7x7

oh yeah: this supercut of Kool Aid Man crashing through barriers is somehow soothing

il cameriere: a “self-portrait” by Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo—see previously  

warp and weft: Scotland honours its Muslim citizens with an Islamic tartan  

#wikipedia20: wish Wikipedia (previously) a happy birthday, first launched online on this day in 2001  

clip & save for g.i. joe command files: the insurrection was filled with Cobra villains—see previously 

😷: a bevy of COVID-related headlines from the New Shelton wet/dry  

start from checkpoint: an arcade style, side-scrolling game about 2020, via Miss Cellania‘s Links

escargotic commotion

Parallel to the introduction of the telegraph, people were eager to find alternatives that overcame the obstacles of time and tide and one such device was found in the pasilalinic (all prattling) sympathetic compass, build to test the hypothesis in the 1850s that snails formed a psychic bond after mating (see also here and here) by Jacques-Toussaint Benoît de l’Hérault. It was hoped that this supposed telekinetic connection could be used to send messages instantaneously.

handsful

Delightfully, Language Log lampoons linguistic pretensions and sophistication with one scheme to achieve instant morphological classiness with awkward pluralisation—extending, inserting the correct but unexpected attorneys general and courts martial to other constructions. I especially appreciated this as somewhat self-consciously, pedantically I found myself whispering under my breath, it’s octopodes. The comment section is definitely worth one’s time, particularly for films noir which evokes Casablanca and the line “Of all the gin joints, on all the towns, in all the world, she walks in to mine” and the correct way, the stylebook to say quids pro quo. Quae pro quibus.

munchies

Though one might have the inclination to dismiss these findings as patently obvious, a US academic study shows a correlation between legalisation of recreation cannabis consumption and junk food sales—up to five percent. Whereas most accept that marijuana in itself is harmless if not beneficial, it does have unintended after effects that confirm stereotypical beliefs about smoking. As a counterbalance that rather tips the scales in the opposite direction, there is also as much as a twelve percent dip in alcohol sales found in the same jurisdictions. The snacks and drinks lobby peddled state legislatures with opposing overtures.

the ayes have it

First installed in January 1973—another very pivotal month for America with the Oil Crisis, the drawdown from Vietnam, Richard Nixon’s second inauguration and the Roe v. Wade decision in the US Supreme Court—we find, via JWZ, that little has changed and the US House of Representatives’ electronic voting system (relatedly) very much preserves its original Star Trek: TOS aesthetic (see also). Forty-seven stations are spread throughout the chamber—they’re not on the backs of all seats and members can cast they vote at any one of them, using an ID card they carry.

laocoön group

Likely the same statuary ensemble praised by Pliny the Elder as the pinnacle of aesthetics (see previously) nearly a millennium and a half prior to its rediscovery, the figures twisted in agony depicting Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus attacked by sea serpents was excavated on this day in Rome in 1506. Commissioned for Emperor Titus, the work by sculptures from the Island of Rhodes, Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus, the iconic grouping is considered to be the baldest, immediate expression of suffering without redemption or reward, and there is no single definite myth or backstory behind this portrayal recorded in marble. There’s no honour in death and their gods will not save them—as contrasted with the bulk of the art in the Vatican’s holdings, of passion (suffering) and martyrdom—where Laocoön is also on display. It was unearthed in a vineyard, prompting Pope Julius II to immediately dispatch Michelangelo to the site of the excavation to ensure the art was properly conserved, immediately acquiring it for his patron and put on public display that same year.

high crimes and misdemeanours

Yesterday, the House of Repre-sentatives, Democrat members joined by ten Republicans, voted to impeach Donald Trump for an unprecedented second time as a “constitutional remedy to ensure that the republic will be safe from this man, who is so resolutely determined to tear down the things that we hold dear and that hold us together” by his demonstrably dangerous and treasonous behaviour in encouraging a violent insurrection against Congress. The House undertook this course of action when the vice president and the cabinet refused to entertain invoking Amendment XXV to remove the Trump from office.

festum asinorum

On this day, medieval Christendom—though most popular in France—commemorated the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt to with a celebration to honour all beasts-of-burden and donkey-related stories in the Bible, possibly as an extension of a Roman holiday called Cervula which had similar themes of inversion.

There were processions and plays including portrayals of Balaam and his Ass and associated prophesies, as well as general praise and reward for our asses—our friends’ obscure etymology in donkey and jenny likely an American aversion from the nineteenth century to say anything untoward and made up substitutions, see also. The day’s mass was concluded with the priest declaring instead of the customary Ite, misse est—it is done, you are dismissed to which the congregation replied Deo Gratias, from the pulpit the priest would bray, hinhannabit, three times with the response “Hinham, hinham, hinham.”