8x8

paperback writer: the cinematic portfolio of Matt Stevens in old book covers, via Things magazine

live-feed: snapshots of deserted public places around the world gleaned from web cams, via Kottke

social distance: the inspiring latest torch song from Randy Rainbow, via Miss Cellania

 🤠: lone security guard of the National Cowboy Museum virtually engages his visitors

 😷: the origins of surgical masks and respirators

they laugh and love: John Carpenter announces sequels to his 1988 sci-fi thriller
 
major arcana: an automated tarot reader that seems to never have gotten off the drawing board

still buffering: the lagging evolution of the video teleconference

long-haul

Though the phrase (this had been haunting me for a while) used optimistically as way to promote good order and acquiescence on both sides during the Great War and probably was first forecast in earnest, “Over by Christmas” was a barbed and derisive response as well—soon overtaking the original sentiment. Hopes for an abbreviated skirmish were dashed by a failure to appreciate how technology and mechanisation had fundamentally altered the nature of killing as the very antithesis of our hubris and harmartia that allows us to think the same technology makes everything expedient and negotiable. This will not be over by Easter and please don’t wait for the authorities to tell us to look out for one another.

welttuberkulosetag

The World Health Organisation marks today as International Tuberculous Day in deference to the 1882 to the meeting of a small group of scientists and professors, including pioneering immunologist Paul Ehrlich, at the Institute of Hygiene at the University of Berlin wherein Doktor Robert Koch (*1843 – †1910)—a name now also very much in the news, astounded those assembled by announcing the elusive cause of the infectious disease to be a pathogenic bacteria.
Lucidly and convincingly, Koch was able to present his case to academics and authorities and suggest effective interventions at a time when germ theory still battled with rumour and superstition in the realm of epidemiology as TB spread through Europe and North America. While Koch did not think the there was a zoonotic connection between the human and cattle incidence of the disease (bovines being the vector) and thus delayed the identification of milk and other dairy products as one source of contamination (an oversight that colleague Louis Pasteur corrected), Koch developed a crucial screening process that could identify, isolate and treat carriers prior to symptoms manifesting. Though much diminished, TB has not been eradicated and remains the second most common cause of death (AIDS being the first) from a communicable disease with approximately eight million new cases per year.

organisation commune africane et malgache

Founded in 1961 to promote economic and political cooperation among the decolonised and newly independent francophone nations of the continent and its largest island, the African and Malagasy Union was formaly dissolved on this day in 1985 by mutual consent of its member states.
Once former Belgian-controlled territories were allowed in the group, the governing body gradually realised it was at cross-purposes to more inclusive, pan-continental institutions that were developing in parallel. One lasting legacy of the former organisation’s work, after abandoning defence pacts and a common army that caused the most strife throughout the decades, was the multinational civilian airline Air Afrique and its spinoffs.

guideposts

First unveiled on this day in 1980, the ensemble of granite monoliths outside of the city of Elberton in the US state of Georgia, astronomically aligned and shrouded in a rather mysterious, secretive commission have the Guidestones are sometimes regarded as America’s Stonehenge.

Made and placed to exacting specifications (the pillars track the sun and the moon) by a group of anonymous donors fronted by a go-between—also under an assumed identity, the local granite finishing company was approached and told that the monument would act as a compass and calendar that could withstand coming, eminent catastrophe and serve as a set of instructions, exhortations for those survivors tasked with rebuilding civilisation. The alternative commandments, inscribed in eight modern languages with transcriptions in Babylonian cuneiform, Ancient Greek, Sanskirt and Egyptian appearing boustrophedonically around the edges of the slabs. Once the money for the project materialised, the granite company executed the job gladly, dismissing the representative as an eccentric. The land and the Guidestones were given to the county afterwards and the regulations, practicable and sage as they may be, have attracted no end of speculation and conspiracy theories and advocate for population control and all manner of social engineering.

rumpus room

We really enjoyed perusing this inviting gallery of conservation pits, an architectural feature incorporating plush seating in a sunken and often shagged subfloor within a larger living area.
The design was a popular mainstay from the 1950s through the 1970s showcased and much copied in the 1958 Miller House (pictured) of Columbus, Indiana from Eero Saarinen—also centrepieces of influential homes by Alexander Girard and Bruce Goff. Do take a look at the extensive collection of images at Messy Nessy Chic at the link up top and let us know which is your favourite adult pillow-fort and how you would design your own.

daisy-cutter

On this day in 1970, under the auspices of the programme Commando Vault to develop and deploy progressively more destructive conventional explosives in the war effort, the United States Army first dropped the BLU-82 (Bomb Live Unit) on troops in North Vietnam and Laos, so nicknamed the above as it was designed not for combat but to clear helicopter landing zones in dense jungle and due to its broad but shallow explosive capabilities, it did not leave a crater. The type and stronger iterations were used up until 2008 (the last live ammunition practise pictured) in various campaigns before being replaced by the MOAB.