Events in themselves are not so interesting to me as the conditions that led to the events. These conditions are often quite commonplace, and yet full of what is imminent. Immanent and imminent.

David Goldblatt, from this Places Journal article

The whole usefulness of education consists only in the memory of it, for just as having heard something does not profit one who cannot understand, likewise having understood is not valuable to one who either will not or cannot remember.

Hugh of Saint-Victor, Chronicle (c. 1130)

Why, yes, I did get a new Lapham’s Quarterly in the mail earlier this week: “Memory.” Having a ball.

In true reality, there is nothing but relationships.

• Piet Mondrian (via a MoMA placard)

One of my favorite acts of early technoanarchy, the Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion, occurred on this day in 1987. The perpatrators were never identified.

The movers and shakers depend on the visions of the dreamers: those for whom the world is real are nothing without the others for whom the world is an idea: the two have to work together to reshape the chaos into a world we can live in.

• Gregor von Rezzori, in Abel and Cain

On this day in 1907, railroad engineer Jesús García saved the entire town of Nacozari de García by driving a burning train full of dynamite six kilometers away before it could explode. Hence the town’s name.

Today I learned that in 1831, French satirical artist Charles Philipon “published a drawing of the king’s head, metamorphosing in four stages to a rotting poire (pear-head), also French slang for ‘fool’ or ‘simpleton.’ Philipon was hauled into court and, as legend has it, avoided prison by demonstrating the resemblance—of king to pear—to the jury, by means of sketching and (very likely) verbal panache. He was acquitted of the charge of defamation.”

That’s a win!

Today I also learned that Standard Oil founders John D Rockefeller and William Rockefeller Jr. were sons of snake oil salesman William A Rockefeller Sr. aka Dr. Bill Levingston.

Today I learned that Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the flight that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens in 1959.

You know, people say that things move faster nowadays, but Napoleon’s empire only existed for ten years.

Today I learned about…Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

-Epictetus

This list of terms of venery (the collective name for a group of animals) is often pleasantly alliterative and even quite poetic at times.

On this day in 1859, Joshua A. Norton of San Francisco proclaimed himself Norton I, Emporer of the United States. Where have all our visionary madmen gone? They’re still here, but, in our insecurity, we ignore them (or banish them), and elevate the facile instead.

The remarkable story of George Psalmanazar, the mysterious 18th century Frenchman who successfully posed as a native of Formosa, meticulously fabricating a culture with bizarre customs, exotic fashions, and its own invented language.

On this day in 1914, the last known passenger pigeon, Martha, died in Cincinnati.

In architecture, critical activity has always been connected with the concept of utopia; utopia is not an alternative model: it puts forward unresolved problems (not ‘problem solving’ but ‘problem finding’). We could say that the original motive of utopia is hope. Utopia is the true preparation for projecting, as play is preparation of life. The revolutionary charge of utopia, the hope which is at its foundation and the criticism which is its direct consequence, bring back its dignity as a rational, ordering activity.

• SUPERSTUDIO, The Continuous Monument: An Architectural Model for Total Urbanization, 1969.

Let’s talk about utopias again. Rest in peace, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia

Wherever God erects a house of prayer / the Devil always builds a chapel there; / And ’t will be found, upon examination, / the latter has the largest congregation.

– Daniel Defoe, “The True-Born Englishman,” 1701

Whoever we are, we’re always moving along our own routes, finding ourselves in foreign lands, reaching beyond the curtains of our own experience; everyone we meet along the way remains in our memory, their every word and every touch.

-Serhiy Zhadan, Voroshilovgrad

1. The energy of the universe is constant.

2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.

Rudolf Clausius, Concerning Several Conveniently Applicable Forms for the Main Equations of the Mechanical Heat Theory, 1865.

Today I learned about the Hayflick Limit: the number of times a human cell can undergo mitosis before its genetic telomeres disappear, causing the cell population to cease reproducing. Critically, cancer cells are able to extend their telomeres , reproducing forever.

History is the vast store of human conciousness adrift in the gulf of time, the present living in the past and the past living in the present…what survives the wreck of time is the force of imagination and the power of expression.

Lewis Lapham, The Art of Editing No. 4, the Paris Review, Issue 229

Switch ‘the’ to ‘a’ and the world changes.

Laurie Anderson

Today I learned about Poles of Inaccessibility.

Today I learned that on this day in 1570, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, considered the first true modern atlas, was published by Abraham Otelius.