same nuisance levy—and following the capitulation of NATO members to increase defence-spending to five percent of their domestic output with commitments to purchase US armaments as well as American fossil fuels, the EU’s very asymmetrical appeasement of Trump is seemingly not to win a trade war, the terms keep shifting and preciously little surety has been accomplished with questions remaining on pharmaceuticals, steel and the tech and financial services hegemony. This undignified negotiation seems only to privilege German manufacturing above, though markets are open to cheaper US imports, accepted without pushback avoids more escalation—one should stay up to bullies however, particularly when there’s no substance nor compulsion behind his policies and posture, but maybe to suffer humiliation in order to preserve the global order is a small price to pay—economically the announcement affects little in the end other than temporarily enriching the petrostate and weapons manufacturers with the commitments—and Trump has already significantly advanced his deadline for new Russian sanctions and is showing daylight between himself and Netanyahu. Such men, small and common, cannot be trusted or invested with such sweeping powers, however.  They’re killing the beauty of our scenery—our plains, and I’m not talking about airplanes—they won’t let you bury the propellers.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a history of Elvis-officiated weddings (with synchronopticæ)

fifteen years ago: contentious Olympic venues and the keyholders of the internet 

poisoning pigeons in the park (12. 612)

Language Log directs our attention to the obituary and encomium of the recently departed satirist noted for his nimble lyrics and insufferably cheerful accompaniment with a decidedly dark streak, Tom Lehrer (1928 - 2025)—dropping the act in the 1960s but going on to teach mathematics and musical theatre and was a regularly contributor of political lampoons for That Was the Week that Was and an inspiration for Randy Newman, Dr Demento and “Weird Al.” Relinquishing all copy- and performance-rights of his songs in 2022, Lehrer’s music is in the public domain and probably best known for his “Elements”—itself often repurposed for any given subject, set to the tune of Pirates of Penzance and the particularly maudlin “We Will All Go Together When We Go” about universal bereavement—an inspired achievement should someone drop the bomb. In keeping with the Log’s mission, here’s an orthographic track produced for The Electric Company. Much more at the links above.

red harvest (12. 611)

Robin Bates at the irreplaceable Better Living through Beowulf invites us to try to understand the mentality and modus operandi of Trump and his enablers through the lens of Dashiell Hammett’s protagonists, anti-heroes, particularly in their cultist fantasy of dismantling a system deemed as corrupt and biased against them, despite being the most privileged and unaccountable class and beneficiaries of said system that they would like to see burnt down. A card-carrying Communist that was blacklisted and served time in prison for failing to name names, Hammett’s support was not unconditional and was a vocal critic of Marxism in practise, the author’s hard-boiled detective characters that defined the Noir genre are a type—their foils too—but not the calculating kind, and whilst this flawed authenticity may be appealing, it’s cautionary at best and certainly not a model for analytical thinking. Trump and the people he surrounds himself with are disruptors of the worse kind, destroying what underpins what they don’t understand, unleashing consequences ignored as too difficult to deal with and style themselves as martyrs for an inherence of their own unmaking, like with Ukraine, Gaza, the economy, trade and tariffs, the shrinking of the administrative state—and unlike gumshoe Sam Spade or the crime boss can be checked with commission (mandate), guardrails, shame or blackmail.

synchoronoptica

one year ago: American theocracy (with synchronopticæ) plus a lunar archbishopric 

twelve years ago: a spherical typewriter, more diabolical architecture, whistle-blowers and press-freedoms plus mysteries and Macguffins

fifteen years ago: digital rights management 

celosia cristata (12. 610)

H got a nice bouquet of chiefly sunflowers and mixed greenery with garnishes of ficus leaves—and on closer inspection, flourishes of a this velvety bunched red bloom that resembles the gyri (folds) of a brain—like in a sponge or coral.  Commonly known in English as the cockscomb for its similarity with a rooster’s crest and waddle, the species (also called Brandschopf in German, from κήλεος, burning for the flame-like flowers), the hearty yet endangered plant native to the tropics was saved through cultivation for ritual purposes, tended near temples and slowly increased its range thriving through the world, and as not only ornament serves as a nice compliment to the sunflowers as edible, grown as food for the leaves and inflorescences particularly in India, South America and western Africa.

