Via Print Magazine’s regular feature column, the Daily Heller, we are introduced to the cut-short but prolific portfolio graphic designer, muralist and stage backdrop painter Rex Whistler (*1905 – †1944), as well-known known for his portraits of London society of the 1920s and 1930s as he was for his commercial and caricature work. While this visual trope of reversible faces, as collected in this volume published posthumously in 1946, was not invented by Whistler these ambigrams of perspective were among his most popular and enduring legacies not associated with a specific press or advertising campaign and promoted the use of optical illusions. Explore a whole gallery of Whistler’s works at the links up top.
Thursday, 17 September 2020
¡oho!
frรผhaufsteher
Rise and shine, Turophiles, to the musical stylings of organist Ady Zehnpfennig from his 1976 record album Early Bird. Graduating from the accordion to an electronic Hammond organ (see also here and here) and formed a trio with his brothers, performing first at night clubs in Kรถln. The fun accompanying image is from the reverse jacket cover.
plurale tantum
From the Latin for plural form only, we encounter a host of words whose singular form is inconceivable or as the terms as collective ones rarely invoked: scissors, news, trousers, spectacles, subs, outskirts, thanks and heroics.
As well as sharing at least some of the preceding English examples, in other languages, pluralia tantum point to a period of time: kalendae for the first day of the month, German Ferien for vacation, to go on holiday(s). Some cases don’t have an obvious semantic logic to them like the Swedish and Russia words respectively for currency—pengar and ะดะตะฝัะณะธ always as monies or the problematic case of the German word for parents only exists in the plural form Eltern—with the current possibilities of expressing a single parent awkward and normative. As one can do a scissor-kick or be possessed of a trouser-press there are exceptions and ways to compose the singular, unpaired form and bridge that morphological gap. The opposite, singular tantum, refer to mass or uncountable objects and conception, like information, milk and popcorn.
ciceroni
Presumably sourced to the agnomen of Marcus Tullius Cicero (previously), which itself means chickpea or garbanzo bean, in reference to the orator and statesman’s loquacity of speech, a cicerone is a mostly antiquated way of identifying (possibly self-appointed) a guide or docent who conducts sightseers in touristed locales and explains items of historic and artistic interest for their benefit and edification.
During the age of Grand Tours, such retained escorts and chaperons were known colloquially as bear-leaders (referencing the cruel and medieval practise of bear-baiting and conducting the poor animal from village to village) and were responsible for keeping their charges out of trouble whilst ensuring that they got the most educational value out of their trips abroad and had due appreciation for the places they visited. In the United States, a cicerone is a by-word and certification programme for a sommelier that specialises in beer who can speak to hobby-brewing, glassware and food-pairings.
umbra viventis lucis
Venerated on this day, the occasion of her death in 1179 (*1098), as one of the most accomplished and prolific scholars of the Middle Ages, Hildegard von Bingen (see also, the saint and song-writer also being one of the most recorded artists in modern times), recognised for her mysticism, scientific curiosity, leadership and musical virtuosity as a Doctor of the Church.
Albeit much of this interpretation is a matter of conjecture, it further was unclear if anyone else could read her writings and whether she intended the script to be a universal and ideal one or a secret, holy language.
Wednesday, 16 September 2020
simulmatics
Limning the world as we’ve inherited it, a Madison Avenue advertising agency, crafting detailed but questionably nuanced or accurate reflections of anyone or informing the proclivities of real persons demographic “people machines,” founded in 1959 the nascent business of data modelling, brilliantly accounted in Jill Lepore’s new book.
The corporate architecture originally programmed and coded by women staff members selected from the typing pool—until male executives recognised the prestige and profit in making computing and technology their exclusive domain (see also)—this Big Data approach was quickly applied to other venues besides marketing, but in ways that ultimately seem maladapted and cynical despite best intentions going in. That and the fact that a group of white men feel that those outside of their peer-group have to be decoded to be understood aptly prefigures the trajectory that tech has taken us and offers a glimpse at least of how it could be otherwise when civics are held separate from sales and targeting is not baked-in to community. Listen to the entire interview on NPR’s Fresh Air at the link below.
wormsign
From the extensive archives of JWZ, we are reminded what a golden age the 1980s were for up-and-comer sandworms. Shai-Hulud (1985) as they are called by the Fremen of Arrakis (not to scale) grow to gigantic proportions, hundreds of metres in length and forty metres in diameter and ply the desert sands as whales do in Earth oceans, and extending the comparison, as with flensing and whale oil, were the source of the spice melange—the most valuable commodity in the Cosmos. The sarlacc that inhabits the Great Pit of Carkoon (1983) is classified as non-sessile arthropod though shares a similar physiology to its companions.
