synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: silphium, more on the Voynich Manuscript plus a visit to Trump’s ancestral home
eight years ago: Birobidzhan oblast, fantasy doubles tennis plus the 1970 movie The Phynx
nine years ago: more links to enjoy
ten years ago: WWI periodicals a century on
Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we are directed to a retrospective exhibition of nostalgic photographer John Wilfrid Hinde whose carefully staged compositions influenced the style of picture postcards made famous through his commissioned series of Butlin’s holiday camps from the 1960s through the early 70s. Founded by Billy Butin in 1936 after a frustrating stay at a bed-and-breakfast in Wales during which he found himself locked out of the 
accommodations by his landlady during the day (common practise at the time) and was inspired to create seaside resort destinations that were affordable or the working-class with plenty of amenities and excitement. During the immediate post-war period, they were extremely popular with the franchise spreading across Britain, Ireland and the Bahamas but succumbed in the 1970s and 1980s to cheap package holidays to the Mediterranean. Most of the facilities are closed and long demolished or repurposed (see previously), with a few exceptions like the pictured pool lounge of Bognor Regis, but all the parks with attractions like heated pools, monorails, gondolas, sports facilities, stages for theatrical performances and rides but have a living legacy in the millions of postcards meticulously framed by Hinde.
Though arguably in the general case a bigger assault on our concentration and aimed for the low-attention 
span audience, the TikTok split-screen technique, when correctly deployed, like this superb bit of juxtaposition from the Harris-Walz campaign, courtesy of Kottke, that pits GOP taking-points on abortion and other parts of their platform with a video game speed-run, is a remedy for those suffering from Trump and election reporting fatigue—not to promote those views but to engage those averse to any news about the Republican ticket who’s default is to zone out and listen to the dangerous and weird things that they have to say.
@kamalahq oof
♬ original sound - Kamala HQ
Via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest and using the recent stranding of two US astronauts aboard the International Space Station for what originally was tour of eight days or so are now, due to a malfunctioning Boeing Starliner, are stuck in orbit until at least February as a narrative device, space 
blogger Swapna Krishna began exploring the long and complicated history that gets to yes for these eligible voters to cast their ballots in upcoming US elections. Back in 1997 then Texas (where NASA astronauts are stationed and registered) governor signed legislation that allowed residents to vote absentee from space when the previous year the Secretary of State had not allowed two US researchers aboard the Mir Space Station to vote electronically, citing no provision in the law that allowed it. Because these missions generally last under six-months and our two astronauts in question did not complete an absentee ballot application with the county clerk, as is the normal procedure, who then sends a test ballot via the Johnson Space Centre to confirm it can be securely completed from orbit, relaying credentials known only to the voter and registrar so they can vote. Not expecting to still be onboard the ISS come November, however, the astronauts had not planned on this contingency. An exception was granted in this case. While election integrity and security are of the utmost importance in the democratic process, these same byzantine rules often serve to disenfranchise those without resources and a support network like NASA. Cosmonauts either vote by-proxy or forgo the secret ballot and radio their choices to ground control. Much more at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica) plus Palestinian embroidery
seven years ago: AI guesses one’s sexual orientation
eight years ago: more links to enjoy
nine years ago: Queen Elizabeth becomes longest reigning monarch, medieval walkable cities, even more links worth the revisit plus alchemy in Prague
ten years ago: Roman campaigns plus the Empire in forty maps
Though admittedly not familiar with the majority of the songs in this medley, this latest instalment from DJ Earworm (previously) is a masterpiece of remixing with some outstanding transitions—including key changes—and editing that really bops, despite of the kind of unoriginal material that the artist had to work with for Brat Summer.
Premiering on this day at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on this day in 1999 (in general release 17 September), probably no other film has waned in its critical reception and reappraisal since Gone with The Wind, now almost singular dismissed and regarded as not ageing well, the award-winning Sam Mendes and Alan Ball collaboration about repression, renunciation, conformity and fragile masculinity is nonetheless an artfully crafted if unsophisticated time-capsule that captures the Zeitgeist of fin de siรจcle ideas of as-yet unrecognised privilege, normative behaviour and attitudes that still reverberate and are relatable a quarter of a century on. Its stellar initial accolades, 9/11 which made much seem trivial that came before, benighted stereotypes and actor Kevin Spacey being cancelled for atrocious behaviour that mirrored the protagonist of the movie certainly didn’t help its problematic legacy. 
Straddling the enduring (when and if it comes time for critical reevaluation) dichotomy between the message of the meaning of life versus the hollowness of suburbia and sabotaging one’s life and being unable to deal with the consequences, American Beauty relates the archetype of a stranger coming to town in the form of the Fitts, an authoritarian, retired Marine colonel with an ill wife and withdrawn teenaged son who documents everything one his camcorder and pays for his expensive hobby by selling marijuana, to the notionally progressive and liberal picket-fenced community of middle-aged Lester Burnham, unhappy with his career and loveless marriage, and their gay neighbours. In parallel with his wife beginning an affair with a coworker, Burnham becomes infatuated with a classmate of his daughter which sets of a chain of events that that leads him to quit his job, blackmail his former boss, buying a classic car, and taking work as a short-order cook—deportment that might be excused as a “mid-life crisis” in unenlightened times. The 2000 MTV Movie Awards had nominated the film for its Best Kiss category but the studio rejected the overture, not wanting to glorify the “inappropriate” nature of the congress between a forty-two year old man and a sixteen-year old girl. …look closer
Having a bit of a preoccupation with the discipline of diplomatics, we enjoyed going through this collection of missives from Letters of Note when correspondence becomes self-aware and ashamed, feeling the need to excuse itself for bad penmanship—the motor control and coordination to commit words to a page (undiminished we agree by their appearance however verging on the illegible) an important feedback loop in the exercise that’s not much practised lately, and lamented in this vintage selection. Particularly telling is this letter (not pictured—that’s Franz Kafka) from American poet laureate Louise Bogan addressed to essayist and New Yorker magazine editor William Keepers Maxwell with the post script, “Isn’t my handwriting queer? I lost my old one, typing for years; and this one showed up last winter. Odd!” Much more from Sean Usher at the link above.
Unveiled on this day in 1862 to commemorate the thousand-year anniversary of the arrival of of the Varangian viking conquerors from Sweden in the Kievan Rus’, traditionally taken as the starting point of 
statehood, the hundred-ton bronze monument, the Millennium of Russia, in the kremlin of Novgorod is a fifteen metre high globus cruciger atop a bell-shaped pedestal, representing the history and culture of the empire. One-hundred twenty-nine figures line the middle and bottom levels and uniquely for an official state work include academics, writers and artists along with rulers, heroes, military commanders and men of enlightenment, but conspicuously absent is Ivan the Terrible (though is wife Anastasia Romanovna is present) for his pillage and massacre of the city founded by Prince Rurik in the ninth century. The monument was captured and dismantled by the Nazis during World War II but Novgorod was recaptured by the Red Army before transportation to Germany could be arranged and restored the work and put it back on display in 1944. Since 1988, among the signals of easing official atheistic policy, the celebration of this state baptism was the first national observance with a religious character.
