self-medication

I began reading this essay on the portrayal of cartoon characters with alcohol problems because I was intrigued with the term sadcom—an apt name for the genre that consumers can hold at arm’s length with their anti-heroes—and reading further, it quickly careened to a demanding place I was not quite expecting.
Though not myself a connoisseur of the crop of shows mentioned here, I can imagine how the storylines would go and appreciate the analysis of how the parodied, cynical characterisation of coping looks filtered through the cultural movement we are experiencing in recognising that masculinity (and they’re all men) can be a toxic thing. I suppose part of the appeal is that these programmes are unchallenging to watch on a superficial level and a little irony is a tempting lure but I wonder if and how such sadcoms invite reflection and lubricates a difficult discussion or creates the framework and trope that allows us to rebuff it and dismiss it. What do you think? I did like the aside that there’s ultimately hope to be found in these narratives (as in most things, I suppose) but one has to work for it and awards come across as earned—in as much as in subjecting oneself to the arc of exhaustion of a prestige drama which takes much more of an investment.

flugverkehr

On this day in 1917, the German Air Shipping Company (der Deutsche Luft-Reederei) was incorporated to service a mail route between Berlin and Weimar (regular passenger flights came two years later) and a series of mergers pre- and post-war eventually led to the establishment of Luft Hansa—presently Lufthansa. The scope and mission of the company has certainly changed over the years but the stylised crane (Kranich) designed by architect and graphic designer Otto Firle has remained a constant.

focal length

Our gratitude to TYWKIWDBI for revisiting the Small World Micro-Photography Competition sponsored by Nikon whose winners were announced back in October. There are many alien details to investigate of what’s just beyond the scope of our perception and galleries to explore. One specimen that we found particularly intriguing and unexpected on taking a second look was this magnified image of the leathery skin of a sea cucumber, which looks like gelatinous, colourful little anchors.

optotype

German-born optometrist George Mayerle developed a rather comprehensive and inclusive eye chart whilst practising in San Francisco that reflected the diversity of his adopted home.
The radiant dials above test for astigmatism and the bars at the bottom can be used to reveal colour-blindness. Different scripts are represented as well as pictorial characters and geometric symbols for the pre-literate and is nearly contemporaneous with the Snellen table that we’re probably best acquainted with. Learn more about this striking diagnostic tool at Public Domain Review at the link above and find out how to purchase a copy of your own.

worshipful company

Despite not entering into common-parlance unlike some of the other phrases he turned like Boston Brahmin or anesthesia, the term epeolatry coined by poet, physician and polymath Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior (Junior was the US Supreme Court justice) that means the adoration of words deserves a champion. Holmes’ Breakfast-Table series of essays, where the concept was first elaborated, were the foundational dialogues of The Atlantic Monthly—a publication that Holmes named and helped establish.

7x7

figgy pudding: 1970s era Sainsbury’s Christmas dinner packaging

fun-size: definitive ranking of convenience store movie scenes

dalí atomicus: teacher and photographer Karl Taylor recreates the 1948 iconic, action-filled photograph of the artist with flying cats

the shape of water: a Hollywood theme park produced a Creature from the Black Lagoon musical

ghost of christmas future: retro-future ventriloquist Paul Winchell brings the War on Christmas to the Moon

alta vista: a look at some of the internet’s memorable relics

and a happy new year: a curated collection of the New York City Public Library System’s cartographic greeting cards

a real trooper

Our thanks to Things Magazine for introducing us to the concept of an eggcorn, similar to an oronym—that is a word or phrase that can be substituted for another, as in “We all scream for ice-cream!” or a mondegreen, a misheard lyric (the ballad goes “They have slain the Earl O’Moray, and laid him on the green”) which was coined in 2003 to describe the idiosyncratic substitution of one word for another plausible, possibly more sensical one.
Linguists were discussing the case of an individual convinced that the nut of oak tree was called an eggcorn and it was difficult to persuade her otherwise. Alzheimer’s disease might be fairly logically characterised as old-timers’, especially when the term was new or having another think (as in the need to re-think one’s stance) coming makes less sense than having another thing coming, bolstered by song, or chomping versus champing at the bit. What other folk etymologies can you think of? Photochop?  Are you the veteran member of your troupe, reliable and uncomplaining?  I wonder what other convoluted constructions might be attributed to a similar transformation and drive to re-couch a phrase in terms that come across as more logical to contemporaries.