rudelsburg und berg saaleck (13. 877)

The landscape reminding me a lot of the Rhein and the its valleys, particularly for its castles and viniculture, we arrived at our base camp to the explore the Saale-Unstrut region, a part of Germany we’ve regularly passed through but hadn’t devoted much time or attention to previously, finding a spot along the river, behind the limestone escarpments between Bad Kösen and the ruins of the Rudelsburg. Fortified around the mid-ninth century at the commission of a local bishop to secure trade and for border control, like its Hessian counterparts, archeological studies suggest it was the expansion of a defensive settlement occupied since the Bronze Age, the castle was first besieged in 1348 during a territorial dispute in the first documented case of gunpowder in Germany. 

 

No longer regarded as impenetrable, as was the fate with castles in general, it was rebuilt several times over the centuries as a symbol of power, though one expensive to maintain and eventually allowed to fall into disrepair. The masonry of the keep were ordered to be torn down and used for reinforcement elsewhere but a debilitating accident befell the owner, who took his ordered demolition as a bad omen, currying disfavour and decided to the ruins stand, the profile from the sixteenth century more or less remaining to this day, preserved by romantically-minded fraternities from the nearby university cities of Leipzig, Jena and Halle. An enterprising caretaker of the desolate grounds in the 1830s revitalised popular interest after offering food and drink for passing hikers, prompting citizens of the Naumburg to petition the barons von Schönberg to turn it into a official gastronomic destination and venue for visitors. A repast at the Rudelburg by the King Of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, during a large-scale military exercise solidified the locale’s prominence and as a meeting place for students’ corps, a society for tolerance and pacifism that rejected parallel movements during the lead ups to the first and second World Wars. A series of monuments were installed in the mid 1870s, taking a cue of public sentiment following the restoration of the Wartburg, including an obelisk honouring Wilhelm I, the Löwendenkmal in memory of fraternity brothers killed in the wars and young Otto von Bismarck seated with his dog, a early pledge to the society. With many of these memorials facing destruction during the East German era, the group relocated from Bad Kösen and the Rudelberg to Würzburg and the Marienburg.

We took a short hike around the river’s bend to the twin Turme, architecturally related to Schloss Thurant, of Burg Saaleck—erected as a counter-foundation to the neighbouring episcopal, elevated to a knight’s estate before becoming quarry for the farmers of surrounding villages. Ultimately saved by the romanticisation of its neighbour and former foe, Burg Saaleck took a quite different trajectory in modern times after a tower served as the final refugee of the murders of Walther Rathenau, minister of reconstruction of the Weimar Republic and a signatory of the Treaty of Rapallo, in an attempt to overthrow the government—which eventually succeeded—the site became a sort of pilgrimage destination for Nazi-sympathisers but the memorial was removed in 2000 by the local pastor with the help of the Bundeswehr. Hiking trails from the campsite also led to a half-completed bridge over the Saale, a stone marking a ghost birch (no longer there) and the Johannisquelle, the pump-house and mill spring for the baths of Bad Kösen, first discovered in 1725 and covered in an Art Nouveau style pavilion in 1909.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Je t’aime... moi non plus (with synchronoptica), slowing light speed,  more esoteric programming languages, artistic idioms, assorted links to revisit plus the many anniversaries of SNL

two years ago: Texas Chainsaw Massacre plus a last day on the Havel 

three years ago: the death of Pope Pius XII plus more links to enjoy

four years ago: Barbarella (1968), ancient animation, a Coming Out simulator plus a declassified map of nuclear targets

five years ago: the micronation of Rose Island

six years ago: an appreciation of the Smiley Face, a system for coding emotional facial reactions,  St Gummarus plus the debut of Saturday Night Live (1975)

seven years ago: more on the moons of Jupiter plus the better letterer’s corner

eight years ago: päntsdrunk,  more on Coming Out Day, the technical mastery of chindōgu, a moon moon plus The Secret Life of Plants

 

latino sine flexione (13. 876)

Though best known for his contribution to mathematical logic and set theory, standardising the axioms deductive structure for natural numbers, Sardinian professor and glottologist (one who studies how languages evolve and change over time) Giuseppe Peano was also an advocate for international auxiliary languages, like Esperanto and Volapük, and even invented one of his own. Recognising that Latin was already esteemed as the lingua franca among certain communities, Peano pared down the declinations and inflections as much as possible to simplify its grammar whilst retaining its familiar vocabulary. Starting in 1903, Latino minimo was a gradual process and whilst disfavoured by purists and others in Interlingua circles promoting their own conlangs, with only Peano and a few colleagues publishing in simplified Latin, as recently as 2017, Latino sine flexione applied for inclusion under the International Organisation for Standardisation to be assigned the language code ISO 639-2. More from Futility Closet at the link up topp.

day two hundred sixteen (13. 875)

