the art of knolling

Coined in 1987 by a janitor named Andrew Kromelow who was working at Frank Gehry’s furniture workshop and at the end of the day, neatly arrange the tools whilst the studio was designing chairs for the artist Florence Knoll, one can find such precision presentations recreated everywhere, including emergency services around the world challenge one another to put their kit on display, like these first responders from Switzerland. The initialism and mantra ABK, “Always be Knolling” is in deference to Glengarry Glen Ross’ “Always be Closing.” Much more to explore at Things magazine at the link above.

tagskryt

Previously we’ve encountered the Swedish term for flight shaming, and in an article on work-life balance and how some companies are beginning to accommodate staff willing to forego air travel for public and ground-based transportation options by offering extra annual leave to accomplish the legs of the journey we’re introduced to its corollary concept: train bragging.
Not immodesty like a humble-brag or outright boasting since negotiating the network of trains and trams takes some skill and planning and people are right to take pride in lessening their environmental impact but rather that some places are better serviced by rail and mass-transit infrastructure than others. Long-distance trips in under-serviced, remote areas are pretty untenable by means other than flying—though those passengers also have the leverage to make the airlines innovate and be better stewards of the skies.

germany calling

On this day in 1939, at the behest of the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Nazi Germany first broadcast its English language programme, signing on with “Germany calling! Here are the Reichssender Hamburg, station Bremen.”
The usual format for the show included news segments and jazz music performed by an in studio ensemble—which was otherwise banned domestically—presented by a host of announcers known collectively as Lord Haw-Haw, all speaking with an affected aristocratic accent (the BBC dubbed the US pro-Nazi broadcaster, see also, Fred W. Kaltenbach—known for his homey, hayseed “Letters to Iowa”—Lord Hee-Haw). As noxious as the message was, rife with exaggeration, the show had a dedicated listenership in the UK, Canada, America and Australia owing to that it was the only news source from behind the front and occasionally read notices from prisoners-of-war to relatives back home. The programme ended on 30 April 1945 when British troops took Hamburg, Horst Pinschewer, a German refugee who took the name Geoffrey Perry when he enlisted in the army, making the next regularly scheduled broadcast to announce the British takeover.

thanatopsis

The always excellent podcast Hidden Brain boldly tackles a subject that is usually avoided or talked around in polite company if not suppressed to the point of being a social taboo: death.
Approaching the topic via the broad and non-empirical idea that fear of death drives every decision we make and informs and limits our agency with some evidence-based psychological experiments, we see that although we think we are avoiding the matter of our own mortality and legacy in not articulating it, we’re always practising terror management in one form or another, and couched as we all are in the comforts of convention, we remain unaware of these instigations until confronted with its unforgiving finality. Necessary and human as the anxiety is, we cede more power to a nebulous and unnamed fear that serves to reinforce the judgments and opinions it covertly influences. Ibidem the same source as above, we are treated to another podcast—from Vox magazine—that correlates well with the theme of memento mori but this time musically. Four close and dark notes from a Gregorian mass intoned at funerals—Dies Iræ, Reckoning, the Day of Wrath—still resounds and is hiding everywhere in popular culture. The same tones cue us (perhaps steel us) to something grim approaching and is sampled in scores of film and television soundscapes. Cultural hegemony being what it is, I wonder how universal these impulses and signifiers are.

senate joint resolution 1

After it was revealed that less than a one percent margin in the popular ballot in the US 1968 presidential election had netted Richard Nixon a domineering fifty-six percent of the electors in the Electoral College (populists George Wallace and retired General Curtis LeMay of the American Independence Party also ran), Congress came for the first and closest time in history to abolishing the institution during debates held in the chamber on this day in 1969, bi-partisan support three hundred thirty-nine in favour with seventy against.
The bill to rescind the institution through constitutional amendment, sponsored in response to public concern by Brooklyn representative Emanuel Celler (*1888 – †1981, serving in Congress just two months shy of fifty years), received endorsement by Nixon and was championed in the Senate by Birch Bayh (*1928 – †2019, whose successful bid for senator in 1962 was larger attributed to the catchy campaign jingle ‘Hey, look him over,/He’s your kind of guy./His first name is Birch,/His last name is Bayh.’).
The motion, debated in the senatorial chamber the next September, on the eighth, however encountered opposition from smaller states, fearful that they would face political marginalisation without the outsized power of their electors (see also) and progress was stymied with filibustering. Though Nixon did not publicly withdraw his support, he also refused to try to persuade any fellow Republican to alter their stance, causing the attempt to fall short of the required threshold.

for the nonce

Though not usually in the business of documenting isolated uses, we discover nonetheless via the Oxford English Dictionary word of the day subscription service a rather delightful example in Ogden Nash’s one-off murdermongeress, appearing in a 1957 poetic reflection on Agatha Christie, whom was fairly singular in her field but nowadays the crime writer genre is more equitable.  Presumably non-gendered, a murdermonger was a term used in the late 1700s for a professional killer. A flock of crows is called a murder purely for arbitrary reasons compiled in a rather fanciful book on venery that sought to ennoble or debase animals based on the characteristics we assume them to have (see also)—that and their presence at the gallows. Relatedly, in the company of ravens we encounter three different names depending on the group’s activity: a constabulary (keeping watch, as over the Tower of London), an unkindness (see above) or a conspiracy (hunting in packs rather than scavenging alone).

find your hidden talent

H some times judges me for posting such things—which I assuredly deserve, but we enjoyed unapologetically indulging in this circumspective article from Pasa Bon! on the art and science (owing to friction and the Van der Waals force, discovered by a fellow Hollander—crucial for developing nanotechnology and for geckos walking on ceilings) of spoon hanging and subjects adjacent. Don’t let a perceived language barrier intimidate exploring the site further, since you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much is universal and intuitive.