9x9 (13. 188)

all lawful uses: Pentagon labels Anthropic AI a supply-chain risk for refusing to activate Skynet  

digital humanities: platforms, ethnographically, can only deliver two out of the three trilemmas  

skimo: newest Olympic sport combines uphill and downhill action 

⻢: etymologies of the year of the Fire Horse—more here 

rainbow push coalition: tributes for Jesse Jackson (RIP)  

the great breath: Christian Waller’s theosophical fairy tales 

sơng: author Ocean Vuong is suspiciously talented as a photographer as well  

project cardinal: turnaround management, corporate restructuring codenames and other euphemisms 

most energy storage solutions: inspired by DNA, a liquid forming molecular bonds can hold potential heat for months until it’s needed

synchronoptica

one year ago: protests against DOGE (with synchronopticæ) plus European emergency summit convened immediately following the Munich Security Conference

thirteen years ago: regional franchises plus more former enclaves and exclaves

fourteen years ago: the neocolonialism of finance 

fifteen years ago: academic dishonesty in the German government 

sixteen years ago: upcoming trips 

la jetée (13. 187)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we are informed the influential sci-fiction featurette by Left-Bank writer-director Chris Marker (previously) premiered on this day in 1962. Set in a post-apocalyptic Paris, with survivors of a nuclear war living in the catacombs and galleries beneath the Palais de Chaillot (the neoclassical showcase built for the Exposition Internationale of 1937 on the grounds of the partially demolished Palais du Trocadéro—the temporary headquarters of both the UN and NATO and backdrop of Hitler’s short tour of the city with Albert Speer in 1940 and Victory in Europe celebrations five years later) with the remaining scientific community conducting research into time travel, sending test subjects to various dates in the past and future and change the course of history and avert the conflict that has all but wiped out civilisation. Challenged to find suitable test subjects mentally stable enough to withstand the rigours of temporal displacement, they pin their hopes on a man with a vague but ingrained memory from before the war, a startling encounter he witnessed from the observation platform (“the jetty”) from the Orly airport. His intervention seems promising but is caught in a paradox and can affect no change. The narrative is told almost exclusively with a photomontage, cycling through still images with no dialogue other than an expository voice-over. The short was adapted and expanded by filmmaker Terry Gilliam with his 1995 12 Monkeys, a debt very much openly acknowledged in the movie’s opening credits..

nervy-b (13. 186)

Whilst recalling one-hundo and pandemmy, we hadn’t yet really really encountered this new formula, reserved for a certain deomgraphic and perhaps more often spoken than committed to written exchanges, though it’s out there and possibly indicative that’s less ephemeral than some fads—doggos and brds have stuck around for quite a while and may be more than “cringe lingua” and datedness, like the enshrinement ceremony of Australia’s 2023 Word of the Year as a clipping of “cost of living crisis” or cozzie livs following the same pattern—the recent template of truncation and initialism: ChatGPT to chatty g, the above 100% to hundy p, sauvigon blanc to saavy b as well as numerous regular events that already have established abbreviations in defiance of jargon and speciality, like Unny-G and Euro-V. Such trends have their share of detractors, despite some sticking and demanding a rebrand, like Mickey D’s and SunnyD, calling them twee or insensitive, but it is in that reduction and destruction of the crucial element, an empowering indignity that one can visit on any phrase thanks to its formulaic nature—cf, mitty circs for “mitigating circumstances,” depreciating the important part—to undo the structural strictures imposed by language and institutions. Let’s come up with a good one for US ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents. The trend is also an emancipating format for hypocorism—pet-naming, for good or ill—probably the more ludicrious the better, 💯. Much more from Sentence First at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Alaska’s Elizabeth Peratrovich Day (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links to revisit

thirteen years ago: unique automats, eye-charts for drones, low-effort advertising plus hearty immune systems

fifteen years ago: more moon Nazis 

[sic] semper tyrranis (13. 185)

