bright lights, old business

Predictions generally are groaning vagaries or soaring hopes and notoriously hard to makes, unless one will safely (usually) posit that we’ll be getting more of the same. Human nature and human needs tend to be stubborn and not framed as much by the fashions of the season or more meaningful Zeitgeist as we’d like to believe. Projections, on the other hand, are something quite different and science is getting better and better telescoping events, trends into the future. One specific omen that we can look forward to, astronomers foresee, is the spectacular arrival of the comet Ison, having been hurtling towards us for millions of years from the incubating edge of the Solar System, in early autumn.

The comet’s scintillations will outshine the full Moon and be a historic experience for all. It will even radiate for those who cannot see the procession of the stars and planets for themselves either because of light-pollution or impatience for the mathematical harmony of the skies.  It is interesting how such astronomical apparitions, comets, novae, conjunctions and transits, became markers of the ages, a fixed reference point in time, that are equally accessible to us as inheritors and far in the future, who are able to trace backwards and reliably match our measures against those of our ancestors. I wonder how people will reckon this upcoming year of the comet.

yearbook and mizzen-mast

There is a virtual blizzard of engrossing and niche superlatives covering the past year from all angles—journalistic oddities, new discoveries in the natural sciences, a review of important archeological finds, chronicling the year with spectacular photography, advances in space science, and the lists go on. But be sure to not forget to check out Jib-Jab’s annual tradition of lampooning the past year.

down on cripple creek or stockholm syndrome

By engaging in the politics of terror, I think the United States is poised to play a very risky game that risks it becoming a caricature, mockery of the democratic process. It is unfair to lay blame squarely and solely on one party faction, since there is more than ample blame to go around—including the voting-public and the abstentious, but I think it is a safe assertion to point to one cadet wing of the Republican Party, trenchantly conservative and angry, as blocking compromise and negotiation.

This one faction is hijacking, ransoming  US policy, and as a result, is not only holding captive its close associates but also the broader Republican Party, the entire legislative branch and the executive besides, not to mention the ameliorating US economy, only just shooed away from the precipice and it’s not going to be something fun or exciting like a roller-coaster or going over the edge of a waterfall in a barrel—that has already been done. On some levels and in some ways, too I fear, the hostages are starting to identify, relate to their captors, though most are roundly alienated and marginalized. By all measures, the US economy is driven by consumer spending and consumer sentiment and not the ripples and tides of investment and abstract enterprise, but sacrificing the former at the bidding of the latter proves that authentic finance is just more and more relegated to show and pretense.

sweded

The Swedish language is celebrated as a plastic and living entity and each year dozens of new words are championed by the Språkrådet, the national language council.

While many of these new words are for the nonce, topical, portmanteaux or English adoptions, may not be destined forever and ever in the country’s lexicon, it is laudable that such an institution takes an interest in bon mots. Among my favourites on the list released for 2012 (the story is no longer there but please visit the Swedish daily for similar ones) are Ogooglebar (something or someone who produces no hits in an internet search), Nomofob (anxiety due to being on-line and disconnected—from no mobile phone phobia), and Henifiera (to make a statement gender neutral, in reference to the re-introduction of the neuter pronoun hen to the Swedish language this past year, a grammatically correct way to use the ambiguous and incorrect they instead of committing to he or she). The year before, some of the inventive terms included: Säpojogg (a word to describe the gait of secret agents running in business suits after their wards), Åsiktstaliban (someone who won’t give other opinions consideration) and Flipperförälder (the exact opposite of helicopter-parenting, adventuresome and encouraging pin-ball parents).

force majeure

The BBC reports on a project underway along UK roads that aims to deploy privacy screens to erect around the scene of traffic accidents, so rubberneckers (Gaffern) in the oncoming lane will not slow to get a glimpse of the wreckage and response.

