Though often subtly alluded to and perhaps the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty, nineteenth century gentleman burglar turned international criminal syndicate mastermind, Adam Worth, is virtually unknown. Celebrated in his day—albeit no one knew his true identity as he hob-knobbed with Europe’s elite and discreetly ran a network of underlings who committed the actual robberies, and always without violence—the cardinal code of his organisation being never to use firearms, Worth managed to elude capture by Scotland Yard and other national police forces, as well as the sleuths of Pinkerton’s Detective Agency. Some one ought to make a movie about this original gangster.
Worth operated at a time when associates referred to “baby-face,” gums, sister, lumpy—or by some other physical attribute in case of any eavesdroppers, and though while based in Paris, Worth was faced with none of those stakes that fostered a criminal underworld in America with Prohibition, Worth did open and run the first Bar Americain in the city, which held on its upper-storey an illicit gambling hall that could be transformed in an instant into a sedate salon peopled by figures lounging and reading newspapers through some ingenious pneumatic works that hid the gaming tables when trouble approached. There was also a sense of respect above this honour among thieves displayed by Worth’s own arch-nemesis in the personage of Allen Pinkerton, who had spearheaded the hunt for Worth for decades in the US (where he regularly chanced to visit his parents, who knew nothing about his exploits), London, Paris, Greece and Constantinople, who was relentless like Inspector Javert’s relentless chase for fugitive Jean Valjean but ultimately held the outlaw in high esteem.
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
cat-burglar or level-boss
Monday, 6 April 2015
johnny-scoff-law oder mannheim steam-roller
Over the holiday weekend, we flagrantly violated the prohibition on dancing during Easter when H and I went to the Time Warp event held in the massive May Market Halls (Maimarktgelande) of the industrial zone of Mannheim. I think that transgression is forgivable; H captured far superior foottage of the DJs, music and dazzling light shows. I was somewhat familiar with the city, though during this visit, we weren’t really afforded the chance to explore—just possibly to eliminate anything we’d might regret having not seen, had we partied until dawn.
As an after-though, Drais developed the keyboard as an input-device for the typewriter, as well. I will have to look into that further, since something known as well as the back of one’s hand as cliqued as never forgetting how to ride a bike is hardly something to just pass up. The bit about Citizen Drais being elevated with a dukedom was so that he might be able to profit from his genius and enjoy a bit of a monopoly on his bicycle, being that this German state did not recognise patent-law at this time, but personal intrigues and war made Drais renounce his title and the idea fell into public domain and was championed by many others as a bridge for later discoveries, like the above automobile and the airplane, Benz and the Wright Brothers both first in bicycle manufacture. Not only was the introducing of the bicycle a touchstone of democratising and liberation, pedal-power also indispensably shaped the world as we know it.
Sunday, 5 April 2015
Saturday, 4 April 2015
wampum or echo base
five-by-five
huldufรณlk: elf-conservationists are stalling construction projects all over Iceland
pink punk: fun renditions of the theme from Blake Edwards’s Pink Panther
upstairs, downstairs: amazing and intricate stairwell concept models
the ballad of max headroom: rewritten by machine on new technology
pick-ups, perfume and pasta: fifteen commercial ventures directed by David Lynch
catagories: ๐ฎ๐ธ, ๐ถ, ๐, ๐บ, myth and monsters
Friday, 3 April 2015
salonniรจre or narrative structure
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐, architecture, myth and monsters
columbian exchange
A pairing of thoughtful articles from Vox and รon magazines present some really interesting insights and unresolved questions about ushering in the Anthropocene epoch.
There are many contenders for when the handiwork of man might have outstripped, outpaced geological change, from the nebulous reaches of time when early humans first hunted giant mammals to extinction—although the Holocene Age (Greek for wholly new) seems to me to include the rise of man, the landing of the Niรฑa, the Pinta and the Santa Maria that introduced global trade and New World transplants to the Old, a point in 1610 when green-house gases began an uptick due to land-management practice, the Industrial Revolution, the atomic bomb, to the nuclear winter of 1964. While it is an arbitrary distinction to some extent and many researchers will continue to champion their favourites in terms of delineation once—if a consensus is reached, what’s nearly as significant as the change that man is imparting on the environment is that we’re adverse, maybe unable to recognise or reconcile is when and how man became estranged from Nature—fancied as no longer of Nature but rather Nature was made man’s ward, with us as not very fit caretakers. What do you think? For all the eons that have gone before, is this debate a reasonable one? It can nonetheless become a helpful one, I believe.
Thursday, 2 April 2015
five-by-five
chizukigou: check out these lovely Japanese map legend symbols
systรจme vidรฉo domestique: French artist repackages contemporary series and films in VHS wrapping
SMPTE bars: a look behind the scenes at the calibration tools of our seemingly seamless electronic world
maki-maki: sushi roll bath-towel concept
mirror, mirror: a look at Star Trek’s departures into an alternate reality