miniature life

Courtesy of the always excellent Kottke, we really enjoyed the chance to revisit the creative tiny landscapes of Tatsuya Tanaka (田中 達也, previously) crafted daily out of everyday objects in a way that makes us regard our microcosm and macrocosm differently and peopled with proportional figures. Be sure to check out the link up top to see a video of Tanaka at work and connect to calendar pages, diary-entries dating back to 2011.

davy jones & the lower third

Released on this day in 1965, singer-songwriter David Bowie was billed for the final time under his birth name with the title band’s single “You’ve Got A Habit of Leaving” to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees (previously). The performer adopted the stage name after the romanticised version of nineteenth century American mercenary and pioneer James Bowie, famous for the eponymous style of combat knife.

saulė

The solar deity in the Lithuanian pantheon, the goddess’ name is also the common name for the sun and the celestial bodies, including the Earth (Žemė) are a familial constellation of the seven daughters of her consort the Moon, Mėnulis.The other offspring reflect the planets known to Antiquity with Venus represented twice as the Morning Star, Aušrinė, and Vakarinė—the Evening Star—that prepared her mother for bed. The asterism Ursa Major was as Grigo Ratai interpreted as a chariot for Saulė procession across the celestial sphere. The Houses of the Zodiac are regarded as liberators, having rescued the Sun from captivity in a high tower by an evil and powerful king seeking to subvert the land. The representative idol is near contemporary reproduction based off ancient totems.

treaty of rawalpindi

Marking the anniversary of the Anglo-Afghan peace of 1919 that ended the protectorate status under the British Empire, ratified on this day, Afghanistan Independence Day is commemorated as its national holiday.

British forces had occupied Kabul since 1842 with Wazir Akbar Khan routing the army of Major-General Elphinstone on the road to Jalalabad, eventually precipitating a second Anglo-Afghan war that resulted in a negotiated settlement that created Mandatory Afghanistan with Britain responsible for defence and foreign relations, in exchange for protection from Russia and Persia, maintaining this state of affairs as a buffer for the Raj, stipulating that for external matters Afghanistan would “have no windows looking on the outside world, except towards India.” Despite protestations from the Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan remained neutral during World War I, and having suffered heavy losses, a process of demobilisation began as the global conflict was coming to an end, fighting broke out at the frontier, ultimately resulting in a truce that established the border at the Durand Line, presently the land border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an agreement not to foment revolt in the Indian colonies. A marble triumphal arch, the Taq-e Zafar, was erected in the the city of Paghman to mark the treaty that restored the country’s independence.

subject: re: plenary indulgences

Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we thoroughly enjoyed these Ninety-Five Theses as emailed by a passive-aggressive co-worker. 

To: All Vatican Staff 

Subject: Following Up 

Just circling back to suggest that you maybe take a few minutes to ask yourselves if you’re a part of the problem? If the answer is yes, let’s work together to this a less corrupt Church. I just want us to want to be better, is all. 

Sorry if I’m the asshole here. 

Best

Martin

mozaika

It’s Nice That directs our attention to a fantastic archive curating the work of twenty-seven MidCentury Lithuanian illustrators who contributed to literary works aimed for sophisticated children in the form of Baltic fairy and folktales. The pictured work is from Albina Makūnaitė (*1926 - †2001) and betrays something of the subject’s inner-monologue, rich in detail, and later represented Lithuania in the 1960s in the Venice Biennale with her modernist, progressive art. See a whole gallery of works at the link above with more about the artists and authors at the links above.

referens b𝑤ks

Courtesy of Weird Universe, we’ve previously encountered this forty-three letter script called Augmented Roman in which each glyph makes a distinct sound, allowing for a fully phonetic English orthography—textual examples of which we can recall looking and being thoroughly confused as young readers. We failed to realise however that the politician, publisher and educational reformer who developed the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) was Sir James Pitman (*1901 - †1985), grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman, who of a similar disposition, had developed a popular though far longer-lived stenographical system.

little twelvetoes

Having considered myself pretty familiar with the entire Schoolhouse Rock! catalogue (see previously here and here) and enjoying them as a kid, I was taken aback to be introduced to this segment that not only teaches one the twelves multiplication table but also about the duodecimal system and other bases—plus acceptance of actual polydactyly. Including My Hero, Zero and Three is a Magic Number, Bob Dorough performed and produced a dozen (the number one not given an episode) maths shorts during the course of 1973.