postillon

The other day we learned that William Shakespeare gave us the word droplet and we now shown the observation from BBC correspondent Hugh Schofield that the more precise, apropos term to describe the mechanism of viral transmission in French employs the borrowed and lent word for a teamster that guides a horse-drawn coach.
Though not much in common-parlance in English since the adoption of the horseless carriage except in the phrase “posting to the trot”—that is adjusting one’s gait and pace to the rhythm of one’s mount or other means of conveyance and the ludicrous, said-no-one-ever phrase from the Portuguese primer English as she is Spoke, “Pardon me, but your postilion has been struck by lightning.” What might be put less delicately in English as spittle or salivary output is framed rather metaphorically as a forerunner who heralds one’s presence to one’s interlocutor. Porter un masque pour vous protéger et protéger les autres

liner notes

Via Everlasting Blört we are directed to this fabulous gallery curated by Reagan Ray (previously) of album cover art designed by the imminent Milton Glaser (see also).
We especially like the appreciative prologue about the intricacies and interlacing of his work and how a custom, one-off typeface might be later expanded into a font. With over two hundred and fifty jackets to his credit and a career spanning six decades, it is a challenge to select favourite but most are represented in the collection above. In addition to the iconic covers Glaser created for Bob Dylan, Harry Chapin and Albert King, we really like the psychedelic look for the cover band The Baroque Inevitable plus this commission for Al Caiola’s Magic Guitars “Music for Space Squirrels,” which you can listen along to below.

korabl-sputnik 2

On this day in 1960, a veritable arch (Корабль-Спутник 2, meaning ship-satellite) was launched into orbit in what was the second attempt to launch a Vostok capsule and safely return it carrying a living manifest of animals and plants—the first try on 28 July having tragically failed with an engine fire, the original canine crew named Chaika (Seagull, see also) and Lisichka (Foxie)—with the spacecraft accommodating a selection of plants, two rats, forty mice and two dogs, Belka and Strelka (previously). All survived the test flight, circling the globe four times. The following year, Strelka had a litter of puppies, one of which was presented to First Lady Jaqueline Kennedy by the Soviet government as a sign of goodwill. Though initially suspicious that the puppy was bugged, Pushinka was given a home at the White House.

you’re not supposed to hear me—that’s a soliloquy

Delightfully LitHub delivers forty adaptations of Hamlet, ranging from anthropomorphic Christian produce, a Monsterpiece Theatre production to Maximilian Schell’s 1961 eponymous presentation spoofed by MST3K in 1999 or Derek Jacobi in the title role on Frasier and Ethan Hawke in Hamlet 2000, ranked for your consideration.  We especially liked the unique performance of Fleabag priest Andrew Scott, clocking in at number eight.  Which tropes and interpretations do you think have particularly aged well?

dataviz

Via Waxy, we discover the portfolio of Gladys at Stoxart who turns variations in market prices into quite brilliant landscape works of art. Tracking economic activity generally is subject in itself whose volatility may not be exactly commiserate with realistic topography but one can commission a specific stock’s performance over the time frame of one’s choice.

conlang

From the cabinet of hypertext curiosities of Mx van Hoorn, we are not only introduced to the linguist David J Peterson, whom after JRR Tolkien and lexicographers behind Klingon is probably the most celebrated contemporary figure in constructed languages (see previously) with Dothraki from Game of Thrones, we make his acquaintance in the greatest of fashions—namely, through his handmade landing spot for his various projects. Pictured is a bit of orthography for the invented script of the imagined Njaama culture and the entire enterprise has a lot to explore and is a prompt for reflecting on the organic and inspired development of communication and how that might be resonant and rendered.

reading the room

In an example of Poe’s Law—the adage that extremist views and satire ultimately converge and make them virtually indistinguishable, we learn that the deplorable couple who trained guns at peaceful protestors (see previously) earlier this summer are slated to speak at the virtual Republican National Convention, scheduled for next week after the DNC concludes. Check out the reporting from CNN above to see who else is lined-up to showcase party values.

well done sister suffragette

On this day in 1920, a long struggle and organised campaign came to fruition with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US constitution extending the franchise and right to vote to women (see previously). Instrumental to the success included such activists as Alice Stokes Paul (*1885 – †1977), whom after 1920 spent five decades as chair of the National Woman’s Party championing the Equal Rights Amendment, among other causes. Here pictured toasting their achievement, Paul is brandishing grape juice as Prohibition had recently come into effect.