Thursday 3 September 2015

fife and snare

Europeans first encountered war drum and subsequently adopted the martial accompaniment during the Crusades in the Holy Land, where such batteries of percussion spooked their horses.
Catching up on the fascinating and shameful narrative of the Albigensian Crusade prosecuted in Languedoc (Toulouse) by the Catholic Church against the heretical Cathars that led to the Spanish Inquisition, I learned that one of the earliest well-documented occurrences of a soundtrack, an anthem for battle although probably not creating the same atmosphere as stirring and thunderous leitmotif of some modern war movie nor the ceremonial and regimented noise of a parade, was during this succession of sieges throughout the region. As rear detachment, away from the fighting, monks and priests as well as other roadies that crusading attracted, the choir would belt out rousing choruses of one particular hymn, whose popularity and recognition was already established in France, of Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come Holy Spirit)—penned, according to tradition, by Pope Innocent III who launched the whole campaign as well. In a bellicose setting, all chanting and rumbling can take on intimidating aspects, but this singing seems really creepy to me.

5x5

dormit in pace: Bob Canada’s Blogworld (always worth the visit) pays tribute to horror mastermind Wes Craven

second features: campy, unrealised filmography of Elvis Presley

internationale: mid-century modern design’s roots in revolutionary Russia

no yoke: US government conspiracy against mayonnaise with no animal products

pity the fool: that time Boy George was a guest star on the A-Team



brazen bull

Despite the relative profusion of medieval torture museums and the odd device displayed in a cellar or alcove—settings that lend an air of authenticity, it is interesting to think how an inflated idea of savagery has been perpetuated, and in fact torture and public gatherings to watch an execution were exceedingly rare occurrences.
Such spectacles did happen from time to time to seed the imagination and set an example, of course, but these were in the main orchestrated to assert legitimacy for new regimes—to suppress revolts and to claim a divine right of republic when dynastic orders were pushed aside. The artefacts, often shameless reconstructions cannibalised from other less exciting machine parts, planks and ploughshares from an appropriate age with no disclosure to the visitor—real or imaginary, are sort of a caprice, an idyll of hobbyists that I am not sure from what tradition of urban legends originate—though it seems rather Victorian to cultivate such diversions. Whatever the compulsion was to begin with, it seems that the historically selective and seldom practices carry the same forces of propaganda, though inverted, by suggesting that the same contemporary lexicon is hyperbole and drawing on the brutality of an uncivilised past, which was probably much more restrained.

Wednesday 2 September 2015

typeface or spaghetti and meatballs

In light of one of the internet’s prime estate’s decision to re-brand its appearance with a little kerning and serif that makes one wonder about the endurance of the iconic and recognition—since of course logos and charges evolve and grow more sophisticated or shed their more esoteric heraldry in favour of something cleaner and simpler (Google too has of course doodled through several phases and still true to it’s refrigerator magnet alphabet theme and still rather a bit evocative of juvenile clothing line but nothing so tremolo-terrible as what the label GAP tried or new Coke), it was refreshing to see that others debated and agonised over the identity that logos impart.
The original emblem, in the tradition of a military unit patch, of the US National Aeronautic and Space Agency (NASA) came to be known as the meatball once it was replaced by a sleek modern, artisanal font. The rendering of the acronym last from the early seventies until the early nineties and was referred to as the worm, the agency having decided—not without controversy, to the original meatball design. Still mindful of this schism, the graphic design team that not only created and promoted the worm but also the vocabulary of standard icons—the template for a launch pad service truck, rocket parts, shuttles, spacesuits, etc that mission-planners had in their quivers to stage their presentation, are hoping to offer a big blank-book of these creations in small batches in a context that underscores their style with all its associations and aspirations.

Tuesday 1 September 2015

the swerve or i am the operator with my pocket calculator

Fourth century BC philosophy, Epicurus, whose Athenian salon was referred to as the farm and attracted many contemporary adherents and much, much later through his rediscovery previsioned Enlightenment-thinking and quantum uncertainty as a way of giving free-will through a bit of microscopic called the swerve or deviation chaos a purchase in an otherwise pre-determined Cosmos, once extolled that, “a bit of cheese was enough to turn a meal of bread and water into a feast.”
Blaise Pascal, who is probably best known for his Wager also invented the first functional and patented pocket calculator to assist his ailing father in his job as an assayer and the discipline of probability and statistics by asking how to fairly call a game that was interrupted—it is never a draw—that drive our algorithmic-based economics and world-view, once wondered in his unfinished, draft Pensรฉes how “The beak of the parrot, which it wipes, although it is clean.” I wonder what the contexts of both fragments were—I suspect they are one and the same.

5x5

good housekeeping seal of approval: a retrospective look at therapeutic and recreational use of LSD before it was outlawed

jingle-jangle: ice-cream van graveyard
autoscopy: psychological disorder that causes hallucinations of out-of-body experiences and Doppelgรคnger

message in a bottle: science and big-thinkers discusses what missive to impart to a rebooted civilsation

karma chameleon: chameleons change colours not to fade into the background but rather express themselves