7x7

the lady and the dale: a con-artist and the “car of the future”  

the lovers, the dreamers and me: after a five-year hiatus Snarkmarket makes a return to analyse and discuss two songs from The Muppet Movie—via Kottke and RSS reader 

tennesee tuxedo as a school-marmish cereal cop: children’s animated breakfast commercials often touted dark, authoritarian narratives  

i don’t want to be carrot man but i am carrot man: a delightful vintage guide on making costumes 

act-out: one hundred eighty-five German stage, television and film stars stage mass coming-out in support for greater representation and gender diversity in roles, via Super Punch 

like a small boat on the ocean sending big waves into motion: Trump’s legal defence wraps up a bizarre, specious rebuttal  

the witch of kings cross: a dramatization of the persecution that a sorceress and healer faced in 1950s Australia—via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump

the one that got away

Via our peripatetic companion, Things Magazine, we learn about a centuries’ old Japanese method that fishermen used as a means of recordkeeping for logging their catch that is still employed though somewhat rarefied as an art form. 魚拓 (gyotaku, from fish + [stone] impression) is a printmaking technique which renders caught subjects as printing plates, brushing them with ink and carefully pressing a rice paper sheet over it. Details about the fish species, location and other conditions were captioned with the image along with an authenticating, notarising seal and traditionally a few gyotaku exemplars were prepared and dispatched to sellers as way of evaluating the quality of the harvest, which could also be thought of a regulatory measure to “brand” stocks and mitigate over-fishing. The detail transferred in the anatomy of aquaculture represents one of the first large scale nature studies.

an experiment in modern music

On this day in 1924 at New York City’s Aeolian Hall, bandleader Paul Whiteman’s jazz orchestral jazz ensemble accompanied composer George Gershwin (*1898 – †1937) for his premiere performance of Rhapsody in Blue (see previously). Considered by some to be the inaugural concert of the Jazz Age—though that’s subject to debate and conjecture—the overarching tune of this free-form piece, recognisable still regardless of variation, abridging or extension, is considered one of the most readily identifiable works to the public, on par with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Reportedly afterwards there was only a smattering or applause and a mostly stunned, silent audience, prompting Gershwin to turn to them, saying, “Well, your kids will love it!”

intermediate egret

Vis-à-vis our last post, here’s a bit of a coda on avian nomenclature in this extensive thread of birds named by ornithologists who were clearly frightened by birds as young children and have since worked through that trauma hurling insults at select members of the group. There were too many funny names to mention them all but some of our tragic favourites were the Monotonous Lark, the Red-Rumped Bush Tyrant, the pictured Perplexing Scrubwren (our poster birb), the Rough-Faced Shag and the Smew. What’s your favourite and which would be a suitable stage name for you?

bird box

Via Waxy, not only do we learn that delightfully on classic Korean operating system and file storage utility, that a newly created folder was assigned the name of a type of bird (the Korean for “new” 새로운 saelon being homonymous with bird, 새 sae) and if one made too many folders (on the order of the hundreds) they would pled by starting to call them things like “I’ve run out of bird names,” “You’re still making folders” or “Please stop,” based on this Easter egg and programming artefact, there’s now an extension for Macintosh that draws on a list of over ten-thousand avian species at random and gives those names to new folders.

dial up the ambiance

Via Kottke, for those of us missing the sounds and atmosphere of the everyday, here’s a nice afterhours compliment to this office simulator as a transporting sonic experience for those missing their old bar—with adjustable sliders to tailor the mood to one’s personal preference. Once adjusted and running, it can be used as a video call background for a virtual evening out and includes a jukebox selection of ambient music.

8x8

penne, named for the nib of a quill: a trilingual exploration of past etymology—see also 

i’m live—i’m not a cat: kitten-filter mishap for attorney’s teleconference is could become this era’s poster image 

so this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause: the honourable senator from Naboo was the deciding vote that allowed the Palpatine to become Emperor as explored scene-by-scene by a group of screenwriters constructing the finest Star Wars story that will be never made
 

opmerkelijke zaken: mushroom bricks, bricks reinforced with plastic waste plus more from the peripatetic Pasa Bon!  

pelagic zone: winners of the 2021 Underwater Photography contest announced 

cosy web: the Multiverse Diary project, a collaboration that celebrates the old school blog and wiki aesthetic for branching out  

pov: Ancient China on Rome, the Islamic world on India and other historical perspectives narrative on Voices of the Past 

uunifetapasta: where the phenomenon of TikTok Pasta came from and where it might lead

no vacancy

Whilst not the first time that the Grifter-in-Chief sought to capitalise on conspiracy theories with room rates at Trump’s DC hotel, the former Post Office Building, jumping to over five thousand dollars per night for single-occupancy just ahead of the certification of the US Electoral College vote interrupted by the violent insurrection, there’s one last desperate attempt to siphon money off these useful idiots the first week of March. With prices nearly tripled over the massively over-priced going rate, the suggestion is that the United States of American was secretly and incontrovertibly turned into a corporation in 1871 (occasioned by the passage of legislation that turned the country into an asset of the city of London) and that Ulysses S. Grant, inaugurated on 4 March 1869 was the last legitimate president. QAnon followers are dangling the prospect that Trump will be invested on this day as the nineteenth president, rather than the forty-fifth pretender, and the country will revert back to its original form, an argument to moot any subsequent legislation and render sovereign citizens immune to enforcement. Whether or not this date draws crowds, it’s assured that they will need to equivocate over their next rapture.