release 13.1

Though Unicode 14.0 is delayed due to the pandemic, there will be an interim roll-out of a small batch of new emoji.
There’s much nuance and pantomime to be found for every glyph and in their renderings across different platforms, and the addition of singular expression—though still make of it what you will—to the vernacular that corrects for interoperability is a nod to wide variation and potential for misinterpretation. Aside from extra options for “bearded person” which could result in a bearded woman, there’s a face with spiralled-eyes figure as a place-holder for a historic discrepancy for in some operating systems and applications that displayed the original x-eyed face (😵) sometimes with dizzied or hypnotic circles.

parting shot

Launched on 23 July, China’s mission to Mars, Tianwen-1, beamed back this postcard of a crescent Earth and its satellite from a distance of a little over a million kilometres as it accelerates towards the Red Planet.
The image joins a growing gallery of iconic photographs that help bring perspective and humility. The alignment of the two worlds mean that this is among the fastest and most efficient times for Martian travel and Tianwen-1—the first probe of a series of planned excursions and is named (天問) for the eponymous ancient work of epic prose that begins asking how the universe was created, thus Heavenly Questions—was joined during this auspicious launch window by and orbiter from the United Arab Emirates and NASA rover named Perseverance. All three will arrive in February 2021, touching down at Utopia Planitia.

6x6

prog rock: internet struggles to identify this mystery recording found on an unlabelled cassette tape

theirtube: a radical and potentially unsettling step outside one’s recom- mendation bubble (see also)

r&d: reconstructing journalistic scenes in three-dimension—via Waxy

gross domestic product: the US economy falls by a third

in the key of g: cucumber vine forms a treble clef

silver apples: the rising and fall of a now obscure pioneering electronic musical duo

omiyage—voyage, voyage

This Japanese word for souvenir (お土産) are representative meibutsu (名物, literally famous things) applied to regional specialties and are often exchanged among work colleagues and family members upon the return of one who was away not just as a keepsake but as a way to apologize for one’s absence and a consolation for those whom did not get to make the trip this time. Via Present /&/ Correct we are directed towards this rather brilliant and wonderfully granular map of the country from Haconiwa design studios. One can explore on any section on the grid to learn about local delicacies and take a virtual vacation. Much more to explore at the links above.

hatebrand

With a name nearly as awesome as our friend Ultragoth, today marks the veneration of Frisian abbot of the Benedictine order, credited with its revival in that part of the Netherlands on the occasion of his death or translation of his relics in 1183 or possibly 1198. Aside from the founding of three monasteries and being forewarned of an ambush by God and armouring himself with a cauldron, unfortunately not much else is known about the saint’s life or acts and more is known posthumously, vicariously about the fate of Hatebrand’s reliquary and relics in the centuries after his death through multiple civil and religious upheavals and who is presently scattered in various churches across Holland and Belgium

tokyo pop

Outfitter to several iconic and unforgettable acts, furnishing the stagewear for the likes of Elton John and Lady Gaga, the recently departed fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto (*1944, see previously) is probably best known for the lavish outfits that informed David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona and their ongoing wardrobe collaboration which included this flared-leg jumpsuit. Yamamoto’s signature extravagant style was later classified as basara (バサラ) a way to describe something glam and larger-than-life.

commemorative toonies

Via friend of the blog par excellence Nag on the Lake, we learn that the Royal Canadian Mint will honour the centenary of the birth of Haida Gwaii (see also here and here) artist Bill Reid (*1920 – †1988)—whose artwork had previously graced the 2004 series of the $20 banknote with a special two dollar coin featuring two versions grizzly bear (Xhuwaji) motif, one in traditional colours and the other uncoloured specie.
The name of the coin itself—first going into circulation in 1996—is a reference to the 1987 introduction of the one-dollar coin, the loonie, featuring the bird found through Canada on the reverse—although during the roll-out of the $2 coin, one parliamentarian hoped that the nickname Nanuq (Inuit for polar bear) might become popular as a way of acknowledge the culture of First Nations. The launch of the coin was to coincide with Reid’s January birthday but was delayed due to the pandemic outbreak.

