kaiten-zushi

Via Boing Boing, we’re served up a rather delightful little movie from the point of view of a camera mounted on the conveyor belt of a sushi restaurant (回転寿司, literally rotating sushi). Every moment is splendid and captures the joys of dining out with friends, each passing booth telling its own story, some reacting to the camera and other too focused to notice. It’s a sweet one off feat but I wouldn’t want this repeated (the conversations are muffled with a soundtrack) and feel surveilled every time I ate out—especially given my propensity for being clumsy with plates and utensils.  We also appreciated how the source website categorised the video under the label sonder.

Here’s a video of a guy putting a camera on a sushi conveyer belt. It’s wonderful. Every table has a little story! pic.twitter.com/6mwKsTHJ0e

— Drew Coffman (@DrewCoffman) May 17, 2019

street view

Incredibly just a few years after the first surviving photograph was taken (the View from the Window at Le Gras captured by inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1826), the technology became pervasive enough that one dedicated archivist was able to compile a globe-spanning procession of street photography, chronicling the one hundred and eighty-one years since its popular, commercial adoption. The starting point—1838—marks when France arranged to pay Louis Daguerre, Niépce’s former business partner, a pension for the rest of his days, in exchange for his developing process, which it gifted to the world.

hub-and-spoke

Via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals and related to a recent post, we appreciated this study on identity and branding of the airlines of Africa that emerged in the 1960s as colonialism was receding as a way to celebrate independence and self-determination. Logos, route maps and other ephemera from several national air-carriers have been curated by Northwestern University with brief histories of the airlines and links back to original sources to learn more.

a carbonated “beverage”

I have no memory of this phenomenal marketing misreading and miscalculation and suppose our town or high school wasn’t in the test market, so am grateful and a little bit baffled that a soft drink giant, eager to appeal to the demographic of Generation X was willing to exploit what we’d now recognise arguably as potentially problematic tendencies and male toxicity. Leaning deeply into the ironic and blatantly pandering with an anti-commercial campaign, Ok Soda trialled in 1993 specially targeted at a “generation of male teens and young men tired of hype and pretension.” Cans were even printed with a rather lengthy ten-point manifesto.
Ultimately, consumers didn’t care for the drink and the whole advertising campaign proved too relentlessly bleak and nihilistic for consumers, even their target audience. The line was discontinued in 1995 and never went into broader distribution.  Be sure to visit Messy Nessy Chic at the link above to see more artefacts of this failed attempt at reverse-psychology and branding disaffection.

call sign

Thanks to the always engaging Kottke, we are re-acquainted with the meticulous and dedicated assemblage of mostly defunct corporate logos from graphic design artist Reagan Ray, informed by the public’s captivation with and appetite for Mid-Century Modern and nostalgia for the glory days of air travel, with this curated collection of US regional carriers in what was once a pretty saturated and granular market.
Who knew that Anniston was once headquarters for the commuter airline Alair—AL for Alabama but certainly not the only option for the state? Or that Oakland, California once had Saturn as a carrier? Browse with caution as poking around the various archives and collections could easily turn to an all day distraction.

white night riots

On what would have been the eve of assassinated City Supervisor Harvey Milk’s forty-ninth birthday—among the first openly gay politicians to serve in any capacity, tens of thousands rallied in San Francisco on this evening in 1979 in response to the lenient sentence handed down to the murderer, formerly fellow district supervisor Dan White, who crept into City Hall (avoiding the metal detectors) and shot Milk and mayor George Moscone the previous November.
White’s infamous Twinkie defence notwithstanding (his dietary shift to sugary, unhealthy foods symptomatic of his underlying depression, his attorneys argued), it was perceived that the court doled out the lightest verdict possible—voluntary manslaughter—because of White’s status as a former police officer and firefighter and the justice system was seen as biased and protecting one of its own. Although the march started out as peaceful, clashes between police and protesters turned violent and the police carried out retaliatory raids on gay establishments. Refusal on the part of the gay community to apologise for the protest resulted in greater political capital, leading to the election of Dianne Feinstein as mayor, who appointed a more inclusive commissioner to run the department who recruited more gay members to the force.