malchow (12.646)

The island settlement central to Slavic paganism up until the twelfth century and the forced conversions of the Wendish and Polabian crusades—hence the dominant Cistercian cloister facing from the mainland (once a retreat for noble women, the former abbey and nunnery is now an organ museum—see also), Malchow straddles the Müritz and the Plauer See with Altstadt connected to a spit of land by a unique draw bridge that swings out hourly to accommodate boat and canoe traffic.

We took a nice stroll through the town, and like other urban areas here, bicycles and pedestrians are very much privileged over cars.

During World War II, it was the location of a dynamite factory of Alfred Nobel Company (the major industry beforehand was towel making) and forced labour was drawn from the nearby concentration camp at Ravensbrück.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus the invention of hip-hop

twelve years ago: the Prelinger map collection, more flea market finds plus introducing tolls to German roads

thirteen years ago: tending orchids, parishes of trees plus the EU is not the United States of Europe

fourteen years ago: a hotel room in a drainage tube plus the devolution of democracy

fifteen years ago: wildfires in Russia plus geocaching with vintage photos

waren (müritz) (12. 645)

Arriving in the town—not so ancient as its first documented mention suggests by geographer Ptolemy as Virunium, Slavic for the place of crows, the lake‘s name comes from the Wendish meaning German sea, as it was leveled and rebuilt during a succession of wars and revolutions and takes its present form preserving some of the Altstadt after public outcry during DDR times when the city was partially demolished as part of a modernisation effort as one of the four Soviet ballistic theatre nuclear depots in East Germany, Темп-С short range missiles banned under treaties that outlawed intermediate range warheads.

The successful protest to conserve a part of the historic character of Waren (as framed from the marina between the churches of Saint George and Mary)—prior to reunification—was considered a landmark achievement and had lasting repercussions into the future with other preservation and reconstruction programmes, the city’s uneasy balancing act between industry and nature eventually resolved and the place restored as a wellness resort (Kurort) and gateway to the lake district (Mecklenburgerisch Seenplatte). We found a nice pitch at the entrance of the national park in the forest on the shore of lake Müritz, named after the quarter Ecktannen on the outskirts of town.

synchronoptica

one year ago: social media platform formerly known as Twitter suing advertisers for leaving (with synchronopticæ), assorted links worth the revisit plus more isometric renderings

thirteen years ago: buying banking data, werewolf crossing plus bespoke luggage labels

fourteen years ago: a visit to Dresden 

fifteen years ago: corporate bail-outs 

sixteen years ago: agents of the apocalypse  

markkleeberger see (12. 644)

For the first leg of our return camping trip after many, many years to the Mecklinbergischer Seeplatte, we took another campsite on the Leipziger Neuseenland–this time in Auerhain on the southwest coast.

like the other lakes of this resort region, it is a flooded lignite mining operation and was developed for Leipzig‘s bid for 2012 Olympics–around the time that potential venues were realising the onus of hosting the games which had become more of a showcase and prestige project for despots and authoritarians, ultimately awarded to London. Built to specifications as a whitewater and slalom standards, like Germany‘s first for the 1972 Games, the facility now boasts a marina for canoeing enthusiasts as well as professional training for the national team with attendant obstacle course as well as standing waves for surfing practise.

synchronoptica

one year ago: more on teletext pages (with synchropoticæ) plus US vice presidents’ day

twelve years ago: August holidays and observances

fifteen years ago: visa requirements for travel 

sixteen years ago: more flea-market finds 

6x6 (12, 643)

levi strauss waltz: fledging Jefferson Airplane’s commercials for blue jeans 

moral high-ground: despite what justice we might entrust to AI, ethics remain a human responsibility  

whittle: a reductive word challenge—via Web Curios  

keygen.exe: the soundtrack of internet piracy  

si te fata ferunt, fer fata, ferere: the inscribed joists of Montaigne’ tower of his favourite classical aphorisms   

the cube: Jim Henson’s experimental 1969 teleplay for NBC

oh by jingo(12. 642)

