synchronoptica
one year ago: Marlo Thomas and Friends’ Free to be You and Me (with synchronoptica) plus a lightly edited royal portrait
seven years ago: propagandist Axis Sally
eight years ago: toasting the newly discovered TRAPPIST exoplanet system
nine years ago: a moving McDonald’s ad plus odd British toponyms
ten years ago: more protests against refugees in Germany, assorted links to revisit, folk etymologies and false cognates plus recycling e-waste
Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we learn that on this day in 1914 suffragette and activist Mary Raleigh Richardson walked into the National Gallery and attacked The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velรกzquez with a meat cleaver in protest of the arrest and incarceration of movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst the day prior. After slashing the canvas, apprehended and sentenced to the maximum allowable for vandalising a work of art of six-months, Richardson issued a statement to the press: 
“I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history,” her actions further embellished in the papers in violent terms and framed as a callous murder of a actual person—an enduring problem when most female eponyms bestowed on places are not for actual figures but rather goddesses and deifications and more defamed by the omission, see also here and here. Velรกzquez’ 1651 work, successfully restored after the attack but again vandalised in 2023 by Just Stop Oil activists, was rather singular as one of the few nudes to come out of Spain during the Inquisition (Richardson also objected to the way gentleman gallery-goers leered at the image) and the motif, often copied, gave rise to the psychological, depictive departure known as the Venus Effect (cf, titular planetary symbol) with the goddess contemplating her reflection with back turned to the audience, seeing her face though not directly behind her, the intuitive framing often used in cinema to better frame an actor looking in the mirror.
Created in response to federal officers attacking peaceful protesters with teargas in order to clear demonstrators as Trump’s entourage walked to St John’s Church for a photo-op holding a Bible, Washington DC’s iconic Black Lives Matter street mural is being erased, the city’s mayor pressured by contingent of congressional representatives to remove the slogan (citing public safety) or lose federal funding. 
Dedicated 5 June 20202 on the what would have been the twenty-seventh birthday of Breonna Taylor, a nursing student student killed during a botched police raid on the wrong premises, adding to global sorrow and outrage amid a mass movement to expose inequities, discrimination, violence the brutality of law enforcement for that began with the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013—and too many before and since—and grew to its international scope after the killing of George Floyd in May. The two block stretch and surrounding plaza have been a forum for healing and a venue for continued rallies as all our affected by the administration’s unrelenting attack on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, banning books and outlawing critical race theory or anything else that might make white people uncomfortable.
Having enjoyed some samples of Leonard Charles Huia Lye’s work (better known as Len Lye) in his pioneering animation studies and experimental use of rotoscope techniques, we appreciated being introduced to his kinetic sculptures and work in stop-motion short 
(presented in living Gasparcolor, developed in Berlin in 1933) about an undaunted motorist (see also) suddenly caught in a sandstorm and stranded in the unforgiving desert, who despite being reduced to sun-bleached bones is resurrected (with a few drops of life-giving petroleum) as cyborg. Watch the entire film at Open Culture at the link above from the Shell Oil historical archive—which includes many other promotional pieces of iconic animation.
synchronoptica
one year ago: 1978’s The Incredible Hulk (with synchronoptica) plus a cheese-mongers’ survey
seven years ago: a next generation scarecrow
eight years ago: bringing back the bees plus more on repealing and replacing Obama Care
nine years ago: illustrator William Thomas Horton, a fantastic projection of the Trump dynasty plus a Roald Dahl inspired font
ten years ago: an Ayn Rand film adaptation plus roving wireless
Via Messy Nessy Chic’s regular roundup, we discover a singular multi-faith centre in Sri Lanka extending the eponymous peak (เถ
เถธ්เถถුเท
ුเทාเท) of the strategically important mountain range separating the north and south of the island nation and protecting the historic capital of Kandy from colonial powers. The spiralling fairytale white tower with a narrowing staircase winding around takes a hour to ascend, affording spectacular vistas of the highlands. At the base of the pinnacle some fifty metres below is a complex opened to the public in 2007 (built at the urging of a former prime minister from this area to uphold both religious tolerance and harmony with nature) including a Buddhist stupa, a Hindu kovil, Muslim mosque and Christian chapel so all denominations can commune together above this biodiversity reserve.
Though drafted with the unimpeachably serious aim of curbing the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII—also known as revenge porn) online, the piece of legislation, the so called “Take It Down Act,” whose immediate passage Trump urged during his address to a joint-session of congress earlier in the week overly-broad language and is blatantly a recourse of the powerful to pressure host platforms to remove content critical of the administration, censoring and silencing dissent. 
Sponsored in the senate by Ted Cruz of Texas, the act would further require social media to have procedures in place to comply with a takedown request upon notice from a victim and enjoys support from the first lady, who is known for championing a rather unoriginal online safety campaign “Be Best” during her husband’s first term, opponents fear it could easily be extended to political speech and journalistic reporting that leadership does not like, with no penalties for lodging a false or frivolous notice and a requirement for hosts to monitor content shared over end-to-end encryption, potentially leading to platforms abandoning privacy measures in order to align with the law.
Having previously learned about the introduction of music on demand, an early streaming service for subscribers and the accidental advent of hold music (muzak being a proprietary eponym), the former emerging at a time when exposure to song was a rarer treat and required some effort and received as a performance, whereas the latter shows how we are over-saturated at times, we quite enjoyed this segment on the “furniture music” of composer Erik Satie to complete the timeline with the immersive experience of incidental or mood music—or a pleasant background to ignore. 
Commiserating with an artist friend over the cacophonic playlist that typically filled restaurants, far from enhancing the dining ambiance rather magnified the general din and clang of cutlery, prompting Satie to design music to blend into the environment. Though under appreciated at the time, his tailored compositions eventually gave rise to the unintrusive and unengaging musak above and ambient, meditative songs from Brian Eno and John Cage. Much more from Open Culture at the link above.
An upcoming conclusion of events, akin to Germany’s own Schicksalstag (Day of Fate) but augmented by the cycle of politics and government housekeeping which by rights ought to be pretty routine and unexciting (see also here and here) seems rather ominous or the United States. 
Not only is it the Ides of March when the backstop continuing resolution funding the government expires at midnight with congressional Democrats poised to withhold their support for any budget or increased debt-ceiling necessary for Trump’s tax cuts in order to blunt the pace of the unlawful dismantling of the administrative state, alienating allies and threatening the global order that has existed since the end of World War II all carried out by royal prerogative and against the will of the legislature, coincidentally it also marks the fifty-third day of the Trump presidency, which is precisely how long it took Hitler use the Weimar constitution to subvert democratic institutions after his appointment as chancellor, destroying the republic from within using its own laws and norms. The date also marks the fifth anniversary since America went into lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. We suspect this upcoming Saturday might be a little wild.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a watchtower in the woods (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting
eight years ago: more links to enjoy plus an underwater tunnel for ship traffic in Norway
nine years ago: Douglas babies, the right to be sheltered from dissent, repurposing abandoned churches plus shorthand as punctuation
ten years ago: Latin Christendom, unuselessness plus even more links
eleven years ago: curtailing freedoms in Tรผrkiye plus artist Carl Grossberg
