On this day in 1959, Walt Disney’s adaptation of the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty” (previously) went into theatrical release.
Despite the grandeur of the storytelling, wonderful villainy and Academy Award-nominated score, critical reception was mixed and tepid at best, accused of being too much like Snow White. This reaction prompted the studio to abandon the folklore genre altogether, not to again revisit princesses and magic (the reserve of anthropomorphic rodents and canines, arguably with the exception of the other commercial failure of 1985’s The Black Cauldron, loosely based on a Welsh myth that nearly bankrupted the company) for three decades until the 1989 release of The Little Mermaid.
Tuesday 29 January 2019
briar rose
catagories: ๐ฌ, ๐ง♂️, myth and monsters
goldberg variations
the silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload
On this day in 1979 a sixteen-year old Brenda Spencer opened fire at a neighbouring elementary school as pupils were arriving for the day in Santa Barbara, California, killing the principal and a janitor and injuring nine others, tragically marking one of the first in a painfully legacy of senseless gun violence and school shootings, well-covered in the media but resulting in no change in attitudes. The rifle and ammunition an unbidden Christmas gift from her father, interrogators asked Spencer why she had committed such an atrocity, to which she responded, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” Musician and activist Sir Robert Frederick Zenon (Bob) Geldof and his band The Boomtown Rats were touring in the area about a month after the incident occurred with legal proceedings on-going and was inspired to pen the song after the unreality of the call of the reporters and Spenser’s response. Far from wanting to glorify the act through infamy, Geldof hoped his song would help prevent acts like this in the future.
Monday 28 January 2019
omoshirogara
Via the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we are directed to the archives of Dangerous Minds and given a lesson in the propaganda kimonos produced in Japan from the turn of the century through the war years. Unlike more visible banners of provocation and hate, the above, ้ข็ฝๆ, denote a private novelty on display in the home only or perhaps as the interior inner lining of apparel—in any case, for a restricted audience and not for public display. This particular garb, celebrating industrial progress and the war-effort and ultra-nationalism alike, has garnered considerable scholarship of late and more excellent specimens are to be found curated at the links above.
wonder galaxy
Messy Nessy Chic directs our attention to the annual Madrid design expo Casa Dรฉcor with the fantastic future “childhood revival” aesthetic of interior designer Patricia Bustos de la Torre. Not only is the style informed by the hues of Millennial pink and turquoise to question why we tend to lose our sense of awe for what the future has in store but also reflects an inflection of Ettore Sottsass’ Memphis Group. The suite of Bustos’ instalation (among scores of entrants) includes a kitchen and a dressing room. More to explore at the links above.
smelting
To the justified and reasoned protests of lawmakers from both political parties, Trump directed the Department of the Treasury to quietly lift sanctions on three Russian firms, originally imposed punish the country for its 2014 annexation of the Crimea and meddling in the US 2016 presidential election and the proxy war in Syria,
citing concern for the global aluminium industry that China has come to monopolies due to broader trade wars as well as the bar to entry for Russia. The business magnate behind the firms is a close ally of Vladimir Putin as well as known business associate of former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Members of congress strongly objected to relaxing these prohibitions, especially in light of the ongoing investigations into the administration’s ties to the oligarchy. As with Trump, the chief executive officer of the companies has divested himself of business interests, making the companies ostensibly independent of his influence, and the personal sanctions levied against him, including frozen US assets and travel restrictions, remain in place.
les foulards rouges
As a counter-balance—though a mostly politically agnostic one—to the unrest that the gilets jaunes have visited on France, a group of about ten-thousand members and growing, accessorized with red scarfs (EN/FR), to separate them from the yellow, high-visibility vests of the group opposed to the policies of Emmanuel Macron and his En Marche party, has mobilised. Professing no specific agenda, the group’s aim is to restore public order so that the dialogue that affects lasting and meaningful change can prevail.
catagories: ⛓️๐ฅ, ๐ซ๐ท, ๐, environment, labour
wi-finder
Via Duck Soup, we discover the really relatable story of a flรขneur collecting specimens of service set identifiers (SSIDs, the natural language label of one’s choice) to distinguish their wireless networks. What’s the story behind the name of your home WiFi?
Have you encountered memorable ones in your wanderings? Increasing fascination with the invisible world of call-signs set our walker on the path to more sleuthing, eventually mapping out these locations, categorising them by the nature of the monikers—promotional to passive-aggressive. I wonder how radically the landscape has changed since then and how territories and borders have become unmoored and mutable.
catagories: ๐ฅธ, networking and blogging