laserium (11. 127)

Premiering on this night in 1973 at the Griffith Observatory in San Francisco when Ivan Dryer arranged to lease a laser projector from CalTech after disappointment upon reviewing a film he had commissioned as a laser-light show, insisting the audience experience the beauty and brilliance first hand, his presentation inspired companies and individuals to produce their own versions for various venues while launching his own national tour that lasted until 2002 and continues as special events through to the present. Though not certain if it was a part of the officially sanctioned road-show, I recall somewhere in East Texas circa 1992 seeing a rather nice spectacle beamed onto the façade of a court house or some big brick municipal building in the lead-up to Christmas when we’d drive around looking at decorations with musical accompaniment by the Indigo Girls (possibly just on the car’s radio though I’d like to remember it as on the PA, synchronized to the music nonetheless and that made me gay). I call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night vision, king of insight.

milbenkäse (11. 126)

Strange Company directs our attention to an attempt to revive a foodway, a half a millennium old tradition that had all but died out during East German times when the government (perhaps wisely, and continues to inhabit a grey regulatory area) banned the production and distribution of live-mite food, thanks to the concerned efforts of two individuals in the village Würchwitz, south of Leipzig. Also known as Spinnenkäse, it was discovered accidentally (see also) by leaving curd (Quark) to age in a wooden box and then finding it ripened and edible, with a bit of a zesty after-taste thanks to an infestation of microscopic arachnids (Tyrophagus casei, memorial erected in 2009 in the only locality that makes it) whose bodies form the rind. It wasn’t until much later that people understood how it was being formed and apparently pairs well with beer or wine. More from Atlas Obscura at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: ASCII meme templates, the micronation Rose Island, an Egyptian surrealist movement, a word-generating bot plus vox populi out of context

two years ago: visiting Gdańsk

three years ago: the Arecibo radio telescope decommissioned, a sad Christmas tree plus an just passed, much anticipated wine release

four years ago: the first Monégasque television station plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: The Last Unicorn, a 3D printed architectural pavilion, the German Youth Word of the Year plus artificial flowers to help the pollinators

terraforming (11. 125)

Via Good Internet, we learn that AI-powered robot chemist, analysing Martian meteorites as a proxy for available materials in-situ (see previously) the Red Planet, has devised an efficient method for splitting the abundant reserves of water ice into its components—hydrogen and oxygen not only for air for potential human explorers to breathe but also for fuel—by trialing millions of molecular compounds (metallic ores bonded with those component elements are normally inert) apparently readily present in the Martian terrain to find the best catalyst to set off the reaction with the least need for extra energy to trigger the reaction and least effort of extraction. Though accomplished without human-intervention—drawing on the sum of human learning—the proposal would still need to be vetted by scientists for unintended consequences or biases for Earth gravity and weather. If proven safe and effective, maybe as an encore, the robot chemist could come up with the best way to capture and store carbon back home.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Mouse and his Child (1977), the first book printed in English (1477) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: bias in photo developing, the consecration of Old and New St Peter’s plus not all symbols are universal

three years ago: your daily demon: Haagenti, more medieval remixes, a Star Trek TOS fashion show plus the origin of the asterisk

four years ago: the Triadic Ballet reprised, Super Robot manga, separating texting from emails plus the Rabbrexit tapestry

five years ago: exterior walls of Japan plus a 1950s scrapbook of Moscow

the streisand effect (11. 124)

US teens and young adults are not stanning (the term itself taken rather ironically from an Eminem rap song as a portmanteau of stalker and fan about a fictional encounter with an obsessed, ardent admirer whose pleas to get the artist’s attention turn desperate and deadly and this complex and unsavoury form of adulation has been simplified into shorthand for something short of support and mild interest) terrorist and al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Rather this supposed trend of discovery on the escapingly recent past through bin Laden’s Letter to America is a moral panic triangulated with an unrelenting attack on the TikTok platform for its virality and tenuous connections to the Chinese government and the war in Palestine and generational division, and raises serious questions about how we can (selectively) gauge shares and views and how exposure (propelled in part through censorship and timorous outrage) is different from indoctrination.

