hunter-gatherer

Supermarkets are from a design perspective, which belies a lot of marketing and psychological cues and pandering that goes unseen, are a veritable vision quest of encouragement and reinforcement. Having some the tricks of the trade revealed and realizing that there is little departure from the established layout—although I am one to generally be overwhelmed and bewildered by an over-abundant selection—makes me think of those theories that ethnologists sometimes apply to mysterious ruins, suggesting that worn trails and monolithic configurations were ritual paths to entitlement and re-birth. That’s quite possible but we can’t access the intentions of the ancients, and it’s strange that we know grocers big and small have planned their sites not as a larder or granary but as sort of cake-walk, an anti-obstacle-course.

The tactics are not limited to the obvious ploy of putting top-shelf items at eye level, with the less profitable products require stooping, and impulse buys at the checkout, but even the industry-standard, modern shopping buggy has evolved over the years, precise and finely balanced so shoppers don’t feel added resistance as they fill their cart and the wagons are dipped slightly (not so the carts can be stacked) but rather so groceries will roll to the front and spark the acquisitive instinct, into over-drive. Entryways are regaled with fresh produce, not for ease of daily deliveries since most loading bays are in the back, but in order to rather lull shoppers into the mood for scavenging—lasting even into the depths of the freezer-section. Butcheries and fromageries framing their prepackaged and processed counterparts are not there to generate money but rather add ease for the array of less-labour intensive articles the demonstration booths surround. Finally, when next at the supermarket, take note of the times you bear left—that’s an intentional comfort too, intended to placate our self-defense mechanisms in an environment of albeit subdued and civilised safaris: most people better able to snatch and grab or attack from their rights, having to glance to the left might become a shopping distraction. These methods are not necessarily dirty tricks nor are they irresistibly effective, but immunity to the gimmicks is something only slowly acquired.

secessionist or moderne

Often when walking into to town, I pass by the stately shadows thrown by the Lutherkirche of Wiesbaden, but I had not seen the inside until the other day. Other times that I thought about visiting, there seemed to be a gaggle of people there or choir practice and I didn’t want to disturb.

Last time I walked by, a friendly and informative church lady caught me snooping around and poking my head in. She insisted that I have a proper look around. I was not expecting the gorgeous Jugendstil pastiche of the enormous nave that can accommodate twelve-hundred guests. The church-lady treated me to a tour, and in the sunny afternoon, she showed me different perspectives of structure from the upper balcony, tower and equally art nouveau font and chapel. Construction and design began in 1908 as part of the so-called Wiesbadener Programme, an initiative to build protestant churches in the area—which produced several gems.
I suppose that these were the mega-churches of the day, with nothing derogatory intended, but also provided parishioners with a unique entertainment experience. In addition to the tradition of the Bach choir I overheard practicing, there are two celebrated and dueling organs, one at the front and one at the back, to produce a wall of sound. I’ll have to snoop around the other three architectural ensembles of the programme’s commissions.

pyrrhic victory or the hundred years’ war

Though characterized and distilled mostly as the proprietary authority for businesses to demand applicants, supplicants and current employees surrender their social-network profile upon request, which while good for garnering glancing concern and attentions, is sadly short-lived and is not engaging public dialogue in CISPA is again positioned for passage in the US Congress, despite conflating opposition. 
Just as there are champions for keeping us over-safe, we have our tireless advocates, but the issue and the real, long-term stakes remain something that is easily placated or dismissed.
eroding privacy. Victorious skirmishes, sometimes ceded over inflated (at least, in the here-and-now) fears, overshadow—by design, I think, the larger struggle, since these assaults are becoming perennial continuing-resolutions politically.

solidarity or putting words into your mouth

Amid the backdrops of a book launch and the notable scope of the tax-avoidance affair of one of the major charm-offense. Cooperation tends to rule the days of crisis, but quickly becomes unraveled once a fix, however temporary, and parties repair to former, incompatible ways. Stimmt. But does this frank posture really suggest its sinister antithesis? Surrendering sovereignty and enslavement through predatory-lending are glosses neither said nor implied but that seems to be the take-away. What do you think? Are politics beholden to the past and the suspicion of double-speak exclusively or is there cause to default to what’s honest and bona-fided?
soccer league presidents (not to mention the entire thrust of re-election), Germany’s chancellor is presenting a rather stilted and baiting

taxi-dancing or stank

Maybe this is not such a novel idea elsewhere, but Germany hosted its first Pheromone Party over this weekend.

