papa-oon-mow-mow (13. 970)

A synthesis of two originally uncredited songs by the doo-wop ground The Rivingtons, The Trashmen, having added the melody to their repertoire for their shows in the Minneapolis region, were persuaded on this day in 1963 to record and release their single Surfin’ Bird, ultimately climbing to number four on the US charts. The track was cemented in collective culture first in 1976 as the theme song for Detroit Tigers’ baseball player Mark Fidrych, nicknamed the “The Bird” over his supposed resemblance to Big Bird from Sesame Street and his antics on the field and later reintroduced through the 2008 Family Guy episode, “I Dream of Jesus.” The Emmy nominated episode where the protagonist remembers his favourite song from his childhood, much to the annoyance of his family, and discovers Christ as a record shop worker who is able to give him a copy of the single.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: more on the Soviet calendar (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: more links to enjoy plus Matt Gaetz nominated for US attorney general 

three years ago: a medieval large language model,  Predator spiders, a clever dark-sky hack plus a block-print fabric collective

four years ago: even more links worth the revisit, curb-side resistance plus a gallery of bad paperback covers

five years ago: and more links plus Hollywood Horror House (1970)

six years ago: your daily demon, ticket brokers go after medical records, Doctor Mesmer, composer Johann Zach plus US vice-presidential firsts

day two hundred forty eight (13. 969)

After days of counting ballots, the Democratic challenger Scott Colom is declared the winner of a Mississippi senate seat, the first time the office has been held by a Black individual since the Reconstruction Era following the US civil war. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns following revelations of a second affair with a subordinate with stocks of the chipmaker in free-fall. Trump suggests Huang be replaced by recent retiree Tim Apple.  Kyiv reports more disruptions to military Starlink as envoys Kushner and Witkoff meet Putin in Moscow. Trump seemingly removes JD Vance from addressing foreign policy after floating the possibility of direct peace talks and tells the vice president to focus on domestic matters. The Revolutionary Guard threatens severe reprisals for any US hostilities. IDF targets hospital complexes in Gaza, claiming Hamas are using them as human shields as Israel’s caretaker government says it is free to carry out strikes anywhere and does not need to seek the approval of the opposition. Houthis bombard Saudi refineries and pipelines.

kosmos (14. 968)

Tip of the hat to Kottke for the reminder that the joyous techno marching band MEUTE exists and the brass and percussive ensemble has recently released a new album and are touring again. “Reset” is one of the genre-crossing set pieces that untethers deep house riffs from the DJ turntable and out into the crowd—the meaning of the band’s name.  MEUTE also participates in international outreach programmes like Musicians without Borders and will accompany activists rallying against right-wing demonstrtators.

don’t try to run—i can keep up with you (13. 967)

Released on this day in 1986 as the lead single from the artist’s third studio album True Blue, the track, originally titled “Follow Your Heart” was written for Cyndi Lauper and shopped around to The Temptations before being demoed to Madonna’s production team, the artist herself workshopping and rewriting the lyrics. Innuendo far from implicit and rather daring for the time, the song’s overt sexual yearning and depiction of a little boy trying to sneak into a peep-show was controversial though not an impediment to its commercial success. Madonna’s performance was inspired by Liza Minnelli’s from the 1972 cinematic adaptation of Cabaret.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: the Cthulucene epoch (with synchronoptica) plus US Democratic senators cave on the shutdown showdown

 

two years ago: a tribute to both the death of Leonard Cohen and the death of US democracy, a needlecraft sampler declared a national treasure plus more on the Frankfurt kitchen

 

three years ago: James Burke’s Connections plus Remembrance Sunday

 

four years ago: an alternate photo of the Loch Ness monster, Gemini XII, the invention of the World Wide Web plus the debut of Absolutely Fabulous (1992)

 

five years ago: trapeze artist Jules Léotard, Monsters, Inc., a very Squid Games Christmas, a foggy walk in the woods plus the science of sericulture

