an account of the principalities of wallachia and moldavia

Under the imprint of Archibald Constable & Company, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was first published on this date in 1897. Heir to an established literary trope of continental influences invading England (strange how monsters pivot from expressions, repressions of xenophobia to homophobia and there is no unhappy medium), the novel went further in setting archetype, conventions and defining the genre with untold adaptations and interpretations, enduring and rejuvenated through a series of other building on the lore until it was ripe for mass-distribution with the advent of cinema and its attendant possibilities, much like the successful legacy of contemporary authors H. G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle.

sophonisba met de brief van masinissa

Identified as the patron of artists for having painted the portrait of the Virgin Mary by John of Damascus, the Guild of St. Luke—especially in the Low Countries—was a common term for the association representing professional painters through the Renaissance, an organisation that Leipzig-born Nikolas Knüpfer (*1603 – †1655) was admitted to (as a visiting member, bezoekend lid), allowing him to establish a studio in Utrecht, one of his pupils being Jan Steen, where he produced some of his small-scale masterpieces—focused on literary and mythological themes.
Reflecting his penchant for unusual poses, here pictured (1635, through the lens of course of what is familiar) is part of a series on the influential Carthaginian noble woman, powerful in her own right Sophonisba (𐤑𐤐𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋) who famously poisoned herself rather than be captured by Roman forces during the Punic Wars. Sophonisba receives news from her husband, King Masinissa, from the front that a truce has been reached but she must be paid in triumph to the victors—the Romans feeling that she had incited rebellion to begin with and ought to be removed from Carthage. Having none of that, later Sophonisba drinks the goblet of poison, rebuking Masinissa for making their marriage short and bitter.

interregnum

With the act of union adopted by the recalled Rump Parliament on this day in 1659 following the resignation Richard Cromwell after the chaotic death of his father Oliver Cromwell, England and Wales were declared a republican Commonwealth, a maneuverer that set in motion the restoration of the monarchy from exile in 1660 with the proclamation one year to the day later that heir Charles II had been the lawful regent since the death of his predecessor, constitutionally the undoing of all that had transpired in the preceding nineteen years.
In May of 1649, the original Rump Parliament (also called the Long Parliament) took power after the trial and execution of Charles I and this sitting legislature was dissolved in 1653 with executive powers vested in the Army Council, which then elevated Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of a united British isle—Scots and Irish resistance finally suppressed at the time during what was referred to as the third civil war that ushered in this second, brief republic—Cromwell’s government itself became untenable after a term of five years, punctuated by rampant purges, Irish genocide, cronyism (with political succession an afterthought and apparently a dynastic one was acceptable), harmonisation with religious authorities and the shuttering of the theatres.

✨#12 – boycotting cheese✨

A family acquaintance has been confined to a hotel and Saudi Arabia, one twitter personality reports, and shares this image of a menu card that strikes me as delightfully pure—first insofar as they would go to such lengths to accommodate Western guests, including at a time like this—during the pandemic, whom was stranded and staying for longer than expected plus through the month of Ramadan.
I also like the level of trust vested in a translating algorithm—since absent anything to check it against, why would one have reason to doubt? Also, interestingly, punctuation seems as important as letters, which seems right in hindsight for someone unfamiliar with the script but had not occurred to me before. That said, tag yourself. Foul, fool, full is probably fūl mudammas—stewed, seasoned fava beans—which is very delicious. We had a hard time choosing between Chicken Dump Truck, A Regular Erika or She is Suspicious of Cheese—and wonder what the story is behind dishes such as Friday, Tuna is a Problem and Worried. Beans, gentlemen.

