das land der ein tausend teiche (11. 069)

Taking out the trailer for a quick trip, we traveled to Plothen not far from the Bleilochtal reservoir but got to explore a quite different geography and landscape in the local pond region. One of the primary examples of aquaculture and intensive geo-engineering predating the industrial age, the first ponds and fisheries were established by monks in the eighth century in order to provide a meat-substitute for Lent and numerous holidays and commemorations that called for fasting and abstention. Within a radius of just a few kilometers, some six hundred of these artificial ponds remain of sixteen hundred, lost over the generations through mergers and drainage to harvest fertile sediment. Fish farming was managed from so called Pfahlhäuser—pile houses—one three hundred year old example remaining on Hausteich near the campgrounds hosting a museum dedicated to the place’s history. 

Owing to the rich soil, during East German times, the area was given over to raising pigs, but has since been rehabilitated (rather a remarkably quick turn around given it was not that long ago) and reclaimed as a tourist destination and an important rest stop for migratory birds and other wildlife.

Afterwards we went to nearby Ranis to visit the Burg, a hilltop fortification for the administration of the Saalfeld area articulated and expanded since the eleventh century.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit,  Livre de Thot plus a feline opera

two years ago: St Ursula, the first Vikings in North America plus more vocabulary building

three years ago: the origins of Op-Ed, the Dutch art of doing nothing,  NYC’s digital subway map, app, the sentō culture of Japan, the Royal Meteorological Society’s PoTY plus coppicing and pollarding

four years ago: IKEA tarot 

five years ago: artist Barbara Kruger plus leaf-peeping in the Rhön

 

the patterson-gimlin film (11. 068)

Shot on this day in 1967 along the Bluff Creek tributary of the Klamath River on a logging-road in near the California-Oregon border, the short film, under a minute, captures a few frames of purportedly a Sasquatch and has subsequently been subject to numerous attempts to both authenticate and debunk it as a hoax. The iconic image of the cryptid was the result of a years’ long expedition through Bigfoot territory in the Pacific Northwest, a docudrama that failed to garner much interest, several creative fund-raising attempts and trademarking the term, when Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin reportedly encountered an unknown figure, hairy and apelike and approximately two meters tall, they nicknamed “Patty,” who they tracked for some distance before loosing her trail and made plaster casts of her footprints. Scientist and consulted special effects artists concluded the footage was of a man in a hair suit.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: jungle gyms of East Germany,  more spectacular images from the JWST plus Liz Truss resigns

two years ago: St Artemis of Antioch,  Play Misty for Me (1971) plus the dedication of the Sydney Opera House (1973)

three years ago: assorted links to revisit, the execution of Klaus Störtebeker plus a remembrance of artist Enzo Mari

four years ago: synthwave Star Wars,  documenting car crashes plus the end of grazing season

five years ago: the Saturday Night Massacre,  artist Giacomo Balla plus more links to enjoy

pomp & circumstance (11. 067)

Whilst originally romanticised as a battle song pre-World War I and juxtaposed to military pageantry in comparison with the dismally terrorising nature of fighting with the anthem “Land of Hope and Glory,” the orchestral marches of the future Master of the King’s Musick Sir Edward Elgar, premiering on this day in Liverpool in 1901 (shown at the Proms two days later), the trio of movements is a nearly universal graduation processional in the United States (after the occasion of his honorary degree awarded by Yale in 1905 with other institutions of higher learning following the example), Canada and the Philippines. Although subsequent experience turned public opinion against celebrating the sanitised side of conflict, the march—with various arrangements and title taken from Othello “Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump / The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife / The royal banner, and all quality / Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war.”—is employed for weddings, sporting events and coronations.

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  St Frithuswith, Take on Me plus assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: more links to enjoy

three years ago: font founder Ed Benguiat plus the Hochrhönstrasse

four years ago: a coffee substitute,  Europe’s long distance walking trails, lizard people, the maps of Alexander von Humboldt, an unusual session of Parliament plus a corner office

five years ago: more grammatical non-errors

digital chindōgu (11. 066)

Via fellow internet caretaker Pasa Bon!’s latest link roundup, we are pointed to an constantly updated directory of “pointless sites” to poke around and play with. In the spirt of the Tiny Web and recalling the above concept of “unuselessness,” this carefully curated catalogue of dedicated pages and apps that do (or don’t do) one thing is anything but pointless and enjoyed discovering infuriatingly challenging games and puzzles like pick the colour not the word, a museum of dead links and the lava lamp emulator. There’s a showcase of most popular places to visit and a reliquary of the least favourited spots to waste one’s time.

