May 2, 2021 in 3,222 words

_{• • • an aural noise • • •}

_{^{• some of the things I read while eating breakfast in antisocial isolation •}}

The L.A. Alley That’s a Subtle Silent-Film Landmark

_{With a proposal to rename the space Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd Alley, one of silent Hollywood’s hardest-working locations could finally get its due.}

_{Charlie Chaplin filmed part of The Kidin one section of the alley. Embiggenable. Explore at home.}

SILENT FILM STAR BUSTER KEATON crafted movies by letting locations speak to him. Though Keaton is most often remembered for his infamous unflappability—his “Great Stone Face” never registered the chaos around him—what stands out about many of his films now, as they approach their centenary, is Keaton’s great use of space. His approach to screenwriting involved plotting a beginning and an end, without worrying about what happened in-between. He let a site inspire him; gags emerged from the particulars of the place.

Keaton and fellow stars Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd all played with space in ways that make it uniquely rewarding to find, visit, and study their filming locations. That’s why film historian John Bengtson’s project to locate and commemorate the spaces where this silent comedy triumvirate filmed is especially illuminating.

Bengtson’s most incredible discovery—a seemingly nondescript T-shaped alley in the heart of Hollywood—appears in numerous silent films, including three in the National Film Registry, movies preserved by the Library of Congress for their cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance.

The alley is the site of one of Keaton’s most memorable stunts in the 1922 film Cops. He runs down the alley with a drove of policemen in mad pursuit. When he reaches the end, he stops in the street, looking back at the clumsy mob stumbling after him. A car passes and Keaton grabs hold, flying offscreen behind the vehicle. Compared to some of his more elaborate stunts, it’s fairly simple—but it became one of his most iconic spectacles.

_{Keaton fleeing from the alley in Cops, and the same location pictured by Bengtson nearly 90 years later, in 2011.}

The place where Chaplin finds the titular kid he adopts in his 1921 masterpiece The Kid is just down the alley, a stone’s throw from where the cops chased Keaton. Harold Lloyd also creeps round the alley in an attempt to tardily sneak into work in his Safety Last! (1923). Those three movies in the National Film Registry are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to films shot in the alley. …

Gyeongju, South Korea: Wolji Pond
_{This human-made pond is part of a Korean palace complex first built in the 7th century.}

_{One of the structures on Wolji Pond. Embiggenable. Explore at home.}

WOLJI IS AN ARTIFICIAL POND that was originally located near the Silla palace called Banwolseong. The pond was part of the complex, constructed on the orders of King Munmu in 674. The pond measures 200 meters from east to west and 180 meters from north to south. When viewed from above, it has an unusual shape that some say represents the outline of the country at the time of construction, acting as a kind of watery map of Korea. The pond contains three small islands and the surrounding area has a manufactured landscape of 12 small hills to the northeast.

This pond was referred to as Anapji during the Goryeo and Joseon eras. In the 1980s, a pottery shard was found with the word wolji carved on it, which translates to “pond that reflects the moon.” It was decided that this must be the true name of the pond, and the site was renamed to Donggung and Wolji.

Donggung and Wolji was a secondary palace used by the crown prince of the Silla Kingdom. Rare animals were brought in to the area to create an exotic garden fit for royalty. It also served as a banquet site for important national events. There is mention of a royal reception held by King Gyeongsun, in 931, by which time the Silla Kingdom was beginning to crumble. After the fall of Silla, the pond fell into disrepair for many centuries.

In 1974, as part of the renovation project of historic sites around the city, Wolji was dredged and rebuilt. During the excavation, almost 33,000 artifacts were found in and around the pond. The abundance of discoveries include roof tiles, architectural materials, pottery, gilt bronze Buddha figures, jewelry, and small everyday items. These objects offer an insight to Buddhist art and everyday life during the Silla era. These are held in a special exhibition at the nearby Gyeongju National Museum. …

Streams and lakes have rights, a US county decided. Now they’re suing Florida.