 

six years ago: a concert for a reunited Berlin (1989) plus imagining the Trump Presidential Library

seven years ago: an ideal time to go to Mars, Possibly in Michigan (1983), casting to Hell plus a psychedelic ad for movie refreshments

eight years ago: a 1929 Ralph Steiner short on water, women’s suffrage in Austria (1918) plus RIP Douglas Rain

 

day two hundred forty seven (13. 966)

A US federal judge allows Trump’s ten billion dollar defamation suit, for implicating that Trump encouraged the January Sixth rioters to storm the Capitol, against the BBC to proceed—though under UK law, the plaintiff must appear in court for deposition. The White House threatens Democratic lawmakers with criminal investigations if they carry through with their promises to subpoena and investigate cabinet officials and other allies of the American president, whom has definitely retracted his earlier statements of accepting the outcome of the midterm election. Housing and cost living crisis prompt a general strike in Spain, with millions of workers walking off the job. Parliamentary speaker Ghalibaf and chief negotiator says Washington must announce their decision on Tehran’s latest proposal, as Vance and Rubio argue over peace or a continued naval blockade and Trump adds that the US did not start the war and Iran and America have been fighting since 1979. Ukrainian drones disable more Russian refineries. Saudi backed forces of the Yemeni regulars push back on the Houthi advance.

panopticon (13. 965)

Architecture studio SpY has installed a temporary monolithic intervention in Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles, the stark black triangle juxtaposing with the Art Nouveau façade of the palace—formerly home to the capital’s main post office and telegraph service—to encourage public dialogue, through obstruction of established lines-of-site of the historic square, forcing passersby to reposition their bodies or their cameras and viewing portholes, peepholes of CCTV feeds of the immediate surroundings, about urban surveillance and digital tracking. Though to a degree, we’ve all opted-in to this monitoring and superintendence for convenience but we also were not allowed to give informed consent.

netherwood (13. 964)

With dozens of titles ranging from the classics of horror and speculative fiction, biographies of figures like Madame Blavatsky, members of the Hell Fire Club and Aleister Crowley and guides on tarot, palm-reading, practical magic and other forms of divination, this omnibus introduction to the Library of the Occult, published by Sphere Books beginning in 1974—capitalising on the revival of interest in the supernatural in the UK starting earlier in the decade. Every instalment of the series was selected by the project’s editor emeritus Dennis Wheatley, a prolific writer himself and among the world’s best-selling authors from the 1930s to 1960s, with a preface to each volume of the anthology. John Coulthart has put together a short synopsis to accompany each paperback, annotated with links for those works in the public domain.

slide show (13. 963)

For his latest installation, artist Carsten Höller assembled an ensemble of metallic architectural slides to connect different parts of a hotel, shopping and business campus in Mexico City’s posh Palanco bureau. This is Höller’s most ambitious and largest construction yet, having had a temporary slide at the Tate Modern, designed to shunt visitors (see also) as messages through a series of pneumatic tubes, inspiring both terror and delight as they cross into adjacent buildings and are ejected at their destination. Other projects include carousels and exhibitions reflective of his original studies in entomology and mycology. More from Dezeen at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica) plus a walk at the local airfield

two years ago: AI espionage, RFK Jr’s future role in Trump’s cabinet plus the lead narrows in the US congress 

three years ago: All This and World War II (1976), an astronomic discovery plus Kissinger’s diplomacy 

four year ago: more links to enjoy, MacArthur Park, the Feast of St Menas plus Kurt Vonnegut Jr at 100

five years ago: even more links, 3 quarks daily, superannuated image formats, Bliss symbols, an autumnal walk plus more out of the way wanderings

six years ago: the Trizone anthem, more links worth the revisit plus an observatory receives a new name

seven years ago: the Feast of St Martin plus early generative text

eight years ago: the Armistice of 1918, assorted links worth revisiting plus a Bosch-bot