fraunces tavern

As our faithful chronicler reminds, on this day in 1783, a week after his triumphant re-entry into New York City, General George Washington disbanded and dismissed the officers of the Continental Army during a formal fête held at the storied public house (see also) at the corner of Pearl and Broad. Yet still a dining establishment and museum with artefacts and exhibits relating to the American Revolution, the mansion converted to tavern originally named the Queen’s Head was witness to several preceding and pivotal events. Meeting place of the local chapter of the secret society of the Sons of Liberty members organised protests against the 1773 Tea Act and subsequent import tax with a parallel Tea Party, tossing the cargo into the harbour disguised as Native Americans—as was done in Boston and as the war of secession approached its end, a sort of truce was negotiated to placate American leadership that none of their property—meaning formerly enslaved individuals who were emancipated by the British after impressment or other service to the Crown—be allowed to depart with the British, though the representatives of latter were relatively successful in ensuring that their freedom was their own and could be evacuated. Later during January 1785, under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (the purpose of the Continental Army was only to oust the British and then each would go its own separate way) the federal offices of Foreign Affairs, War and Finance were held there with the city as the first capital until 1790 when relocated to Philadelphia whilst Washington, District of Columbia was constructed over the next decade.

matching corsage

Via the always amazing Everlasting Blört, we are presented with the king and queen of the prom in this 2020 edition of the duct tape industry’s annual scholarship competition for graduating high schoolers encouraged to design fabulous tuxedos, ball gowns and other formal ware accessories. The winner of the grand prize for the tux category is an aspiring art student, paying homage to many of the masters, and hopes to use this grant and other to help offset tuition costs, crafting his outfit out of twenty rolls of tape over the course of eighty hours. Check out more winning designs at the link above.

barbara of heliopolis

Venerated on this day as a saint and martyr, Barbara was a third century Greek maiden, a steadfast convent and affiliated with the Fourteen Holy Helpers and enjoys an extensive and varied patronage. Barbara was, according to her hagiographer and the Golden Legend, the daughter of a wealthy and prominent pagan whom was seeking to strengthen local allegiances through strategically marrying her off, keeping her locked away in a tower to spare her from outside influence, though in this splendid isolation, Barbara yet became a Christian and rejected the betrothal her father had arranged. Suspecting it was one of her attendants that introduced his daughter to the gospel, her father ordered an adjoining private bath house be added to the tower. The final straw for her father was Barbara’s architectural input to her new quarters, installing three windows to represent the Holy Trinity instead of the two that her father originally designed. Flying into a rage, the father drew his sword, but through the power of prayer, Barbara created a rift in spacetime and opened a portal in the wall of the tower that led her to a remote mountain gorge. There one shepherd betrayed Barbara’s act of teleportation to her father’s men, transformed into stone and his flock of sheep into locusts for divulging her whereabouts. Barbara was captured a brought before the prefect for sentencing brutally tortured though refusing to relent. Daily for some weeks, Barbara would be nightly bathed in a miraculous, healing light and emerge from her prison cell with no wounds or signs of the previous beatings. Burning her failed as well so her father undertook to carry out the punishment of the condemned by beheading Barbara himself. This finally worked but in retribution, Barbara’s father was struck by lightning afterwards and consumed by flames. Due to circumstances surrounding her death, Barbara is invoked against flame and lightning and by extension is the patron saint of dynamiters, pyrotechnicians, artillery and mining—that is any professional who face the danger of sudden and violent death in discharge of their duties, and might not have the change to repent their sins or receive extreme unction at the moment of expiring. According to some sources, the barbiturate family of drugs synthesised first by chemist Adolf von Baeyer (not to be company that was originally a dyestuffs factory founded by Fredrich Bayer) in 1864 on her feast day and are so called in her honour.

