In light of recent toasting and cheering and an earlier post on translation of popular lyrics, we enjoyed learning about the Japanese verses inserted into the Robert Burns’ poem made into a New Year’s tradition. 
Initially used for a completely separate purpose, Hotaru no Hikari (The Glow of a Firefly, ่ใฎๅ
) set to the tune of the Scottish folk song was used for school matriculations and graduations and played also as outro music at shops and restaurants to signal closing time for customers, a few lines from this other composition in Japanese are added to Auld Lange Syne to ring in the New Year. Much more at Language Log at the link above including various performances of the different versions.
Tuesday, 2 January 2024
and surely ye’ll be your pint-cup and surely i’ll be mine (11. 238)
splendid china (11. 237)
The thirty-hectare property in Four Corners Florida now host to the Margaritaville Resort, it was a 
originally developed as a miniature park in 1993 featuring scenery and monuments of the mainland was first conceived by a former educator from Taiwan after the successful prototype in Shenzhen outside of Hong Kong. That same year the attraction was taken over by the travel and tourism branch of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, eventually ousting the founders and was accused of becoming an instrument of propaganda, with protests ensuing over the new exhibitions on Tibet, Mongolia and Eastern Turkistan and a ban on school field trips to the site in the proximity of Disney World. The miniatures were looted after its closure a decade after its founding. More at Weird Universe at the link above, including a video tour of the grounds from 1996.
common parlance (11. 236)
The University of Michigan Lake Superior campus, continuing a longstanding tradition began in 1976, issues its annual listing for the coming year of words and phrased that are overused and have become otherwise hackneyed and deserving of retirement if not out right banning. It’s not prescriptive of course but something to think about in one’s own writing. Terms include hack, impact, slay, cringe-worthy and iconic. Does anyone say these words anymore? What do you think? The jury also nominated the word rizz—the OED’s pick for Word of the Year, which I suppose is still in circulation.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a vast directory of 1990s design, assorted links to revisit plus an annual list of banished words
two years ago: more links to enjoy plus Eddie Calvert and Orchestra
three years ago: Z Cars (1962), more links worth revisiting plus St Berchtold’s Day
four years ago: more planetary symbols, airport codes, the Acropolis of Athens plus more Happy Hues
five years ago: a Bezold effect illusion, Luna I (1959) plus quilting and circuitry
Monday, 1 January 2024
spoiler alert (11. 235)
Turning our attention to past movies set in the then future of our present (hopefully not prophetic), the first round goes to the 1975 darkly, problematically comedic post-apocalyptic adaptation of the Harlan Ellison novella of the same name. A teenager portrayed by Don Johnson (Miami Vice) scavenges through the wastelands of the US southwest following a nuclear war accompanied by his telepathic dog (voiced by Tim McIntire). Orphaned at an early age with no formal education or socialisation, the adolescent is focused on survival, interested solely in food and sex—conquests secured with the aid of his canine companion in exchange for meals as the genetic modifications that bestowed super-intelligence leaves him incapable of tasks like hunting. After numerous run-ins with bandits, mutants and rogue androids, the teenager is eventually recruited by an aristocratic scout of a subterranean colony as a stud to help with low viable breeding population. A preview and links to the whole movie available at Weird Universe above. Most other selections seemed to be based in 2024 for purely arbitrary reasons and only two to three years behind when they were produced—with the exception of the 1999 Josef Rusnak and Roland Emmerich 
vehicle that was overshadowed by the similarly themed Matrix and was a victim to the strange echo-phenomena of “twin films”that sometimes happens in Hollywood (due to screenplay shopping and submission to multiple studios, industrial secrecy and espionage), like the asteroid flicks Armageddon and Deep Impact, Dante’s Peak and Volcano, 1981’s The Howling, Wolfen and An American Werewolf in London, Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, or on stage Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. A multibillion dollar computer company in then present-day Los Angeles is experimenting with a virtual reality simulation of the city in 1937 populated by individuals unaware that they are part of a program. Entering the simulation in order to solve the mysterious death of the company CEO, the protagonist and heir to the enterprise (and a prime suspect) finds clues that lead to the revelation that thousands of parallel virtual worlds exist but there is only one reality whose inhabitants have developed a virtual world of their own, but having a pocket metaverse within another does not necessarily result in privilege or insight. The protagonist disconnects and emerges into reality advanced a quarter of a century.
rest in power (11. 234)
Continuing a long-standing tradition, Chris the Barker (previously) has made another Sgt Pepper’s style collage as a tribute and remembrance to those who have passed in 2023, updated until the last minute and reaching back all the way to the beginning of the year lest we forget any legends lost. It’s a crowded assembly to reflect on and features a key—also in the style of the album’s liner notes. Pee-wee Herman, Dame Edna, Sinรฉad O’Connor, Tina Turner, and Jane Birkin feature prominently but also includes political figures and cross-over moguls like Silvio Berlusconi, Jerry Springer and Gina Lollobrigida as well as Bobi, the oldest dog ever, and the Sycamore Gap tree who get their visual obituaries. Shared on X, we can’t locate a reference to the death of Twitter on the cover however.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a new addition to the family plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: St Telemachus, the umbrella patented, Hearts of Space, rogue waves plus Dinner for One
three years ago: making it through 2020, your daily demon: Ose, a Scooby Doo clone, the Julian calendar plus the launch of VH1 (1985)
four years ago: welcoming 2020, Unix time plus Star Wars on a synthesiser
five years ago: ringing in 2019, banning single-use plastics, generated automobiles plus more on Ultima Thule
six years ago: more welcoming the New Year, the corrugated sculptures of Warren King plus artful thinking
Sunday, 31 December 2023
don’t crash the pips (11. 232)
Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, on this day in 1923 BBC sound engineering AG Dryland, not allowed access to the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster, climbed onto a rooftop opposite the Houses of Parliament to with a microphone and transmitted the bongs of Big Ben at the stroke of midnight live, in a tradition that’s occurred with few but notable interruptions since. A few weeks later, the Greenwich time signal began accompanying the chimes on broadcasts at the top of the hour.
la montaรฑa sagrada or a funny thing happened on the way to enlightenment (11. 231)
Via a New Year’s obscure filmic tradition, we are re-introduced to the spectacle of Alejandro Jodorwsky’s (previously) 1973 Holy Mountain and considering a re-watch. The sacrilegious, surrealistic movie produced by Beatles manager Allen Klein with financial backing of John Lennon and Yoko Ono relates the narrative of a thief marketed as Jesus returned and collaborates with an alchemist (played by Jodorwsky) to transmogrify and transfix himself along with a constellation of characters representing the 
houses of the zodiac, ultimately breaking the fourth wall and give up this quest. Prior to filming, principal cast members underwent three months of spiritual training drawn from various practises including the I Ching, yoga, Zen Buddhism and the Kabbalah as well as communal living prescribed dosages of LSD and psilocybin. After premiering in Cannes, the Holy Mountain was screened in limited-release in New York and San Francisco in November and was not widely available until three decades later.
