(12. 778)

synchronoptica

one year ago: Suddenly (with sybchronopticæ) plus more boating adventures

thirteen years ago: life lessons from mythology

fourteen years ago: cruciform variations plus corking fun

sixteen years ago: travels in the States 

 

we now return to regularly scheduled programming already in progress (12. 776)

For the first time in television history in the United States on this day in 1975, the three major television networks declined a request to interrupt broadcasts and pre-empt their line-up for a speech delivered by the American president. Gerald Ford’s nationwide address was only carried by ABC and was a relatively anodyne presentation regarding fiscal discipline for an economy just emerging from a recession, laying the blame of inflation and job scarcity squarely on an “overzealous bureaucracy” and urged congress to make federal tax reductions permanent to encourage hiring with a commensurate cut to government spending, threatening to veto any legislation passed in in keeping with a balanced budget. This decision by TV executives was seen as the first challenge to the use of the bully pulpit of the president and the reach of high office to the public ear. The next day, congress and the senate overturned Ford’s veto by an overwhelming margin bi-partisan support to extend federal school lunch and nutrition programmes.

synchronoptica

one year ago: more adventures on the Mecklinburgischer Seeplate (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: the Venetian independence movement, more flea market finds plus twinned-towns

fourteen years ago: computer lab plus thirty-one days of Halloween

fifteen years ago: customary Nobel cool-off period 

8x8 (12. 775)

toastbusters: Florida woman relates the story of her demonically possessed appliance on nationally syndicated morning television in 1984 

less cowbell: short-form AI generated videos flooding social media incite confusion, nihilism  

hot stuff, hot postula: vintage American cheerleading calls and college yells  

dob, doa: statically, one is slightly more inclined to die on one’s date of birth—via Nag on the Lake—see previously 

ghost waltz: a Louie Zong spooky season tradition—see previously 

in this economy: venerable coffee roaster—also under assault from tariff-pricing—changes its name to something more achievable  

uav: mysterious drone sightings across Europe are signs of collective anxiety (see more) and echo the panic over Chinese spy balloons over North America  

workplace etiquette: the story of the woman who xeroxed her bottom, becoming front page news

time after time after time (12. 774)

Beginning with comic books in mid-1970s Yugoslavia before working as a graphic designer for journals and political weeklies, we enjoyed this introduction to Mirko Ilić through a retrospective of his work, which would go on to include album art for the Croatian punk scene, Métal Hurlant, Marvel then TIME, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal as art director. Working with Milton Glaser (see previously), Ilić created the title sequence of You’ve Got Mail and presently in a teaching role has co-authored several books on the principles of design with Print magazine’s own Steven Heller. More of the artist’s work including several iconic covers at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: circumambulation (with synchronopticæ) plus a houseboat on the Havel

twelve years ago: the mysterious Codex Seraphinianus, US government shutdown plus universal basic income

thirteen years ago: the Bond franchise, dissecting partisan politics plus photographer Bastian Kalous

fourteen years ago: one-percenters plus travels in Ireland 

fifteen years ago: terror threats across Europe 

franklin mint (12. 773)

Although some polities issue currency bearing the obverse of their current reigning monarch, most including the United States of America and many others only impress images of departed historic contributors and presidents—the heretofore exception for the US being the commemorative coinage passed by congress in March of 1925 to feature portraits of the current incumbent Calvin Coolidge with George Washington for the sesquicentennial half-dollar to be sold to the public at a premium above their face value and much of the specie returned to the minters for reuse after disappointing reception (the one-hundred-fiftieth year celebration of the the nation’s founding also going down in the annals of the most poorly executed and received—see also). We are certain that in the not-too-distant future, people will puzzle over why so much ink was split over a has been, fascist country and their daily drivel. The draft engraving of the semiquincentennial dollar coin—introduced during the government shutdown—features images of Trump both on the obverse and reverse (perhaps inspired by Charles III on the new ten £ note after his recent visit) with the latter struck to match the defiant pose after his attempted assassination in Butler County Pennsylvania—already the iconography of his cryptocurrency.

synchronoptica

one year ago: anchor Dan Rather assaulted (with synchronopticæ), an ongoing treasure hunt plus another scavenger hunt 

twelve years ago: US government shut-down disrupts NASA projects plus capture houses and bait cars

thirteen years ago: more tarnished smiles 

fourteen years ago: the Occupy Wall Street movement 

fifteen years ago: reflections on twenty years of German unity 

 

 

riquewihr ii (12. 772)

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs (with synchronopticæ), the Berlin Freedom and Unity monument plus thirty-one days of Halloween

thirteen years ago: ohaguro

fourteen years ago: flag-counters plus der Tag der Deutsche Einheit

éguisheim (12. 771)

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Taking of Pelham 123 (with synchronopticæ) plus a giant hybrid sheep

seventeen years ago: out-of-body experiences 

haut-kœnigsbourg et kaysersberg (12. 770)

 First spied as we approached the campsite, we took a trip up to the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg, the remains of a strategically located castle surveying the plains of the Upper Rhein below with views over Alsace extending to the Schwarzwald. Unknown when it was first built, the first documented mention predated the reign of Frederick Barbarossa in the tenth century, calling the fortification an illegally constructed incursion by the dukes of Swabia into French territory, and besieged during the Thirty Years’ War by Swedish Protestant forces in 1633, the burnt and abandoned outpost was left in ruin—the inspiring remnants subject of numerous romantic poets and painters over the ensuing centuries. Just after given the status of a monument historique by the Second French Republic, the region was taken over by the German Reich at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War as Elsaß–Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) with Kaiser Wilhelm II eager to solidify a sense of nationalism and unity through monument-building (see also) and entrusted the restoration of the ruin to architectural historian Bodo Ebhardt, whom had previously overseen the redevelopment of Veste Coburg, the Wartburg in Eisenach and many other projects—Edhardt himself called to his vocation growing up in Sankt Goarshausen. Completed in 1908, the work was inaugurated with an elaborate medieval re-enactment by the emperor present. Scenes from Jean Renoir’s 1937 La Grand Illusion were filmed there and a exact copy in of the castle and Colmar built in Malaysia outside of Kuala Lumpur and along with the canine-accessible Petite Kœnigberg—la Château de l’Oedenbourg along the apron walls it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in France.

 Next we went to Kaysersberg (the Emperor’s Mountain, previously) on the eastern slopes of the Vosges range on the Route des Vins—one of the chief members of the Décapole (Zehnstädtebund) of Alsace within the Holy Roman Empire to maintain their status of imperial immediacy. Among the finest wine-growing regions, owing to vine stock originally from Hungarian roots, the pinot gris is a particular speciality. French-German polymath—theologian, philosopher, organist and physician, Albert Schweitzer, hails from here, whose 1906 Quest for the Historical Jesus informed Christian mysticism and eschatology. And although holding paternalistic views and accused by some of forwarding the idea of the White Man’s Burden, Schweitzer’s clinics in then colonial Gabon helped advance hygiene and medical care for all of Africa. The village and hike through the vineyards are dotted with his eponyms, including “Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing”—the so-called eponymous Effect for pedagogy for instilling trust for professional opinion through lived experience.

synchronoptica

one year ago: digital divinity (with synchronopticæ), ghost-writing, ambient music from a surveillance system plus up-selling

twelve years ago: reporting on the US government shutdown 

thirteen years ago: DIY month, wine and cheese advertising, vintage community calendars plus the risks of the agriculture lobby

fourteen years ago: hidden messages in song lyrics 

seventeen years ago: the fiscal new year