buchette del vino

We’ve certainly overlooked this feature of vernacular architectural unique to Florence (Firenze) but on future trips will certainly be on the lookout for wine windows, which enabled passers-by to conveniently purchase a glass or bottle and other staples on the go.
Goods exchanged would have included Chianti bottled in traditional cushioning straw-jacketed vessels, called fiascos—Italian for flask (fiaschi, pedantic plural form) and by extension a humiliating situation for failing to make a bottle properly which ought to be something that is easily accomplished. Unfortunately, none of the remaining artefacts of a post-Renaissance time when wealthy Florentine landowners fell on harder times and turned towards cottage and craft industries to supplement their income remain in service but can still be spotted and appreciated.

periastron

Via accomplished internet caretaker Miss Cellania, we’re introduced to the intriguing notion that we are most likely to first detect signs of extra-terrestrial life on worlds tidally-locked (like the Moon to the Earth or Mercury in relation to the Sun) to their host stars.

Rather than necessarily being restricted to a so-called Goldielocks zone of habitability (not so chauvinistic to accommodate life as we know it and our assumptions but rather a sanctuary wherein conditions are stable enough to foster multiple generations of an organism and let Nature runs its course) these exoplanents, dubbed eyeball worlds, because while one hemisphere always faces the star and is arid—perhaps inhospitably so—and the other side is eternally frozen and always experiences night, there’s a narrow meridian that rings the pupil of the planet that could provide the right conditions for life to flourish—in between the two extremes. Eyeball planets are potentially plentiful and might have a bit of the right real estate. Learn more at the links above.

cosmic interlopers

The excitement and wonder surrounding the confirmation of the first known interstellar object, Oumuamua, to just pass through our Solar System was of course just opening up our eyes to the possibility that there may be many more visitors out there, and presently astronomers believe that they have solid evidence for another (albeit on much longer layover) guest from outside of Solar System. Almost all objects in the Solar System orbit the Sun (or planetary hosts) in the same direction with a minority of retrograde orbitals—usually attributed to a reconstructed, violent past—however an asteroid going against the grain, performing a complicated exchange between the tug of Jupiter and the pull of the Sun seems to be a strong candidate for more exotic origins.

inherit the wind

Following Turkey’s and Florida’s decision to strike evolution from its public school curriculum, the state of Arizona is set to order that science textbooks and syllabi be revised to remove references to evolution and the Big Bang and replace them with euphemistic phrases, in order to avoid the appearance of unfairly subjecting students to indoctrination.

Though the possibilities which religious fundamentalists consider conjecture rather than an accepted, progressing fact because they have “theory” (a generalised and consistent description of how things work, contrasted with practise) attached to them are not completely edited out, the awkward language enlisted to avoid the terminology associated with natural selection and current cosmology accomplishes what it was designed to do in failing to impart students with critical-thinking skills and an interest in the sciences. Let’s hope that the kids are more resilient than the forces of regression and devolution.

7x7

labyrinthine: the hand-rendered mazes and patterns of Polish architect Wacław Szpakowski

american pastoral: acclaimed writer Philip Roth has passed away, aged 85

unanswered questions: a transcript Facebook CEO’s session before the European Union Parliament, just days before the GDPR goes into effect

pivot: geopolitical power shift perhaps captured in the juxtaposition of two seminal summits

grids and greenways: a plush rug maps out the borough of Manhattan

data-points: US leaders analyse the causes of gun violence  

blopper reel: outtakes from Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

streamlining

Our gratitude to Nag on the Lake for introducing us to the Franco-American industrial design pioneer Raymond Loewy whose multidisciplinary vision informs a magnitude of iconic brands and defining how form follows function.
Among his contributions are the interior of the Boeing Stratoliner, various locomotives, coaches, the Sears Coldspot refrigerator, the Schick electric razor, the Lincoln Continental, a jukebox, a version of the Coca-Cola bottle and the Coke can, Lucky Strikes cigarette packaging, subway cars plus the interior and living space of Skylab and the Concorde. Additionally, Loewy created logos for TWA, SPAR, Exxon, Shell and many others. Go over to Nag on the Lake at the link up top to see an insightful 1979 CBS television interview with Loewy, dubbed by the press as the Man who Shaped America.

minutemen

Rummaging through the archives of the intrepid explorers at Amusing Planet, we came across a rather singular decommission of a former US defensive installation that effectively was only in service for a period of one day before being officially mothballed.
The remaining ensemble of buildings, including the pyramid-like housing of the Missile Site Radar and underground silos that held anti-ballistic missiles (rockets designed to disable in-coming weapons), of the Stanley R Mickelsen Safeguard Complex outside of the Grand Forks Air Base in the state of North Dakota were eventually purchased by a local Hutterite Colony (one of the Plain peoples) at an auction for half a million dollars in 2012 and was built in order to defend the arsenal of Minuteman missiles kept at the Air Base. Provisions of the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I treaty) with the Soviet Union allowed signatories to equip themselves with a limited number of such anti-ballistic defences and the base in North Dakota was to be the first component of a large shielding, network. The base came on-line in April 1975 but would not achieve full operational capacity until 1 October 1975; the following day, the US legislature voted to deactivate the programme, recognising that militarily, it had little merit and could not justify the costs. After nearly a decade of development, Congress became convinced that the system devised by Bell Labs was a folly that would not deliver under actual assault and Safeguard was defunded. The new owners—who are attested pacifists—are charged with preserving the historic character of the site but I suppose otherwise are allowed to use it as they see fit. Be sure to visit Amusing Planet at the link up top to learn more and see a whole gallery of pictures of the base.

isonomia

Though I’d venture that the US has been undergoing its moment of constitutional crisis since installing a morally and financially bankrupt television reality show host and allowing his syndicate family to capture a purchase in government that will be a challenge to excise from their greedy, self-absorbed little hands, and though nothing comes as a surprise anymore in a world dilated by Trumpian times, this latest assault against justice and the primacy of law is pretty chilling.
Backed into a corner, Trump is trying to dismantle and discredit the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling by sewing the suggestion of partisanship behind it (isonomy is the principle that the law applies equally to all and that no one is above it), masking his own treason of unqualified narcissism that even bullying himself into a leadership role and its subsequent abdication of the responsibility that goes with it cannot even sate. Others in government and international observers know it’s the refuge of autocrats to pervert justice for their own gain and to silence dissent but those in a position to do something to reign in Trump are far too deep in the pockets of the lobbyists to speak up and the international community is recognising the fecklessness of faded power and influence. Omission and tacit-approval are indeed how the inviolable is violated.