münchner räterepublik

Only lasting through early May to be occupied by the German Army and paramilitary Freikorps, the Bavarian Socialist Republic (Soviet meaning advisory council or committee, Rat oder Berater, in Russian) was established on this day a century ago, emerging from the failed breakaway state of journalist, theatre critic and revolutionary Kurt Eisner’s (*1867 - †1919) People’s Republic of Bavaria—which similarly expressed the former Wittelsbacher kingdom’s unwillingness to align itself with the newly minted Weimar Republic (previously here and here).
In the power vacuum that followed Eisner’s assassination by unionist and royalist Anton von Padua Alfred Emil Hubert George Graf von Arco auf Valley (*1897 - †1945) and encouraged by news of a left-wing uprising in Hungary, communists took power, exiling the successor socialist executive who set up an opposition government in Bamberg, while Expressionist playwright Ernst Toller (*1893 - †1939) was installed as president of the republic in Munich. Extolling a revolution of love and promoting many utopian ideas—though failing with effective cabinet and commissarial selections that could enact or at least not be antithetical to the principles, the new regime was labelled as a bunch of coffeehouse anarchists.
After six days, Toller’s rule was toppled and replaced by Eugen Leviné, whose reforms were highly effective but whose methods were also highly draconian. With the support of Vladimir Lenin, Leviné’s government expropriated private property, rededicated churches to the Goddess of Reason and took members of the upper-class hostage. Factional fighting between those loyal to the administration based in Bamberg and the government in Munich grew increasingly violent and eventually drew in the national army. The communists were defeated with much bloodshed on 6 May and the Free State of Bavaria (Freistaat Bayern) was declared within the Weimar Republic under its new constitution on 14 August.

værktøj

Via Colossal, we make the acquaintance of the Copenhagen atelier PUTPUT, whose metaphysically dysfunctional everyday objects cause us to pause and meditate on form informing function and the degree of design, engineering and intentionality taken for granted that goes into what we use as tools and use as ornament. Much more to explore at the links above.

6x6

phobos and deimos: Martian Rover Curiosity films two solar eclipses, via Coudal Partner’s Fresh Signals

the words she knows, the tune she hums: Elton John guides a television crew through the lyrical structure of “Tiny Dancer,” written by Bernie Taupin

yang-yig: Tibetan musical notation as visually compelling as the sonic experience

américains accidentels : an association of French residents with acquired US citizenship are suing financial institutions for discrimination

these kids today with their y2k: the epochal rollover on 6 April for the array of Global Positioning Satellites could result in unexpected glitches for the devices that rely on them

stepping stones: the musical stylings of jazz-funk master Johnny Harris 

clang, clang, clang went the trolley

Via the always engrossing Things Magazine, we are treated to a very nicely curated interactive gallery of the charts and strip maps of artist Jake Berman (previously) that allows one to compare historic public transportation systems (see also) with their modern equivalents for several US cities.
Reaching back more than a century in some cases, Berman plots old train and street car routes—or ambitious proposals pared back versus their contemporary circuits and study in detail how coverage has expanded or contracted.

hindsight is 2020

Son of an immigrant father from Malta and a multigenerational Hoosier mother, former investigative journalist, Naval intelligence officer, Rhodes scholar and present polyglot, municipal executive and US presidential contender Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg (BOO-tih-dʒidʒ) has a surname that in Maltese means “father of chickens.”
No relation I think but Buttigieg shares his last name with poet and second president of independent Malta (the first elected one, the last governor-general given the office as caretaker when the former UK colony became a republic in 1974), Anton Buttiġieġ. What a welcome antidote this candidate offers for the current state of affairs and seems to be the champion, among others, to hang our hopes on.

wir retten die bienen

Breaking developments on a story we’ve been watch for a few weeks now from TYWKIWDBI, the state legislature of Bavaria (previously) has announced that it will enact a petition to save vital pollinators and insect populations in general by reforming agricultural practises, boosting organic farming, reducing run-off and providing more oases for bees and butterflies, fully adopting the demands without setting it before a plebiscite—as its popularity and political will have already been sufficiently demonstrated. Protests begun in February have resulted in a rather landmark shift in attitude translated to real change in the course of a couple of months, passing unanimously through parliament.

animus in consulendo liber

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the intergovernmental military alliance between twenty-nine North American and European countries (up from twelve founding members) came into existence through a treaty agreed upon by member states on this day in 1949—signed with the charter coming into force in August of the same year.
With administrative and operational headquarters split between the Belgian capital and the city of Mons, the organization expanded from an invitation for the Benelux countries to join the pact of mutual assistance struck by France and the UK with the Treaty of Dunkirk in March of 1947, to come to one another’s aid in case of aggression by the Soviet Union or a resurgent Germany. Inclusion of West Germany in May of 1955 prompted the Soviet Union to create the Warsaw Pact. On NATO’s fortieth anniversary in 1989 when it would begin to still the dissolution of its chief foil and counter valance, the organization officially adopted a hymn—its motto above Latin for “a mind unfettered in deliberation). The present flag was first hoisted and flown in October 1951, replacing an earlier version that was essentially the coat-of-arms of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), designed to be straightforward and inoffensive (though suggestive of this rather antithetical corporate logo) and emphasise a mission of peace.

alma-ata

Via Calvert Journal, we are introduced to the determined documentation and conservation efforts of Dennis Keen to capture and preserve the Soviet murals, bas-relief and mosaic that adorned Almaty, the capital city of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian appellation above.  After the creation of an independent Kazakhstan, the capital was moved to Astana. Though importantly host to the Baikonur Cosmodrome which tied the far-flung republic to Mother Russia, there was yet the sentiment that “the mountains are high and the Emperor is far away” that needed these public displays as a reminder and to show that art was not the domain of the elite. Visit the links above to explore an outstanding gallery of civic monuments and architectural interventions that inform and reflect the city’s character.