mcmlxviii

On the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, The Atlantic’s senior editor Alan Taylor regales his readers with the gift of retrospective covering the events and attitudes of the year of his birth.
If anything, a survey of 1968 lends perspective and insight on the times that we’re living through presently with violent protests erupting in France, Germany, Czecho- slovakia, Mexico and the United States, the Vietnam war, the absence of civil rights and social justice, disruptive technologies, assassinations and the Moon landing—all told in powerful images, in chronological order.

7x7

coming attractions: Bob Canada’s box office predictions for the winter and spring

reforestation: the UK plans to repopulate the sparsely wooded area of northern England and create a coast-to-coast band of trees, from Hull to Liverpool

la dame aux chats: director Jean Cocteau’s affinity for felines

sundvik: IKEA advertisement for a bassinet is also a pregnancy-test

a mosquito, my libido: switched from a minor to major key, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit becomes a upbeat pop song

split-flap: an internet-enabled mechanical message board harks back to a bygone era

marble run: patient artist DoodleChaos, who previously synchronised Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, now assays Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers”
 

universal constant or halt and catch fire

Researchers in Bilbao and Salamanca proffer a rather radical theory that tidily dispenses with the need—surely not without controversy—for invoking dark energy to explain our Cosmos and the accelerated rate of expansion of the Universe.
The speeding up of the motion or retreat is only apparent and it’s that time itself is slowly, slowly winding down. The accelerated expansion is illusionary as we’re not further away from our galactic neighbours but light is taking longer to reach us as time drags on. Not being able to get my head around the idea, I am not sure how it stands up to scrutiny but we’ve gone to great lengths before for the sake of keeping up appearances. I wonder how this idea might be independently verified. The clock started with the Big Bang but as that burst becomes more diffuse, time over æons is degrading into a physical dimension (like the three were familiar with) and the Universe will freeze and coalesce into a dimensionless point, presumably ready to start the cycle all over again.

dance for me, tartar woman

Previously we’ve learned that Spaghetti Westerns were often filmed in exotic, far-flung locations and now, via Super Punch, we discover that the desert of Utah has at least once been a stand-in for the steppe of Mongolia in the 1956 Howard Hughes production, The Conqueror, starring John Wayne as Temujin (nom de guerre, Genghis Khan), Susan Hayward as his first wife, Börte Üjin, and Agnes Moorehead as his mother, Hunlun.
The film was critically panned and a financial flop (Hughes’ last cinematic venture) and never attained a cult following due to a weak plot and what was recognised as gross miscasting (plus general unavailability—more to follow), but there’s a dark and unexpected footnote in the movie’s production, which spanned three years and leaves a greater legacy of questions. Weeks were spent on location shooting outdoors and establishing scenes and once the cast was ready to return to the studio, Howard Hughes shipped sixty tonnes of native dirt back to Hollywood in order to make sure that the terrain’s appearance matched and ensure continuity. Cast, filmmakers and residents knew that the filming site (and imported soil) was directly downwind from the Nevada proving grounds where the military had tested eleven surface nuclear bombs and munitions a couple of years previously but any concerns that they had were placated by assurances from the government that there was no risk to public health. Nearly half of the two hundred member crew, however, developed cancer, which a quarter succumbed to. Wayne and Moorehead both died of cancer in the 1970s and were heavy smokers (Wayne’s habit was six packs a day) but the actual cause remains a mystery. In the aftermath, anguishing over his decision to shoot in a dangerous and radioactive site, Hughes bought every copy of the film and kept it out of circulation for several years—until the studio re-acquired it from Hughes’ estate after his death. Reportedly, it was one movie that Hughes watched endlessly during his final years.

worshipful company of stationers and newspaper makers

Thanks to the latest instalment of the wonderful and engrossing History of English podcast, we learn why cut paper—and in general writing materials—is referred to as stationery.
From the thirteenth century on, booksellers who set up shop in a fixed spot, as opposed to itinerant peddlers and chapmen who frequented markets and had pop-up stalls but not a permanent location, were called stationers. In exchange for upholding pledges not to gouge students on required text books, universities allowed stationers a virtual monopoly on copyrights, and in the era before the printing press would loan students original manuscripts for use in exchange for producing a faithful duplicate that the stationer could later resell. Their wares and the tools that produced them were referred to a stationery.

plat diagram

Via Present /&/ Correct, we’re treated to these clever and cosmopolitan bars of chocolate that are partitioned out to match the layout of world capital cities’ centres. Inside the wrapper there’s a legend to the map of landmarks.

global research political analysis strategic insight

Bowing to pressure from the interview subjects of the firm that was retained by first a conservative publication and then by the Clinton campaign to conduct oppositional research on Trump who insisted that their sworn testimony be made a matter of public-record, panel member Senator Feinstein released the full transcript of the Judiciary Committee’s dialogue with the strategic intelligence group responsible for compiling the infamous and damning dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia.
While many of the allegations levied against Trump and his cohorts have already been independently corroborated (with disappointingly little incriminating impact) and much of the material contained therein was procedural boiler-plater, the release of the transcript, which was strongly opposed by Republican members of the investigation, does discredit one central tenant of the conspiracy narrative that Trump and his supporters are weaving: that the Federal Bureau of Investigations is biased against Trump and that the dossier was a politically-motivated fabrication. The FBI was in fact looking into Trump run for presidency and his business-dealings, the documents reveal, well before the file was pieced together and the FBI was even warned by the former-spy gathering background on Trump and associates and the bureau believed that at least some of the reporting was credible. There is no witch-hunt.  The entity responsible for leaking the story to the press is unknown. What stands out to you? Possibly no amount of evidence could convince some of collusion but perhaps with the claims of conspiracy on the part of the FBI somewhat defanged, perhaps now the inquiry can continue unfettered.

o

Though we are intrigued past the point of relief and hope to joy and exuberance at the prospect of Winfrey running for US high office we’d all do well to remember that enthusiasm ought to be conditional and contingent. As exhausting as last year’s campaigns were—and in the case of the US, delivering an incredulously atrocious outcome—the notion of an extended, three-year ordeal makes one shudder and illustrates how bad the present is to even entertain the idea that voters are possessed of such stamina.
We draw no equivalence, despite the celebrity stature, and are confident that Winfrey would be humble and surround herself with and defer to subject-matter experts and would be a far better representative of the America public to the rest of the world and would be compassionate and inclusive. These are all very fine and agreeable things that Winfrey incorporates into the empire and brand that she has established, but governance by fame and affinity is probably more alike on both ends of the spectrum than we are comfortable with admitting. Having a platform and agenda separates our Oprah from the indifference, laziness and nihilism of the doltish, criminal syndicate of Trump’s camp to be sure, but I have to wonder if lurching (blowback that’s systemic to democracy) to the other extreme isn’t just a continuation of baiting cultural warfare and stark polarisation and raises the question of what the role of politicians and being governed means. Is statecraft without experience (however that is gauged) or as a chosen career-path just brand-loyalty?  Probably both Trump’s and Winfrey’s relation to their fan-base—not constituencies—are similar and while the latter is certainly preferable to the former, neither I’d venture to wager will attain the political and civic maturity needed to work together and affect real and enduring change until the American president acquires the preparation and experience to govern.  Granted, we would be content with an America that exudes just a modicum of confidence that it won’t start World War III or further savage the environment and if they’re electing celebrities, they might as well elect good ones.  Trump has demonstrated that he is unwilling and incapable of rising to the occasion, no matter what his handlers and surrogate try, but Winfrey, like other personalities that have taken up the mantle of public-service, can, if she chooses, fill her quiver with the tools of state.