par for the course (12. 609)

Amid vocal protests that refuse to let the issue of the Epstein files go away quietly, Trump and entourage has returned to his Scottish golf course and resort (see previously) to discuss tariff and trade deal as well as immigration policy and rehash his NIMBYistic complaints about wind turbines with the UK and the EU. Meanwhile, as Trump attempts to deflect reporters’ questions regarding the above scandal, a US Justice Department official, former Trump defence attorney in a blatant case of witness tampering and quid pro quo for a pardon, has been sent to interview convicted sexual predator and longtime pimp for Epstein and associates, Ghislaine Maxwell, presenting a list of a hundred named individuals for review in an apparent exchange for clemency on her prison sentence from a fellow felon. One could safely assume that the list mirrors closely anyone on the syndicate’s hit list, including Obama, the Clintons (Bill and Hillary recently subpoenaed to testify regarding the client list which supposedly does not exist), the Bidens, LTC Vindman, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Reality Winner, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Rosie O’Donnell, ex-best buds Musk and Putin, the aforementioned windmills, sharks, Greta Thunberg and anyone else who dared cross him, hoping such a catalogue will satisfy dissenters within the MAGA movement. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Paris Games opening ceremonies (with synchronoptiæ)

twelve years ago: speech cannibalisation plus charting literature

fifteen years ago: shock and awe and the quagmire of forever wars 

sidecar, side-quest (12. 608)

Via Web Curios, we are directed toward the rather epic, years’ long adventure of one Adam Aaronson—the would be the first—to sample every cocktail on the registry of the International Bartenders’ Association (IBA). Notably not binge-worthy and assayed with refinement and purpose, research and travel, Aaronson drank all one hundred two concoctions inscribed since the list was established in 1961 to bring a standard and uniformity to the profession of mixology which includes three broad categories: the Unforgettables, like the martini, Manhattan, Americano and Between the Sheets; Contemporary Classics, like the Black Russian, Sex on the Beach the Bloody Mary; and New Era Drinks, like Naked and Famous, Southside and Three Dots and a Dash. Past versions of the list, drinks de-accessioned for going out of favour and not standing the test of time also offer an insight into changing tastes—with historic, former cocktails removed like the Screwdriver and a personal favourite, the Harvey Wallbanger. Aaronson shares anecdotes for many drinks and the bars where he tried them, reformulating the data in compelling ways and as a point of departure, he begun mixing his own.

gao and gulag (12. 607)

Trump is trying to cement case for ousting the chairman of the US federal reserve and install a more plaint comptroller who will lower interest rates according to the president’s will and make the trillions added to America’s debt slightly cheaper to borrow, advised that he can only dismiss the head of the independent central bank—whom Trump appointed during his first term—for cause, Trump is attempting to to cast budget overruns on the renovation of the reserve’s headquarters on Jerome Powell personally as an instance of fraud, waste and abuse. Sanguinely, Powell replied, in the this publicity stunt and set-up (see previously) that the cost of construction has sharply increased due to tariffs and that his figures were manifestly incorrect. Ahead of a meeting of the board’s policymakers to set the benchmark rate, it appears that the Fed will leave the percentage unchanged out of prudence in a chaotic environment, and having a central bank that is politically and economically aligned with the administration could very easily backfire, making investors and foreign holders wary about buying bonds and cause maintaining and taking on extra debt much more expense as well as further exacerbate inflation for consumers. Meanwhile, Trump has issued another executive order, which may be the most chilling yet—and that’s saying a lot for the catalogue of horrors already unleashed: Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets. The EO proposes to end “endemic vagrancy” by encouraging the civil commitment of unhoused individuals deemed to have an incapacitating mental illness that precludes self-care, ostensibly revamping the asylum-system but not in a Victorian fashion of disappearing undesirables in an environment that normalises undesirable behaviour but rather as work-camps (Arbeit macht Frei), like his Alligator Alcatraz—and reopening the Alcatraz actual. Not only are most Americans living in a very precarious paycheque-to-paycheque situation, not homeless by the grace of their inferiors, I suspect that after the initial roundups, foreign-looking individuals, protestors, dissidents—all in the estimation of the police-state—and the securely housed with assets to confiscate will follow soon after. We’ve seen this before. The order further goes on to detail how federal grants to cities will be prioritised that enforce prohibitions on illicit drug-use, urban camping, squatting and programmes to register and track the location of sex offenders. Wrecking the economy and tanking the job market—as outlined above—seem a perfect first step to create a sizeable population of malcontents.

