the greatest thing since sliced bread

The benchmark for greatness and idiomatically highlighting something clever that just works, especially a recent innovation was introduced into common parlance on this day in 1928 when the bread slicing machine of inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder (a prototype he had developed back in 1912 was destroyed in a fire and it took nearly sixteen years to make a second go at it) was used by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri in the United States and sold their first pre-sliced loaves. The more common German equivalent is, however, das Größte seit der Erfindung der Bratkartoffel, the greatest invention since roasted potatoes.

7x7

snuck out in the middle of the night: The Onion forecasted the West’s hasty departure from Afghanistan a decade ago 

fjögurra daga vinnuviku: a pilot experiment reducing what’s defined as full-time a stupendous success in Iceland  

nine seasons: geniuses from the Hood Internet (see previously) remixed the Seinfeld theme with a hit song from every year it aired 

carriage shift: a LEGO typewriter inspired by the model of the toy’s creator  

subrident: a story told with some edifying vocabulary words  

15-minute cities: natural language map queries 

low-level pokemon, normally easily defeated, stuck guarding locations, perhaps indefinitely: augmented reality sites abandoned at Bagram Airbase

aconitum napellus

Encountering yet another highly toxic flower in the woods (previously), this example monk’s hood or wolfsbane (Blauer Eisenhut, I think this sort of buttercup is specifically the subspecies Aconitum tauricum, named after Alpine Gaul) is also now cultivated as a garden plant for its complex, scalloped inflorescences and general hardiness returning year after year.

In ancient times, according to Avicenna and other sources, the sap of the plant was used to make poisoned-tipped arrows and spears, and has been used throughout the ages to the present day for dispatching enemies. Even handling the plant can led to organ failure and death—so despite the beauty of the blooms, I can’t understand the appeal of having it in one’s flowerbed (growing them outlawed from the early Middle Ages onward with transgressions subject to capital punishment), and who would have thought the deadliest things in the forest was the flora rather than the fauna.

zwischenstopp: mellrichstadt

While we’ve mentioned the next bigger town numerous times especially in connection with the dying out of the Henneberg line and Count Poppo and go there regularly (see previously here, here and here), we realised that we’ve not dedicated much writing to the place itself, elevated to the status of a city within the Grand Duchy of Würzburg in the thirteenth century and its importance as a seat of learning with a Latin school in medieval times before desecularisation and joining the Kingdom of Bavaria. 

that weren’t no dj—that was hazy cosmic jive

Performing his new single Starman—his first charting hit since Space Oddity in 1969, David Bowie in the persona of Ziggy Stardust and band, the Spiders from Mars composed of Mick Ronson, Mick Woodmansey and Trevor Bolder, appeared on Top of the Pops on this day in 1972. Let all the children boogie.

a bird, a young lark—lifting the sky as it took flight

Via It’s Nice That, we discover a retrospective exhibit at the Tate aims to correct a curatorial and conversational miscarriage in art history that left the contributions and influence of Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (previously) to the Dada and Modernism movements by showing her due recognition. Much more on the artist’s media, works and career at the links above.

point of departure

Reusing this image of a row boat tethered to a launch in Gravedonna on the shores of Lake Como from a few summers ago after being reminded of the magic of docks and piers as a liminal, transitional space in an appreciative gallery of images courtesy of Nag on the Lake. Originally, we had used this picture to announce an upcoming break from business as usual—that is, negotium, with its Latin counterpoint otium, pursuits of leisure and a considered virtue in knowing when and how to disengage from work.

cap and gloves

A couple of weeks ago, I passed a few fine exemplars of Martagon lilies, which we’ve learned about before, whilst walking through the woods, and slowly as the weather waxes warmer and the ground soaks up all the spring rains, here’s hoping we stay we’ll irrigated to help the forest recover from some punishingly dry years, the lilies are being replaced by another pink perennial, the common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). Called Fingerhüte (finger hat or thimble) in German, the flower was named by our botanist friend Leohart Fuchs (see previously) building off the Latin designation with rather fearsome etymological battle surround the above Anglo-Saxon name, arguments back and forth on whether it's a perversion of some other name regarding its toxicity or supposed pharmacological merits since people couldn’t possibly believe that foxes wore such flowers a stockings to muffle their movements whilst hunting—could they? Stemming from folk medicine and herbalist, a compound isolated from the foxglove is used in cardiac therapies but is highly deadly for humans and other animals (like the lily up top) if touched or ingested.