_{A novel lawsuit is taking advantage of a local ‘rights of nature’ measure passed in November in effort to protect wetlands.}

_{The Florida lawsuit is part of a growing trend around the world of laws protecting rights of nature.}

A network of streams, lakes and marshes in Florida is suing a developer and the state to try to stop a housing development from destroying them.

The novel lawsuit was filed on Monday in Orange county on behalf of the waterways under a “rights of nature” law passed in November. It is the largest US municipality to adopt such a law to date.

The listed plaintiffs are Wilde Cypress Branch, Boggy Branch, Crosby Island Marsh, Lake Hart and Lake Mary Jane.

Laws protecting the rights of nature are growing throughout the world, from Ecuador to Uganda, and have been upheld in courts in India, Colombia and Bangladesh. But this is the first time anyone has tried to enforce them in the US.

The Orange county law secures the rights of its waterways to exist, to flow, to be protected against pollution and to maintain a healthy ecosystem. It also recognizes the authority of citizens to file enforcement actions on their behalf. …

RELATED: Can You Pass the Balmoral Test?
_{And more importantly, would you want to?}

If you’ve seen season four of Netflix’s The Crown, you’ll have witnessed the Balmoral test. Thatcher blunders it, and Diana breezes through it.

So, what is the Balmoral test?

Balmoral Castle is the Queen of England’s summer home. She stays there every year, along with other members of the royal family. It’s located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It’s a place of beauty and relaxation, where the royals can wind down and kick up their heels. An inner circle where they can let their guard down and be themselves.

When guests are brought into this inner circle, it’s kind of a big deal. Prime ministers are invited, as are potential future husbands and wives. On a guest’s first visit, legend has it that the royals do certain tests to check if they make the grade. An initiation, of sorts.

In The Crown, we see Margaret Thatcher struggle through the etiquette of dressing for drinks before dinner, and not packing outdoor shoes for hunting. We see her bail out of hunting, sneaking away to do some work. She sits in Queen Victoria’s chair; a major faux pas. No one sits in that chair. Her contempt for the entire excursion is palpable. She bumbles through the parlor games, unable to lighten up and let her hair down. Her husband fumbles through their dinner conversation. Awkward.

Whereas Diana appears have passed these tests with flying colors. In the show, she helps Prince Phillip catch the stag when they hunt together. She breezes through the parlor games and captivates the entire family. Legend says the royals decided she would make the perfect wife for Prince Charles, based on this test. Much to his dismay, of course. …

Area Man's Opinion Hasn't Been Taken Seriously By Anyone In Over A Decade https://t.co/VjdrSNeLk4 pic.twitter.com/EON7XhZgxE

— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 2, 2021

RELATED: 12 Silent Films (You Can Watch) That Still Hold Up

It’s sometimes surprising to realize that movies have been around for over a century and that movie staples we know and love like fight scenes, car chases, and old men getting hit in the groin with a football are nearly as old. Cinema started with silent films that would have been accompanied by live music and still held a lot of stage traditions — including some serious eye makeup for everyone.

But do they hold up? Well, yes and no. For one thing, a lot of them have literally not held up; the film has disintegrated or been otherwise destroyed, and many, many movies are considered lost films. Other surviving films feature things, mainly gross racist stereotypes and bullshit that would have been considered acceptable 100 years ago but are actually objectively terrible. However, some of them manage to retain their charm over the decades. The following is a list of silent films that more or less hold up today, and they’re all available on YouTube. Watch them with a proverbial grain of salt because, after 100+ years, some of their new and exciting elements are, well, 100 years old by the time we’re seeing them …

13. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari By Robert Wiene, 1920

This moody film is the pinnacle of German Expressionism, full of distorted, nightmarish sets and makeup that inspired the goths of the future. The story tells of a mad doctor who uses a sleepwalker to murder people … or does it? The surreal, high-drama scenery gives this movie a timeless quality that makes it hold up a century later and has influenced countless other artists. It’s also fun to see how far-reaching its influence has been on cinema and more.

Stuff That Doesn’t Hold Up: The movie has an “asylum” theme that reflects mental health practices of the time, which by today’s standards is … pretty horrific.