turophilia (12. 606)

 No notes—via the venerable Card House, estᴰ 1994.

your harvest comes in seven risings of your red giant (12. 605)

Premiering on this day in 1980, the Roger Corman production—capitalising on the success of Star Wars—the space opera featuring Robert Vaughn, Sybil Danning and George Peppard was a remake of an Americanised edition (released as Battle Beyond the Sun three years after its 1959 debut and directed by Corman himself in collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola) of Небо кличе (The Sky Beckons—cosmonauts saving an American crew on a race to colonising Mars but in their rescue attempt run out of fuel and are stranded in the asteroid belt) as science-fiction version of The Magnificent Seven (itself a Western interpretation of Seven Samurai). An agrarian planet is threatened by a dying warlord of the galactic empire and demands that the peaceful inhabitants donate their organs to him in order to regenerate. The farmers plan to hire a group of mercenaries to protect them, having only food and shelter to offer for payment and dispatch a young hero named Shad to find allies and ends up assembling an eclectic band of resistance fighters, striking one much like the plot and characters of Rebel Moon, a recent Zack Snyder vehicle resulting from being refused the rights to remake Star Wars. Despite a modestly successful box-office, the endeavour received mixed reviews as derivative, and in keeping with his tradition of mentoring emerging talent, Corman secured student filmmaker James Cameron (see above) for special effects and model designs as well as James Horner (later composing themes for Avatar, Aliens, Braveheart, Titanic, The Perfect Storm, Willow, etc) to score the piece. 

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: the arch of Constantine (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links worth revisiting

thirteen years ago: on tour in Norway 

fifteen years ago: directed intelligence in navigation 

splashdown (12. 604)

On this day in 1975 with the re-entry of the American spacecraft, with the Soviet capsule landing a few days earlier in the steppe of Kazakhstan after the successful joint mission, the Apollo programme came to an end. The international docking manoeuvre and orbital handshake between the two rivals was seem as a moment of détente for the polarised world during the Cold War, leading to later collaborations like the International Space Station. A technical triumph and symbolic of the cooling tensions between the super-powers, in keeping with the spirit of the Space-Race, the link-up with Soyuz-19 went unnumbered by NASA to avoid confusion with the failed Moon landing of Apollo-XVIII, and the mission’s only tense moment was during re-entry with propellants accidentally vented into the astronauts’ chambers. The US engaged in no further orbital ventures until 1981 and there were no more splashdown landings until August of 2020 with the Space-X Crew Dragon demonstration.

the sands of time (12. 603)

Via Boing Boing, we enjoyed this partial listing of superlative hour-glasses, including the pictured Sanduhr encountered on a museum tour of Mainz crafted in 1984 by Schott Glasweke for the city, flipping hourly. One of the largest permanent installations is the Timewheel (Időkerék) of Budapest. The sixty tonne granite and steel time-piece was created to commemorate the accession of Hungary into the European Union on the first of May 2004. Standing on a site that formerly hosted a statue of Lenin, it was rebalanced shortly after its unveiling to measure out the year and is turned one hundred eighty degrees by a crew of four at the stroke of midnight on the first of January. Several large hour-glasses were installed in large cities in the state of São Paulo to mark the seventh of August 2009 enforcement of smoke-free workplaces progressively throughout Brazil—presumably to mark the next cigarette break.

