The Front
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it."
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- Gene Deitch · 26 days ago
The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit, 1962To say that Gene Dietch is famous isn’t exactly accurate, but he does have some small-scale notoriety as “that guy who ruined Tom & Jerry.” Dietch, who was responsible for reviving the dead cartoon series in 1962 did so on the other side of the Iron Curtain, in Prague. Working with a much smaller budget and inexperienced in producing American-style cartoons, the Czechoslovakian production crew he led created a series of bizarre, choppy, abstract. minimalist cartoons with the Tom & Jerry brand.
Heavily frowned upon by fans of the series, Dietch’s legacy has been largely forgotten, although fans of The Simpsons might remember Worker & Parasite as a mocking tribute to his legacy:
Worker & Parasite, 1993Recently rediscovered is Dietch’s take on the Hobbit, shown below. Even stranger than his Tom & Jerry cartoons (with help from the illustrations of one Adolf Born), it was produced because of some contractual ballyhoo, shelved, and forgotten. Whether or not that was the best course of action is up to you. Enjoy:
The Hobbit, 1966 - Foodhole 3: The Ancient Multi-faceted History of Ketchup · 89 days ago
“Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish.” – Henry Miller1. At least 3000 years ago in China and South-east Asia a sauce was produced by fermenting salt water fish. The resulting liquid, salty and dark, never faded from popularity and is the ancestor of many sauces still used to this day. Thai fish sauce is perhaps the most well-known direct descendant , but soy sauce can also trace its routes to this Ur-sauce, as it is produced through similar means, using soybeans in the place of fish.
2. A similar evil-smelling fish sauce called garum is produced in ancient Greece from the innards of fish. This is adapted by the Romans, who produce it en masse and consume it all throughout the empire. Filled with vitamins and naturally addictive thanks to MSG, simple garum is consumed by the lowest dregs of society on a daily basis, whereas refined garum is considered the finest luxury and the most expensive food available. As salt and pepper are to be found on every table today, once it was garum and cumin. Garum was even used as medicine for a variety of ailments such as dog bites and dysentery, and in a watered down form aquagarum was given to soldiers as a sort of energy drink.
3. As methods of salt production and trade routes develop in Europe, salt soon overtakes garum as the main flavor-enhancer in Europe. Cities on the coast continue to cook with anchovies, but for the most part the rancid fish-stink of garum is not missed and soon forgotten.
4. In the 1540’s Spanish colonists bring tomatoes back with them to Europe and begin growing them. Because it is (correctly) recognized as a member of the deadly nightshade family and (incorrectly) deemed to be filled with deadly poison, they are primarily grown by botanists as a natural curiosity or table decoration. In 1692 a Neapolitan chef includes the golden yellow variety of pomodoro (literally “golden apple”) in a cookbook for the first time, apparently basing his recipe on unwritten Spanish prototypes.
5. European colonization continues to spread. In 1737 the Dutch VOC imports 35 barrels of soy sauce to the Netherlands, and rekindles the northern European craving for fermented salty sauce. The English word ‘Ketchup’ may come from Ketjap, the Dutch word for sweet soy sauce, which is in turn borrowed from the Indonesian ketcap and ultimately derived from 鮭汁 or kê-chiap, meaning fish-juice.
6. Other colonial powers hop aboard the ketchup train, and imitations of the luxury import are produced in Europe. The British are especially thrilled at the idea of fermenting small fish, mushrooms, onions, walnuts, and the like, and a wide variety of sauces are produced. Anchovy Sauce and Mushroom Ketchup are still produced by Geo. Watkins, and are representative of the sort of sauce in question.
7. When the Brits encounter tamarind in India, they combine it with this sort of anchovy & shallot based sauce, and the resulting product is Worcestershire sauce. Meanwhile in America, Anglo-Saxon chefs are also experimenting with new variations of ketchup using local produce. A recipe for tomato ketchup is produced in 1801, and by 1837 it is a nation-wide phenomenon. Tomato ketchup becomes popular as a “safe” way to process the deadly and inedible tomatoes which grow rampant across North America.
Malevolent tomatoes have been a meme in Western culture for centuries.8. In 1906 Heinz solidifies its ketchup recipe into that which is known today. At this time ketchup is still used as a primary cooking ingredient rather than a condiment. As people learn that it is possible to cook with fresh tomatoes, ketchup begins to fade in popularity. However, the rise of fast foods such as “ham”-burgers, hot “dogs,” and “French” fries save ketchup from obscurity and secure its future in the culinary world forever, amen.
Thanks to dhyasama for the picture of rotten fish.
- Wheel of Fortune · 140 days ago
What is the Wheel of Fortune? A common metaphor for the fickleness of fate often used to explain various rises and falls throughout history, the Wheel of Fortune (sometimes called the Wheel of History or the Boethian Wheel) was especially popular trope during the middle ages, and remains so today. The phrase can be traced back to the 6th century philosopher Boethius who, once a high-ranking consul and trusted servant of king Theodoric, was at a young age suddenly accused on false charges of conspiracy and treason and locked in a dungeon for a year while he awaited a violent execution by being beaten to death with clubs. During his confinement, Boethius, who had grandly planned to translate various classical Greek texts into Latin and could have thus single-handedly forestalled the ignorance and backwardness of the European dark ages,* tried to write down as much as he could of his knowledge of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy in the De Consolatione Philosophiae. Bemoaning his own fate rather eloquently, he described the Wheel of Fortune thus:
“With an indifferent hand she spins the wheel, and one or another
number comes up lucky, while the only constant is change,
the ebb and flow of a tide like that of Euripes’ strait.
