esl (13. 667)

First compiled and distributed by teacher and researcher Michael Philip West in 1953 whilst working in India, the General Service List of essential words for English learners based on a longitudinal survey of frequency and semantics that would facilitate a basic understanding and at the same time, narrowing an educator’s focus. Edified rather than rejected for its shortcomings and inadequacies and the basis for quantitative linguistics and Google N-gram Viewer for modelling a corpus, the list has only undergone two updates, once in 2013 and again in 2023. This exploration of the vocabulary changes from between the first edition and latest revision, seven decades, illustrates how in an anglophone environment it has become even harder to avoid exposure to abstractions whilst what is made, grown, worn and worked has been winnowed away as well as feelings and sensations, shifting from something manifest, embodied and experienced—ache, courage, loyalty, greed, mercy—replaced with clinical, disorder, therapy, treatment as something that is managed, rather than inhabited. It is not as if bargain suddenly became synonymous with budget and moonlight turned to solar, with pollution edging out harvest, but choices were made and some high-minded concepts are tossed out for more functional parlance to preserve the list’s some two-thousand head-word limit. Granted that concrete terms are naturally stickier and easily acquired, we still enjoy a lesson in how to buy a postage stamp or bus fare and are a little sad to live in a world that privileges platforms and institutions above what sustains and enriches us.

7x7 (13. 666)

serenity prayer: the EU can rein in Google and other tech behemoths despite Trump’s threats 

the fun palace: Cedric Price’s modular playground and social laboratory that was never realised  

hot 100: Paste magazine lists the greatest songs of the 1970s—via MetaFilter 

dear stranger: a disturbing experiment in voyeurism that turned into something beautiful  

ǝsᴉʅƎ ɹn̤ᖵ: Beethoven’s bagatelle inverted—originally as a prank—but hauntingly evocative—see also  

hedonic treadmill: welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure  

we used to be able to buy things in this country: the plexiglass retail landscape of America—via Kottke

musca depicta (13. 665)

Subject to various interpretations by art historians, as Boing Boing informs, the “painted fly” was a somewhat of a viral meme in early Renaissance paintings on Europe. Ranging from an emblem of mastery, an in-joke, a symbol of the worthiness and dignity even in small pests to secularise the subject and conversely a symbol of sin, corruption and mortality—included as a form of apotropaic magic, the detailed fly as a conspicuous element features in over twenty extant works from various artists in the Low Countries, Germany and Italy. The pictured Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family by an unknown artist (the identity of the sitter is also lost to time) dates from circa 1470 from the Swabian region and currently resides in London’s National Gallery, acquired by Prince Albert and gifted to Queen Victoria in 1863.  The fad seems to have ended around 1510.

synchronoptica 

one year ago:  asymmetrical appeasement (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: a history of Elvis-officiated weddings

three years ago: sculptor Vinnie Ream plus more links to enjoy

four years ago: Eilean Donan plus the palace of Linlithgow

five years ago: your daily demon, more links, a minor supervillain plus a Yugoslav space opera

six years ago: artist Léon Spilliaert, cartoonist R Sikoryak, even more links plus advances in fusion technology

day one-hundred forty-five (13. 664)

Following the disclosure by Zelenskyy that Russia is providing satellite telemetry to the Iranians to target US bases in the Middle East, Trump announces that he will confront Putin directly—something we thought had been verified or at least suspect from the start of the war. Responding to criticisms regarding under-reporting of American casualties and the extent of damage done to installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, the Pentagon revises upwards its official figures. Duelling blockades in the Strait of Hormuz continue with ships being turned back from the Persian gulf and Iranian ports. Calling for the release of political prisoners, the US state department strongly condemns continued executions of protesters. As bombing and demolition continue in southern Lebanon, Trump and Netanyahu are scheduled to meet to discuss extracting themselves from the war in Iran—neither having the appetite for prolonged negotiations.

i feel clean—my whole body is a’quiver with cleanness (13. 663)

Going into general release on this day in 1955 after its premiere in the producer Paul Gregory’s hometown of Des Moines Iowa as a fundraiser for the local YMCA, as our faithful chronicler reminds, the genre-setting Southern Gothic thriller directed by Charles Laughton, his first and last cinematic work preferring the stage to the screen, was received unfavourably by critics and audience as being too avant-garde and abstract, but upon reevaluation has been named among the best films ever made, ranked second only to Citizen Kane. Adapted from the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb and drawing from the true-crime story of Harry F Powers, Dutch-born Harm Drenth who immigrated to West Virginia—a serial-killer who lured his victims through “lonely hearts” classifieds, Harry Powell, portrayed by Robert Mitchum, is arrested during the Great Depression, apprehended for driving a car registered as stolen, and serves his sentence with inmates of a botched bank robbery however with the pilfered ten-thousand dollars still missing. The heist’s architect hanged for the killing of murder of two police during its execution, once released, his cellmate—posing as an itinerant preacher, travels to the robbers’ hometown, charismatically wedding the executed’s widow (Willa, played by Shelly Winters—previously) and ingratiating himself on his step-children to learn the location of the cache. Wanting to restore the attentiveness and atmosphere of silent movies, the director studied the blocking and lighting of films from that era and employed techniques, like not shooting with traditional takes but rather leaving the cameras rolling and sound equipment on until the reels ran out with editors and engineers on the set, how directing was done before talkies, and used nitrate prints—though the studio had urged Laughton to make a colour film.