bathymetric globe

The always interesting Map Room directs our attention to a centenary celebration of the pioneering cartographer and oceanographer Marie Tharp (*1920 – †2006) whose contributions mapped the Atlantic floor (see also), revealing detailed topography and landscape features no one suspected. Her discovery of rift valleys on the bed of the ocean caused a rather seismic shift in the accepted understanding of geography and earth sciences and convinced colleagues to acknowledge the relatively new theories of continental drift and plate tectonics. Much more to explore at the source and with Columbia University at the links above.

micromachines

Via the always interesting Pasa Bon! we are introduced to the French automaker Robert Hannoyer and his line of cycle-cars Reyonnah—the ananym, a special kind of anagram, of the entrepreneur’s surname, like Oprah’s Harpo Productions, MAPS (Mail Abuse Prevention Systems) as the antagonist of SPAM and gnip gnop for ping-pong, which had a chassis and carriage similar to other bubble cars. A signature feature of this model was its folding front wheels that enabled it to park in very tight spaces. Much more to explore at the links above.

demon-seed

Rather more exhausted than intrigued and knowing full well that the credentials of Trump’s latest favoured Leibartz(in) lie not only in the realm of possibilities but nay in that of inevitabilities, I still wanted to see if I could gather more background on this individual who trafficks in incubi and has truck with alien DNA and believe that Washington, DC is formulating a vaccine turn people agnostic.
Delightfully the first alternate news source I was presented with was this report from BBC’s Pidgin language service (Why you fit trust BBC News—I like this inclusivity in journalism and forget these other perspectives avail themselves to us sometimes), which informs that the good doctor has further invited on herself the ire of social media who have deplatformed her seminars in the name of preventing the spread of medical disinformation. Facebook is promised divine retribution unless Dr Immanuel’s profile is restored. That vaccine however sounds very promising and hope that we can establish herd immunity.

wedding of the century

Witnessed by thirty-five hundred guests, throngs of over two million Londoners lining the streets to watch the procession and a television audience of upwards of three-quarters of a billion people, the royal matrimonial ceremony of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer with all its ornate trappings and circumstance was held on this day at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1981. The couple separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996 after fifteen years of wedlock.

universal everything

Having had a promising encounter with the global graphic design collective previously (also here), we very much enjoyed the referral from Things Magazine to their workshop and gallery—including the latest animations in their portfolio and more experiments with motion-capture and augmented realities.

a short conchological glossary

Though not presented as a tongue-twister nor with any other context or accompaniment that might appeal to anyone outside the academic community of cockles and mussels or shell-collectors, this odd exercise in splendid enunciation—via Weird Universe—has a soothing, dulcet quality that is only to be found I think in a subject this niche. Click through to download the recording as an MP3.
It makes me think about the admonishment of not being critical of others for mispronouncing a word as they might have only ever encountered that word in print beforehand—I know my head pronunciation of things can be sometimes a mismatch, and we probably ought to bring back the pronouncing album. The opening disclaimer that there no official—only customarily correct way of saying these Latin names does not dissuade us from listening to more from R. Tucker Abbott, PhD (*1919 – †1995), preeminent malacologist, who made up the names of many of the species himself.

tritium breeding concepts

Earlier this week, after years of preparation, Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the assembly phase of the international collaborative effort to demonstrate that a nuclear fusion reaction can be achieved and sustained to generate energy at commercially viable levels.
Iter (see previously) is being constructed in Provence next to an existing facility called Cadarache that conducts research into nuclear and alternative energy and fuel sources and this largest of more than one hundred experimental fusion reactors built dating back to the 1950s to produce plasma by 2025 and if successful will furnish clean and virtually unlimited power.

7x7

what would you like to eat: bats mostly squabble about what’s for dinner

it’s a duck blur: television intros recreated scene-for-scene with stock footage

east-enders: five decades of photographic portraiture from Tex Ajetunmobi that illustrate the harmony and diversity of the London neighbourhood

ebussy: a modular electric vehicle that can transform into several different types of autos

fine hypertext products: Pudding launches its “Winning the Internet” newsletter—via Waxy

du har satt din sista potatis: useful Swedish phrases for venting steam

the garifuna collective: enjoy the calls and songs of threatened birds set to electronic music

a more perfect union

Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic directs our attention to the graphic narrative of cartoonist R. Sikoryak whose range of homages previously assayed the junky legalese of terms and conditions agreements and made something keenly engaging out of it and now takes on the US constitution (see also) to illuminate the document’s text. Sikoryak cycles through dozens of characters and styles beyond Charles Schultz’ Peanuts including Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” and Bob Montana’s Archie Comics.  Much more to explore at the links above.

