overseas logogram

The peripatetic polyglots at the helm over at Language Log direct us to a host of for the nonce Sinographs from Hong Kong which could be described as neologism—rather neographisms or visual portmanteaux inventing characters by mixing the component parts and meaning-bearers from different glyphs to form something nuanced and paraliteral.  The pictured example seems to borrow selectively from 鎮靜 (zhènjìng, that is combined calm, poised) but taking on a new context in this form as equanimous and not un-dispassionate, unshaken.
As one reader commented, this zhìzào (制造, making characters) is reminiscent of the 1987 publication originally to be entitled Mirror to Analyse the World: The Century’s Final Volume by artist Xu Bing but was instead ultimately called after the Chinese term tiān shū that itself originally was reserved for divinely inspired writing (akin to speaking in tongues) but came to signify gibberish in “A Book from the Sky.” Very much up to the interpretation of the reader, the bound edition limited to a single print run, the book is composed with a set of four-thousand characters (comparable to the lexicon of modern Chinese writing) and imitate natural language on the page in terms of diversity and frequency but are wholly made up, nonsense words, as if a book in a Latin script were filled with Wingdings. The above banners, however, have a meaning and message that can be puzzled out.

morgenrot schlecht wetter droht

Kottke curates a growing selection of arresting photographs of American western skies tinged an unreal red by uncontrolled wildfires fuelled and made more intense by climate change and global warming that is a direct consequence of human activity and mismanagement. These images were captured during the day, not at dawn or dusk though the smoke blocking out the sun might suggest otherwise. Abendrot, schlecht Wetterbot.

my life got flipped—turned upside down

From the always enthralling friend of the blog, Nag on the Lake, we learn that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is being rebooted as a hard drama, the news coming just in time for the just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the show’s first broadcast on NBC on this day, according to our faithful chronicler, in 1990. The two-season arc won’t be available for streaming until next year, however.

the lesser apocalypse

Referred to as the above with the conviction it was punishment from God alternatively for the Ottomans’ perceived inhospitality toward the Eastern Christians or for the Turks tolerating them, a powerful earthquake, with its epicentre in the Sea of Marmara, and resulting tsunami devastated Constantinople on this day in 1509. Damage and death estimates vary widely but probably took ten thousand lives and destroyed homes and infrastructure, and reportedly Hagia Sophia (previously) withstood the quake virtually unscathed, only the plaster that had been used to cover the Byzantine mosaics was shaken off the walls, revealing the Christian imagery beneath. The month and a half of aftershocks that followed did not cause significant damage but delayed recovery efforts and rebuilding.

our lady peace

With high dome and colonnade inspired by St. Peter’s, le Basilique Notre-Dame de la Paix, among the largest churches in the world, in Yamoussoukro, administrative capital of Côte d’Ivoire, was consecrated on this day in 1990 by Pope John Paul II.
It was designed and built from 1985 to 1989 under the supervision of Lebanese-Ivorian architect Pierre Fakhoury. A basilica minor, the distinction from a cathedral is one in terms of rank, conferred in writing by a papal breve and certain privileges to display the baldachin and bell—that is, the canopy (conopaeum) of state and the right to wear special vestments during Divine Office. Most basilicas receive the designation for housing a shrine meant to be a pilgrimage destination.

marianne von werefkin

Born this day (Old Style 29 August) 1860 (†1938) in the then Govenorate of Tula, Mariánna Vladímirovna Verëvkina would go on to become an important and influential painter (claimed by every place she lived and worked) in the Expressionist style. Protégé and eventual peer of artists in the movement like Alexj von Jawlensky, Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.
The latter two (whom are a prominent part of the permanent collection of artists of the Wiesbaden Museum) distanced themselves from the collective in München that they all as emigres had joined but with the outbreak of World War I formed Der Blaue Reiter group, prompting the seasoned Werekin and Jawlensky to repair to Geneva—forming their own splinter school Ursa Major—der Großer Bär.

i come in peace

Recently the Guardian ran an op-ed piece written entirely by a neural network, namely OpenAI’s powerful new GPT-3, pitched as a position piece to the readership to assuage as many as possible of the fears that robots would be the destroyers of humanity, employing tools of rhetoric and downplaying movie tropes and even the warnings of Stephen Hawking.
I don’t know if such an appeal should be interpreted as reassuring or not but the litany of supervillains that the same autodidactic subroutine conjured up at the behest of Janelle Shane (previously) is really the antithesis and counter-argument and rather betray the insidious plotting of the machines. One of the more telling characters is Flugg—an evil robot-bunny who is powered by a magical bunny tail—the world would be better off if there were more bunny tails. Check out the whole rogue’s gallery and tag yourself. Klaatu barada nikto.

infinite cantabria

Local artist Okuda San Miguel has recently finishing turning the iconic Faro de Ajo into a vibrant celebration of the Santander community and the larger region that the painter and sculptor hails from. Built just in 1985 to safeguard the cape, the town council commissioned San Miguel to make the landmark as unique and diverse as the landscape. Peruse a whole gallery of images at Design Boom and discover more in the artist’s portfolio at the links above.