Tuesday 4 December 2018

pelagic zone

Not having grown up with the characters, it’s a little outside of my particular shibboleth but I think we can all nonetheless appreciate the artistry and world-building that went into one of the longest running animated series in history and can definitely share in the sentiment of this tribute from Dangerous Minds on the recent passing of Stephen Hillenburg.
Before becoming a cartoon artist, Hillenburg taught marine biology and set a cast of characters in The Intertidal Zone as an educational comic to better reach his students. These classroom mascots would eventually move to Bikini Bottoms but Hillenburg honed his drawing talents on other projects in the interim. Watch Hillenburg’s first short at the link above.

Monday 3 December 2018

operation faithful patriot

Everlasting Blört introduces us to the extensive portfolio of Barcelonan artist Riki Blanco via his unappologetic (accomodations for inexcusable behaviour should always be called out) portrayal of Trump’s unending campaign stunt, which even the Pentagon can’t abide by calling a mission for its political overtones that not only represents a patently xenophobic Navidad whose goal of disinvitation during the holiday season means that many soldiers deployed to the southern frontier are spending it away from their families and friends, ordered to lob tear gas canisters at massing migrants—for some, fulfilling an errand sought after.

radishes or lettis tow bunches a peny

Inspired by gentle author’s own piece on the cries and criers of London, Spitalfields Life hosts an article from one of the trustees of the city’s Garden Society focusing on itinerant florists and green-grocers. It’s really fascinating what sort of detail about trade and the economy that one can glean from a few sparse particulars that one took a moment to notice and document (the pictured from the scrapbook of Samuel Pepys), especially how the nature of empire and imports redefine luxury goods—bringing them from expensive, exclusive shops to street markets.

a pylori

The neuroscience world was intrigued but restrained when it was suggested last month that errant and overlooked interlopers in post-mortem grey matter could suggest that like our constellation of gut flora and fauna, that our brains and perhaps entire nervous system might indeed need to maintain a symbiosis with beneficial bacteria for optimal cognition, just like a sanitised stomach is bad for good digestion. Nautilus Magazine interviews veteran researcher Rosalinda Roberts, whose searched for organic signs of schizophrenia for over three decades—discounting the possible signs of the microbiome until just now as their presence runs very much counter to conventional wisdom—and explores the implications the finding, if confirmed, has for mental and physical well-being as well as for the science of the mind and the nature of consciousness.

deuces

In 1975, in order to honour a Rosetta Stone level breakthrough in ethno-linguistics by epigrapher Yuiry Valentinovich Knorozov (*1922 - †1999), the state-run printworks of the USSR issued a special edition of playing cards decorated with Mayan priestesses and chieftains and hieroglyphs.
Knorozov, who as part of the vanguard advancing into Berlin at the closing stages of World War II happened to rescue a rare manuscript from a burning university library—the Dresden Codex—one of the then-known three extant codices of Mayan script and named for its permanent home (having been spirited away with other treasures from the fire-bombed city)—a discovery that would go on to inform and inspire his career as an ethnographer specialising in Mesoamerican studies, realised in 1952 that the symbols were representational and phonetic and could consult modern, spoken Maya as a guide. Learn more and see more of the deck at Atlas Obscura at the link up top.

Sunday 2 December 2018

merrie melodies

As a coda to this day’s events, our faithful chronicler, Doctor Caligari, directs our attention to the story behind the animation studio United Productions of America (UPA), which originated over striking animators under contract with Walt Disney (who infamously denied the guild the right to organise) and a sense that animated works weren’t meant as a medium for anthropomorphising nor a reflection of the constraints—however well executed—of real models and ought to forward and promote an air of abstraction and cartoon physics. Outside of the studio system, UPA could undercut the competition and garnered contracts to relay the education and training syllabi (within budget) and established itself as a foil to the cinematic realism and didacticism of Disney fairy-tales.

sufganiyot!

Via Miss Cellania for the Festival of Lights (which begins at sunset today, 25 Kislev) and runs through nightfall on 10 December), we are treated to the musical styles of a cappella group Six13’s rendition of “Bohemian Chanukah,” which includes some historic and cultural background of the holiday. The first verse begins:

Is this the eighth night
We light with the family?
Recall with great pride
Our escape from Greek tyranny?

Kindle the lights
Remember the Maccabees
How did those five boys
Lead us to victory?

5x5

village dรฉtruit: exploring nine ghost towns in northern France—via the inestimable Nag on the Lake 
   

¤: : a short animation celebrating the obsolete coins of the member states now using the euro

no longer part of the squad: the art of unfriending prior to social media—via Things magazine

onomatopoesie: a conservancy for endangered sounds—via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals

holidays are coming: a primer on Advent season—a movable, malleable fest