The shelter where we adopted our rescue dog has the convention of assigning unknown birthdays to the Fourth of July, as a touching sign of independence (see also here and here). 
In France, however, one’s fellow-walkers and veterinarian can surmise the age of one’s companion by their name (which to my mind might impose the potential for compromised passwords) by a tradition established in 1926 by the registry of pedigree dogs that pairs a letter of the alphabet to each year. Not enforced by nearly universally adhered to (though we suspect all pet parents give out several names and find ways around prescriptiveness), the options cycle back every twenty years rotating through twenty initials (with the exclusion of some deemed too difficult, K, Q, W, X, Y and Z as difficult to find French names for, like for hurricanes in the US). Last year as a century ago was an A year with 2026 back to B for the puppies. They’re all good girls and good boys.
Monday, 9 February 2026
sociรฉtรฉ centrale canine (13. 160)
11x11 (13. 159)
que rico ser latino: staging Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time celebration
coed darcy village: a building project on the brownfield site of a former Welsh mine abandoned without explanation—via Things Magazine
printing films: vintage educational and instructional shorts on typesetting and the publishing industry—via Kottke
as slow as possible: anticipating the next chord change after almost two years for the organ in a church in Haberstadt playing six-hundred year John Cage (see previously) composition
wseg-10: with nuclear treaties lapsed and the US retrofitting obsolete silos, an interactive map showing areas of the US most likely to be affected by an atomic exchange material worlds: revisiting architecture Bruce Goff and his homespun futurism through a new retrospective exhibit—via Nag on the Lake
lawful neutral: Jeremy Bentham’s 1817 categorical table of human impulse as an early form of alignment chart
pitchforks: San Francisco’s pro-billionaire march turns out as a bust
tangible media: a collection of data one can hold
hagyomรกny, identitรกs, tรถrtรฉnelemthe: mysterious Rohonc Codex that has resisted decipherment—see also
viva italiano: Winter Games opening ceremony was a celebration of the host country’s cultural icons—including Bialetti’s Moka Express
wonderful deeds and doings of little giant boab (13. 158)
Via Miss Cellania, were are directed towards the lawyer, diplomatic consul to the Kingdom of Hannover and children’s author Ingersoll Lockwood whose fiction seems to eerily predict the rise of the god emperor and dynastic aspirations—see previously, although it appears that that Bene Gesserit reverend mother, Ghislaine Maxwell, was only interested in producing the Kwisatz Haderach of paedophiles. Establishing a practise in New York City after the conclusion of his foreign posting (appointed by Abraham Lincoln), Lockwood found a second calling as a lecturer and writer, authoring Travels and adventures of Little Barron Trump and his wonderful dog Bulger in 1889, with a sequel, the Marvellous Underground Journey four years later. 
Received by educators and his target readership with indifference and derivative rather than inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll, the two volumes were all but forgotten until their rediscovery in 2016 and 2017 with the similarities to the once and future president and his issue, Barron (the pseudonym “John Barron” was also used by Drumpf in the 1980s) with the title character, a young German boy called Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Von Troomp, styled as Baron Trump, secreting away from the family estate to strange lands (first to Russia), offending natives and getting into entanglements with local women, escaping back to Trump Castle before he can be missed and repeating the adventures night after night. In 1896, in the run-up to the contested presidential election, Lockwood wrote his third and last novel, one with a decidedly more dystopian theme called 1900; or, the Last President, which we hope is not as prescient, of a near-future NYC torn by riots and protests following the shocking victory of a populist candidate who brings about the collapse of the republic.
synchronoptica
one year ago: futuristic sleepwear (with synchronopticรฆ), French cocktail hour plus Trump’s return-to-office mandate
twelve years ago: a recipe for kuri squash soup, strategic positive thinking plus an ostentatious bishop
thirteen year ago: the mediatisation of church land in Germany, the sense of smell in fish plus Germany debates fracking
fourteen years ago: the launch of the He-Man franchise
fifteen years ago: machines talk back
sixteen years ago: Germany combats tax evasion
seventeen years ago: neglected social media profiles
Sunday, 8 February 2026
simply paris (13. 157)
Among the latest tranche of documents released by the US Department of Justice, there was an email with the above subject line picturing an unidentified couple at various tourist attractions of the French capital in July of 2009. Not only is the woman’s face obscured with redaction but so is for whatever reason the visage, arguable amongst the most-well known in the world, of Leonardo Da Vinci’s portrait of Mona Lisa—possibly betraying the use of AI or poor taste and certainly reaffirming the rather sloppy job that’s characterised this mandate, which the department has claimed to have satisfied its legal obligations but has failed to uphold its own expressed pledge and excuse for the months of delay of protecting the identity of the victims of Epstein and associates’ sex-trafficking and rape, including so far the names, images and personal information of around a hundred survivors of the the expansive scandal.
