100% birgitta

Pictured here among the influential and aspirational on the beach in Ibiza in crocheted attire, we quite enjoyed learning about the crafter and dyer become wardrobe artist and celebrity in her own right Stockholm native Birgitta Bjerke who turned the patchwork of old-timey bedspreads into fashion that the rock royalty of the mid- to late 60s with icons like Jimi Hendrix, Roger Daltrey, Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger sporting her outfits. Much more at Collectors’ Weekly at the link above.

tragomaschalia

From the June 1953 issue of Esquire—courtesy of Weird Universe—we are directed towards bedding with a strange gimmick that really stretches metaphor with these sheets treated with chlorophyll which apparently would at the same time attract livestock and fulfil the preferences of goatherds and shepherdesses who would rather sleep in the great outdoors. There’s one made up fear (see also) but made not in the obvious word. If one’s present linens are wanting, one is advised to “deter aegiphobia”—not a real word and presumably one should avoid the fear of covering up, aegis—“and rest assured.” The other menacing word, even footnoted from Aristophanes, is τραγομάσχαλος but not meaning agoraphilia or claustrophobia but rather referring our little bedmate above armpits smelling like a he-goat, in use both figuratively and in clinical-settings. There is quite a bit going on here and I’d be hard-pressed to find a contemporary advertisement that has this many levels I think.

hodie mihi cras tibi

Via Super Punch, we quite enjoyed perusing this curated gallery of seventeenth century mourning, memorial rings from the British Museum’s collection. These funerary mementos that often contained hair or other personal artefacts of the departed and have a real, unexpected goth energy, like the titular piece of jewellery with the legend in black enamel Latin for Today me, Tomorrow You. More at the links above.

motortown revue

Arriving for the inaugural performance of a package tour that took them to a score of venues in the UK and Europe in Finsbury Park on this day in 1965, audiences were treated to the musical stylings of the Supremes, Little Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, Mary Wells, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Matha & the Vandellas and many more. The Paris sessions at Olympia Hall were recorded and released as a double album

6x6

gambrinus/ninkasi: five-thousand-year old industrial scale brewery in Egypt makes archaeologist rethink the history of beer, previously believed only to be made on a large scale with Christian monasteries  

star-fiend: one member of the pool of “human computers” realised that there were galaxies beyond our own by studying depth of field on photographic plates with a magnifying glass rather than a telescope  

pod squad: whales collaborated and learned to outsmart their human hunters in the nineteenth century—via Kottke, blogging for twenty-three years now 

dyi: join Van Neistat, The Spirited Man, for some fantasy fixing  

maslenitsa: celebrating Shrovetide ahead of Orthodox Lent  

vier-farben-satz: Colorbrewer generates ideal schemes for maps and data visualisations

have you dug his scene?

Via Things Magazine (lots more to explore in this edition as well), we learn the recently departed actor Yaphet Kotto (*1939 - †2021), known for his roles in Alien, The Running Man, Doctor Kananga in the Bond movie Live and Let Die, starring in the long-running television police procedural Homicide: Life on the Streets and for turning down the offer of the part of Jean Luc Picard in TNG, also can sing and recorded a few singles.

hypospray or mister x

Via Waxy, here’s a nice survey of jabs and vaccination campaigns as portrayed in film and television, including classics like the Star Trek TOS episode Miri, biopics of Louis Pasteur and Edward Jenner, and a multiplicity of Simpsons episodes like the December of 2000 show “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” wherein Homer’s alter ego creates a conspiracy website (after his first, innocent attempt failed to draw interest) that unfortunately speaks across the decades. As punishment for being too clever, Homer is imprisoned on an island for people who know too much. Seriously, get your shot and protect yourself and others.

lost horizon

Not only a surpassing financial failure like the first attempt to adapt the story by James Hilton for the big screen just as Frank Capra’s 1937 try, the 1973 fantasy musical edition by Charles Jarrott and Bruce Bacharach was nearly career-ending for all involved.  Released for general audiences on this day and initially panned, excoriated by critics, it has not improved with age nor attained the status of a cult classic. The 1933 novel by the same author of Goodbye, Mister Chips was propelled in the cultural consciousness not by the adaptations but in part by dint of the media format its publishing house, Simon & Schuster, issued it in—printed as Pocket Book #1 and of course gave the language Shangri-La, which was the original name of the presidential retreat in Maryland, later designated Camp David.