Released on this day in 1964, the novelty single by The Young World Singers amid the race between the LBJ-Barry Goldwater-George Wallace (previously) urged people to vote for Ringo Starr for US president. Charting on Billboard’s Top 100 during the Republican convention with a concerted write-in campaign for the potential fourth spoiler candidate (Starr ineligible by dent of his being a British subject), it is unclear if their well-organised contingent had any political impact, most fans and supporters of the Beatles’ drummer “who didn’t talk about war” being under the age of twenty-one and not yet able to vote. Perhaps however it did in a small part influence the decision to lower the voting age to that of conscription and Johnson’s later decision not to seek the Democrat nomination for the 1968 election and a second term.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Laverne and Shirley billing (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: the search for past life on Mars plus budgetary woes 

8x8 (12. 641)

practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking: the Art Room Plant presents multiple vignettes on author PL Travers and her most famous character, Mary Poppins  

savage garden: this year’s Edward Gorey envelope art competition has a sinister botanic theme—see previously—via Web Curios 

catsup and fries: potatoes evolved from tomatoes 

🌀: a two-part episode on tempestology—the study of hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones

drowned in sound: reflections on the current state of music discovery and serendipity in general 

liberation day: Trump’s tariffs go into effect—see more hapax: a project tracking every unique English word uttered on Bluesky, including those yet to be used—via Waxy  

society for the protection of underground networks: SPUN has created a subterranean global atlas to map the mycorrhizal connections (previously) under our feet that support the ecosystem above  

傘: the spiritual underpinnings of the umbrella in Japanese society

obedience to authority (12. 640)

Begun on this day in 1961, the eponymous battery of social psychological experiments were conducted under the supervisor of Yale professor Stanly Milgram (previously) in order to gauge the willingness of test subjects to compile with instructions that conflicted with conscience and empathy. Made to believe that they were facilitators, administering electric shocks to a student to reenforce desired behaviours, the participants demonstrated a concerning eager inclination to better the performance of their assigned learners (a rote memorisation exercise) and deliver electric shocks with increasing intensity in order to marshal their faculties. In reality the punishing discharge was fictitious, delivered via a device labeled Shock Generator, Type ZLB with output from fifteen to four hundred fifty volts, well above the fatal limit, and the students were confederates of the experimenter, but nonetheless illustrating readiness to conform, despite some misgivings and signs of reservation for the distress caused with none of those refusing to give the highest level shock insisting that the experiment be stopped or bothering to check on their students. A test-case for research ethics, most responded after learning of the set-up that they were happy to have contributed and the experiment with variations has been replicated numerous time. Held in the milieu of the trial of Adolf Eichmann for war crimes in Jerusalem and the draft for Vietnam, Milgram wanted to determine if millions of German accomplices were simply following orders in genocide. The unexpected results of the first iteration, wanting to use American students as the control group and considering obedience to an authority figure to be a distinctly Teutonic trait, stopped Milgram from subjecting a group of German students, whom might well have been much more sympathetic to the plight of the “learners” due to recent history, to the same conditions. Ultimately inconclusive, reevaluation of the tests find some heuristic value but a poor lens for understanding the Holocaust and Nazism. 

 synchronoptica

one year ago: retroactive statehood for Ohio (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: promoting a vegetarian diet plus an exhibition from the Hessen state archives

thirteen years ago: the pictograms of the Mexican Games of 1968 

10x10 (12. 639)

we don’t serve their kind here: “clanker” from the Star Wars franchise has become a universal slur for robots 

jeanine, you’ve changed: a thread about how a consultancy firm in 1987 was responsible for making late 80s and 90s cartoon characters bland and unanimated—via Super Punch 

retrospective: an interview with photographer Dennis Morris whose expansive portfolio of music royalty and documentation of the East End offer a correspondence and symmetry  

do you take this burger to be your dinner: the return after a long hiatus shows that King of the Hill was always about food 

regolith: former reality TV star, Fox News anchor and acting NASA administrator (plus also US Secretary of Transportation) announces the acceleration of the building of a lunar nuclear reactor, as well as freeing commercial drones from line-of-sight supervisor requirements 

ásatrúarfélagið: the resurgence of Norse paganism in Iceland 

bakeneko: superstition and myth regarding cats in Japanese culture—via Nag on the Lake and Everlasting Blört—see previously, see also 

hamburger royal ts: some facts about the McDonald’s Quarter-Pounder  

just another way to claim our attention, so that beautiful certainty we had starts to fade: set in 1984 California during Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign, the critically polarising 1990 Vineland by Thomas Pynchon (previously) speaks to the present 

flivverboob: a 1922 slur for a careless driver that didn’t not seem to catch on