aka the eyes of hell

Via Nag on the Lake and Memo of the Air, we’re pleased to have been acquainted with the 1961 horror-flick shot in Toronto from Julian Roffman. Produced in 3D and distributed by Warner Brothers, this surrealist film has the distinction of being Canada’s first foray into the genre.
The plot follows a doctor of psychiatry who obtains a mysterious tribal mask which gives the wearer increasingly bizarre, dissociative visions. Though critically panned for its gore and splatter, the technique used for the nightmare montages, created by Slavko Vorkapich with audience members given magic, mystic stereoscopic glasses similar to the eponymous cursed, mask) were well received.

8x8

no wait, that was the prince of tides: researchers identify neural cells responsible for episodic, cinematic memories 

there goes the neighbourhood: a five-storey historic building in Shanghai walks to its new location, avoiding demolition, via Slashdot 

utopia planitia: future Martian settlements will not be colonies beholden to terrestrial governments

anti-pop: Danny Elfman—previously of Oingo Boingo, releases his first surprise single in three-and-a-half decades  

stingy jack: the legend behind the Halloween lantern from Nag on the Lake  

brototype: the baked-goods based photography of Jill Burrow 

haute couture: Ken Tanabe’s annual DIY ideas for stylish Halloween costumes  

brain-in-a-vat: laboratory-cultured neural organoids could be conscious, via Miss Cellania’s Links

copaganda

We enjoyed this neologism, this portmanteau from Boing Boing—specifically here calling out the media for their compliant rebroadcasting of perennial moral panics and seasonal hysteria involving poisoned, adulterated Halloween candy (even at a time we’d do better to discourage trick-or-treating in the first place)—and also like how the word speaks to the wider phenomenon of policing in America especially with the militarisation and mission-creep of law enforcement and how cops have become racism valets ready to serve and protect the status quo and justify their own positions of power.

nos sumus una familia

Declaring its independence on this day in 1977, residents of a triangle of streets in Notting Dale, West London formed the Free Independent Republic of Frestonia, inspired by Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen and the comedy Passport to Pimlico—putting the matter to a referendum with an overwhelming majority in favour of secession and many of those further advocating joining the European Economic Community.
Learning that the city council had designs on redeveloping the neighbourhood, the community of artists and squatters originally tried as a whole adopting the same surname (we are all one family, like the motto above)—Bramley, one of the roads forming the border of the micronation (see previously), so the city would be compelled to re-house them collectively, though that ploy failed. Lasting until 1982, the fully-functional state dissolved once an acceptable deal was reached with the developers—though not to everyone’s satisfaction. Architecturally, the art gallery The People’s Hall is all that remains from the days of independence—which also served as recording, rehearsal studios for The Clash and Motörhead. More to explore from Weird Universe at the link above.

a duet for two lutenists but just one lute

From the always resourceful Kottke, we are serenaded with a selection (juried by the BBC) of the fifteen strangest compositions in the classical canon, not only for their scoring and instrumentation but also for how they were performed—like the Helicopter String Quartet (Hubschrauber-Streichquartett) by Karlheiz Stockhausen (see previously)—or their subject matter like Lord Berners’ jaunty Funeral March for a Rich Aunt or Gioachino Rossini’s Duetto buffo di due gatti, that is his Cat Duet that made fun of stage divas and has two sopranos mewing at one another. Our favourite story, however, came from Leopold Mozart, who had a reputation for being a domineering stage father only interesting in living vicariously by driving his son Wolfgang Amadeus and daughter Nannerl to success, that the Toy Symphony (1760, Kindersinfonie oder Berchtesgaden-Musik) he wrote seemed so out of character that for years it was attributed to the far more genial and gregarious Joseph Haydn.

tendencies for everybody

Via Strange Company, we learn that our preoccupation with royal births and impatience for the latest (or perhaps yet to come) gossip has informed the daily horoscope column.

As one shrewd editor found himself short on reporting with the birth of another grandchild of the monarch, the Sunday Express decided to engage celebrated astrologer R.H. Naylor (their second-choice after a mystic called Cheiro, after cheiromancy—that is palmistry—had to turn down the newspaper) to do a forecast for the yet-unborn Princess Margaret (†2002, appearing in print three days after her birth in August 1930—I surmise she was a Leo) and as it were tell her adventurous (the Queen’s younger sister lived up to these predictions vague and universally applicable as they were) life backwards and let her age into her fortune. Using the commission to develop his nascent technique of solar signs—that is a simplified method based on one’s birth and the house of the zodiac that the sun was in, Naylor was able to offer readers both a general personality assessment and a daily prognostication. After having predicted the crash of an airship, Naylor was criticised for failing to forecast World War II. His column nonetheless remained popular and spawned many imitators.