♐a*

Via Slashdot, we are learning that the complex, spirograph orbit of a star waltzing with the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, charted for over three decades by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) array, confirms another aspect of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (see previously), the Two-Body problem specifically, in the way the precariously placed star’s path inscribes a rosette, called a Schwarzschild precession, as the theory predicted—rather than an elliptical one as classical mechanics projects.

7x7

610 wagon: Salvador Dalí was once commissioned to paint an advertising campaign (see also) for Datsun Motors

dénouement: the Hero’s Journey during lockdown—see also

location scout: exploring how tax regimes and local ordinances limn the imagination in film and television adaptations

coade stone: the weather proof wonder material that’s the stuff of statuary and architectural embellishments

home office: not free to go out, Banksy gives the guest bathroom a makeover

now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station: NASA under Trump struggles to deliver even the solace of science with exploration becoming exploitation

the ever-changing motor car: 1965 animated short for Ford of Britain by the same collaboration behind Yellow Submarine

netherstan

Here are some relatively harmless neural network-created fantasy flag mash-ups of the personal ensign of the royal family of Korea combined with the flag of the East African Community or Tonga through the filter of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, though most outcomes are a bit more dicey and some seem absolutely provocative and bent on igniting world war.
If those aren’t enough to incite at least an international incident, one can use the same data-set and vexillogical protocols that the bot draws from (presumably ignorant what national banners can symbolise for some) to create one’s own remixes. Give it a try and share your best unlikely geopolitical union.

treehugger

From BBC’s Monitoring desk, we appreciated this rejuvenating, restorative suggestion from the senior ranger of Iceland’s largest forest, Hallormsstadur, in the eastern part of the island that one go, safely, out and embrace a tree, really savouring the connection and letting it support one and draw strength from it. Not all of us might have the woods at our doorsteps but I think all of us are lucky enough to have a tree at hand.

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.