6x6 (11. 085)

popular superstition: how belief in ghost became a class-marker and high-society aspired to more refined practises with spiritualism and horoscopes 

late night horror: the obscure 1970 UK anthology nearly consigned to oblivion  

jack skellington: a massive pumpkin mosaic sets a new world record  

sql: the infamous database “Halloween Problem” that reveals weaknesses in common information architecture  

very very scary: a 1990s rebroadcast of Nick at Nite vintage television seasonal specials—complete with commercials  

jimi halloween: the tradition of costumes so mundane they need to be explained continues—see previously 

synchronoptica

one year ago: drawing with Ed Emberley plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: another MST3K classic—The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, more links to enjoy plus artist William-Adolphe Bourguereau

three years ago: the first residents board the International Space Station (2000), more on murderous dioramas, a wizarding curriculum from 1925 plus star charts for the yet to be born

four years ago: East German counter-programming, Brexit postponed plus the lost dative case

five years ago: stochastic terrorism, folksonomy, corporate fairy tales, birthright citizenship plus “Egyptian” Rocky Horror

the devil’s ball (11. 084)

With introductory remarks on how artists are rebelling against having their works and style scraped and assimilated often without attribution or respect and are fighting back, Fancy Notions directs us to a spooky Halloween treat, fever dream in the form of the uncut animated short from pioneering stop-motion storyteller Władysław Starewicz from 1933. The original was considerably edited for length prior to release and many of the film segments are lost but using AI to help fill in the gaps, the original story of this le Fétiche (the Mascot) series has been restored. The surreal cast of creepy toys and re-animated bones (Starewicz’ earliest experiments used dead insects articulated with wires, which reviewers believed were expertly trained bugs) coming to life and vie for a prize orange. Later filmmakers, like Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mister Fox (Starewicz’ most acclaimed work was Le Roman de Renard) or Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas, pay homage to the artist’s influence.

colly (11. 083)

Via Waxy, we are directed to a rather brilliant 1995 undergraduate thesis on Amiga-based ASCII art (previously) and its use in BBS in the late 1980s to early 90s. With a friendly competition emerging among enthusiasts, a typographer’s repertoire was brought together in a volume—a text file—referred to as collies, and due to the display constraints of terminals accessing the bulletin boards, custom logos, indices and menus were limited to grids of eighty-by-twenty-five characters but were also meant for scrolling through. The bachelor candidate accentuates their essay by creating their own collection of type-specimens documenting work (and procrastination) on this paper, intended to be viewed continuously, with an addendum on the challenges of finding and hacking a suitable dot-matrix printer to accomplish the effect in hardcopy.

il dissoluto punito (11. 082)

The two act masterpiece, commissioned after his successful tour of Bohemia and finished just the night prior, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (see previously) Don Giovanni opened in Prague’s The Estates Theatre on this day in 1787. The adaptation of the centuries old Spanish legend of Don Juan, a haughty libertine and lecherous young noble, believes no one can resist his overtures or match his wit until encountering on that is unmoved and singularly unimpressed, the vengeful funerary statue of the angry father of his first sexual conquest, killed by Giovanni in a duel. Inspired by the character Il Commendatore (Don Pedro), a statue was installed in 2000 in the forecourt of the theatre, which still hosts performances of the opera.

synchronoptica

one year ago: places lived and just past through plus a last day in Crete

two years ago: Constantine’s victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge,  Orinoco Flow (1988), a Mario marathon, celebrating a Renault classic, a collection of horror GIFs plus the end of the Salem Witch Trials

three years ago: assorted links to revisit plus referring to parents by the names of their offspring

four years ago: the political alignments of Mario Kart characters

five years ago: Italy battles the EU over its fiscal policy, Merkel to not run again for party chair, synthetic traditional Chinese medicine plus more on Angela Merkel stepping down

per dexter, per fichtée (11. 081)

Despite the proscription in the US against royal titles, many past American presidents have employed personal coats-of-arms, either through inheritance or as foreign honours from heraldic authorities. The last president to hold a such a heraldic achievement was William Jefferson Clinton bestowed on him by the Chief Herald of Ireland in 1995 at the behest of the Taoiseach in honour of his Irish heritage. The azure anchor of the crest bares the word SPES (Latin for Hope) as an allusion to Clinton’s hometown and campaign platform and the motto below, “The Lion carries away the Branch.” While the Trump Organisation and his Scottish golf course have corporate arms, they were not granted or sanctioned by any competent authority.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: further adventures plus unblogged Crete

two years ago: your daily demon: Shax, Gulliver’s Travels plus more on being in the flow state

three years ago: the Greek flag adopted, priority group mall Santas, the short films of Al Jarnow, a pizza chain’s logo plus a home-makeover for the Simpsons

four years ago: a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere, a mundane Halloween plus The Millennial Raven

five years ago: a day-trip to Frankfurt plus assorted links to revisit

maps.fm (11. 080)

This is a really premium idea—via ibīdem—we have this highly granular mapping application of over a million podcast episodes from a host of contributors that allows one to listen-by-location and discover more about site-specific history, community news, tourism, foodways and local culture. Of course concentration and coverage is uneven and there are plenty of neglected corners of the world (perhaps you can fill in the gaps and perhaps find your podcasting niche), but given the general problem with the uptake and discoverability for the medium (as obscure and middle-of-nowhere on the dial as some of the places visited), this a perfect tool for taking a deep-dive in some local colour.

the black gold tapestry (11. 079)

Via the always excellent Web Curios, we are directed to the outstanding hand embroidered sixty-seven metre (two hundred-twenty foot) chronology—in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry (see previously)—from artist Sandra Sawatzy that documents the saga of the discovery of petroleum products, all edged with dinosaurs, and its attendant societal and environmental change through the millennia to the present. Be sure to visit Sawatzy’s accompanying blog on their creative process, main characters in these global shifts and exhibitions.

9x9 (11. 078)

page rank: the SEO trend of naming establishments X Near Me seems to actually drive customers—via Waxy  

cyanea pohaku: a species of tree discovered right before it was driven to extinction

saint eom: the psychedelic compound of folk artist and fortune-teller Eddie Owens Martin outside of Buena Vista in the US state of Georgia and listed on the National Register of Historic Places  

usonian homes: a pair of Frank Lloyd Wright (see previously) houses on the market in Kalamazoo in the US state of Michigan  

saob: the official Swedish dictionary published after one hundred forty years of work

the united states of guns: another sadly evergreen post about how an armed society is not a free society   

happiness hotel: a luxury kennel once occupied the grounds of New York City’s Lincoln Center 

report of my death having been most industriously circulated by several of the london daily newspapers, would the times permit me to contradict the same through your valuable columns and refute the account: sculptor John Ternouth, designer of the plinth for Nelson’s Column, was surprised to learn of his premature demise—via Strange Company  

i am altering the deal—pray i don’t alter it any further: Amazon’s Alexa is ending inoperability support with severe punishment for those who try to hack their way around it