As consequential and inopportune her death is and one hopes that her “most fervent” wish will be respected, one also hopes that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s departure (1933 – 2020) and vacancy in the US Supreme Court does not eclipse her life and career as a champion for justice, equality and access. One of my favourite details of her biography was her early desire to become an opera singer—before having any aspirations at law—and the eventual pop culture icon’s supernumery stage roles (extras—usually non-speaking parts but was once appointed to the judgeship in decide the case in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, bring justice for Shylock) and her regular attendance at shows in Washington, DC.
Despite pronounced ideological differences, Ginsburg considered fellow justice (at the Supreme Court and previously at the US Court of Appeals) Antonin Scalia (1936 – 2016, see also that succession crisis with this vacancy likely to be the encore) and often went to the opera together, twice appearing together in the Richard Strauss comedy of manners Ariadne auf Naxos—an instance of unexpected collegiality that inspired its own opera buffa in 2015. The string of lace jabots illustrated is from the excellent SCOTUS Blog (their obituary linked up top) and was Ginburg’s signature accessory and was said to wear particular one’s depending on her mood and what sort of opinion—dissenting or majority—she was issuing. Let’s all wear black and gold and uphold her legacy and hard-won victories.
With the expressed aim of empowering parental control over children’s and adolescences’ access to music and restrict exposure to material deemed violent or sexual, founding member of the “Washington Wives” Tipper Gore, spouse of Al Gore, formed the Parents’ Music Resource Center early in 1985. Encouraging the record industry to adopt a voluntary censorship regime with a rating system akin to that of the Motion Picture Association, Gore and other concerned citizens convinced the US Senate to hold a hearing on so-called “porn rock,” having identified a catalogue of their Filthy Fifteen, a selection of popular songs from that era—suitable as a playlist (see below), they felt proved the need for regulation.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) agreed on 19 September of the same year during compelling testimony by expert witnesses to place a label on their products (though more than a decade in the making) warning of explicit content not age-appropriate for young people. Susan Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker, testified that while there are many causes for the ills of society, it is “our contention that the pervasive messages aimed at children which promote and glorify suicide, rape, sadomasochism and so on have to be numbered among the contributing factors.” The Filthy Fifteen are:
She Bop by Cyndi Lauper—for its message of masturbation
Possessed by Venom—for the Occult overtones
In My House by Mary Jane Girls—Sex
Trashed by Black Sabbath—glamourizing Drugs and Alcohol
Mercyful Fate’s Into the Coven—Occult
High ‘n’ Dry by Def Leppard—Drugs and Alcohol
Animal by W.A.S.P.—Sex, Language and Violence
Dress You Up by Madonna—Sex
We’re Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister—Violence
Let Me Put My Love Into You by AC/DC—Sex
Bastard by Mรถtley Crรผe—for Language and Violence
Having previously (see here and here) assayed the conundrum of deflecting curious future explorers from spelunking in our present nuclear waste, we were intrigued to see what sort of out-the-box solutions our artificial intelligencer Janelle Shane (see previously) might be able to coax out of her neural network to serve as a ten-thousand year warning. Summarising the schema to the GPT-3 routine, its designs seemed to match that of its human engineering inspiration to intrigue as much as dissuade any future civilisation. Giant tube worms and a field of Tulips Shrieking Madness might deter exploration but I am not sure about Dangerous Stairs or Disrupted Pollen Lines. Much more to explore at the links above.
Launched on a routine rotation and restocking mission to the Salyut 6 space laboratory on this day in 1980, the crew of Soyuz 38 included cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Mรฉndez (*1942)—the first (see also) Cuban and individual of Latin American and African heritage to enter into Earth orbit.
An aerial combat pilot from the Guantรกnamo province decorated for flying reconnaissance mission during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and after demonstrating leadership potential at the brigade level, Tamayo was selected for the pan-communist space programme in 1978 and moved to Star City (ะะฒัะทะดะฝัะน ะณะพัะพะดะพ́ะบ) to commence training. Tamayo’s time in orbit aboard the station helped diagnose and treat the phenomenon known as space sickness for future ventures. Since retirement, Tamayo has served as a deputy in the National Assembly, representing his home constituency of Guantรกnamo.
Ibidem our previous source and another crucial reminder that what’s rare and delectable in language needs fostering and adoption to champion those words and keep them in circulation we come across the term that’s sadly dated and nearly moribund in ucalegon—an epitome derived from the name of one of the Elders of Troy and advisors of King Priam whose epithet somewhat ironically means Without Worries—ฮแฝฮบแพฐฮปฮญฮณฯฮฝ (see also). Mentioned in The Iliad with the incident again mentioned in The Aeneid, his home on the city wall was destroyed (along with countless others of course so there is also a bit of sardonic attention in making his loss an exhibit and exemplar) in the sack of the city, he has come to have an allusive use and mean a neighbour whose house is on fire or has burnt down, proximus ardet Ucalegon, implying also that yours might be next. The reprise of the anecdote in Virgil’s epic poem is thought to be a reflection on lessons-learned and heeding evacuation order—and avoid pitfalls or not building in a fire-trap, iam friula transfert Ucalegon.
From the editors of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there is a new podcast series entitled Words Matter that features some serious logophile conversation about linguistics, usage, semantics and etymology that’s rather brilliant.
A recent episode presents us with a discussion, a treasury of “aggressive useless” obscure words—like the above, which means “producing geese” dating back to the strange idea that water fowl were generated out of barnacles—and in a more generous, wider sense suggestive of, as is the case with peristeronic. Do look up the episode and subscribe and foster some of these superannuated words. We also enjoyed the separate discussion of another word, jentacular, and a derived term, antejentacular—pertaining to breakfast generally, particularly one taken just upon getting up. The latter refers to something prior to said repast, as in “Would you care to have an antejentacular coffee with me?”
Having grown more nuanced than the longing for salad days that never were, there is across the century a sort of correspondence in both movements and those who limned them embrace a complicated relationship towards retro and reprise when we began again cognizant of (up)sampling and its necessarily selective-nature in recalling a future pledged that only exists in the past, delivering instead of the parallel, low-poly alternate reality that we were seeking all along rather an augmented and ersatz one that didn’t have to be. See more exemplars of both aesthetics at Hyperallergic at the link up top.
On this day in 1683, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (*1632 – †1723) announced in a letter addressed to the Royal Society his discovery of animalcules—little animals, the adjectival form above—living in rain water and invisible to the naked eye. Sounding quaint to modern biologists and poor van Leeuwenhoek will forever be associated with the word, the progenitor of microscopy and microbial studies of course employed Dutch terms that he readers and fellow researchers could understand dier (animal, compare Tier) with the suffix –en or –ken to express their diminutive nature rather than inventing a Latin term, as his translator, German diplomat and natural philosopher Henry Oldenburg was wont to do. van Leeuwenhoek’s record of transparency, willingness to share discoveries and open, unreserved correspondence spurred on a lot of competition in the field and advanced the field microbiology and germ-theory at pace thereafter.
