abstract-concrete

Via the always splendiferous Neatorama, artist Fuchsia Macaree (the link is no longer) shares a brilliant visual logographic alphabet of a treasury of poetic foreign words that have no equivalents in English, like T for the Scottish term Tartle, the act of hesitation upon forgetting someone’s name, or P for the Russian Pashlost, which is a self-satisfied vulgarity masquerading as high morality—plus more to learn with everything else from Age-Tori to Zhaghzhagh.

There a lot of novel, neat words that are pretty lyrical and that I had not heard before, but this is not an exhaustive presentation of things that defy translation. What would you include in an alphabetical format?

Idiosyncratic and family pet-names names for things and concepts or a how about list of the weird jingo and abbreviations of concepts hard to visualize thrown around freely at the office, those words that would be completely foreign sounding and unassailable to a non-native speaker?

verkehrsverhältnis

On roadways throughout Europe and beyond, vacation season cues traffic congestion and traffic jams (Staus). The phenomena of herding over multiple lanes, however, is an interesting one, though the study and wonder while one is in the middle of things unfolding and taking interminably long to reconcile itself does not make the occurrence merely academic. Still trying to understand the causes of such viscosity is part of the journey.
 I was not expecting such stop-and-go traffic conditions in Denmark, but these signs that indicate lanes merging that look like an awareness-ribbon along their highways seemed to signal without fail a bottleneck. It is understandable, I suppose considering this country of just five million is being descended upon by travelers coming and going could spur some relative over-cautiousness, which is probably just an extension of being polite and courteous. The display was more acute and regular there, but most Staus pass without explanation or incident with the hesitation and the snowballing reactions of being put in and taken out of formation. Often times, the only delay visible is from people rubbernecking at a scene in the opposite lane. Everyone should be safe and patient, and of course that goes a long way to minimize a true accident, since the occasion for rushing is almost always before one leave home. Sometimes I think the whole mess could be sorted out in no time with a holographic traffic warden directing cars to stay on course and discouraging second-guessing and hesitation. Driving, however, is a taxing and unnatural activity and one ought to acknowledge the compensation and tactics needed to keep traffic flowing may not always be instinctual.

WWII week: nacht und nebel

There is nothing more difficult to face than inhumanity become concrete. The dishonor, ostracizing, terror, torture, enslavement and disregard were unique in scale and system, but not without painful precedent and legacy, since it is the quality of dismissive otherness that empowers one group to do this to another. Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Romani, Freemasons, the Poles, the Russians, homosexuals, handicapped people, communists, anti-social types, political dissidents and other undesirables all could be stripped of their humanity in fact because it was decided with sanction that never shared it with the oppressors in the first place, on whatever grounds.

Why this was allowed to continue and to what extent the civilian population of Germany and the rest of the world were morally complicit is a question, I think, no one is equipped to fully articulate. What will people believe—not only that it is a dutiful thing to deprive another of his rights on such baseless grounds—the everyday struggle we have with our own petty judgments and prejudices are most certainly successors to all the strife and hate of history but the best any of us can do is strive to be better and positively influence others—but also the sanitized reports that enforced the euphemisms?
I wonder what it is that people want to believe or what is easier to reconcile quickly slips into truth and fact. Today, some former concentration camps are hallowed grounds, memorials to unthinkable loss and cruelty that are unflinching testimony. Like the words on the gate of Dachau, Arbeit Macht Frei, the inscription on the gate of Buchenwald is a double-entrende: Jedem Das Seine could mean “to each his own.”
> When the gate closes and the words are facing the inmates of this largest concentration camp near Weimar, that housed all kinds, the meaning could also be “you get what you deserve.” Nacht und Nebel is the moniker for the overarching Nazi war programme to eliminate all elements that threatened state security (“die deutsche Sicherheit gefährden”) through rendition (being disappeared—night and fog, the term is a spell summoning the powers of sword and magic helmet of Wagner’s Ring Cycle), and of course the existence of such detention facilities was an open secret, vexing with the constant disorientation of transporting internees all over occupied territories, separating families and neighbours, so no witnesses could give the same account for what was happening or the missing might be remembered. Let us hope that we begin to see through such cloaks of the lowest charisma and never forget that a share of humanity is necessarily a share of otherness.

ragnarok or five minutes til midnight

The archeological site and ancient royal estate of the coastal town of Avaldsnes in Rogaland County in western Norway offered many engrossing and diverse themes. There was the natural majesty of the narrow cove and shipping lane, the on-going excavations from the age of the Vikings, the uniting and venerable residence, the cultural museum, hidden underground to preserve the landscape, all dominated by the medieval church of Saint Olav, which served for a long time as a landmark for sailors passing through the strait. There’s a lot going on here. The church, though, I think is most storied: according to tradition, it was built by future king and saint Olaf Tryggvason, who converted to Christianity on the sage advice of a fortune-teller he met while pillaging in Cornwall. The chapel royal was an important symbol and hastened acceptance by the people.

Curiously, the tallest and one of the last remaining standing stones of an earlier era is planted very close by and over the centuries as the foundations settled, now leans precariously close to the gothic-style edifice. Locals regard this pillar as jomfru Marias synål, Mary’s Needle, and lore has it should the stone come in contact with or break the stained glass window, the Day of Judgment is nigh. I refused to touch this doomsday rock, though it looked pretty solid and there’s a story that a priest once climbed it and chiseled it down a bit already when it was looming too close. I don’t know if that’s true but one could see that the window had been reinforced. What an ominous yet little-known thing to have among one’s attractions and heritage.

wordmark

Apparently the typeface Baskerville is one of the more comforting and believable in the font kingdom, even if just barely so. Maybe all job and university applications, résumés, curricula vitæ will be appearing in classic, transition font from now on for claiming that slight edge. Heretofore, I can’t think of any corporate logos or brand identity that uses Baskerville either—for that matter. Perhaps the trust element is in its quiet novelty, something just a toe over the familiar and instantly recognizable.

water closet

Heaven forbid that one should have to pee while one is out and about. Quite a lot of places are ill-equipped for a potty-emergency, having to ask for a key or produce change or simply be met with refusal. Norway, for being sparsely populated faithful provided, however, immaculate, public conveniences at every turn and in some unlikely and remote spots—like some TARDIS for the beleaguered, but that’s not the case everywhere. The local, the English language daily, reported in both its Swiss and German (the stories are no longer available but please visit the German and Swiss dailies) editions stories on advances in lavatory etiquette, albeit on opposite ends of the spectrum. First, researchers in Switzerland were lauded for their reinvention of the toilet, a prototype designed for the developing world but suitable anywhere—sanitary and clean without plumbing or electricity, inexpensive and environmentally friendly with some very clever and promising engineering elements.

 Meanwhile, in Köln marketers are promoting an item similarly off the grid, called the pocket urinal for gentlemen and ladies. This sort of tetra-pak receptacle was originally developed for construction workers and gliding enthusiastic who cannot easily leave their posts, but has been endorsed by the city for Carnival time and other festivals when too many revelers are less willing to hold it or wait for one of the too few bathrooms. This too is a clever idea but not nearly as ecologically kind nor inexpensive—relatively.