link round-up: sonnenblume and phases of the moon

Here's a smattering of some of the more interesting items I stumbled upon or was clued on to over the past week:

Although the sunflower was probably domesticated in the New World before maize, it took a Lenten loophole of the prohibition of cooking oil in the Russian Orthodox church to really make the plant commercially recognized. The invention of cholesterol too played a big role in giving farmers a valuable alternative crop for off-seasons, when practicing crop-rotation. The circuitous history of the flower is fascinating.  It is a sight to see driving through the countryside and seeing vast fields of big sunflowers angling their blooms away from the roving sun throughout the day. It made me think about another inspired discovery of a young inventor, who designed a more efficient photovoltaic array after hiking through the wintry woods and noticed how the trees might try to maximize their sun-exposure.

After the Feast of the Assumption (Maria Himmelfahrt) last week, earlier this week was the celebration of the coronation of the Queen of Heaven, which Wikipedia explained brilliantly, and though true to form in scholarship, sweetly, I thought. I am really enamoured with that website and its dedicated band of contributors, and not just for all the new things that one can learn every day, but also how individual entries are galloping towards completion and perfection, and how challenging certain topics and aspects can be to define, like the meticulous and continuous revisions that go into the gloss of Lolita.
And here was a very cool and inventive gallery of photographs of people posing with the Moon. I want to do this next time we're camping.

squirrel, nut, zipper or out of sight, out of mind

Apparently, I am very prone to hide things in drawers-and in a very nomadic and peripatetic sort of way. I know that's not their home and not really where they belong, in the logical scheme of things. So instead of occupying more and more temporary yet concealing real-estate, acquisition growing of junk-drawers with more and more finds, there are probably more creative solutions for the stuff that one collects--or rather, saves.

I saw a quite a few white-washed, Mediterranean-style restaurants and shops in the harbor towns in southern France that were decorated with these larger wine jugs (DE) filled with corks.

That, I thought, was a good way to free up one junk-drawer--for the bottle caps and beer coasters.  Tacked, uncorked, or otherwise assembled, I sure there an adequately presentable way to display most anything.  How would you curate and show off your collection and stockpile?

visitenkarte

A talented graphic-artist had a vision for a very minimalistic, classy business card (discovered and re-imagined at Boing Boing), which highlights one’s essential modes of contact and communication, like parsing parts of speech or a particularly long German word, with one’s email address.

This is a very basic and clever way to convey a lot. Mine is sort of a fantasy card, since I don’t have my own domain-name—yet, though I am happy with my little niche in the web and those exclusive addresses are probably just like vanity plates, nor am I particularly social or electronically gregarious, I suppose. How would you design a simple and effective calling-card?

 

kwisatz haderach or struldbrugg

Science maven Maggie Koerth-Baker, a few weeks ago, filed some very clever observations on longevity and the need for people to riddle out a formula or pattern for long, healthy lives--prefacing the dispatch with something to the effect, if a supercentenarian, whilst chain-smoking, eating chocolate, not exercizing, drinking red wine and turnip juice, jumped off a bridge from Okinawa to Andorra--would you do it too... No habit or diet is shared for those who reach extreme old age, though science is trying to fit it to a certain paradigm, but neither is it purely locked up in genetic predisposition.

I think maybe the common-quality lies in attitude, though I am sure it is still the exception or the exceptional that makes the rule. Petty anxieties telescoped beyond their power for harm or for good are surely counter-productive. The Big Think, also a few weeks ago, featured a good lecture, Fear is the Mind Killer (an homage to Frank Herbert's Dune-cycle), about this subject, which I thought triangulated well with prevailing healthy attitudes and stride. The lecture addresses the subtler names for different degrees of fear found in Hebrew. It's true how we give it a name and independent existence with our internal-dialogues, mental-vocalization, like "I'm afraid I'll be late," "I'm afraid I won't make a good impression," "What if I get sick," "What if the money runs out." These little-deaths always resolve themselves, but one does tend to weigh them as clear and imminent dangers. It is no mean feat to stop worrying and maybe a little bit naïve dismiss or ignore what's burgeoning, but at least, with the acknowledgement of these little killers, one might also pause to not only name it but also to assess (to mantra-tize it) the damage it could do.

boxcar

After being guided to see such a neat rendition of Anonymous, retribution disguised behind a Guy Fawkes' revolutionary mask, that we had to navigate in the dark the canals of the city to find this again sprayed on a bridge pylon,

I thought that that was surely a sign, an omen that there was to be an imminent and spectacular dispensation of righteous reckoning with promised economic and political consequences for not sharing secrets.