It’s curious how the husbandry and hopefulness of match-making, inured for quite some time to the facility of the internet, is returning to the scientific promise that number-crunching seemed to offer. The arena, I’m sure, is still governed by similar computations, like the nurseries of role-playing and the community, the up-keep of adventure-games, but the approach is taking on certain airs. Optimistic participants (mostly young males) slept in the same tee-shirts over several nights, then froze it in an especially designed freezer bags for later presentation. A few, featured potential pairs were pleased when their assessment of their mates’ scent correlated with their looks and personalities. I wonder what credence a certain smell that becomes familiar over time lends to longevity when put before the horse.

cultivar or arctic blast

The latest tipping of the apple-cart is coming in the form, with already untold reach, of a genetic masterwork in the form of an apple that does not brown when bitten into or sliced up, and incorporating the hardiest traits of all natural apple varieties, can fall quite far from the tree, suited to grow in any climate from the orchards of New England to California to the Russian Far-East.

Fast-food chains, school cafeteria and workplace canteens, not to mention grocery store aisles without much in the way of mandatory disclosure or labeling-requirements, have eagerly adopted these shiny, perfect fruits with an extended shelf-life, constituted in such a way as to avoid independent testing and vetting for safety. The apple’s base genetic material is not altered, its DNA, but rather messenger RNA, the component cleaved from DNA that communicates to the powerhouses of cells what proteins to produce and when, has been modified to turn off the browning function, which I suppose is like clotting to fruit. It sounds rather dangerous to switch something like that off. Arctic is the registered name for the engineered produce, I suppose because it stays white. I wonder what they’ll call the run-away “the royal disease.”

graffiato

Sadly, the artwork adorning the formerly longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, at a location known as the East-Side Gallery is being dismantled and relocated to make room for luxury apartments along the Spree, despite massive protests and celebrity support. Seeing an exhibit posted to Atlas Obscura about the mysterious Minoan artefact, discovered in 1908, known as the Phaistos Disc, I saw some resemblance to this graffiti in Berlin. I wonder if the disc was the inspiration. Although its provenance is debated, some archeologists think that the disc of raised hieroglyphs may be an ancient press for making moveable type. Some statements are not, I think, meant to be moved.

# baker-zebra

Chess and its associated stratagems has pretty interesting etymological, if not instantly recognizable rather shallow and bursting through languages’ foundations, roots. The game, as it is known in English, comes from the French term eschequier, after the Latin name for a the table of a counting-house that bore a signature checked pattern, whose contrast may it easier not to miss a coin strayed from the pile.

Such parquet is reduplicated in the gracious marble lobbies of financial institutions and in officers of the Exchequer. A checkmate, of course, refers to a move that keeps the opponent’s king in check, helpless and few alternatives, and the German name of the game and term, Schach and Schachmatt, reveal more about the Persian origins—sheik, shah and such—for ruler or king paired with an even older association than matched or müde (tired, a Yiddish derived folk-etymology but not something without meaning) for the second part, maat, meaning bedded or retiring. For players physically separated from one another, the pound-sign became telegraph notation for a checkmate situation whose shorthand was an important precursor for code later developed, the hash-marks of programming language. Baker-Zebra, or rather Bravo-Zulu in modern parlance, is an old naval semaphore designation, arbitrary, but filed under B housekeeping and the last register to signify a job well-done.