tsar bomba (12. 837)

As our faithful chronicler reminds, on this day in 1961—as news comes that Trump has directed his Department of War to resume nuclear testing partially in response to a successful trial by Russia of a submarine drone after a thirty-three year hiatus and will yield no benefit for America’s arsenal and only inflict more lasting environmental damage—the Soviet Union detonated the largest ever thermonuclear aerial weapon, codenamed Project Vanya, over Novaya Zemla, an arctic archipelago in the extreme northeast. Ordered by Secretary Khrushchev when the country quit the test ban moratorium (see previously) and timed to coincide with the gathering of the twenty-second Congress of the Communist Party. Four thousand times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and over three times the yield of the then largest US trial, Castle Bravo, carrying out the test garnered strong international condemnation and resulted in a partial nuclear test ban treaty at the instigation of Moscow and the chief scientist behind the programme. Confirming the theory that multistage charges could be calibrated with unlimited destructive power, neither side attempted to increase the scale for fear of creating a doomsday weapon. Though window panes were broken as far away as Finland and Norway from the seismic shock and anything within a hundred kilometres of ground-zero was annihilated, fallout was minimal and quickly dispersed with no consequences that would deter reoccupation.

9x9 (12. 836)

pareidolia: a massive rock formation outside of Sedona Arizona looks like Snoopy atop his dog house  

birch benders: tell-tale rounded type that AI seems to prefer  

chaotic evil: wildly popular Sultan’s Game has a labyrinthine narrative that evokes Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths   

can you do facial: US customs and border protection forced scans and use of automated recognition to verify citizenship judged illegal 

faith ecosystem: ousted Intel CEO on a mission to create a Christian AI  

locofaulism: hyper-specific, hyper-local insults, mostly Dutch

ultracrepidarian: Chinese legislation prevents influencers from addressing important topics unless they are licensed professionals—see previously  

groked and pilfered: Wikipedia alternative (see previously) has a penchant for plagiarism and heavy citation  

storch und stag: concept power lines shaped as giant animals for Austria

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Park of Monsters (with synchronopticæ), assorted links worth the revisit, Ford turns his back on NYC, Trump and the stock market, the Rumble in the Jungle plus a poem for the battle-worn

twelve years ago: bridging the Bosphorus plus spying on the conclave  

fourteen years ago: goats and horses 

fifteen years ago: air travel security theatre 

neurodiversity (12. 835)

Whilst the term seemingly entered popular parlance with the COVID lockdown and gradual reemergence addressing the range of ways that people cope and adjust, neurodivergence originated in the late 1990s coined by then high school student Kassiane Asasumasu who went on to become a champion for autism rights and recognition, using in her AOL email signature line in forums for the autistic community. Not a clinical term, though often mistaken for one—as it also conflated with the title word, like the hapa-haole descriptor applied, unbidden, to her own multiethnic heritage that was imposed by Christian missionaries in Hawaiʻi uncomfortable with all the people who did not fit into their categories—it filled a lacuna that the above understanding of being within spectrum of dominant norms fell short of addressing, including those who deviated from accepted social bounds. Advocating for acceptance and pushing back on the idea that some outsiders have that such populations need to be readjusted, Asasumasu also later came up with the phrase caregiver benevolence to reframe best-intentions.

951 gaspra (12. 834)

Discovered in 1916 by astronomer Grigori Nikolaevich Neujmin, one in a catalogue to his credit of hundreds of minor planets and comets, and named for the Crimean spa town near Yalta that was favoured by Neujmin’s contemporaries like Tolstoy and Gorky, the asteroid was visited by the Galileo space probe on a close fly-by on this day in 1991 en route for its mission to explore the Jovian system (see also), the first time such an object was encountered at close range and studied, the rendezvous a technically challenging one since only its approximate location was known by projecting its orbital path. The irregular shaped silicate-rich asteroid is approximately the size of Guam and has the pictured astronomical symbol, a simplification of the resort town’s coat of arms.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a mascot for the Vatican (with synchronopticæ) plus IKEA acknowledges forced labour in East Germany

thirteen years ago: media ownership under threat

11x11 (12. 833)

krasnaya polyana: luxury Black Sea ski resort under development linked to Aleksandr Lukashenko—the town makes a good name for the Russian asset in the White House 

bride of frankenstein: tour guide uncovers unknown grave of silver screen legend and horror icon Elsa Lanchester decades after her death 

parlour of prestidigitation: a visit to Hollywood’s Magic Castle in 1978 with tour guide Orson Welles  

kunstformen der natur: the discovery of microscopic marine life informed one of the most influential illustrated books published in the work of Ernst Haeckel  

heptarchy: the realm of the Anglo-Saxons could have just as easily turned out being called Sexland  

