global jukebox (12. 577)

Inspired by the success of the Band Aid supergroup’s charity album from a half-a-year earlier, though with the same attendant criticism, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure staged their dual-venue benefit concert to raise funds for relief of the devastating famine in Ethiopia on this day in 1985 with bands playing at both Wembley Stadium and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Whilst prompting decades of debate regarding the organisers’ methods and impacts—from prioritising humanitarian aid in foreign policy and focusing the world’s attention on the plight of the poor in favour with dissenters arguing that monies raised were diverted from real and sustaining support and further delayed the West coming to terms with its parochial and patriarchal tendencies and disabuse itself from the real factors behind inequity and the injustice of colonialism under a different guise. Proclaiming music to be the lingua franca—not English, nonetheless, Geldof, at the suggestion of Boy George, whom had also taken part in the recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,”orchestrated a rather amazing spectacle with an enduring legacy. Mick Jagger and David Bowie had originally planned a transatlantic duet (see previously) though synchronisation problems ultimately lead to a compromise. Phil Collins did in fact play at Wembley, ferried by helicopter to Heathrow and took a Concorde flight to Pennsylvania and performed also at JFK, encountering Cher on the plane—who was unaware of the concert but was convinced to tag along and sing in the finale, an encore of the anti-hunger anthem “We Are the World.” Queen’s twenty-one-minute performance of a medley of hits was voted the greatest live gig in music history, Freddie Mercury many times leading the audience in unison refrains and his sustained cry of “Aaaaay-O” described as the “Note Heard Around the World.” The US event was hosted by Jack Nicholson and included acts by Madonna, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Tina Turner with reunions of the bands Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Black Sabbath, The Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin.

ekranoplan (12. 576)

Recent intelligence suggests that China might be attempting to revive a Cold War leviathan known as the Soviet sea monster of the Caspian, the semi-legendary ekranoplan (экранопла́н, a screen-glider or ground-effect vehicle) an airfoil designed to fly just over the crests of the waves, invisible to radar, impervious to mines riding on a cushion of high air pressure and achieving speeds ten times faster than traditional maritime vessels, leaving fleets and coast defences no time to react. Photographs have emerged of apparent trials in the Sea of Bohai, near the Korean peninsula. DARPA was working on its own for the US navy—called a Liberty Lifter, the concept vehicle also known for its increased cargo delivery capacity with advantages other both ships and planes—but the programme was abruptly cancelled last month.

synchronoptica

one year ago: claim-jumping in the Arctic (with synchronopticæ), reproductive care in international waters, a local air show plus a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump

thirteen years ago: the Period Table typeface 

fourteen years ago: debt and pensions 

télégraph aérien (12. 575)

Having previously learned about the invention of the optical or semaphore communications system of Claude Chappe, we appreciated this retrospective and chance to revisit the contentious innovation that informed public perception and art movements into the nineteenth century. Hailed as a great advancement, the tachygraphic network that was being introduced just as the French Revolution was beginning in 1792 as a series of relay towers throughout the countryside and in metropolitan areas was by turns regarded as an achievement, condemned as an eyesore and viewed with suspicion. The cellular masts (or windmills) of their day, their addition to the tops of buildings, profane and sacred, was considered despoiling aesthetically—numerous examples of paintings from that period feature them prominently, sort of like the scaffolding that encased the Statue of Liberty during the eighties that become as iconic and emblematic as the unobscured monument—and the coded messages (the arrangement of the blades or wings corresponded to ninety-eight numbers) to be deciphered and passed on the next operator) were taken as something sinister, prompting the destruction of some towers either as signs of witchcraft (compare to the attacks on the 5G masts during COVID either as its cause or a government conspiracy to implant microchips in the population to control it) or to hinder accelerated responses to quell uprisings, the government privileged with this speeded up reaction not available to the protesters. A group of investors in Bordeaux were jailed, though ultimately acquitted, for bribing operators to transmit stock market figures from Paris hours ahead of when the gains and losses would be available to the competition—an abuse for the sight-lines that was never envisioned. Much more from Hyperallergic at the link above.

steudadoù karnag (12. 574)

