rainbow connection

On this day in 1978, the Rainbow Flag, created by artist and seamster Gilbert Baker (*1951 – †2017) was unfurled for the first time at San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade, an event that originated around 1972 as an informal “gay-in” and is now a celebration of pride echoed around the world.
Gilbert met Harvey Milk in 1974, who asked him to create a new symbol for the community—wanting to jettison the shorthand of the day, the Pink Triangle, reclaiming a badge of shame that the Nazis used for imprisoned men identified as homosexuals as a means of self-identification but dark and derivative nonetheless—prompting Gilbert to design his flag (previously). The colourful motif was possibly inspired by the PACE flags that first appeared during an Italian peace march in 1961 or the Judy Garland ballad, Over the Rainbow. While the banner certainly represents the diversity of the community and the struggle for recognition and civil rights, the original eight stripes had specific meanings: hot pink stood for sex, red for life, orange was healing, yellow was sunshine, green was Nature, turquoise stood for magic and art, indigo for serenity and violet represented spirit. Hot pink was subsequently dropped due to the lack of fabric and dye, and the six banded version was adopted in 1979, blending indigo and turquoise as royal blue—though often throughout the 1990s, a black stripe was added to represent those whom had died due to complications from AIDS.

isobar

Via the Everlasting Blört, we are invited to show our stripes (previously) to illustrate how globally and regionally the average annual temperature has been rising since the start of the Industrial Revolution, with a most disturbing uptick in the last thirty years. Reliable data for most countries span from 1901 to 2018, but a few places covered by the UK Met Office, der Deutscher Wetterdienst and a few other select meteorological monitors reach back to the mid- to late-nineteenth century.

ô canada

Officially made the national anthem by royal assent a century later on Dominion Day, the melody, composed by Calixte Paquet dit Lavallée commissioned by the lieutenant governor of Quebec, of the song was performed in public for the first time on this day in 1880 as accompaniment to a Saint-Jean-Baptiste (the Nativity of John the Baptist, his feast day often associated or conflated with the summer solstice) fête held in the provincial capital.
The original lyrics by barrister and poet Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier were in French and have remained unchanged. An English version, modified three times subsequently to make the language more inclusive, came in 1908—often performed bilingually with code-switching alternating verses to demonstrate the country’s diversity—and First Nations’ versions (ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ) introduced beginning in the 1990s.

endeløs sommer

Having just passed the solstice in the northern hemisphere with the hours of sunlight each day gradually decreasing until we come to the December solstice and the slow retreat of the night, we found this proposal by the residents of the fishing village north of the Arctic circle, Sommarøy, west of Tromsø, straddling the Norwegian island of Store Sommarøy and Hillesøya—the become the world’s first time-free zone rather intriguing.
Though balanced out with the corollary of the long polar night spanning from November to January, the three hundred permanent residents and numerous visitors enjoy sixty nine days from mid-May to late July when the sun never sets, during which the conventions of normal time-keeping are discarded and people accord themselves according to their own schedules. Local government is in serious talks with the Stortling to discuss the legal and practical raminification of carrying through such a plan. Though the announcements have led to a boost in tourism and the fences of the pedestrian bridge that connects the islands with the mainland are decorated with wrist watches rather than love-locks, proponents insist that the move is far more than a gimmick

microbiome

Courtesy of Fancy Notions, we are treated to the Soviet animated-puppet short Mitja and the Microbes (1973) by director Mikhail Kamenetsky, a prominent maker of children’s entertainment and educational works in the 70s and 80s in the tradition of Rankin & Bass.

This particular piece depicts a rather epic battle as a result of poor hand and food hygiene practises and though not explicitly referenced in the portrayal, we believe that the germs that poor Mitja invited in are ultimately re-buffed with a contingent of bacteriophages, in keeping with Russian medical science, favoured over the Western recourse to antibiotics. Find more vintage matinee cartoons plus other interesting delectables to enjoy at the link up top.

watershed moment

On this day in 1969, the Cuyahoga River, downstream from the industrial cities of Akron, Kent and Cleveland Ohio, caught on fire—the latest in a series of at least a dozen major conflagrations of the polluted tributary of Lake Erie—captured the attention of reporters at TIME magazine and the issue made the cover of the June edition. The public outrage that followed helped endorse a tranche of pollution-control measures and eventually led to the creation of a federal and state Environmental Protection Agency by early December of the following year.

zsebnaptár

Our friendly stationer Present /&/ Correct shares its discovery of a trove of vintage Hungarian pocket calendars, joyfully illustrated. MėH (Miniszterelnöki Hivatal) is the country’s energy authority. Much more to explore at the link above.

små grodorna

the local’s Swedish edition has a fine run-down of the rituals associated with the June solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere with the kingdom enjoying from eighteen to twenty four hours of sunshine—otherwise known as Midsommar, officially observed on the Saturday nearest in the week but the eve is the de facto public holiday.
We’re acquainted with the tradition of att maja (maying—but probably not a German import)—that is, decorating with flowers and greenery and the standard Little Frogs, whose melody is taken from a French marching song from the Napoleonic Wars and a British (compare God Save the Queen and My Country ‘Tis of Thee, though the French original was not meant to be a serious one) mocking version that orders “Au pas, grenouilles.” In step, small frogs. There’s a performative dance that illustrates the lyrics, which you can watch at the link above. No one is sure how the custom got started.