artistique apparu

Having later significant influence on contemporaries like Edward Hopper, born this day in 1881 (†1946) Léon Spilliaert, graphic artist and Symbolist painter, spent his formative years sketching the Belgian countryside. The autodidact was able to ply his talents as a career and was commissioned to illustrate anthologies of short-fiction in a Brussels journal that published writers in the same genre, which channelled the gothic components from Romanticism and Impressionism to form a distinct visual and poetic movement in France, Belgium and Russia. Before moving on to executing his own works with studies in landscapes, coastal scenes and brooding dreamscapes Spilliaert especially enjoyed illustrating the works of the representative writers of the movement, Paul Verlaine and Edgar Allan Poe.

daft gif

Via the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we are treated to the award-winning and widely-featured artwork of Katy Daft. Her animations and illustrations are not only addressing the Zeitgeist but recount narratives of acceptance, positivity and growth. More to explore at the links above.

dunandunate

Thanks to expanded cabinet of curiosities of our faithful chronicler, we not only pick up a bit new of vocabulary to add to our quiver, we also learn that among other projects mellowing at Oxford English Dictionary’s laboratory there is a growing compilation of non-words (see also)—submissions that did not quite make the cut for inclusion under one criteria or another.
The titular term is one file kept in a rather clandestine and unpublished repository of words that may yet see the light of day—like the spork and skort or freegan and locavor that’s now in common-parlance—refers to the overuse of a word or phrase that has recently been acquired into the speaker’s own range. Other failed words of note include polkadodge, the dance that two people engage in when trying to pass one another but move in the same direction, or from circa 1993, a vidiot, a term to describe someone inept at programming a VCR. The entire list, however, remains a guarded secret. I am not privy to the terms etymology of course but reminds me of the overwhelming and parroted amount of times the phrase “done and dusted” came up in the media a few years back.

merrie melodies

Under the supervision of Tex Avery (though credited as ‘Fred,’ see previously here and here), the animated short A Wild Hare was released and shown in cinemas in the United States on this day in 1940. The cartoon features hunter Elmer Fudd and admonishing theatre audiences with his signature line and features the first official appearance of his nemesis Bugs Bunny—also employing the catch-phrase “What’s up, Doc?”

vita panteleímon

Sharing his feast day with the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and counted among the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Western traditions—as one of the Holy Unmercenary Healers in Orthodox contexts, meaning that he did not expect or accept payment for his services, Saint Pantaleon (from the Greek Παντελεήμων for all-compassionate, *275 - †305) was one of the personal physicians to Roman Emperor Galerius who was won over to the church by a local bishop that taught faith was the better medicine.
Finding himself invested with miraculous healing powers, Pantaleon evangelised and eventually drew out the ire of his chief patient, who ordered him put to death, calling his miracles trickery. His executioners employed various means of torture to him, including nailing his hands to his head, which mostly backfired until giving up the ghost himself. He is venerated across Europe—especially in Italy where he is said to furnish lottery numbers in the dreams of winners and as the target of gentle ridicule San Pantaleone is the origin of the word pantaloons and associated slap-stick. After the mutiny was suppressed, the Russian Imperial battleship Potemkin was reflagged as the Panteleimon—Пантелеи́мон.

7x7

you gotta eat them plums: an arcade version of William Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say” (see previously)—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links

op art: more on the Hungarian-French artist Victor Vasarely (see previously, born Győző Vásárhelyi, *1906 – †1997) whose work informed the movement

earth for scale: ESA solar probe finds new “campfire” phenomena on the Sun

manhatta: a 1921 short considered America’s first avant-garde experiment set to the verse of Walt Whitman

slob serif: awful typefaces (not this one) for awful protests—via Memo of the Air

primary pigments: more colour stories (see also) from Public Domain Review

hasta la pasta: the history behind linguini, fusilli and every variety in between

e.o. 9981

Though unable to yet influence the country as a whole, on this day in 1948 US president Harry S. Truman was able to impel social justice forward with his issuance of an executive order (see previously) the culmination of years of struggle and advocacy that was finally heeded and which abolished discrimination on the basis of “race, colour, religion or national origin” in the armed forces and led to the end of segregation in the military for the Korean War and thereafter.

