5x5

fallout boy: the legacy of Albania’s seven-hundred-thousand bunkers  

al forno: Barilla (previously) sponsors an annual contest to solicit for innovative designs for its 3D pasta printer  

mathmos: how lava lamps are manufactured—see also 

stowaways: butterfly researches in the Åland islands accidentally introduce a parasitic wasp that relies on the caterpillars as well as a hyperparasitoid that the wasps host 

 île flottante: a boat camouflaged as a rock tours the coastline of Marseille—via Everlasting Blört

30 rock

Captured on this day in 1932 by the appointed Photographic Director for the documentation of the Rockefeller Center’s construction, Charles Clyde Ebbets (*1905 - †1978) framed Lunch atop a Skyscraper (who took this picture?), depicting eleven workers taking their break on a girder, feet dangling high above New York City streets, from the perspective of the sixty-ninth storey of the neighbouring RCA Building—itself still under construction. The following year Ebbets returned to his native Florida and worked with the Seminole tribe to champion the conservation of the Everglades and promote responsible tourism.

gwot

With the current climate twenty years on and comparable numbers of lives lost and lives impacted on a daily basis due to the pandemic and our trenchant, asocial behaviour and a resurgent Taliban controlling Afghanistan, it feels a bit hollow marking the anniversaries of the events that unfolded domestically and internationally in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 Attacks. The Bush doctrine, however—first characterised to the press as a “war of terrorism” on 16 September and then presented formally as a global “war on terror” in an address to a joint-session of the US Congress on this day in 2001, labeling “our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them” has an outsized legacy that impacts nearly every aspect of our lives.   Despite consternation and criticism with this approach, the policy went forward with consequences around the world. Though his predecessor, US President Barak Obama, avoided the term and declared the conflict over on 23 May 2013, stating the that the US military forces and intelligence agencies could not and would prosecute a war against a tactic, instead styling the commitment as world police as Overseas Contingency Operations and substantively continuing, even expanding America’s role.

зонд 5

Despite being taken previously over a communications test conducted in March 1961 with the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich at the helm and despite gaffes and giveaways included in the tape-recording on board the space craft that featured among other mission protocols a military choir performing and a cosmonaut narrating preparing borscht—activities neither suited for the narrow confines of a capsule nor an environment of microgravity intended to signal to any eavesdropping parties that this wasn’t actually a crewed exercise, the Americans once again on this day in 1968 misinterpreted a practical joke by the USSR’s space programme.

While originally slated to carry human members, the Zond 5 mission, authorities fearful of the bad publicity over another accident, carried aloft various biological samples for a lunar flyby, including wildflowers, fruit fly eggs and a pair of tortoises to see if they could survive circling the Moon. As a consolation for the cosmonauts that weren’t able to accompany this living payload, a simple relay was rigged up by the radio engineers to make it appear that they were transmitting from the probe, reading off telemetry and even proposing landing. US intelligence of course intercepted these shenanigans, which caused considerable international consternation and geopolitical turmoil with the Americans afraid that the Soviets would beat them to this final, arbitrary end-goal of the Space Race, to the discount of Russia’s other technical achievements and important firsts—all except the last Apollo missions. Whether meant for a wider audience or not, cosmonauts throwing their voices was characterised as a hoax and may have informed America’s own conspiracy regarding the authenticity of the Moon landing. Concluding after a single orbit, none of the biological specimens were worse off for the trip.

iceman

Discovered on this day in 1991, the human, natural mummy named Ötzi (previously) was found by a pair of German tourist on the east ridge of the Ötztal (Venoste) Alps spanning the Italo-Austrian border believing that this five thousand year old corpse was the remains of a more recently departed mountaineer and immediately summoned the authorities, the forensics department turning the case over to the archeologists. Frozen and exquisitely preserved, scientist were able to study his clothes, shoes and tools as well as the contents of his stomach, bodily composition, toxicity and glean a lot of about his civilisation’s lifestyle, diet and technical prowess.

make it another old-fashioned please

We quite enjoyed this guided tour of the digitised holdings of the Wine and Spirits Museum of Île de Bendor in south France from Messy Messy Chic with a trans-Atlantic focus on the American invention—or convention rather of the cocktail in their extensive archive of vintage mixology guides from dating from the 1820s to the 1940s, richly illustrated and full to the brim with drinks and sometimes substitute ingredients that limn a certain slice of history.

There are volumes with celebrities’ favourites, menus of famous watering-holes, all gauged for home entertaining (perhaps for us scoff-laws), like the above and rather forlorn frontispiece from William C. Feery’s 1934 Wet Drinks…. for Dry People, which includes one called the Bee’s Knees, one part gin to one part honey, well-mixed and served over ice shavings. Each of the dazzling covers opens and lets one browse the recipes and other tips inside. Peruse these guides and let us know if you discover a new and intriguing favourite. Leave out the cherry, leave out the orange, leave out the bitters and just make it straight rye!

the woodcutter

Faithfully conserved by Kicks Condor by making an archival backup of the interactive artistic exploration that relies on the sunset rich web application Flash protocol by comic milieu pioneer and author of the early web classic (with cul-de-sacs and hidden corners to poke and prod) launched in 1997 by Josh Kimberg, utilising preservation projects that matured sufficiently for the task at hand which would otherwise see large swaths of the foundational and essentially experimental internet lost to the ages. Aside from the impression that The Woodcutter made for contemporary discoverers, Kimberg’s creative collective Bullseye Art created many early web cartoons as well as the opening title sequence for The Rosie O’Donnell Show, twice Emmy-nominated and the first Flash work to air on television.

watery fowls

Despite airing for only two series of six episodes each, the BBC2 sitcom written and starring then-couple Connie Booth and John Cleese looms large in the pop cultural conscience of British and American audiences, and was first broadcast on this day in 1975 with the pilot, “A Touch of Class.”

Set in the fictional town of Torquay on the English Riviera, the show’s couch gag was having the letters of the hotel’s sign rearranged in rude anagrams by the paperboy as an establishing shot. The co-creators’ decision not to produce a third-series despite drafts for later stories was precedent-setting for British television with other successful and iconic shows bowing out after a short-run.