[ʊ]

Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we are treated to writer and composer Aaron Alon’s gradated deconstruction of English orthography.  Because of English’s pedigree and influence, there are a lot of counter-intuitive formulations that really bedevils learners and makes the cultural hegemony more than a bit fraught and maybe a little suspect, betraying a reluctance to synthesise new influences any more.  This short demonstration normalises (previously) vowel and consonant sounds in stages to give us an illustrative demonstration of what the language might sound like if spelling and pronunciation were consistent.  A weirdly intelligible dialect comes out of it.  Do give it a listen and let us know what you think.

trashercize

Lately I’ve incorporated (like in the article, when confronted with how we’ve rubbished the oceans with our profligate and careless use of petroleum products) of picking up litter on my long walks, and so was delighted to be reminded that there are other motley crewes of enthusiasts combining cleaning up with exercise.
Plogging, the portmanteau named by Stockholm resident Erik Ahlström is a combination of the Swedish plocka uppa and jogging and describes a popular fitness and do-gooder trend that’s been gaining momentum since at least 2016. Though it seems Germans are growing less and less tidy (a discouraging development for the strata of rubbish that collects on the curb, gutter and under shrubs), I can’t say I’ve encountered as interesting trash as the intrepid ploggers in New York—detritus of fast food mostly and fruit drink sippy pouches. You’re on notice, Capri Sonne. I ought not be so dainty about picking up trash, however that’s giving a little more meaning to my idle wandering, calling myself a flâneur rather than a jogger or plogger and perhaps not being enough of an aspirational cleaner (picking up only plastic deemed fit for the recycle bin) to maybe encourage others to join in.

open door policy

A creative couple, a game developer and a television writer, in Tokyo commissioned a living space from the architectural studio +0 located in the maze of cul-de-sacs and blind-alleys that characterise the city’s central wards to blur the boundaries of our understanding and expectations of public versus private space, with the ground storey of the “House in Ōji” open to community ingress, egress and regress.  What do you think?  There is a touch of the surreal to the optical illusion, resolving a paved lane as one’s foyer.  The owners can elect to close their doors and any pedestrian can still easily sidestep the structure and continue along the path unimpeded but I would personally feel really self-conscience and guilty over capriciously restricting access after opening up my home.

a desilu production

Originally hailing from Buenos Aires and son of the long-time second-fiddle to the city’s national opera, jazz arranger and composer Lalo Schifrin was captivated with music from an early age and a collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie in 1956 set Schifrin’s career on a trajectory that brought him to Hollywood six years later.
Aside from dozens of studio albums that comprises a respectable discography on its own, the award-winning Schifrin garnered well-deserved aplomb for his talent, employing catchy time signatures like the five-four of his theme for Mission: Impossible, Schifrin quickly became television and film’s mainstay for scores and incidental music. Other television series include The Man from UNCLE, Mannix and Starsky and Hutch. Of the over one hundred-sixty movies Schifrin crated and synchronised the soundtrack for include Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt, Che!, THX 1138, Enter the Dragon, Return from Witch Mountain, Jaws, The Amityville Horror, Clint Eastwood’s Sudden Impact, The Dead Pool and the Rush Hour series.

blogoversary: we are ten

Wow—I’m happy to have reached that milestone, especially in an age where the allures and pressures of social media have kind of short-circuited other forms of curation and journaling and hope to be able to sustain it for years to come. After a decade, we are still finding our voice and bearing and treasure those new and old who’ve done the heavy-lifting and come along for the ride and indulge our rants and banter and tolerate our mistakes and missteps.

Hopefully we’ve shared something meaningful and resonate.  Upwards of fifty-five hundred posts—there are a few goods ones are to be found but going by measures of popularity, here are the top ten entries since last year when we paused to mark PfRC’s birthday:

10. Some speculation on the identity of the inventor of Bitcoin
9. Assorted links including rescued laboratory animals and giving a voice to animal emojis
8. A short biography of the well-travelled Aloha Wanderwell
7. Weird plots for Star Trek: The Next Generation
6. More links including Twin Peaks mapped Super Mario style
5. The effects of an exclusively fast-food diet
4. The ballot in Nazi Germany
3. The paradox of time-travel
2. Geographic extremes
1. A panel discussion of vampiric vegetables

Now on to our second decade.

tara on techwood

Built originally to house a community centre for the Russian-Jewish diaspora of Atlanta, Georgia in the 1940s, Curbed contributor Lisa Napoli presents a fascinating profile of the historic, stately structure that became the unlikely first headquarters of a new and novel venture from 1980 to 1987 when the operation relocated from midtown to the Omni Centre: a round-the-clock cable news network with nation-wide reach. The first journalists to work for CNN were relegated to studio space in the basement, while more prestigious programming had the upper storeys and founder Ted Turner himself occupied a loft apartment. Though no longer a hub for twenty-four hour reporting, the old mansion remains part of CNN’s campus.