Called “the slit-nosed”—ὁ Ῥινότμητος, ho Rhīnótmētos—though likely not to his face, Justinian II, last Byzantine emperor of the Heraclian dynasty, a period of transition that saw the cultural shift from Roman antiquity to medieval and Turkic and who first reigned from 785 to 695, exiled because of unpopular tax policies, deposed, his nose cut off and exiled to Cherson in Crimea and returned to the throne in 705 with the help of his supporters and Khazar authorities eager to be rid of this liability to the theme (θέμα, an administrative district of the Empire) who helped him to get back to Constantinople on a fishing boat, with the backing of Bulgarian dissidents and enthroned, fronting a nasal prothesis made of solid gold, on this day in 706, having tracked down his predecessors (the one before his first term and the one from his interregum) and political rivals, had them brought in chains to the hippodrome on this day in 706, trod on their necks and ordered them to be execution by beheading, along with multitudes of their partisans as well as blinding banishing the patriarch. His second reign marked by unsuccessful military adventures against the Khanate of Bulgaria and the Caliphate—with the former playing a pivotal role in his return to power and now Byzantium turning against his allies, whom had also provided Justinian with a bride, renamed Theodora after the wife of his namesake, and cruel suppression of his opposition, imposing the pope in Rome’s authority over the rump state of Ravenna and indirectly causing the Great Schism with puppet papacy. An uprising in Cherson itself saw Justinian taken capture and executed on the fourth of November of the year 711) five insufferable years later), his disembodied head being put on public display in Ravenna as well as in Rome. Upon hearing of his death, heir apparent Tiberius and regnant mother sought sanctuary in a church but were dragged from the altar and killed, thus ensuring the end of the family line.

unterfladungen (13. 184)

Taking advantage of the sunny weather and with less of a bite to the winter wind, we followed a trail from Fladungen up the gentle slope of the Wurmberg, a southern spur of the Abstberg hill between the villages of Sands and Brüchs, the latter named for the historical quarrying activity of the settlement. 

Along the way, and to this day I think about that psychedelic animated short from Sesame Street about the lost boy remembering his way home, “Try to remember everything you passed, but when you go back, make the first thing the last”—that’s some genuine memory palace advice, we were afforded some really nice vistas of the town in the valley below, a pair of friendly donkeys in an enclosure, the foundations of a demolished coke oven that was testament to the area’s mining history and an the open pit hewn out of the hillside as we made our way to the edge of the forested summit. 

In the middle, there was a clearing with the Stations of the Cross arranged in a circle, like the Kreuzweg of the chapel visible on the horizon looking back over Fladungen with a large wooden Crucifix, Hohe Kreuz. 

We descended from the peak via a shorter route through a neighbourhood and around a spa resort perched on the mountainside, so so much for my landmarks but nonetheless an enjoyable walk with opportunities to explore further.

9x9 (13. 183)

chinamaxxing: sinophiles dominate online forums  

next sunday a.d.: Mystery Science Theater 3000 to reunite almost all of the original cast and crew  

blue monday: analysis of the quintessential 80s drum beat  

sol invictus: unique Mithraic altars uncovered in Scotland go on display—see previously  

bloqueo: US regional tactics fomenting rebellion in Cuba—see previously—with siege strategy  

the golden road: Sanskrit and Tamil inscriptions uncovered in ancient Egyptian tombs 

orchestral strike: you know this sound but not its name  

just to be safe, here’s a scrollfrog: Cabel Sasser on one of the most incredible XOXO talks ever—see previously—via Waxy 

lilliputian hallucinations: a common dietary mushroom, if undercooked, causes diners to see tiny humans on their plates—via Kottke

synchronoptica

one year ago: a papal bull on artificial intelligence (with synchronpticæ), the purge of US civil servants plus the foundations of ancient London

thirteen years ago: horsemeat and an explosive meteor 

fourteen years ago: a mascot for the eurozone plus a Vatican political thriller

fifteen years ago: sovereign debt 

seventeen years ago: lint eggs from the laundry fairy 

 

fondation vasarely (13. 182)

Dedicated on this day in 1976 with its inaugural opening, the architectonic museum in Aix en Provence showcases the pioneering Op Art designs of Victor Vasarely (see previously) and promote his vision of making the arts accessible for all and founding a city of tomorrow. Forty two six by eight metre cells constructed in situ house various exhibits. Coming out of the Bauhaus school tradition, the Hungarian-French artists went on to produce abstract paintings, cladding, façades and sculptures that referenced optical illusions as a sort of visual kinetics (plastique cinétique) that relied on the shifting perception of the viewer—a stylistically satisfying middle-ground between the moving artwork of Calder, Duchamp and Man Ray and the disorientating MC Escher.

etaoin shrdlu, esaitn ruoldc (13. 181)

Again via Web Curios, we are pointed to an addictive little bilingual (I wasn’t up to trying in French however) word game that is agreeably one of the best we’ve come across in some time and as likely to return to after our streak with Wordle clones. Simple and straightforward, each round presents three lettered tiles to build words from in order of the letters presented and are awarded points based on Scrabble rules, in turn derived from the titular letter frequency. There are daily challenges and play can continue with random combinations. Gently timed, once one runs out of chances, there’s a break down of one’s score and the optimal word from the dictionary, though one can’t dispute the lexicon.