minced oath

While I cannot vouch for the veracity of any of these substitutions, I did rather enjoy this lesson on euphemisms for swears in other languages. True or not—I can say that I’ve never heard someone self-censoring calling someone an ass-hole (Arschloch) by calling them a candelabra (Armleuchter), they’re certainly fun to say and saying crumbs or consarnit or any number of muted expletives, especially in the heat of the moment and not just out of disbelief. Possibly the best to adopt from this batch is the Romanian nuanced way of exclaiming, “What my feather?”

fahrvergnügen oder reitgenuss

A locomotive that formed part of the German national railway fleet back in the 1970s has revived its vintage harvest orange carriages in a private, crowd-funded venture to bring discriminating passengers from Stuttgart to Berlin, with various whistle-stops along the way. Outside of a few tourist trains along special routes, I can’t recall seeing anything but Deutsche Bahn trains at the station but am given to understand that there are no barriers to competition, if another carrier has the engines and the staff to run them safely.
Though not a substitute for commuters and those on a tight schedule, Locomore aims to attract a certain base of clientele—at a quarter of the cost of the regular fare between the two metropolises at a mere twenty-two euros, that feels the journey should be a pleasurable and social responsible experience. The six-hour trip (and travel by train in general) is powered by renewable energy sources and offers organic (Bio) and locally-grown drinks and snacks. Moreover, the cars are outfitted to invite passengers to join communities in different compartments for those who might want to take in a work-out, photograph the passing countryside, chat over coffee or sequester their children during the journey. I think it would be leagues more enjoyable to travel in this sort of bargain luxury, rather than the harrowing car trip or one of those long-distance buses—that are just as prone to getting stuck in a Stau (traffic snarl) as any other vehicle on the road, even if you can leave the driving to someone else. I think I’ll have to hitch a ride to points north on the Locomore express, seeing that they stop in Frankfurt and are planning expansion to more destinations.

8x8

sound garden: Dutch Institute of Sound and Vision lets you explore boutique radio stations from around the world

to catch a thief: artist Anthony van der Meer allows his phone to be stolen and tracks what ensues

dichronic: the incredible craftsmanship that went into the ancient Roman Lycurgus Cup harnesses nano-technology

sproglaboratoriet: beating out hygge, ‘Danskhed,’ Danishness, won word of the year

hearth and home: guide to appeasing household spirits around the world

figgy pudding: an overview of the folklore behind Christmas cuisine, via Strange Company

ward & centre: the utopian civil engineering of Ebenezer Howard influenced urban layouts for generations

fuselage, empennage: modular airplane interior could reconfigure itself for long-haul flights for more efficient, comfortable use of space, like a sky caboose

bir varmış, bir yokmuş

Following in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm of the previous generation (but whose legacy was still being unfolded), Hungarian linguist and ethnographer Ignácz Kúnos travelled around Ottoman Turkey collecting folklore, and in 1913 published a brilliantly illustrated by Willy Pogany edition of forty-four Turkish fairy tales.
Though in presentation, the collection may strike Western readers as something more in the tradition of 1001 Arabian Nights, the stories are cognates of the archetypal ones that the occident monomyth is heir to. The title above is the beginning of the Turkish preamble to all fairy stories, the equivalent to Once Upon a Time (Es war einmal…) and like Kúnos’ own Hungarian Egyszer volt, hol nem volt, volt egyszer egy... means once there was where there wasn’t, there was a, a form of introduction that was playfully duplicitous. Visit Public Domain Review to read the book in its entirety and to discover more forgotten literary gems.

high-fidelity

Learning about the careful and creative forensics that go into reanimating the ancient soundscapes of the deep past—the foley artistry that gives us dinosaurs that honk, quack or tweet rather than roar ferociously, though I’d bet a booming, nerve-scattering chirp could be just as curdling, reminded me that I had once speculated (once is misleading, I think, since it’s not as if it’s something that I know now to be untrue or a patent violation of the laws of physics) that all sounds were somehow preserved, imprinted into the environment and that we detectives weren’t clever enough to puzzle out. I was never sure what this infinite analog media might be of course, but did suspect that on some level that every crash, cry and concerto was caught up in the surrounding molecules, awaiting play back. I suppose knowing the acoustics of noise-maker well enough is an acceptable alternative path for chasing down lost sounds. This sort of scoring sound-effects do as much to reinforce or ruin an image as much as a fluffy Tyrannosaurus rex.

magic lantern

As the bloc has expanded from twelve member states to twenty-eight, office space at the European Union headquarters buildings is naturally going at quite a premium—not counting the attendant actors accompany the “travelling-circus.”
The councillors that represent the executive officers of the member states, the other chamber that acts as a counter-weight to parliament (it’s all terribly complicated and byzantine and enough to make people shutdown rather than engage), and support staff are moving—or rather, are expanding into, after some delays and misgivings, from their purpose-built structure, the Justus Lipsius hall that the Council occupied since 1995, to this new building, occupying a space donated by the city Brussels and just separated by a span of footbridge (next to rest of the ensemble that makes up the rest of the supranational government). The glass façade encloses an orb that comprises eleven storeys of conference rooms, cafeterias, galleries and offices. The whole edifice is a marvel of passive engineering and highly energy-efficient, and much of the construction material was recycled and salvaged from demolition sites across Europe. No word yet what this new headquarters might be called but the Samyn and Partners commission will be ready to host its first sessions in 2017.

the bear retreats to his den

Via Spoon & Tamago with reinforcements courtesy of Hyperallergic, we’re treated to the traditional Japanese concept of the microseason, that divides the cross-quarter year into smaller, poetic subdivisions (seventy-two ko) that marches on in segments of four or five days like a natural calendar.
With wonderful smoothing descriptive names like “first peach blossoms,” “rainbows begin to appear after a shower” or “eastern wind melts the ice,” these gentle transitions (this is when the bear starts its long winter’s nap and next week is when the salmon swim upstream) are a much nicer and more accessible yearly planner, at least for those who get to enjoy at minimum the basic four seasons and can find nuance in between. Both links above feature a beautifully crafted application for one’s mobile device that helps one keep up with the sekki and ko and includes explanation of the symbolism drawing from other traditions and where one might journey to see the phenomenon that marks the season—or imagine one’s native equivalent and rhythm.

judge dredd

In this era of fake news—which has always been with us but I suppose it’s easier to peddle anything as truth nowadays, especially as there is always the critical-mass of people who want it to be true to be found and who are willing propagators to people who might otherwise be sceptical or dismissive, the wise eschew unconfirmed rumours, particularly those that spontaneously pop into existence in the tabloid cloud-chamber, but given what 2016 has already managed to deliver (and I think that perhaps that this year is evidence of time travel and the altered time-line is desperately trying to preserve itself that tossing out unlikelihood after unlikelihood) we suppose that actor and erstwhile artist Slyvester Stallone could end up being the chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts. This independent body is responsible for issuing grants for art projects and education across the country and works closely in partnership with community organisations to promote local theatre and orchestras, and has dodged attempts to defund and dissolve the trust several times, at the hands of Republicans whom found showcase work objectionable. Perhaps it is a hopeful sign that the president-elect does not want to defang the endowment outright and signals that there is some future for it, but given the patronage, one has to wonder what sort of proposals get funded. Any time-travellers looking to make amends for 2016 seeing this notice, please know that we can’t handle much more implausibility.