Watch It: YouTube. Run time 75 minutes. Intertitle cards in German. …

_{Ed. The headline says there are twelve. Did one not make the cut after all?}

Rock-Bottom Loser Entertaining Offers From Several Religions https://t.co/EcvTAnzfR4 pic.twitter.com/REZGOPSq0X

— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 1, 2021

RELATED: 4 Dark Realities Of Working In Media In 2021

The news isn’t in a good place right now, but you know what they say: if you’re going through hell, keep going until you end up in an even more painful and humiliating subdivision. For example, if you’ve seen the news about recent media layoffs, the affected sites keeps scrolling and scrolling like a casualty list from some great war. Yes, 2021 is shaping up to be a miserable year for reporters who have basic standards, because …

4. Local News Is Dying A Slow And Painful Death

Let’s start by talking about the New York Times. Thanks to their COVID coverage and their deciphering of Trump’s word salad, their subscriber base jumped from five million to over seven million in 2020. Naturally, their ad revenue then … dropped about 50% in a quarter. Advertising, an industry that already has several dozen knives dangling above it, had a terrible 2020. Major publications, like The Atlantic, The Athletic, and others that start with different letters, have survived thanks to similar subscription drives. Local newspapers have… not.

Between 2008 and 2019, newspaper staffs were chopped in half. The pandemic did not improve this. Thousands of papers have folded or merged, leaving 65 million Americans with either just one local paper, or no local news at all. Ad revenue has dropped 68% and, unlike the New York Times, Americans don’t see the value in subscribing to the St. Augustine Herald-Tribune-Star-Sun. It’s just assumed that their local paper will always be there, right up until it isn’t.

Facebook and Google’s crushing cyberpunk duopoly deserves much of the blame, but we’ll get to them. About 55% of America’s surviving local papers are owned by financial institutions that have about as much interest in reporting as Scrooge McDuck has in Marxism. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital has been dubbed a “strip-miner” for snapping up papers, slashing 85% of the jobs, and forcing surviving journalists to buy their own pens and work without hot water in the office. Assuming they still have an office; Alden often buys papers just so they can sell their real estate. …

Area Grandma Enjoys Flourishing Correspondence With Mailer-Daemon https://t.co/0oJ5fpqR0i pic.twitter.com/2xvmoMRLbB

— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 1, 2021

The Man Struck By a Particle Accelerator Beam

_{A bizarre case, and the only one like it in the world.}

_{Insidde of the Russian U-70 synchrotron. Embiggenable.}

If you ask a physicist what would happen if you were to stick any part of your body into a particle accelerator, you will be met with the same answer time and time again: they don’t know. They may have some vague notion of how it would affect your body, but not a single clear answer emerges. As with any other source of radiation it’s ultimately not recommended for you to find out.

Except that someone did find out. One man in all of human history has been struck by the beam of a particle accelerator. He went on to be the subject of intense study by his country’s medical researchers for his bizarre reaction to the radiation. Were this a science fiction tale or a comic book world then perhaps the story of this man would be a fantastical one full of superpowers and increased mental capabilities, or the enhanced ability to see different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

This story is not about superheroes and exciting mutations. But neither does it proceed in the way one might expect. There are both elements of the expected and unexpected in the case study of Anatoli Bugorski.

Anatoli was a scientist working in the late 1970’s Soviet Union. It was a mid-July day when the incident occurred at the U-70 synchrotron — an intricate, silvery machine overrun with a snake-like tangle of blue and red wires. At the time it was the Soviet Union’s largest particle accelerator. The point of these machines is to accelerate beams of particles at extremely high speeds, guided and focused on their path by powerful magnetic fields. The metal pipes within which the particles travel are almost a perfect vacuum free of air and dust. These beams of particles can be directed to hit another beam of particles or a chosen target such as a sheet of metal. When these collisions occur instruments search for whatever particles and radiation were created during the collision. They are undoubtedly one of the most complex wonders of human engineering. With so many elements it’s unsurprising that, at times, parts of the machine malfunction. …

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: The moment of impact brought a flash of light that Anatoli later described as “brighter than a thousand suns”.