general directions (13. 156)
Via the weekend links of { feuilleton }, we enjoyed this profile of Margaret Calvert whose work in graphic design and typology brought together road signage in the UK under a standard for uniformity and visibility still in use today, in Britain and beyond. Her pictograms and eponymous typeface, the slab-serif Transport font, the result of a survey that reformed protocols more in line with European conventions with the expansion of expressways, shifting away from traditional fingerposts are used not only for motorways, the rail system, airports and for warning of potential hazards, the farm animal caution based on a cow called Patience Calvert recalled from her childhood and the wildlife iconography inspired by Eadweard Muybridge’s studies of animals in motion. More from the Guardian interview at the link above.
draft pick (13.155)
Courtesy of Strange Company, we learn that sometime in the early months of 1926, the exhibition basketball team that uses athleticism and comedy to break down racial barriers that exist in the professional sport was formed as the Savoy Big Five to promote flagging attendance at he storied jazz venue of the ballroom in Chicago’s South Side, 
rebranded independently as the Harlem Globetrotters (see previously) within a couple years and touring the US Midwest and Eastern seaboard, the international tournaments would not start until decades later but the name helped build their cosmopolitan mythos. Signalling a significant thaw in American-Soviet relations, they played a game in Moscow in 1959 with Khrushchev and fourteen thousand spectators in attendance (see also), with numerous media appearances, cross-over episodes, and their own Saturday morning cartoon (a later animated series gave them superpowers) and an soundtrack album produced by frontman Meadowlark Lemon, honorary membership has been extended to Henry Kissinger, Bob Hope, Nelson Mandela, Whoopi Goldberg, Popes John Paul II and Francis and Jesse Jackson, whom at first was highly critical of their style of showmanship but then in reevaluation decided that the franchise were overall ambassadors of goodwill and positive role models.
someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets (13. 154)
Released on this day in 1976, the neo-noir drama by Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader set in a decaying New York City stars Robert De Niro as Marine veteran and taxi driver Travis Bickle and follows the decline of his mental health working nights in the metropolis with the supporting cast of Cybil Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Albert Brooks and Jodie Foster. 
Documenting his deterioration in a diary to combat his loneliness, chronic insomnia and intrusive violent thoughts, disgusted by the crime and exploitation he witnesses, punctuated with aphorism and affirmation, Bickle eventually channels his rage and frustration into an intense regimen of physical conditioning, and armed, embarks on a mission of vigilantism, first in a foiled assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, after having his overtures for one of the politician’s campaign staff, Betsy (Shepherd) rebuffed and then killing the pimp (Keitel) of child prostitute Iris (Foster) and freeing her—an act for which Bickle is hailed as a hero. Despite being blamed for inspiring the shooting of Ronald Reagan by John Hickley Jr (the elevation of the anti-hero—the role offered to Dustin Hoffman originally with Al Pacino and Jeff Bridges also in consideration) itself inspired by the media treatment of Sara Jane Moore’s assassination attempt on Gerald Ford), the film’s acclaim has been a constant over the ensuing decades.
Saturday, 7 February 2026
zeuhl (13. 153)
In the conlang Kobaรฏan invented by drummer and founder of the experimental prog rock and jazz fusion French band Magma, Christian Vander, the title means in combination with แบortz means “celestial force” and has become a sub-genre unto itself distinct from the related Space Music and Kosmische Musik sound. 
Established two years after the death of John Coltrane, unmatched and unmeted, Magma’s members sought in all reverence and humility to carry on the transcendental tradition and create something new and never before experienced. The band’s tracks, stretching across seven albums and with a couple of inspired surrogates, notably in Japan, Belgium and Sweden as well as garnering French compatriots, also extensively sampled from the neoclassical canon, including the structure of Carmina Burana. The chief and often exclusive lyrical language for Magma’s songs, the group still continuing in one form or another to the present, the libretto for a literal space opera about a group of human refugees settling on the distant world of Kobaรฏa after the Earth was rendered uninhabitable. Much more from John Coulthart’s journal {feuilleton} with performances, appearances and cross-overs at the link up top.
