françoise harddisk

Via Kicks Condor, we are directed towards the Organizing Committee and their experimental musical collaboration inspired by Chilean president’s Salvadore Allende’s Project Cybersyn designed to empower the people through direct democracy, soliciting universal and instantaneous feedback with “algedonic meters,” having employed socialist cybernetic folk music as an educational and promotional campaign to introduce the public to this vast and ambitious initiative. Its implementation was tragically pre-empted by the fascist coup of Augusto Pinochet in 1973—but at least one song in the new genre was recorded: “Letania para una computadora y para un niño que va a nacer” (Litany for a Computer and a Child Yet to Be Born) by Angel Parra as well as the construction of an operations centre that has the look and feel of a Star Trek bridge. The cyborg pop album produced is co-written by a host of machine learning models, synthesising instrumentals and lyrics, and consists of thirteen tracks with a human at the helm for creative control. Much more to explore with the liner notes and all the songs at the link above.

thespians

First historically documented in a competition to find the best tragedy (τραγῳδία, literally goat song, suggesting that that was the top prize)—that is stagecraft with an actor portraying a character rather than themselves singly and distinct from the chorus, on this day in 534 BC performer and playwright, according to Aristotle, Thespis is credited in Western traditions with the invention of acting, performing short dithyrambs—that is, stories about gods and heroes with choric refrains, διθύραμβος or hymns to Dionysus and a way to frame enthusiastic speech—playing all the roles himself and differentiating each part by donning a different mask (persona). 

Building on his successful showing at the contest, Thespis then went on, according to Horace, to invent theatrical touring, transporting his masks and costumes in a horse-drawn carriage, Thespis’ wagon (Άρμα Θέσπιδος, Carro di Tespi) being a popular theme for the visual arts.

felicitas of rome

Also anglicised as Felicity, interred on this day in 165 AD in the Maximus Cæmeterium parallel to the Via Salaria, running from the self-named gates to the Adriatic, the so-called salt road, as indicated by all Roman catacomb itineraries (find-a-grave) guides contemporary to her life and death, this patron saint of healing and resilience is venerated as the long-suffering mother of seven martyred sons in turn celebrated on 10 July, listed among the earliest Christians executed for their faith—as enumerated in a calendar called the Despositio Martyrum. Asking to be put to death with her children so she could urge them to keep their faith, Felicity is said to have died eight times.

your daily demon: crocel

Presenting generally in the form of an angel and ruling the first five degrees of Sagittarius—from today until the twenty-seventh of November, this infernal duke, summoned by the sigil here, is called upon for divining or dowsing (or more practically for plumbing matters) and is versed in the science of hydrotherapy, and can reveal springs and sources of thermal baths, according to the Ars Goetia. The forty-ninth in the calendar of demonology, Crocel commands forty-eight legions and can sew indecisiveness and confusion for one’s adversaries.

cecilia, you’re breaking my heart

Venerated as an early Roman martyr by the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican confessions, Sancta Caecilia (previously) is considered the patron of music and musicians from the account that as the hired band played for her coerced wedding to a pagan noble called Valarian, she sat apart and sang to the true God in her heart. In turn, for her piety, Cecilia was promised a guardian angel who would punish her husband if he failed to respect her sexual autonomy and would love him otherwise.  Intrigued, Valarian asked to see this angel, to which Cecilia replied he could on the condition of being baptised a Christian by Pope Urban. Valarian humoured his bride but saw the angel of God and professed his conversion, earning them all a torturous death sentence. Pope Sixtus V declared Cecilia—along with Gregory the Great (the chant one, not the calendar one)—co-patrons of sacred music in 1585 with the first recorded music festival held in her honour taking place at Évreux in the Eure in 1570.

ident and interlude

Via the always captivating Nag on the Lake (a lot more to discover there), we are referred to the motion graphics archive (see also) of the BBC as maintained by the Ravensbourne media centre of the University of London with specimens from across the network’s programming of open titles, promotional trailers and various interstitial pieces. There’s quite a number of iconic shorted animated sequences to resonate with almost every viewer.

iron lady

Triggered by the resignation of her deputy prime minister over her firm stance against European integration, open borders and a common currency that prompted a challenge to her leadership of the Conservative Party by pro-trade member Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Margaret Thatcher (*1925 – †2013) failed to win the re-nomination outright during the first ballot two days earlier and was persuaded to withdraw from the second vote and announced her intention to resign her position as Prime Minister on this day in 1990, ending a reign of eleven years. The cabinet recognising that the stewardship of Baron Heseltine would further divide the party, they threw their support behind the candidacy of John Major, who ultimately won the contest on 27 November.

bundeskanzlerin

First entering politics in the Revolutions of 1989 as deputy spokesperson for the first and only (independent) democratically elected East German government of Lothar de Maizière, then elected following reunification as a Bundestag representative for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with several ministerial appointments under Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel was elevated to General Secretary of her political party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) in 1998, succeeding Gerhard Schröder in 2005 after the outcome of federal elections installed a collation among the CDU, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as Chancellor of Germany on this day. Elected to an unprecedented four terms in high office—considered by many the de facto leader of the European Union and since America’s dereliction in 2016 of the free world, Merkel announced she would stand down in October 2018 and not seek a fifth term in 2021.