dum spiro spero

The global observance of Esperanto Day (Esperanto-Tago, see previously) falls on this the anniversary of the publication of the first book (Unua Libro) in the constructed auxillary language by author, activist and linguist Ludoviko Lazaro Zamenhof in Russia in 1887 under the pseudonym Doctor Esperanto. Before the end of the year, there were also Polish, French and German versions of this grammar which attempted to resolve international problems by couching them in a common and intelligible language.

theophrastan model or on character and caricature

Via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump (much more to explore here), we are given the opportunity to revisit our familiar and enduring cast of personality tropes, stock characters first put forward by Aristotle’s student Tyrtamus, given the honourific by his teacher Theophrastus “divine speaker” for his eloquent writing and lucid observation in the fourth century BC and resound still throughout the ages to this day.
Though specialising in botanical studies and dabbling a bit in all the liberal arts, Theophrastus is best known for his character sketches (Ἠθικοὶ χαρακτῆρες) that class virtually every fictional and real life protagonist, couched in termsone’s virtues, faults and hubris. Though ancient and fixed, inflexible, they are sustained not only throughout the arc of narrative that they’ve been dealt but also throughout the centuries because their dispositions, relatable though one dimensional they might be, give us the extras needed to limn a society—and we recognise others in them, the Grumbler, the Boaster, the Slanderer even if we fail to see ourselves.

there is an old vulcan proverb

With no sense of irony, the US Secretary of State announced during a speech earlier in the week delivered at the Richard Milhous Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, that the “old paradigm of blind engagement with China” had become untenable, and subsequently closed and ordered the expulsion of diplomatic staff in its consulate in Houston—characterising the operation as hub for industrial espionage.
Outside the embassy in Washington, DC the Texas compound was the first for China once relations had been normalised in 1979. In response, Chinese officials ordered the closure of the American consulate in the city of Sichuan capital Chengdu (see previously). These heightened tensions come on top of ongoing trade disputes and deflecting the failure of the US to contain the spread of COVID-19 infections by vociferously blaming China.

cuckoo for cucuphas

Despite the Phoenician name meaning “he who likes to joke,” we could find little humour in the hagiography of the saint venerated on this day in France and Spain (though some places postponed until 27 July due to the feast of his compatriot Saint James, the Santiago).
From a wealthy merchant family in Carthage, Cucuphas (*269 – †304) travelled to Barcelona to find converts and aid the Christian community through trade and commerce, gaining a reputation as charitable and a miracle worker. Martyred during the Diocletian persecutions, Cucuphas and his companions were imprisoned by the Roman governor of Iberia, whom unwisely ordered him tortured to prolong his death since the succession of torments backfired through heavenly intervention. The saint was finally dispatched with the coup de grâce of a sword to the throat. Though the association is lost to the ages, Cucuphas is the patron of those suffering from kyphosis (hunchbacks) and petty thieves—and there is a folk practise, arising presumably from the litany of tortures he endured, of praying to the saint for the return of misplaced belongings—symbolically making knots in handkerchief that represent the testicles of the Cucuphas and threatening not to untie them until the lost object is found.

semper supra

The US Space Force has revealed its reworked, official logo (see previously) that’s a bit less derivative and infringing on Star Fleet, replacing the version unveiled in January, albeit this one is just the Pontiac logo rotated 180º but we can leave that to General Motors’ lawyers and the Space Judge Advocate General to sort out. Be best!

web-based encyclopedia

Though launched as a website back in March of that year and defunct since September 2003, the pioneering venture from Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger published its first reference article on this day in 2000—on atonal music.
Compiled by volunteers like its successor Wikipedia, Nupedia was intended as free content but plans were in place to run advertisements and generate revenue on the platform. It was not until November 2000 that the second full length article (on the Western canon of classical music) was ready but not for lack of submissions and rather an overly lengthy peer-review and vetting process.

