spotlit (10. 948)

Stan Carey of Sentence First introduces us to a special, exclusive—exhaustive class of English language action words called variable verbs through entertainment industry term and derivatives greenlight, figuratively giving the authority or permission to go ahead with a project dating back at least to the late 1930s, which subjected to a meta-study of corpora seems to prefer the past tense of -lit despite the general decline in favour of -lighted since the 1950s. It makes me wonder about similar lingo like the above, limelight or gaslit—which seems wrong in the mouth except for describing a stove—and reminds me of the strange code-switching that occurs in phrase “googled” something in other languages. We especially liked the contradistinction as illustrated by one commenter who may have “moonlighted on a moonlit night” but never vice-versa.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: an ABBA classic plus the first trans-Atlantic telegram (1858)

two years ago: a 1979 classic from The Knack, the fall of Kabul, an audio sampler of metro announcements plus the majik art of Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel

three years ago: revisiting the Australian wildfires from the start of 2020, a very young Freddy Mercury, the art of Chase Middleton, St Roch, Flip the Frog and Mortimer Mouse (1930) plus more vagabond maps

four years ago: Trump tries to purchase Greenland, an online museum of various platforms’ first versions, the 1619 Project plus maps commissioned by colonisers of the New World made by native peoples

five years ago: the photography of Christy Lee Rogers, the Law of Jante, US Midterms plus RIP Aretha Franklin

mariä himmelfahrt (10. 947)

Observed on this day as either the Feast of the Assumption in the Latin Rite or the Feast of the Dormition in Eastern Orthodox tradition, Christians celebrate the translation of the Virgin Mary, either wholly, bodily taken up or having gone to sleep without suffering a mortal death. While this elevation to eternal life has some singular aspects (Mary is said to enjoy the fullness and autonomy of the afterlife that the other saints will only experience after the Last Judgment), there are other instances of the phenomenal honour in Judaism and Christianity, with Jesus and Enoch, the patriarch and father of Methuselah “who walked with God: and was no more” and the prophet Elijah and Pharaoh’s Daughter (see also) who found Moses (himself taken up after his remains were fought over by Satan and the Archangel Michael) amongst the reeds with other instances of being raptured in other traditions. Many figures in Hinduism, kings and swami, are said to have merged with God, essentially dematerialising, Islam teaches that Muhammed was similarly taken up into Heaven and Hellenistic tradition recognises ascendant masters like the thaumaturgist and philosopher Apollonius, a wandering sage who travelled in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia and drew many latter day comparisons to the reincarnated Christ.

die bauhausausstellung von 1923 (10. 946)

Opening on this day in Weimar and running for the next six weeks, the exhibition was the first public presentation of the art and architecture movement founded in 1919, and advertised in around one-hundred train stations with Oskar Schlemmer’s Bauhaus logo (the event delayed due individual presenting workshops wanting to prefect their items in accordance with the shift from handwork to industrial production and the poster stickered over), attracting around fifteen-thousand visitors. The first week included lectures by Walter Gropius and Wassily Kandinsky, ballets and concert performances and a procession with lanterns and fireworks. Installations included a model home, ceramics and various painting and building designs by contemporary figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Occurring during the height of the Great Depression, the exhibition became of symbol of the culture war simmering in Germany with praise and enthusiasm on one side for the school’s creative and educational goals and roundly rejected by conservative leaning critics who felt strengthened in their position by the relative financial failure.

rico (10. 945)

Ex-president Trump and a cadre of his closest confidantes were indicted by the state of Georgia on forty-one counts of racketeering and conspiracy charges to subvert his loss during the 2020 campaign, the eighteen other defendants including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, justice department official Jeffrey Clark, election lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro as well as a slate of rogue “fake electors” that certified Trump as the winning candidate. The charges stem from a solicitation to break an oath of by Trump’s infamous directive to the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” him the needed votes, pressuring other election officials and breaching electronic ballot machines to undermine confidence in the democratic process. This represents Trump’s fourth indictment and because it was initiated on the state and not the federal level and potential re-appointment to high office and the opportunity for self-pardon would not make these charges go away.

happy blogoversary to us—we are fifteen (10. 944)

As PfRC turns fifteen we wanted to once again extend our thanks and gratitude to our readership and to the members of the wider blogosphere (listed under our Smøgåsblog) for their sustainment and inspiration that keeps the internet curious, entertaining, engrossing and engaging.  

