diesel and dust (12. 662)

Released on this day in 1987, the sixth studio album from Midnight Oil is a concept record on the themes of environmental degradation and the struggles of Indigenous Australians, critically acclaimed and ranked amongst the best compilations of the 80s since its premiere. Drawing their inspiration from several months of touring the outback and playing in venues for remote Aboriginal communities—criticised by some as a one-off publicity stunt rather than a genuine effort to highlight lack of opportunity and low living standards leading to poor outcomes, the band decided to redouble their efforts to champion recognition and reconciliation. The chart topping single below is an indictment about how populations were subject to forced-removal and sparked a global discussion about land-rights and reframing narratives—with colonisers not the only one who get to write history, reprised several times with the expanded message of the impending climate catastrophe.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: Snowden’s time in Hong Kong, Bitcoin and Germany plus cult sites of the Theban Legion 

thirteen years ago: artist Laurtis Andersen Ring 

fourteen years ago: mythical creatures and Addler stones 

7x7 (12. 661)

boom!: the disastrously inebriated flop starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor judged the “best failed art film ever” 

supermarginal gyrus: a mind-reading brain-computer interface can decode one’s internal monologue comes with password protection for self-censoring  

there’s a monster in willow called the eborsisk—after the critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel: a long interview with actor and director Ron Howard (previously) with anecdotes from every project—via Super Punch—here’s the nemesis in case you don’t recall 

e pluribus motto: John Hodgman and Janet Varney highlight, state-by-state, official and unofficial symbols, history and local culture–see previously  

eon productions: an obituary of the recently departed Joe Caroff, prolific titleist, land designer of several iconic logos and movie posters—including the signature pistol letterform of the James Bond franchise  

osteo-odonto keratoprosthesis: after a decade of vision loss, an individual in British Colombia can see again through a tooth in her eye—like the Stygian sisters, the Graeae, no offence to the happy patient—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

visiting hours are over: the 1982 Canadian slasher film starring William Shatner and Lenore Zann reviewed by Poseidon’s Underworld—see previously

consumable and durable goods (12. 660)

We are directed to a rather engaging evolution of a logo via the Chicago-based trade journal, formerly published under the titles Business Equipment and National Stationer, Office Appliances: The Magazine of Office Equipment, in regular circulation from 1904 to 1993. 

 The long history documents changing styles in formatting and typography in pace with technology, from neoclassical to Art Deco to Bauhaus and beyond but the key, the work space conclave, is ever-present. 

These cover-to-cover periodicals come courtesy of the Internet Archives’ microfiche scanning operations, which one can watch live with the accompaniment of lofi soundtrack and a sidebar of the latest digitalisation, now particularly focused on livestreaming the release and preservation of US government records with off-hour montages of highlights from their public domain collections. More from Tenth Letter of the Alphabet at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: cellular pathology (with synchronopticæ) plus vice president Nelson Rockefeller 

thirteen years ago: the German energy revolution 

seventeen years ago: an old car tuckers out 

brekekekèx-koàx-koáx (12. 659)

Via ibīdem, we are directed to a retrospective look at an unusual best-selling album—reminiscent of this extensive audio survey giving voice to the voiceless in this conchological glossary or the perennial fascination of music for plants—reprised on several occasions due to popular demand in noted herpetologist Charles Bogert’s 1958 recording Sounds of North American Frogs. Fifty-seven sample tracks include the cries and calls like the scream of the Southern Leopard Frog or the rain song of the Squirrel Treefrog and moreover the look at the label and provenance of this immersive, natural experience—the Folkways Records was an accession of the Smithsonian Museum for the public good—and bringing the great outdoors to one’s ears. Much more at the links above including factors that prompted reissues for such field recordings.

there must be something in the water (12. 658)

Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, we are afforded the chance to revisit the myth of Hermaphroditus through modern scientific conjecture that eponymous spring lake, after the predatory nymph—Salmacis, actually existed at Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum Türkiye of the Hanging Gardens fame) by the accounts of ancient writers like Ovid whose waters might have had natural “emasculating” endocrine disrupters, suggesting the archetypal tale was not just the product of a productive imagination but the actual concentration of emasculating chemicals. A popular cult developed for Hermaphrodius as the ideal of beauty as well as a symbol for holy matrimony, perhaps reflected in Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians—the community located between Pergamon and Halicarnassus—that included the instruction, “Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh,” a benediction of the Greek orthodox marriage ceremony that repeats the words of the apostle.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a remote Icelandic movie theatre (with synchronopticæ) plus the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran

twelve years ago: the EU and Gibraltar  

thirteen years ago: a logographic alphabet of untranslatable words 

fourteen years ago: US regulations for foreign banks plus a visit to cloister Ebrach

fifteen years ago: the US army leaves Iraq 

now look here colonel bat guano, if that is your real name (12. 657)