Via Strange Company, we are serendipitously directed to an academic update in partnership with the University of Gothenburg with its share of megaliths (I still need to repair those posts from our Sweden trip made on a third party app...) on the Carnac Stones, excavating alignments in a previously unstudied area, Le Plasker adjacent to the ten kilometre stretch inland from Erdeven to the Bay of Morbihan, dating after several trials the original placements to 4700 BC (the landscape and the inventory has been significantly altered in pre-historic times and going forward) and thus not only confirming their age but also pre-dating other standing stone arrangements in Europe, like in England and Malta.

think the tide is with us (12. 573)

In deference to the silver anniversary of the Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg and Peter Benchly collaboration—which agreedly holds up and worth a rewatch—Clive Thompson’s Linkfest (lots more great stuff there) directs us to a text-based adventure game inspired by the film authored by programmer and designer Matt Round, that follows the plot pretty faithfully scene by scene but from the point of view of the titular shark with some pretty compelling internal monologue (see also).

boule de lille (12. 572)

Having purchased the bright orange cheese—owing to the natural seasoning and colourant annatto, derived from the seeds of the achiote tree native to the tropics, similar to nutmeg but from more accessible climes in the American tropics and adopted by cheesemakers to imbue their product with the more intense colours of summer time cheeses year around (the higher carotene content in fresh grass that cows grazed on would pass through to the milk)—in slices at a supermarket during vacation—as opposed to a fromagerie, thinking it was the equivalent of cheddar, we were not aware that traditionally that Mimolette, originating in Nord and Lille, was created as a native substitute for the very popular variety of Edam cheese from the Netherlands. To distinguish it from the import, it was coloured, first with carrot juice and then later with the rise of the French East India Company (see previously) the more exotic spice—as are many other cheeses—and is aged as a ball, appearing like a a cantaloupe when sliced—the rind, grey-coloured, is infested with mites (see also) during the ripening process which enhances the flavour. The name comes from the French mi-mou for “semi-soft” referring to the slightly oily texture to the otherwise hard cheese.

synchronoptica

one year ago: plural forms of compound expressions (with synchronopticæ), assorted links to revisit plus Disco Demolition Night (1979)

eleven years ago: our VW bus plus the cost of camouflage 

7x7 (12. 571)

edge of eternity: Poseidon’s Underworld’s cinematic vacation to the Grand Canyon 

the open-hearted many and the broken-hearted-few: the venerable and ongoing Leonard Cohen Files—via Metafilter  

litra: an ancient Byzantine scale complete with a set Greek letter-shaped counter-balances discovered in Türkei  

voulez-vous danser avec moi: the mambo scene of Brigitte Bardot and Dario Moreno from Michel Boisrond’s 1959 « Come Dance with Me? »  

flatland: the four dimensional world of Alicia Boole Stott—see also  

and if i haver: an endurance run of The Proclaimer’s I’m Gonna Be—via Web Curios 

it happened here: a contemporary table-read of Stephen King’s what-if premise of Apt Pupil considered during a staycation from Today in Tabs—via ibidem

qin shi huang mausoleum (12. 570)

Having been discovered by a group of farmers, Wang Puzhi and his neighbour Yang Zhifa (with his five brothers), in March of the year prior, the archaeological community marked a pivotal moment on this day in 1975 in the excavation of the site, unearthing the central burial pits around the tomb of Qin dynasty’s founder and first emperor (皇帝, huángdì) of a unified China to reveal a retinue of some eight thousand life-sized terracotta figures of soldiers and horses standing guard for his journey into the afterlife.  The necropolis is a microcosm of the imperial palace with halls, offices and the thousands of replica units, armed, standing in formation. The tomb itself at the centre of the terracotta army (previously) is hermetically sealed and remains unopened to prevent degradation of the body, artefacts and grave goods inside as well as out of concerns for safety of researchers, with artificial rivers of mercury and other toxic decorative elements suspected to be contained within—possibly also an element of revenant superstition. Aside from the Qin emperor, a mass though ceremonious grave holding the remains of one-hundred-twenty-one individuals has been uncovered, whom researchers believe to have been labourers and artisans that built the necropolis.

synchronoptica 

one year ago: double-click jargon (with synchronopticæ), more on the zombification of the legacy web plus Biden vows to stay in the US presidential race   

thirteen years ago: a hundred-handed cactus plus subversive stickers 

fourteen years ago: odious debts