9x9 (13. 027)

pot to kettle: US bans Europeans who encouraged social media to suppress American points of view—see also, whilst the Heritage Foundation openly calls for the dissolution of the European Union  

sight unseen: a collection of the best video essays of 2025  

winter tarotscope: a collective reading for the coming season from AX Mina  

first and main: store front churches as captured by Rob Stephenson—via Messy Nessy Chic with a lot more to explore including more on glass models of deep sea creatures  

x-mas post: holiday greeting cards to Paul Rand (previously) from other designers, artists and architects  

commodorchestra: Linus Åkesson (previously) performs an ambitious chip-tune arrangement of Boléro (see also) on an assortment of homemade eight-bit instruments 

exhibit a: a simple copy-and-paste undoes redactions to some of the Epstein files  

the address is cbs: the censored reporting on the infamous CECOT prison removed from 60 Minutes was bootlegged for international broadcasts—via Super Punch

synchronoptica

one year ago: the first wholly electronic television transmission (with synchronopticæ), the Bohemian John Phillips Souza plus a Christmas pause 

fourteen years ago: a Star Wars Nativity scene 

fifteen years ago: Christmas Eve greetings 

sixteen years ago: zodiacal mugs 

seventeen years ago: miscellany from Wikipedia 

troppo paradiso nelle loro menti (13. 026)

Via Laughing Squid, we are introduced to the musical stylings of the talented Italian guitar quartet 40 Fingers with this moody, acoustic rendition of the overture from Jesus Christ Superstar, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice rock opera—with an absolutely brilliant arrangement (see previously—Silent Night was originally a guitar piece as well). The band’s biggest viral moment yet was a cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and have taken a particular interest in film scores.

ho ho hustle (13. 025)

We quite enjoyed this McSweeney’s piece by contributors Anne Marie Wonder and Madeleine Trebenski imagining the ensemble of characters of secular Christmas celebrations taking on a side-gigs to make ends meet in this economy. Missus Claus is a trad-wife influencer and Heatmiser has monetised his podcast, hawking testosterone supplements between segments advocating how real men don’t ask permission to commit arson, and you know Dasher—or rather DoorDasher, of course.

synchronoptica

one year ago: fifty plus years of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn (with synchronopticæ) plus the etymology of fruitcake

seven years ago: the patron saint of Iceland, a glitter mystery plus the Extinction Rebellion

eight years ago: Project Blue Book plus motto misappropriation

nine years ago: walled-gardens 

ten years ago: international holiday customs, a Christmas ghost story, an embarrassing product recall plus a yuletide greeting

eleven years ago: Ship of Theseus 

thirteen years ago: mapping South Sudan, US austerity plus winter flooding

sixteen years ago: winter driving 

9x9 (13. 024)

participation, in this context, is a kind of alignment: the Vanity Fair photo shoot of Trump’s cabinet 

escape velocity: a super-massive runaway black hole has been ejected from its home galaxy and is careening through space—via Kottke 

that thoth over there: a guide to the messy divine family of Egyptian mythology  

beyond the last-minute gift guide: the year of Tedium wrapped  

no-one comes to casablanca for the waters—you were misinformed: every drink in the 1942 classic (see previously, oddly no gin)—via MetaFilter  

capital allocation: on the social uselessness of finance, creating winners and losers  

homecoming: a preview of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey—see also 

intraterrestrials: subsurface microbes have geological lifespans 

unreliable narrator: Epstein and company as Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert—see previously

all in the family (13. 023)