afuera adentro (12. 602)

Via Messy Nessy Chic, we are directed to self-taught outsider artist Martín Ramírez whose remarkable output is sourced to the last fifteen years of his life remanded to a mental institution in Auburn California in the 1950s and 1960s. Coming to the US from Jasico for work during the Great Depression, Ramírez was picked up for vagrancy and committed as a catatonic schizophrenic. Withdrawn and hardly speaking to anyone, Ramírez took up drawing and a psychologist by the name of Dr Tarmo Pasto recognised his talent as well as the potential for an expressive outlet, supplying him with art materials and organising public shows of his works that fuse migration and memory with iconography of his personal journey and elements of both Mexican and American culture. Appearing in galleries and selling for six-figure sums, in 2015 the US postal service issued a stamp bearing the design of his 1954 piece “Untitled (Tunnel with Cars and Buses).” Much more at the links above. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: St Christopher (with synchronopticæ), how location data compromises security and intelligence, every map of China is inaccurate plus SCOTUS orders Nixon to release the tapes (1974)

8x8 (12. 601)

field office: Trump withdraws the US from UNESCO for a second time 

vidi, quod aperuisset agnus: the Four Horsemen in art  

shoulder-top secretary: indirect communication, etiquette filters and letting the parrot speak for one  

symphonies of glass and steel: a century on, the spirit of Art Deco has shifted from enlightenment to oppression through the lens of a new property listing  

interlockers: chunky sandals that mimic zig-zag paver blocks 

game genie: a 1990 video game cheat cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System and its landmark legacy establishing reverse-engineering (see also) as fair-use and in-play premiums

velvet sundown: responding to the public backlash of AI slop on the internet, some companies are deplatforming or at least threatening to demonetise such tedious content crowding out everything else  

anamorphic sculpture: Thomas Medicus’ 2014 Emulsifier—the term, in the main, refers to the cinematography technique for translating the widescreen to narrower native aspect ratios 

national governing body: US Olympic Committee bars trans individuals from the teams in order to conform with Trump’s directives about protecting women on the anniversary of the 2001 found of the American Paralympics

henohenomoheji (12. 600)

Convinced that this subject was one that we had visited before for its relation to emoticons, emoji and ASCII art and surprised to find that we had not, we enjoyed this short introduction to the generic human face made up of hiragana letter forms, seven characters (arranged to spell out the title へのへのもへじ). Originally the doodle was a classroom exercise for school children of the late Edo era, following the turn of the century reform that reduced the syllabary down to forty eight characters from hundreds as a sort of mnemonic device for reenforcing valid glyphs out of the many retired ones, the characters traditionally sung as they were written. The nose, jaw and left cheek would be pronounced moji (文字 in katana) as in the above “picture writing.”

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ),  the Commodore A1000, dark oxygen, everything is context plus attempts to keep Trump off the ballot and Biden on it

it’s trumpensteen (12. 599)

The Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives abruptly adjourned the legislature ahead of summer recess in order to block a floor-vote demanding the public release of the Epstein files. Scheduled as well for votes on unrelated issues needing immediate attention, congress choose to close shop rather than work through the bipartisan matter, the Mike Johnson dismissed members of the Rules Committee early, only to reconvene in September, accusing Democrats of using the controversy as a political battering ram despite many of the cultists breaking with doctrine. This development comes amid Trump (worthy of the portmanteau, it recalls this first meeting between Igor—Eye-Gore—when Dr Frankenstein corrects his pronunciation) is deflecting by intimating he will direct the Department of Justice to arrest Obama and his cadre for perpetuating a treasonous conspiracy, a Hillary Clinton probe on treason, allowing his attorney general to meet with Epstein’s enabler and personal assistant, the imminently pardonable Ghislaine Maxwell, declassifying FBI files on Dr Rev Martin Luther King, Jr and that “credible evidence” should be disclosed. “Well they were wrong then, weren’t they?”

