zugspitze

Highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountain range that forms the border between Germany and Austria, the first team of mountaineers to summit it, Josef Naus, guide Johann Georg Tauschl and a survey assistant identified sadly only as Maier, did so on this day in 1820. Though smuggling operations or goatherds might have accomplished this feat first, this documented ascent was in service to the Royal Bavarian Topographic Bureau (Königlich Bairischen Topografischen Bureau) and their commission of an atlas of the kingdom, culminating with the group planting a bergstock to mark their success.  Maximilian I was pleased with the confirmation that the summit lay on his side of the border.

unbuilt architecture

We enjoyed leafing through this 1969 issue of New York magazine chocked full of immodest proposals (see also) for redesigning the city including a ‘landliner’ to connect the Eastern Seaboard and eliminate traffic congestion, a glass dome over Manhattan and converting all the superfluous cross-streets into a commons and green-space.
The February edition of the periodical also has classified on how to exercise in the office for optimum fitness and an advertisement for the latest album from Judy Collins, Who Knows Where the Time Goes, with the tagline JC Saves.

video freaks

Hyperallergic directs our attention to the extensive raw footage of the US party conventions of the summer of 1972 as captured by a San Francisco-based collective known as Top Value Television—TVTV. These guerrilla documentarians came together to cover these political events and remained active through 1979 filming a range of projects as a counterpoint to mass media. The archives of UC Berkley (previously) has digitised hundreds of hours of their content and made it available on their website along with curated programmes and profiles of members of the group.

happy home designer

Via Boing Boing, we discover delightfully that IKEA’s latest catalogue has been faithfully reproduced in part in the Animal Crossing (previously) game, platform, plane of existence. It would have been a monumental undertaking to recreate every page but the furniture and rooms selected are pretty impressive, especially considering the limited set of objects and artefacts there are in play. Before you get sticker shock, the items are priced in Taiwanese dollars.  The title refers to a 2015 spin-off game that focused on architecture and interior decorating.  See more highlights from Kotaku at the link above.

pips

Pulling rank and questioning the leadership hierarchy proposed for the US Space Force, actor William Shatner expressed a bit of consternation to the new service branch over the plan to designate a commanding officer as a colonel and not a captain. Space Force has declined to respond so far, pending legislation that as it stands runs counter to a long maritime tradition, not to mention several decades of firmly ensconced franchise canon. Shatner hopes that the matter is at least up for debate and discussion, and some lawmakers are siding with him.

monomyth

Promising infinite variation on a theme, this manual and style guide from a century ago, Wycliff Aber Hill’s Ten Million Photoplay Plots, is an interesting exploration of the possible taxons—thirty-seven according to the author—that arise out of the adage attributed to Leo Tolstoy, that great literature is one of two stories: “a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town”—which indeed smacks of one and the same tale told from different perspectives. Will’s parcing and analysis cross-references a collection of basic dramatic situations, happy ones, pathetic ones that aspiring screenwriters (relatedly) can assay in a modular, formulaic manner and add twists and complications, including (36) To kill a kinsman or a friend before recognition. More to explore from Open Culture at the link up top. 

best notify my next of kin—this wheel shall explode!

Begun on this day in 1970, the five-day Isle of Wight Festival staged at Afton Down was hailed afterwards as the largest musical spectaculars of its era, with an estimated audience approaching a quarter of a million. Performers included Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, Supertramp, the Doors, Melanie (who was the only original Woodstock act scheduled to appear at its fiftieth revival), the Moody Blue and many more. The organisers of this festival would go on to hold the first Glastonbury Fair the following year.

number 10

Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we discover a splendid backdrop for a selfie lies just around the corner from the actual residence of the Lord High Treasurer, by convention also the prime minister (the exchequer fulfils the role of what’s regarded as the treasury in modern parlance). 
For safety and security reasons the authentic and metonymical mansion is off-limits to posing in front of with a nearly identical stoop and door at Adam House, on the eponymous neighbouring street named for its Scottish architect, of both properties, and statesman Robert Adam, one-third of the neoclassical Adamesque style of architecture of the Brothers Adam known as Federalist in the US. Whilst the Adam Street address is likely to impress in passing, but there are significant differences in the door fronts: the slightly off-kilter zero cipher, the brass knocker and the conspicuous absence of a lock, since its always opened from the inside.