riptide (11. 536)

Released as the second single from the titular eighth studio album from Robert Palmer was originally intended to be a duet with Chaka Khan but her vocal contributions were removed due to contractual obligations with another label, the song made it to number one on the US charts on this day in 1986. Reminiscent of the concept music video for Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin’s vision for Benny and the Jets, the noted homage also references the work of Patrick Nagel and with several tributes to follow.

anemoia (11. 535)

Derived from an Ancient Greek portmanteau of wind and mind in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the titular coinage refers to the wistful nostalgia for a time and place one has never known, and via ibīdem we are directed towards a reflection that we’ve often pondered perfunctorily with the gratitude that we didn’t grow up in the lens of social media where every embarrassing moment could be captured and preserved for posterity and really captures a generational disjunction, perhaps unique, and being expressed through infatuation with the vintage, the retro and sometimes regressive as those experiences liminal and just out of reach can be romanticised and recalled or imagined better and more interconnected than they really were, just like other appeals to a Golden Age. The crux of the thesis hinges on one particular high school graduation home video from 1999 and the reactions it has drawn from an anxious and aching audience of Gen Z’ers (and others truly nostalgic and older cohorts dismissive of the novelty of coming of age) for a time when one was present and not curating, documenting or checking their status for a sinewy broader group of acquaintances, and commodified by constant connectivity. Isolation transfixed as escapism is a trade-off, however unwilling, for convenience and instant gratification. More on the appeal for sentiment and sympathy from Freya India at the link above.

apogee and orbit (11. 534)

Via Web Curios (lots more to explore there), we are referred to this rather calming life-stream of the International Space Station transversing the over the Earth below (see previously) from an external camera triangulated with its coordinates in realtime, atmospheric conditions as well as the positions of the Sun and the Moon.

poise and charm (11. 532)

Via Weird Universe, which astutely demonstrates that despite advances in technology there’s little new under the sun with this 1964 print-out pageant winner Miss Formula with unobtainable measurements, we learn that the first generative beauty contest is being organised under the justification that such competitions, to be judged by a panel of two humans and two AIs, are dehumanising so should be safe to export more of this sort of exploitation and biased unrealistic idea of perfection to the synthetic and rates entrants on beauty, technical achievement and social clout—no mention of congeniality. Much more at the links above.

hjelp (11. 531)

This is cute. Previously we’ve posted about how internationally distributed entertainment is sometimes retitled for different audiences, but we didn’t known about this rather clever former convention employed in Norway to signal to viewers that the film was a foreign comedy with a simple and often hilarious formula of prefixing “Help” to a brief description of the situation, like Airplane! as “Help, we’re flying!” or the National Lampoon trilogy as “Help, We have to go on Vacation,” followed by “Help, We Have to go on European Vacation” and “Help, We Have to go on Christmas Vacation.” It’s sort of like the Carry On series. The practise began to wane in the 2000s with increasing English literacy in the country but some later domestic comedies have used the same taxonomy.

synchronoptica

one year ago: more on the Populuxe design movement, a space alphabet plus drone strikes over the Kremlin

two years ago: el Tres de Mayo (1808)

three years ago: NPR’s first broadcasting day, World Press Freedom Day plus the Benty Grange helmet

four years ago: Future Shock (1970), Cetacean Ops, a timeline of the pandemic, rock-paper-scissors not legally binding, more on Star Trek: TAS plus assorted links worth revisiting

five years ago: Sun Day, more links to enjoy plus nuisance lawsuits

national day of reason (11. 530)

In response to the statutory observance of the National Day of Prayer—codified into law at the urging of conservative evangelical preacher Billy Graham in 1952 during the Korean War with US president Harry S Truman signing a bill proclaiming that each subsequent administration was to declare this annual holiday on the date of his choosing—this secular counter-convocation has been held on the first Thursday since 2003 by humanists and freethinkers to assert freedom from religion after unsuccessfully petitioning the federal government from endorsing the former, supported by public monies and time for Christian-dominated religious ceremonies. The latter having gained in popularity in recent years as a demonstration that nonbelievers can contribute to their communities in positive and life-affirming ways and be good without god, activities include organised food drives, blood donations and giving to other charities.

space cowboy (11. 529)

Before Star Wars or even the failed vision of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune—see also, a writer-director called Tony Foutz, who was also friends to the planned main cast, conceived of a sci-fi, fantasy project called Saturation 70, a retelling of Alice in Wonderland, in which a Victorian child falls through a wormhole and discovers himself in a dystopian Los Angeles after the climate collapse and his befriended by a group of time-travelling aliens to save the Earth from pollution—the extra-terrestrials are outfitted in hazmat suits against the toxic atmosphere, the title referencing the tolerance for carbon monoxide in blood. To star the then five-year-old son of Rolling Stone Brian Jones, country singer Gram Parsons, Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas and Nudie Cohn, much of the principal footage had already been shot before funding fell through and the production called off, many scenes filmed without a permit during a 1969 convention of alien abductees at Giant Rock near Joshua Tree in the Mojave Desert. Douglas Trumbull who created the special effects for 2001 and later The Andromeda Strain was also involved. Aside from a brief showreel and a few stills, the film has been lost and regarded by cinephiles and Parsons’ fans as a rumour, nearly undocumented for nearly four decades, only a gallery showing in 2014 at London’s Horse Hospital but the story is being told in book form, featuring some never before published on-set photographs and scripts. More from Dangerous Minds at the link up above.

trench coat words (11. 528)

Via tmn, we really enjoyed this reflection and appreciation of the beautifully dissociative nature of the Japanese language and the noble attempt to articulate how the diglossia, digraphia of the written and spoken word, though a series of historical accidents, has created a unique and somewhat untranslatable perspective on the world. Beyond the embarrassment of choices that Japanese speakers have for writing (see previously) and those poetic terms with no equivalence—nonetheless important—the expatriate author a decade on explores how shoehorning the written word imported from China into a wholly oral tradition necessitates not only a pronunciation guide but context cues for orthography, adding an extra dimension to communication from the mechanics of morphology. Much more at Æther Mug at the link above including distinctive etymological class of compound words whose components are said the same but are disguised with a new kanji.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: another MST3K classic plus a pivotal moment in the Falklands War

three years ago: record stamps, the debut album from Kate Bush, Peter and the Wolf, more links to enjoy plus an alternate Oktoberfest

four years ago: ambient sounds of New York City

five years ago: the Queen Elizabeth 2,  more on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, possible etymologies of OK, geese in the city at night plus more acoustic visualisations