Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we are treated to a coincidence of synchronicity with this day being the theatrical debut of Stanley Kubrick’s first film Fear and Desire (1953), an anti-war movie that earned praise from critics for the promising beginning director, he soon disowned it shortly after its release, displeased with his heavy exposition. 
Set in the midst of a war between two unidentified belligerents (though pointedly made at the height of the Korean conflict) with a troop transport plane crashing behind enemy lines in a forest prefaced as outside of time influenced by the angst and impulse the audience choses to project on it as the only factors driving the narrative, and the surviving manifest struggling to make their way back to their side of the front. Calling the production a “bumbling amateur exercise,” Kubrick sought to halt its distribution and requested reels be destroyed, though some were preserved and as it lapsed into the public domain, it can in its entirety be watched here. Another first feature also premiered on this day in 1989 with Daniel Waters’ Heathers (see previously here and here), originally pitched as a spec script for Kubrick to direct, the writer feeling that only the individual behind Dr Strangelove could do his coming-of-age black comedy justice. .png)
As a foil to the optimistic teen movies of John Hughes, Waters portrayed a dark character, Jason “JD” Dean, coming to a high school in the fictional town of Sherwood, Ohio intent on murdering the cliques of popular students and staging their deaths as suicides. Not only did Kubrick decline the invitation, Waters was furthermore unable to secure the rights from author JD Salinger to The Catcher in Rye as originally written for the screenplay—instead passages from Moby Dick (out of copyright) were highlighted as confessional red herrings to cover his crimes—and neither the Doris Day version of “Que Sera, Sera” out of not wanting to promote profanity. The latter starring Winona Rider, Shannen Doherty and Christian Slater, the former featured Virginia Leith, the girl lashed to a tree, who would later go on to star in the cult classic The Brain that Wouldn’t Die. Still the cafeteria scene from the beginning of Heathers was an homage to Full Metal Jacket.
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
i love my dead gay son (13. 312)
7x7 (13. 311)
jack-in-the-box: a list of restaurant franchises nominatively housed in unusual structures by order of appeal of the dining experience in said edifice
: – ): this generation will never the struggle of emoticons—see previously
smelting operations: with the world’s supply of aluminium stuck in the Persian Gulf and major production facilities disabled, automakers are cutting production of electric cars
fallout boy: Trump’s East Wing ballroom to act as shed atop of a war-graded military bunker
fahr’n, fahr’n, fahr’n auf der autobahn: Kraftwerk’s pioneering electronic music masterpiece in full—see previously
as slow as possible: Pippin Bar assesses attention span with meditative remakes of classic arcade games—via Waxy
smoke ‘em if you got ‘em: startups hope to put biometric age-verification technology in flavoured vape cartridges
day thirty-two (13. 310)
Although continuing to threaten to obliterate Iranian energy infrastructure (and desalination plants, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions) if Tehran does not capitulate by a deadline extended to Easter Monday—the paschal holidays making this a short trading week for stock markets and possibly with hopes of mopping up prior to the opening bell—Trump says he may cease military operations even without securing the Strait of Hormuz, leaving that logistical problem to be saved for a later date. 
A Kuwaiti-flagged tanker was struck by drone debris and may spilling its cargo into the waters of the Gulf and adding to the environmental disaster. Assaults continued in the Iranian and Lebanese capitals with counterstrikes in central Israel. Tรผrkiye intercepted a fourth missile targeting the NATO member. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu declined to give a timeline during an interview with the press but said that military objectives were half complete. Iranian leadership acknowledge receipt of US peace proposals via intermediaries, dismissing them as excessive and unrealistic, as US vice president JD Vance, apparently skeptical of the war from the beginning, is appointed as chief negotiator.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a secret apartment inside a mall (with synchronopticรฆ), handball alleys plus more on Eadweard Muybridge
twelve years ago: a visit to the Fulda Gap
fourteen years ago: harnessing lightning
fifteen years ago: an insolvent superpower
sixteen years ago: an Easter egg shortage
seventeen years ago: the G20 and a universal currency
Monday, 30 March 2026
sunday service (13. 309)
The closure of sites and suspension of ceremonies in the Old City of Jerusalem was not an unilateral decision made by the Church out of abundance of caution but rather enforced by police with authorities blocking the Catholic prelate, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Hierosolyma, from entering his co-cathedra (shared with the Armenian and Greek orthodox churches as the most sacred site in Christianity) the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
Upset by the global congregation and pressure from the US government, hellbent on religious freedoms at least for the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the Israeli prime minister has intervened to grant full and immediate access to the shrine built over Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion and resurrection within a framework of mutual understanding with local police. Pizzaballa will be allowed to hold mass as he sees fit but plans to curtail celebrations and avoid large gatherings for safety reasons.
