it‘s all a rip off! i can't even get a lousy babysitting job—everybody wants references! (11. 876)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we are reminded that on this day in 1976, NBC aired the made-for-television drama by Randal Kleiser (directing credits include Grease, Big Top Pee-wee) starring Eve Plumb, playing the principal fifteen-year-old who leaves home for Hollywood, following an embarrassing incident with her alcoholic mother during a school dance. Naïve and with no prospects, protagonist Dawn turns to prostitution under the tutelage of a cohort of fellow sex-workers and their pimp and protector, Swan. Though not part of the original series run (this was quite a disabusing Mandela Effect moment for me and always remembered the understudy the same way as Darren on Bewitched or Becky on Roseanne), Plumb’s commitment to shooting the special did not allow her to appear on the continuation of the franchise, The Brady Bunch Hour, and caused the producers to enlist another actor, Geri Reischl, to play “Fake Jan,” a label Reischl (later cast as the original Blair in The Facts of Life pilot but forced to relinquish the role due to obligations to breakfast cereal company General Mills) embraces as her personal brand.

safelight (11. 875)

As part of an interesting ensemble of back to back posts from Kottke bookended with the explanation why older photographs or indoor sporting events have a nice hazy blue filter that one does not see on contemporary images (the ambiance is caused by cigarette smoke) and a nice primer on point-and-shoot technology that ushered in the age of the amateur shutterbug (amateur comes from the Latin to love originally and not a non-professional), we learn that at the turn of the last century, that the hotel amenity most in demand was a darkroom for guests (so called “Kodak fiends”) for developing their holiday snapshots. Starting as far back as the 1850s, innkeepers would accommodate itinerate photographers by allowing them space to rig up their own studios and labs, covering up windows, to supplement portable but possibly less reliable set-ups. By 1902, there was even an effort among hoteliers to come to a consensus on an international symbol that a darkroom was on the premises, like for fitness facilities, a pool and later television and wifi. By the mid-twentieth century, most hotels no longer offered such services and traveling photojournalists were issued kits that touted around in a suitcase that expanded into a sheltered workspace for developing film. Much more from Daniel J Schneider at the link above.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

eight years ago: kinetic art, an Art Nouveau hotel in Brussels plus neighbourly civil engineering hacks

nine years ago: a visit to Bonn and environs, thanksgiving for a good harvest plus Queen Zenobia

eleven years ago: US government shutdown

twelve years ago: the Bavarian separatist movement 

9x9 (11. 874)

must contain the characters #@^*!: US regulatory body that sets standards for government agencies issues guidance that urges the end of vexing password compliance rules  

landscape of faith: church-to-residential development is in some places easing the housing crisis  

ertunet crater: planetoid Ceres may harbour potentially life-sustaining oceans like Europa  

hippopotami: the phenomenon of Moo Ding seems likely the natural conclusion of art history—see also  

regency era: unofficial Bridgerton Ball Experience leaves attendees feeling scammed—drawing parallels with another disappointing and pricey event 

outré west: eight radical architectural works from western America (see previously) 

huaca de la luna: brilliantly painted throne room of a seventh century Moche female leader discovered in northern Peru 

the creepy hallways of the built environment: American suburbs are a horror show  

universal media disc: the challenges of conserving good data in the age of AI and shuttered, zombified outlets—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links

toichography (11. 873)

As much as an aficionado as I am of street art and knowing the disciplines of study and what things are called, I was surprised never to have encountered the above field from the Greek τοίχος for wall plus writing, and really enjoyed this recent episode from the always engrossing and enlightening podcast Ologies on the subject of all things pertaining to graffiti, public art and murals—both commissioned and non-commissioned—in this guided tour of the installations of the city of Philadelphia, considered the birthplace of the genre. It’s a funny, informative and thoroughgoing look at the nature of expression, the politics and policing thereof, and the place of sanction in common spaces and emphasises the importance of celebrating what’s in situ (see previously here and here) and local artists tied to their locale.

geoglyph (11. 872)

With the aid of AI, researchers have uncovered three hundred new Nazca Lines previously unknown—nearly doubling the number of these ancient, massive figures impressed in the ground of the Peruvian desert only discovered with the advent of air travel—bringing older, faded and weathered ones into sharper focus. The cultural purpose of these designs that are only appreciable from a bird’s eye perspective are an enduring mystery but this new cache of images (we hope they’re not machine hallucinations) will provide insights into the people who created them and include fantasy creatures, orcas, llamas and a depiction of human sacrifice.