Since hitting our last milestone, here’s a roundup of some of our most popular posts with a few honourable mentions:

10. A post on the New York premier of Stravinsky’s Firebird with Marie Tallchief  

9. A growing collection of bad book covers

8. The oldest formal data protection law from the State of Hessen, promulgated in 1970

7. a city map generator with a nice aesthetic

6. the graphic design of Joe and Elinor Selame

5. Street photographer Harold Feinstein

 4. The tyranny of time

3. an AI presents the most popular Halloween candy for each US state

2. an unusual beach house in Baja California

1. The celebration of the Discovery of the True Cross

Honourable mentions go to a claymation short expressing evolving human conscious, a scopitone classic and pie charts to dissect our anxieties

Wishing you all the best for the balance of the year and don’t be a stranger!

synchronoptica

one year ago: our blogging birthday, another Roman holiday, assorted links to revisit plus private equity

two years ago: our thirteenth blogoversary, Nixon takes the US off of the gold standard (1971), the Eternal Word Television Network (1980) plus a modern Euclidean proof

three years ago: high-brow toilet humour,  PfRC turns twelve, more gachapon machines plus a new logo for the beleaguered US postal service

four years ago: Woodstock (1969), a US seafood franchise, our blogging birthday, more on what3words, Japan surrenders (1945) plus the Kölner Dom

five years ago: we turn ten, composer Lalo Schifrin, an architect experiments with public versus private space, plocka uppa plus imagining written English were spoken phonetically

 

balum balum (10. 943)

Via Fancy Notions, we enjoyed this short of the La Linea (previously) created by cartoonist Osvaldo Cavadoli accompanied by the background tune composed by Franco Godi. Because the characters of this interstitial talk in grammelot (see above), responsive gibberish used to convey teasing and frustration, it’s hard to say if rabbits habitually mock humans that they encounter but the exchange brings to mind the murderous bunnies of medieval manuscript marginalia.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Some Enchanted Wavelength (1978), assorted links to revisit plus Tears for Fears with the brass section

two years ago: the historical Macbeth, kaleidoscopic mandalas plus “I Got You, Babe” (1965)

three years ago: assorted links worth revisiting, Saint Arnold, the second major book printed in the West plus a bookshelf that can be transformed into a casket

four years ago: TopPop

five years ago: the Blackout of 1968, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), more links to check out plus the history of the Turner Broadcasting System

sunday drive: talsperre lütsche (10. 942)

On the way back from some window-shopping, we took a detour through the Geratal to Frankenhain for a stroll around the second biggest artificial lake in the region (previously). Dammed in 1935 by the Deutschen Reichsbahn in order to provide a source of water for stations in Erfurt and Arnstadt, by the time the reservoir (Stausee) was completed steam-powered locomotion was being superseded and it was converted to hydropower—and today the same supply-system to cool data centres in Neudietendorf and for brewery operations connected to the train stations that have repurposed the cisterns. The tributary rivers have their source near the winter sports destination Oberhof, whose ancient volcanic composition of quartz porphyry were also the quarry for the retaining walls. Used primarily for recreational activities currently, it was certainly a nice walk down to the beach and good to visit the area again.

(pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd ‘skin-'nérd) (10. 941)

Released on this day in 1973 some nine years after the southern and blues rock band formed, their debut studio album contains some of their best songs—including “Free Bird,” which elevated their profile to stardom. Most of the tracks were already well established in the band’s repertoire in their circuit of the Florida and Georgia music scene but the record exposed the work of Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, Bob Burns and Larry Junstrom to much wider audience and a subsequent tour as the opening act for The Who propelled their success, with the correctly IPA pronunciation guide rendered as /ˌlɛnərd ˈskɪnərd/, saw the album certified Gold by December 1974 and Double-Platinum by the summer of 1987. The 1973 original recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008 and has become a snowclone for audience requests and encores (famously with MTV’s Unplugged 1993 of Nirvana), regardless of the artist or style of music being performed.

synchronoptica

 

one year ago: KC and the Sunshine Band plus the Angelus prayer

two years ago: your daily demon: Astaroth, building the Berlin Wall (1961), assorted links to revisit plus a flying Winnebago

 

three years ago: the Roman holiday Vertumnus, Saint Cassian, the Inception Sequel, The Hunting of the Snark, luring a cautious public back to the movies, an isolation odyssey plus pandemic border restrictions

 

four years ago: the design of the Japanese flag, Italian car design plus the script of the Saanich people

 

five years ago: an update on the TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport