technicolor refreshment trailer № 1

Our gratitude once again to friend of the blog Everlasting Blört for directing our attention to this 1970s Pepsi Cola sponsored appeal to head out to the concession stands. This psychedelic ad (see also) was meant for audiences of drive-in venues and even has a brief reference to the original “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” cast of anthropomorphic treats.

fire and brimstone

Though the fallen angels of the Bible are incarcerated and consigned to the same fate as the Titans, there’s no mention of Tartarus in the New Testament, with either the Greek abode of the dead, Hades, or the small valley in Jerusalem where child-sacrifice occurred, Gehenna (Hinnom), invoked for the concept, though the former is more neutral and would be better represented as the underworld.
There is however one instance that it sort of slips in—this homage to Antiquity—in verbal form: in the Second Epistle of Peter, condemning false prophets, the apostle uses the word (making an ensample of wickedness) tartaroo (ταρταρόω) for “to cast into Hell.” The original Greek rendering of the Apostles’ Creed that provides for and establishes among other things the harrowing of Hell, Jesus’ descent into the underworld to rescue all the righteous who had perished and were condemned prior to salvation, took the more pedestrian verb κατελθόντα είς τά κατώτατα (descendit ad inferos—to those below) but was far from unproblematic—prompting the need for a third estate, that of Limbo, a liminal place.

possibly in michigan

Vacillating between the cute and the grotesque and nicely framing the spirit of the contradictory and the absurd that America leans strongly into, we appreciate the referral to the filmmaker and educator Cecelia Condit through her 1983 eponymous and most viral piece.
Recently rediscovered and championed by a video clip platform that’s usually the reserve of brief lessons or lip-syncing, this musical short about a deranged cannibal who pursues a pair of women through an otherwise empty shopping mall has enjoyed cult-following for the past four decades and no stranger to the experience of memetic infection, having previously been drawn in as a poster child in the moral and Satanic Panic of mid-1980s America and the on-going culture wars—by dent mostly of the closing credits that prominently features the support and patronage of the National Endowment for the Arts. New audiences are sometimes the best audiences.

when the stars allign or flights of fancy

This day of all days back in 1981 would have been an especially auspicious one for space exploration, had public and political captivation been sustained and transformed into something enduring, because the alignment of both Mars and Venus relative to Earth and Moon was optimal for a crewed mission to each planet launching simultaneously.
I can imagine this sling-shot trajectory of the tandem space-flights returned to Earth with gravity-assists, which was presented by NASA administrator Thomas Otten Paine expansively and in exacting detail to a crowd gathered in San Francisco in August of 1969.  With continued advances on nuclear-propelled rockets and fiscal commitments (estimated to be around twenty four billion dollars), Paine promised the audience that such an achievement would indeed be possible by the early eighties.  Though it was after the blast-off deadline had passed, Paine designed a flag for Mars in 1983.

autocompleat

Via Gizmodo, we discover that given enough vigorous backing and cheerleading technologists and futurists have had their ethical concerns assuaged and have reserved their stance (at least some have) on keeping OpenAI corralled and not available for public inspection, fearing that its unchecked capacity for generating plausible sounding disinformation would spell the end of human civilisation.
While I certainly don’t think we were unwise to practise restraint and our fears might not be too premature already, Talk to Transformer (try it live) is profoundly off-putting and it’s hard to gird oneself for an onslaught of generative and adverse narratives if one does not know what one is up against.
These first blocks of copy gleaned from scouring the internet in response to a given prompt (in bold text) were strange yet somehow resonant and current in a strangely pandering sort of way. First, upon hearing that New Zealand’s parliamentary transcription service rendered the wilting retort of a member to out-of-touch pushback as “OK Burma,” I wanted to see if the neural network understood accents—and it seemed to deliver. The artificial intelligence also seemed to understand the euphemistic political response to being made redundant, which Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler the Secretary of State for Employment first cited in January of 1990 as his reason to resign was to “spend more time with my [his] family,” noting that public service can come at private costs. A few further iterations got pretty dark but it was nonetheless fun to experiment with. Give it a turn and share the stories you get.

martinmass

This day is held in celebration of the funeral of Martin of Tours, recreating the procession originally held in 397 AD. The holiday coinciding with the end of harvest time, the festival celebrates the life of a former Roman centurion stationed in Gaul who converted to Christianity and was reluctantly ordained bishop after encountering a freezing beggar during a blizzard at the gates of Amiens (Samarobriva—bridge of the Somme) clad in rags only and charitably—without hesitation, rent his cloak in two and shared it with him.
That evening Martin had a vision that the beggar revealed Himself to be Jesus Christ and on awaking found his cloak miraculously made whole. The word chapel (Kapelle) and derived terms like chaplain come from the short cape (capella) that Martin had draped over his shoulder after the bit of tailoring. Like other celebrations that occur during winter’s bleak months (see also here and here), there’s an element of an abiding glimmer of light in the darkness to give the motivation to go on. A time of slaughter and feasting—it being untenable to feed some livestock and keep them through to spring—geese, the same that gave away Martin’s whereabouts to the conclave that nominated him for bishop, were killed at this time and like with Thanksgiving, it became traditional fare for this day. The timing of the holiday moreover saw a syncretism with Martin inheriting the attributes and patronage formerly held by the minor deity Aristaeus—son of Cyrene and Apollo, credited with discovering and then sharing some of the useful and agrarian arts like beekeeping, viniculture, shearing, cheesemaking, pickling, curing and herding. All of these professions fall under the guardianship of Martin—with a few more thrown in for good measure, like reformed alcoholics. Though today Saint Martin’s Day marks the beginning of the Karneval season in Germany, it was formerly one last feast before a fasting that was to be observed through the Feast of the Epiphany, like the fast of Lent. In some places, the parade and singing takes place a day early to also mark the birthday of reformer and namesake Martin Luther (*1483 — †1546).  Over time this period was shortened and rebranded as Advent.

children's television workshop

On this day half a century ago, Sesame Street (see previously) made its debut on the US public television network to a rather high viewership (considering less than seventy percent of households at the time owned a television) and generally positive reception.
It represented the first educational programming aimed for young audiences based on laboratory trials and with a curriculum informed by the input and feedback of teachers and social-workers.  By its second year, it had been nominated for over twenty accolades and has earned more awards than any other programme for children and by the tenth anniversary, over nine million under-six year olds were watching it daily, generations growing up with the characters of this cultural touchstone now having gone international.  The pilot episode as it was originally broadcast can be viewed below.

weekly top forty

Via Miss Cellania, we really enjoyed seeing the meteoric rise of Elton John, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Queen (plus their retreat and eventual resurgence) and the tenacity of The Beatles, ABBA, etc. in this presentation charting the best-selling artists (from aggregated certified sales world-wide, adjusted by a twelve-month trailing average) of the past fifty years, and admittedly we’re a bit out of touch with the music scene today, we found ourselves, after the turn of the century a bit bewildered and baffled by the bands vying for the pole position and the not so much of a photo-finish. Were there surprises for you? See previously.  Probably not spoilers and bombshells for anyone else, but we were pleased to learn that the career of a Canadian child star of Degrassi: TNG carried its own nearly as well as some of the confirmed legends in the running.