9x9 (13. 308)
ruina montium: an striking landscape in Spain created by the ancient Romans fracking for gold—via Miss Cellania
13 ๏ฝ 7 = 28: Abbot and Costello try to meet their sales quota—via MetaFilter
i’m your hell, i’m your dream—i’m nothing in between: a linguistic and semantic history of the term bitch
anatoly kolodkin: US waives sanctions to allow Russian tanker to deliver crude oil to Cuba
coalition of the willing: recalling the legacy Icelandic PM Davรญรฐ Oddsson of committing the nation to the unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003, juxtaposed with contemporary Spain
cocktail nation: Spy Vibe’s regular segment on swank vintage soundtracks
lip-filler accent: influencers inform the way we speak—via Nag on the Lake, see also
gigo: AI is an accelerant for academic fraud, selling papers and citations to pad one’s portfolio
unoosa: a profile of the director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs who alerts the world of impending asteroid impacts
day thirty-one (13. 307)
Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have hit a UN peacekeeping convoy, killing an Indonesian member as the IDF is ordered to expand its buffer zone on the southern border. Palm Sunday processions cancelled in Jerusalem over the war, Pope Leo rebukes the Trump administration for Holy Week, saying that God rejects the prayers of war-mongers. Iran’s Supreme Leader, still not seen in public since his elevation, thanked the people of Iraq for their solidarity in the face of aggression as a supply train of the Shia militia is seen crossing into Iran. Oil prices continue to surge as world wide stock markets fall.
one year ago: new design for the Swiss passport (with synchronopticรฆ), AI stealing artists’ styles, a classic guide to fleeing America plus renewed attacks on pride celebrations
Sunday, 29 March 2026
an agony, in eight fits (13. 306)
With the above subtitle, as our faithful chronicler reminds, English writer Lewis Carroll (previously) published his nonsense poem on this day in 1876, borrowing stylistically from an earlier verse “Jabberwocky” and Through the Looking-Glass, whose first printing run included a religious tract, “An Easter Greeting to Every Child Who Loves ‘Alice.’” 
Variously interpreted as a lampoon against Victorian sensibilities, an allegory of tuberculosis, existential angst over the fear of losing one’s sense of self and a court case that was a cause cรฉlรจbre during its composition involving a man who claimed to be the missing heir to the Tichborne estate supposed lost in a shipwreck en route to Australia, and relates the narrative of a hunting party’s arrival in a strange land, the crew consisting of a bellman, bonnet-maker, a barrister, broker, billiard-maker, banker, a beaver, a baker and a butcher to pursue their quarry of the Snark, which is rumoured to be a highly dangerous boojum, which makes all take pause. 
Whilst the sense of derision or irreverence is onomatopoeic from the interjection to snort, the poem lends the sense of a wild-goose chase. The hunt commences:
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share,
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
Along the way, the B-Team encounter a jubjub bird and are attacked by bandersnatch, causing the bank to lose his sanity and disappear without a trace, claiming to have spied their objective but none of the others catch sight of the elusive prey. With illustrated plates by stained-glass designer, muralist and architect Henry Holiday (see above), whose studies of ancient Egyptian motifs helped fuel the Mummy Mania craze, “The Hunting of the Snark” received mixed contemporary reviews and critics pronounced Carroll’s prose and poetry past its prime, although upon reevaluation the enduring references, vocabulary and cadence, structured like a limerick, it has been embraced an reinterpreted in many formats and a dedicated academic journal.
day thirty (13. 305)
After multiple universities came under attack in Iran, Tehran declares American institutions of higher education in the region to be legitimate targets. A contingency of paratroopers and marines arrive in the Middle East as the US prepares for ground operations, reportedly planning raids rather than a full-scale invasion. The exiled crown prince, the son of the deposed shah is encouraging protesters to rise up and overthrow the theocracy, signalling that he would be willing to take on a leadership role in government. Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon have killed three journalists and numerous health care workers, drawing international condemnation.
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