a woman’s place is in the house

Born this day in New York in 1920, “Battling” Bella Savitsky Abzug (†1998), lawyer and social activist campaigned and won a seat in Congress representing her constituency in the Catskills and New York’s capital district with the above slogan—specifying that the house was the House of Representatives. Drawing the ire of Nixon administration and earning her a place on the master list of political opponents, Abzug was a strong proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment and rallied against the ongoing war in Vietnam.

9x9

rewritten by machine on new technology: record industry going after a neural network called Weird A.I. Yankovic that generates parody songs in the style of its namesake—via Slashdot

my beautiful laundrette: elderly couple dress up and model the apparel left in their laundromat—via Nag on the Lake

an atmosphere for simple communication and dating: once Russia cinema reopens, the Ministry of Culture is banning drama and dreary movies until at least the spring of 2021

it’s portraits all the way down: an Inception of self-portraiture—see previously 

search history: a New York Times styles reporter documents and annotates everything term she researched online for a week—via Kottke

be the first to like this post: pigeons look for other career options

the tetris effect: a film about the game’s origins is in production but it won’t be another Battleship—via Miss Cellania’s Links 

karen alert: they keep getting worse

good guy: Billie Eilish’s song Bad Guy performed in major key—see also—via Kottke

imago dei

Crucially and rather sensibly as the world collectively raged against symbols of racism, colonialism and enslavement, one activist suggested that the biggest sacred cow to tip and topple would be the relentlessly perpetuated image of the Jesus as a white European.
Whilst we’ve encountered countless depictions of artistic license dressed in anachronism, the trope of Jesus as white and thus set apart from his peers takes a more deliberative tact and culminates with a ubiquitous cameo by Warner Elias Sallman (*1892 – †1968), whom as recently as 1994 was regaled with predictions that he was likely to be chosen as the best-known artist of the century. His devotional piece, The Head of Christ, has been reproduced more than half a billion times and is for many the way, consciously or not, the way to visualise Jesus. Despite being mass-produced and from pulp traditions, The Head of Christ is associated with miraculous healing and appearances.

frumskrik

Whilst the great wide open spaces of Iceland are even less peopled with visitors from abroad than usual and recognising the therapeutic, cathartic effect that a good scream (especially since public displays of terror are being discouraged) into the void can have, one of the country’s tourists’ boards have installed loud-speakers and live webcams in various pristine, remote spots around the island that will release one’s frustrations into the wilderness. One can also sample the anguished wails submitted by others at the website plus find links to more resources and coping methods—aside from primal scream therapy—for those in distress and those simply needing to de-stress.

artemision or the streisand effect

Though it was the restored temple financed by the citizens of Ephesus themselves, a version that post-dates its infamous destruction by arson on this day in 356 BC, that sealed its inclusion in Antipater of Sidon’s tourist guide, the Seven Wonders, that earlier loss bears more notoriety for the Temple of Artemis than the other must-see attractions.
Comparing it to his other sight-seeing excursions—none of which are extant excepting the oldest and most venerable Great Pyramid at Giza, the travel writer himself pronounced, “Lo—apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.” The fate of the final temple is not well documented though it was the Christians that oversaw its slow dissolution, cannibalised for architectural elements and decorations including some of the columns of the Hagia Sophia—with archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom credited as “the overthrower of the temple of Diana, despoiling in Ephesus the art of Midas.” While this last boast sounds lofty, it is far less memorable than that of our damnable vandal, Herostratus.