person, woman, man, camera, tv

#FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/9dHIMedoIx

— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) July 24, 2020

el topo

Meaning The Mole in Spanish, with direction, scoring and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky in the titular role, the genre-defining acid Western is a cult classic—one of the first midnight screenings—enjoys many prominent devotees ranging from Yoko Ono to Kanye West and everyone in between. Bizarre as the film about a gunslinger’s quest for enlightenment who bests his philosophical betters through luck and treachery rather than skill is aiming to leave an indelible imprint on the audience from a creator that eschews psychedelics as superfluous, it is considered to be Jodorowsky’s most accessible and enduringly popular. Learn more from BBC Culture at the link above

christina mirabilis

Fêted on this anniversary of her death in Sint-Truiden in 1224 (c. *1150), Christina the Astonishing (H. Christina de Wonderbare) was regarded as a saint in her own time, first for her reported resurrection, dramatically revived and levitating to the church rafters in front of the whole congregation gathered for her funeral after succumbing to a massive seizure and dying.
Later she recounted that she had visited Heaven, Hell and Purgatory and offered the choice to remain in Paradise or be restored to Earth for the sole purpose of delivering souls from the flames of the liminal place. Christina had floated up from the pews to the ceiling because she could no longer tolerate the stench of the sinful parishioners and embarked on a course of extreme penance and privation, conniving new tortures and punishments for herself—including extended wintertime swims in the frozen Meuse and to be carried downstream in the current and crushed by the millstone of a granary on the river. Despite all this behaviour, Christina never suffered injury from her misadventures, venerated in the Limburg region as the patroness of millers, those suffering from mental illness and mental health workers. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ recorded a piece about Christina the Astonishing in their 1992 dream song anthology which recounts her vita and hagiography.

a woman’s place is in the house

Born this day in New York in 1920, “Battling” Bella Savitsky Abzug (†1998), lawyer and social activist campaigned and won a seat in Congress representing her constituency in the Catskills and New York’s capital district with the above slogan—specifying that the house was the House of Representatives. Drawing the ire of Nixon administration and earning her a place on the master list of political opponents, Abzug was a strong proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment and rallied against the ongoing war in Vietnam.

9x9

rewritten by machine on new technology: record industry going after a neural network called Weird A.I. Yankovic that generates parody songs in the style of its namesake—via Slashdot

my beautiful laundrette: elderly couple dress up and model the apparel left in their laundromat—via Nag on the Lake

an atmosphere for simple communication and dating: once Russia cinema reopens, the Ministry of Culture is banning drama and dreary movies until at least the spring of 2021

it’s portraits all the way down: an Inception of self-portraiture—see previously 

search history: a New York Times styles reporter documents and annotates everything term she researched online for a week—via Kottke

be the first to like this post: pigeons look for other career options

the tetris effect: a film about the game’s origins is in production but it won’t be another Battleship—via Miss Cellania’s Links 

karen alert: they keep getting worse

good guy: Billie Eilish’s song Bad Guy performed in major key—see also—via Kottke

imago dei

Crucially and rather sensibly as the world collectively raged against symbols of racism, colonialism and enslavement, one activist suggested that the biggest sacred cow to tip and topple would be the relentlessly perpetuated image of the Jesus as a white European.
Whilst we’ve encountered countless depictions of artistic license dressed in anachronism, the trope of Jesus as white and thus set apart from his peers takes a more deliberative tact and culminates with a ubiquitous cameo by Warner Elias Sallman (*1892 – †1968), whom as recently as 1994 was regaled with predictions that he was likely to be chosen as the best-known artist of the century. His devotional piece, The Head of Christ, has been reproduced more than half a billion times and is for many the way, consciously or not, the way to visualise Jesus. Despite being mass-produced and from pulp traditions, The Head of Christ is associated with miraculous healing and appearances.

frumskrik

Whilst the great wide open spaces of Iceland are even less peopled with visitors from abroad than usual and recognising the therapeutic, cathartic effect that a good scream (especially since public displays of terror are being discouraged) into the void can have, one of the country’s tourists’ boards have installed loud-speakers and live webcams in various pristine, remote spots around the island that will release one’s frustrations into the wilderness. One can also sample the anguished wails submitted by others at the website plus find links to more resources and coping methods—aside from primal scream therapy—for those in distress and those simply needing to de-stress.