That jolt has not yet materialized and some sore politicking may lead to more delays and hierarchical disputes, but I did think it was a good time to share this image round-up of street art.

These first three were part of a group found in the underpass by the canal dams of Bamberg.

The next was in a small satellite train-station near Leipzig, decorated throughout.

The last grey one is an older picture, from 2005, found in a pedestrian tunnel in Luxembourg.

legendary creatures or there be dragons here

I was reading about the discovery of a new dinosaur fossil that will take its scientific nomenclature from the legends of tormenting dragons that primative finds possibly inspired in the first place. The mythological beast, the Cyclopes, was also probably inspired by discoveries of the skulls of mammoths by ancient Europeans who did not know how to interpret an elephant relative’s remains. I was reminded of my own find while climbing the arid sands of the Great Wandering Dune of Pyla. I thought it was the bleached skull of a little dragon, but upon discovering more, I later realized it was probably the vertebrae of some real animal instead. I still like my little dragon skull, and behind it there is a white holey stone called an Adder stone (oder ein Hühnergott), a rock worn down by time and tide, and which was a talisman or charm for ancient people. 

I always kind of felt sorry for the dragon that Saint George slew. One sees the saint vanquishing the beast depicted quite a lot on the arms of villages, counties and countries (so one gets the opportunity to reflect on such things all the time), but I think that this popular mascot was just a bully. The dragon was probably a gentle and misunderstood beast, maybe a scapegoat--and the last of its kind. Though I am sure a lot of national heralds were displeased to find their patron delisted, I thought it was kind of appropriate that Pope John Paul II, however respecting traditions, desanctified St. George for being as mythical as the monster he killed.

rhein-main-donau

 Driving to visit my parents after work, I finally took the time to stop along the way and investigate the imposing cloister complex at Markt Ebrach, formerly belonging to the Order of the Cistercians (or Trappists) Monks. I only walked around inside the glorious church, having before only seen it in passing, which was just surpassingly beautiful and unexpected with art, colour and ornament.

The village boasted a wealth of other things to see, like sculpted gardens, a curiously fortified winter garden and brewery in addition to courtyards of the cloister. The Cistercian Order took vows of silence and removed themselves from the everyday world: these enduring buildings owing to their need to be self-sufficient. I will have to return for the complete tour when I can bring H along and can devote a few hours to the spectacle.

From the main street, just passing through and dodging traffic, the church and raised abbey garden are certainly eye-catching but I did not expect so much more on closer inspection. This entire stretch of road is beautiful but quaint and without ostentation or being sequestered--also, I was noticing, that a lot of towns and villages seemed to invoke matters bovine in their names, a lot with either the prefix Vieh- or the suffix -auroch. Vieh (cattle) gives us the English word fee, as livestock is a commodity. I might not have been right with -Auroch, though, recalling the primordial and now extinct European wild cow, the Aurochs (Auerochse oder Ur auf Deutsch).

The Coat of Arms of Mecklenburg

features an Aurochs

Rather the Auroch is a tributary of the Regnitz river, which flows into the Main, then the Rhein and onto the North Sea, but I suppose the river could refer ultimately to the ancient, undomesticated bull.

manifest destiny

 In an unrequited display of nostalgia for fading imperial muscle, the US Internal Revenue Service is poised to unleash a slew of regulations and reporting requirements that will make foreign banks and businesses unwilling agents of tax-collection. This cannot end well--given that--following the example in the article, a foreign bank with American holdings, investments, bonds, treasuries, has to expend caution, time and resources on the citizenship of each and every depositor-- and the money-lenders and underwriters may well avoid doing business with Americans altogether. Bankers and economists all over are deriding this parasitic hubris, not wanting to take the responsibility for doing a job that the US government cannot manage itself. America's tax regime, for individuals at least, is overly-ambitious and unique in that in seeks its share of earnings, regardless of where they were earned and where one lives--and this they demand outside of the arrangement of any standing tax treaty.

Shirking one's obligations harms others, especially when one expects to be afforded the protections and support of one's country--however, I think this whole proposal is vindictive and misguided and won't repatriate revenue, the IRS already cannot handle its regular caseload though it expects to shift through the wisps of international banking, and also given that the US government might try to shake down, strong-arm and intimidate individuals for loose-change yet demand no taxes from its huge corporations, whose continued profits through tax-payer funded bailouts (Rettungspakets) have neither translated to creation of new jobs nor market stability.