the stars at night are big and bright (12. 598)

Just ahead of the August fortieth anniversary of the release of the movie, the Alamo has acquired the iconic, custom Schwinn DX Cruiser that appeared on screen in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Directed by Tim Burton (his first time in that role), scored by Danny Elfman (their first collaboration) and cowritten by Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, Herman travels cross country in search of his stolen bicycle—a plot comparable to the 1948 Ladri di biciclette, hitchhiking to Texas after being told by a fake psychic that his beloved bike is in the basement of the San Antonio mission. The film prop will go on display in the visitors’ centre and museum of the Alamo, in the sublevel that famously did not exist at the time of the shooting, a space below the gift shop also used as a reception hall.  This accession was undertaken by a private trust that maintains the monument’s collections, an acquisition unrelated to Texas’ attempted gallery heist of the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian.

synchronoptica

one year ago: enduring lessons of technology (with synchronopticæ) plus a thistle cousin

[guitar solo] (12. 597)

Released on this day in 1987, the debut studio album by Guns N’ Roses remains one of the best-selling hard rock records of all time but garnered little mainstream attention until the band began touring and increased airplay a year on with commercial success. Most tracks on the album and other’s in their repertoire were created while touring on the Los Angeles club circuit. The original cover art based on a painting by Robert Williams (who produced Zap Comics along with other underground cartoonists like Robert Crumb) was regarded as too controversial by retail outlets, which prompted Geffen records to compromise by moving that image to the liner-notes, substituting the more familiar Celtic cross version with five skulls representing the band members, inspired by a tattoo design. Rather than the traditional A- and B-sides, the obverse songs were labelled G—Guns and dealt with themes of drugs, violence and struggles of city life—and the reverse R—Roses covering love, sex and relationships.

our great indian people, in massive numbers, want to have this (12.596)

Although unclear how the US president could interfere with the multi-billion dollar development project already allocated by the Washington, DC city council and signed into law, Trump is threatening to derail the planned new stadium under construction for the National Football League franchise, the Washington Commanders, unless the team brought back their old name, finally changed from the Redskins in 2022 after decades of controversy and criticism. Playing at a venue located in Maryland while the their ageing home RFK arena in the capital underwent renovations, the team was originally founded in Massachusetts in 1932 as the Boston Braves—again not in deference to actual indigenous people but to the disguises that American separatists wore during the Tea Party and thus even more demeaning, moving to Washington the following year. It is unclear whether the funding approval was tied to the name update. Trump further argues that the Major League Baseball franchise the Cleveland Guardians should also revert back to their old identity.

synchronoptica

one year ago: an entrepôt on the Seine (with synchronopticæ), assorted links worth revisiting, more from Marshall McLuhan plus Joe Biden steps down as the Democratic presidential nominee

pier giorgio, guide my fist (12. 595)

An avid mountaineer, hence his motto “Verso l’alto”—toward the top—and social justice activist and leading member of several charitable organisations in his native Turin, Pier Giorgio Frassati, who as a student helped found an newspaper calling for reform and equity inspired by the papal bull of Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, will be canonised in September after long delays in his cause along with the Blessed Carlo Acutis. One detail omitted about Frassati not mentioned in the press-releases and official hagiography, we learn however via MetaFilter, who the peace-loving individual was no fan of the Mussolini regime and describes (with pious humility) more than one encounter dirty fascists (porci fascisti) and was not above throwing punches to defend his family, the marginalised and the Church from intimidation.

