6x6

the fable of the dragon-tyrant: a parable from philosopher Nick Bostrom—humans have many perched on the mountaintops

as was the fashion at the time: à la mode is one of the last remnants on American menus of a once rich Francophone culinary code, via Nag on the Lake

we are the laughing morticians of the present: Dangerous Minds takes a look at the short-lived satirical magazine Americana that lampooned geopolitics of the early 1930s

great glavin in a glass: Simpsons’ meme generator, the Frinkiac (previously), has a random-feature

patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel: Trump regime challenges dissenters to love their country more than they hate the leadership

stellar cartography: the European Space Agency’s on-going Gaia project updates its map of the Cosmos

mockbuster

After two years of restoration of the last known reel of the movie in existence and digital conversion, the atrociously campy cult film that’s better known by the moniker “Turkish Star Wars,” the 1982 Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (previously) or The Man Who Saved the World will be enjoying a limited theatre run in London and Glasgow later this summer (May the Fourth be with you).
The movie—hitherto only watchable on bootlegged video cassette copies—gained notoriety for its unauthorised use of footage from the actual Star Wars, with other science fiction films and space programme scenes spliced in, has quite an incoherent plot and was roundly panned by critics at the time. Despite its poor reception, a sequel was produced in 2006, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam'ın Oğlu (The Son of the Man who Saved the World—otherwise “Turks in Space”) but audiences (never easily satisfied) were also critical of the second movie for having professional actors and special effects and was no longer true to the original. Visit the link above to see a video of a few scenes.  I think it’s fun that there’s a revival of such an unambiguously bad movie, but I also hope that the attention it garners directs more people to the finer side of Turkish cinema and film-making, as well.

because i was not a trade-unionist

Contemptibly, the American people seem to have grown tolerant, inured to the reprehensible language that the dangerous and doltish Trump broadcasts and that his complicit and cowardly regime of apologists defend and excuses.
The latest hateful rant was a pointed attack on the defenders of “sanctuary cities,” municipal jurisdictions that limit cooperation with the national immigration authorities to enforce racist policies so that people residing there in contravention of the law (or perceived to be) are less fearful of deportation and are more civically engaged, characterising the programme as “crime infested” and a “breeding concept.” Modern day presidential. Aspirational allusions that take the tack towards fascism are of course alarmist and for good reason—the word have the terrifying echo of justifying marginalisation and murder by stripping others of their humanity.

❤

Spoon & Tamago helps us step outside of our hardwired iconography with a trip to Shojuim Buddhist temple to contemplate the heart-shaped window of one of the guest quarters.
No less auspicious than true romance and with a longer attested provenance, this ideogram is the inome (猪目) meaning ‘boar’s eye’ and is often found adorning hunting implements and weapons in general, signifying unwavering resolve. In modern times, the symbol has softened its edge somewhat and is now treated as a talisman, like the evil eye, and a good luck charm. Be sure to visit the link up top to see more examples and to learn more about the inome sign and its further meanings.

the firemen’s ball

To celebrate the long career of the recently departed Czech screenwriter, director and professor Miloš Forman Coudal Partners refers us to a gallery of international movie posters promoting his earliest works.
Though perhaps better known for his later contributions of the award-winning One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Hair, Amadeus, The People vs Larry Flint and Man on the Moon (the Andy Kaufman biopic), Forman’s final 1967 film in his native Czechoslovakia before self-imposed exile portrays a series of disasters that befalls a small town with endemic corruption and the inadvertent outcomes of the best-intentioned plans. Recognised as a cutting satire of Eastern European politics, the film was banned in perpetuity after the Warsaw Pact invasion of the country (a countermeasure to the Prague Spring of reformist Alexander Dubček) in the night of 20 August 1968.

snowbirds

The always brilliant Nag on the Lake directs our attention to a rather fascinating annual ritual through the photo-essay by Alice Gregory and Dina Litovsky that documents the end of vacation season, running from after October’s harvest to spring planting in April when the fields are fallow, for the “Plain People”—that is communities of the Amish, Anabaptists and Mennonites from rural Pennsylvania and Ohio—who are bussed down to a neighbourhood in Sarasota, Florida to enjoy an extended vacation away from the farm and harsh winters and to spend time with other members of their groups that are outside of their immediate communities, in fact any outsiders. Being on holiday, some of the strictures that determine their code of conduct are relaxed a little and for people that consider hard-labour and self-sufficiency sacred virtues, momentary leisure is to be savoured.