doxological

With the papal-visit in Mexico wrapping-up, The Atlantic’s recommended Lenten reading, I think, takes on greater dimensions in Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory. There was also a cinematic adaptation called The Fugitive starring Henry Fonda. Inspired by an actual sojourn on the part of the author in the Mexican state of Tabasco when the governor was cracking down on the influence of the Catholic church, an anti-hero known only as the “whiskey priest” faces dogged persecution worse than Jean Valjean when the character resolves to conduct underground services and hold confessions despite the government’s suppression of the faith, forcing priests into retirement, burning churches and destroying relics and other religious paraphernalia. Though the struggle of the seriously flawed main figure—whom no community wanted as his activities attracted unwanted attention and a state-sanctioned inquisition that led to more killings and destruction—was condemned by Church censors for sacrilegious and agnostic portrayal, I agree that it is a good-read especially when one considers how broken resolutions (first for New Year’s and then for Lent) are compounded and confounded and the physical articles of faith are denuded among other claimants and one only has one’s own time in the wilderness as a measure.

majuscule and minusclue

A bicameral system of writing has two cases for its letters, usually distinct in form and not only size—like Latin-, Greek- and Armenian- derived alphabets, whereas Arabic, Hebrew and Persian make no differentiation.  I wonder if that makes reading a particular challenge, like the cursive-hand that is reportedly incomprehensible to young people.

Aside from æsthetic prerogatives of font and layout, mixed cases probably were cultivated for the sake of speed when copying out a running script—as opposed to headings or chapters that dominated most inscriptions, and the conventions were propagated with the printed word. Individual rules of orthography are as varied as language, where sometimes all nouns are germane or sometimes demonyms, the months and days of the week go with no special consideration and certain symbols and ligatures often only take one form, like the Eszett (ß) that’s never at the front of a word or the Latin alpha that can be single- or double-storey. If rules of capitalisation prove too complex, especially given an international venue, something called a “kebab-case” is employed where dashes replace spacing and no words are writ-large. Using underscore in a similar way is called snake-case. Not to dispense with proper punctuation altogether, words whose meaning changes with capitalisation like Mass (liturgy) or mass (physical property) and Hamlet (Danish prince) or hamlet (small village)—plus many others, especially having to do with place—is called a capitonym.

papa was a rodeo or rhinestone cowboy

Revisiting one of Collectors’ Weekly brilliant show-and-tell session, the surprising tale of the association of country-western performers with rhinestone and over the top outfits is revealed, with a debt of gratitude to the self-styled rodeo tailor, Nudie Cohn.
Inspired by the attire of burlesque shows and surely some of his homeland’s traditional garb, the bootmaker and tailor’s apprentice from Ukraine (Nuta Kotlyarenko) opened up a store in North Hollywood for his fabulous get-ups in the 1940s and after a bit of networking successes, Nudie’s custom suits became all the rage, sported not just by the likes of Roy Rogers, Hank Williams, Gene Autry and Johnny Cash but also by Elvis Presley, Elton John, David Cassidy, Tony Curtis, Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, and John Lennon, as well. Cohn’s story is remembered by his granddaughter who grew up in the family boutique and has lots of interesting details to share about delivering special products and making everyone feel pretty glamourous. Someone really ought to make a movie out of this story.

we don’t need no stinking badges

Dangerous Minds shares an amazing assortment of alternative merit badges from artist Luke Drozd that awards decorations for subversive areas of study like espionage, home-dentistry and a host of paranormal abilities. Far from advocating delinquency, this collection of accolades—which does not discriminate between what mischief boys and girls ought not to emulate—it shows that demerits can sometimes be their own reward. What sort of life-skills would you like to see included in order to advance up the ranks?

périphérique ou les grands ensembles

Photographer Laurent Kronental spent the better part of the last four years assiduously documenting the anchor residents of the large housing estates that began to ring in the Parisian suburbs from the 1950s through the 1980s, the urban veterans that have remained amid a mostly transitory population.
These images not only capture the grandeur of the architecture but through the personal stories of the seniors serves to dispel ideas that might have been formed and fuelled about blight and “no-go” zones, and while not presenting a false-face on the challenges that these housing projects have endured, suggest that the utopian ideas within the brick and mortar might not be altogether a matter of the distant, marginalised past after all. Be sure to visit the link above for a whole gallery of photographs and to learn more about the artist.

soup-and-sandwich syndicate

For a few years, we’ve had one of those sandwich-makers to take camping with us, but having received a “panini-press” for the holidays, we’ve aspired to create some soup and sandwich combinations for indoors as well. Lately, we tried Cheese and Leek soup with egg and cheese toasts.

For the soup, ingredients for four bowls call for:

• Salt, pepper, parsley, bay-leaves nutmeg for seasoning
• 100 millilitre (about half a cup) of dry white wine
• Six slices of wheat bread for toasting and for the croutons 
• A heaping tablespoon of flour
• Butter
• 100 gram (4 oz) container of heavy crème 
• 1 litre (4 cups) vegetable stock from bullion 
• Around 600 grams (about a pound) of leeks, washed, peeled and cut into thin rings 

For the toast:

• Bread and butter from above
• 2 eggs 
• Sliced cheese (Gouda or Gruyère) 
• Spinach leaves or lamb’s lettuce (Feldsalat) 

There’s no cheese left out of the cheese soup, of course, but that’s where it gets a bit tricky. In German markets, there’s Schmelzkäse that’s made for soup and I suppose it’s like the pasteurized processed cheese food that’s available in the States, but looks some much less estranged from natural cheese and is much more appetising. In any case, use about 500 grams of your local-equivalent. In the soup pot, braise the rings of leek in butter for three minutes, dusting the leek with the flour afterwards. Introduce the white wine, vegetable stock with the bay leaves and allow it to cook on low heat for another ten minutes or so. Remove the bay leaves and breaking the cheese product of choice into small cubes, add that and the heavy crème to the pot and allow to cook for an additional ten minutes, stirring often and making sure that the cheese is melting. In the meantime, cut two slices of the bread into little cubes and braise them in butter in a separate pan (you can save the pan for the eggs) for about three minutes until crisp and set aside on a paper-napkin to dry. Prepare two eggs sunny-side-up and in your sandwich-maker/pie-iron/panini-press, make the toasts with the egg, cheese slice and leafy green filling—sort of like a croque-monsieur. Season the soup with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste and garnish with croutons and parsley.