in the stacks

Prising important insights into the professions of curation, conservation and circulation, a storage facility in Rotterdam is opening its doors to visitors to allow them to peruse the museum’s entire collection, the ninety percent of the art and artefacts that their formerly public-facing galleries could not accommodate, we discover via a thematic round-up from Messy Nessy Chic. We really liked this idea to invite guests behind the scenes and hope that this sort of programme expands.

america’s present need is not heroics but healing—not nostrums but normalcy

Born this day in 1865 US president Warren G. Harding (†1923, elected on his birthday in 1920), who fairly popular whilst in office—largely due to his long suffering wife Florence who worked overtime to keep his scandals out of the public eye that emerged after his sudden death, did not have a pedestrian middle name in Gamaliel—not George as one might expect, though not wholly unique for mid-nineteenth century America. Nicknamed Winnie as a child, the Greek form of the Hebrew name means “God is my recompense,” indicating rather tragically that this son had an earlier sibling that was lost as an infant and was the given name of several rabbinical authorities. Problematic libertarian journalist and cultural critic H. L. Mencken (previously) mocked Warren’s oration and delivery as Gamalielese, described as meandering, irritating, “it is balder and dash”—though more charitably, others characterised its indeterminacy as the rhetoric to allow listeners to limn it with their own aspirations.

neologism

Via the always informative Miss Cellania, we are directed towards a treasury of contemporary terms that the editors and lexicographers at Merriam-Webster (previously) are adding for inclusion in their dictionary. Words notably entering common-parlance include the recent vaccine passport, otaku (ヲタク) a name to describe an individual with a consuming interest in manga and anime, super-spreader, digital nomad, dadbod—dating back to 2003, and astroturf with the sense of something artificial and contrived though made to appear as organic and grassroots. Much more at the links above.

starting point

Via Super Punch, we are treated to a piece of superlative copy-writing in this advertisement from Patagonia outerwear outfitters displayed on a Litfaßsäule in the vein of this powerful poem from Brian Bilston that invites, compels  us to shift our perspective and not be resigned and nihilistic when the time for decisive action is urgent in the face of this climate crisis.

woty: vaxx

Though very much a carry-over from the past year’s extraordinary multiplicity of choices to limn an extraordinary year, from fully-vaxxed, anti-vaxxers, to vax cards and vax apps vax passes demonstrates that lexically, our common-parlance still places us firmly in the midst of the moment. The Oxford English Dictionary’s choice by September as the jury was finalising its list of nominees was cited in print fully seventy-two times more frequently than the year prior. Aside from addressing our social and cultural moment, I wonder about the stylistic consensus to double the x in this clipping and can’t decide if it’s apothecary’s shorthand or just slang, the root coined by physician and scientist Edward Jenner to describe cowpox and his method to immunise people from the more severe smallpox through exposure and variolation.

meine propositiones

According to most sources, Augustinian monk Martin Luther (see previously here, here and here—not a fave, just problematic), upset with leadership in the Catholic Church—chiefly over the indulgences racket—posted his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church of All Saints on this day in 1517, setting off the Reformation Movement in Germany.

7x7: happy halloween edition

robert the doll: Key West’s most cursed object—see also—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to see here)  

zombie jamboree: Harry Belafonte’s actual ghoulish calypso number—notwithstanding the associations with the Banana Boat Song 

la calavera catrina: a sugar skull puppet presents a primer on Día de los Muertos  

westsonality: enjoy Paul Lynde’s 1976 Halloween Special with a cavalcade of guest stars  

respect the sabbath: periodic movements in the US to hold no Halloween on Sundays  

main title theme: the score for John Carpenter’s classic horror film Halloween 

lovecraft country: welcome to my metaverse—see previously

spot me up

Made in collaboration with Boston Dynamics, we learn courtesy of Laughing Squid, 1981 Mick Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones perform a Tik-Tok style duet with a trio of robot modules for a performance (previously) of their classic—the video produced as part of the fortieth anniversary celebration of the release of their Tattoo You album. What do you think? It’s fun and the tribute choreography is scarily brilliant but perhaps another example of normalisation and propaganda for the police state.