8x8

three blind mice: researchers restore sight by reversing the epigenetic clock in laboratory animals, re-endowing youthful characteristics—via Marginal Revolution  

big drunk girl energy: the dumbest coup is still playing out in the courts  

a touch of cabin fever: this is what stir-crazy looks like—the Year on TikTok—via the morning news

manifest destiny: a scrollytelling art histories (previously) that recounts the mythology of North America—via Maps Mania  

alpenhorn: disappearing, defaced and duelling phallic totems in the mountains of Germany and Austria 

for the longest time: dispel the zoom and gloom with this quarantine rendition from the Phoenix Chamber Choir 

 home box office: Warner Brothers is simultaneously releasing its cinematic productions on subscription television for 2021—via Kottke  

oceanus procellarum: Chang’e probe (previously) has lifted off of the lunar surface and will return with the first samples of moon rocks since 1976—via Slashdot

week-by-week

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we’ve enjoyed these annual check-ins with author and editor Tom Whitwell (previously) to compare and contrast the fifty-two things highlighted he’s gleaned over the past year. First encountered on Amusing Planet, we’d heard about the egg-based registry of clown make-up and this wide-spread consequence of urban botanical misogyny and appreciated the chance to revisit them and to acquire several more interesting and compelling facts and figures to add to our knowledge base: we especially liked the reinforcement of the outstandingly precipitous drop in coal usage (15), our stereoscopic olfactory sense (37) and from Iris Murdoch, how municipal swimming pools in Victorian England kept frogs on the premises so people might imitate their strokes. Let us know your favourites and some tidbits you’ve acquired this year.

bona dea

A tradition imported from Magna Græcia during the middle Republic period, the good goddess was honoured with a bi-annual celebration, once in May at her temple on the Aventine Hill and then a more exclusive wintertime feast for the real housewives of Rome on this day, hosted by the spouse of the city’s magistrate—or Pontifex Maximus—for invited patrician matrons and their attendants. Both parties were the preserve of women alone and were the two occasions that women were allowed strong wine and blood sacrifices—no boys allowed, and therefore not much is divulged of the mysteries other than the iconography of a snake and cornucopia though the cult itself included men and women of all backgrounds and ranks in society. The most controversial Bona Dea occurred 62 BCE, hosted by Pompeia, third wife of Julius Cæsar, when the party was crashed and scandalised by the figure of Publius Clodius Pulcher dressed as a woman with the intent to seduce the hostess. Clodius was a populist politician, street agitator and ally of Cæsar and could raise gangs of thugs to riot against any opposition, which is ostensibly why Clodius was ultimately acquitted during his trial for desecrating the holiday proceedings, a serious crime, and for Cæsar’s subsequent divorce of Pompeia, insisting his spouse must be above rebuke, though she had no control over Clodius’ antics. Though of the eldest gens of Rome, the aristocratic pater familius of the Claudians, Clodius arranged his adoption by someone with obscure roots so he could run and be elected the tribune of the plebians. Pompeia went on to remarry another politician but one of less notoriety and Clodius was ultimately killed during a feud by the bodyguard of a political rival. Clodius’ window, Fulvia, also remarried—taking Mark Antony for a husband after Clodius’ death.

your daily demon: balam

The fifty-first spirit is this infernal king that rules the tenth through fourteenth degree of Sagittarius—from this day through 7 December, and is depicted, according to the Ars Goetia and other sources, as a monstrous entity with three aspects—the faces of a bull, a man and a ram with the tail of a serpent, who sits astride a ferocious bear, with a goshawk born on his forearm.

Giver of good counsel and wit, this figure probably originates (in a less fantastical form) from the magician and diviner called Balaam from Numbers 22, whom the Israelites blame for their difficulties and adjustment issues, characterising him as a charismatic sophist, when they enter into the Promised Land, enticing them into transgressive behaviours, including encouraging sacrifice performed to Baal, and thus the source of a deadly plague visited on the delivered tribes as a result.

number-one daughter

We thoroughly enjoyed reading more about how JarVanka—pre-emptively pardoned or otherwise—are not being welcomed as the social-climbing try-hards back to the  strata that the déclassé couple aspired to and felt entitled to, to a fault for years from the comedic stylings of the duo behind Good Liars, who are wisely already considering relocating once January twentieth arrives. Married to Slenderman? Yes.