collezionare capolavori

Though in stasis and awaiting visitors, the storied and seldom seen Torlonia Marbles from a private collection are gathered together for public viewing for the first time, resulting from an agreement four decades in negotiation and agreed upon four years before the exhibition was scheduled to open. Not only was the loan to Rome’s Capitoline Museum controversial and fraught with compromise and conciliation, there’s some intrigue associated with its collectors as well—the family once the bankers and economic advisors to the Vatican and master and model for the attainment of prestige and status through art collecting.

6x6

hair flashes: some MidCentury styling tips from the British Pathé archives  

salvator mundi: an inconspicuously missing five-hundred-year old copy of the world’s most expensive painting (previously) found in a wardrobe in Naples  

home edition: a meditative Tiny Desk Concert from pianist Max Richter  

elevator pitch: Michael Dorn’s suggestion for a franchise series from the point-of-view of the Klingon Empire sounds intriguing  

mpaa: a brief history of the PG-13 rating for US box-offices—see also 

 boneshaker: antique footage of cyclists in the days before suspension and shock-absorbers

your daily demon: valac

Progressing through the House of Aquarius, this sixty-second spirit rules from today to 29 January presents in the form of a cherub—with horns, astride a two-headed dragon, until tamed by an exorcist with his sigil and can be compelled to reveal the location of snakes and hidden treasure as well as dispense lucky numbers and coach for a job interview. Foil to archangel Iahhel who commands thirty legions, Valac—at least in name—makes numerous popular culture cameos, including various video game series, Sabrina, Hellboy, The Nun and The Conjuring.

mammalian transgenesis

Born this day in 1921, embryologist and genetic engineering pioneer Beatrice Mintz contributed enormously to the understanding of inheritance, growth and cellular differentiation. After a Fulbright research fellowship afforded her studies abroad in Paris and Strasbourg, Mintz came to Philadelphia in 1960 to continue cancer research, perfecting techniques for reprogramming tumour cells, cloning and using viral messengers to introduce foreign DNA. Mintz remains on the faculty of the Fox Chase Cancer Centre.

7x7

dog and ferret sundries, etc: a fantastic hardware catalogue from the 1930s 

the roaring twenties: the Sea Shanty craze of a century before—via Strange Company 

midori: the relatively modern distinction between blue and green in Japan—see previously 

tag yourself: medieval owl alignment chart 

arkaphones: a resounding retrospective to artist Terry Adkins, who created sonic monuments  

for all the latest medical poop, call surgeon general c. everett koop: the fortune and failure of the post executive branch career of the doctor’s branded medical advice website  

ghost signs: self-appointed guardian of fading signage, collecting it before it vanishes altogether—we can all do this

abominable mystery

The aptly-named Professor Richard Buggs of Kew Gardens (previously) believes that researchers may be on the cusp to solving the above-named puzzle that Charles Darwin confessed to fellow explorer and scientist Dr Joseph Hooker in an 1879 exchange addressing the unaccountable evolution of the higher plants in recent times to include such apparently rapid innovations as flowers that could undermine his theory and the observed gradual process in the rest of the living world. Though perhaps closer to resolving the unconscionably quick rise of the angiosperms (blossoming species—some two-hundred-thousand in total), the conundrum, which some critics take as evidence of divine intervention, yet defies a full explanation albeit less vexing and cause for awe and appreciation of Nature.

black, brown and beige

The extended jazz orchestral ensemble piece by celebrated musician, bandleader and composer Duke Ellington (*1899 – †1974) performed as his debut concert in Carnegie Hall on this day in 1943 was a tone poem framed as a parallel history of the Black experience in America. A concert album with Mahalia Jackson was released in 1958. Learn much more from Indiana Public Media and listen to interviews about the significance of the piece and performance and hear the second and third movements of this narrative symphony.

bounty day

Celebrated on this day, the anniversary of the arrival of the mutineers (previously) on the remote, uninhabited island of Pitcairn in 1790, the population of four dozen decedents of the original settlers hold a re-enactment of their landing and burn effigies of the ship and one of the eight surnames (the McCoys died out in 1973), is honoured with the title “Family of the Year,” with the ceremonies concluding with a communal feast and ball. One of the smallest polities in the world (the community of the International Space Station I suppose would best the Pitkerners), the British Overseas Territory is governed by a representative of the Queen based in Wellington, New Zealand (over five-thousand kilometres distant) and a mayor appointed by a citizens’ council. Electricity is provided by diesel generators for fifteen hours daily and all residents share one internet connection (.pn—with Norfolk—being the top-level domain, the most traffic generated when a marketing campaign for Hunger Games presented it as the country code for Panem). Since 2015, same-sex marriage has been legalised, although there are no known people in such a relationship.