omicron, omega

Did you know that the Greek letters omicron and omega just mean little-o, big-o respectively? Euro notes and coins bear both Latin and Greek script, which I believe is a piquing reminder of the mutual glossing that may have been behind the monetary union. Since the Maastricht Treaty, no one wanted to exclude any established members of the old or new Europe, regardless of the maturity of their economies and markets, and I do not believe that Greece and other nations unilaterally covered-up their fiscal health and talked their way into membership.
I am sure that to a large extent, against warnings of economists and analysts that saw at the time weaknesses, hyperbole and litotes, that such obstacles were overlooked towards the formation of a more perfect union, and not a German or a French hegemony or a north, south schism. It parallels the lesson unlearned with the economic collapse fuelled by the housing bubble, which with exuberance oversold the properties market to all and sundry on the hopes that value would keep increasing. I have great hopes for the euro and the ideas behind it still--including the absolute solvency of each country’s financial systems without respect for outside shaming and subjective ratings, should it not lead to overarching micro-management of each country’s affairs or usher in conservative governments that undo the social and equitable fabric of its constituents, but I do think that one aspect that this vision elided over was that of competition and customers. Within a bloc of currency, it is hard for one country, maintaining its standard of living and government support, to compete with another, more advanced in manufacturing. It is that competitiveness that will lead to recovery and growth, and not an outsider's idea of discipline or scope of government responsibility.  The average shopper, I do not think, would forgo price or quality (or his or her own sense of protectionism) to seek out Greek, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese goods to fan their solidarity. The money-changers (nummularium) did a brisk business across borders, as well, and within Europe, we are our own best trading-partners.

hungry hill

There was a sort of inaccessible quality of tragic beauty to western County Cork, which became, like other places we have visited in Ireland, more defined with study and background. Adrigole, though, at the foot of the Healy Pass and the summits of Sugar Loaf and Hungry Hill (made famous by the Daphne du Maurier novel, who also penned what became Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds), had an especially poignant—but not unique sadly as we had also stayed in Leenane, County Galway, where The Field was set—history that we got to know that added to the experience of visiting. Adrigole (Irish, Eadargóil) stretched out over ten kilometres, hugging the distinctive coastline of the Beara Peninsula, and is a peaceful and serene place, though it was once a boom town, before being decimated by the Famine (Hungersnot), immigration and the copper mining industry going bust and the robber-barons leaving the area.

There was evidence of this livlier past, and also of more ancient oppressions, like the ruins of Catholic churches that were hidden in the mountains when worship was persecuted by the Church of England. The place was warm and inviting, and certainly did not feel empty or like a ghost town, but knowing this history enhanced our time there.

mnemotechny or counting sheep

In the quiet evenings after our daily adventures in Ireland--much more to come in following episodes, I read the very memorable and inspiring "Moonwalking with Einstein" by Slate writer Joshua Foer (Penguin Books, 2011). In a sense, right after I had checked this volume out from the library, the anticipation of reading it had my thoughts roving to the old James Burke BBC series Connections and the Day the Universe Changed and the installments that addressed memories, specifically the mental constructs of utilized by the ancients and story-tellers of long ago of palaces or cathedrals as cues for memorizing and understanding.

Revisiting those riveting techniques and then recalling passages from Plato about the hazards of the written (uncommitted) word, printed on a page but not imprinted elsewhere and making memory something external was a little bit revolutionary for me, in the retelling. The author’s coverage of participatory journalism that made him the architect and landlord of many memory palaces really highlighted the extent to which we have made our memories something outside of us, relying on the internet, digital photographs, and even surrendered to GPS when one of the things that humans are innately good at is navigation and spatial awareness, and thus in a time where memorization is frowned upon and seen as demeaning, punishment, how much practice really can perfect and lead to expertise. Our minds are really capable of incredible things and we may be too quick to fault them or resort to the latest crutch.  After all, what innovation comes without a jolt and a hook from what came before. I fully intend to investigate this, but don't take my word for it... Speaking of the memorable and what creatures might people your own memory palaces, last time we were in Ireland, we noticed that neighbouring sheepfolds had begun tagging their flock with spray paint, usually a green, red or blue dot. This time, however, there was a splendid group that appeared nearly tie-dyed.

korkenzieher or exonymy

I remember when I was little, I had a light and fluffy block of cork wood that I thought was a very rare and exotic thing as part of a larger collection of stones, fossils and pieces of petrified wood. It was eaten with wormholes, and I think I only tried once floating it in the bathtub. Such an unusual grove must have its origins with the Irish second-city of the same name, I was convinced.

Of course, since then I learned that the cork oak is mostly cultivated in Portugal and the city is derived from the Irish Corcaigh for marshland and that wine corks are mostly plastic or rubber anymore--which is nice to a certain extent since one need not be as practiced at uncorking a bottle because the rubber stopper is not brittle and won't break apart into the bottle, but we did notice this unsung and ingenious hybrid that has a bit of plastic as a catchment for a tradition, fragile cork. It's strange how exonyms and making aboriginal place names sensible to foreign ears--or those of settlers to natives--can result in some creative folk etymology. The German (and of course Germany for Deutschland is one of the more prevalent exonyms and an invention of Julius Caesar) town of Pforzheim, for instance, is called so as a reduction, simplification of the Roman designation of Porta Hercynia, gateway to the ancient pan-European forest that remains as the Black Forest (der Schwarzwald) into modern times. Even a place named something seemingly straightforward, like Schweinfurt, having evolved from Suinurde (maybe meaning "man's land" or "divided land", connotes nothing about a place where pigs can cross the Main river. Such backformations have surprising and triangulated origins.