bandersnatch

Doubting that their audience would have the appetite for any more dystopian vignettes that depict the hollowing out and collapse of societies, the showrunners of Black Mirror (previously) had announced weeks ago a hiatus for the show. As reality is already starting to feel like an episode, however implausible and with writing not up to their usual standards, the network has put out an advertising installation inviting one to experience the next series, anytime, anywhere—though not the message, running the campaign in Madrid seems particularly tone-deaf and insensitive. I’ve been feeling all our pop culture training with apocalyptic and zombie movies have failed us and haven’t made nimbler and wiser in the face of multiple calamities.

we have a great country... greatest country in the world. and we’re going to make it greater. we will make it even greater, it won't take long... it’s coming back strong, and it will be greater than ever before

After emerging from hiding in his bunker with a sizable entourage of sycophants and a squadron of National Guard troops to disperse a gathering of peaceful protesters by firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and flash grenades, Trump, unannounced and uninvited, proceeded to make the short march from the White House to Saint John’s Episcopal Church in adjacent Lafayette Square, the historic Church of the Presidents, to pose with it as a backdrop and brandishing a Bible as a prop. Proximity was a factor as well as the fact that the church’s basement had sustained some collateral damage from a fire that was quickly extinguished. In the previous days having broadcast “when the looting starts, the shooting stars. Thank you!” and to mayor and municipal councils “You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate,” and ostensibly building on his narrative of a “few bad apples” (led by one rotten orange and not even the kind that makes penicillin) reaffirmed his commitment to law and order, surveyed the fire damage and invited members of his staff to join him for a photo-op.
Angered and appalled, beyond trouncing on the US constitutional prohibition against the state endorsing or privileging a particular faith—or any at all—his stunt garnered him a cut response from the diocese’s bishop, citing his violent escort, not praying to unite and heal the country but rather using sacred space and symbols to reinforce a message that goes against what those same symbols—including symbols of civility—stand for.  There were some rumblings within the GOP but few chinks in that wall of silence since giving voice to their collected revolution would only serve to direct attention to the fact that they could have easily voted as the senatorial jury to remove the impeached Trump but chose not to without even suffering much retribution by their constituencies as they could assign all blame to the Democrats and their undermining democracy.

zoot suit riots

On this day in 1943 in Los Angeles and continuing for the next five days, US sailors and Marines stationed there (either on rest and recuperative or transitioning for deployment to the Pacific theatre) and white residents, enervated by sensational coverage of the so-called Sleepy Lagoon murder trial of the summer prior, and ostensibly over the extravagance of their flamboyant clothes and accessorising that was seen as using up valuable fabric during wartime rationing, clashed with Mexican-American youth.
The attacks spread to other industrial cities across the US, expanding to other minority populations. The violence subsided by mid-June but tensions remained high and concern for the economy of southern California was brought to the forefront, given its reliance on the inflow of inexpensive labour in order to harvest produce, eventually leading to the papering-over of the underlying problems, with local authorities squarely assigning blame to delinquent and idle youths rather than systemic racism contrasted with the inquiry launched by the federal government into the riots which had the aims of determining whether Nazi or Axis agitators were not stoking unrest and sponsored the protestors. The defiance of the Zoot Suitors in the face of this unrelenting violence and antagonism is regarded as a pivotal moment for El Movimiento and related civil rights movements to combat institutional racism and disenfranchisement. As young men, civil rights leaders Cesar Chavez and Malcolm X were both Zoot Suiters.

gallery1988

Via The Morning News that finally piqued my curiosity, I am regretting now not having before having checked out the Hood Internet’s on-going series of year-in-song reviews.
These audio-visual remixes and transitions are really quite fantastic and resoundingly nostalgic brief romps and am working through the back-catalogue (1986 is also particularly good) and looking forward to more instalments.

elections matter

vita s. ronani

Venerated since at least the tenth century, Irish pilgrim and founded of the eponymous hermitage in western Brittany and co-patron of the city of Quimper, the feast of Saint Rónán is celebrated today (and then again in July) with a procession called Petite Tromenies (la grande Troménie happening once every sixth year) around the village—demarcating the grounds of the priory as a place of sanctuary and refuge—hence pardon or in Breton (brezhoneg) Tro Minihi—the tour of the retreat.

Several miracles—both in life and posthumously—including restoration of speech and curing lycanthropy, are attributed to Rónán and curried trust with the semi-legendary King Gradlon and his subjects.

ubu roi

Dangerous Minds’ rediscovery of the oedipal trilogy of Ubu the King (1896)—the titular first play, Ubu the Cuckold and Ubu in Chains—by French surrealist playwright Alfred Jarry (*1873 – †1907) and reinterpreting this allegory for contemporary times—including the impeached, cowering, nincompoop pretender Trump whose personality and temperament fit the tragic bathos of the befouling, infantilely-engaged, self-serving protagonist as if the part were written for him also gives us the chance to revisit the work’s philosophical underpinnings in 'pataphysics. Learn more from Dangerous Minds at the link up top and see a 1966 television production of the play, as performed by marionettes after Jarre’s singular showing.

æstivation

Though less well attested and possibly uncommon, there’s a type of seasonal animal dormancy that’s the corollary to hibernation. From the Latin for summer, æstivation is a state of torpor that some organisms enter—both terrestrial and aquatic—to protect themselves from overheating or desiccation. I’ve sometimes noticed snails scale fence posts or nest in crowns of flowers (that are the remains of an earlier season of growth themselves) along with other insects, apparently æstivating it seems, but the slumber is a relatively light one and easy to raise from.