a short conchological glossary

Though not presented as a tongue-twister nor with any other context or accompaniment that might appeal to anyone outside the academic community of cockles and mussels or shell-collectors, this odd exercise in splendid enunciation—via Weird Universe—has a soothing, dulcet quality that is only to be found I think in a subject this niche. Click through to download the recording as an MP3.
It makes me think about the admonishment of not being critical of others for mispronouncing a word as they might have only ever encountered that word in print beforehand—I know my head pronunciation of things can be sometimes a mismatch, and we probably ought to bring back the pronouncing album. The opening disclaimer that there no official—only customarily correct way of saying these Latin names does not dissuade us from listening to more from R. Tucker Abbott, PhD (*1919 – †1995), preeminent malacologist, who made up the names of many of the species himself.

tritium breeding concepts

Earlier this week, after years of preparation, Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the assembly phase of the international collaborative effort to demonstrate that a nuclear fusion reaction can be achieved and sustained to generate energy at commercially viable levels.
Iter (see previously) is being constructed in Provence next to an existing facility called Cadarache that conducts research into nuclear and alternative energy and fuel sources and this largest of more than one hundred experimental fusion reactors built dating back to the 1950s to produce plasma by 2025 and if successful will furnish clean and virtually unlimited power.

7x7

what would you like to eat: bats mostly squabble about what’s for dinner

it’s a duck blur: television intros recreated scene-for-scene with stock footage

east-enders: five decades of photographic portraiture from Tex Ajetunmobi that illustrate the harmony and diversity of the London neighbourhood

ebussy: a modular electric vehicle that can transform into several different types of autos

fine hypertext products: Pudding launches its “Winning the Internet” newsletter—via Waxy

du har satt din sista potatis: useful Swedish phrases for venting steam

the garifuna collective: enjoy the calls and songs of threatened birds set to electronic music

a more perfect union

Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic directs our attention to the graphic narrative of cartoonist R. Sikoryak whose range of homages previously assayed the junky legalese of terms and conditions agreements and made something keenly engaging out of it and now takes on the US constitution (see also) to illuminate the document’s text. Sikoryak cycles through dozens of characters and styles beyond Charles Schultz’ Peanuts including Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” and Bob Montana’s Archie Comics.  Much more to explore at the links above.

artistique apparu

Having later significant influence on contemporaries like Edward Hopper, born this day in 1881 (†1946) Léon Spilliaert, graphic artist and Symbolist painter, spent his formative years sketching the Belgian countryside. The autodidact was able to ply his talents as a career and was commissioned to illustrate anthologies of short-fiction in a Brussels journal that published writers in the same genre, which channelled the gothic components from Romanticism and Impressionism to form a distinct visual and poetic movement in France, Belgium and Russia. Before moving on to executing his own works with studies in landscapes, coastal scenes and brooding dreamscapes Spilliaert especially enjoyed illustrating the works of the representative writers of the movement, Paul Verlaine and Edgar Allan Poe.

daft gif

Via the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we are treated to the award-winning and widely-featured artwork of Katy Daft. Her animations and illustrations are not only addressing the Zeitgeist but recount narratives of acceptance, positivity and growth. More to explore at the links above.

dunandunate

Thanks to expanded cabinet of curiosities of our faithful chronicler, we not only pick up a bit new of vocabulary to add to our quiver, we also learn that among other projects mellowing at Oxford English Dictionary’s laboratory there is a growing compilation of non-words (see also)—submissions that did not quite make the cut for inclusion under one criteria or another.
The titular term is one file kept in a rather clandestine and unpublished repository of words that may yet see the light of day—like the spork and skort or freegan and locavor that’s now in common-parlance—refers to the overuse of a word or phrase that has recently been acquired into the speaker’s own range. Other failed words of note include polkadodge, the dance that two people engage in when trying to pass one another but move in the same direction, or from circa 1993, a vidiot, a term to describe someone inept at programming a VCR. The entire list, however, remains a guarded secret. I am not privy to the terms etymology of course but reminds me of the overwhelming and parroted amount of times the phrase “done and dusted” came up in the media a few years back.

merrie melodies

Under the supervision of Tex Avery (though credited as ‘Fred,’ see previously here and here), the animated short A Wild Hare was released and shown in cinemas in the United States on this day in 1940. The cartoon features hunter Elmer Fudd and admonishing theatre audiences with his signature line and features the first official appearance of his nemesis Bugs Bunny—also employing the catch-phrase “What’s up, Doc?”