8x8 (12. 594)

; ): the correct use of the semicolon—see also  

if you try to humanise the place, you will lose your mind: a journalist reflects on her unconscionable trip to Dubai  

dream logic: the surreal illustrations of Garrett Davis  

bubble house: space age, Mid-Century Modern brownstone off Central Park on the market for the first time in half a century—see also  

the sounds of summer: the soundtrack of nostalgic memories of the season by prolific composer Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲) reimagined as a short visual film  

jumbotron: Coldplay concert kiss-cam incident (and memes) underscore the practice’s awkward history  

kiss of death: US vice president flew to Montana for a secret meeting with News Corp head Rupert Murdoch, aged 94, to discuss reporting of Trump—maybe he dies soon like when Vance had an audience with the Pope—or fawning MAGA fan Truss with the Queen  

the only free cheese is in a mousetrap: the Ukrainian equivalent of the English idiom there is no such thing as a free lunch

🧶 (12. 593)

On this day in 1961, Lee Harvey Oswald was granted an exit visa to the return to the United States after two years of living and working in Minsk, having defected in October of 1959. Oswald taught himself Russian and had saved up a sizeable portion of his Marine Corps salary after his court-martial and hardship discharge and booked passage to the United Kingdom via ship from New Orleans to Le Havre. Telling customs officials he intended to stay in Southhampton for a week before proceeding to a school in Switzerland.

Hiding his plans to reach the Soviet Union, Oswald flew to Helsinki the same day and took a train to Moscow, where granted a week’s permit to stay and assigned a guide by Intourist, the travel agency and tour operator purportedly run by the KGB. Immediately informing his escort that he wished to become a Soviet subject, Oswald was questioned by various officials as to his motivation whom all found his reasoning suspect and a bit incomprehensible and his application was denied with him being told he would need to leave upon the expiration of his visa. The night before he was due to depart, Oswald—distraught and desperate—gave himself a minor but convincingly bloody knick on the wrist in the hotel bathroom, prompting his Intourist minder to refer him to a psychiatric hospital for observation, overstaying his visa, insisting he wanted to remain in the Soviet Union. Later Oswald formerly declared his desire to renounce his American citizenship to an embassy official at the US mission to the Soviet Union, telling the interviewing consular agent he was earnest and would disclose to the Soviets details on the Marine Corps and his speciality as a radar operator, suggesting he had more intelligence secrets he could reveal. 

The consular agent confiscated his passport but did not revoke Oswald’s citizenship. Hoping to be allowed to pursue his studies in Moscow, Oswald was a bit deflated to be sent to Minsk for a factory job producing consumer and space electronics. The future president of an independent Belarus, Stanislau Shushkevich, a coworker, was assigned to Oswald to help him improve his language skills. Despite government-subsidised housing and a generous supplement that afforded Oswald a conformable lifestyle, he eventually became disillusioned, reporting that the the work was drab and there were no little leisure activities and requested to be repatriated. Acquired dependents while Oswald was awaiting the decision and return of his passport were permitted to join him in Texas one year later.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a sign of solidarity with Trump’s failed assassination attempt (with synchronopticæ) plus going Nazi

fourteen years ago: the job market for recent graduates 

militärgeschichtliches denkmal (12. 592)

After doing the weekend shopping in Mellrichstadt (previously), we stopped in the in the Hainberg Arreal on the edge of town for a walk on the groups of the mothballed border garrison of the Cold War. By the old security gate there was a collection of the kind of tanks from the motor pool and the headquarters building preserved in its original condition, furnished as it was during its forty-four year history as home base to the 352nd Panzer Grenadier Battalion of the West German Bundeswehr. 

The museum and documentation centre was closed when we visited but I got immediate feelings of nostalgia for the former US army barracks in Würzburg, Kitzigen, Schweinfurt, Giebelstadt, etc, etc with the same general layout and style of the few representative structures—which of course were German-built and occupied by the Allies at the end of World War II—but learned it contains the command room with access to the bunker and fallout shelter (see also, worth going back for) as well as an arms room and information on the unit’s patrols and foreign missions up to Afghanistan in 2006 after which the brigade was disbanded and the base closed.

sylvanian drama (12. 591)

The Japanese toymaker behind the woodland cast of characters (see previously) is suing a dramaturg who posts popular videos and images across a variety of platforms of the fuzzy creatures portraying bleak and dark adult domestic situations for copyright infringement and causing “irreparable injury” to its reputation. The Irish artist from Kildare, Thea Von Engelbrechten, is filing a countersuit that her creations are parodies and fair-use. There’s a potential for the Streisand Effect and the legacy brand launched in 1985 and otherwise unfamiliar to today’s generation with this soap opera that resonates with audiences.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus Geraldine Ferraro accepts her party’s nomination (1984)

patrimoine mondial (12. 590)

