222 west 23rd (11. 835)

The historic Queen Anne Revival accommodations in the Manhattan neighbourhood of Chelsea was originally a housing cooperative through the early 1980s before being gentrified into its present form, and the residential hotel was home to many up-and-coming luminaries until such time, including Jack Kerouac, Andy Warhol, Sherwood Anderson, Henri Chopin, Quentin Crisp, Ethan Hawke, Miloš Forman, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Marian Faithfull, Bette Milder, Isabella Rosallini, Eddie Izzard, Jane Fonda and numerous others. In 2011, we learn, a lesser-known but long-term resident, Jim Georgiou and his dog Teddy, was evicted for failing to pay his rent and was temporarily unhoused. The following year during renovations on the building, he saw construction workers tossing out some of the old, white-washed and graffitied doors, which Georgiou managed to salvage and research, connecting them to the suites of different neighbours. After years of work, fifty-two doors were auctioned off, with the proceeds going to organisations that help New York City’s homeless in 2018.

teatro della marionette (11. 834)

Having recently returned from a trip to Lago Maggiore and visiting the island adjacent to Isola Bella—though not having ventured there ourselves—we enjoyed this dispatch on one of the lesser known treasures of Palazzo Borromeo in its nineteenth century puppet theatre (see also), resuming a tradition of entertainmentsthat waned with the death of prince and patron Viraliano VI in 1690, with an exquisite ensemble of wooden actors, elaborate sets and staging from the ridiculous to sublime with witty and sophisticated scripts in the home’s library. The playhouse has undergone periods of neglect and upheaval, including when it was commandeered as a guardhouse by Mussolini during the Stresa Conference (the 1935 one between delegates from the UK and France that re-affirmed the Treaty of Locarno to prevent future wars and not the cheese summit) but the historic collection was always loving conserved by the family. Much more at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Blob (with synchronoptica)

six years ago: open tabs, assorted links worth revisiting plus flying-screen choreography

seven years ago: mushrooms at the museum, more links to enjoy, updating the leader board plus Germany votes

eight years ago: a dark matter galaxy plus fantasy sub-cultures

nine years ago: an usually named concert coordinator plus untamed water

eleven years ago: nouns that exist only in their plural form

skylines and turnstiles (11. 833)

Witnessing the collapse of the World Trade Towers whilst walking to work in Manhattan to his job as a comic book artist, later frontman Gerard Way was inspired to turn to music (see also), forming the band My Chemical Romance, the name suggested by Way’s younger brother from the title of Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh’s novella Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance. The band garnered their fanbase by releasing tracks on MySpace before being discovered and signed with a record label. Arguably the pinnacle of their success, the band’s 2006 album (the lead single released on the fifth anniversary of 9/11) Welcome to the Black Parade was hugely popular and received several accolades, including significantly controversy and resulting moral panic over their promotion of “emo cult of self-harm” for their frank discussions of mental health and balanced but bleak portrayal of the world. We’ll carry on.

i’ve been to many zoos, folks, but biden’s dog must pay the price for eating my concepts of a plan (11. 832)

Maura Quint’s transcript of the US presidential debate, “The One with the Tackle and the Bait,” is worth reading in full but we especially liked these closing remarks by Trump: “I don’t like her. She’s mean, everyone in here is mean. This is a failing nation that I’m in charge of, and I think I should run against Biden, who is dead. Where is he? We don’t see him. Is he with the Ghostbusters now, you know that one ghost, very sexy, very nice ghost taking the pants off, and they were very mean to the marshmallows, weren’t they? Very mean. I would like to wish everyone, including all haters and losers, of which, sadly, there are many, a truly happy and enjoyable debate. Oh, look, it’s Taylor Swift coming on stage. She loves me.”

your lumberyard awaits, my lord (11. 831)

Reminiscent of this parody of the experience of visiting a website in contemporary times, we are directed—via Waxy—to SEO king’s House of Blog Monetisation. Scroll slowly to experience the accelerating rewards one gets for reading a post to its conclusion, made all the more cloying since we’re apt to abandon any article after three to ten seconds, having I guess got it already. No one clicks the ads on purpose.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the healing acoustics of Hoover Dam, the first fatalities with flying cars (with synchronoptica), B-PoTY plus Canadian scrutinies its civil servants

seven years ago: more data breaches plus honest Latin mottos for your alma mater

eight years ago: Wisconsin’s House on the Rock and related collections, the EU Day of Open Monuments, a bike tour through Bad Kissingen, purple flavours plus assault by algorithm

nine years ago: off to the Italian lake district 

ten years ago: Roman outposts

7x7 (11. 830)

cat lives matter: US vice presidential candidate JD Vance propagating false and inflammatory rumours about migrants abducting and eating family pets 

beany leeky greens with greeky rampy beans: recipes and foodways becoming a bit less twee, more straightforward—via tmn  

an agony, in eight fits: James Earl Jones (RIP) reads Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark  

may the gods give you everything you asked for: backhanded benedictions and predictions about what AI does next 

 esh: how AITA took over the internet

a melodrama in three acts: Five Star Finale and other pre-code screenplay original sources  

crowd size: Harris-Walz campaign advertisement airing on Fox News

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: silphium, more on the Voynich Manuscript plus a visit to Trump’s ancestral home

eight years ago: Birobidzhan oblast,  fantasy doubles tennis plus the 1970 movie The Phynx

nine years ago: more links to enjoy 

ten years ago: WWI periodicals a century on 

holidays are jollidays (11. 829)

Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we are directed to a retrospective exhibition of nostalgic photographer John Wilfrid Hinde whose carefully staged compositions influenced the style of picture postcards made famous through his commissioned series of Butlin’s holiday camps from the 1960s through the early 70s. Founded by Billy Butin in 1936 after a frustrating stay at a bed-and-breakfast in Wales during which he found himself locked out of the accommodations by his landlady during the day (common practise at the time) and was inspired to create seaside resort destinations that were affordable or the working-class with plenty of amenities and excitement. During the immediate post-war period, they were extremely popular with the franchise spreading across Britain, Ireland and the Bahamas but succumbed in the 1970s and 1980s to cheap package holidays to the Mediterranean. Most of the facilities are closed and long demolished or repurposed (see previously), with a few exceptions like the pictured pool lounge of Bognor Regis, but all the parks with attractions like heated pools, monorails, gondolas, sports facilities, stages for theatrical performances and rides but have a living legacy in the millions of postcards meticulously framed by Hinde.

subway surfer (11. 828)

Though arguably in the general case a bigger assault on our concentration and aimed for the low-attention span audience, the TikTok split-screen technique, when correctly deployed, like this superb bit of juxtaposition from the Harris-Walz campaign, courtesy of Kottke, that pits GOP taking-points on abortion and other parts of their platform with a video game speed-run, is a remedy for those suffering from Trump and election reporting fatigue—not to promote those views but to engage those averse to any news about the Republican ticket who’s default is to zone out and listen to the dangerous and weird things that they have to say.

@kamalahq

oof

♬ original sound - Kamala HQ