post and lintel

Via the always engaging Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this profile and portfolio of architectural photographer Hélène Binet—now based in London. One of the most famous in her niche field which can nonetheless evoke the most stirring of abstracted landscapes to inhabit in angles, shadows and negative space, Binet is celebrated for her collaborative work especially with contemporary celebrity architects Daniel Libeskind, John Hejduk (Kreuzberg Tower and Wings, Turm mit Flügelbau pictured) Peter Zumthor and Zaha Hadid as well as appreciating past movements through her lens, like this study of the monastery of La Tourette designed by Le Corbusier. More to explore at the links above.

eine deutsche volkssage

Presaging the studio's most technically advanced and expensive production by a year, F.W. Murnau's silent epic (see previously) Faust premiered this day in 1926 at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin. The director's last German film before moving on to Hollywood and upheld as an example of filmic Expressionism, it is a cinematic retelling of the downfall of elderly alchemist-resulting from a bet between a demon Mephisto and the Archangel, with the former wagering that he can corrupt any righteous soul and drive out any touch of divinity. Despite the odds stacked against our protagonist and literary precedent, there is a Hollywood ending with true and chaste love ultimately prevailing over diabolical forces.

designgroep

Named after the tarot card, the psychedelic design collective based in Amsterdam, The Fool, and influenced by the hippie community of Ibiza (see previously), whose costuming for stage and album cover art include iconic outfits for Procol Harum, Cream and the Beatles, as seen in televised broadcasts of “All You Need is Love,” the Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper’s inside graphics plus the largest mural in the world for a performance of Hair at the Aquarius Theatre. Much more at Messy Messy Chic at the link above.

shout it to the top!

Reaching its pinnacle on the UK charts on this day in 1984, this Sophisti-Pop ballad by lead Paul Weller was a hit single from The Style Council’s album Our Favourite Shop and was part of the score for Billy Elliot and the soundtrack for the 1985 Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino coming-of-age vehicle Vision Quest. The film is most remembered for a debut performance by Madonna in a local night club—prompting many markets to release it as Crazy for You, her signature piece in the scene.

your daily demon: focalor

Our forty-first spirit, governing from today through 17 October is an infernal grand duke presenting as a human with griffon wings. Though consenting and docile under the command of a skilled exorcist and can be bid to do no harm, Focalor has violent tendencies and will overturn ships at sea and drown those aboard. The demon commanding three legion has influence over the wind and waves and is countered by the guardian angel Hahael. His name an anagram of the Lucifuge Rofocale suggests an intellectual affinity with the archdemon, and is among those holding to the deluded belief that they will retake the kingdom of Heaven after a thousand years’ exile.

prove to me that you’re divine, change my water into wine—that’s all you need do, then i’ll know it’s all true

Formerly only previewed as a cast recording in limited release over a year prior, the rock opera by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber Jesus Christ Superstar was for the first time staged and performed before a live audience in the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway—the famous venue for My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Man of La Mancha which would eventually be consecrated in 1989 as the interdenominational Times Square Church—on this day in 1971. The anachronistic version of the Holy Week narrative, loosely following the books of the gospel and giving an accounting of Jesus and his disciples leading up to his arrest and crucifixion was the longest-running West End musical before being displaced by Cats in 1989. Below is “Superstar,” the penultimate number, with Judas, Soul Sisters and Angels from the 1973 adaptation, filmed on location.

movimento unionista italiano

Formed in the aftermath of World War II on Columbus Day 1944 by a sociologist called Corrado Gini—who developed the Gini coefficient as a metric for income inequality, an academic and activist called Santi Paladino best remembered for his theory that Michelangelo was the real author of the works of Shakespeare and a statistician named Ugo Damiani, the goal of their political party was to persuade the United States of America to annex Italy. More over the founding members believed that it was incumbent on the US to take in all free and democratic nations and become a world government, enshrining the values of liberty and ensuring perpetual peace and employment. During the general elections held two years later, the Italian Unionist Movement only garnered one seat out of over five-hundred and fifty representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, Italy’s lower house of parliament. The party opted to dissolve itself ahead of the next national vote in 1948.

horticultural dingbat

In announcing the winner of contest held in honour of Punctuation Day, adopted and embraced as an international observance, Shady Characters gives us a brief but thorough education in the dual-use glyph, used both as a form of punctuation and as a typographical ornament known as the printers’ flower, Aldus leaf (after Renaissance publisher Aldus Manutius of the the Aldine Press), the hedera symbol or most commonly as the fleuron—❦. Similar to the pilcrow (¶, Middle English pylcrafte and ultimately from the Greek paragraphos), it was used in ancient manuscripts to divide paragraphs in a block of text and fill the space of indentation. In modern bookbinding and pagination, it is used similarly to the asterism to denote line- and page-breaks as well as borders. Couched in the title conventions, they are referred to as “floral hearts.”