epitaph

Ahead of its planned field-trips on its founding day (we all ought to arrange our own outings as well to showcase the places for which we could be expert tour-guides), Atlas Obscura features a bitter-sweet, maudlin memorial to the struggles and triumphs of the gay community with a locus in the Congressional Cemetery securing of its own special corner.
Dishonourably discharged from the US armed forces for being a homosexual (against the advice of the court-appointed psychologist), Vietnam veteran Leonard Matlovich, sadly in anticipation of his imminent demise from AIDS related complications, devoted himself to making a statement for the ages. Within view of the resting place of self-loathing J Edgar Hoover, whose witch-hunts perpetuated discriminatory practises, and his suspected lover, Matlovich purchased a pair of plots and designed his nameless headstone, to be etched for the silent and anonymous sufferers whom had to hide their love away. Since his funeral, Matlovich has been joined by many others in repose and symbolically in victory as well, with several military same-sex weddings, legal and wholly vetted, held before Matlovich’s grave.

pied-noir

Though the referendum held in Scotland on whether to split from the United Kingdom did not pass, with the discussion and debate of the coming plebiscite over the BREXIT question, the country may be getting another chance to weigh memberships. The Scots enjoyed their independence (though under a shared monarch) three centuries ago but the union was rather coerced under duress when Scotland needed to be bailed out and presents an allegory, I think, for the current economic and political environment.
Wanting to stake their claim on the world’s stage (another possible case of imperial envy though the Scots treated the natives of their colony fairly well, relatively), some entrepreneurs secured a royal charter to establish an outpost in the South Pacific—New Caledonia, after the Roman name for the lands north of their province Britannia (the wilds beyond Hadrian’s Wall were also known as Pictavia). Financially, the venture was not very successful to begin with—with sandalwood being the only unique commodity and many investors went bankrupt over the ambitious scheme. To compound matters, the English refused trade with the Scottish colony and economic cooperation back home—even kidnapping New Caledonia’s native labour-force to work the more profitable sugar-cane plantations in Australia and Fiji—until Scotland said uncle and agreed to re-join the UK. To re-coup some of the losses, Scotland sold New Caledonia to the French Empire where it remains to this day. How do you think this might apply to the EU?

overstock or my name is hunt hunter

Via the always interesting Super Punch, a venerable ceramics kiln in the Saga Prefecture is inviting the curious and adventurous to tour their facility before being unleashed on a treasure hunt in their vast warehouse. Producing porcelain since 1865, no one really has an accurate inventory of the factory seconds or discontinued lines—stock that went unsold for one reason or another.
For a small fee, visitors are given a torch, gloves and a basket for a ninety-minute’s scavenge and allowed to keep whatever they can fit in the basket. It’s a good and fun way to clear out the bargain-basement, and reminds me of the time I went to a sprawling flea-market in the town of Selb with table after table of tiles and porcelain objects made in the local factory—and I’m very happy that Flohmarkt season is coming around again.

aliolio oder orange is the new black

I had to wonder about the fancy, pulpy but paper and disposable napkins that dressed our table the other day. Alliums Dream it read, which I interpreted as garlic in Latin—close but more in the direction of shallots or leeks and had to retract my answer, though one could still fairly wonder why even in a restaurant (and taxonomically vindicated), one would be wished oniony dreams.
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, perhaps.  I had to wonder at the coincidence of receiving a sturdy mug as a gift that was patterned with little constellations of the same horticultural bulb florets the following day. There is quite a lot going on with what we would refer to as tubers, much more interested in what is going on underground and conveniently out of sight.  H replied that maybe that was the new fashion-flower of the year. Maybe poke-salad is next.

sir top of notch

Nag on the Lake as always has a wealth of interesting and intriguing posts to pore over and often it’s hard to settle on one—of course, you, gentle readers do not need to settle for just one article—but this item about a concept car that was to be the final word in automotive safety struck me especially as bearing further investigation. 
The unique chassis of the Sir Vival has a cyclopean turret for the driver above the passenger cabin and had segmented front-wheel drive motor (sort of like the Enterprise being able to separate the saucer section from the warp-core) and a host of other ingenious safety features. In an age where we’ve drifted away from these retro-futuristic visions and are moving towards vehicles that are self-driving but are non-starters without a strong WiFi connection and would never suffer a tinkerer or any non-authorised repairs as that would violate the terms of the lease, I hope enough jalopies are preserved for our post-Apocalyptic steeple-chases—as these newest models would not fare very well, I think.

great seal

Happening to revisit an article that celebrated the ban of the Confederate States flag as a symbol of hate by lampooning all of America’s state banners as derivative and perhaps designed by those not well-versed in the rules of vexillology, I had to pause over the emblem of South Carolina: I had seen the palm—palmetto tree, with crescent moon on the bumpers of a few co-workers and in the parking-lot and had always assumed that it was a symbol of solidarity of those who had been deployed to a certain forward-operating base in the Middle East, a unit badge and not any home-town patriotism. I would sing to myself, “Midnight at the Oasis—put your camel to bed.”
It turns out that this flag—which is an outlier being within the rules of simplicity and proportion where most flag-makers, either with only scant history to draw on or uninterested in aboriginal traditions, belted out what they could as eager members of the coalescing federation. Surely I’d seen this banner, along with all the others, on display in the parade-grounds but it struck me as something wholly new.
South Carolina’s flag directly recalls the battle-garb of the rebel militia with the crescent charge and the palmetto trunks that defend the fortifications against British assaults during America’s revolutionary war, instead of invoking the colours of the constituents of Yugoslavia or other desperate campaigners of inclusion and splitting the difference. Michigan’s motto is basically “if you lived here you’d be home by now,” in Latin.  Surely having a distinctive symbol is a requirement for membership, but it does seem as if some ran out of ideas and were under pressure of a deadline to throw together something.  One has to wonder what barriers to ascension that later territories had to face.