wainscoting

There is something calming and satisfying about pouring over these meticulously arranged catalogue pages from a Chicago-based interior design company from 1919. These neo-classic varieties of decorative and ornamental buttons, friezes, trims, moulding and panelling look pretty elegant and were designed to be simply pasted onto furniture and base-boards and ceilings to tie the different and perhaps piecemeal elements of a room together as an ensemble.

cocktail hour

Discerning gourmand Nag on the Lake had two successive food and drinks posts that paired very well together indeed. First, there were the exquisite still-lives of artist Greg Stroube who imagined how the Renaissance masters might depict a Bloody Mary or a Lime Rickey with all its garnish and the hyper-realistic detail of Bellini (also the name of a cocktail, Prosecco and peach nectar) or Vermeer.
These delights of and for the palette are then served up with a selection of sumptuous recipes from the mind of Salvador Dalí from a cookbook being reissued over forty years after its first and only print run. The surreal and bizarre cult cookbook called Les Diners de Gala has over a hundred illustrated recipes—of the strange and decadent variety, like toffee and pinecones or frog pastries. Be sure to indulge more delectable delights on Nag on the Lake.

motor voter

Safely shielded from the majority of US campaign mobilisation initiatives, polling and cold-calls, I was a bit surprised to learn that Rock the Vote is still making appeals to engage the plebiscite. During the last mid-term elections in 2014, there was a considerable push to get a certain demographic to register and participate, though the whole exercise was criticised as a stunt by conservatives for baiting the invitation with liberal issues—like legalising drugs or free access to educational opportunities—prompted by personalities that didn’t count themselves amongst the voting-class.
It was a bit off-cycle for the first time I was eligible to participate in a national election but I do remember feeling inspired and even actively campaigning for Ross Perot, which I am ashamed to admit but at least that helped unseat George I. What is perhaps most daunting is that there is wide-spread apathy and a marked disconnect and a feeling that few—especially among the younger demographic, are stakeholders in this process. I am not surprised that people feel jaded and disenfranchised and maybe don’t have much of a choice ultimately, but I don’t think there’s really an authoritative, impartial voice there admonishing them either to invite them, just in their lifetimes of majority how different each outcome might have been. Visitors from the parallel universe of Field Marshal LaRouche and Grand Vizer Lamar are not really pleased with their present prospects with far stranger timelines on offer.

constellation prize

Although not entirely a brand new proposal (having first hinted of chaos in the skies back in 2011 but no horoscope columns have adopted the change yet), NASA has apparently formally recognised the fact that the Earth is not ruled by the tidy twelve zodiacal houses (presiding over thirty degrees of the celestial sphere each) but rather thirteen, with this johnny-come-lately Ophiuchus, the snake-handler pushing aside all the other months to make room.
This is particularly bad news for fellow—or rather ex-fellow—Scorpios (see the link up top) as I’ve now become a scale as of just now, and my Mom is a snake-wrangler according to NASA. The havoc is a point of contention, however, because although the sun and the planets move through different constellations (canonical and otherwise) and NASA was prompted to stir the cauldron since the skies have changed in the three thousand years since the Babylonians invented the divining art, astrology in the Western tradition was never based on the march of the heavens in that sense but rather on tropical tilt through the seasons. There’s no need to discount out of hand what you thought the stars had in line for you.

force-sensitive

Whilst trying to understand the behaviour of light as it passes through a series of quantum logic gates that forces the ray to choose one state or another without the de-coherence of observation (oy! whenever I look at you, you either go all wavy or are so particular), physicists in Australia may have inadvertently invented the light-sabre. Though beams of light had been considerably slowed down beforehand, scientists had never been able to sustain a completely stationary collection of photons—apparently, until now. In trying to make quantum chips more practical and predictable, the researchers produced a bolt that’s effectively frozen in place, the Jedi weapon of choice.

boxy, boxy lady

Though more or less just reflecting the marketing environment of the times, one forgets what sort of ethnographical insights can be gleaned from ephemera, as in this interesting portrait of the mascot Miss Cora Gated that Box Vox furnishes. The niche blog that is focused on vintage and innovative packaging tells the story of this vixen (foxy lady) dressed in a box that was created in 1953 by advertising executives for the concern Hinde & Dauch, the authoritative manufacturer of corrugated (pleated) boxes.
Miss Gated capitalised on all the popular conceits of the day, including sports stars, Hollywood and Broadway productions, promotional items and toys but also—perhaps uncomfortably, inserted herself into literature and touched on social issues of the past that were apparently acceptable topics of polite conversation (or at least the milieu of publicity) of the 1950s, like the Underground Railroad and slaves escaping to freedom. It’s a really fascinating glimpse into what was considered in good taste for that era and where ads might gain a purchase (I think the bounds of advertising-space and sponsorship change too and not necessarily in proportion). Snap, Crackle and Pop probably never broached controversial or serious societal issues and Green Giant never admitted to his association with the Symbionese Liberation Army or whatever happened to Sprout after that incident with the Monsanto laboratory. A colourful candy, while not a metaphor for potential terroristic elements having infiltrated the general refugee population, did go monochrome so not to take away from the pride movement. Who’ll remember that gesture or that stunt and its place in the future? Now I am wondering about the secret or simply forgotten careers of mascots. The world may never know.