safe countries of origin

Surreal and more than a bit menacing—via Maps Mania—we are referred to No Fly Free Zone and its regular recitation of flight guidelines and entry-restrictions and rule-making exceptions issued by the International Air Transportation Association for member states. The globe with air routes is interactive and a public-address system jingle is used to punctuate announcements.

jimoto made

Though not a big fan of the coffee magnate and its café culture hegemony, we can support this latest collaboration with local artisans to create distinctive mugs and tumblers that reflect the ceramic and pottery vernacular of the areas where it’s produced—and only available at local outlet. The title and project (地元) refers to the Japanese concept of being locally sourced, and pictured is porcelain cup from Ehime prefecture whose signature indigo patterns on bold white backgrounds are meant to be seen only when one takes a sip. More to explore with Spoon & Tamago at the link above.

the riot between town and gown on saint scholastica’s day

A dispute over some supposed subpar wine served in an Oxford tavern erupted into a violent and deadly unrest on this day in 1355 with some thirty townspeople and sixty students and professors dead by the end, testing the protected status of the benefit of the clergy and authentica habita—that is, the rules, rights and privileges of universities in medieval Europe, institutions that enforced a trial by one’s peers with punishment for infractions far less severe than in civil courts, which the was the jurisdiction of the ordinary public, and carceral facilities.

The bar brawl quickly escalated with armed gangs coming into the countryside to aid the townsfolk in overcoming the university, with king and commission (oyer and terminer) siding with the institution of higher learning, placing religious interdict on the town and an annual penance payable each year on the anniversary—Saint Scholastica’s Feast Day, the fifth century Italian nun who founded the Benedictine order and whose patronage includes reading, quizzes and book fairs, which was kept until 1825. On the six hundredth anniversary in 1955, with an act of reconciliation, the mayor was given an honourary degree from Oxford and the university chancellor was bestowed with the freedom of the city—equivalent to being given the key.

couch gag

In a highly satisfying sequence, story-teller and filmmaker Matthew Highton recreates the title opener to The Simpsons, indelible as it is, using carefully selected and synchronised stock footage. We agree that this clever compilation ought to be used one time instead of the animated version

6x6

bohemian to brocore: a non-exhaustive list of aesthetics—via Things Magazine 

billions and billions: a picture of the night sky that contains a petabyte of data 

fairy wren for scale: an ornithological chart comparing the diversity of body-size among our feathered friends

https://jeffreycombs.tumblr.com/post/622945915961065473/1-second-of-every-star-trek-tos-episode-enjoy

the hook shot: a fun and welcome example of chindōgu, the Japanese art of unuselessness 

satana lero wapezeka ndiwe edzi: the musical stylings of Gaspar Nali 

the city on the edge of forever: pictured also courtesy of Things Magazine, one second from every episode of Star Trek TOS by the franchise’s frequent guest star

your daily demon: andrealphus

Possibly conflated with a similarly plumed Babylonian god called Adrammelech whom apparently was only appeased by child sacrifice, this sixty-fifth spirit and infernal marquis ruling thirty legions presents as cacophonous peacock. Once in control of the exorcist, Andrealphus’ virtue is to make people wise in geometry, mensuration and astronomy and can also conjure others into the form of a bird. Governing from this day until 13 February, Andrealphus’ foil is the Gabrieline archangel Damabiah.

who cares!

Apparently using White House letterhead deprived his preferred mode of communication (see previously here and here), Citizen Trump to no effect and with zero geopolitical consequence has written to the Screen Actors’ Guild, the US labour union for film, television and radio performers as well as journalists, to pre-emptively resign once word circulated that the Guild would eject him for notorious behaviour, ill-betting a member of the organisation. In his signature immodest way—also used with a host of UN agencies and NATO partners—he rubbishes the union as doing very little for him whereas Trump has greatly helped “the cable news television business (said to be a dying platform with no much time left until I got involved in politics), and created thousands of jobs at networks such as MSDNC and Fake News CNN, among many others.” Despite parallel efforts to digitally remove his cameo appearances, Trump goes on to cite his roles in Zoolander, Home Alone 2, and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps as well as reality television.

the birth of a nation

Highly controversial, contentious and irresponsible though a landmark moment in the entertainment industry and film technique, D.W. Griffith (previously) debuted his three hour long cinematic spectacle in Los Angeles to an auditorium of three-thousand guests (first shown on New Year’s Day to a much smaller crowd at an opera house in Riverside, California under its original title The Clansman) on this day (not coincidentally the date that the ceding states reunited as the Confederacy in 1861) in 1915. The most ambitious and complex film produced to date with a number of innovations with a full orchestral score, an intermission between the first and second parts and sophisticated use of the cameras, the romanticised history chronicles the Civil War and Reconstruction through the experience of two families, one Northern, the Stonemans, and one Southern, the Camerons. Divisive from the beginning, the film wrecklessly promoted the negationist Lost Cause ideology that portrays the break-away states as just and heroic with all of its attendant supporters and reinforced, writ-large the worst, contemptible slurs and stereotypes that white people harboured for Black people. Ahistorical depictions of the Ku Klux Klan as a paramilitary police force that preserved social order caused the hate group to reorganise within just a few months after the premiere, the group having disbanded in 1872.