spectral analysis

It is rather hard to imagine any reasonable person thinking that the cadet line of the American Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration, is doing anything laudable or advisable, excepting perhaps the airlines themselves, since all the complaints and furor directed towards the TSA detract from their own faults and price-gouging—them and maybe the research firms that would have liked to have peddled this sort equipment to dismantled NASA. Still, I find it incredible after effectively delivering the expectation that one will be subjected to bad touches and a potentially dangerous yet ineffective dose of radiation that virtually strips ones clothes—not to mention being subjugated to all sorts of ridicule—all in the name of security theatre and the suspension of disbelief, the brain-trust of the organization thinks it advisable pursuing the opportunity to blast, indiscriminately, passengers with an ion cannon to answer long abiding mysteries, like the general mood and stress level of the average frequent and infrequent flier. Surely scanning crowds and queues for the chemical detritus that is the manifestation of how much they’re cowed and frustrated will yield some false positives, despite any number of field-tests for fine-tuning that probably won’t stop with the airport terminal. Anyway, this sales pitch rings hollow, like the bulk of theatrics and schemes that the government buys into.

aughts and überlieferte

A few months ago, H found a gorgeous hard-bound programme documenting and profiling the Oberammergau Passion Play of 1910, and later I spied a copy of the booklet from the 1922 performance. The tradition of staging an extravagant passion play that everyone in the community takes part in dates back to 1633, when blighted by plague and failing crops, village elders pledged to commit to such a spectacle once a decade, should the villagers be spared. That tradition has continued, this notable delays, ever since—most recently in 2010. The two programmes may have been printed as keepsakes for different audiences and it really does not matter about the poshness of the leaflets, though the bound edition with photographs and illustrations is very different from the other, text only on whitey-brown paper—just that the show does go on, but after looking at the two together and wondering about the twelve year span, it was fascinating to compare the decades of each performance and the changing times. The 1900s saw much upheaval with the last days of colonization—with Cuba and the Philippines becoming independent from the US, the home-rule moves of Ireland and Norway, assassinations and conflicts, the discovery of radiation, the pioneering of powered, and the first time practical availability of products like automobiles, cameras, typewriters, gramophones and recorded music. The next presentation came, postponed due to the end of the war and unsteady peace that followed, with a very much transformed backdrop—not played to an audience subject to the German Empire but rather before a new Republic. Stemming from the outbreak of war that dissolved most monarchies and empires, the aftermath hosted revolutions in Russia and China and the pandemic outbreak of the Spanish Flu that illustrated for the first time how the deployment and displacement of millions can spread disease. Aside from infernal engines and motion pictures, however, there was not the social engineering that occurred previously with the dissemination of the way people moved and communicated. It is as if, unable to fully digest what mobility and voice (in the form of suffrage too) for the public would mean, the dynasties themselves revolted terribly, and the season’s run for the Passion Play was witness to the whole awful mutiny being set in motion again. One can also see the transition from an Art Nouveau to an Art Déco style with the cover designs. I wonder if there are other such time-capsules, intersections between promise and custom and contemporary influences (not quite the same as ephemera nor like the regular business of historians either), and how such treasures are researched and held in regard.

champagne socialism or better than an poke in the eye with a sharp stick

There is no real equivalent to the municipal banking establishments found in Germany elsewhere: these foundations operate like credit unions locally, under the stewardship of and partly owned by the city or country, but with a national presence and reciprocation and profits that the union realizes is returned to the host community in the form of financial support for charitable causes and civic institutions. In stark contrast to private banks that are at odds with governments and central banks over policy and how to best smear the economy with credit to sustain market activity, the Sparkassen Verband is rather flush with money right now and not too parsimonious about lending. People, I think, feel good about parking their money there and the competition of this state-backed entity also probably serves to keep private banks in check as well, since in Germany there seems to be less antagonism between the government and wholly private lenders and investors and more discipline.

Various (temporary) touts and lures are employed by the private banks to attract customers with offers of a better return with interest and more free services—which is the mark of a healthy and responsible rivalry, and there’s no subtle message of guilt transmitted nor desperate attacks of a government-supported cartel and unfairness exchanged between the two systems. Animosity, at least, is not in the open.  Neither one is totally beyond reproach or perfect, but both serve to keep the other in check. Aside from charity and public projects, a small percentage of the earnings go back into the consortium for advertising and for renovations for their franchise. My local branch celebrated its grand-opening after redoing their interior to include fully automated services and a posh entryway like the lobby of a theatre, giving out bottles of champagne (Sekt) to everyone that came by. I can’t imagine getting more than a calendar or maybe a toaster from any private institution and only for opening a new account—that is, save the grief, uncertainty and questionable loyalty which are offered freely.

mendeleev or unnilversum

For inquiring minds, the type face that closely approximates the style featured bright and bold on academic posters of the periodic table is the Univers family (not in the standard quiver of fonts but downloaded for free here). Of course, there’s no universal standards for the heraldry of such a chart, but such achieving such a look, with a little nostalgia for the high school science classroom and cleanly monolithic, I think is a fitting way to display the octaves of the Elements—sort of like musical notation itself. The strangeness of particles that underlies the noble appearance of the Atom have so far defied such an immediate and tidy composition, like being ordered according to periods whose gaps were realized, filled in, and known before the missing elements were even discovered. A framework of theories were affirmed, stepwise, with the zoo of subatomic entities and mannerisms that were also predicted and discovered one by one—suggesting that something a bit unwieldy may yet also be described or describable in human understanding. Maybe the whole range of fonts and type-setting displays a certain periodicity as well but there is always space for variation and to wedge style between style.

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Pop- and graffiti artist Ron English has released a brilliant collection of works, Stickable Art Offenses, which features some of his impressive and provoking static displays on consumerism and society and pages and pages of iconic and ironic stickers that one can use to anchor an already statement punctuated environment.

cactus is our friend, he will point out the way

The prickly pear or paddle cactus has sprouted dozens of hands and continues to grow. With each new bud, I speculate whether it is a fig blooming or another new appendage, and the cactus spreads. The scientific name for the genus is Opuntia, after the Greek settlement of the Locrian tribe. The Homeric figure of Patroclus was from this region and forty black ships assailed Troy from here under the leadership of Ajax. This cactus is a new world species, from Mexico, but does thrive in the Mediterranean as well. I don’t see the connection between our brave little cactus and the Iliad but other new world oddities, like the strange Echidna of Australia, after the mother of all monsters in Hesiod’s Theogony, are given fanciful old world designations, as well as wholly newly discovered worlds. According to some traditions, though, one of the hundred-handed giants, the Hekatonkheires (the Centimani in Latin), lived in the surrounding region of Euboea, where the Locri were located, as challenger for Poseidon for control of the Aegean, the monster having invented the warship to further his claim by proxy. I could imagine the resemblance there and an inventive etymology.