parola del giorno

Though the furore over FLOTUS’ wardrobe choices two years back have since been superseded by more consequent expressions of disdain, we thought it noteworthy to learn that what could be translated as having an “I don’t care” attitude has a lot of if not nuance then context underpinning that ought not be glossed over.

Menefrehismo traces its rabid pedigree back to the rise of fascism in Italy over its late entry into World War I. Under the leadership of Il Duce, his volunteer shock troops, known as the arditi—the daring—sang a vulgar song as they marched off to the fight. One line goes “me ne frego” if I die in battle, expressing not only a sense of nihilism but moreover in a wanton and crude fashion—the reflexive verb fregare meaning to rub and thus I won’t rub myself about that or mildly I don’t give a damn, I don’t give a toss. Click here to listen to a better song.  Of course phrases become middle-of-the-road over time and don’t carry the same weight of history, propaganda and ideology but plenty of menefreghista are out there signalling among one another.

pyongyang on the potomac

Not to rest on his laurels in his escalating pursuit of photo-opportunities—not content with gassing a gathering of peaceful protesters to pose, uninvited in front of a church holding a Bible or turning a nomination ceremony into a superspreader event without remorse or going for a joy ride, skipping out of the hospital in an armoured, hermetically sealed vehicle with a retinue of Secret Service agents while highly contagious to wave at small crowd of well-wishers, an impeached, still contagious and steroid-addled Trump was discharged from Walter Reed Medical Centre and remanded to the White House, ascending, gasping for breath a few stairs and dramatically whipped off his mask in a gesture that’s to be interpreted as triumph and full recovery.

Audaciously insulting to the over two hundred thousand Americans who’ve died from COVID-19 complications, the untold millions of affected families and those who’ve lost their livelihoods due to the ensuing economic collapse, he released in a recorded message shortly after his appearance: “Don’t let it dominate you—don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines, all developed recently.” Medical insurance is tied to employment in the US and the situation is quite fraught on both fronts right now, and the level of tax-payer supported housing and healthcare is of course not available to the average citizen and most will experience very different outcomes.

sorry seems to be the hardest word

From part of a fascinating conversation at Language Log, we learn that the French equivalent phrase for I stand corrected is Autant pour moi—that is, So much for me—the expression being a corruption itself of the military order “au temps,” directing one to repeat a manoeuvre from the beginning due to an error committed somewhere in the process. Or not, possibly the above is a back-formation or a folk etymology—we love how people are passionate about language. Je suis désolée. As much as I liked the idea of retreating that the French conveys, I rather thought the English idiom was sort of a strange formulation since what first comes to my mind was “to take a stand” and be committed to one’s convictions though they might be shown as false, but here we encounter stand as an auxiliary verb, as in to understand or to be in good standing. Well off I go.

älmhult almanac

Previously we posted about the archival qualities of the IKEA catalogues dating back to the company’s 1951 founding, though beforehand it was just what was featured on the covers and not the older contents, and now—via Plain Magazine—we discover that the store’s museum has curated each edition in its entirety and makes them available digitally for all to peruse. The next leap forward we think will be arranging a 3D download for some retro furnishings.

glass microbiology

Via two of our favourite bloggers, Nag on the Lake and Everlasting Blört, we are directed towards the exacting model that Luke Jerram and his team of glassblowers have created of the strain of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 as a homage to global effort to contain and combat the global COVID-19 pandemic and to help scientists and non-scientists alike to visualise and focus their efforts on an artefact magnified by a factor of two million. There is an educational video and a gallery of previous sculptures of pathogens and pestilence at the link above, and whilst not on the same subject, these creations made us recall the glass specimens made as museum pieces of deep sea life that would have disintegrated on surfacing but we thought also speaks to the inspirational value of this heuristic that is as much art as it is utilitarian.

ius canonicum

This date, marking the occasion of his death in 1926 (*1841), is the veneration of the Blessed Bartolo “Rosario” Longo, a lapsed Catholic and former satanic priest, who returned to the Church and championed praying the Rosary—for which he was awarded a papal knighting and beatification posthumously. Against the wishes of his family who wanted Longo to pursue a career in teaching, as a young man he went to Naples to study law and came under the influence of the occult and spiritualism trend that was very much en vogue at the time, the Catholic Church seen as less effective in terms of seeking favour or mediumship than witchcraft or other practitioners of the dark arts and universities were the sites of rallying against the pope who was regarded as antithetical to the Italian unification efforts of General Giuseppe Garibaldi.

Longo grew more and more rebellious and joined a satanic cult and eventually was ordained as the priest of one chapter. Growing despondent and anxious by turns, Longo turned to a boyhood companion who convinced him to leave the city and return home to Pompeii and convinced him to return to the Church finding that the rosary calmed his anxieties. Maintaining his law firm, Longo had had been retained as an estate agent by a wealthy countess who became his patron and together founded a confraternity dedicated to the Rosary and acquired a derelict church to reconsecrate as a shrine. A nun from another convent that championed the rosary (there was already an established network) donated a painting of Saint Dominic and Catherine of Siena communing with Mary in prayer. From a junk store and without artistic merit, Longo secretly disliked the painting but hung it in the church so as not to insult. Reports of miracles were attributed to the painting and brought in pilgrims, eventually enlarging it to a basilica, Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii. On the advice of the pope, Longo and the countess were married—though remained chaste for the rest of their lives together, fostering children and dedicating themselves to charitable causes.What sort of twist ending would you give this couple?  I suspect they, along with that cursed picture, were recusant devil-worshippers all along, in fear of being persecuted for believing in the wrong magic.

υπό κατασκευή

At the behest of the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, we learn via Boing Boing, architectural photographer Pygmalion Karatzas has documented the expansion of the metro systems of Athens and Thessaloniki. Dating back to 1869 as a conventional steam railway before electrification at the turn of the century, Μετρό Αθήνας (see also) has been the only subway in Greece, now serving the Piraeus, until the expected completion of the Thessalonki network in 2023. Any sort of construction—never mind mega-projects like these, present particular challenges for ancient and venerable places (relatedly) and may yield more discoveries yet. See a whole gallery of Karatzas’ works at the links up top.