🌀:potentially unprecedented in terms of strength and destruction, Hurricane Melissa makes landfall on Cuba and Jamaica  

open house: the real estate industry has entered the era of AI slop for virtual tours

turing patterns: the hypothetical evolutionary mechanism that might explain the emergence of complex geometries in Nature 

fiend without a face: a 1958 scifi horror feature 

if you are a werewolf—and very likely you may be—for lots of people are without knowing: a comedy of manners about a coven of witches is considered a classic of early feminist writing 

neunundneunzig luftballons: Lithuanian forces shoot down dozens of balloons invading their airspace dispatched by Belarus

thirteenth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty (12. 832)

After a pause of more than three year after the discovery of the undisturbed burial chamber, the mummified remains of Tutankhamun were discovered on this day in 1925 by Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team. Over three thousand years after his death, the king is notably the only mummy yet found completely intact and with no sign of tampering and despite the famous find and iconic nature of his gold and lapis lazuli death mask, very little is known about the individual’s circumstances or cause of death, other than a reign of about a decade dedicated to undoing the much the cultural and religious reforms enacted by his predecessor and father Akhenaten and expiring only as a young adult, hence referred to a the boy-king. Laid to rest in a series of nested coffins which we carefully opened to reveal the golden sarcophagus—the headdress crafted to give him the likeness of the god Osiris. Inlaid with faience and precious stones, the back of the mask is inscribed with a chapter from the Book of the Dead, a collection of creation and resurrection texts, spells and incantations used in funerary rituals. Studied forensically for nearly a year, the body was indelicately separated from the gold coffin and reinterred within one of the larger ones and stays in repose in Luxor in the Valley of the Kings. Although contributing much to public awareness of the field of archaeology, Tutankhamun’s treasures and alleged curse—published and propaganda in the following decades, turned out to be more captivating than his mortal remains.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a tarot card inspired garden (with synchronopticæ), more air-based food plus a Trump rally in Manhattan

twelve years ago: the NSA espionage in Germany 

thirteen years ago: a Halloween greeting plus a seasonal recipe

fourteen years ago: China relations plus a gathering of the Common Wealth realms

fifteen years ago: polarised politics plus US government budgetary outlays  

seventeen years ago: proving you are not a robot 

blue collar boom (12. 831)

Via Boing Boing we are directed to a rather blatant display of christo-fascist propaganda (generated by AI of course but with typical machine wokeness filtered out and the implicit message baked-in) in a series of US government sanctioned advertisements from Trump’s labour department recruiting campaign, encouraging the white and male, virility virtually without exception despite some tokenism and a few women and darker-complected individuals appearing as subordinates and somehow more dated and fantastical in this Norman Rockwell vision that’s far from just benighted in its subtext, to skill-up and enter into apprenticeship programmes, as the acolytes did who propped up the president himself and saved him from television obscurity and his own deserved reputation as a bad businessman. No second glance is necessary to recognise the message not as some retro-styled call to action but rather as erasure of the reality of the populace that drives America and cued into the same aesthetics and ideals of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda of Joseph Goebbels.

mummers parade (12. 830)

Featured in full on Spitalfield’s Life, we found this abecedary by illustrator Marion Elliot of folklore and superstition to be an absolute delight whose risograph alphabet on exhibit is perfect for the height of the spooky season. 

From the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance to the Cornish legend of the Mermaid of Zennor, with everything in between ranging from sin-eaters, corn dollies and The Wicker Man (see previously here and here). 

Adopt a letter and research further into the custom or myth each panel represents, but be cautious as these collections were not only regarded as didactic aides by the clergy, it was also believed that the alphabet possessed supernatural powers itself.