Wednesday, 22 January 2025

(12. 171)

synchronoptica

one year ago: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (with synchronoptica), artist Iris Wildros plus an art artefact

seven years ago: more colour stories, ecological treats plus Dr Seuss’ commercial work

eight years ago: Trump to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, famous songs using borrowed tunes, global Hyper Loops plus American Carnage 1.0

nine years ago: the Mind Expanding programme of Hans-Rucker Co 

ten years ago: Euro/USD parity plus ageing and rejuvenation

Tuesday, 21 January 2025

so call me maybe (12. 169)

Via Quantum of Sollazzo we are directed towards a really insightful, disabusing and longitudinal study that demonstrates that romance is not dead from The Pudding. There is a significant decline but on balance the frequency of the love song has remained steady as a genre once one admits tastes have undergone a paradigm shift from the serenade to ballads of heartache, breakup and amour-propre. The interactive data-driven treatment is loaded with playable clips, from Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” to Lizzo’s “About Damn Time,” “Angel of the Morning” from Merrilee Rush & the Turnabouts to the collaboration from Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, as examples of tracks charting from 1958 to 2023.

the tegos tapes (12. 168)

Via Clive Thompson’s trusty alternative to doomscrolling, we learn that pioneering electronic composer Vangelis (see previously) has not only several film soundtracks to his credit but also, among many side projects, recorded a box-set of rather exclusive twelve hour tapes for doctors to listen to while performing the arduous task of surgeries to keep focused during the monotony—see also. The limited-run 1998 compilation (only twenty were made for partners in the practise) was thought lost to history, until one dedicated fan hunted down, on a tip, a copy of a textbook on micro-neuosurgerical (by the eponymous physician, a close friend of Vangelis, asking him to make these tracks and undergo a magnetic resonance scan of his brain, the latter request politely declined) in a bookstore in Athens with the accompanying music on videotape. Much more at the links above.

syzygy (12. 167)

Given sufficiently clear and dark skies, one can avail oneself of a rare treat in the heavens tonight when six planets will appear to be in alignment. Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus and Saturn all visible, mostly to the unaided eye or with the help of a good pair of binoculars, not actually queued up but along the elliptical disk of the Solar System and happen to be on the same same side of the Sun as us, not in a straight line as in the case of opposition or eclipse but as a great arc as their orbits are only inclined by a few degrees. Time and Date had been a go-to source for me for calculating duration and day-count in between two dates but failed to appreciate that it also features a real-time planetarium based on one’s location as a tool to anticipate the rise of the worlds. If you can’t make this one, you get a second chance on the last day of February with Mercury joining in. Coming from the title from the Greek συζυγία or yoking together, this apparent astronomical union poses no threat to the Earth with a supposed collective gravitational tug (actual oppositions of the inner planets occur about every forty years and have no deleterious effects), as rumoured now and back in March of 1982 when an invisible Pluto made the count that would cause greater incidents of seismic activity or increase pressure on the Sun and result in sunspots and solar flares, with (for those counting) the next such grand lineup, albeit staggered, scheduled for 19 May 2161.
 
synchronoptica


one year ago: Saturday Night Fever (with synchronoptica), a stochastic parrot plus assorted links to revisit

seven years ago: a minister of loneliness plus Project Crested Ice (1968)

eight years ago: Trump’s inaugural speech was not lifted from the Bee-Movie though it seemed plausible, more on the Europe right-wing plus speculation about a 2020 Zuckerberg candidacy

nine years ago: telephone booths as private raves plus more rogue exoplanets discovered

ten years ago: threat-com levels raised plus artist Rob Gonsalves

Monday, 20 January 2025

american carnage 2 (12. 166)

Don’t visit the official White House website. It’s been thoroughly trumpified already…

coming attractions (12. 197)

As a little preview for Tuesday’s apparent planetary alignment in case the weather isn’t cooperating tomorrow, in the predawn western skies of Germany, one can see, so far, Venus (♀—the Morning and the Evening Star due to its proximity to the Sun but at its most elongated orbit currently), Mars (♂—on the wane and appearing dimmer than the gas giant), Jupiter (♃), Uranus (⛢) and Saturn (♄) staggered along the great arc of the elliptical. 

Ideal views are expected to peak on the twenty-first of this month but can be seen for a few preceding days and for a few days afterwards. Consult local guides for the rise and setting of the planets and share what you see of our solar system.

crowd size (12. 196)

Marking the fiftieth US presidential inauguration, the second swearing-in of Ronald Reagan and deputy George H W Bush was, due to inclement weather conditions, a televised ceremony inside the capitol rotunda, organisers compelled to curtail the public event over sub-zero temperatures, cancelling parades and other fanfare. A repeat ceremony was held the next day in the venue of the Capital Centre basket ball stadium in the Maryland suburbs with attendance of the replacement event in the thousands as compared to the ninety-six that had shown up for the first one. High school bands that had travelled to DC to perform were rescheduled for a Memorial Day march held at Disney’s EPCOT theme park attended by Reagan.

synchronoptica

one year ago:Australia in infrared (with synchronoptica) plus epigraphic letters
 

eight years ago: updating the chain of command portrait wall plus assorted links worth revisiting

nine years ago: the archetypal wild man, space blossoms plus more links to enjoy

ten years ago: unpegging the Swiss franc plus Japanese onomatopoeia

Sunday, 19 January 2025

stablecoin (12. 195)

Whilst throughout history, one official currency has worked to solidify trust and confidence during periods of relative peace and a strong central authority, emperors would often mint their own coinage during times of upheaval and civil unrest with fortune and the passage of time being the ultimate arbiter of valuation and propagation. Hours before his inauguration for inexplicably a second term, the family crime syndicate launched $TRUMP, a memecoin that quickly rose to a market cap of some seven billion dollars fuelled by speculative investment. Despite a rudimentary, dodgy landing-page offering the crypto-currency for sale and lack of clarity as to the purpose of the token which almost definitely forebodes the bait-and-switch tactic of most of these operations once the purported value evaporates. A former critic of cryptocurrencies, calling Bitcoin an outright “scam,” Trump has come to embrace them as the tech sector broligarchs embraced his campaign. This pre-market development comes on the eve of the term of the Biden administration, having passed and enacted progressive policies that many millions have hung their hopes and fears to over a chance that we might globally advance the urgent fight to halt the climate catastrophe or that America could model ideals of equity and project democratic respect for national sovereignty but all those positions will be clawed back, with only some vapid and hollow magic beans as a consolation.