opening titles

Courtesy of the Awesomer, we are treated to the musical stylings of the duo Bei Bei Zheng with piano accompaniment from Vera Yaqi Mackay performing a singular cover of Dick Dale and the Del Tones’ surf rock anthem Misirlou (previously). Bei Bei replaces the guitar with the traditional Chinese instrument called the zheng (箏), an ancient pentatonic zither dated from the Qin dynasty with twenty-one strings to the tune, itself inspired by an Ottoman folksong referring to an Egyptian girl in Turkish that was often used for belly dancing. The up and down harmonic progression is known as hijaz kar.

unlawful, void and to no effect

Having after three days of deliberation, coming to the legal consensus that prorogation was “justiciable” and subject to the court’s purview as a reserved (residual) power and not strictly a political matter—in which case, the court would have thrown out the case—the Supreme Court president Lady Hale returned the unanimous decision, aligning with other senior courts, that the suspension of Parliament was an abuse of executive power and therefore illegal, with implication that Johnson misled the Queen in seeking her permission. As court of last resort with no further possibility of appeal, its badge incorporates the Greek letter Omega (Ω) to signify this final authority. Suspended since the tenth of September, Parliament will reconvene beginning at noon tomorrow.

head and shoulders

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we find ourselves confronted, buffeted by the præternatural canniness of this royalty-free stock photo library of faces (see previously here and here)—one hundred thousand of them but surely these legions are limitless—all generated by machine to use as one sees fit.  Summoning these beings into existence of a sort, undoubtedly we owe some responsibility for these models and this endless gallery, real from synthetic indistinguishable must evoke a sense of empathy. If people really did have the conviction that a camera could steal one’s soul, there are more superstitions to overcome, but maybe there comes a point when the liminal acquire agency and identity. Conveniently, one can download this whole population from the Phantom Zone as a compressed file. What do you think? H teases me because I was set against getting a robotic lawnmower, anticipating that it might not have chosen that life of toil. I was being serious, wondering what careless capricious impulses might be driving us.

the conversation i had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place

After given a pass (albeit temporary) on the question of Russian collusion, a signals officer elevated a matter of grave concern through his chain-of-command and the channels provided to redress such worries.
Not a leak but a whistleblower complaint, though there was a bottleneck met with push-back from Trump appointees refusing to present the worries to Congress—the filing strongly suggests that during multiple telephone calls with the newly elected Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump pressed authorities there to launch an investigation into his apparent contender Joe Biden through his son’s chairmanship on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, accusing both, without evidence, of corruption.  Amid calls for the full transcripts to be released, Trump admitted that they took place—even suggesting that the US is withholding a quarter of a billion dollars in military aid to the country (during joint exercises) if they fail to produce some dirty laundry on the Bidens. Aside from intensified calls for the impeachment (a minor update) of Trump over this treacherous and anti-democratic behaviour, White House advisors also fear that giving up this one transcript would set a precedent to publish all such private discussions, checking presidential candor, including dialogue between Trump and Putin or Trump and the Saudi royals.

radiophonic workshop

Via the ever engaging Things Magazine, we are introduced to the filmic repertoire of the artist formerly known as Missus Mad Max through these clever remixes and reducia of the haunting and iconic theme of the long-running franchise Doctor Who (previously) imagined in the style of modern instrumental composers including Vangelis and John Carpenter. Much more to explore at the links above.

unflushable

Via her excellency Nag on the Lake, we discover that the infamous fatberg of Whitechapel (previously) has been memorialised with a special manhole cover.
The one hundred-thirty tonne blockage discovered beneath the east London district was comprised of an unsavoury amalgamation of wet-wipes, cooking oil and other items that are not meant for the sewer system—sort of like the problem of aspirational recycling whose good intentions can spoil the whole batch which can prove overtaxing for even the best engineered though ageing infrastructure.

martinese

Via the Awesomer, we very much enjoyed this primer and introduction to the very idiosyncratic language that the couple Bill and Tanya have cultivated as most are familiar with, H and I included, with a whole vocabulary not privy to others. Starting as euphemisms and code to be used in front of their children (something very relatable), afterwards during their empty nest years, the Martins developed a more complete grammar, addressing one another almost exclusively in their constructed tongue perfectly inscrutable to anyone else.  What pet phrases are held in common between you and your significant other alone?

grube messel

On my way back to my workweek apartment, I finally took the opportunity to explore the Messel pit, a UNESCO World Heritage site though probably singular among that group for not yielding up its treasures and those that have been unearthed belong in collections spread across the globe. Though the outline of the caldera seems apparent now, the volcanic lake that gives to researchers on average a well preserved fossil specimen once every quarter hour would not exist as it does today, looking back and documenting in great detail a snap-shot of life circa forty-eight million years ago during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, if not for a series of accidents, beginning with quarry operations in 1859, when oil shale was discovered.
I happened to arrive just in time to take the last tour of the day, the only way to venture down into the pit. Miners back at the time were discovering fossils in this Lagerstätte but due the depositional characteristics of the formation (most remains discovered are not petrified or mummified but captured as fleetingly delicate impressions) but after a few hours’ dehydration, the fossils would disintegrate into a big fish tale. Demand and war drove digging which waxed and waned over the years, the quarry being used as a place to store the rubble of Darmstadt after its destruction during WWII, and during the early 1970s, the place was nearly turned into a permanent landfill (the war also created a make-work site to employ locals breaking bricks—and as amateur palæontologists while the economy recovered) until the decision was overturned by strong protests and the land was purchased by the state of Hesse. Hobby fossil-hunters developed a resin-transfer technique to preserve fossils once exposed outside of their containing matrix around this time and has been widely adopted as standard practise. Constant pumping keeps the ground water from welling up and universities continue slow and careful excavation.
We were able to inspect some recent discoveries, the slates kept from dehydrating in a water bath and were privileged to pass around a fish fossil (see also). Though the mascot of the Messel Pit is Ida, the singular Darwinius Masillæ—a transitional lemur-like creature that also had characteristics prefiguring the simians, primates being distinguished in the main by the wetness or dryness of their noses—the site was finally elevated in 1995 with UNESCO status not because of any individual find, including crocodiles, giant squirrels and nine pairs of copulating turtles caught in the act—far predating Pompeii, but rather because of the sheer volume and scientific rigour that it took to share what one uncovered, which underscores the problem of preservation.