truth or consequences, new mexico

The label on the Uruguayan wine bottle with dinner informed me that the country’s name “means ‘River of Painted Birds’ in the native language.” I stumbled upon a clever world map that gives an etymology of the names of nations—although I am not entirely sure how accurate some of these are and it is kind of a shame that the map does not explain who Amerigo Vespucci was or how he managed to have two continents named after him (though I suppose the terminally interested could easily look that up in their Funk & Wagnalls’). Incidentally, driving home through France, I wondered why the central region, containing Paris, was called Île-de-France (Island of France), and it turns out that this was probably because of an ancient Gaulish misunderstanding of an Germanic Old Franconian designation for the place--Liddle Franke, little land of the Franks. I think it would be a neat project to make a more local map of derivations and translations, streets and suburbs and towns--sort of like how Bad Karma got its name.

crawlspace or urban spelunking

Via the superlative BLDGBLOG, Der Spiegel (auf englisch) reports on a persistent mystery that’s been buried and forgotten in locations all over Bavaria. There are hundreds of discovered ancient stone passageways tunneled into the earth, mostly impossibly narrow and tight, in farmers’ fields, under churchyards and in towns, that have been described with such creative names as Schrazelloch ("goblin hole") and Alraunenhöhle ("mandrake cave"), because locals believed that they were the mines of dwarves and oubliettes of elves—since no one can really say what the purpose of these articifical caves were.

Though known of for a long time, with similar phenomena occurring in other parts of Europe, curators are only now taking interest in studying them, speculating on their functions from emergency food storage, like a fall-out shelter, refuge from marauders, like a panic-room but being impracticably small, others have interpreted them to have had spiritual significance. These Erdstall catacombs are never documented as being built prior and throughout the Medieval period—only their slow, accidental discovery, and maybe were the meditation chambers of a mystery-cult. No one knows, but perhaps the attention will lead to more finds, and maybe there’s something to be found down in the underground of Bad Karma.

aqua-velva

Having just returned from a fantastic, educational and relaxing vacation in the Aquitaine and Medoc regions of southern France's Atlantic Coast, I wanted to take the opportunity to round-up a few photographs that did not make the travel blog and a few pensées (after Blaise Pascal's random collected thoughts and enigmas, like, the parrot wipes his beak even though it is clean). 

The area was just incredible--the port of La Rochelle along with this other hidden cove of Meschers-sur-Gironde with troglodyte dwellings pounded by the surf into the cliff was like a pirate theme-park. The caves there actually saw some piratery and were once host to French protestants who had to practice their religion in secret.

A sort of regional mascot too was a donkey in pajama bottoms, and later I learned that these pants were worn to protect them from mosquitos while working in the salt-flats that brought these cities great prominience.

The city of Bordeaux has a crest that resembles a bio-hazard or toxic-spill clean-up symbol, though I am sure there is no relation.  The coast was also dotted with these colossal and exemplary (really just like the perfect dreamscape of what one would imagine a fort or a castle to be with winding causeways, endless stairs, turrets, towers, loopholes and murder-holes) bastions from the handiwork of the Marquis de Vauban to protect trade and the rich harbours from foreign navies, but there was one inland garrison town that fell victim to the environment that created this wealth.

The mud-flats that are part of the oyster culture and the salt-flats which gave Aquitaine a monopoly are nourished by sediment washing in from the mouth of the Gironde colliding with the silt of the ocean.  Eventually, and probably rather sooner than anyone expected, the sediment choked this fortress off from the port by a good ten kilometers. 