8x8 (11. 123)

ałk’idą́ą́’ yádahodiiz’ą́ą́dą́ą́’ yá’áhoníkáándi: an update on Stars Wars dubbed in to the Diné bizaad language of the Navajo people—see previously 

hallucinate: the new meaning of the psychological verb picked for Cambridge dictionaries’ Word of the Year 

chipophone: Vivaldi performed on Commodore instruments—see previously 

wikiwho: guess the person from their Wikipedia biography—via Web Curios  

prisencolinensinainciusol: revisiting the Italo Pop song with nonsense lyrics that was meant to sound like English singing—see previously 

veistospuutarha: the sculpture garden of of Veijo Rönkkönen  

here we observe the sophisticated homo sapiens: an unauthorised David Attenborough voice-clone to narrate one’s daily activities—see also  

life day: a fresh look on the Star Wars Holiday Special on its forty-fifth anniversary 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Hand of Irulegi plus a Soviet moonwalker (1970)

two years ago: another MST3K classic plus assorted links to revisit

three years ago: more links to enjoy, a rebuttal from Nixon (1973) plus St Hugh of Lincoln

four years ago: the Velvet Revolution plus world flags reimagined in the style of Kazakhstan’s 

five years ago: a Japanese view on American history, the mind of a scammer, more links to enjoy plus the Star Wars Holiday Special

edelweiss, edelweiss—every morning you greet me (11. 122)

Opening on Broadway on this day in 1959 after an eight-performance audition cycle in New Haven and Boston, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with book by Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay was based on the 1949 memoir of the matriarch and lead character, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, and the slightly fictionalised adaptation for the stage in set in Austria just before the Anschluss and annexation in 1938, we follow Maria, who vacillating on her decision to join a convent, has meanwhile become a governess to a large family. Maria is endeared to her charges as well as to their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. Opposed to the Nazi occupation, they all (now baroness) eventually flee Salzburg, with the help of the nuns, and escape to America. Musical numbers which have become show-tune standards include “My Favourite Things,” “Climb Every Mountain,” “So Long, Farewell” as well as the titular songs.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the Arecibo Message (1974), an edible rescue drone plus the Artemis mission to return to the Moon

two years ago: the Feast of Saint Matthew

three years ago: Word of the Year: Lockdown, an architectural fancy-dress party, the Day of the Icelandic Language, the day before yesterday plus an early draft of Take on Me

four years ago: Word of the Year: Climate Strike, headlines from 2029 plus ugly Christmas sweaters

five years ago: assorted links to revisit plus Word of the Year: Toxic

that ain’t nothing—just make me your leading man (11. 121)

Our gratitude to Pasa Bon! for the introduction to the musical stylings of King Solomon through the timely and resonant number Political Rag from his 1978 album Energy Crisis (see also). On the touring circuit as an opening act with the likes of B B King, Etta James and Sammy Davis Junior, originally the artist was not much known outside of local venues in Los Angeles and Las Vegas but later gained recognition for his solo career in funk and experimental music. 

 synchronoptica

one year ago:  assorted links worth revisiting  

two years ago: the Free City of Gdańsk

three years ago: more links to enjoy, the Cluttlers Murder (1959) plus Doc “Joe” Baker

four years ago: animated book covers,  more façadism plus the ethnography of dialing-codes

five years ago: Little Orphan Annie (1885) plus the musical stylings of Fugiya and Miyagi

9x9 (11. 120)

temporal excursions: advice for the modern time-travellers thinking about visiting medieval Europe  

once and future: ex-PM David Cameron returns as Sunak’s foreign minister after a cabinet shake-up following the Home Secretary’s incendiary remarks  

ototw: there are over six-thousand ‘on top of the world’ mountains—a peak so high no others in the range can be seen from its summit—we’ve only been to Brocken, I think out of them all  

an aaron spelling production: an appreciation of Arthur Hailey’s Hotel (1983 - 1988) and its parade of guest stars  

the house of tomorrow: Tex Avery’s vision of the smart home seems more user-friendly  

return-to-office: automatic responses from those on a hybrid work-schedule  

carbon-casting: a LEGO-like approach to CO₂ offset and removal at target costs  

brideshead revisited: a new film on the eccentricities of the landed gentry—via Messy Nessy Chic

florantine codex: a sixteenth century ethnography on Mesoamerica and the Aztec culture has been digitalised and made accessible to the public

 synchronoptica

one year ago: The New Musical Express (1952), more Scopitone fun, more on English adjectival order plus assorted links to enjoy

two years ago: the Oort cloud, the Landshut Wedding (1475), more McMansion Hell plus a tale of guided chess

three years ago: the centenary of the BBC, the 2008 G20, paleomixology plus another MST3K classic

four years ago: assorted links to revisit

five years ago: Yale admits women (1968), Nellie Bly’s trip around the world, more on land-use plus social media platforms reimagined on outdated technology