Sunday, 26 January 2020

k67

Designed in 1966 by Slovenian architect Saลกa J. Mรคchtig, his modular, reinforced polyfibre kiosks quickly became vernacular standards across Eastern Europe, housing news-seller stands, copy-shops, ImbiรŸ, security booths and stationers’ shops—some seventy-five-hundred of the pre-fabricated units made and distributed have grown a bit endangered in recent years.  Once seen as architectural misfits and eye-sores of a bygone era, many were culled but there’s some newly found affection and nostaligia. Joining other conservation projects, Luke Litten, we learn via Calvert Journal, has assiduously documented the remaining and often repurposed through several iterations stands in hope that their legacy and utility will survive for future generations to patronise.

Saturday, 25 January 2020

the wedding march

Originally written as a piece of incidental music for productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream around 1842, Felix Mendelssohn’s processional in C Major did not become standard matrimonial canon until when on this day in 1858 it was selected by Victoria, Princess Royal, for her marriage ceremony to Friedrich (“Fritz”) Wilhelm, Prince of Prussia and future albeit short-reigning king—in 1888, the Year of the Three Emperors.
The recessional piece played on the pipe organ is often accompanied with the chorus from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin (Treulich gefรผhrt but colloquially known as “Here Comes the Bride) or baroque composer Jeremiah Clarke’s Prince of Denmark’s March (Prins Jรธrgens March or Trumpet Voluntary) to play in the bride. Though the first tune may be the most culturally resonant, the last was used as the signature tune and introductory first few bars used by the BBC during broadcasts directed toward Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II, the march being a symbolic connection between the two kingdoms. For decades afterwards, it remained the call sign of BBC World Service for Europe and was for the Soviet public BBC’s station identification for its Russian language programming.  A selection of the melodies are below:


macom

Well, this derivative disappointment was to be anticipated I suppose though the bigger insult is how poorly it was executed. I hope the studio and fans block it but not before the first class of cadets are subjected to wearing these poorly designed command patches, like a hazing ritual. (Nothing to do with the present but I remember a German news broadcast covering team behind the raid and capture of Osama bin Laden and confusing them with the elite forces of the Maquis of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.)
So many questions—Star Trek’s vision of the future of humanity enjoys a post-scarcity society and all the attendant internal peace and prosperity that is completely alien and antithetical to the values of Trump’s cadre of robber-barons who are eager to weaponise space, having run short of terrestrial opportunities. Trump’s thin and anaemic fortunes are based on rentier economics and branding, so one would think he’d think twice before infringing another’s paracosm’s intellectual property. The Seal of the US Army does have the year of its founding—but it predates the establishment of the Republic and is not in Roman numerals. If the Space Force is its own branch of service, why does the logo read Department of the Air Force. The Space Command back in 2005 may have been guilty of copying Star Fleet Academy as was the Russian Space Force even before that but those instances were at least aspirational, and with like transparent aluminium and Plexicorp, who’s to say that Star Fleet isn’t the successor organisation to the Kosmicheskie Voyska Rossii? Indeed, this is truly the worst timeline.

mariyinsky palace

Having taken at least a temporary hiatus from his career as a comedic actor on film and television, forming a party eponymous with the sitcom in which he played a school teacher reluctantly, accidental pressed to high office called Servant of the People (ะกะปัƒะณะฐ ะฝะฐั€ะพะดัƒ) and elected president of in April of 2019 Ukraine with a commanding majority and mandate, Volodymyr Olessandrovych Zelenskyy (*1979) celebrates his birthday today.
Running on a radical reform campaign to rid the government of rather endemic though substantively no different from the grifting-class in the US, Zelenskyy dissolved parliament as his first order of business and dismissed several oblast governors, forming a cabinet and constituting a new government of political outsiders to restore the people’s confidence in government and limiting opportunity for partisanship and influence-peddling. It is too early to say how history will view this administration but significantly one of the first pieces of lawmaking drafted and passed with the cooperation of the executive and legislative branches provided for a mechanism to impeach and remove the president should the office-holder fail to uphold their duties to state and people, enshrining this hallmark of democracy in the constitution.

home-shopping network

From our trusted antiquarian and to file under the category of there’s nothing new under the Sun/programmers are lazy we’re presented with this clipping from 1916 that allows one to virtually try on clothes and test out different fashions. Not to sound cynical or perennially disappointed, the verdict of the encumbering nature of progress exacting more time and effort that it was meant to save stands today and previsions the paternalistic Internet of Things with the very much overlapping magisteria of gimmickry and marketing that it embraces.

Friday, 24 January 2020

les domains franรงais ร  l’รฉstranger

Though we cannot say for sure but a minor scuffle during a visit to Jerusalem by the French head of state that echoed a pointed altercation by a popular predecessor—whether a stunt or not—did nonetheless afford a fascinating, convoluted look into the small territorial claims, property-holdings (see also here and here) that the country has beyond metropolitan France.
The Church of Saint Anne—the mother of Mary and erected in the twelfth century during the regency of Queen Melisende under Crusader rule, at the site of a grotto that was believed to be a play spot of her young daughter, was reportedly gifted to Napoleon III by the Ottoman sultan in gratitude for his intervention in the Crimean War. In addition to this medieval structure at the head of Via Dolorosa, France lays claim (all disputed) to three other sites in the Holy Land, the Villa Mรฉdici in Rome, seven churches and crypts in the Vatican and the historical home of Victor Hugo on the UK dependency of Guernsey and the ensemble of buildings on Saint Helena where the disposed Napoleon (see previously) was confined.

la belle sauvage or salon selรฉctifs

Designed by pioneering belle รฉpoque architect Henri Sauvage (*1873 – †1932) whose colossal public housing projects informed both successive Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements and whose legacy still is relevant and resonant, the 1902 home for contemporary Louis Majorelle (*1859 – †1926) in Nancy near his studio and factory had undergone some major refurbishment and is open—albeit temporarily—to the public before entering next phase of restoration, closing the landmark attraction for another two years, nearly the amount of time its originally construction took.
The exemplary Villa Majorelle was not only a flagship of the new architectural style but also a showcase for Majorelle’s own experimental furnishings (some of which were part of this exhibition) and a gallery for other artistic friends of his.

meet the neons

Samsung’s STAR Labs have created virtual beings, imbued with artificial and adversarial intelligence that behave convincingly like human beings and are poised to get even better once escaping the laboratory and confines of a consumer electronics exposition.
What do you think? An extension of the electronic personal assistant, a spokesperson (which may be a neon himself and does not realise it) explained that bots are being developed for a future wherein “humans are human and machines more humane” with the new companion especially suited for roles as bank tellers, news anchors, health care providers, financial consultants and lawyers.