public domain review (13. 021)

In anticipation of Public Domain Day 2026 (previously), here is a preview of the selection of literary and artistic works from 1930 and musical compositions from 1925 (under US jurisdiction, songs have a full century until IP lapses under current law) whose copyrights expire and are released to whomever and for whatever purpose. Artists’ works include Piet Mondrian’s Composition II, the pictured untitled work by Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Abel Lafleur’s Jules Rimet Cup—the original trophy of FIFA, along with countless works in the Art Deco movement registered in that year. Among dozens of cinematic works, All Quiet on the Western Front, the Three Stooges’ Soup to Nuts, The Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers and Savadore Dalí’s and Luis Buñuel’s L'Âge d’or are counted in, as well as audio recordings by the Gershwin brothers like “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You,” “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,”Leo Robin’s “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” the inspiration for the Star Trek theme (see also) and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Comics and cartoons include Betty Boop, Disney’s first appearance of Pluto (as Rover) and Flip the Frog and other characters created by Ib Iwerks after he left the studio. More from Duke Law School at the link up top.

rest in power (13. 020)

Via Laughing Squid, we are directed to the dedicated visual eulogy from Chris the Barker (see previously) with his memorial montage in the style of the cover art for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with his tenth and final instalment of the series, beginning the project in 2015 after the deaths of Leonard Nimoy, Cilla Black, Christopher Lee and Lemmy Kilmister). It’s surely a taxing task to relive all these deaths at the end of the year, hopefully with no revisions or additions. Click through for the complete obituary, which features prominently Manianne Faithful, Hulk Hogan, Val Kilmer, Diane Keaton, Patricia Routledge, Prunella Scales, George Foreman, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lynch, Pope Francis, Ruth Buzzi, the Aga Khan, Rob Reiner, Loni Anderson, Jane Goodall and Dick Cheney among many others.

agitprop (13. 019)

Hacker emeritus, Jamie Zawinski, presents quite a memory dump sharing the original, mostly forgotten logo designs for the open source web-browser Mozilla that was created on commission by graphic designer Shepard Fairey to create a corporate brand back in 1998—a spin off of Netscape that would eventually become Firefox, featuring the dinosaur mascot and backgrounds and colour schemes inspired by the Soviet propaganda of Vladimir Mayakovskii and visual contemporaries. One banner encouraging one to download the code even contains in translation the reference to the Proverbs chapter six: ПОРАБОТАЕШЬ БУДЕТ МУКА; ПОСИДИШЬ СЛОЖА РУКИ БУЛЕТ НЕ МУКА́ А МУ́КА—Sit with crossed arms and there will not be flour, the verse admonishing to not give into slumber. Much more from JWZ at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Southern Solstice (with synchronopticæ), president Musk plus assorted links to revisit

twelve years ago: Bjork’s private island, the blog is dead—long live the blog, Star Wars embraces fan-art plus saintly hand gestures

fifteen years ago: more unseasonable weather

terminal velocity (13. 018)

Though I think not taking all the factors of Newtonian physics into account, Infinite Ball Drop is a fun visualisation of the of the countdown (first spotted by Waxy) as the ball makes its descent from a special mast atop One Times Square (normally only sixty seconds and a controlled drop of one-hundred and thirty-nine feet down the pole)projected to the present time to ring in the New Year—currently some two-million feet above Manhattan with nine-hundred thousand seconds left to go. Past the thermosphere already, one can track it as it slowly plunges below the orbit of the International Space Station and the edge of space—the Kármán line (see also). The first New Year’s Eve party took place on the cusp of 1907 and 1908 and continues to this day and has inspired another similar drops and raises in places across the world through all time zones.

all the kids in the marketplace say (13. 017)

The third single from the band’s second studio album, A Different Light, released earlier in the year in September climbed to the top of the US charts on this day in 1986, holding the number one slot for four weeks and marked the Bangles’ first hit, and ranked Billboard’s best song of 1987. Songwriter Liam Sternberg (also a producer and performer who worked with Devo, the Waitresses, Kirsty MacColl and many others) was inspired for the title—and his biggest credit to date—whilst on a ferry-crossing of the Channel in rough waters and witnessed fellow passengers stepping carefully with arms outstretched to keep their balance, reminding him of Ancient Egyptian friezes and reliefs, composing the track around that image. The below video also received accolades from MTV.

9x9 (13. 016)

brought to you by the inkjet lobby: the amount of redactions in the US justice department’s release of the Epstein files sparks outrage  

christmas and commerce: a David Sedaris holiday classic—see previously  

global building atlas: an ambitious project mapping all three-billion built structures worldwide  

grabenanlage: rescue archaeology in southwestern German town of Herxheim in 1996 suggests ritual cannibalism on a massive scale with research still ongoing  

your attention is all you have—wasting it is annihilating: Blackbird Spyplane on a life of screen-time—via Kottke

pithos: Roman amphora of sardines found in Switzerland 

orthorectified panorama: the Apollo transforming printer that developed cartographically accurate photographs of the Moon 

a christmas memory: Truman Capote recalls holidays past  

formerly known as the kennedy center: the history of the US national stage for the performing arts—see previously

sessomatto (13. 015)

Whilst unable to give a full-throated endorsement to the Italian erotic anthology film by Dino Risi—that debuted in cinemas on this day in 1973—eight short chapters on various proclivities (no kink shaming) with Laura Antonelli appearing as a different character in each vignette, we can however—via Dangerous Minds—recommend the soundtrack without reservation. It makes for a nice long-play of ambient sound with funk, Italo-pop flair with no one the wiser for the accompanying action and is by composer and conductor Armando Trovajoli who specialised in the music for Commedia all’italian exploitation films.

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synchronoptica 

one year ago: a never-melting snowman (with synchronopticæ) plus Adolf Hitler released from prison (1924)

fourteen years ago: America abandoning its leadership role and turmoil in Europe 

engine, engine forty-nine (13. 014)

Finding some needed solace in the writings of Thomas Pynchon during the rise of MAGAists’ conspiracy theories in the figure of Oepida Maas, a sort of anti-John Galt, Better Living through Beowulf, now has to question like the protagonist of their own sanity whilst weaving together a plot that beggars belief, which seems a bit rudimentary in comparison to Trump’s own arc of narrative. The paranoia of The Crying of Lot 49 has a veneer of truth (see above) and so does the career-trajectory of Trump, framed as agent Krasnov, promulgated as a successful businessman now beholden to organised crime with a litany of knock-on events that lead to our present conundrum, whose nomenclature matches with Genghis Coen, Mike Falloopian, Mucho Maas (the heroine’s DJ husband) and Dr Hilarius with corresponding real-life characters unmatched nearly six decades on with corresponding Dickensian-named figures like heroes Reality Winner and villains Laura Loomer, Elon Musk or Reince Priebus and the White House lawn used as a venue for a wrestling match plus a list of dozens of other things not on ones bingo card for 2025.