Founded by veteran CBC journalist and presenter Clyde Gilmour in the 1940s, the Society for the Verification and Enjoyment of Fascinating Names of Actual Persons (SVENAP) is a deliciously intriguing roster of unusual and not wholly tragic names with quite a few instances of nominative determinism (see previously here and here). Some of our vetted favourites (see also here and here) with short biographical entries include: Magdalena Babblejack, Dunwoody Zook, Dr Icy Macy Hoobler, Lester Ouchmoody, Sir Basil Smallwoody, Biff Life and Philander Philpott Pettibone. This cataloguing seems to have unfortunately ended with Gilmour’s death in 1997 but back issues exist. Tag yourself.

i changed, you’re not (12. 656)

Following Trump’s rather hollow and anti-climatic summit with Putin in Alaska, European leaders upend their summer schedules—including holiday-making—to rush, realising the stakes and how there are moments when history pauses and looks at us dead in the eye and asks do we know what is happening, to Washington to lend moral and materiel support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy, hoping to avoid the previous melt-down in the Oval Office and stop the US administration from further undermining the continent’s security signalled by Trump’s vacillation over the peace process with a ceasefire no longer a prerequisite for negotiations and that a treaty can be struck simply by ceding Russia the Donbass, capitulating to a one-sided deal with Ukraine demilitarised and Russian subject to no further sanctions. This time, appearing in formal apparel, the same conservative reporter who questioned his usual attire of military fatigues complemented the Ukrainian president on his suit, to which Zelenskyy quipped that the journalist was wearing the same outfit as last time. Already, however, Trump is apparently rehashing tired stab-in-the-back conspiracies about a stolen election and mail-in ballot fraud, a sentiment echoed by Putin as well as citing the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the biggest geopolitical betrayal of all time, on display by foreign minister Lavrov’s CCCP sweatshirt at the prior meeting.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a philosophical cartoon (with synchronoptiæ) plus amplified contagion

twelve years ago: landscaping inspirations plus freelance hotels

thirteen years ago: WWII week: Nacht und Nebel plus international traffic signs

fifteen years ago: weather control machines 

sixteen years ago: blogging non-sequitirs  

käsegruppe (12. 655)

Of course we like to have a sample of the local culinary heritage when on holiday and while the herbal liquor (Kräuterlikör, Schnapps) from the Müritz might be a unique concoction to try as well as the smoked fish—we learnt that the cheese label, which is fairly common in stores throughout Germany but not certain if we had ever tried it is not a product with a protected geographical indication but rather a style of mild cheeses marketed for its flavour profile, rather than its location—partially to distinguish it from the neighbouring Holsteiner variety that is afforded such legal status—as a German Tilsit (Tilsiter) cheese. Similar in taste and texture to Havarti, cheesemaking practises were introduced to the region of East Prussia by waves of immigration from Switzerland’s Emmental region, fleeing religious persecution and at the bidding of the kingdom’s rulers in order to repopulate Mecklenburg area after a decimating outbreak of the plague in the eighteenth century. The recipe was eventually reimported to Switzerland but the new settlers created distinct styles with the ingredients and conditions of their new home. The method and tradition was named after the dairy operation centred in the city of Tilsit in the former Borussian province, where the original buildings exist to this day—under the rule of the Teutonic Knights from the eleventh through sixteenth centuries there was already a robust cheese-making industry—with not less than seventeen towns and villages named Milchbude, milking stall, in their domain but little standardisation existed beforehand. Once Prussia was formally dissolved and the easternmost lands ceded to the Soviet Union as reparations for World War II, the territories became Kaliningrad oblast and the town on the border with Lithuania renamed Sovetsk (Сове́тск) but retains the name Тильзи́тер for the cheese, also produced in Poland, Estonia and Ukraine.