a creature unknown to science

peoplemover

As a space-saving and universally-accessible alternative over stairs, underpasses and elevators to ford an obstacle, usually train-tracks, the system invented by engineer Emil Schmid first transports passengers up vertically, sideways and then down again in one fluid motion. A couple of these engineering marvels (see also) remain in operation at Bahnhöfen in Altbach, near Stuttgart, and in the Rummelsburg district in Berlin. More at Miss Cellania at the link above.

strömungswiderstandskoeffizient

Designed with a similar streamlined aesthetic as the tear-drop trailer, the Stout Scarab and Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion car, we enjoyed making the acquaintance of the prototype Schlörwagen presented at the Berlin Auto Show in 1939, developed at the aerodynamic testing institute in Göttingen (hence the nickname the Göttinger Ei) to produce a body profile with a low drag coefficient. Though less than well received by the public at the time, the test vehicle trialled faster speeds at significantly great fuel-economy. The namesake engineer, Karl Schlör von Westhofen-Dirmstein—from a Frankonian noble family, saw his project derailed by the war and impressed into working on submarine propulsion systems and later imprisoned for assisting Jewish families—afterwards entered into politics, returning home and helping Kitzingen and Würzburg secure fuel rations and promote their responsible use, studying and championing biogas and wind turbines. More from friend of the blog Nag on the Lake at the link above, including a demonstration of the car in a wind-tunnel.

tubular bells

On this day in 1974 Mike Oldfield’s technically rich and complex instrumental arrangement, Opus One, the nineteen year old’s debut studio recording, climbed to the top position on the UK charts (see also), some fifteen months after its release, its opening theme used for the horror film The Exorcist shortly thereafter. Several anniversary and occasional versions have been produced in subsequent years

8x8

heir apparent: after over a century, Russia hosts a royal wedding for a member of the Romanoff family

9m²:a luxury apartment in Tokyo that makes very efficient use of space—at more than twice the size, my work-week flat feels rather sprawling and and ilunder-utilised 

pandora’s box: a trove of leaked records, following on from the Panama papers shows how the wealthy and connected hide their riches 

faux mcdoo: a fake McDonald’s in Los Angeles for filming purposes, via Messy Nessy Chic 

tx-33: new lows attained in gerrymandering and voter-marginalisation 

full circle: a retrospective exhibit of Judy Chicago  

deuce court: a demonstration of medieval tennis  

вызов: cast joins crew aboard ISS to film scenes of the first movie shot in microgravity

the final programme

Adapted from the eponymous Michael Moorcock novel and premiering in UK cinemas on this day in 1973, the Robert Fuest sci-fi, action production (thanks to the introduction from The Flop House), the plot centring around the quest for post-humanism beings—perfect and self-propagating—is a post-modern Prometheus story that shares a lot of energy and aesthetics with the roughly contemporary Abominable Doctor Phibes. Bent on carrying out the taboo and contro-versial plan of a recently deceased mad scientist and bring human kind into a new age and out of an existence condemned to near post-apocalyptic wasteland, Miss Brunner—a sado-masochistic techno-magician—instigates the epiphanical sequence, causing her to merge with the protagonist, a suave playboy physicist and son of the man scientist called Jerry Cornelius and dispatching with the henchman named Dmitri who had helped bring their plot to fruition—briefly manifesting as some sort of messianic figure to herald a new age before devolving into a caveman (see also). The creature, as it escapes the secret lair, observes that it is indeed “a very tasty world.”

die wende

Though relaxation on freedom of movement began as early as May 1989 with the Pan-European Picnic, next the fall of the Berlin Wall, free elections and an economic merger between East and West, the formal resolution for the abolishment of East Germany through its accession (Beitritt) to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (the Federal Republic of West Germany) came on 23 August 1990 with the Volkskammer, the East German parliament, agreeing to the extension of West German Basic Law (Grundgesetz, an unmodified constitution) over their territory. After a transition period, the West effectively absorbed East Germany, the enlarged federative republic administratively holding all the seats and membership of old West Germany at the stroke of midnight (see above) on 3 October with the raising black, red and gold banner above the Brandenburg Gate.

your daily demon: malphas

Ruling from today through 7 October, our thirty-ninth spirit is an infernal president that presents as a crow at first be will assume human form at the sign of his sigil. 

Duplicitous and untrustworthy to an extent, Malphas can build mighty bulwarks and betray one’s enemies’ most secret desires and ambitions. Countered by the guardian angel Rehauel, Malphas controls forty legion of subordinate demons.