artemision or the streisand effect

Though it was the restored temple financed by the citizens of Ephesus themselves, a version that post-dates its infamous destruction by arson on this day in 356 BC, that sealed its inclusion in Antipater of Sidon’s tourist guide, the Seven Wonders, that earlier loss bears more notoriety for the Temple of Artemis than the other must-see attractions.
Comparing it to his other sight-seeing excursions—none of which are extant excepting the oldest and most venerable Great Pyramid at Giza, the travel writer himself pronounced, “Lo—apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.” The fate of the final temple is not well documented though it was the Christians that oversaw its slow dissolution, cannibalised for architectural elements and decorations including some of the columns of the Hagia Sophia—with archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom credited as “the overthrower of the temple of Diana, despoiling in Ephesus the art of Midas.” While this last boast sounds lofty, it is far less memorable than that of our damnable vandal, Herostratus.

saint wilgefortis

Though officially delisted from the martyrology of saints in the late sixteenth century and her veneration suppressed, the iconography of and devotions to the bearded saint—whose English name is thought to have derived from the Latin for courageous virgin but goes by many others (see previously)—are still to be found to the present age and is feted on this day.
Also going by Uncumber, Ontkommer (Dutch), [ohne] Kümmernis (German), Liberata (Italian), Librada (Spain) and Débarras (good riddance in French), Wilgefortis symbolises the liberation or disencumberment from abusive relationships and is invoked for relief to that end. Historians speculate that her origins can be traced to androgynous depictions of Jesus but was embellished with her own story and cult in the 1420s in Galicia, with a noble woman not wanting to be forced into her arranged marriage and praying for a way out—and miraculous sprouted facial hair that made her repulsive to her betrothed. In iconographic depictions, Wilgefortis’ beard ranges from minimal to quite lush and substantial and is shown often crucified—sadly her fate for showing up and looking unpresentable—with a small fiddler at her feet, having given away her wedding dowry, represented by a silver shoe, to the poor.

sunday drive: grabfeld

The fertile region in the southern expanse of the Rhön mountains, referred to eponymously as dig- or ditch-field is so named according to local lore that a queen once lost a beloved ring here and ordered the entire land dug up (tilled) until it was found.
In gratitude for its recovery, she founded an estate that would eventually become Königshofen, one of the major market towns dating back to the eighth century.
We took a little tour of the neighbouring counties and first made our way to Bibra, a small settlement focused and informed by the dynasty of imperial knights that governed the duchy since the tenth century and constructed this castle at the town’s centre.
Retaining its original style as a Franconian royal court, Burg Bibra was destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt and rebuild in the seventeen century true to form—its most recent faithful refurbishment earning a prize in 2002 amongst castle conservators and is presently used as a seminar centre with accommodations for guests.
The patronage of three important prince-electors in the family brought Bibra the church of Saint Leo (dedicated to the early pontiff, Leo the Great), decorated with the altar and sculpture from the school of Tilman Riemenschneider (previously) and is one of the finest examples of late Gothic architecture.

On the way to our next destination, we came across an open-air museum preserved in the former expansive border-zone, demilitarised for decades but with displays of the layers of fortifications and the intervening mine field to imagine.
As with the rest of this strip of terra nullis, it is now a nature preserve and a paradisiacal place for butterflies.

A few detours brought us to the community of Sulzdorf an der Lederhecke to see the gigantic Baroque palace Sternberg, the ancestral seat of a branch of the line of our old friends Count Poppo and the Hennebergs.
We marvelled at it from a distance and it was when we got a little closer, navigating the village directly behind the huge structure that we realised that we had in fact visited once before in May of 2012, noting the calendric symmetry of this construction finalised in 1669 with its four onion-domed turrets representing the seasons, twelve hearths standing for the months of the year, an astonishing and exact fifty-two doors for every week and three hundred sixty-five windows.  I wonder what the story behind that decorating statement was?
The palace is privately owned still and bears some resemblance to the palace of Aschaffenburg, Schloss Johannisburg—the residence of the archbishop of Mainz.
There were koi in the fountain and the watering trough and the Marian figure of one of the rows of homes that were at the rear of the castle was particularly striking for her iconic halo of stars.
Our final stop was a bit more secluded, though in the same community, Sulzdorf an der Lederhecke, as the last and also in private hands and occupied though by descendants of the former von Bibras. This well preserved palace on the water—Wasserschloss—is called Burg Brennhausen and guards the frontier between Grabfeld and the Haßbergen. The current baron is, according to the information board, a petroleum tycoon with a business in the US and divides his time between the palace and a home in Pasadena.