Ruling the twentieth to twenty-fourth degrees of Scorpio—corresponding from today until the seventeenth of November, we make the acquaintance of the infernal grand duke Vual that presents according to the Ars Goetia et al. as a great and terrible dromedary.
This camel demon controls thirty-seven legions of spirits and is a master negotiator, both politically and in romance. Their sigil looks a bit like a single-humped desert wanderer.
Three days after the Wall unexpectedly opened, an impromptu, eleven-hour long Konzert fรผr Berlin was held for an estimated fifty thousand visitors in a West Berlin concert hall on this day in 1989. The line-up included Melissa Etheridge, Joe Cocker & Band, Udo Lindenberg, Nina Hagen, BAP, Nena, die Puhdys and many more. Residents were asked to position their radios in their windowsills so the audio would be available to all, with the Governing Mayor of West Berlin acknowledging the historical significance of this first all-German rock concert and opening the show, especially emotionally charged at that pivotal moment. Both mayors jointly opened more crossing points to accommodate the crowds now crossing freely. Not broadcasting counter-programming but most radio stations and television networks carried a benefit concert from the city’s philharmonic that had been scheduled well in advance, so not much actual footage from the event is available but performers reprised their numbers for a studio album.
The radio telescope observatory—colloquially known as “the Dish”—originally named for the nearby host settlement of Parkes, New South Wales (itself namesake of Sir Henry Parkes, a nineteenth century statesman and premier of the state, advocating the continental railway network and federation of Australia and critic of the practise of using the land as a penal colony) is redesignated as Murriyang—the toponym meaning Skyworld in the language and culture of the Wiradjuri people who have lived there for the past sixty-five thousand years. This realm was the dwelling place of the creator god called Biyaami and the renaming ceremony is meant to celebrate and highlight an endangered yet enduring (loanwords include kookaburra, bunyip and wombat) heritage. Built in 1961, the campus played a pivotal part in the Apollo missions—including the televised coverage, surveying for extraterrestrial technologies, discovering and articulating the phenomenon of fast radio bursts and continues to monitor and track outer space operations.
langue and parole: a poly-lingual whistle-stop tour illustrating what foreign languages sound like to non-speakers
a critical tourism map: whilst most visitors’ guides are irrepressibly positive about their attractions, this revealing map of the Norwegian capital hopes to make people think about the darker side of the past—via Big Think
in this world: an hour of cool Soviet era jazztest pilots: first human passengers take a ride in the experimental, levitating hyperloop (previously) in the desert of Nevada
ohrwurm: you’re welcome—see previously
mnemosyne: an iterative technique to vastly improve recall (see previously)—from the illustrious Mx van Hoorn’s curio cabinet
the ephemeralist: selecting random pages from archives of thousands of old publications, this bit of coding seems as good a substitute for social media as any—via Kicks Condor
the word rooster is an eighteenth century American invention to avoid saying the word ________: an educational and invigorating swear quiz from Helen Zaltzman
Debuting during Karnival festivities on this day in 1948 in Kรถln, native composer and Schlager-performer Karl Berbuer’s (*1900 – †1977) dissonantly but pointedly humorous, self-deprecating tune about occupied West Germany (see previously here and here) became for a time the country’s de facto nation anthem, played at sporting events in lieu of an official one, with the Deutschlandlied abolished with the surrender of the Nazi government. 
In May of 1952, the West’s Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Theodor Heuss readopted Das Lied der Deutschen with only the third stanza (Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit [Unity, Justice and Freedom]) from 1922 to be sung on official occasions (see also). The first stanza (Deutschland, Deutschland รผber alles) and the second (Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue [loyalty], deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang) are not outlawed but are nonetheless provocative and considered taboo to perform.
