Wednesday 4 September 2013

yaarg! or a darkly-adapted eye

Although losing an eye was certainly an occupational hazard (I can only imagine terrible incidents with splinters), the stereotypical pirate did not, it seems, wear an eye-patch only to cover up a handicap nor to look like a veteran.

The accessory is only associated with the rogues of the sea-going profession but seems to have a scientifically confirmed practical use in preserving night-vision. Constantly rushing below and above deck takes time for vision to acclimate, especially when entering into the dazzling sun and preserving one eye accustomed to the darkness and switching sides allowed the pirate captain not to be completely blinded in the transition.  What other costume items do you think might need disabusing?

wahlkampf

German partisan politics prides itself on being about platforms and delicately negotiated partnerships and not about personalities, though in practice this is not always the case. A huge campaign poster of the incumbent, not espousing any slogan in particular, other than with the status quo, the country is in good hands with a signature pose.
The opposition is crying foul, saying that such a display, and usually such big billboards are only allowed by election monitors under very specific conditions, is reducing the governing coalition into a cult of personality, veering dangerously close to American-style politics and polarization. And of course, there is some free-publicity thrown into the mix, what with the necklace (Kette) in black, red and gold that Angela Merkel wore during the only televised debate with her chief rival catching notice and being bestowed with the strange kind of personhood of a social-networking presence—sort of like a sausage, pin or match-stick from one of the Brothers' Grimm lesser-known fairy tales. What do you think? Does charisma necessarily dilute stance? In the States, no one would bat an eye at this sort of showmanship and instead try to outdo the competition. I like the straightforward promises of one candidate, a local hopeful—opportunity, education and Beer, repeated ad infinitum on lamp posts.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

netiquette or sos, sms

Bob Canada's Blog-World makes an excellent commentary on the prescience of Star Trek. In a few panels, the author shows how even in the retro-future of 1991, the series predicted that for some people virtual Facetime becomes more of a priority than actual face-time—not discounting all the other wildly hopeful and innovative developments that Star Trek has envisioned. Have you experienced the same treatment, understudied, or are you, etiquette-wise, guilty of being a Romulan yourself?

pinocchio or bukimi no tani

BBC Future unpacks (inactive link) an idea taken as a given with mixed results, ranging from gut-instincts, testimonials and test-groups to research studies that makes the parabolic projection of the the so-called “uncanny valley” a phrase first coined in robotics some forty years ago by a Japanese inventor who used the term in an essay more elusive.
As the imitation approaches closer and closer to the original, there is a proportional feeling of unease that ends in aversion—or that's what experience teaches at least and there is a general belief it is something vainglorious to romance the mirror. I think too I should feel pretty disturbed if I cannot distinguish a human from a replicant, an avatar or a zombie, and would reject aping perfection out-of-hand. More often, I think, I have mistook a living operator for something computerized. The article is definitely worth the read and I find it interesting that the topic is introduced via a project to build a humanoid robot to assist children diagnosed with autism to better read facial expressions and non-verbal communication. I wonder if that says more about how we perceive humanness and otherness than the cosmetics of an android.

vacay and staycation

Traditionally, August is the month when Germans and most other Europeans take holidays, and there's an old, rather tongue-in-cheek adage against falling ill during that month since hardly a doctor is to be found. I heard a report on the radio on Monday—the first workday after the last huzzah, I suppose, of August, which I thought at first was a bit tongue-in-cheek too, but the topic was addressed with all earnestness and I guess that really reveals where my mindset reverts to.

The callers and the panel of experts sounded like a bunch of recalcitrant school children, dragging their feet and dreading the new academic year, when talking about resuming Common Time for the work year, girding oneself mentally and techniques for easing the transition. I know we have been very bad about travel this year and taking any extended leave of absence (or rather very good from an American point of view, since one rarely hears as a lament “we only took three vacations this year”) and am never eager to return to the day-to-day drudgery—which is only endured for the chance to make the next trip, but I was mortified that I was unable to at first relate and mistook the whole exchange as a lampoon against day-dreamers and leave-takers. There is another adage—that Americans live to work and the rest of the world works to live. I hope I am firmly in the latter category.

Monday 2 September 2013

he ain't ratched

Although the truly positive associations stop at fancy and at best the term quickly atrophies into a back-handed compliment, like being called a champagne-socialist, I think I would like to champion the introduction of the German word Prunk into the international pidgin. Like posh that never really caught on, prunk can indicate something elaborate or ostentatious, flaunting or ceremonial—bling, I think it describes a lot of things and people's attitudes towards presentation and deportment. There's a certain weightiness—on loan—that gives the term a certain substance, as if one could plonk it down, whatever the estimation, rather than just being some glittering, costume-badge.

dynamic duo: parish church of saint cecilia

Taking a leisurely but unwanted drive to start the work-week, and having learnt about the further collaborations of master architect Johann Bathasar Neumann and fresco artist Christoph Thomas Scheffler, I stopped in the town of Heusenstamm by Offenbach. On my way to see the baroque church, among their , I first passed under a very fancy (prunkvolle) gate, which the German Emperor Franz I had built in honour of his son's, Josef, being crowned the king of the Romans in Frankfurt am Main.
This post is  a precursor to becoming ruling the parallel Holy and Roman Empire of the Germans, and keeping control in the Hapsburg family.
Franz was residing at the Palace of Heusenstamm for the event—the Schloss is today used as the town's city hall and holds other administrative offices, surrounded by a palatial garden.
The town itself, after the extinction of earlier, founding dynasties, was firmly under the control of the dukes of the Schรถnborn family, prince-bishops and electors of Wรผrzburg and Bamberg.
Family members, I learnt, were buried in the crypt of this church, which with the support of her famous relations Duchess Maria Theresa had commissioned. I marveled at the ceiling, depicting among other things the resurrection of Lazarus, and discovered that the patroness, a Roman maiden that got cold-feet before marriage for pious reasons (quite a common reason for beatification back then, it seems) became, for singing at her wedding, in a round about way the muse of church music and someone for composers to look to for inspiration. In fact, the Cecilia that Paul Simon extols in the famous song is a little prayer for frustrated song-writers, lamenting the distractions that come with the lifestyle.