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI on fake virality (with synchronoptica), the tarot art of Leonora Carrington, the thermodynamic history of the universe plus a solar observatory in Potsdam

seven years ago: self-marriage, assorted links to revisit plus US Homeland Security monitoring social media

eight years ago: Keats’ To Autumn, mirror spiders plus remediative meditative sessions for elementary school

ten years ago: lexical gaps and the European Day of Languages

eleven years ago: German fondness for abbreviation 

we’d live the life we choose—we’d fight and never lose (11. 871)

Adapted from the 1920s standard by Boris Ivanovich Fomin Дорогой длинною (By the Long Road) by playwright, professor and song-writer Gene Raskin, the rendition from Welsh performer Mar Hopkins topped the charts on this day in 1968. A number-one hit in the UK and Canada, Hopkin’s debut single was produced by Paul McCartney and in the Billboard Hot 100 was only second to the Beatles’ own Hey Jude. Husband and wife duo, Gene and Francesca played folk music at several venues in New York and toured internationally, including in their rotation, often the encore, Raskin’s version, which McCartney heard on one occasion at London’s Blue Angel club. After pitching the song to other groups including the Moody Blues, McCartney finally found a muse in Hopkins. The nostalgic number with the traditional instrumentation of balalaika, cimbalom and a choir of children (keeping with the original arrangement) also was recorded with German, Spanish and Italian version. At the height of the “Those Were the Days” popularity, an unauthorised jingle was put out, a New York advertising firm releasing, “The perfect dish, Rokeach Gefilte Fish,” which Raskin successfully sued to take off the air.

cuteness aggression (11. 870)

We enjoyed this gloss on the rapid descent of Moo Deng (the glossy Thai baby pygmy hippopotamus whose name translates into “Bouncy Pork”—just saying) from adorable celebrity to an object of transgression and focus of violent urges through obliviously trolling and attention seeking but also the psychological coping mechanism of intrusive thoughts to counter a cuteness overload, those fleeting flashes of thoughts of wanting to mash, drop or barbecue something sweet and innocent that we are normally a bit embarrassed and bothered by and would never, never admit to for fear of being called a monster—but of course some are willing to get voice to those involuntary and (usually) never acted on ideas.

sword of damocles (11. 869)

On this day in 1961, US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered his address to the UN General Assembly, amidst the recent and unexpected death of Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld and anxiety over posturing and sabre-rattling over the paused negotiations towards disarmament. In his forty-five minute exhortation, Kennedy praises the intra-national organisation and challenges the bipolar world to turn an arms race into a race for peace:

But to give this organisation [the Troika, the principals, the US, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, on nuclear test bans] three drivers—to permit each Great Power to decide its own case, would entrench the Cold War in the headquarters of peace. Whatever advantages such a plan may hold out to my own country, as one of the great powers, we reject it. For we far prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war, in the age of mass extermination.

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of tension. The mere existence of modern weapons—ten million times more powerful than any that the world has ever seen, and only minutes away from any target on earth—is a source of horror, and discord, and distrust. Men no longer maintain that disarmament must await the settlement of all disputes—for disarmament must be a part of any permanent settlement. And man may no longer pretend that the quest for disarmament is a sign of weakness—for in a spiralling arms race, a nation’s security may be shrinking, even as its arms increase.

For fifteen years, this organisation has sought the reduction and destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream—it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

Listen to or watch the entire stirring speech at the link above. We think the rhetoric could also speak to contemporary events and the climate catastrophe, also hanging by a thread over us all and severed by wilful ignorance, neglect and misinformation.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a blogoversary of note (with synchronoptica) plus some ruinous remixes

seven years ago: right wing elements gain influence in the Bundestag plus film cuts mimic visual perception

eight years ago: Idiocracy was not supposed to be prophetic plus phantom islands

nine years ago: data-plans and Roman calendars plus innovations in 3D printing

ten years ago: an early version of the Line (with greenhouses), Roman emperor Caracalla plus a graffiti gallery