hooked on phonics

Incredibly after a run of forty-one years, the Chicago Tribune announced on this day in 1975 that it would be revising its style guide and discontinue the editing standards in place since January of of 1934 of offering simplified, phonetic spellings (see previously) of about eight common words, conceding that the newspaper was not making the grade when it came to came to English language conventions of putting words in print (both in headlines and copy) and wanted to cause no further confusion in the classroom, particularly for young pupils. While holding out that sanity and prescription might one day come to orthography, going forward, the paper agreed to no longer publish thru, tho and thoro for through, though and thorough—as well as rime for rhyme, fantom for phantom, sofomore for sophomore, etc.

synchronoptica

one year ago: sea birds in a hurricane (with synchronopticæ) plus a Schoolhouse Rock!-style explainer for Project 2025 

twelve years ago: punctuation marks that failed to catch on plus downplaying the climate catastrophe 

thirteen years ago: real life raiders of the lost Ark plus the debut of Star Trek: TNG (1987)

fourteen years ago: austerity measures for the German economy plus biometric punch-clocks

fifteen years ago: the reckoning of Iceland’s financial crisis 

riquewihr i (12. 764)

synchronoptica

one year ago: ranking the gods (with synchronopticæ), Chilean Antarctica plus more brief papacies

fourteen years ago: proprietary geographic protections, illustrating Tarantino plus if the service is free then you are the product

fifteen years ago: more dragnet surveillance from the US plus a trip to Prague

sixteen years ago: an antiquated, nasty habit 

mittelwihr, ostheim, beblenheim (12. 763)

  

synchronoptica

one year ago: hotel darkrooms for hobbyist photographers (with synchronopticæ), a very short papacy plus Dawn: A Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1976) 

fourteen years ago: Das Boot 

fifteen years ago: substituting the flag of Chile for the flag of Texas

seventeen years ago: lost and found

 

sk8er boi (12. 762)

Via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake, we discover this sweet short student film from 1965 from Noel Black (Pretty Poison, Kojak, The Electric Grandmother)—a narrative with no dialogue that tells a story of infatuation and rivalry set to a surf-rock sound track by Mike Curb performed by Davie Allen and the Arrows. Considered the first cinematic treatment of the subject, it was filmed in Torrance and Redondo Beach California, it received accolades from several festivals including taking the Palme d’Or in its class at Cannes.

5-7-5 (12. 761)

Albeit the scansion can be a bit off at times for human consumption—via Web Curios—this algorithm that pulls headlines, with by-line often, from the Guardian is a fun little experiment (see previously here and here—see also here) which could possibly run through ever permutation well past the heat-death of the Universe and keep on presenting as haikus.
The traditional Japanese short-form poetry, consisting of seventeen morae (μ, a syllable or sub-unit) presented in a five-seven-five pattern, classically with a kireji (切れ字, a caesura or cutting word) at the end of the verse and reference to a season:

the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw

English inspired forms are typically a departure, retaining some of the qualities but more focused on the rhythm and structure of the language, having no precise equivalents and usually composed in an exercise of metric-counting rather than juxtaposition and surprise. Still finding like patterns is nonetheless intriguing.

synchronoptica

one year ago: new Nazca lines revealed (with synchronopticæ), the study of street art plus assorted links to revisit

thirteen years ago: Icelandic landscapes, the US Food and Drug Administration audits Swiss dairies plus excommunication and indulgence

fourteen years ago: a visit to Darmstadt and Erfurt to see the Pope plus the euro vies with the the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency

fifteen years ago: flea market finds and a visit to Werneck 

the mountains are high and the emperor is far away (12. 760)

Sparking much concern and speculation, US secretary of war (we’ll address them by their preferred pronouns) has called an unprecedented, in-person all hands meeting of some eight hundred general and flag officers (GOFOs, high ranking commanders) of the armed forces on short notice—a week to make arrangements—to gather at the marine base in Quantico Virginia outside of Washington DC. Invitees expressed confusion and reservations over security concerns to have the US global top brass in a single location. In this timeline, the urgency won’t be over an impending asteroid impact or extra-terrestrials. No further details were given for this summons prompting a wide range of possibilities from the relatively anodyne announcement like a new national defence strategy, protocol to speaking to the public and press, major restructuring and further consolidation and redundancy, a loyalty test, pledging an oath of office to the party rather than the constitution, perhaps not the wisest decision to gather true, apolitical patriots all in one room unless to purge those not deemed trustworthy enough—to the more grave, such as a declaration of hostilities whose targets could be one or multiple belligerents from Russia, China, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Argentina, Panama, Mexico, Canada to Greenland—or somewhere not yet on the radar—and possibly American itself.

everybody rides the carousel (12. 759)

Courtesy of Messy Nessy Chic, we are happily reacquainted with the artistic duo John and Faith Hubley through their 1976 animated film based on the stages of psychosocial development as articulated by another husband and wife team Erik and Joan Erikson. The eight phases which form a comprehensive psychoanalytic trajectory of healthy growth range from infancy to late adulthood, each with their own virtues, crises, significant rpresented elationships, events and existential questions. The segment below features the voice talents of Meryl Streep and Charles Levin in Stage Six, Intimacy versus Isolation and asks “Can I unite myself with another person?” The movie can be seen in its entirety here, as first broadcast on CBS in September of that year presented by Cicely Tyson and also starring Dinah Manoff, Lane Smith, Pablo Casals, Dee Dee Bridgewater and others.

fe-fi-fo-furlough (12. 758)

After cancelling a meeting with Democrat leadership from the house and senate, saying there was nothing to discuss with the opposition party over the impending shut-down of the federal government, making the lapse in appropriations seem inevitable—though the drama has become almost an annual occurrence. A memo circulated by the Office of Management and Budget, however, seems to raise the stakes and change the calculus significantly: directing federal agencies to not only prepare furlough notices for non-essential employees but also prepare reduction-in-force (layoff) plans for those discretionary programmes not deemed consistent with Trump’s priorities, thus eliminating more of the federal workforce in the event of closure, leveraging the Democrats to vote to keep the government open without entertaining any concessions to the other party. For their part, the Democrats in congress recognise this new intimidation tactic, having averted a shutdown in March arguing at the time that that would have unleashed the administration to do even greater damage to the civil service, but after rescissions and clawing back funds already obligated and voted on—realising that the GOP will do whatever it is ordered—seem to have come to the conclusion that closure is only way forward. We’ll see how this standoff plays out in the next few days.