voyage autour de ma chamber

Via Cynical-C, we are invited to indulge the travelogue and memoir by revolutionary army officer Xavier de Maistre (*1763 – †1852) penned whilst he was confined to quarters for six weeks (forty-two days) as punishment for participating in an illegal duel.
Serving his sentence without stint nor quarrel, this is the sort of reflective appreciation that we could all take a cue from—especially when so many are not afforded the same luxury—de Maistre satirises the traditional gap year, grand tour narrative accorded to young men of sufficient rank of the continent and journeys about his suite of rooms as if his furnishings were exotic locations. The work is not only the author’s amblings and impressions but also really engages the imagination of his audience in a sympathetic manner—surprising as de Maistre never expected to have a readership and had no intention to publish it, but his brother was so taken with the account, he had it put in print.

hedgehog in the fog

Our friends over at Calvert Journal have curated a selection of Soviet-era cartoons and stop animation programmes that are certainly deserving of one’s nostalgia and a welcome break from focusing on the ongoing crises of the present. Clips include Crocodile Gena and his Friends along with other children’s classics and the 1975 titular work by esteemed, award-winning animator Yuri Norstein.

end-to-end

Via our ever excellent aficionado of fine hypertext products, Jason Kottke, we are treated to this highly satisfying collaboration by Donato Sansone with audio by Enrico Ascoli that’s artfully arranged stock footage whose actions seamlessly merge into the next for this continuous Rube Goldberg-esque (see previously) chain of events. The title, concatenation, in linguistics and computer programming refers to the syntax of stringing operations together. Much more to explore at the link up top.

god gave us grace on november 8 2016 to change the course we were on

In order to—among other counter-programming techniques—to pre-empt the time-slot generally allotted to local news coverage (such as it is) Dear Leader has implemented a nightly summit ostensibly on the exponential spread of the novel corona virus in the US with an occasional word from our sponsors, as in this recent infomercial praising what Trump, whom is portraying hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths as acceptable losses in a perverse Hegelian dialectic that solves the manufactured crisis on slightly better terms, has meant for the country.
Sweet dreams and nighty nightmare—it’s bedtime (see more on their shared business models here and here) for the republic. Do not watch this dangerous and dishonest propaganda; there is far too much at stake.

stemmario

Once again Present /&/ Correct directs us to a brilliant curated collection in the 1938 redesigns of municipal crests and regional coats of arms executed by futurist sculptor and graphic designer Fortunato Depero (*1892 – †1960)—whom founded a utopian, reinventionist art movement similar, parallel to Bauhaus after World War I in Rovereto.
We especially liked the blazons for Como and Pisa but all have the same visually striking effect. Depero unfortunately is not accorded the same level of attention as some of his peers but enjoys a legacy nonetheless, including the unique and ubiquitous design of the bottle that Campari soda comes in.

gallery space

Whilst the great institutions are closed to their admiring public, the Met, the Getty, the Rijksmuseum and others have conscripted the virtual community to restage famous, iconic masterpieces with improvised materials found around the house whilst we all are sheltering-in-place.
We really enjoyed some of the outfits and improvised landmarks faithful to the original that people have created, and we were especially taken with the homage to Jan van Eyck’s 1434 Arnolfini Wedding portrait, which can normally be visited at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Choose your favourite piece of art and do share your recreation.

a day in the life

Once again returning to our faithful chronicler we mark today among other notable events in 1967, the Beatles in costume arrived at the photo studio of Michael Cooper to have their likenesses captured for inclusion on the iconic cover for their eighth album, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the concept painstakingly assembled and realised by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, posing before a tableau of cardboard cut-outs of celebrities and historical figures.
The impetus for this alter ego musical group was in part owing to the Beatles’ tiring of touring with John Lennon’s suggestions that wax-works on stage would please audiences just as well, presaging the backlash that his comment that they were “more popular than Jesus” and a belated, bellwether acid-trip by Paul McCartney. The throng is not so much a recognition of their influences but rather a snapshot of the cultural topology of the moment.  Watch a short documentary on the album art’s making at Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet at the link up top.

data-plan or seward’s folly

Though criticism for US Secretary of State’s negotiated purchase (see also) of the territory of Alaska from the Russian Empire—agreed to on this day in 1867—was much more reserved and the decision and price praised by most in the government at the time and only magnified through the lens of history, hindsight and self-promotion on the part of his detractors, William Henry Seward’s shrewd deal-making had failed him in another arena that resulted in a quite expensive misstep just a few months earlier.
The Secretary of State was honoured with inaugurating the first enduring transatlantic cable on 23 November 1866 (see also) and elected to dispatch a diplomatic telegram—and not merely a ceremonial message but an actual missive encrypted regarding Napoleon III perceived meddling in the affairs of Mexico using a Monroe cipher since the Department of State was footing the bill. The Anglo-American Telegraph company however stipulated that coded messages cost double and that numbers (the basis of the cipher) were required to be spelled out in full. In the end, the brief message cost the State Department nearly twenty-thousand dollars—thrice the chief’s diplomat’s annual salary. Seward disputed the charges in court but ultimately lost.