Social tensions preceded disruptions in ancient Pueblo societies

_{Drought is often blamed for the periodic disruptions of ancient Pueblo societies of the U.S. Southwest, but in a study with potential implications for the modern world, archaeologists found evidence that slowly accumulating social tension likely played a substantial role in three dramatic upheavals in Pueblo development. The findings show that Pueblo farmers often persevered through droughts, but when social tensions were increasing, even modest droughts could spell the end of an era of development.}

Climate problems alone were not enough to end periods of ancient Pueblo development in the southwestern United States.

Drought is often blamed for the periodic disruptions of these Pueblo societies, but in a study with potential implications for the modern world, archaeologists have found evidence that slowly accumulating social tension likely played a substantial role in three dramatic upheavals in Pueblo development.

The findings, detailed in an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that Pueblo farmers often persevered through droughts, but when social tensions were increasing, even modest droughts could spell the end of an era of development.

“Societies that are cohesive can often find ways to overcome climate challenges,” said Tim Kohler, a Washington State University archeologist and corresponding author on the study. “But societies that are riven by internal social dynamics of any sort—which could be wealth differences, racial disparities or other divisions—are fragile because of those factors. Then climate challenges can easily become very serious.” …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

America begrudgingly agrees to help India with their COVID outbreak, states struggle to incentivize people to get vaccinated, and a development from Costco signals a return to normalcy. Here are this week’s coronavirus updates.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Social Distancing Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Here’s me commentary on Drones.

みりは悪さしてはな姉さんに叱られちゃう。Miri plays tricks and is often scolded by Hana.

FINALLY . . .

They Swore by the Diet I Created — but I Completely Made It Up

_{How exposure to misinformation inoculation sometimes makes things worse.}

WHILE ON VACATION, MARCIAL CONTE, the Brazilian publisher of my first book, met a woman who asked about his work. Upon learning he was responsible for A Mentira do Glutén: E Outros Mitos Sobre O Que Voce Comê (The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat), she lit up.

Her husband, she said, had followed my revolutionary diet protocol and changed his life. Pounds melted away. Myriad health problems resolved themselves.

“She told me to thank you for saving her husband’s life with the ‘UNpacked Diet,’” Conte grinned at me. “Incredible, no? The only change they made was keeping aluminum foil.”

Incredible, indeed. The diet was satire, invented by me, and it came at the end of a book dedicated to exposing pseudoscientific nutrition claims. For the centerpiece of the faux diet, I used just such a claim: that the cause of all modern ailments was food packaging. By “unpacking” your food — that is, by refusing to eat food that had come in contact with plastic, styrofoam, or aluminum foil — I pretended to promise readers a magical panacea for everything from autism to Alzheimer’s, as well as effortless weight loss.

Readers have emailed asking where they can buy the “UNpacked Diet–approved unbleached coffee filters” that I dreamed up as part of the satire.

The satire should have been clear. Every chapter was packed with warnings about precisely the kinds of claims made in the diet, such as:

• Beware of panaceas… like a diet that promises miraculous weight loss and a solution to every chronic illness.
• Distrust the promise of secret knowledge hidden by conspiracies… like the diet that “they” don’t want you to know about.
• Don’t trust individual anecdotes… like the glowing testimonials I included at the end of the invented diet. (I took them from other pseudoscientific diet books.)
• Stay alert for myths and fallacies such as the “appeal to antiquity”… the idea that our ancestors lived in a dietary paradise and that modern technology is uniquely evil and dangerous.
• Watch out for grains of scientific truth turned into alarmist falsehoods… like the cherry-picked scientific studies that filled the UNpacked Diet’s footnotes.

Each deceptive tactic in the UNpacked Diet had been scrupulously debunked in the chapters that preceded it. Not only that, but after the diet there was another section called the “UNpacked Diet, UNpacked,” in which I went through each of the deceptive tactics and explained why I chose it. …

_{Ed. Did anyone actually read the book. Or did they just pick it up for the diet? Shop at home.}

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Likely, if I find nothing more barely uninteresting at all to do.}