at first i was afraid, i was petrified (10. 615)

Beginning a four-week run at the top of the UK singles charts on this day in 1979 (also a hit internationally and inscribed on the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for its cultural and artistic significance) the disco anthem about discovering personal strength in the face of breakup owes its origins to the dismissal of principal lyricist Dino Fekaris, partnering with Freddie Perren—also a former co-worker out of a job—and the resolution to bounce back, as a song-writer no less. With the working-title “Substitute,” performer Gloria Gaynor immediately recognised it as a hit. Played first by DJs in Studio 54 before the record was released, the accompanying promotional video, filmed in competing night club Xenon Discotheque and features a troupe of dance skaters.

9x9 (10. 614)

telegeography: the current map of submarine cables connecting the world  

blogoversary: a belated birthday greeting to Fancy Notions 

rightish: Microsoft touts AI’s factual errors as “usefully wrong”  

goldenes buch: German communities’ official, historic guest logs are a chronicle of the times and Zeitzeugnisse  

media matters: if journalists cannot call out propaganda—what’s even the the point of coverage—via Kottke  

gǒutóu māo níng—literally dog’s head, cat’s meow: cute Chinese animal transcriptions for English salutations  

seoul ring: the world’s largest spokeless ferris wheel being built in South Korea  

linkrot: more thoughts on three broken links and internet conservation  

mappa mundi: the thirteenth century chart of the mundane and exalted—see previously

male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest (10. 613)

As Florida governor and presidential hopeful DeSantis continues his pandering crusade against queer, trans and non-conforming individuals by revoking a Miami flagship hotel’s liquor license for hosting a holiday drag show, citing a prohibition of “lascivious exhibition” in front of audiences aged younger than sixteen in the interest of safeguarding the innocence of children, the state of Tennessee is enacting a new law to criminalise public cabaret performances. Much like Mike Pence’s personal-cum-policy conviction not to dine with another woman without the presence of Mother, legislators responsible for this grossly mischaracterise drag shows as something overly-sexualised and obscene to politicise it but there are plenty of voices that refuse to be silenced or to be again marginalised and ostracised. More at the links above.

8x8 (10. 612)

scheele’s green: more on the poisonous, synthetic shade—via Messy Nessy Chic 

terroir: BBC’s Jancis Robinson’s Wine Course  

family business: a look at the oldest-continuing operating hotel in the world, by shifting definitions (see also)

contagion: banking stocks drop as investors lose confidence after the failure and intervention for Silicon Valley Bank (previously)  

xerox alto: a half-century on (see previously), we are still living with the legacy of one of the first home computers—via Kottke  

ghostwatch: a BBC mockumentary that spooked viewers

$: the first instance of the dollar sign in print—see previously 

arsenic and old lace: an astonishing murder ring of earlier twentieth-century Hungary

dita e verës (10. 610)

Translating to summer’s day in Albanian, the springtime rite with pre-Christian origins is observed on this day and corresponds to the beginning of the New Year on the Old Calendar, aligning with the seasonal shift from winter. Celebrations are marked with family reunions, intensive spring-cleaning, reverence for the life returning, and jumping over, through bonfires for a ritual purification to drive away the darkness and referred to as shedding the fleas—recalling an expedient method of delousing as well as with the Verore, a red and white bracelet worn to mark the occasion and the preparation of sugar cookies called ballokume—named for a review by one Ottoman rulers that: Është ba si llokume—it was as good as lokum—that is, Turkish Delights.

network effect (10. 609)

We’ve come across the adage before that “if the service is free, you are the product, recently reframed and encapsulated in Cory Doctrow’s resonate summation of ‘enshittification’—now examined and broadened to include sponsors, advertisers as social media platforms’ real clients. Beyond the walled-garden of on-site engagement and the difficulty of exporting one’s social graph to an alternative host, posters and advertisers are locked into a captive market, joining at first voluntarily and then kept locked in by peer-pressure with all of these platforms free to privelege engagement over news and updates from one’s circle of friends with license and motivation, subtle or blatant to engineer the site to maximise those ends—and whilst not inevitable, the scale continues.

lost in translation (10. 608)

Via NPR, we are referred to a long and growing thread of words hosted by dictionary Merriam-Webster have no English equivalent, and due to their inchoate elegance are a bit tortured for the lengthy but elucidating explanation, submitted by individuals all over the world. Many of these were brand new to us and are adding to our quiver, like débrouillard—literally, one who removes the fog, describing a resourceful and efficient person at deconflicting matters, dépaysement—describing the feeling of novelty, the state of being unmoored when visiting a foreign place, bjønetjeneste, from a Norwegian fable about a bear, trying to be helpful, and swatting away a fly and instead mauled the person with the slight irritation with the German equivalent verschlimmbessern or gwarlingo—Welsh for the rushing sounds of a clockwork before it tolls the hour. Merriam-Webster’s replies are quite nice as well. Look through the list and let us know your new favourites.

truman doctrine (10. 607)

Introduced to the US Congress on this day in 1947—prompted by crises in Greece, a violent uprising by the national Communist party partially funded by neighbouring Yugoslavia and Türkiye, under pressure from the Soviet Union to allow its ships passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the Long Telegram by George F Kennan of the previous year—President Harry S Truman, with the assistance of Secretary of State George Marshall (previously) and undersecretary Dean Acheson, outlining his “domino theory” in grave terms, secured Republican buy-in and ensured funding for his foreign policy objectives. In an address before a joint session of Congress which was generally well-received by the public, Truman said, “I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.” Couched in the context of the broader Cold War, the expansive and highly publicised commitment of the Truman Doctrine established precedent for the next four decades of siding with anticommunist forces and regimes all over the world no matter how antithetical and opposed they were to the democratic image that America wanted to promote and form military alliances against the USSR and confederates.