a conference divided (11. 065)

Entering its third week without a leader, the US House of Representatives’ Republican forerunner for the gavel and Speaker of the House, a hard right conservative, Trump apologists and noted obstructionist, having blocked far more legislation than sponsored, failed to secure the required majority with some rather brave GOP hold-outs refusing to allow Congress to fall further into the control of a radical minority element of the party. Despite not having secured the commitment of other fellow Republicans for support, the vote was brought to the floor, hoping that a public forum would draw the ire of their constituents in a rather unprecedented campaign for a congressional leadership role. Under pressure to fill the vacant role of House Speaker, Congress is unable to introduce new bills and severely handicaps its ability to address immediate concerns of funding the government with a looming deadline in mid-November, approving the appointment of ambassadors and military commanders or for extending aid and armaments to allies of two wars.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the BBC at 100, rallying against the totalitarian regime in Iran plus a gallery of nightmare art

two years ago: an obtunded opportunity, your daily demon: Velar, Toto’s Africa plus Video Killed the Radio Star

three years ago: International Necktie Day, more musical mashups, more mushrooming, drills for the zombie apocalypse plus put our service to the test

four years ago: the Peaceful Revolution of East Germany,  a font inspired by Greta Thunberg, more US gun violence plus prayer goes digital

five years ago: International Credit Union Day, Big Bird retires plus the Postal Illuminati

6x6 (11. 064)

narnia: the wardrobe portraits of Sarah Ainslie 

there’dn’t’ve: an exploration of contractions—both the probable and the practical  

ghost swing: Louie Zong returns with another spooky symphony—via Waxy  

an mj winkler production: the Independent film studio behind the centenary of Disney  

compound pejoratives: the affixes of insult and their pattern distribution—see also 

 murphy tub: a folding bath from the 1930s—via Messy Nessy Chic

sun electric (11. 063)

Via Kottke, we are directed to a fascinating technological artefact and possible point of departure, contra-factual in this profile of entrepreneur and inventor George Cove, an early advocate of renewable energy who developed solar panels (and battery storage) not much different from those systems employed today. In 1905. There was a significant interest in this new technology and its potential fuelled by no shortage of media coverage and incremental improvements with attendant cost savings and greater efficiency. Yet the enterprise and Cove’s prospects came to an abrupt halt in 1909 when he was kidnapped and would only be released if he withdrew his patents and shut up shop. Though Cove reportedly refused to give in to these conditions, he was nonetheless released. Whilst some contemporary accounts say that the inventor staged his ransom to generate publicity or was victim of a jilted investor, it seems more likely he was roughed up by a thug sent from nascent Oil, an industry not known to be a friend of the democratising effects that virtually limitless and unfettered energy could provide or willing to pull any punches with the threat of competition. Solar power had no more champions for decades, and although it might be painful and disheartening to contemplate alternate-histories in the face of squandered time, resources and a planet that is burning, the fact that dependence of petroleum wasn’t a foregone outcome of industrialisation and modernity and that energy alternatives always had an uneasy coexistence is something for one’s quiver of hopes and disabusing. More from The Conversation at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: St Andrew of Crete,  assorted links to revisit plus RRR

two years ago: the tragical death of an apple pie

three years ago: the taking of Harper’s Ferry (1859), the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, change what the bunny is holding plus more links to revisit

four years ago: The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

five years ago: pumpkin spice in everything, early Uber, The Republican Club plus more links to enjoy

a venezia…undicembre rosso shocking (11. 062)

Adapted from the short story by Daphne du Maurier and starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, the classic occult thriller Don’t Look Now premiered on this day in the UK and Italy. Grieving over the accidental and tragic drowning death of their daughter, the couple accept a commission from a bishop to restore an ancient church in Venice. The wife Laura encounters two elder sisters, one of who claims psychic sight and persuades the mother to hold a séance to contact the deceased daughter, behind the back of her husband, John. The latter begins to experience premonitions as he continues to work on his project and the former begins to interpret everything as an omen. Atmospheric and disorienting, this enduring horror film explores the psychology of loss and the fragility of the mind. A quite explicit sex scene between Sutherland and Christie prompted her then-boyfriend Warren Beaty to travel to the set and demand it be cut but the director successfully championed it to Beaty and to the censors as non-gratuitous and as integral to the movie as the Venetian setting. In general release a few weeks later, it was often screened as a part of a double feature with the equally iconic The Wicker Man.