Thursday 2 April 2015
long-haul or get your kicks
Jackson’s wife, who was also called Bertha but no relation, was a wealthy heiress who helped him finance his hobbies—as was the business partner and later wife of inventor Karl Benz, but Bertha Benz is credited as an accomplished mechanic and expert promoter, feeling her husband was inadequately marketing his prototypes. With the excuse of going to pop off to visit her mother, Benz gathered her children and off they went, without telling her husband. They made quite an impression, and although they fewer hardships that Jackson’s team, did run out of petrol—for which Benz had the wherewithal to get a suitable catalyst from a pharmacy. The success was a great boon for the name and the industry. Incidentally, the make of the car Jackson drove was a Winton—a name not around anymore, though insanely popular after Jackson’s road-trip, was vindictively driven out of business by an upstart named Henry Ford, who the proprietor of the motor carriage company would not hire. Both accomplishments transformed the landscape of the world, how we work and live and paved the paths in between.
Wednesday 1 April 2015
per dexter, checky and fesse or worth 1000
Though we have already established that the arcane language of heraldry was constructed and preserved so as to transmit the design of emblems, devices and coats-of-arms accurately without necessitating drawing the whole pattern all over again, I am enjoying immensely looking through a pretty comprehensive handbook of heraldic design, researched and illustrated by one Hubert Allcock—who does not share his family’s crest. The above about not wasting time, ink and tincture on reproduction being true, the book’s one drawback is that it is rendered in black and white sketches, so one needs to colour by number.
And maybe that’s the point, pouring over the descriptions and exacting terminology, I can remember how when I was young, I’d often return to the reference section of the school library and look through an encyclopedia of symbols with the objective of increasing the vocabulary of my own secret, coded short-hard. Now, I am finding myself just as enchanted with the descriptive words.
Maybe we ought to adopt the same naming-conventions when it comes to tagging the photos we share. Eagle, displayed—or spread-eagle. Deer, at gaze—looking straight at the viewer, like a deer in headlights. Other common charges (poses) include caboshed or erased, headed with nothing else visible, rampant or segrรฉant, standing on its hindlegs rather than statant or on all fours, addorsed is back to back and regarding is eye to eye.
Blazonry—that is the background composition of the shield is told in even more fantastic ways. Figure 21 is instructed as Paly of six, argent and sable (silver and black), a fesse counter-charged. 34 is Lozengy, argent and azure. 42 is patterned as Gyronny of eight, or (gold) and azure. 47 is per pily barwise, reversed pall (white) and azure. Of course, every design in this retinue was chosen to impart specific and readily recognisable virtues of its standard-bearer and the symbolism is nearly itself inscrutable.
monotheism or my way or the highway
King Hezekiah, son of Ahaz and father of Manasseh, of Judah may not immediately conjure up any associations from the Bible or history, but his contribution to the manner in which future has unfolded is perhaps unmatched in its significance. Having witnessed the destruction of Samaria in the seventh century BC by the Assyrians, and fearing the same fate for Jerusalem and his southerly kingdom once it too came under siege, Hezekiah pledged to make the faith of the Judeans an exclusive one in exchange for deliverance. The king ordered the Temple Mount to be cleared of pagan paraphernalia and purged of altars (bamot, the high places) to all other gods save for their patriotic champion YHWY.
Jerusalem did not fall, thanks to the Angel of the Lord massacring a hundred thousand Assyrian soldiers and the clever underground sewer systems that Hezekiah had installed to allow the city to wait out a lengthy siege with a fresh water supply, and henceforth the Abrahamic religions were monotheistic ones—not implying that God had consorts and side-kicks before had that went suddenly out of fashion but that polytheistic traditions were generally much more tolerant and accepting of diversity and peaceable. A transitional term called henotheism (from the Greek for one God, as opposed to single, coined by theologist Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling) holds that while one community worships a single, omnipotent being, the possibility of other deities, worthy of worship, is also acknowledged as well as the notion of divinity bounded by Fate or the laws as created—as opposed to the religious chauvinism and exceptionalism that Hezekiah’s deal-making gave us.
five-by-five
gallery sans grains: there’s an online museum of iconic artwork with gluten containing foodstuffs excised
gallifrey: in the tradition of the Bayeux Tapestry, here is the continuum of the Time Lord, known as Doctor Who
merry pranksters: calendar reform was at the root of the tradition of hoaxes and pranks
poissons d’avril: a listing of the most epic stunts throughout the ages
catagories: ๐, ๐ถ, ๐บ, food and drink, holidays and observances