resume your seat, little sister—i want you to stay fresh and pretty—for gentlemen callers (11. 217)

Premiering in Chicago on this day in 1944, Tennessee Williams’ (previously) first critically successful work propelled the playwright to stardom from relative obscurity. The memory play which includes strong autobiographical elements—excusing the unreliable narrator—recalls the trials of the Wingfield family, an absent and abusive father, a faded southern belle of a mother, a long-suffering son that supports them in his St Louis apartment with a dull job at a shoe warehouse and his older sister, a painfully shy individual with a slight disfigurement from a childhood illness and retreats into her own world of fragile figurines. With Tennessee Williams popping up frequently, I am realising that a lot of what I used to think about mental health and its aberrations was informed by such histrionics and wonder if anyone else was similarly influenced.  Despite its long runs and revival and many radio and television adaptations, it was only made into a film twice—once in 1950, with Jane Wyman and Kirk Douglas, and then again in 1987, directed by Paul Newman and starring Karen Allen, Joanne Woodward, James Naughton and John Malkovich.

cut the flowers (11. 216)

Never failing to far exceed expectations and always delivers, DJ Earworm (see previously) releases his annual United States of Pop mashup—which is more of an exercise in triangulation as a third, hybrid song and lyrics emerges from each combination from the catalogue of the top twenty-five most popular hits of the past twelve months.  The Taylor Swift compositions are especially enjoyable but do give the whole album a listen and seek out the 2009 edition—you won’t be disappointed.

synchronoptica

one year ago: another MST3K classic,  AI does weird Christmas cards, a gig-worker’s Christmas Carol plus Greek Christmas goblins

two years ago: the Feast of the Holy Family,  a hit from Fine Young Cannibals plus 2021 in photos

three years ago: The Exorcist (1973), assorted links to revisit, psychogeography plus Boxing Day

five years ago: a portrait of a young blogger plus more links to enjoy

sit down and shut-up, will ya? try not to live up to all of my expectations (11. 215)

Garnering multiple awards and accolades and considered among the best screenplays ever written, the George Roy Hill directed caper—having earlier used the same principals in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, premiered on Christmas day in 1973, the Robert Redford and Paul Newman vehicle centres around a complicated plan by two grifters (inspired by a duo actual confidence tricksters, Charlie and Fred Gondorff), nearly foiled by the FBI, to con an organised crime boss out of a half-a-million dollars. Set in the mid-1930s, it features old-fashioned interstitial title cards and the music of Scott Joplin, causing a resurgence in the interest in ragtime.

basaltwerk stengerts (11. 214)

For a grey but bright Christmas day, we ventured past the industrial section of Bischofsheim an der Rhön to explore the former basalt refinery and quarry (see previously here, here and here), active for decades but now abandoned and designated as a nature preserve. The wind was a bit fierce and the trees bare but the moss covering the stones was a vibrant green.  Once containing an active settlement for workers, the volcanic rock used for construction and the making of cobblestones as well as more recently insulation as stone wool and a possible repository for carbon sequestration, were taken to the freight yard with a cable car and distributed throughout the region.

reductio ab hitlerum (11. 213)

DC attorney and author Mike Godwin who made the eponymous observation in 1990—an inevitable hyperbole that the originator never expected to have so much currency—that the longer an online political discussion grows, invocations of Nazis approaches one hundred percent as commentary of rhetorical excesses. After years of cross-breeding in the wilds of the internet, the maxim framed slightly differently by philosopher Leo Strauss earlier as a fallacy that we would now recognise as whataboutism (playing the Nazi card), Godwin, in deference to Strauss’ construction and in light of recent the recent, revitalised vitriol of Trump rallies—calling his political enemies vermin and poisoning the blood of the nation, detention camps and promises to only be dictator for a day, encourages interlocutors to play the trump card not as a discussion stopper but rather as an alarm and conversation starter.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the first Nativity Scene

two years ago: a white Christmas, the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, Gorbachev resigns (1991) plus deciphering the shorthand of Charles Dickens

three years ago: Seasons Greetings plus Voyage, Voyage

four years ago: Celestial Greetings, Unwords of the Year plus AI Christmas carols 

five years ago: Martian rovers

the shot (11. 212)

With echoes of this other accidental Renaissance painting of New Year’s revelry captured by Joel Goodman on the streets of Manchester in 2015, this scene captured by Dimitris Legakis in Swansea on the Friday before Christmas recalls to some students of art history the lifeboat ensemble from The Raft of the Medusa, the visceral depiction of the writhing survivors of the tragic and scandalous wrecking of a frigate off the coast of Mauritania in 1816—which by foreshortening the tumult of figures on this massive canvas by Théodore Géricault appear more than life-sized.

aïda (11. 211)

When originally approached by the Ottoman Pasha Isma’il of the Khedive of Egypt to produce an opera celebrating the opening of the Suez Canal—see also, Giuseppe Verdi declined. Later, however, presented a libretto set sometime in the Old Kingdom, a stretch of three millennia, by famed French Egyptologist and archeological authority Auguste Mariette, the composer ultimately conceded. Delayed by the ongoing Franco-Prussian War (see above) that prevented the elaborate scenery and costumes from being shipped from Paris, the opera eventually debuted in Cairo on this day in 1871. Egyptians forces have captured the titular Ethiopian princess and her captor, military commander Radamès, is caught in a love triangle with the pharaoh’s daughter, whose affections go unrequited, his desire for his prisoner and loyalty to his king and country. One of the most famously choreographed scenes is the Grand March from act II, below, when Radamès enters triumphantly, the chorus chanting “Gloria all’Egitto, ad Iside (Glory to Egypt and to Isis),” through the Gates of Thebes and is granted anything he wishes as a reward for his services.

✨seasons greetings✨ (11. 210)

 

As we take a brief pause for station identification, we here at PfRC wish you and yours all good things and the biggest, brightest little Christmas yet. Thanks for visiting and take care of one another, and we look forward to seeing you all again real soon. Happy holidays!

synchronoptica 

one year ago: the Time and Place of Joy

two years ago: the Feast of Adam and Eve, clear and present danger plus an incredible story of survival

three years ago: Nittel Nacht plus an assassination attempt on Napoleon (1800)

four years ago: Castlevania on a rotating cube plus more Chinese text-messaging shorthand

five years ago: Earthrise (1968),  a festive mashup plus Silent Night (1818)