(13. 577)

synchonoptica

one year ago: the commune of Belz (with synchronoptica) plus the city of Vannes

two years ago: the castles of Bellinzona plus the US supreme court grants presidents blanket immunity for official acts

three years ago: more venerable publications going out of print 

four years ago: and then they came for me (1937) plus Scottish devolution (1999)

five years ago: Julie Moon (1970), children’s author Dodie Smith, assorted links to revisit, a banger from Grandmaster Flash (1982) plus being well-read in Antiquity

day one-hundred twenty-one (13. 576)

The Qatari foreign ministry confirms that no high-level meeting between US and Iranian officials is scheduled to take place in Doha over the coming days despite the arrival of envoys Kushner and Witkoff, Tehran saying it is currently not negotiating with Washington in any capacity and will not resume talks until violence ends in Lebanon. Concerned over increased executions has prompted French lawmakers to sponsor individual death-row political prisoners, whilst German intelligence services find that Iran is spying on opposition activists domestically.

you do really have to hand it to the algae (13. 575)

…for their relentless message discipline. Despite the fact it registers lower on the national and global insult level of what Trump heinous things has done than the Melania movie, the ongoing fiasco surrounding the Capitol Reflecting Pool has managed to capture public attention through successive news cycles whilst we might forget even the latest demolition job on civil rights, the environment, rule-of-law, world-order, democracy and even on the architectural landscape and heritage of Washington, DC—for as precious that Americans can be about such things, the response over the extensive remodelling of the White House was muted and resigned.
The resonance of this renovation lies in its scale for the rapine and corruption and incompetence and grift that are too big to contemplate soberly (hence, flooding the zone) but also in the fact that something humbling yet manageable exploded with scapegoating, outsourcing and more deflection rather than finding a remedy, behaviour that violates the code of all dads everywhere (and the like) when it comes to cleaning a grungy pool, firing up a backyard grill or planning a party.

deep blue something (13. 574)

Via Quantum of Sollazzo and deliciously reminiscent of the harried and hued colour profiles appearing in the Paris Review and the Awl right before folding, we are directed to this delightful project chasing down the paper trail of pigments, one colour per day with its chemistry, provenance and poison. There are over two-hundred fifty already indexed, like the pale jade glaze originally from ancient Chinese ceramic-making techniques, this greenwear copied by Korean and Japanese artisans (the greyish shade comes from oxidising iron during the firing of kilns, Fe₂O₃→FeO, and the Western namesake is from a character in a popular seventeenth century French pastoral novel, L’Astrée by Honoré d’Urfé, who dressed in light green garb—no relation to the Celadons Ovid’s Metamorphoses or International Klein Blue, a synthetic ultramarine with connections to the Nouveau réalisme movement and among the first pigments to be successfully patented. Each entry has adjacent palettes and new specimens are posted Sundays. I feel like this is site I will return to often.

birthright citizens’ brigade (13. 573)

On the final day of the judicial session before summer recess, the US supreme court, in a six to three ruling delivered a sharp rebuke to Trump’s long-standing interpretation of the constitution, rejecting the executive order issued on the first day of his second term which sought to bar citizenship, against the guarantees of the XIV. amendment, for babies born on US territory of parents in the country without legal status or who are living or working here only temporarily. Chief justice John Roberts, writing the majority opinion, contended that the legislation adopted during reconstruction after the civil war purposefully defined citizenship broadly as a buffer against those who wanted a more limited and narrow standard of who counts, and does not apply only to recently the emancipated enslaved and their descendants according to legal norms and precedent that have held for over one hundred sixty years since its enactment. The only substantive legal challenge, the court cited, reaffirmed this understanding with the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark, a young cook in Chinatown born and raised in San Francisco, to Chinese immigrant parents—who were undocumented as no documentation was required at the time. Ark’s parents eventually returned to China with their son visiting them and denied reentry upon his return to California on the grounds Ark was not a citizen, a claim disputed all the way up to the supreme court with Ark winning his appeal at another juncture in history when sentiment against outsiders was very high and the Chinese exclusion act just coming into force. The amendment itself was in reproach to the odious Dred Scot decision that said persons of African heritage could not be citizens, vacating the previous ruling and denying it was “blood and not soil” that make an American. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch filed dissenting opinions, premised mostly on the argument that children of foreigners have split and competing allegiances.  The court should not be given much credit, however, for siding on justice in this instant with all the other regressive stances they have affirmed lately.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Quiberon peninsula (with synchronoptica)

two years ago: the Holy Mountain of Varese

three years ago: US supreme court nullifies Biden student loan forgiveness plan plus the Night of the Long Knives (1934)

four years ago: International Asteroid Day, Snake Island, documenta 5 plus assorted links to revisit

five years ago: more links to enjoy plus leap seconds 

six years ago: France’s video-text service, Wuthering Heights, a Dadaist art exhibition (1920) plus a failed world car prototype

by the window, that’s where i’ll be (13. 572)

As our faithful chronicler informs, on this day in 1968 Tiny Tim’s novelty rendition of the 1929 popular song by lyricist Al Dubin and Joe Burke as performed by guitarist Kick Lucas, peaked on the singles charts at spot seventeen. From his studio album, God Bless Tiny Tim (which as a complication of musical standards and singing the baritone and falsetto parts of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe” fared better on the LP rankings, topping out at number seven), the number became the artist and archivist’s signature song (as it was for Lucas, Tiptoe thru’ the Tulips included in the talkie film Gold Diggers of Broadway) whose stage name was originally that of British persona Sir Timothy Tims (born Herbert Butros Khaury) and shortened it for booking purposes, having nothing to do with the Dickens’ character.

day one-hundred twenty (13. 571)

Maritime traffic through the Hormuz has declined sharply, Tehran saying no further talks are scheduled despite Trump’s claim for a technical working group meeting in Doha on the logistics of safely operating the strait, the truce still holdings as both the US and Iranian military actions are paused. Inflation in Iran flirts with a sixty percent increase as the price of food staples have nearly doubled since the start of the conflict, supposedly some six billion dollars of Iranian deposits will be unfrozen. Tension continue to rise with Oman over the disposition of the waterway with Muscat competing to open more routes and opposing tolls. IDF incursions into southern Syria draw condemnation from Middle East nations.

9x9 (13. 570)

general magic: an ambitious project to create the smart phone (see below) in the early 1990s failed over lack of constraint and too much freedom, not lack of vision, talent or technology

odyssey: charting the great journeys of fiction—see also  

humphrey’ executor: US supreme court strikes down federal laws that prevent the president from firing heads of (some) independent agencies—see previously  

don’t swear jerry—and don’t bleed in the sink, i’ve just cleaned it: actor and comedian Penelope Keith has died, aged 89  

🧸: Nuigurumi Jinja (Plushie Shire) dedicated in northern Kyoto for honouring beloved stuffed animals—see also here and here 

keedoozle: the grocery store vending machine of the 1930s 

 île de peliz: the solitary natural islet of Lake Geneva, with room for a plane tree  

hypergraphia: history’s most prolific writers 

how about this: 1960s housewife and the pocket phone of the future

synchronoptica

one year ago:  a walk along the beach at Gârves (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: a visit to the Rocco di Caldè 

three years ago: animatronic Trump, an updated We Didn’t Start the Fire plus US supreme court strikes down affirmative action for college admissions

four years ago: goodwill ambassador Samantha Reed Smith 

five years ago: cartoonist Thornton Hee plus a record-setting Van Gogh auction (1987)

six years ago: Quo Vadis,  the feast of SS Peter and Paul, the debut of the iPhone (2007), a chiptune classic, exotic crisps plus Japanese train station jingles