rush week (11. 449)

We thoroughly enjoyed this detailed review of the 1978 ABC made-for-television movie The Initiation of Sarah by Robert Day and starring Kay Lenz, a retreating wallflower (see also) over shadowed by her popular sister (Morgan Brittany) who discovers her latent paranormal powers after being admitted to the sonority on campus with less prestige, ΦΕΔ—referred to by the members of ΑΝΣ (Alpha-Nus) as “pigs, elephants and dogs”—with the encouragement of house matron, Shelly Winters. Discovering that the hazing ceremony will involve a human sacrifice, Lenz uses her telekinetic abilities to disrupt the initiations for the rival sonority as well as her own. Much more from Poseidon’s Underworld at the link up top.

11x11 (11. 448)

inauspicious beginnings: a rift opens up in a group of official astrologers employed by the Sri Lankan government to pick ideal dates for new years rituals  

disco arabesquo: record label Habibi Funk aims to introduce Middle Eastern vintage music to wider audiences 

typecraft: a transformative font foundry in India 

the allegory of the cave: on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the film’s premiere, we may be still trapped in the Matrix 

banjaxed and bockety: two curious Irish terms 

der buch der hasengeschichten: Tom Seidmann-Freud’s 1924 collection of hare fables 

working for tips: bizarrely robot baristas will accept gratuities, in a service sector landscape already fraught with insecurity and precarity—via tmn  

the juice is on the loose: a sequel thirty-six years in the making, reuniting the original cast—via Miss Cellania  

international system of typographic picture education: an archive of the pictograms of Gerd Arntz—see previously  

pocket full of kryptonite: the preponderance of alternative rock songs about Superman in the 1990s, 2000s 

prosopometamorphopsia: a new study on generalised social anxiety disorder tries to see from the perspective of those with a rare condition that causes faces to appear distorted, demonic—via the New Shelton wet/dry

a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse (11. 447)

Taking place according to the teen coming-of-age movie on this day, a Saturday, in 1984, The Breakfast Club by John Hughes, featuring the acting talents of Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Paul Gleason, Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson. Relating the encounters of five individuals from different high school social cliques being punished with a weekend detention overseen by an authoritarian vice-principal with the assignment to write a thousand word essay on who they think they are as punishment, with instructions not to talk or interact with their fellow classmates, all strangers to one another from different social groups. Hiding from their minder, they break the rules and pass the time gradually opening up and sharing their circumstances with one another. Considered the quintessential 1980s movie (in general release about a year after the events in the movie timeline occurred) and with a stellar soundtrack, film poster, a “family shot” ensemble of the cast was photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Lassie finale (1973) plus an ominous sign in the heavens (1345)

two years ago: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1952)

three years ago: the Potato Decree (1756), Donkeyskin, Moscow on the Hudson plus an alternative keyboard format

four years ago: International Tuberculosis Day plus a long fight ahead

five years ago: Meshes of the Afternoon plus marijuana etiquette

wall of sound (11. 446)

First debuted on this day in 1974 for a concert by the Grateful Dead (previously) at the venue of the California State Livestock Pavilion (the Cow Palace, an indoor arena on the outskirts of San Francisco), the monumental acoustic reinforcement system, consisting of some six hundred speakers and drawing twenty-six thousand watts of power, fulfilling lead designer Owsley “Bear” Stanley’s search for a self-correcting way to amplify the experience to an audience of a hundred-thousand projecting over a significant field of attendance without distortion (the audio crew could monitor what the crowd heard). Although the technical achievement was itself retired by October due to logistics involved in moving and reassembling the array, the advancement in fidelity led to an improved experience for all, made more practical and efficient once the Grateful Dead resumed touring in 1976.

the noodle bar scene (11. 445)

The always excellent Language Hat brings up the topic of the auxiliary, cosmopolitan argot, Cityspeak, used in at the beginning of the film (and peppered throughout) in the exchange between Decker (Harrison Ford), the snack counter’s proprietor (Bob Okazaki) and later the undercover arresting officer Gaff (Edward James Olmos, credited with its invention to a large extent). The Blade Runner pretends not to understand this polyglot creole of German, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, Hungarian, Chinese and French but of course knows exactly what the dialogue is about. Monsieur, azonnal kövessen engem bitte! Whilst this 1982 vision of our contemporary present has not exactly come to pass linguistically, it is an interesting study in diglossia and language as a cultural indicator rather than purely, functionally communicative and what else the movie and novel got right about the future.

8x8 (11. 444)

going in style: fantastic custom sarcophagi from Ghanaian coffin-maker Paa Joe  

tiamat: the misremembered series finale of the Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon—see previously  

spoofing: FlightRadar maps GPS jamming—see also

cincyflags: neighbourhood banners for all of Cincinnati’s fifty-two communities—via Pasa Bon! 

mergers and acquisitions: Trump expected to see a windfall from the sale of social media network 

coal holes: cast iron plate covers for the chutes of London—see also  

infantile amnesia: early childhood memories may not be lost and yield insights to brain development—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

regeneration: a look at the jurisdiction practising human composting

synchronoptica

one year ago: sampler silhouettes, punctuation in headlines plus scrimshaw from oceanic plastic trash

two years ago: assorted links worth revisiting

three years ago: AI-generated pick-up lines, a variation of the Medusa myth, the controlled-deorbit of the Mir (2001), lockdown on year on, vintage GIF buttons, pole tossing plus REM’s Out of Time (1991)

four years ago: dissolution of the African Economic Union (1985)

five years ago: the musical stylings of Carsie Blanton, a town’s strong connection to the number eleven, Nick of Time (1989), the tarot of Pamela Colman Smith, Robert Mueller concludes his investigation plus the UK votes

off his meds (11. 443)

Via TYWKIWBI (indeed), we learn that Dr Lecter’s famously creepy quip from Silence of the Lambs, the psychiatrist turned cannibalistic serial killer consulted for insight to help catch another, “A census taker once tried to test me—I ate his liver with some fava beans and nice Chianti” is more than a memorable quote but also a subtle joking admission that he’s not presently adhering to his prescribed pharmacological regimen. The fictional doctor’s most aberrant tendencies could be managed with a class of drugs called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (a rather blunt instrument from the 1950s used to treat a whole range of disorders with various levels of success), which Lecter would of course know as well as the contraindication of this particular repast, all noted for having high levels of tyramine (as well as blue cheese) and could cause dangerous side-effects—the kind of adverse chemical reactions that the poor grapefruit usually gets blame for. In the novel by Thomas Harris that the 1991 film is adapted from, mostly faithfully, the better-paired wine is Amarone is mentioned but was presumably substituted for cadence in delivery by Anthony Hopkins and as something audiences would be more familiar with.

intersection of prose and code (11. 442)

Via Web Curios, we are directed to the third annual anthology of an experimental webzine described as a “journal of literature made to exist on the on the internet” called The HTML Review. A selection of works radiating outwards as spokes from the issue are collected that incorporate both an essay or fable with an element of the interactive. We too especially enjoyed the “Game of Hope,” which combines John Horton Conway’s cellular automata with Pandora’s Box, and the tangential “Measure a Machine’s Heart” whose passion either ramps up or burns out according to a certain protocol.