Not useful for fending off invading ships, the town--which was also the birthplace of promogenitor Canadien Samuel de Champlain, the fort and billeting has been well-preserved.  There was a lot of neat stuff going on here and I have a lot of homework to do.

nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero disunt oil

"Everyone has two countries, his or her own--and France," someone once said. PfRC is going on holiday to the Aquitaine, the pays d'òc. Traditionally, this area was one of the areas where Occitan (Provençal) was spoken. The Latin phrase in the title and language itself is from Dante's observation that for yes "some say òc (from Latin hoc--this), some say sì (from sicut--thus), and others oïl (from hoc illud--this is it)." Please stay-tuned to our little travel blog for regular updates and more adventures.

foundry sans informal

Though I hope I am not too much of a font snob or look down my nose too much at Comic Sans, but I do appreciate the attention to detail, aesthetic balance that goes into type-setting. Scribble (via Neatorama) has a nifty flow-chart and other guides to facilitate choosing the appropriate font. Personally, within the quiver of standard type-faces, Gill Sans is quite presentable. It's similar to the lettering the British Broadcasting Company uses and to the style of German traffic signage, DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung) 1451.

flea, fly, flea-fly-mosquito

Though I generally am little disappointed by the effort, I usually do read through the comments section after a news article. Beyond destructive criticism and roundly sharing blame and deeply personal affronts, there are sometimes interesting takes and tangents on the news.  And sometimes there is the serendipitously non sequitur, like dadaist graffiti.  After an article about the economic situation in America, there was a comment, ignored but weirdly trenchant--FACT: Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.  I thought that was priceless, and a lot more arresting than normal angry opinions-to-power.  FACT: Cats fly cranes. Cats. Cranes. Cook County Sheriff.

cosmic architektonik

This Spiegel (bedauerlich nur auf deutsch) gallery and review of by-gone communist architecture, alien like the shipwrecks of a failed space-invasion curated by photographer Roman Bezjak during a five year odyssey through East Europe, behind the former Iron Curtain, is fantastic grand tour of old out-of-this-world Soviet relics and structural design through the former East Germany, Tirana, Pristina, Bratislava, Tiflis and Prague.

These expressive images certainly convey more than the imposing, gray monstrosities that are usually conjured up when one thinks of such buildings. We have seen a bit of both: the industrial, utilitarian and the inspired and elevated, and I certainly would like to visit these places. One can peruse the complete journey in Bezjak's book "Socialist Modernism - Period Archeology," and would be perfect destinations for the intrepid trekkers from Atlas Obscura.

In a related collection, Spiegel also features evocative images of post-modern monuments to war and revolution mostly from the former Yugoslavia and Balkans that are surpassingly bizarre and theatrical. One can find out more about the artists' visions in Jan Kempenaers' collection, "Spomenik."

evasive maneuvers

First seeing the headline that US pensioners might be affected by the looming national borrowing frontier, I scoffed a little, wondering why anyone would proffer such a new worry, reviving the fears and panicky behaviour of a few months ago of a government-services collapse. That was a battle-of-the-wills too, to see who would risk compromise or be obstinate on blame. I thought the pronouncement was only some reporter glomming on to one phrase and appeal that was not meant to be showcased--that is, until I heard the same scary news picked up by German broadcasters. Maybe it is still just a threatening projection, because I think too the rest of the world is prone to gawk at a country that would just shut-down or threaten to do so. I don't think there have been accords by the polarized political parties and talks have not progressed, but there have certain been some exercises in creative and critical think. Apparently, mostly without such theomachy, the US president has asked and been granted lifting the debt ceiling about one hundred times in the past, having exceeded what the US Congress had appropriated in the fiscal budget. Some are proposing a bit of theatre, legal fiction, to give the office of the president autonomous authority and responsibility to raise the legal borrowing limit, independent of congress. This does not create extra money or save social programs, but it allows for no deflection of responsibility (de facto but not in fact since all agencies are responsible for their own fund management). Further, this shifting of blame may prevent delay of the US government defaulting on its obligations (to creditors, and to its people) but taking on more debt, regardless--for example, in August, the government is scheduled to make $23 billion in Social Security payments but only expects to generate $12 billion in taxes on the day outlays come due, and unable to pawn more debt, the government can only spend what it takes in--only restores allocations' and appropriations' role, again threatening a government closure. I don't know what can be done but there is no choice between supporting corporate or public welfare and the two should not be stood up as warring standard-bearers.