la cage aux folles (10. 514)

The farce, “The Cage of the Mad Women,” by playwright Jean Poiret portraying the comedy of errors that ensues when the son of a Saint Tropez night club operator and his gay boyfriend invites his fiancée’s conservative parents to meet their future inlaws had its debut this day in 1973 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, running for over eighteen-hundred performances. After being adapted as a Franco-Italian film—a trilogy ultimately, in 1978, it became a musical with book by Harvey Fierstein and music by Jerry Herman, with later cinematic premiere as The Birdcage in 1996.

7x7 (10. 513)

nothing, forever: an endless AI generated episode of Seinfeld, livestreamed—via Waxy 

construction spree: an annual survey of China’s Ugliest Buildings  

fictive flyover: still photographs of the Red Planet captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter transformed into a stunning video  

word of the day: eleemosynary—that which is supported by charity—and gives us the derived term alms  

he gets us: the billion dollar rebranding of Jesus—mostly financed through dark money, via Super Punch  

35f no pmh, p/w cp: OpenAI gives a correct diagnosis but can’t show its work, fabricating a fake citation for its conclusion—via the new shelton wet/dry  

yeldard: a forgotten British television oddity rediscovered in Paul Bradley

the golden arches theory (10. 512)

On the anniversary of the opening of the first McDonald’s establishment in Pushkin Square in 1990—an earlier earnest effort was undertaken by the Canadian master franchise for the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, famously boycotted by America, realising the host city offered no fast food options, arranged to open two pop-up restaurants by the main stadium but the plan was vetoed at the last minute by Moscow’s mayor, it’s a good occasion to visit the above adage of globalisation from Thomas Friedman that no belligerents both host McDonald’s. This conflict prevention measure is flawed, however, with the US invasion of Panama, the bombing of Serbia, Lebanon, the annexation of Crimea which shut down Russian outlets temporarily and the divesture of the company following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nearly forty-thousand guests were served that day, queuing in the cold for hours.

distrans (10. 511)

Though aware of the differences in international editions it had never occurred to me that illustrated covers were set in a specific type over its first printings, like these UK volumes with titles in Giorgio, fittingly a sort of space-age spaghetti Western font, we were unfamiliar with the mystery surrounding—via Boing Boing—the visual identity of Frank Herbert’s original trilogy from 1975 on, eventually encompassing all of the author’s work. and work about the author and franchise. An uncredited typographer lettered a modified version of Davison Art Nouveau, a font never digitised and can only be licensed from a single catalogue of a particular Manhattan foundry. Many more examples at Fonts in Use at the link above.

7x7 (10. 510)

loft apartment: a unique flat inside St Louis’ City Museum up for rent—via Miss Cellania  

relaxed minimalism: a happy medium combining clarity and comfort  

namensverbreitungskarte: an interactive maps illustrating the distribution of surnames in Germany  

nocebo: even when the patient is aware of taking an inert pill, a substance designed with no therapeutic value can lessen feelings of guilt and loathing—via the new shelton wet/dry  

synodic and sidereal: the question of lunar standard time is a challenge—particularly with multiple missions operating at once—via jwz 

kurashi: tidying guru Marie Kondo have accepted messiness after the arrival of her third child  

arragon mooar: the purportedly the most complicated home ever built—by inventor John C Taylor—on the market—via Things Magazine

8x8 (10. 509)

musiclm: a Google sandbox experiment for audio generation from rich captions—via Waxy and Web Curios—see previously  

krewe of karens: i would like to see the Mardi Gras manager  

semi-stagionato: an ancient method for surviving the COVID cheese glut made have improved the region’s pecorino cheeses  

taming of the shrew: voles manage to bond and form long-term relationships without the “love hormone” oxycotin  

party (of one): Broadway Barbara’s “Dance for Your Life!”—see also 

 an absurd italian gastronomic religion: the ironical, fascist sauce that outlived the war on pasta—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links—lots more to explore there 

you know i always wanted to pretend that i was an architect: attribute these quotes to either Seinfeld’s George Costanza or GOP darling George Santos  

magic voice: more prompts and audio continuation courtesy of Google’s suite of AI tools

gentlemen—there’s no fighting in the war room (10. 508)

Starring George C Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens and Peter Sellers in multiple roles, Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War bleak satire—previously—Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. An air command’s executive officer tries to countermand a first strike being ordered by General Ripper on the pretext that Soviets have been fluoridating US water supplies in order to dilute the “precious bodily fluids” of Americans but fails, setting off a course of events that led to the USSR deploying its heretofore undisclosed doomsday machine, which as the president’s science advisor, ex-German Nazi Dr Strangelove would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it.

zero my hero (10. 507)

Turning fifty this month with its debut as a series with Multiplication Rock with songs written and performed by Bob Dorough going through the tables—see also—the interstitial animated educational shorts Schoolhouse Rock! was a staple of American Saturday morning cartoon programming, originally running through 1984. The original concept was suggested by an advertising executive of the influential firm McCaffrey and McCall’s that his young son was—despite being able to memorise the lyrics of Rolling Stones songs—struggling to rote lessons, resulting in the pre-canon “Three is a Magic Number” in 1971 before pursuing the project further. One of three between programming segments along with Time for Timer (“A Hankering for a Hunk of Cheese”) and the Bod Squad (“The Munchies,” “Don’t Drown Your Food”) and was followed by a second series, Grammar Rock, and for the US bicentennial in 1976, America Rock, culminating in the final run of Scooter Computer and Mister Chips.