emsh (13. 662)

Via { feuilleton }, we are pleased to have had made the acquaintance of visual artist and experimental filmmaker, Ed Emschwiller, a WWII veteran who used his GI bill educational stipend to study at École des Beaux Arts (there meeting his wife and co-creative, scif-fi novelist Carol Fries) and the Art Students League of New York in the late 1940s. Using his veterans’ benefits again, the couple bought a house in Levittown, pursuing their art from a home studio—described as the only beatniks in the, segregated, planned community of Long Island. Often using Carol as a model for his commercial work, Emschwiller (usually signing his painting with the titular abbreviation) created covers for pulp publications including Galaxy, Infinity and Astounding Stories magazines, as well as paperback covers for Philip K Dick and Samuel R Delaney, whom considered his wife a peer. Despite a lucrative career and garnering several Hugo Awards (see previously here and here), in the early 1960s—in part inspired by Andy Warhol and the New American Cinema movement—Emschwiller turned to Factory-style filmmaking in suburbia with multimedia performance vignettes, as well as cinematography for documentaries on diverse subjects from Bob Dylan, voter-registration drives in Mississippi to the New York art scene for diverse commissions from the US Information Agency, NASA and Expo ’67. In the late 1970s, Emschwiller became interested in computer animation, eventually becoming professor and provost of the CalArts of the institutions television workshop and laboratory. More examples of Ed Emschwiller’s work spanning all the stages of his career and incomplete filmography are curated by Dennis Cooper at the link above.

legionella pneumophila (13. 661)

Recognised in retrospect by epidemiologists as the first outbreak of the lethal atypical pneumonia and upper respiratory tract infection, the first delegates who had attended the America Legion convention of US veterans of foreign wars concluding a couple of days prior at the luxury Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in central Philadelphia began dying from a mysterious disease on this date in 1976.  A total of one hundred eighty two cases, resulting in twenty nine fatalities, the only common factor among the identified infected was presence at the hotel, whose occupancy rate plummeted subsequently due to negative publicity and would close permanently in November of the same year. Over the next months, public health researchers identified the reservoir and vector of the illness as a particularly pertinacious, hitherto unknown bacterium in a symbiotic relationship with amoebae that thrive in industrial water systems like water tanks, hot tubs or in this case the evaporative condensers of large air conditioning units. Despite lessons gleaned from this deadly event, many cases of legionellosis have occurred throughout the world—including outbreaks in an apartment complex in Murcia, Spain, a nursing home in Toronto, a hospital in Lisbon and prison in northern California, all traced to contaminated rooftop cooling towers for climate control systems. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Dashiell Hammett’s anti-heros and Trump loyalists (with synchronoptica) plus RIP humorist Tom Lehrer 

two years ago: American theocracy plus a lunar archbishopric 

three years ago: the Indian diamond exchange plus cities with signature psychological disorders

four years ago: lesser known lochs plus assorted links to revisit 

five years ago: a banger from Stevie Nicks,  Nick at Nite’s line-up, portrait photographer Masayoshi Sukita, Maneki-Neko, English’s inconsistencies, Avant Garde magazine plus AI generated Tarot cards

six years ago: Saint Pantaleon, Bugs Bunny’s catch-phrase (1940), more non-words plus GIF-artist Katy Daft 

day one-hundred forty-four (13. 660)

After showing his cards by pushing for an extension of the ceasefire and memorandum of understanding told that the world was four weeks away from economic collapse due to energy shocks, Trump also over-shares his decision to scale back strikes, driven by critically low munition supplies. Touting the pause as a space for diplomacy, Iran has also halted retaliatory attacks on Gulf allies hosting US bases. During the hostage crisis, Tehran waited out the Carter administration for four-hundred forty-four days to time their release with Reagan’s inauguration. Separately, Iran and Oman have continued negotiations about management of the Strait of Hormuz and the Supreme Leader insists that Lebanese territorial integrity must be included in any future negotiations with Washington. Netanyahu, under considerable political pressure to show his campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah have been effective as he is up for reelection and has been critical of the US willingness to try to make a deal, is to meet with Trump on Tuesday.