hungry like the wolf

The three-day pastoral festival traditionally ending on the ides of February (the instruments of purification, februum, bunches of branches used like a broom and in the extended sanctified sense below, is the name gives the month its name and is the source of the modern inheritance called Spring Cleaning) called Lupercalia is a syncretism and has been assimilated into Christian traditions of Saint Valentine’s Day, but originally focused on mysterious annual rites and sacrifices that a special priesthood performed in the cave below the Forum where the She-Wolf nursed Romulus and Remus and the site where Rome was founded. Young men of the city’s patrician families formed a collegia (association) called the Luperci (Brothers of the Wolf), performing various cleansing rituals and ablutions—sacrificing a herd of goats plus a dog at the altar. Following the feast, the men fashioned girdles out of goatskin (also called februa) and paraded wearing only these thongs along Rome’s original boundaries and circled the Palatine Hill in an anti-clockwise procession, lashing marriageable women with surplus stripes of flayed skin for fertility.

decimal day

On this day in 1971, the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland decimalised (see previously) their respective pounds and pence (d., from Latin for denarii), abolishing shilling (s., from Latin solidi) and subdividing the pound (£, pondo librae) into one hundred new pence (p). A substantial publicity campaign championed by the Decimal Association that also helped make the transition into the metric system made the change-over a relatively smooth one.

music to moog by

Originally composed and recorded by Gershon Kingsley (born Götz Gustav Ksinski, electronic music pioneer whom also wrote rock-inspired synagogue music) in 1969, the version of the staccato synth-pop standard from the eponymous album that we are most familiar with was covered by fellow quartet member Stan Free, classically-trained jazz artist and studio musician for several groups including The Four Seasons and the Monkees, for his ensemble Hot Butter, charting on this day in 1973 among West German listenership to its highest position, reaching number one.

aufzugshilfe

Powered by a waterwheel, a simple tow-line pulling patrons to the top of the slope, the first skilift, the invention of hotel handyman Robert Winterhalder had its debut to the public on this day in 1908 at a resort in Schollach bei Eisenbach. Another impetus for its creation was the clientele that the guesthouse caterer to: those suffering from asthma and allergies who sought refuge and healing in the clean air of the countryside. Winterhalder wanted those guests to be able to experience the thrill of downhill skiing without the distress and exertion of climbing first. Up a gradient of some thirty metres over a distance of a quarter of a kilometre from the valley to the mountain hut, users were pulled upwards on a continuous loop. Residents re-enacted the centenary of its premiere, albeit with decidedly less snow in 2008.

6x6

a note to asterius’ daughter signed ‘from your valentine’: the reliquary and relics of the third century martyr 

lost in my dms: a brief history of Dungeons & Dragons the animated series—see previously  

barlow & bear: talented duo bringing Bridgerton the musical to TikTok  

but patty’s only seen the sights a girl can see from brooklyn heights: a century of the identical twin trope of Hollywood and one actor playing multiple roles, juxtaposed with actual twin child actors sharing a single role 

universal language: two examples of diplomats breaking out in song—here and here 

anteros: Cupid in the arts through the millennia

your daily demon: kimaris

Among our most scholarly encounters yet, this infernal marquis mounted on a black steed teaches those who summon him grammar, logic and rhetoric (the trivium) and is the finder of lost treasures. This sixty-sixth spirit is an infernal marquis governing twenty demons whose name and identity may be derived from the Egyptian scarab-faced creator god Khepri or from the Assyrian war-like and nomadic people the Cimmerians who were said to dwell in perpetual darkness. Ruling from today through to 18 February, Kimaris is countered by the angel Manakel.

ring around the collar

One signature feature of Hanna-Barbera characters (human or otherwise) was to portray them with a necktie or necklace or some similar accessory (Betty Rubble, Boo Boo Bear, Baba Louie, Mister Jinx, Penelope Pitstop and so on) owes its existence to the cost saving measure of limited animation—only having to redraw the face and head but not the entire body for every frame is far less time-consuming and the apparel at the next made for a good guide for continuity. Though largely rendered an obsolete trope (though to some extend used to signal gender to the audience where not otherwise apparent or important) by the use of digital animation techniques, it is often retained or reference in homage to the classics.

here we come on the run with a burger in a bun

We enjoyed very much this appreciation of the Cabazon dinosaur ensemble, a novelty roadside attraction two decades in the making created by theme park artist and sculptor Claude Bell (of Knox Berry Farm fame) off the freeway near Palm Springs to draw diners to his nearby restaurant, the Wheel Inn (1958 - 2013). The Brontosaurus, Dinny the Dinosaur, and Mister Rex are made of out of salvaged, reclaimed road construction materials and since the restaurant’s closure, have been host, in a surprising turn, to a gift shop and a museum devoted to doctrine of creationism (inside of Dinny—the Tyrannosaur formerly had a slide in his tail but has been since filled with concrete due to safety concerns)—selling dinosaur related souvenirs with the rather shrill caveat that the “fossil record does not support evolution” (see also) and espousing young Earth beliefs, that place Adam and Eve among the dinosaurs about six millennia ago. Exhibits run counter to a frieze that Bell painted along the internal passage way that portray a scientific point of view and timeline that includes Cro-Magnon, Java Man and Neanderthals. More from Pasa Bon! at the link up top.