It’s a terrible outlet of human curiosity that makes such drapes possibly worth the try, and I have seen congestion and jams (Stau) spill over into the opposite lane on the Autobahn for no other reason than drivers braking to gawk. Such empathy and antipathy are encouraged all the time, with greater and lesser risks to others involved, but it really becomes quite a horrific snarl when car wrecks become a sideshow, without prospects for help and does not seem to encourage greater caution. I only hope the scrim does not delay response further or erode the last vestiges of driver sympathy—or replace safety and courtesy with a sense of self-preservation in this censorship. No journey should be filled with carnage but motorists should also not be allowed to strip the stomach-churning feelings of disappointment and regret for trying to get a peek. The screens, I don’t think, are able to speed up care on their side of the island, after all.

moveable type or three-penny opera

We had a very fine Christmas and got many wonderful and thoughtful gifts, including from my parents a rarity that has now been repatriated, so to speak, in this incredible Martin Luther translation of the Old and New Testaments in this 1784 edition from the publishing house and theological institute of Baron Canstein in Halle, in eastern Germany by Leipzig.

Though the idea of handling it at all made my fingers feel nubby and sebaceous, I was really astounded by how it’s aged, the feel of the leather binding and the wear of the pages that I didn’t know paper was capable of as I looked through the book’s chapters, dicovering, and at the family chronicle that lists dates for ancestors well before the publication and continues until the year 1998. This venerable institute for biblical scholarship greatly propagated publishing with refined printing (Stehsatz, block typesetting) techniques and sold some four million copies at a cost of just six Groschen a piece. This enterprise not only made the Bible and other books more affordable but also supported a neighbouring foundation, die Franckesche Stiftungen, which grew from an orphanage in Halle to an international social and educational network and the institute soon merged with the foundation.

Success led to the found- ations’ works being accorded a special status and freedom by the Prussian throne, almost like a city state with imperial immediacy and allowed operations to expand and charitable works to spread. In addition to establishing schools, libraries and nursing homes there and abroad, August Hermann Francke, the founder, also gave Europe one of the first public museums by putting his personal cabinet of curiosities (Wunderkammer) on display for the emendation of all visitors. We pass Halle (Saale) often and now I feel even more guilty about not taking the time to explore and see this wonder of organization and edification at work. What great present this is, and I am sure we will be visiting soon.

1up or der glückspilz

This vintage German New Year’s greeting card is just exuding good fortune with all the lucky paraphernalia featured, the greeter riding a pig jumping over a stand of mushrooms (Glückspilze) and armed with a horseshoe and four-leaved clovers. About the only talisman, at least in German traditions, not shown is a chimney sweep (Kaminkehrer). I am just as curious as to why this profession and not butcher, baker or candlestick maker is considered auspicious, but what strikes me first is how the chimney sweep comes bearing the same toadstool.  Deconstructing the symbols of luck is a bigger challenge than the turns and transpositions of holiday customs, and it is remarkable how many ways the inscrutable language of fortune infiltrates culture, yet remaining humble in its portrayal like this archetypal mushroom—everyone’s generic idea of what a mushroom should look like but having strange powers and a mysterious past. The Caterpillar from Alice’s adventures through the looking-glass holds court from such a tuffet, the Brothers Mario gain size and power from these bonuses, the Smurfs (les schtroumpfs, die Schlümpfe) lived in such mushroom houses—not to mention a staple in fairytales. A mushroom rendered in such a universally distinctive way can only be the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), a poisonous and unpredictably psychotropic fungus, which surely caused some fretful parents to condemn the Smurfs (and their underwater counterparts, the Snorks) as promoting drug use, like the same concerned group thought that the Care Bears were a satanic gateway organization, and although the mushroom grows anywhere that pine trees grow, it was considered highly dangerous to ingest (although most drugs I think are unpredictable) and there is only evidence in use in the far eastern reaches of Russia, restricted to the shaman caste or religious purposes.
I wonder how such an exclusive yet ubiquitous substance was translated to some universally hoped for but escapingly rare commodity as providence. It is strange what can develope in abject isolation.  It’s no explanation, but the luckiness of the chimney sweep, who introduced industrial cancer and labour reform to the world besides, seem to operate under a similar logic—a reminder that one’s hearth and home had not burnt down, due to a poorly maintained fireplace, but still representing a kind of forbidden and untouchable skill, like for those who live in psychedelic houses.

dancing merrily in the new, old-fashioned way

Seasonal salutations to all our readers. Many thanks for visiting, and now Gladys the Matron Angel there in the background will play a Christmas time polka on her accordion for you.  Carols, originally, were not just meant to be belted out by a choir but also had a rhythm and a beat that one dance to.  Any respectable troupe of carollers will have a dancing fool designated.