synchronoptic
one year ago: the continuing voyages of Star Trek: The Animated Series, the Watergate Break-In (1972), plus assorted links worth revisiting
two years ago: Iceland makes it easier to change one’s matronymic, patronymic and gender markers, the introduction of ASCII (1963), Sons of Kemet, plus calendar conventions
three years ago: the East German Uprising of 1953, the US judiciary’s agenda against LGBTQ+ individuals, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1953), plus a Prayer for Reliefsister act: a serendipitous find of a bawdy collection of Renaissance era songs leads to a trove of research on bad nuns
slow tv: Pennsylvania governor sets up a live stream so the public can view the progress on rebuilding the main traffic artery (previously) the eastern seaboard whichcraft: a look at the usage and abusage of the relative pronoun
⛩️: an urban exploration of Toyko’s hidden Shinto shrines
freshies: a look at what’s on the menu at the South Pole and other in-person observations (see previously)—via Strange Company
gullinhjatlti: stunning three-thousand year old bronze sword unearthed in Nรถrdlingen
oude doolhof: a a late Renaissance labyrinthine pleasure garden on the outskirts of Amsterdam
Via the always excellent Web Curios, we are referred to a genuinely clever idea, too bad it only ships from Australia, in basically an open frame hamster ball for fowl friends in this product called the Chicken Orb as we’ve been thinking about maybe adding one or more to the family—and we can’t really fence in the entire backyard and there are foxes on the prowl (but no dingos), though couldn’t say whether this would also afford protection. The dog seems rather tame with the ducks and geese in the pond and could foresee this sort of enclosure working on at least that level too. What do you think? Should we give it a try?
Founded on this day in 1982 as an alternative, satirisation of British politics and the party system to offer an outlet for protest voters, the recognised and sanctioned candidacy founded by horror-rock performer David Sutch—known better as Screaming Lord Sutch—the Official Monster Raving Loony grew out of a trialled political movement (also established by Sutch two decades earlier) called the National Teenage Party, at a time when the age of majority was twenty-one and younger adults were denied the franchise against a backdrop of scandal that questioned the maturity level and seriously strained the credulity of leaders, having decided to return to the UK after living in the States, being held-up at gunpoint and shot during a mugging and inspired to re-enter domestic politics, standing in the following by-election in the constituency of Bermondsey of South London. 
Fielded serially until 1999, the party leadership was shared between co-founder, publican and first candidate Howling Laud Hope and his feline companion Catmando and campaigned on platforms including abolishing income-tax as a holdover from the Napoleonic Wars, passports for pets (adopted), expanded opening hours for pubs (adopted), votes for sixteen-year-olds (adopted in Scotland and Wales for certain ballots), minting a ninety-nine pence coin, and a roving Parliament to bring it outside its bubble. Though having not yet passed the threshold of five-percent in a general election, the party has won in contests in Devon, becoming councillors and mayors, out performing others such as UKIP, taking an ostensibly neutral stand on Brexit and advising voters “to vote as they see fit.” Unaffiliated originally yet subsequently allied, Lord Buckethead famously ran against Margaret Thatcher in 1987, returning in 2017 to compete with Theresa May as MP for Maidenhead and in 2019’s General Election, against Boris Johnson as OMLRP’s candidate.
Seriously damaged during an act of vandalism on this day in 1985 in its home at the Hermitage in St Petersburg but fully brought back after over a decade of careful restoration, the work by Rembrandt (previously) 
features a life-sized depiction of the mother of Perseus, presumably when Zeus transformed “himself into a shower of gold and visited her—visited her and loved her,” the Argive princess locked away in resplendent but isolating chamber with no entrance or egress, save a skylight, to prevent a prophesy delivered to her father King Acrisius that his grandson would kill him, ultimately unable to thwart his fate when at a homecoming games celebrated for the demigod’s triumphs, he accidentally strikes Acrisius in the head when throwing a discus. Originally executed in 1536, the artist undertook some major revisions to the monumental piece, scaling down the canvas to make it more marketable, too big for all but the grandest of settings at two-and-a-half by three metres, and changing the face from its original model’s likeness, Saskia van Uylenburgh, his wife, to that of Geertje Dircx, his son’s caretaker and mistress.
seo arms race: ploys for attention bifurcate the internet marketplace—one for humans and the other for robots
please have your boarding pass and identification ready: an appreciation of departure soundtracks of airliners—via Things Magazine
musical tangents: a genius, deranged mashup compilation—via Waxy dynasty x: the world’s first curated, public museum established by Babylonian Princess and High Priestess Ennigaldi-Nanna, rediscovered in 1925, had a collection of artefacts as far removed from its time as Ur was from ours
literal lexical calques: a new Spanish-English dialect emerges in southern Florida
nada: car dealer trade group writing state legislation prohibiting factory sales, requiring manufacturers to work with middlemen—more here
convergent evolution: Nature keeps making crabs and scientists aren’t sure why—via Kottke
phrygian mode: Ancient Roman popular music
unfulfilled: Amazon’s predatory cycle is transforming the EU into a planned economy
On this day, the anniversary of King John putting his seal to the Magna Carta in 1215, BBC Reel invites us to 
explore another feature among the ensemble of monuments in the watery meadow in Surrey which represents the only territory of the US in the UK—the British memorial for American president John F Kennedy, dedicated in 1965, two years after the tragic assassination, by Queen Elizabeth II and Jacqueline Kennedy. Sensing the affinity between this spot and the ideal of democracy set forth in the US Constitution, the tablet and landscaped park with a mediative ascent of fifty steps representing the states was designed by architect Geoffrey Jellicoe. Learn more at the links above.
synchronoptic
one year ago: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (1972), the monkey puzzle tree plus Happy Bloomsday
two years ago: Durgan script, the mysterious notebook of Jean Fick, a visual chronology of the New York Times, the Rashomon Effect plus another MST3K classic, Pod People
three years ago: trends in house numbers, the first woman in space (1963), renaming US military bases plus Happy Captain Picard Day
Coined by the director of the Kunsthalle Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, art critic and curator, as a counter-movement to expressionism and introduced to the public on this day in 1925 as an exhibition hosted in his gallery, “New Objectivity”—which can also be translated as the New Resignation, Dispassion or Matter-of-Factness—is seen as rejection of romantic idealism and the promotion of pragmatic cooperation and a return to order, post World War I. Featured artist included Otto Dix, Carl Grossberg, Max Beckmann and Jeanne Mammen. Its influence is also found in the gritty realism of films of those years just prior to the rise of Nazism and in the architecture of Hans Poelzig, Bruno Taut and others. The movement ended in 1933 with the ascent of the Nazi dictatorship and was condemned as degenerate art.
