subgenre (10. 697)

With the admonition “You better not be acting like you’re in a Wes Anderson movie when I get there,” videographer Ava Williams delivers and propagates an idea that’s infinitely relatable, the momentary feeling, like deja vu, that one has been launched into the signature aesthetic of the filmmaker. These deadpan takes on the meme, as curated by Hyperallergic makes me stop and take note of those transporting instances that we all experience. Check out the TikToks at the link above and get inspired to make your own.

9x9 (10. 696)

precariat: the antithesis of job security—via Miss Cellania 

le jeu de monde: a seventeenth century geography-themed board game 

sell ∀ ∃ as ∃ ∀ scam: AI “prompt engineering” distilled—via the new shelton wet/dry  

ad infintum: a survey of the websites that ChatGPT and other large language models glean from to appear smartly confident 

fox and friends: rightwing ideologue Tucker Carlson abruptly announces he is leaving the network  

reductio ad hilterium: fake diaries to go on public display after forty years since their spurious authorship  

mister hepster: Cab Calloway’s jazz lexicon  

tea and sympathy: the Teasmade museum—via Messy Nessy Chic  

permission slip: inside the wave of American legislation looking to overturn laws restricting child labour

forschungensreaktor haigerloch (10. 695)

The nuclear test facility, the final experiment of Uranprojekt of Nazi Germany, discovered the day previously by the US and the British Special Forces unit Alsos, created as mission under the aegis of the Manhattan Project to coordinate foreign intelligence on atomic research and activity—a heavy water nuclear pile, housed in a cliff cellar used for beer storage and obscured by a castle chapel and disguised as a spelunking centre near Tübingen was brought offline on this day in 1945 during the last phase of War World II and dismantled, with the attendant scientists and materials brought back to America as part of Operation Paperclip. Under the direction of Werner Heisenberg, the aim of the undertaking was to harness the power of nuclear fission, though the research never moved beyond the experimental stage and later assessments concluded that critical mass would have required a set-up one and a half times larger, for weaponisation or as a practical output of energy. Crossing the front with the 7th Army, Alsos members moved over the Rhein and apprehended physicist remaining at research facilities, a cyclotron, in Heidelberg, and scoured the region for other trials to forestall capture by the advancing Soviet army and eventual French occupying force, whose arrival the same day prompted assessors to downplay its significance and immediately disassemble the laboratory and remove the contents to Munich, headquarters of the American Zone. Heisenberg and the other internees learned of the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August and expressed gratitude that their tests were a failure and would have never produced such a weapon but rather a power-plant. Since 1980, the site has hosted a museum on nuclear reactors with the original five cubes of uranium on display.

carolvs secvndvs (10. 694)

With his regnal namesake successor’s coronation coming up in a couple of weeks, we look back at the enthronement ceremony of 1661 of Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland that took place on this day, St George’s Day, in Westminster Abbey. Fighting alongside his father against the forces of Oliver Cromwell throughout the English Civil War, escaping to Scotland via the Hague and France after Charles I was beheaded, and was there proclaimed King of the Scots at Scone the decade prior. Cromwell’s own death in 1658 (his heir having little interest in maintaining the role of Lord Protector) opened a path to the restoration of the monarchy, entering London with popular acclaim in May 1660, having to wait nearly a year before the ceremony could take place as the royal regalia needed to be replaced, melted for bullion and precious jewels sold during the Commonwealth period, and lengthy preparations by officers of the court and Church. The coronation service and procession from the Tower of London (occurring the day before and attended by various members of the royal household and dukes and viscounts), a very public and patriotic spectacle, was well documented by diarist Samuel Pepys, who remarks about getting up at four in the morning, queuing up until eleven, poor acoustics, not getting his hands on one of the commemorative medals and sovereigns flung to the crowd by the Lord Chancellor and not being able to see the king crowned despite being at the abbey.

me at the zoo (10. 693)

As the first ever video uploaded and shared to the platform YouTube, the nineteen second amateur clip that did not so much document a moment but rather was an announcement that illustrated the possibilities of the tilt to video and the ramifications the accessible technology had in store for the coming generation of self-publishing and broadcasting. Contributed by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim on this day in 2005, the same day as the website went public, the platform was acquired by Google the following year, after realising the site’s full potential.

8x8 (10. 692)

caspar milquetoast: Public Domain Review presents Shy Guy (1947)—starring Dick York—via Nag on the Lake  

wicksy’s cocktails: a selection of non-alcoholic drinks from a 1986 Easter Enders’ cook book  

birdsite: the continuing rapid unscheduled disassembly of the platform  

here is a map to give you pleasure, a town reduced to your mantel’s measure: poetry on maps—via the Map Room  

ganja & hess: an under appreciated vampire film reexamined on its fiftieth anniversary  

smigadoon: virtual ghost villages in the clouds that have become the haunts of tourists  

rolling through the produce and said, now that’s a better buy: Toni Basil’s “Shopping from A to Z” 

schools of the air: a retrospective look at broadcast continuing education—see previously

gin and juice (10. 691)

Last week after the culmination of more than a decade’s development and waiting for the right launch window to achieve the needed gravitational sling-shots to bring the space probe to its destination amongst the orbital pathways of Jupiter’s icy moons, the JUICE mission (see previously here and here) off from French Guiana in search of signs of life. The European Space Agency is celebrating its achievement and start of the exploration with a collection of mocktails inspired by the astro-geological discoveries that the mission might uncover. We especially liked the pictured agency faavourite and some rather beautifully composed concoctions inspired by Ganymede and Callisto—all the recipes (which could be modified to taste) can be found here plus more at the links above.

10x10 (10. 690)

shave and a hair-cut: a collection of personalised nineteenth century barber shop occupation mugs

culture wars, cola wars: of course that anti-woke beer is just a huge pandering grift  

architecture in music: the photography of Charles Brooks makes the interiors of instruments appear like megastructures  

million dollar homepage: tout your website for one second of the day—via Web Curios  

knit grotesk: a sewable font

yes, virginia, there is a santa claus: the adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret does not disappoint  

intuitive daily stitching: Karen Turner’s knitted visual diary infographics: compelling visualisations that changed public opinion and scientific consensus 

high life: directed by the Comité, Belgian customs officials crushes a shipment of two-thousand cans of Miller over its “Champagne of Beers” motto 

hairdressers: a BBC videography library on different aspects of the industry