your daily demon: alloces

The fifty-second spirit in the infernal progression of the year, this lion-visaged soldier on a steed that seems to have hippocamp traits, according to various grimoires and other sources, summons familiars, advises on the liberal arts and can exact revenge in secret. Alloces rules the fifteenth to the nineteenth degree of Sagittarius, corresponding from today until 11 December. Canonical demons are paired with a member of the unfallen angelic host, and this President is twinned with the Prinicipality-ranked Imamiah—who sounds perfectly boring—and is invoked by reciting a verse from Psalms.

where women glow and men chunder

Though ultimately selecting doomscrolling as its Word of the Year, those short-listed as contenders by Macquarie Dictionary include some delectably Australian-specific neologisms as well as the snowclone of –core as signifying a cultural trend associated with a certain lifestyle. Softcore first emerging as something opposed but still gateway, internationally we’ve experienced iterations of normcore, mumblecore, bardcore and the choice, commitment cottagecore—another runner-up. The other colloquialisms are worth checking out in full and we were especially taken by seened, the read-receipt indicating that one’s contribution has been viewed but not yet acknowledged.

oconus

Striking us as in the same spirit of the Scottish law prohibiting the use of inset maps to portray the nation’s widely scattered archipelagos—or as one commenter related, the omission of New Zealand altogether, we appreciated being directed to this latest xkcd comic from Randall Monroe (see previously) on the non-conterminous parts of the United States, weary of being excluded or forgotten, have begun to publish maps with mainland states missing too. Can you find all seven missing ones out of this otherwise accurate-appearing map?

8x8

сара́тов-2:some urban spelunking leads to a Soviet computer graveyard (previously) with some early machines thought lost to the ages 

indented writing: this case of an invisible will recalls some more recent forensic intervention to retrieve the words of a blind novelist 

parallel dimensions: one-hundred twenty-five artists render different computer-generated environments on one basic template of a character walking towards a mountain  

starfleet bold extended: the typography created for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (see previously, premiering on this day in 1979)

 ♚: the real-life Queen’s Gambit in Georgian chess champion Nona Gaprindashvili  

the panoply of digital phrenology: the coming subprime attention crisis and the bursting of the ad-serving bubble  

petroglyphs: more on the amazing expanse of pre-Columbian art discovered in the Amazon 

κουμπωμένο με κουμπιά: exploring an abandoned factory in Patisia Greece

twitterpation

Predawn birdsong for some reason seems to peal with far more volume in the city than at home in the forest, and was noticing this fact on this dark December morn, also recalling how I’d read somewhere that more animals were becoming nocturnal to avoid human, so perhaps in the woods, our feathered friends aren’t compelled to be such early-risers, nor have they taken to our bird-feeders. So this latter sentiment from Victorian poet Oliver Herford (*1860 – †1935, born on the day that the referring article was published) coupled with the fact that ornithologists do not really know why birds sing during the winter with mating season so far off—both courtesy of Better Living through Beowulf—resonated with us as a reminder that the cold, dim days don’t last forever: 

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember. 

“We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,”
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag

Via Everlasting Blört, we directed to another old friend’s find in this menacingly brilliant rhythmic rendition of the Villon Song by Stick in the Wheel, a recitation of the late Victorian poet and literary critic William Ernest Henley’s—best-known for his 1875 “Invictus” and being the peg-legged inspiration for the character Long John Silver of Treasure Island—translation, interpretation of fifteenth century Françoise Villon “Tout aux taverns et aux filles”—Villon’s Straight Tip to All Cross Coves. Henley is here represented by a bronze bust of him executed by sculptor August Rodin in 1868.

a dictionary of arts and sciences, compiled upon a new plan

Under the management and editorship of its founders, Archibald Constable, Andrew Bell and Colin Macfarquhar, the first edition of volume of one of three of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published on this day in Edinburgh in 1768. While not the first general knowledge reference book in English, it has been the longest-lived—though digital only since the fifteenth edition was printed in 2010, ending its rather novel, assailable layout for fact-checking and more in depth, authoritative research by breaking-out the tomes into a pro-, micro- and macropædia with a compendious indices two volumes in length. The Propædia is an “outline of knowledge” that shows the framework and decision-tree that the editorial board uses for inclusion and scope of coverage, and usefully gave some insight into what otherwise might just be dismissed as academic bias or Western hegemony in topic and distribution.

nefertiti

Representing chief consort and Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep IV, the iconic limestone bust was discovered on this day in 1912 by a team of archæologists working under the auspices of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG—the German Oriental Society) led by Ludwig Borchadt in Amarna at site that housed the workshop of celebrated sculptor Thutmose. Since its first going on display to the public in a Berlin museum, Egyptian authorities at the bureau of antiquities have requested that the three-thousand three hundred and fifty year old artefact be repatriated, arguing the significance of the find was downplayed and had inspectors been allowed to fully examine the bust, they would have never allowed it to leave. Focus of aspirations for revanchism after the dissolution of the Prussian monarchy and defeat in World War I, Nefertiti was conscripted for a rather fraught political career of propaganda (see also) in the Third Reich in the years to follow. Presence in the Zeitgeist included the 1935 cinematic portray of the Bride of Frankenstein, patterned after the signature crown, and her role and cultural impact has now been rehabilitated insofar as she is considered the counterbalance to the figure of Tutankhamun and a good-will ambassador for representation, art and the field of Egyptology. The arguments against repatriation, characterising nations outside of Europe too unstable to properly care for their treasures and cultural heritage is particularly rubbished by the way Germany has torn itself apart, Nefertiti sent away for safe-keeping in a salt-mine and nearly lost to history.