let’s get tiny (10. 861)

Via Kottke, we learn about the Tiny Awards, chaired among others by Andy Baio of Waxy, that seeks to recognise the best old school sites that “embodies the idea of a small, playful and heartfelt web” with distinction and an honorarium. Candidates include the Ohh! directory, a blogging aggregator, and Brr, a journal about being stationed in Antarctica, all of which we can highly recommend. Check out the other contenders, rewild your browsing and register your endorsement at the link up top.  Rotating sandwiches!

tynwald day (10. 860)

Originally held as Midsummer Court from 979 until 1753 when the Isle of Man switched to the Gregorian calendar a year after Britain adopted the New Style but the passage of the calendar reform stipulated that the legislative session “shall be holden and kept according to the same natural Day upon or according to which the same should have been so kept or holden in case this Act had never been made”—thus preserving the Julian date and honours one of the world’s oldest parliaments and members of the House of Keys (Yn Kiare as Feed, Manx for the Four-and-Twenty, referring to its membership, and mishearing by English overlords) and Legislative Council, in traditional garb, convene to swear in officers and enact bills granted royal assent. Moving from the usual seat of government in Douglas, the representatives, lieutenant governor (often accompanied by guests of honour, the Lord of Man him or herself, or by Nordic nobility in deference to the population’s Viking origins, the clergy and the judiciary—called the Deemsters, all wear a sprig of mugwort and parade along a path to the hill strewn with rushes—a custom meant to appease the Celtic demigod Manannan (Mannán mac Lir, “Son of the Sea” and name-giver of the island). Following the laws being read into the record with the Captioning ceremony, the public has the opportunity to air grievances, petitioning the parliament directly.

7x7 (10. 859)

armada model zero: prototype flying, electric car cleared for takeoff 

국보: ancient Corinthian helmet found in Olympia and awarded as a trophy in 1936 among South Korea’s National Treasures  

el niño southern oscillation: combination of global warming and cyclical weather patterns have yielded the hottest day since record-keeping began  

🧵: Meta to launch Twitter alternative in twenty-four hours  

cop27: UK to walk-back its climate pledge 

luteciam parisiorum: a virtual tour of Roman Paris  

astral projection: the brain’s precuneus seems to be responsible for grounding and for the sensation of out-of-body experiences

it’s janet—ms jackson if you’re nasty (10. 858)

Third studio album by the artist, considered to be a genre-defining masterwork fusing funk, disco and R&B, the semi-autobiographical Control began a two-week run at the top of US charts on this day back in 1986. This breakthrough record, establishing her credentials independent from her siblings and firing her father, the Jackson Family patriach, as her manager, would go on to win Grammies for production and choreography as well as superlative industry accolades, as well being inspirational and aspirational for other artists. The dancing for the below video accompanying “Nasty” was directed by Paula Abdul, securing her an MTV Video Music Award, narrating a recent event when Jackson was being stalked and stood up to their harassment until they backed down.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: Saint Zoe of Rome plus the Nansen passport for the stateless and displaced (1922)

two years ago: the magic of piers and docks and other points of departure 

three years ago: the first Thomas Cook excursion (1841), a fantasy music festival generator plus assorted links to revisit

four years ago: an instant, farm-free source of protein plus a plan to plant a trillion trees

five years ago: a visit to Sirmione 

johnny come lately (10. 857)

Though now mostly resigned to obscurity save in a fossilised reference on diplomas from Yale as “We must consult Brother Jonathan,” before the advent of Uncle Sam with the War of 1812, New Englanders first and by extension the whole of America had the unabashedly boorish, hayseed of a personification in a caricature—though likely conflated with earlier Puritan Roundheads by Royalists during the English civil war—of Jonathan Trumbull, colonial governor of Connecticut, the only one to publicly side with the Revolutionaries and supply materiel during their petition for independence, General George Washington supposedly deferring above when asked if the war could be won. Like Yankee Doodle Dandy, also a British invention and a term of derision, Americans sought to reclaim the honour, transmogrifying him to into a malleable national symbol that stood for not only their resourcefulness and lack of pretensions but also manifest destiny, nativism (see also) and bigotry, adopted as the mascot of the Know-Nothing Party. Uncle Sam, with the trappings of Brother Jonathan though presented as less strident and ostensibly less of an opponent to a federal government through his identification with Abraham Lincoln, did eventually gainsay his primogenitor, dressed in the same spangled and untailored garb—and with the same problematic populist propaganda. Although the other aspects are mostly forgotten, Uncle Same, representing the US government, was the final addition to the triune, tripartite personification of Columbia, the idea of nationhood, and Brother Jonathan, the people—with rather glaring exceptions.

station to station (10. 856)

After the penultimate show of his Ziggy Star Dust world tour in 1973, David Bowie who was then suffering from a fear of flying took a ship from Yokohama to Vladivostok and then the Trans-Siberian Railway back to England, with various whistle-stops along the whistle stops along the way, including the May Day Victory Parade in Moscow. This week-long trip was documented by Bowie himself, with a 16mm videography entitled “The Long Way Home” and by friend and bandmate Geoff MacCormack (also known by the stage name Warren Peace)—meeting fans, drinking sessions with soldiers and sailors and giving impromptu performances, and is on exhibit at the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City, California with an especially curated soundtrack.

contrafactum (10. 855)

Lyrics written by Andover, Massachusetts seminarian Samuel Francis Smith to the melody of the British royal anthem, God Save the King, the above adaptation reworking the tune from a symbol and trapping of monarchy to a statement about American democracy, “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” was first performed for Independence Day celebrations in 1831 and became one of the two de facto national anthems (along side the patriotic number “Hail Columbia”—the march of the vice-president) until the adoption of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” exactly a century later. The implementation of the tune and musical salute (which also exists in Latin, peace-time and Republican—God save the Guillotine—versions) for another national song, however, was not new and contrafacta arrangements were used, usually connected with royal ceremony, and still used in Liechtenstein (Oben am jungen Rhein), Norway (Kongesangen) and Switzerland (Rufst du, mein Vaterland, until 1961 when replaced the National Hymne) formerly used in the kingdoms of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria and imperial Russia.

synchronoptica  

one year ago: nebulas were known as guest stars

two years ago: Occupied Austria (1945) plus flowers in the woods

three years ago: American Top 40 (1970), Nixon’s Honor America Day (1970) plus more on spelling conventions

four years ago: Annual Reminder (1969) plus the Sky Disc of Nebra discovered (1999)

five years ago: more adventures on Lake Garda

lux æterna (10. 854)

Ahead of the composer’s centenary tribute from the Proms, the Guardian profiles the life and career of influential, dissident virtuoso György Ligeti whose work informed the likes of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Radiohead, and rather infamously used by the director in 2001: A Space Odyssey to frame pivotal moments without the artist’s full permission, Stanley Kubrick opting not to use the work commissioned for the soundtrack and using public domain classic orchestral arrangements instead. 2001 is by far not his lasting legacy, having created many evocative and innovative works, like an arrangement for one hundred metronomes, but his plexiglass Ehrengrab (1923 - 2006) in Vienna’s Central Cemetery looks as if it could have been fashioned from the original Monolith. Read more about the progressive compositions of Ligeti at the link up top. Below is one of his final works, the 2003 reworking of the Hamburg Concerto with distempered tuning.