insatsu bunka

Previously on PfRC, we shared a gallery of art deco style Japanese advertising posters curated by Collectors' Weekly. Recently I came across this exhibit from the serendipitously exquisite BibliOdysessey (always an intrepid explorer) that features examples of artwork from the earlier Taishō Era, which more or less corresponds to the Western transitional period from Art Nouveau to the Secessionist period but seem more on the modern edge of the style. Please visit the website for more information about this movement and links to larger collections.

'murica

croatia week: linguistic landmark

Brothers Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius are probably best known for the Cyrillic alphabet and orthography named after them, but the missionaries to the Slavs were also diplomats to the Muslim world and tried to improve relations between the Caliphate and Byzantium and philosophy professors at the university of Constantinople, before undertaking Great Moravia. There, they devised the so-called Glagolitic script, which the Cyrillic script is derived from, in order to give the people a system of writing, derived—like Cyrillic—from their native Greek alphabet but suited to the character of the Slavic language. I am not sure how exactly a way of writing is matching how a language is composed, especially when invented, but you can download the font here.  There are many manuscripts and inscriptions, ancient and retro-revival, all over Croatia, where the system was developed.

The written word, however, did not succeed in standising the Croatian language. Today, a Latin system of writing is employed, devised by Ljudevit Gaj who based his script off of the special letter forms and diacritical marks invented for Czech and Polish, and the language has, bolstered by national and literary identity, taken on a lexical standard, though much mutual-intelligibility is retained among neighbouring languages and dialects. I tried to learn a little bit and I think it accorded us some special attention for the effort, and would like to pick up some more for a return visit. Aside from the usually pleasantries and politely saying I want something, I remember the fun word for waterfall—Slap—and the term for feedback (Fragenbogen)—Upitnik, which sounds like something one would not want to solicit, being all up in another’s business.

think different

Dangerous Minds shares a gallery of images from a 1986 catalog of Apple fashion. While I do readily admit that circa this line, I did sport several Coca-Cola branded jumpers and pull-overs, I don't recall this phenomenon at all. I do however remember having a rainbow Mackintosh sticker on my Trapper-Keeper, which I was quite proud of.

croatia week: zadar or nunc dimittis

The city of Zadar has many fine churches with equally rich treasuries but one of the more curious is a reliquary of Saint Simeon (Sveti Šimun).

The structure and its dedications are a hagiography of a saint—not to be confused with Simeon the apostle, better known by his regnal name as first pope of Peter, or the hermit who lived for thirty-seven years on top of a high pillar or among pillars of ruined temples and his admirers were convinced he flew up there and from one to another, or the slap-sick patron of puppeteers and jesters, Simeon the Fool, blinding someone to show that he could be cured—who was the individual presiding over the ritual Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Candlemas). Ancient of days and world-weary, Simeon was granted a peaceful death afterwards, as that was the saint's meaning in life. Nunc dimittis—now you are dismissed. The holy remains of Saint Simeon, tradition holds, wound up in Croatia in the year 1204 when a Venetian merchant was transporting the loot back from Constantinople and was shipwrecked here on the Dalmatian coast.
While repairing his ship, the merchant re-interred the body in a stone coffin in a graveyard for safekeeping. In the meantime, the merchant fell ill and came under the care of a some hospitable monks, whose churchyard he had covertly used as a hiding place. The monks had a prophetic dream that led them to the fresh grave and upon discovering the saint’s body and the wonders it worked, never allowed the treasure to leave. About two centuries later Elizabeth of Bosnia (Queen of Hungary and Croatia) attended mass where the relic was kept and a finger from the saint's mummified, incorruptible body.
It is hard to say why the queen was so possessed to do this capricious thing, but historically, she seemed like a real nasty character—ambitious and having her rivals' children killed, sort of a wicked step-mother figure who ruled as regent after the deaths of her well-wed husbands.
 The story goes that Elizabeth hid the finger in her dress and it immediately started to decompose with squirming maggots and all the rigours of fourteen hundred years of deadness. Elizabeth ran shrieking down the aisle of the church and had to confess what she had done. Mortified, Elizabeth commissioned the finest sarcophagus to seal in the saint's remains (with reliefs depicting his miracles and curiously her attempted theft) and a fine church of his own in Zadar. Just afterwards, Venice loss its claim to its lands in Dalmatia.

decamer

In a recent interview to an Argentine weekly newsletter, the Pope took the time to share ten of his guiding precepts for finding and fostering happiness. All are very tranquil and inspiring but I particularly like how the Pope suggests that families ought to turn off the television during mealtimes, recognising how possessions and possessiveness lead to disquiet and forgetting how to relax, stop being a brat—to paraphrase—and that, remarkably, that one does not earn friends by evangelizing and such behaviour belittles the beliefs of others.

shelf life or slant operation

As Europe and the United States pledge to ratchet-up sanctions on Russia, making the state a pariah after the tragic airline disaster, which Russia appears to bear responsibility for arming pro-Russian rebellion forces in the Ukrainian Don-Bass region—including Germany’s stoppage of armament sales to Russia, there comes along quietly the provocative and shameful revelation that the US government is currently releasing stockpiles of munitions to Israel. The article is evasive and hardly unbiased but suggests that Israel either did not ask or does not need to ask to be re-supplied, since the rounds (stored in country) were due to expire, and rather than dispose of them, sell them to Israel and then re-stock the warehouses with more missiles and bullets—all consistent with US politic and the safekeeping of its interests, according to one source in the story.
There was once a bitter little quip that Israel is the only land in the Middle East not endowed with oil—which seems salient, consider how the West hopes to punish Russia—but there are offshore natural gas fields for both Israel and Gaza. Old animosities may be compounded by a race for treasure—especially if far-eastern petroleum faces an embargo. Israel is facing an energy crunch and its own deposits were not discovered until recently and will not be ready to be exploited for several more years. Russia was negotiating a deal to develop Palestine’s resources in January of this year, after the failure of British and American oil companies to secure an agreement with the Territory’s government—although it is unclear whether Russia would be allowed to manage such a project without the express blessing of the Israeli government

ə

BoingBoing features a quite nice and circumspect retrospective of William Barker's Schwa or the Alien Autopsy with an interview with the visionary author. His iconic grey aliens personæ, our avatars, first appeared more than twenty years ago—including in the website's own print 'zine, and the story they told certainly enjoyed a following back then, although somewhat dismissed as fringe and conspiratorial. Find out more and remember this variant on the Have Nice Day smiley face at the link. Today, however, the dystopia of consumables-cartels, vanishing and endenturedness seems even more relevant and a fitting short-hand for the state of things.