saint wilgefortis

Though officially delisted from the martyrology of saints in the late sixteenth century and her veneration suppressed, the iconography of and devotions to the bearded saint—whose English name is thought to have derived from the Latin for courageous virgin but goes by many others (see previously)—are still to be found to the present age and is feted on this day.
Also going by Uncumber, Ontkommer (Dutch), [ohne] Kümmernis (German), Liberata (Italian), Librada (Spain) and Débarras (good riddance in French), Wilgefortis symbolises the liberation or disencumberment from abusive relationships and is invoked for relief to that end. Historians speculate that her origins can be traced to androgynous depictions of Jesus but was embellished with her own story and cult in the 1420s in Galicia, with a noble woman not wanting to be forced into her arranged marriage and praying for a way out—and miraculous sprouted facial hair that made her repulsive to her betrothed. In iconographic depictions, Wilgefortis’ beard ranges from minimal to quite lush and substantial and is shown often crucified—sadly her fate for showing up and looking unpresentable—with a small fiddler at her feet, having given away her wedding dowry, represented by a silver shoe, to the poor.

sunday drive: grabfeld

The fertile region in the southern expanse of the Rhön mountains, referred to eponymously as dig- or ditch-field is so named according to local lore that a queen once lost a beloved ring here and ordered the entire land dug up (tilled) until it was found.
In gratitude for its recovery, she founded an estate that would eventually become Königshofen, one of the major market towns dating back to the eighth century.
We took a little tour of the neighbouring counties and first made our way to Bibra, a small settlement focused and informed by the dynasty of imperial knights that governed the duchy since the tenth century and constructed this castle at the town’s centre.
Retaining its original style as a Franconian royal court, Burg Bibra was destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt and rebuild in the seventeen century true to form—its most recent faithful refurbishment earning a prize in 2002 amongst castle conservators and is presently used as a seminar centre with accommodations for guests.
The patronage of three important prince-electors in the family brought Bibra the church of Saint Leo (dedicated to the early pontiff, Leo the Great), decorated with the altar and sculpture from the school of Tilman Riemenschneider (previously) and is one of the finest examples of late Gothic architecture.

On the way to our next destination, we came across an open-air museum preserved in the former expansive border-zone, demilitarised for decades but with displays of the layers of fortifications and the intervening mine field to imagine.
As with the rest of this strip of terra nullis, it is now a nature preserve and a paradisiacal place for butterflies.

A few detours brought us to the community of Sulzdorf an der Lederhecke to see the gigantic Baroque palace Sternberg, the ancestral seat of a branch of the line of our old friends Count Poppo and the Hennebergs.
We marvelled at it from a distance and it was when we got a little closer, navigating the village directly behind the huge structure that we realised that we had in fact visited once before in May of 2012, noting the calendric symmetry of this construction finalised in 1669 with its four onion-domed turrets representing the seasons, twelve hearths standing for the months of the year, an astonishing and exact fifty-two doors for every week and three hundred sixty-five windows.  I wonder what the story behind that decorating statement was?
The palace is privately owned still and bears some resemblance to the palace of Aschaffenburg, Schloss Johannisburg—the residence of the archbishop of Mainz.
There were koi in the fountain and the watering trough and the Marian figure of one of the rows of homes that were at the rear of the castle was particularly striking for her iconic halo of stars.
Our final stop was a bit more secluded, though in the same community, Sulzdorf an der Lederhecke, as the last and also in private hands and occupied though by descendants of the former von Bibras. This well preserved palace on the water—Wasserschloss—is called Burg Brennhausen and guards the frontier between Grabfeld and the Haßbergen. The current baron is, according to the information board, a petroleum tycoon with a business in the US and divides his time between the palace and a home in Pasadena.

1up

Via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump, we learn that for only the second time in living memory (there was a partial cancellation in 2012 due to extreme flooding), the census—called the Upping of the Swans taking place along the River Thames during the third week of July, an ideal time before the cygnets mature and the cobs (see previously) are themselves moulting and flightless—has been called off entirely due to social distancing measures. Dating back to time when swan husbandry and ownership counted and the birds were roasted for special occasions, the landed gentry employed wranglers to mark the beaks of their birds with a special, distinctive pattern (nowadays they are ringed for study and entry into an ornithological database, much more humane than the earlier filigree)—as all unclaimed mute swans were property of the Crown, see also. Learn more about this event at Spitalfield’s Life at the link above.