toki pona

Invented in 2001 with its full lexicon published on this day in 2014, the eponymous constructed ‘language of the good’ has a sparse, flexible vocabulary of around one hundred and twenty root words set forth by linguist Sonja Lang whose minimalistic qualities championed by a small but strong community of enthusiastic ascribers employs a few words to express big and broad ideas and promote positive thinking—the project developed as a form of self-therapy out of a dark place—in line with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity that posts that one’s grammar defines one’s world-view and outlook.
Basic ideas can be used to communicate increasingly complex and nuanced meanings but only through an additive process that’s just as easily parred back down to its elemental concepts. Despite being rejected as imprecise by authorities, Toki Pona was among the languages subject to an investigative study on the ability of machines to understand natural language (even naturally occurring examples are parochial and political with prescriptive grammar) in context, significantly outperforming English and others. Because of the limited lingual inventory and morphemes, aside from the Latin script, two logographic writing systems were developed by Toki Pona students: sitelen pona and sitelen sitelen, the latter glyphs pictured along with the banner of constructed languages, designed by Christian Thalmann for the CONLANG family—Lang’s experiment not intended as an auxiliary form of communication but having in a way attained that status.

plutodemocracy

Rather poignantly and provocatively first appearing in print in 1895 before being used by Winston Churchill and Hannah Arendt to discuss the preludes of war decades later, the term, while plain and immediate, still does carry quite a bit of effacing nuance and nudge.  A hypercapitalistic plutocracy that operates under the air of legitimacy that cursory though ultimately meaningless democratic ceremonies afford. A cynical but probably accurate bifurcating of the population, there’s a show of participatory governance for the working class with all real power vested in the moneyed classes.

segoe print state of mind

Friend of the blog Nag on the Lake directs our attention to a neat project that explores font families by the localities that inspired them.
Created by foundries to build up their portfolios and offer a greater range of styles—most debuting well before the trend of cities hiring a designer to give them a united, corporate image, the United Fonts of America allows one to triangulate in a sense geographic coordinates and style with hometown pride and mediate on what the association signify. Whose namesake is Tahoma exactly? Plus there’s all the other aspects of toponymy to consider besides. This map is focused on the US and it’s a good heuristic tool to get one thinking further afield.
Is there a typeface for where you live or do business, the product of a marketer or otherwise? Inspired I found that there was in fact a digital script commissioned by Linotype, designed by Rosemarie Kloos-Rau and released in 1992 named for a place we’re associated with. Within the framework of the industry standard DIN (see previously) 16518 governing handwriting and calligraphy, it is commonly used for brochures, greeting cards and call-out boxes in articles.

stockheimer warte

While researching something else, I chanced upon the identity of the now familiar landmark of my daily excursions (see previously), once part of a network of watch and signal towers though this one has since been obscured by the treeline that allowed authorities and magistrates to communicate with great alacrity even the late Middle Ages, atop a peak with its next link in the transmission line-of-sight being the Lichtenburg (see also). Inaccessible and well-preserved, I half suspected the fifteenth century, five-metre high watchtower to be some sort of folly or artificial ruin meant to lend atmosphere, with only the romantic suggestion of a staircase and like some place for a kept-maiden, but learned it not only was pressed into service but also has some local lore associated with it.
Once upon a time, a woman from the village went up to the summit to gather some blueberries and left her child to nap nearby on the moss-covered flagstones of the tower while she worked. The woman heard a shriek and ran to the base of the tower only to find her precious baby replaced by a monstrous imposter (eine Balg, a changeling). Seeing no choice but to carry on as if it were her own offspring, the woman took it back to the village, where despite wanting for nothing, it grew up (as she feared) crooked and simple but an otherwise upstanding citizen. A second tale relates that of a cobbler’s apprentice who fled his master distraught one evening and climbed into the tower, preferring exposure or starvation to the continued punishment and abuse by his master. The night grew darker and more foreboding, the wind picking up and the whole forest below seeming to surge around the tower, the sound of fleeing animals under the howl of the storm. There was a break in the wind and the tumult of noise was replaced by the raucous and lively sounds of a hunting party on horseback, the procession singing merrily songs of their adventures—which gave the boy comfort and resolve to enjoin society, even if it was a lowly shoemakers apprentice. As the hunting party receded and faded into the distance, the storm resumed, though less threatening than before and the boy drifted off to sleep. The next day, he was found by some lumberjacks who returned him to his workshop where he remained, becoming an expert cobbler himself.