Predictably Trump and Israel denounce the Nobel Committee’s selection of a civil rights lawyer for the Peace Prize, the American president imposing more sanctions on the International Criminal Court—hoping to blunt the justices’ ability to go after US and Israeli war criminals as it is revealed that the American ambassador in Jerusalem has been actively covering up the extent of death and violence in the West Bank. Meanwhile, unconscionably, Trump announces the lifting of all sanctions on Russian diesel, authorising the sale, delivery, offloading and importation through April 2027. Arranging the deal with Putin (allied with Iran), Trump is desperate to bring prices down just before the mid-term elections and betrays Ukraine by opening up this revenue stream for Moscow to allow them to keep prosecuting the war. Europe condemns normalising trade with the pariah nation and Kyiv responds to this development with continued bombings on Russian refineries, bringing into doubt whether Russian can deliver on the tonnage of oil that Trump speaks off—having earlier blamed Zelenskyy for the supply shortage and now hoping to make his lie ring true. Flooding the market may well backfire, after convincing European allies to dip into their statutory reserves that went no where, NATO members may use this opportunity to replenish their emergency supplies, as well as China, whose largess prevented a worse energy shock. It may also cause an imbalance with jet fuel and the lower profit margins in a global market may dissuade oil producers from ramping up production. At a campaign rally in Syracuse, the American president claims that resolutions are “moving along at a rapid speed” and pledges to “win or settle” the conflicts in Iran and in Ukraine soon. A Saudi-led coalition engages in a major offensive against Houthi forces in Yemen. Iran continues to fire on tankers and the US naval blockade has rerouted ships from the Persian Gulf.

synchronoptica

one year ago:  Nobel Peace Prize goes to Venezuelan opposition candidate (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth the revisit

two years ago: a visit to Himmelpfort and Fürstenberg

three years ago: an episode in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war 

four years ago: AI movie posters plus conjuring Swedish nonsense words

five years ago:  more links to enjoy plus Upstairs, Downstairs (1971)

six years ago: revolutionary China, happy birthday to the Candy Bomber, the moon Triton, the role of sharks in vaccines plus coin-op convenience

seven years ago: Dunbar Number, guerilla advertising plus more on noise pollution

eight years ago: more on Osaka’s Expo’70 plus a shopping cart that gauges one’s mood

 

allrbg (13. 874)

Though seemingly in living colour, one’s screens are limited to a palette of sixteen million seven hundred seventy seven two hundred sixteen under the red, green, blue additive model (see also, see previously). Courtesy of ibīdem, we are led to a repository of artwork which aims to exhaustively use all these digital display possibilities pixel by pixel without repetition or omission, some in the gallery apparently grey-scale but only owning to resolution and hue placement. We like admire everything driven by completist compulsives.

jules vernacular (13. 873)

Via Satyr’s Link Roll, we are directed towards this inventory of antique hand-painted and machined lettering of French public signage, a brilliant archive of examples that one can filter and peruse by a range techniques, regional flair and styles from émail to embossage and soupirs (punch-outs) to sablage (funerary fonts). This growing collection with new, brilliant exemplars  and samplers added regularly is a journeyman’s exploration and a genuine catalogue of singular signage has been celebrating popular trends and hyper-local, vernacular aesthetic since 2006, recently revamped to make the archive more accessible.

give me a bouncy c (13. 872)

Though I appreciate musical synthesisers and mixers as a genre of web toys, I admit I don’t have the patience or native talent to stick with a project usually after a few discordant notes.

This exercise in open scoring—courtesy of Web Curios (lots more to explore there)—however, is rather enthralling and one will want to sit with and to listen to the original 1964 minimalist composition by Terry Riley that defined the movement, In C, wherein any number and any kind of instruments (voices and electronic keyboards are welcome too) in an orchestra are directed to play a series of melodic fragments in an improvised way, drawing on traditions of jazz and Indian classical music, with the repetition intended as a way for live musicians to play in the style of tape loops and delays—placing the conductor, in Riley’s description, in a shamanistic, transporting role. One can layer performances and vary the tempo. A bit reminiscent of Ravel’s Boléro for the progression, it was a major influence on Philip Glass and other postminimalists.

pointer party (13. 871)

Speaking of neal.fun, our congratulations to Mr Agarwal and collaborators for winning this year’s Tiny Awards for their hand-rendered, multiplayer summer camp experience that’s a real digital demesne to poke around in and a place to get-away that’s not trying to monetise anything. Check out the honourable mentions and the archives of this celebration of the inspired, small, poetic, handmade web, exactly the sort of thing we need much more of.

day two hundred sixteen (13. 870)

South African jurist who fought apartheid and called out Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Navi Pillay, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Saudi Arabia suspends commercial air traffic following deadly attacks on the capital’s airport by Houthi rebels as forces vie for control of the Yemen. The Revolutionary Guard strike more tankers attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Hurricane Isaias intensifies en route to US gulf coast. Former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schröder attends Putin’s birthday party as the scope of the treachery at the BND is still unfolding.  Secretary of war Hegseth announces that the execution by firing squad of the former US army major who killed thirteen fellow soldiers in 2019 will be live-streamed for the public. Trump reverses his earlier calls to bomb Iran before the midterms, the American president now saying he will wait until after the elections.