Mighty kings are brought low and the weeping face of the conquered
is lifted, but only for a moment, as if to mock him.
To the cries and complaints of men she pays no attention,
and she even laughs at their piteous groans that she has evinced.
It’s a game she plays and a demonstration of ruthless power,
a way to keep her devotees in total subjection,
raising men up and then dashing them down in ruin.”*Note: Some scholars, such as Heribert Illig, dispute the existence of the Dark Ages entirely, convincingly claiming that some 300 years of history at the end of the first millennium AD were totally fabricated.
- On Typewriters · 228 days ago
I. An Introduction to the Typewriter
- Foodhole 2: A History of Hippophagy · 273 days ago
What follows is a summary of an article by Cambridge archeologist Marsha A. Levine regarding hippophagy, or the practice of eating horse meat.
From hereHorse meat (which French people eat a lot of) is unique. It is filled with Linolenic and Lenoleic fatty acids (better known to you as Omega 3 and Omega 6). These are necessary for the development of the human brain 1.
According to one theory of human evolution 2, we learned to walk upright a long time ago when we lived in a grassy savannah in Africa, right around the time we started to develop bigger brains and tools and all that other awesome homo stuff that we use today. The problem is that it is very hard to find omega 3 and 6 in this environment, which makes it very hard to develop the big brain needed for this evolutionary leap. These oils are rare in the savannah, only to be found in small quantities in grass (and humans can’t really eat grass). Most of the animals in the savannah are ungulates (“chewing animals”, like cows and oxen, or wildebeests and gazelles) which eat these fatty acids, but they chew it and digest for such a long time that it turns into unhealthy saturated and mono-unsaturated fats. Hence there is almost no omega 3 or 6 left in their meat or their milk.
Horses eat the same grass, but they digest it very fast, in just one stomach, so these oils don’t turn into unhealthy fat, and go more directly into their meat and milk.
In a cow omega oils account for only 2% of its fat. In a sheep. 5%. In a pig, 8%. In a horse, this is 21%. If the plains-based evolution hypothesis is true, then one of the only ways that humans could have evolved to have such advanced brains in a savannah environment is by hunting simple-stomached animals like horses and zebras. And because horses have much less unhealthy fat (and less fat in general), it meant that humans were still in good shape after eating them, and they could still run around and hunt more horses.
Horses are also the most common animal found in cave paintings, so they were obviously very import to early humans. In Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and in Africa, Horses and Zebra are still considered very healthy food, and the feed the fat to babies to help them grow.
Genghis Khan’s army did not take over half of the world by eating onions.
- "FORE!" · 284 days ago
This notice was posted in war-torn Britain in 1940 in a north-country golf club.
German aircraft from Norway would fly on missions to northern England; because of the icy weather conditions, the barrels of their guns had a small dab of wax to protect them. As they crossed the coast, they would clear their guns by firing a few rounds at the golf courses. Golfers were urged to take cover.
- Gun Fetish · 293 days ago
Back in 1993, 19-year-old up-and-coming filmmaker Edgar Wright had a pretty serious gun fetish.
This supercut of movie scenes featuring gun violence was edited by Wright while he was at Bournemouth Art College “over some long weekends locked in a VHS tape to tape editing suite.”
- Unicode · 298 days ago
An elaboration of The Alphabet Conspiracy. This one is as brilliant as it is simple. Here we see all the different characters that are supported by Unicode, presented one per frame with no alterations in their original sequence. Put on something by Venetian Snares in the background, fullscreen this clip, mute its beeps and blorps, and stare hypnotized at this for as long as you can. You will witness a phantasmagoria of thousands of different typographic characters, many of which that are from obscure languages and resemble letters that you know intimately but that have been ripped apart and glued back together in bizarre ways. Behold!
> - Lost Cosmonauts Theory · 300 days ago
50 years after Yuri Gagarin returned from his flight into outer space, there is much ado and pomp in the press looking back on this moment as one of the game-changing moments of history. But was it so?
Proponents of the Lost Cosmonaut Theory claim that Gagarin was not the first man to ride a rocket into space, but merely the first one to survive the journey. Given the iffy survival rate of early space travelers, this claim might not seem far fetched. The US space program admits to the deaths of 8 astronauts during missions or training done in the 1960’s, whereas the secretive USSR admitted just 2 deaths in the same time period. Many claim that the actual number was closer to 20. Of those supposed fatalities, around 15 were purported to have occurred before Gagarin’s epic flight. Even after Gagarin the claims are shady, including one that says that the USSR successfully managed to land men and rovers on the moon, albeit in the form of a suicide mission.
What’s the true story? No one knows for sure, and possibly never will. The manned space-flight program was a source of great national pride for the Soviets, and it isn’t too far-fetched to imagine that they may have covered up some failed early attempts that would mar this achievement. However, the Lost Cosmonaut theory is quite controversial, and several claims by the proponents of the theory have been proven to be hoaxes. We’ll never know the true answer, but it’s grim and interesting to imagine that there may be skeletons in cosmonaut suits near a secret lunar rover somewhere on the face of the moon. Especially when we think of them as heavily armed.
- Bilt Terminal · 300 days ago
Continuing our series on the history of computing, we now bring to your attention the Bilt Terminal.
The Blit terminal (circa 1982) was an early (possibly the first) remote windowing system by which multiple UNIX processes could operate on the same screen. Originating from Bell Labs, it’s considered a major influence on MIT’s X Window System which still in use on many systems today. However, as you shall see, it is absolutely hideous.
