woke up, fell out of bed

Via Strange Company, we are given a rather insightful, connected glimpse into a day in the life of John Lennon (previously) on what turned out to be his last on this day in 1980. Through these intimate, everyday details, we see the consequence of small, disposable decisions in the gears of what we’d describe as the machinations of the great and the good.

6x6

message in a bottle: researchers tagged plastic waste with electronic trackers to monitor their journey—from the same team that brought us Mister Trash Wheel 

pfizer-biontech: British nonagenarian first to receive the coronavirus vaccine  

wunderpus photogenicus: deep sea diver photographs an incredible infant octopus with a transparent head

toot your own horn: more butt trumpets and other bizarre imagery in manuscript marginalia 

catsa lander mark-1: a gorgeous space-age cat bed—though our feline friends would be more pleased with a shoebox

2014-076a: Hayabusa2 (previously) successfully returns its asteroid sample to Earth

m.a.s.k.

I can vaguely recall this line of action figures from Kenner circa 1985 that tried to carve out a niche between Transformers and G.I. Joe with the special task force Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand under the leadership of Matt Trakker. These characters donned masks to give them super powers and transform their regular vehicles into combat one. I had one toy character with a neon green motorcycle that converted into an attack helicopter. Brad “Chopper” Turner’s mask apparently projected holograms and the power was called “hocus pocus.” I think I mostly remember it because I was playing outside with it and lost it rather quickly—that and the fact that the men were tiny and ill-proportioned for working with other action figures. The M.A.S.K. team was assembled to contain and conquer their nemesis, an international criminal organisation called V.E.N.O.M.—Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem.

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.