As NPR reports, twenty-six new sites from all over the world have been inscribed into the UNESCO list of World Heritage (see previously) for 2025, including many we’d have thought would have already been among them like the ensemble of castles commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Jamaica’s Port Royal, the memorials of the Cambodian genocide and the coasts of Morbihan with the megaliths of Carnac, necropolises in China and Sardinia and Minoan archeological sites in Crete. Click through at the link above for a full list of the new additions with extensive information about each location.

⚐ (12. 589)

Reminiscent of the flag of South Vietnam, carrying nuanced meanings for the diaspora outside the communist nation and sadly coopted with little context by some pro-Trump elements, we learn via Web Curios that there’s a comparable battle over the flag of Iran. While the official tricolour adopted after the Iranian revolution of 1979 bearing the emblem in the centre with the name of God stylised as both a sword and a tulip, symbolising bravery and martyrdom. Other groups outside of Iran prefer the older banner of the deposed Shah, the personal flag of the Pahlavi dynasty with the ancient symbols of the Sun and Lion that goes back to Byzantine times, both in the pro-monarchy movement and those protesting the current regime as authoritarian as more inclusive. The older flag’s association with conservative monarchists movements and regime change moreover apparently informed Israel’s decision to name its war the with country Rising Lion. Yet other groups are partial to the three coloured bands with no shield as a way to acknowledge diversity of political allegiances and was historically championed by pro-constitutional, democratic counter-revolutionaries before outside intervention. The pictured further alternative is charged with the slogan Woman Life Freedom that emerged out of the 2022 protests that arose after Kurdish Mahsa Zhina Amini died in the custody of the Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police for not conforming to government standards of modesty in dress, with the message rendered in the same early Persian script, Kufic—cuneiform adapted to Arabic letters, that embroiders the official flag’s fimbriation as the takbīr (تَكْبِير ).

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may every day be another wonderful secret: a round up on the Epstein files and Trump’s tantrums—for MAGA, Nazis are cool but they’re drawing the line here—at least there’s a line, hopefully  

infra-realism: off-the-spectrum photographs of Palm Springs California by Kate Ballis—see previously  

power of the purse: a much diminished US legislator’s concessions to the directive of the administration not only slashes the budget for public broadcasting and foreign aid, it also signals their redundancy as a rubber stamp for the executive branch 

let’s go fly a kite: instead of windmills, Ireland tries an alternative to harness energy  

there’s a little frank lloyd wrong in all of us: a horrendous split level property in North Carolina gets the McMansion Hell treatment—previously, via Neatorama  

photovoltaic array: a gallery of images from China showing the future of clean, renewable energy  

fascism for first time founders: the broligraghy, the dictator trap and the invisible brain-drain 

long photographs: contemplative landscapes from Noah Kalina 

 the colbert report: CBS cancelling The Late Show next summer after host openly criticised the settlement between Trump and parent company Paramount—though cites purely financial reasons

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Via Kottke, we really enjoyed browsing the Internet Archive’s expansive exhibit of over five thousand historical images of the NASA Ames Research Centre, built at the tip of San Francisco Bay in 1939 and now surrounded by the campuses of tech giants Google, Microsoft and Apple originally as a facility to conduct wind-tunnel tests and gauge the aerodynamic properties of propeller-drive aircraft, its scope broadened quickly after World War II to compass space exploration, rocketry and computer science. Perusing the collection (see also) gives one an appreciation of the eight decades’ worth of missions, discoveries and breakthroughs that came from this nexus of Silicon Valley and makes us more than a little anxious about the future of public, state-sponsored research and long-term repercussions of short-sighted priorities.

synchronoptica

one year ago: American’s AI-military complex (with synchronopticæ) plus an evil cocktail