love counts for zero on the court

Via the always marvelous Nag on the Lake, we are treated to a fantastic tournament of tennis matches, as imagined by Medicine Hat sportscaster Felix Harr, godson of author Paul Auster. There are a lot of clever ones, and I especially liked Felix Frankfurter versus Warren Burger, being as they were both US supreme court justices.

catchascatchcan

We had heard beforehand of the unique Russian republic between the Black and Caspian seas called Kalmykia—the only place in Europe where a plurality of the population is practising Buddhists, which is pretty remarkable to learn in itself, but we had never known about the first and still (nominally so, at least) Jewish state (autonomous oblast) called Birobidzhan until listening a really engrossing discussion about it on NPR’s Fresh Air.
Established in 1931 in the Soviet far east, on the border with China, almost two decades before the founding of Israel, the territory partially planned and to a large part championed by Swiss-German Bauhaus architect Hannes Meyer. After the Bolshevik Revolution which suppressed religious practises and outlawed private property and put enterprise under the mantle of the USSR, Jewish people, who already faced discrimination and were excluded from many public pursuits and now lost their livelihoods as owners of small businesses. Birobidzhan was advertised as a homeland where they could express their Yiddish heritage (and speak the language, whereas Hebrew predominated in Israel) without fear of reprisal—but as the discussion reveals, it was far from ideal—with cultural labels imposed and thrust upon individuals rather than allowing people to self-identify (which is usually the case in such situations) and the migration seemed more of an expulsion to a harsh and remote land, hardly arable and with no infrastructure. After initially being encouraged to build a community, those members of the “elite” who promoted it and tried to make a success out of the experiment were themselves victims of subsequent Stalinist purges. Be sure to check out the whole fascinating and tragic interview in the link up top.

6x6

ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp: the three decade mystery of the Toynbee tiles that urge mankind to aim for the impossible in order to survive

muchołapka: unfinished and abandoned Nazi construction project in Poland that may be the landing platform for die Glocke or the skeleton of a cooling tower for a reactor

tobacconistas: interesting back to back postings on cigarettes with the taste and aroma of marijuana (but not the high) and lettuce smokes for those wanting to quit

defying the laws of gravity: for what would have been his seventieth birthday, Freddie Mercury has an asteroid named after him

if IKEA made SUVs: a flat-pack all-terrain vehicle

slate and shingle: omnibus of clever chalk board art that drew in more and more patrons

even old new york was once new amsterdam

Our faithful chronicler Doctor Caligari informs among many other things that occurred on this day, the Dutch surrendered the settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam (formerly Nouvelle-Angoulême, claimed for the French crown by a Florentine explorer) to the British in 1664 after the Duke of York (the future James II) invaded by sending a fleet of warships to the harbor, under the auspices of his brother, Charles II.
 Somewhat ironically residents were unhappy with the puritanical strictures of their current governor Peter Stuyvesant and welcomed English rule and the territory was handed-over without a fight. A decade later, however, New York was re-christened New Orange for a brief period of time when it was re-taken by the Netherlands during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

clairvoyance

The gang at Hyperallergic take another field trip to a museum exhibition—this time to see the ink and watercolour abstract paintings of Georgiana Houghton in London. These swirling scrolls strike me as very modern and surreal—almost like the visions of electric sheep in Deep Dreaming but less nightmarish—but were produced in Victorian times, with Houghton’s brush acting as a medium for the missives of angles and saints or sometimes channeling old masters.
Far ahead of her time, the reception of the public was confused at best as the works went against all the accepted artistic conventions of the time—despite the strong interest in spiritualism and séances in England at the time. Although largely forgotten and overshadowed, awareness of Houghton’s contributions and insight is again gathering notice. Clairvoyance in the context of the paranormal or extra-sensory perception simply means “clarity of vision” but there are terms for all the senses plus intuition (claircognisance): clairsentience—psychic through feel and touch to include knowing an object’s provenance and future just by holding it, clairofactus—psychic through smell, clairaudience—psychic through hearing noises or voices, and clairgustance—psychic through taste. I wonder if there were psychic chefs back in Victorian times, as well.