Anticipated by audiences nearly as much as “Lucy is Enceinte” and the introduction of Little Ricky in 1953 (CBS network censors at the time didn’t allow “expecting” or “pregnant”), as our faithful chronicler reminds, on this day in 1975, Archie Bunker’s Little Girl Gloria (Sally Struthers) gave birth to the son of Mike Stivic (Rob Reiner) Joseph “Joey” Michael with the conclusion of a two-part episode entitled “The Baby”—like with the Ricardos, the second part being “Lucy Goes to the Hospital.” Portrayed by several different actors (initially by twins), Joey was a regular part of the cast until Struthers and Reiner left the show in 1978 when it went into syndication, but the character was reprised for some of All in the Family’s numerous spin-offs—Maude, The Jeffersons, Checking In—appearing in the short-lived Gloria, Archie Bunker’s Place and 704 Hauser, the fictional address in Queens occupied by a different family two decades on. In 1976, the Ideal Toy Company released a doll of Baby Stivic—“Archie Bunker’s Grandson”—billed as the first anatomically correct male doll (inspired by the rather frank portrayal of the televised birth), stirring mild controversy at the time but since considered a collectors’ item, but no where close to the merchandising and appearances made by Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the CIA’s operation CHAOS (with synchronopticæ) plus assort links worth revisiting 

twelve years ago: a drone identification guide plus formulaic correspondence

thirteen years ago: slow pace at work, bleak near-futures plus carol trivia

fourteen years ago: US carriers take exception with EU flight emissions standards plus the wild hunt

fifteen years ago: Santa’s naught list has Wikileaks, Germany’s Word of the Year plus 2010 in review

sixteen years ago: 2009 superlatives 

pflp (13. 022)

After taking over sixty hostages, killing an Austrian police officer, a Libyan economist and and Iraqi security guard, six terrorist of the “Arm of the Arab Revolution” under the leadership of Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal (with assistance from West Germany’s Rote Armee Faktion), the energy ministers for eleven of the thirteen members of OPEC (the Organisation Of Petroleum Exporting Countries) present were taken ransom whilst attending a semi-annual meeting at the headquarters in Vienna. Delegates were separated into three groups in the conference room during the siege, with friendlies advanced towards the exit, neutrals cordoned off in the centre and enemy countries placed along the rear wall next to a stack of explosives rigged to detonate if the facility was comprised. Complying with the hostage-takers’ demands, Austrian broadcasters read a communiqué over the television and radio every two hours regarding the Palestinian cause and the group’s manifesto whilst transportation was arranged with an airplane bound for Tripoli with a layover in Algiers, lest captives be executed every fifteen minutes. Algerian foreign minister Abdelaziz Boteflika managed to de-escalate the situation, with all parties walking away unharmed forty-eight hours later, including the Iraqi and Iranian oil ministers, slated for execution before the raid began.

public domain review (13. 021)

In anticipation of Public Domain Day 2026 (previously), here is a preview of the selection of literary and artistic works from 1930 and musical compositions from 1925 (under US jurisdiction, songs have a full century until IP lapses under current law) whose copyrights expire and are released to whomever and for whatever purpose. Artists’ works include Piet Mondrian’s Composition II, the pictured untitled work by Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Abel Lafleur’s Jules Rimet Cup—the original trophy of FIFA, along with countless works in the Art Deco movement registered in that year. Among dozens of cinematic works, All Quiet on the Western Front, the Three Stooges’ Soup to Nuts, The Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers and Savadore Dalí’s and Luis Buñuel’s L'Âge d’or are counted in, as well as audio recordings by the Gershwin brothers like “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You,” “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,”Leo Robin’s “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” the inspiration for the Star Trek theme (see also) and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Comics and cartoons include Betty Boop, Disney’s first appearance of Pluto (as Rover) and Flip the Frog and other characters created by Ib Iwerks after he left the studio. More from Duke Law School at the link up top.

rest in power (13. 020)

Via Laughing Squid, we are directed to the dedicated visual eulogy from Chris the Barker (see previously) with his memorial montage in the style of the cover art for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with his tenth and final instalment of the series, beginning the project in 2015 after the deaths of Leonard Nimoy, Cilla Black, Christopher Lee and Lemmy Kilmister). It’s surely a taxing task to relive all these deaths at the end of the year, hopefully with no revisions or additions. Click through for the complete obituary, which features prominently Manianne Faithful, Hulk Hogan, Val Kilmer, Diane Keaton, Patricia Routledge, Prunella Scales, George Foreman, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lynch, Pope Francis, Ruth Buzzi, the Aga Khan, Rob Reiner, Loni Anderson, Jane Goodall and Dick Cheney among many others.