low-res

Twisted Sifter directs our attention to the award-winning submission for the World Wildlife Fund’s Japan branch for its 2008 awareness campaign from the Tokyo-based agency Hakuhodo C&D and the creative talents of Nami Hoshino and Yoshiyuki Mikami. In the series, endangered species are depicted by the as a highly pixelated image in proportion to their declining wild populations, the granularity and therefore the dwindling, unsustainable numbers captioned in the bottom left corner. More friends to save from extinction portrayed at the link above.

pilzfund

H and I went foraging for mushrooms recently and though we’re not averaging a good return on edible specimens from the field, we are getting exposed to quite the menagerie of woodland types of fungi during our scavenging.

 

Among the diverse exemplars that we find along the trail just metres from one another we encountered the poisonous and hallucinogenic fly agaric toadstool (Fliegenpilz, Amanita muscaria) quite often, others yet unidentified and works of art in their mystery, and another quavering discovery called a wood ear or a jelly ear (Judasohr, Auricularia auricular-judæ, so called from the traditional narrative that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder, the sambucus, Holunder tree and these mushrooms often appear at the base of such trees to remind the faithful of this act of betrayal).

For all of its rather Lynchian baggage, the wood ear is very much edible—if not a bit bland unseasoned, and is a staple for umami flavourant in Asian cuisine. Please click on the images for more detail.  The pharmacological merit of the fungus is currently being studied, research suggesting that its palliative use in folk medicine was not far off.

6x6

directors’ cut: prints of iconic filmmakers informed by elements of their movies plus a lot more poster art

radiohead has 18 webrings: the Avocado reads Yahoo! Internet Life’s February 2001 issue

republicans, democrats, in-betweeners looking for high crimes and misdemeanors: a Schoolhouse Rock style cartoon primer about impeachment  

mister green jeans: Lowering the Bar deconflates kangaroos and courtrooms—see previously

chiclets: during political exile after losing territory to the Republic of Texas brought General Antonio López de Santa Anna brought the world chewing gum, via Strange Company

a rhetorical question: Betteridge’s Law of Headline writing

startling stories and thrilling wonders: a gallery of pitch-perfect mashups of musical touchstones and pulp ephemera—via Nag on the Lake

ampelmännchen

Introduced in East Berlin on this day in 1961, the “little traffic light man” was the product of extensive research and experimentation on the part of safety planner and vehicular relations psychologist Karl Peglau (*1927 – †2009), whom had wanted to make stop lights differentiated not only by colour but also by shape to provide cues to the not insignificant portion of the population who were colour-blind—seeing his vision realised in one aspect at least.
Modelled off a candid image taken of the then Politbüro member who organised the building of the Berlin Wall, future long-term general secretary Erich Honecker, sporting a jaunty straw hat, the icons’ two poses, walking briskly and arms akimbo signalled to pedestrians when it was safe to cross. After reunification, East German street and traffic signage was dismantled in efforts to standardise typefaces and the Ampelmännchen nearly succumbed to the same fate but was saved (with many tributes—here and here for example) due to the intervention of a soap opera and the symbol was made a mascot of East Germany and Ostalgie.

veritasiness

In order to reveal the potential fraught nature of the policy which has already seen fellow candidate Joe Biden having to waste time and energy dispelling a patent mischaracterization from the desperate incumbent intent on bringing the whole world down with him, contender Elizabeth Warren just called out a garbage social media giant’s practise of not rejecting or demoting political advertisements based on the truthfulness or accuracy of their claims about their opponents and exempting them from internal fact-checking standards.
Her method was simple and effective, announcing that the company’s founder and CEO has thrown his support and backing to the Trump re-election campaign. Even if Mark Zuckerberg does not find the idea abhorrent given the revenue that Trump has given him, it is still a damning indictment given the obvious sway that such a statement would hold given his global reach that far outstrips any other polity in the world, larger than a nation state, larger than religious affiliation. Seconds later in the same political ad, Warren admits that her bold assertion is a total falsehood but one permissible by the company’s own rules.  To add more milieu to the exchange, Warren has already established her antagonistic credentials by vowing to break-up the monopsonistic cartel that is intend to trounce on competition and users’ expectation of transparency.

With a resplendent encampment in the desert much like the summit between Francis I and Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, some attribute the decadent festivities that began on this day in 1971 and continuing until 16 October as a significant factor contributing to the downfall of the Shah and the ousting of the monarchy in this grand fêting of the institution itself on the occasion of its twenty-five hundredth anniversary.
Commemorating the sixth century BC founding of the Achaeminid dynasty, the celebration meant to showcase Iran’s contributions to civilisation and modern advances quickly became a partisan issue and the monumental cost (by some estimates, upwards of twenty-two million dollars) of banqueting and parades curried support for the Ayatollah. In exchange for the Shah’s funding of his own experimental film not released until 2018, Orson Welles agreed to narrate (see also) a documentary of the party for the hosts, which was attended by almost all the world’s royals and heads of state.

cameo appearance

Among several other etymological origin stories along the lines of the painting of a landscape preceded its coinage as something to gaze upon or wander through, we learn of the unexpected legacy of the namesake Comptroller-General of Finances, Étienne de Silhouette.
Charged with bolstering the treasury in preparation for the Seven Years’ War with England, Silhouette took the unpopular emergency measure of melting down flatware and jewelry for bullion and levied a “general subvention,”—that is a tax on ostentatious displays of wealth, such as family paintings.  Anything that suggested imposed austerity or frugality was deemed à la Silhouette—including those modest profile portraits that later gained respect as an art form in late eighteenth century.