cross-promotional

I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that some of the traffic to PfRC is robot-driven, like everywhere else—especially since prostituting my posts on social media—but part of the appeal of blogging for me was being privy to the analytics and demographics (which are carefully guarded trade-secrets on any other platform) and finding out what accidental, organic readership was curious about and what might have brought them here.
The top search key words of all time remain things like “knecht rupert” (the name for the Simpsons’ dog Santa’s Little Helper in the German Sprachraum or “satanic symbols” but narrowing the window to any lesser period of time just yield these bizarre three character alpha-numeric strings, like those spooky, inscrutable numbers stations. Is anyone else receiving these transmissions? If it is just random noise, I hope it doesn’t continue to out shout human inquisitiveness.

jet programme or english as she is spoke

We enjoyed this introduction from Public Domain Review to the woodcuts executed in 1887 by Kamekichi Tsunajima for an instructional series titled “Ryūkō eigo zukushi” (A Fashionable Melange of English Words) that depict a sampler of everyday objects, plants, animals, people and activities with their English and Japanese names. The undertakings “looking moon,” “cross child,” “shampooer,” “game of ches” and “cuting rice” struck us as meditative and very zen-like and a refreshing departure from the usual Western foreign language primers.

aquaculture

We are finding ourselves spoiled to distraction with Present /&/ Correct’s latest batch of postings which are all pretty visually stunning but we found ourselves especially taken with the photography of the award-winning, Hong Kong based Tugo Cheng whose keen eye captures (refined with a background in architecture) the contrasting and complementary symmetry and geometry of China’s coastal fishery operations. Find more images at the links above.

import/export or war and cheese

The Atlantic features a short documentary from Ben Garfield on the self-proclaimed saviour to Russian turophiles named Oleg Sirota, a former IT professional who realised his true-calling once trade embargos were enacted on all sides in response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the importation of European cheese was banned.
While I’m pretty sure that this is very much against the spirit of the legal protections extended to geographically distinct food products, Sirota is supplying otherwise unavailable varieties of Italian, French and English cheeses from his factory, the profile does present some interesting questions on patriotism, nativism and opportunism. Cheese is an especially interesting item to “traffic” because of its cultural resonance and attachment to a specific location and given the fact that for a perishable item, it is pretty portable and was among one of the first food traditions that people exported.

7x7

fungus among us: spore- and nutrient-infused concrete could create self-healing structures

his master’s voice: speech-recognition-based surveillance poses concern for digital assistants

vermicular control: a consideration of the in-house espionage network of the once largest residential complex in Europe, Moscow’s House on the Embankment

power to the polls: a selection of creative and powerful protest signs from the 2018 Women’s March

ugly duckling: a bevy of robot swans have been deployed in Singapore to monitor water quality

comfy cosy are we: an inviting cinema in Japan recreates the experience of watching a movie curled up in bed

diffraction: still life photographs of food distorted by water and glass

domino effect

We’ve encountered the commercial artwork of Theodore Geisel (Doctor Seuss) beforehand, including advertising for Exxon/Esso, but we hadn’t seen this series of signature complex contraptions from cartoonists and engineer Rube Goldberg, commissioned by a motor-oil company to promote fuel-efficiency and automotive maintenance during World War II. See more at the link above.

parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Ever since learning to my horror that a seemingly innocent and well-intentioned campaign by a breakfast cereal company to include seeds to help the bees spread invasive plants that would actually cause more harm to their environment, I’ve been a little wary of consumables that purport to support the ecosystem, but these clever lollipops that we discover via Everlasting Blört seem to be the genuine article. After enjoying the candy (certainly more appetising than these ecological treats)—whose flavour is the essence of the heirloom seeds that come with it—one can plant the biodegradable stick to grow flowers and herbs.

malocchio

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake, we are referred to The Awl—for what may sadly be one of the last times with the property’s announcement that it will cease publication at the end of this month—for another lesson on colours with a non-specific hue called haint blue.

Like the folklore traditions that inform the vague but undoubtedly menacing concept of a haint, which may be etymologically related to haunt but has developed but has come to signify something other than the syncretic meanings it has taken on, the colour too isn’t defined as a shade but rather by how its employed. The analogy to the collected palette classed as Millennial Pink is a good one that underscores how we privilege such trends. Plantation houses in the southern United States, appropriating and blending the lore of the enslaved Gullah population—and upheld by custom many designers and decorators are unaware of—often painted the ceilings of porches and verandas blue—to trick restless spirits, haints, into believing that the nooks and corners were exposed to the sky above or surrounded by water and affording the home a degree of protection, like a talisman to ward off the evil eye.