ultra-violence

Via the forever engrossing Everlasting Blört, we are directed towards a screen-test for the haberdashery of Alex DeLarge and his gang of droogs for the 1971 cinematic adaptation of the dystopian, delinquent novel from Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange (previously) trying on different hat styles before settling on the bowler variety. More images and reactions on the thread that are well worth checking out.

no news day

According to our elvish friends over at Quite Interesting, a meta-analysis of facts and figures reveal that that this day (also a Sunday) in 1954 was the most boring single one of the past century, even withstanding that another day in April a couple decades earlier earned the unique distinction from BBC news anchors that there was in fact no news to report. One would think a dearth of information or memory would be duller than a surfeit of events, which include a general election in Belgium that makes Achille Van Acker—credited with creating the country’s social safety net Prime Minister and reforming public spending, pensions, housing, education and employment—the cycling classic Paris-Roubaix was won by another Belgian called Raymond Impanis and it was the opening day of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling (iomáint) Championship, by this pronouncement by programmer and computer science professor William Tustall-Pedoe, backed up by computer data, cannot be contradicted. That’s OK as we can handle dull and no excitement very well from time to time.  Such quests and inquires, though now may be less of an ordeal thanks to an internet connection, recalls this, fictive I suspect but don’t know for sure, Institute for the Study of 15:32, 10 April, 1954 that we encountered just ahead of April Fools and dismissed as a hoax but addresses the fullness of the day before—or another errand short story I read once years ago in a science fiction anthology about an individual obsessed with chronicling every event globally that took place on a single day and was still sending off requests to newspaper archives called “The Man Who Collected the First of September 1973” by Tor Åge Bringsværd.

godeberthe de noyon

Heiress to a considerable fortune in Amiens and with a solid educational background that eschewed mundane, temporal comforts and the requisite of a strategic marriage to retain a modicum of soft power, Godebertha (*640 - †700, her Gothic name meaning fervor) was displeased when she was when she was presented at the king’s court to be wed to a suitor of appriproate rank and standing. Sensing this reluctance, Saint Eligius put his episcopal ring on her finger, symbolising Godebertha’s betrothal to Christ. The king, impressed with her faith and conduct, gave her an endowment and permission to found a small abbey. Credited for saving the village numerous times from fires and outbreaks of cholera and typhoid fever through miraculous intercession both during her life and posthumously, Godeberthe is invoked against drought, plagues and epidemics and is venerated on this day on the occasion of her death after a long life of sanctity and solitude.

screen-time

We rather enjoyed this glossary of television related terms entering into the lexicon, prompted by the statistic that the average American family consumes five hours and seventeen minutes per day of TV. One really needs to zoom in on this newsprint from 1964 (sponsored content I guess from W-CBS for its home town newspaper and sourced from Nielsen polling) to appreciate the illustrations and terms defined that were once novel but now naturally seem commonplace and needing no introduction to today’s home audiences.  The audio portion, distinct from the video, synchronised and part of the experience.

Further, there’s lick for an ad-libbed musical phrase not appearing in the score, viewer for those watching a television programme, net as an abbreviation for network—that is, multiple television stations linked by coaxial cables or microwave, pan as in following the action of any scene to the left or right by tracking or the above directed zoom, an effect created by a variable focus lens to make the subject appear to move to or from the camera.

the statute of anne

Whereas prior to the enactment of the title law in 1710, re-printing and distribution was regulated by an earlier act to provide for the licensing of the press and enforced by the Stationers’ Company, the parliamentary legislation made the matter of copyright protection and enforcement the responsibility of the government and the courts rather than the domain of private publishers and guilds to settle. The preamble of the statue for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned begins: 

Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families: For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books; May it please Your Majesty, that it may be Enacted ... 

From the beginning booksellers, publishers and authors battled to extend their exclusive rights to titles—broadening first with what was interpreted as judicial over-reach by granting universities patent over their associates’ works in perpetuity before being eventually repealed, reworked and adopted in some form in jurisdictions throughout the world.

liber legis

Though with the arrival of the Æon of Horus humanity is supposed to have spiritually evolved to the phase where the precept and obligation to oneself and others was to “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” Aleister Crowley (previously) in 1904 along with his new bride, Rose Edith Kelly, was accountable for a bit more clarification and codification as mediums for a supernatural visitor—a disembodied voice—called Aiwass whom dictated to the newly married couple on their honeymoon in Cairo the three chapters of The Book of the Law of Thelema. Thankfully, each day from the eighth through the tenth of April, sessions only lasted an hour from noon, concluding the with the final volume published five years later, with the couple able to resume their vacation once Crowley emerged from his trance in the part of the hotel suite designated as the “temple,” though it seems that they had already done quite a bit of sight-seeing at this point, with a night spent in the Royal Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza two weeks earlier having the spirits in the first place. While the messenger for the whole of the transcript was Aiwass, each separate character was the first person narrative of the avatars represented by the Egyptian goddess and gods Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khnuit and despite the title contain more revelations and prophesies rather than anything proscriptive, with Crowley claiming to disavow the magical document and only having it published to exorcise the weight it held over him.

smells like nirvana

Via The Morning News, we are directed to the Lost Tapes of the 27 Club, an AI-driven homage to the cadre of talent bereft of this world far, far too soon by imagining, synthesising the continued, posthumous hits of musicians who departed prematurely at that age including Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain, resurrected by machine on new technology.

The “strength and stay” of Queen Elizabeth and prince consort for seventy-three years, His Royal Highness Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh (*1921) passed away, aged ninety-nine peacefully in Winsor Castle. As is traditional, official notice of his death was posted on the railing of Buckingham Palace, though promptly removed to avoid drawing a crowd. Counter to the strange, immediate praise by the Prime Minister for the Prince’s carriage driving skills, the public figure was first to deprecate himself as a “discredited Balkan royal of no particular merit or distinction” but was nonetheless a pivotal institution in civics and support roles, with the walk-on role that fell onto the shoulders of an individual whose career path seemed to be a naval one, which had he attained the rank of First Sea Lord he would have been required to walk several feet behind his wife according to the protocol of the Admiralty.  The Commonwealth mourns with the Royal Family with further announcements to be made in due course.