narrowcast

Via Things Magazine, we are quite enjoying this streaming channel (see also here and here) of video artefacts and interstitials whose continuous blocks of programming are expertly curated between shorts and speciality anthologies (Nothing But Star Wars, David Bowie Mixed Tape, Bollyweird, etc.) from the creative team at EXP TV. Should one want video breaks on demand or submit to the algorithmic suggestions, they also are found on more traditional platforms but I think the real treat is in being receptive to serendipity in the inconspicuous and strange.

public law 88-352

Originally proposed by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in June of the previous year but forestalled by a filibuster in the US Senate, his successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, pushed forward the legislation and signed the anti-discrimination Civil Rights Act, rigorously debated but eventually approved by Congress, on this day in 1964. Aside from outlawing difference in treatment or preference based on heritage, religious background or sex, the eleven entitlements of the act guarantee uniform application to voting rights and burdens of exercising them, prohibits segregation, promotes equal employment opportunities and affirms and improves upon prior similar legislation by providing a host of evaluation and enforcement measures.

we have clearance, clarence

While—courtesy of our faithful chronicler—it’s worth noting the anniversary of the general release in North America on this day in 1980 of the supremely silly Jim Abrahams and Zucker Brothers comedy for its own sake, it does strike me as hard to reconcile the rapidity of contemporary riffs, among them the mostly overlooked meta-reference that the action-drama franchise Airport (1970 – 1979, based on the Arthur Hailey novel and became the epitome of the disaster genre of the decade) had just concluded and cycled out of theatres.
Enjoying three sequels—with the first two being big box office hits—the final flop Airport ’79…The Concorde (even called Airport ’80 in some markets due to the distribution schedule, whereas Airplane’s sequel didn’t fare so well), it reminds me how the Kennedy White House took the metonym Camelot not because it was particularly courtly or chivalrous in its own right but rather due to the concurrent popularity of the Broadway play.

9x9

toccata und fuge in d-moll: table settings scatter and repair to Bach’s virtuoso piece

tapón del darién: the gap in the Pan American Highway that may never be bridged

hording: USA buys up all available stock of a drug treatment for COVID-19, leaving none for the rest of the world—unclear whether it is an effective intervention, via Super Punch

double-decker: panoramic people mover designed for physical distancing

dr-dr-draugur: Icelandic utility company contracts an exorcist (see previously) to clear neighbouring farmstead of ghosts

we’d call them farmers’ markets: the indispensable role of China’s “wet markets” in food logistics and how they’re unfairly stigmatised

afrofuturism: Sun Ra’s syllabus from a 1971 UC Berkley “African American Studies” course

oppression of scale: a gallery of evocative large construction projects

various artists: another look at the New Age anthology Pure Moods, via The Morning News

distinguishing signs of vehicles in international traffic

Aside from a brief period in the tumult of the 1980s when the Republic was coerced into an uneasy compact with other Polynesian nations formerly claimed under the domain of the United States and treated as a trust territory, receiving development assistance in exchange for hosting nuclear testing and forward operating bases, when national plates were issued since devolved again to the responsibility and oversight of the several states, each island and atoll group of Palau is free to design and determine the conventions of its vehicle registration system.
Varying highly by composition, remoteness and population, fourteen out of sixteen states have populations of under five hundred and there are a little over seven thousand cars and trucks registered and roadworthy. This sample from the state of Ngiwal (population 282) and features the coat-of-arms and the registry number—all of which begin with the prefix K79, first K for the native Kiuluul people and their reputation as gourmands, reportedly eating seven meals and nine soups daily, having originated from the stomach according to legend from a mythical figure known as the Insatiable Uab. A parable on sustainability, especially from an insular perspective threatened by sea-level rise, the creature with the prodigious appetite had to put down, dramatically exploding into the map of Palau after seeing the effects of his greed. There’s a gallery of plates to explore at the link above, in that same constellation and further afield as well, but none I think with quite such a developed narrative.

monuments men or statue of limitations

As corroborating evidence comes in that indeed Trump knew of Russia bounties on foreign troops in Afghanistan and that the contracts did indeed result in the death of American service members and the EU bans travellers from the USA due to its atrocious job controlling the spread of the pandemic, more are dying and the economy is lurching towards total collapse,
the administration is shifting priority with the formation of a Department of Homeland Security special task force to protect statues and memorials, the DHS director answering the call issued in an executive order to safeguard history and heritage with the full arsenal of law enforcement. Moreover, Trump is also threatening to defund the Department of Defence should the military branches proceed with renaming installations named in honour of war heroes of the Confederacy.

be cool, honey bunny

Writing for Mel Magazine, correspondent Miles Klee expertly and unflinchingly deconstructs the iconography of the new American Gothic and all it says about the country’s caste and class system—despite attempts to paper-over it with fables of exceptionalism and reluctance to couch itself in terms reserved for places held, by the beholder, in graver contempt like apartheid, gun culture, entitlement and fragility.
Grant Wood’s original—like all enduring images, though I hope that this armed couple defending their McMansion, deciding to take matters into their own hands before dialling their personal racism valets, from a peaceful rally, does not become more than a meme as this is not their story, reveals more about the viewer than it does about itself and drew out widely varied interpretations—as does this spectacle. The contrast of architectural backdrop also speaks volumes to the fact that patriotism is weaponised like the arsenals stockpiled and triggered to unleash for the sake protecting what’s staid, complacent and hideous.

bl 23

Ostensibly to prevent interference in territorial affairs and required under the twenty-third article of the Special Administrative Region’s Basic Law, police authorities had the chance to inaugurate the newly enacted security legislation by conducting mass arrests of demonstrators marking the anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong (see previously) from the UK to China in 1997.
Protesters were arrested and detained for unlawful assembly and for advocating for Hong Kong independence. Globally the response to what is perceived as heavy-handed encroachment in reaction to ongoing civil unrest that began around March 2019 over proposed changes including extradition to the mainland for those accused of sedition and other crimes to stand trial instead of facing justice in local courts has been one of consternation with UK pledging to fast-track citizenship for residents born under British rule who seek to leave.