les mis

Formally opening at London’s Barbican Centre on this evening in 1985 after a week of preview performances to mixed critical reception, the stage musical collaboration of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables from Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel—translated by Herbert Kretzmer is one of the West End’s and the world’s longest-running performance—in good company with Cats (previously) which coincidentally saw its Broadway premiere on the same day three years prior. Following the storyline of Hugo’s 1862 novel, informed and inspired by the Artful Dodger and company of street urchins’ song and dance routine in Oliver! (Twist), doggedly determined police inspector Javert (relatedly) pursues Jean Valjean for breaking parole (sentenced and having served nineteen years hard-labour for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s staving baby) and are carried away with a cast of characters to a Paris on the brink of revolt and revolution. 

 

7x7

blood pudding: British public reject Magnus Pike’s (see previously) modest proposal as taboo  

urban jungle: artist employs banana fibre cocoons for the Milan of our over-heated future  

a fungus among us: Public Domain Review explores fungi, folklore and fairyland

object lesson: a 1937 experiment with remote learning to contain a polio outbreak 

those speedy clouds: Alvin and the Chipmunks cover Phil Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi—see previously  

maybe i’m immune: James Corden performs a soulful parody of the Paul McCartney ballad 

 the cask of amontillado: Spanish navy upholding tradition of ageing wine at sea, transporting a buttload of sherry around the world

ibīdem

From the same source as our previous post, we are really enjoying exploring this extensive, exhaustive collection of historic maps and surveys and finding our little pocket of the world through the ages. Easy and intuitive, see if you can find yourself in this cartographic collection and how much things have changed and/or remained the same. Here we are annotated on two different catalogues of the Henneberger holdings in the seventeenth century.

 

little birdhouse in your soul

Spotted first at Pasa Bon!, the designation third space—which this apartment tower in Beijing also carries (2010 by architect Li Xinggang, 李兴钢)—usually denotes a vanishing though often idealised hang-out spot that’s not work or home (Central Perk, the Peach Pit from 90210 but I think that these architectural accents, these roosts like birdhouses that project off each unit do qualify as somewhere liminal to escape to. Less like crowded apartments cheek-to-jowl, these flats seem more like stacked, vertical villas.

mavis beacon

Via the always engrossing Things Magazine, we are introduced to a clever little keyboarding tutor that trains one’s skills—and we all tend to revert to strategies of hunting and pecking, buffering or thumbing especially when we move across different interfaces, notwithstanding the fact that hybrid methods can be as good as or out-perform standard training—and that makes the chore of practice a bit more entertaining (see previously) by having one exercise with the texts of literary classics. Not only does one have the chance to revisit old works or finally commit to reading a book one always meant to get to, the platform also gauges improvements in speed and accuracy and bookmarks one’s progress. There are even titles to check out languages other than English, though all for now seem to be from the Western canon. Give it a try and put it through the paces.

outbreak

With the exception of commanding officer of the Marine Corps, every other member of the US military branches that comprise the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Space Force included) who have the task of advising the president and the secretary of defence having been in close contact with one of the latest meeting’s attendees who tested positive for the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19 and are in quarantine. Separate from the nomination ceremony for his handmaiden to the US Supreme Court of Justice, it appears that Trump himself is the disease vector.

Aside from anonymous domestics and ancillary staff who put their health and the heath of their families at risk daily in this toxic work environment, the running tally of those at the White House who have succumb to the infection sprints ahead of those rapid succession resignations and dismissals that qualified the administration and measured in Scaramuccis until by process of elimination, he had really scraped the bottom of the barrel for the very worst. Aside from Flotsam and Jetsam, here’s a list of staffers from his inner-circle who’ve been infected and are seemingly wearing it like a badge of pride, a sign of how much access they have to Trump: 

Stephen Miller, Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway and Bill Stepien—speech writer who maintained COVID-19 was a hoax as his grandmother was dying of it, close adviser who was one of the first to show symptoms, former counselor and campaign manager 

Jalen Drummond, Chad Gilmartin and Kayleigh McEnanny—deputy press secretary, press office staffer and deputy press secretary 

Admiral Charles Ray—vice commandant of the US Coast Guard who sent the Joint Chiefs of Staff into isolation 

John Jenkins—University of Notre Dame president who attended the nomination ceremony of the school’s aluma 

Ronna McDaniel—chair of the Republican National Committee 

Senators Thom Tillis, Mike Lee and Ron Johnson—members of the judiciary committee and head of Homeland Security 

Chris Christie—former New Jersey governor and campaign adviser 

Nicholas Luna and an unnamed valet—bag man for Trump and one of his drivers

51 pegasi b

On this day in 1995 the discovery of the exoplanet by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva was announced in the journal Nature.

Though we now know the Cosmos is awash with worlds beyond our Solar System, this planet—provisionally named Bellerophon for the monster-slayer of Greek myth who captured and tamed Pegasus, namesake of its host constellation—officially designated Dimidium (Latin for half) can be described in current parlance as a hot Jupiter, a common class of planets but as this was the first one found orbiting another sun-like star (the first were discovered in 1992 though orbiting a pulsar and wholly ghostly and alien) it was given the name for its mass being half that of our largest world. The co-discoverers were awarded the Nobel prize in physics last year—nearly a quarter of a century afterwards.