mambo № 5

Though propelled back into renewed popularity with Munich artist Lou Bega’s sampling and remixed version released on this day in 1999 in German markets on his debut album A Little Bit of Mambo, the history of the jazzy dance number goes back half a century before (see also) that with the composition and recording of Mambo King Cuban musician Dámaso Pérez Prado. Here are both songs for your listening pleasure.
Bega’s reintroduction of the tune (there is a lot of original material and is by no means just a remake and only takes inspiration from a few albeit central riffs) was incredible popular and quickly garnered accolades. It was a candidate campaign song for the Democratic Party’s 2000 election push though sponsors had second thoughts over the line “A little bit of Monica in my life…” and a BBC children’s television programme, still basking in the success from its first recording venture Can We Fix It? Yes We Can!, in 2001 released a cover-version featuring the construction engineer’s voice actor singing, replacing the litany of girlfriends with construction materials and tasks: “There’s a house with a roof that leaks / It’s an urgent job and could take us weeks… A little bit of tiling on the roof / A little bit of making waterproof / A little bit of concrete mixed with sand / A little bit of Bob, the Builder Man.”

side quest and news cycle

Vis-à-vis this other Hero’s Journey, this earlier commentary on the UX of going off the reservation and visiting websites outside of social media’s walled gardens, and this brutally accurate observation that in terms of open access, security, tracking and general skezziness that news sites have taken on the reputation that was accorded to porn sites a decade ago, this image from Mattsurelee (from Instagram, a platform we want no truck in either but thankfully brought to our notice from Nag on the Lake) really spoke to us.
I fully empathise with how news outlets and reporters are not just underfunded and face withering and atrophy but are facing outright assault and hostility and we all need to do a better job of supporting newsrooms and local reporting, but at the same time, I don’t think this coy, bullying approach is the right one—especially for an established audience that has agency and makes the choice to return to a trusted source and be made to jump through hoops and turn tricks to prise open content, ultimately made to find it syndicated elsewhere.

avtomobilny

Sold domestically as the Zhiguli (Жигули, after the mountain range bordering the Volga) and branded as the “Lada” for export (see previously, the designation being an earlier variation for the region in reference to the pirate gangs encamped in the valleys), the automotive manufacturer introduced its VAZ-2101, the initialism standing for Volga Automotive Plant. With seven models in the series, some seventeen million cars were produced until the line was discontinued in 2012—manufacturing at an Egyptian factory continuing until 2014.

le livre des esprits

With the 1857 publication on this day of Allan Kardec’s (nom de plume of Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, *1804 – †1869) seminal, gospel work The Spirits Book, the Spiritist movement (not to be confused with a parallel interest called spiritualism, which concerned itself with the ability and inclination of the dead to communicate to the living) is considered arrived and complete with this final codification that attempts to address the hard, existential questions.
The main tenants of the governing philosophy hold that all corporeal living beings are manifestations of essential and discrete immortal souls which need to become incarnate at increasingly higher states to attain intellectual and moral perfection. The major schism between the former and the later was Spiritism’s belief in the reincarnation, transmigration of the soul into other physical containers and dead relatives being unavailable for consultation through a medium and thus never took hold in the United States and United Kingdom (though those objections seemed to have lapsed in the meantime) as it did in other parts of Europe, South America and Asia. Another aspect that established religions took grave exception to was Spirtism’s theist nature—evolution-affirming in its acknowledgement that a supreme and ambivalent god set things in motion but then stepped away.  After Kardec’s death, his wife and co-founder Amélie Boudet became the movement’s leading authority. There are upwards of twenty-million adherents world-wide, with the majority in Brazil and Vietnam.

ham radio

On this day in 1925 during a congress in Paris held by a consortium of national organisations representing hobbyists and enthusiasts, the International Amateur Radio Union was formed. Its mission, continuing to the present, is to safeguard a frequency spectrum reserved for the purposes of non-commercial exchange, experimentation, training, recreation and contests and competitions, including radio direction finding, a type of geocaching, and speed telegraphy using Morse-code—“ham” originally a gently pejorative term for operators with poor sending accuracy, being somewhat ham-fisted.

6x6

paracosm: Things Magazine digs through its rough drafts to bring together a montage of private homes that represent the complete, the self-contained

your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should: researchers isolate a sample of possibly viable dinosaur DNA, via Slashdot

ursine alignment chart: lockdown coping levels gauged by cartoon bears

вечеринка на балконе: solo techno raves are the latest challenge in Russia under social distancing rules

covid corridor: absent leadership on a national level, new names proposed for regional alliances forming in the disunited states

domus: Sony World Photography Awards winners and runners-up announced in the category of architecture—via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals

trail-blazer

Taken to long walks in the woods lately, I appreciated this tract, via Strange Company (a lot more to explore here as well), on the invention of hiking as a pastime. Louis XIV commissioned a campaign to landscape and enlarge the already sizably managed Fontainebleau forest—named for its stately chateau outside of Paris, a favoured and expedient retreat from the metropolis and the undertaking came to be entrusted in the hands of failed military concierge Claude-François Denecourt, dismissed earlier from the barracks also co-located on the grounds and finding the restorative qualities of wandering amongst the trees was seasoned and eager when it came to the task.
Familiar with the landmarks he encountered, Denecourt emphasised the forest’s character and wound pathways that would pass by all the highlights.  I’ve recently discovered a pair of trails that cross an empty hunting lodge that’s a strange sort of anchor and landmark in my ramblings—sort of like coming back to the witch’s cottage in King’s Quest as the side-scroll repeated—at least at first and absent a guide but now happy to know that these paths meet up.  Other milestones are coming into focus as well, like particularly venerable trees along logging roads.  Though there is an element of the artificial to what Denecourt created weaving through the forest’s expansion that we would not consider re-wilding, staking out a lightly manicured trail and touting its qualities—one of the first of its kind in the West at least in terms of mapping and promotion, certainly had influence and amplification (often repeated and juxtaposed so we’re also not tempted to stray and trample further) that we all can be grateful for.  Learn more with the Smithsonian article at the link above. 

light and tuneful

Even as sporting events are being postponed for another time, we can still appreciate some of the great riveting power theme tunes for big tournaments and regular shows, like this first track by composer Sam Fonteyn (*1925 – †1991) for BBC Sport called Pop Looks Bach (1978)—whose countless works have also been sampled for the intros and incidental music for SpongeBob, Ren & Stimpy and Family Guy.
The second and third track are from Keith Mansfield with the former called Light and Tuneful (1970) and of course announces the Wimbledon Championships and the later the theme to sports round-up Grandstand (1958). Even if not a fan oneself, they still invoke a feeling of nostalgia, even if it was to signal to leave as televised sports coverage was about to start.