saint drogo

Coming from noble stock in Flanders but orphaned as an adolescent then dispossessing himself of his inheritance and devoting his life to penance and pilgrimage—making the sojourn to Rome no less than ten times—and settling down to become a shepherd after a disfiguring disease confined him from the public, Saint Drogo of Sebourg (*1105 – †1186), who is venerated on this day, was reportedly given the power of bilocation and was seen—shrouded due to his hideous countenance—in attendance at Mass while, as witnesses attest, still tending his flock in the fields.  Drogo’s patronage includes those whom others find repulsive, coffee house proprietors (that is someone to turn to at these times), midwives (presumably due to his great empathy and for the mother he never knew) and sheep. While it is unclear why coffee might be one of his attributes, it is not just a modern gimmick with documents from Mons showing that in the 1860s, the city’s guild of cafetiers were already claiming Drogo as their patron—and possibly is connected with his miraculous power of bilocation (a virtue of coffee) or his ascetic diet and insistence on only drinking hot water.

found art

Messy Nessy correspondent Francky Knapp directs our attention to the brilliant collages that keen-eyed New Yorker and street ephemera (detritus, trash) collector John Evans created daily from 1964 to the turn of the century, his outsider art (see previously) telling the evolving narrative of the city and its denizens individually from 1964 to the turn of the century. Learn more about the artist and explore an extensive, curated gallery (it was a tough choice to select just one example as all the montages were very well put together) of his works at the link up top and perhaps try making your own pastiche from whatever you have handy.

a chicken in every pot

In these days when the overwhelming majority of Americans are either experiencing grave job insecurity with housing and healthcare all bundled together or a hero and a hostage to a broken, exploitative medical delivery system that’s been pared back to maximise profits by eliminating any sort of buffer, Jamie Zawinski—proprietor of San Francisco’s legendary DNA Lounge, a dance hall and live music venue—shares a long dormant memory of a comic panel from 1990 called Give Me Liberty with the president doling out a Christmas turkey for all.
The recollection doubtless jarred awake by the insistence of Trump that his signature block and auto-pen appear on the physical stimulus cheques mailed out to the underbanked (a problem exacerbated by first restricting the fiduciary role of the postal service’s geographical spread and now threatening the institution with insolvency to further isolate and disenfranchise) that will cause a delay in receipt of this much needed, be it insufficient relief—twice the amount that the Obama administration distributed but to remedy a crisis untold magnitudes greater than the recession precipitated by the sub-prime mortgage bubble. It’s a tragically apt vignette of self-promotion and deflection as surrogates for leadership and cohesion. …And two cars in every garage.

the day of the sun: juche 109

Deriving its name from the meaning of Il-sung for “becomes the Sun”—one of the revolutionary leader’s noms de guerre, this day stepped in founding mythology marks Kim’s birthday, the founder and Eternal President of North Korea and has been an official holiday, the highest annual observance since 1968, proclaimed as the titular celebration in 1997—three years after Kim’s death. Simultaneously the country adopted the regnal Juche (the concept of self-reliance) calendar, reckoning dates from Kim’s birth in 1912 onward. The usual festivities have been cancelled this year with citizens urged to hold customary merriment and thanksgiving at home.

high maniera

Though my first impressions of this image was that it was an exorcism or spellbinding in progress, I appreciated being invited to consider another perspective, redirected to its inclusion under the category of Accidental Renaissance—see previously here and here. I do hope that very, very soon that this picture falls out of context and we’ll have to go to great pains to try and explain what’s going on here. Have you captured an unintended masterpiece of grace and proportion?

≒

I really liked these clever reminders to maintain a respectful and healthy distance from the design studio Nosigner as part of the public service campaign Pandaid using jarringly memorable and relatable metrics, like one to two Beatles, depending on one’s stride—from an iconic scene which incidentally public works have taken advantage of people staying in-doors to give the Abbey Road zebra-crossing (previously) a fresh coat of paint. Although the specialised symbol makes perfect sense if one thinks about the other characters and ideograms that the equal sign could be mistaken for, we also particularly liked learning that this variant shown for approximation (≈) is utilised in Japan, the Koreas and Taiwan.

autostadt

Via Things Magazine we discover that adjacent to the flagship Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg there are two museums, ZeitHaus, one dedicated to the brand’s greatest automotive hits with pavilions full of Lamborghini, Škoda, Bentleys as well as their own cars—with the other wing surely worth the visit as well, is filled with prototypes, test models and show cars that never went into production for the driving public. Exhibits include the 1990 Vario, a concept, a transitional buggy test-marketed prior to the introducing of the new Beetle. See more unrealised roadsters at the link above.

sıcak caz

After being directed to Open Culture’s nice primer on Japanese jazz sessions—that I could play as ambient music all day—from Nag on the Lake, I was excited to see an expanded, cosmopolitan coffee break set pieces from the same DJ Zag Erlat playing vinyl grooves from Africa, Brazil, Bollywood, Russia and Anatolian rock from his native Turkey. Most of the selections date from the 1970s and make me want to go crate-digging at the first opportunity. Sample all the genres of Erlat’s Analog Journal at the links above.