take time—it’s brief (10. 583)

Already on newsstands for approximately ten days and post-dated as with other weeklies so as not to appear to be stale, the first US news digest from publishers Briton Hadden and Henry R Luce born the imprint as issued on this day in 1923. The cover illustration was of Congressman Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois, a former dominant Speaker of the House, on his announcement of his plan to retire from politics after a half-century. Originally to be called Facts, they changed the title of the magazine to TIME with the above slogan, wanting to emphasise its brevity and could be consulted in under an hour.

fuga dal bronx (10. 582)

First given the MST3K treatment on this day back in 1996, the 1985 apocalyptic film by Enzo Castellari (also creator of the 1978 film movie The Inglorious Bastards, Quel maledetto treno blindato—“That Damned Armoured Train,” a remake inspired from The Dirty Dozen but only an inspiration in for the title of the similarly named Quentin Tarantino film which is not a remake but does have a cameo of Castellari as a Nazi general) was also released under the title Escape 2000 and chronicles the resistance of the residents of the New York borough, a dystopian wasteland to sinister property developer, General Construction Corporation, and their plans to drive out the present population and build a futuristic city in its place.

képzelt riport egy amerikai popfesztiválról (10. 581)

Set in Montana but giving a fictionalised recounting of the Altamont Free Concert, the musical by Gábor Presser, Anna Adamis and Sándor Pós—based on the novel of the same name by Tibor Déry—An Imaginary Report on an American Rock Festival premiered in Budapest on this day in 1973. The production team portrayed the plot of a young Hungarian couple that defected to the West with themes violating taboo subjects of homosexuality, illicit drug use and the war and the Holocaust to the Department for Agitation and Propaganda as a criticism of hippie culture and were granted permission to go on with the show. Resonant among its target audience, many musical numbers became hits and the musical (see also) toured throughout Eastern Europe.

maschere a gattu (10, 580)

Via the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we are directed towards a photographic tour from Alys Tomlinson of the islands of Sardinia, Sicily and the Veneto discovering and documenting the traditional costumes and masks of local festivals, particularly but not exclusively Carnival processions. Many of the most elaborate outfits are part of the parade of Aidomaggiore, in the centre of Sardinia, garb alternating from white on the Monday before Ash Wednesday to black on the last day before Lent with the Sonaggiaos bedecked with cowbells, followed by the Mumutzones dressed as traditional shepherds with a headdress of cork and animal horns in rites celebrating transhumance syncreted with religious pilgrimage.

gui (10. 579)

Offered with a portrait-oriented monitor matching a sheet of paper and the first commercially available for lease with a graphical user interface after the desktop metaphor, the Xerox Corporation released its Alto model on this day in 1973. Prohibitive costs ($32 000 for a basic version) meant that only around two thousand units were produced but were ahead of the rest of the market by a decade in terms of its operating system. Apple Computer personnel received exclusive demonstrations from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) in exchange for the company to option Apple stock. Several peripheral devices were created for the Alto, including a mouse, a television camera, a printer and a parallel port.

7x7 (10. 578)

for love of the glove: a revival of the unauthorised musical biography about the King of Pop  

frogmorton house: a tiny home built for a resident amphibian  

davy and goliath: smaller AIs recom-mendations on how to hack a more dominant one—see previously from AI Weirdness  

girl with the pearl earring: whilst the original is on loan as part of a comprehensive Vermeer exhibition, the Mauitshuis is displaying a set of reinterpretations—see previously  

steak & ale: the Midcentury Medieval aesthetic—via Messy Nessy Chic 

diamonds are forever: tiny spherical chambers could help harness the power of the sun—see also  

zone improvement plan: more on the Swinging Six and Mister Zip—via Weird Universe

sixth tone (10. 577)

Via ibīdem and translated by our friend Victor Mair, we are introduced to the tongue-twister, short narrative verse in Classical Chinese of the “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den” (施氏食獅史, the title romanised in pinyin as Shī-shì shí shī shǐ) with the corpus of the following ninety-four syllables, characters pronounced as shi with the tonal qualities varying throughout. Authored in 1930 by the linguist Yuen Ren Chao (赵元任) as a demonstration of homophones and coherency of the ancient grammar (see also) and as a criticism of simple, phonetic transliteration.

soup on the rocks (10. 576)

Via Miss Cellania, we are directed towards a bizarre MidCentury fad that Campbells (M’m! M’m! Good!) is still attempting to make happen with an advertising campaign, rather aggressively marketed with celebrity endorsements and placement on the drinks menus of landmark restaurants, convincing people to try their line of refreshing, nutritious brothtails: beef bouillon over ice—straight from the can—with a garnish of lemon and a dash of Worcestershire. Though mostly touted as an alcohol-free alternative one artefact of this long-running effort was the Bull Shot, sometimes known as “Ox on the Rocks,” with vodka and Tabasco sauce added to the above and Campbells along with soup enthusiasts in the past couple have introduced such divisive concoctions as the Thai Chicken Negroni and a dirty martini variant.