fainting couch

With due deference to one of the greatest historical armchair adventurers and confinement veterans Xavier de Maistre, we quite enjoyed this thoughtful and thoroughgoing essay from Hunter Dukes on the postures of transportation and how cushion and cortege and increasing sophistication in seating and upholstery parallels literary conventions and enabled one to truly escape one’s surroundings and mentally travel to new worlds. Consider that one popular design for a chaise longue was an asymmetrical day-bed called le Méridienne, a sloping affair made for a mid-day rest. Like a modern gaming chair, one’s sedentary comforts influence and inform one’s imagination and engagement and a gauge of one’s willingness to let the world come to them. Much more from Public Domain Review at the link above.

the revolution will be televised—albeit as a backdrop for an aerobics video livestream

First spotted by friend of the blog, Nag on the Lake, several days ago—we had questions and wanted to let it process a bit, unsure exactly what was going on here. After going viral and subject to the ordeal of accusations that it was faked, cheeky or somehow conspiratorial, the Physical Education teacher and trainer in Naypyitaw was interviewed about her accidental filming of the convoy of military vehicles in the background and ensuing coup d’état which was not going to interrupt her routine. There’s a lively and ongoing discussion about the veracity of the clip on the Twitter thread—with most signs indicating it is authentic—and moreover the serious underpinning discussion of the overthrow of government through military uprising parallel. The workout video was an entry to a daily competition organised and sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Sports that encourages people to record themselves doing aerobics under a certain hashtag and share to social media. A collusion of circumstances, including social distancing, afore-mentioned coup that created spotty connectivity in Myanmar’s capital throughout the day and effective news blackout, the assumption that the tanks and SUVs were added security for the opening session of parliament. To add another dimension to this strange milieu, the song, incidentally, “Ampun Bang Jago,” has become a protest anthem against the Indonesian government—the Malay sarcastically translating to “forgive me, master” and meant to mock authorities.

your daily demon: haures

This sixty-fourth spirit—also known as Flauros probably on account of a scribal error, and presents as a svelte leopard, probably our most Furry-like infernal encounter yet judging by written depictions but you’ll need to use your imagination, is a great duke and if summoned correctly will reveal the truth about all things—elsewise he equivocates and lies just as convincingly. Commanding thirty-six legions and governing from toward until the eighth of February and is opposed by the archangel Mehriel. Incidentally, the names of the corresponding angels are derived from a “seventy-two fold name,” a Kabbalistic cipher describing a hidden name of God—the Shem HaMephorash ( שם המפורש), which is some forms of Satanism is ritualistically employed in the form “shemhamforash” as anti-hallelujah or amen and understood as “Hail Satan.”

♘,♞

We quite enjoyed learning about this chessboard designed in 1922 by Bauhaus artist Josef Hartwig, teacher and head of the sculptural arts department until 1925, whose pieces help one intuit their range of motion and rank (see also) that masterfully reflect the form-follows-function sensibilities of the movement through their elegant geometry. Two versions were available on the market, one “daily use” version (Gebrauchsspiel) and a second Luxusspiel with figured turned from more exotic wood but most consumers were already priced out by the cheaper model. Learn more from Open Culture at the link above.

6x6

fietsstrook: LEGO cycling lanes (see previously) on their way 

pay no attention to that man behind the curtain: Jeff Bezos to hand over the reigns of power at Amazon 

it’s a duck blur: an in depth, retrospective analysis of the 1989 Capcom video game Ducktales  

end effector: Boston Dynamics’ Spot gets an arm and gripper attachment 

nihon no shiro: abstract woodcuts of the castles and palaces of Japan—via Present /&/ Correct  

force multiplier: innovative, portable CLIP drive transforms any convention bicycle into an e-bike—via Swiss Miss

invisible hand

We very much appreciated the thorough and disabusing essay on the misapplication of the term “free market”—as in free market capitalism, which is assuredly not invoked in the way classical economists like Henry George and Adam Smith intended the phrase to be used in the late nineteenth century. 

Rather than business unencumbered by government regulation, this school of thought championed markets free from rentiers (the characterisation parasitic is unduly insulting to actual parasites that are not some degenerate life form but instead highly evolved organisms that might otherwise be capriciously labelled ‘in a symbiotic relationship’), monopolies and other privileges conferred and rabidly protected that reduce fair and open competition. To counter-balance the advantages of inheritance for the landed gentry, Smith, Henry and others were strong proponents of high property taxes to supplant a tariff on income and encourage productive labour.

x/1106 c1

First observed on this evening in 1106 and visible in the night sky for six weeks before fragmenting into many smaller pieces and heading back out into the Solar System, corroborated by astronomers in China, Japan, Korea, Continental Europe, Wales and England, the Great Comet was regarded as a highly portentous omen. Returning in 1882, it is now classified as a member of the Kreutz Group of sungrazing comets (Sonnenstreifer, Sonnenkratzer, namesake of Heinrich Carl Friedrich Kreutz who studying their orbit and periodicity, determined that they were all related phenomenon), approaching close enough to the Sun at perihelion that they are prone to being broken up or made to evaporate entirely. Though no particular boon nor doom is directly associated with the Great Comet’s appearance, such documented observances synchronise and coordinate ancient calendars.

6x6

pitch and pent: the rooftop illusion demonstrated by Kolichi Sugihara of the Meiji Institute for Advanced Mathematics  

making sense of scents: the olfactory capacities are underestimated—via Messy Nessy Chic  

have fun storming the castle: The Princess Bride re-enacted in its entirety as home movies under lock-down  

matinee at the bijou: the Internet Archive (see previously) has digitally curated a massive cinematic history library  

pyrophone: a flame organ that amplifies the tones of vibrating, burning hydrogen  

10¹⁰⁰:an individual engineers an analogue, modular calculator (see also) to count up to a googol