As debates rage about the efficacy and ethics of quarantine for the sake of public and private health in this atmosphere of Fearbola, Atlas Obscura presents an interesting short history on the phenomena.
Not forgetting or diminishing the real and immediate suffering of individuals in the so called hot-zones and those without the luxury of protesting their confinement in abstract terms, this is turning out to be a potentially very frightening time of year, in keeping with the season—what with imaginations enervated with notions of zombies on the march and a weird kind of vampirism with a sanguine obsession over certain blood-types as a rescue-cure. The American military personnel helping to construct needed health care facilities will be isolated for at least three weeks in an army hospital in Vicenza—which is not far from the lagoon of Venice, whose islands (a few of them) had served as rather ghastly lazarettoes (way-stations common during times of plague for sailors to wait out the incubation time without endangering the local population, named after the parable of Lazarus) or cordon sanitaires in the not too distant past. What do you think about all this hysteria and working oneself into a frenzy?
Tuesday 28 October 2014
we are a culture, not a costume
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ฎ๐น, holidays and observances
Monday 27 October 2014
minimalist phillumenist
Collectors’ Weekly curates a fantastic gallery of one phillumenist’s (a collector of matchbooks) passion for the minimal artwork featured on matchbooks from all around the world. The ephemeral often feature advertising for a specific night club, bar or hotel but there are also plenty of little evocative and endlessly efficient canvases touting vacation destinations, big events, local colour, safety awareness and public service. Browse through the exhibition and be sure to visit the collector’s private retrospective at the link.
tropopause
Without the fanfare and budgetary excesses associated with corporate sponsorship, a computer-scientist (though himself a vice-president at one of the world’s largest companies), having planned his dive in secret, was carried aloft a few days ago in a balloon of his own design from an abandoned airfield in Roswell, New Mexico (it was probably easier to beg forgiveness than to ask for permission) and jumped some forty kilometers back to earth. It’s too bad that dare-devil stunts are the ones to hog the stage—to ham it up, even, even if not the carefully, thoughfully executed record-breakers and the feat of this gentleman passes without due recognition.
catagories: ๐ญ, transportation
phylogenetic or langue et parole
catagories: ๐ฎ๐ธ, ๐ณ๐ด, ๐, language, networking and blogging
Thursday 23 October 2014
ultima thule or rรฉcit
There’s also a theme of isolation—but the mood is not one of loneliness or ostracising but maybe another aspect of the failure that’s understood to be dismantling—highlighted in meta-references and evocative footnotes. Using the fable of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum as a point of departure (incidentally, everyone always expected the Spanish Inquisition, since they always announced their purges with a thirty day grace period), Auster relates the true tale of intrepid Danish explorer Peter Freuchen and his harrowing experience weathering a blizzard in Greenland. Freuchen had buried himself in an ice cave for shelter and though he was worry about the pack of wolves sniffing around above ground, his more immediate concern was that his igloo, his universe was slowly shrinking around him. With each breath, the ice walls grew thinker by a hair’s breadth, threatening to enclose him fully. Freuchen, however like Auster’s characters, lived to tell the tale. I am looking forward to reading more of his works.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐ง , philosophy