triple-double

Splicing together hundreds of gymnastic sequences into one continuous leap, imaginative artist Donato Sansone (see previously) further explores the choreography of concatenation with this footage of athletes energetically bounding and diving through frame after frame.  Much more to explore at the links above.

loving day

Commemorating the unanimous 1967 decision of the US Supreme Court to strike down prohibitions nationwide on interracial marriage, celebrations are held in honour of the victorious plaintiffs Mildred (née Jeter) and Richard Loving, whom wed in Washington, DC, legally, but found out that they were outlaws once they had returned home to Virginia. Charged with “cohabitating as man and wife against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” the young couple pled ignorance to avoid incarceration and agreed to twenty-five years’ exile for clemency. Securing US Attorney General Robert Kennedy as champion, justice prevailed and the recognition and acceptance of mixed-race couples was advanced in America.

hildegard von blingin’

More from our medieval songstress—inspired by the genuine article—and her merry minstrels, this time performing a medieval rendition of Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. All ye bully-rooks with your buskin boots, best ye go, best ye go, faster than mine arrow!  For such a tragic and modern lament, hearing the message through these lyrics almost makes the subject seem even more immediate and accessible.  More to explore at the links above.

don’t be a creep, buy a freep

Hyperallergic presents and nice retrospective and appreciation of the Los Angeles Free Press, a pioneering underground weekly, which during its initial run from the mid-1960s until 1978 was the only chronicle of social unrest, injustice and police violence as well as the environmental and anti-war movements—subjects that the mainstream press avoided—in the city and beyond. In a strong condemnation of police reaction during the Watts Rebellion of 1965, the paper editorialised, “Attempts to simply establish ‘law and order,’ to simply establish the pre-demonstration status quo, are doomed to failure.” For forcing the public to confront white supremacy and other discomforts, staff were constantly terrorised and under assault, including an office bombing in 1968. Revived with the same spirit fifteen years ago by its founder, radical socialist Art Kunkin (*1928 – †2019), its masthead (see also) reads Est’d 1964—Re-Incarnated by Necessity.

juneteeth

Provocatively and with more than a wink-and-a-nod to his racist elements in his camp—which honestly cannot be less than one hundred percent of them at this point—the reelection committee announced that Trump’s rallies are to resume not only prematurely and putting thousands (and untold numbers more through secondary infections, making his supporters some sort of buffoonish bio-weapons) with an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 19 June, falling on the day America commemorates the emancipation and the manumission of formerly enslaved individuals.
The proclamation was announced by Lincoln on New Year’s Day 1863 but very belatedly delivered to the affected communites in Texas in early summer of 1865. The venue is especially cruel and divisive as the it was also the site of the Greenwood Massacre and race riots, taking place between 31 May and 1 June 1921, when a mob jealous white residents attacked the affluent and prominent business district—which was known as the Black Wall Street. On the pretext of an alleged assault of a young white woman by a black entrepreneur, a violent spree of murder, looting and arson ensued, destroying the neighbourhood. No one was compensated for their losses and the rioters and killers, rather than being brought to justice, were allowed to appropriate and rehabilitate the property and the city was able for the most part to omit these atrocities and apartheid from its history for decades. A park and monument dedicated to truth and reconciliation is in view of the convention centre.

korsflagg and courtesy ensign

First prescribed as the proper and accepted way to identify Danish merchant vessels in regulations published on this day in 1748, specifying the colours of the flag (Dannebrog), shifting the intersection to the hoist (left) side and making the outer fields 6/4 the length of the inner ones, the distinctive Nordic Cross banner has since been adopted by Scandinavian and adjacent countries and territories.
One notable exception, though the design references the idea, is Greenland once granted home rule in 1985. Although the sideways cross is associated with Philip, the Apostle of the Greeks, who is venerated on 3/11 May (see also—coincidentally both Apostles Barnabas and Bartholomew are fêted on 11 June) dragging it to his own execution though by some accounts spared by the crowd by dint of his eloquent sermon, vexillogists employ the term Nordic cross for this and inspired conventions.

9x9

the incalculable loss: New York Times again dedicates its pages to giving voice to overlooked obituaries

ruputer: Seiko’s 1998 smart watch proves the adage plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (see also)

air bridges and air gaps: COVID-19 curtails international travel

invisible woman: incredible, augmented reality fashion show—via Things Magazine

privatising profits, socialising losses: the grifting companies receiving and retaining millions from economic recovery stimulus programmes in the US—via JWZ

metadata and memory hole: the internet’s repository is under assault

peaceful transition of power: the nightmare scenario if Trump refuses to leave office—via Cynical-C

chaotic good: DJ Cummerbund presents Weird Betty—nearly as good as Play that Funky Rammstein

and may those who lament their loss find better heroes: Egyptologist usefully share instructions on how to topple monumental structures

three-fourths of the several states

Inscribed as the nineteenth amendment to the US constitution nearly a half century before once it passed the federal legislature and the requisite threshold of state legislatures and having gone into effect nationwide, Louisiana, one of the three holdouts, held a vote, symbolic but meaningful nonetheless and having previously come out against it 1 July 1920, to affirm the extension of suffrage and enfranchisement to women (see previously here and here). North Carolina followed suit in May 1971, and Mississippi finally ratified the amendment in March 1984.