la vie en rose ou cressonière

During autumn’s travels in Normandy, which we’ve been woefully remiss in writing about, H and I stopped at the village of Veules-les-Roses—a darling little spot, whose mills and watercress (Brunnenkresse) bogs (cressonières) are fuelled by the shortest river in France, la Veules—only eleven hundred metres long, escaping to the sea through a breach in the high chalk cliffs of the plateau of Pays de Caux.
This village was a jewel to discover, even on a soggy day, and has been made the subject of literature and visual arts. It was very pleasant to have this pause amidst all the other history and dramatic views of this region.

 

boilerplate or ultramar

Abrecht Dürer’s famous and celebrated woodcut of an India rhinoceros—which the artist never saw in person, has much more than æsthetic value, approaching the crossroads of modernity from all possible angles. The trading magnates of Europe were cut off from Asia via the overland route, the Silk Road severed by the Ottoman Empire, and so they sought other ways to reach China and India. Spain opted to reach the East by sailing West and Portuguese explorers scaled the African coast on a southerly trip to round the Cape of Good Hope and onward across the Indian ocean. Seamanship and navigation had reached a level of sophistication that made such long voyages possible and profitable. There was, however, the problem of competing colonial claims to lands and exclusive trading outposts. The kings of Spain and Portugal eventually turned to Pope Leo X to settle matters and both sides tried to woo a blessing from the Pontiff. In 1494, the Treaty of Tordesilhas settled the dispute to a degree by dividing the world outside of Europe, Africa and Asia, between the two maritime empires. Keeping up patronage, however, was important and Portuguese King Manuel I had merchants in Goa fetch a rhinoceros and bring it to Lisbon, via Saint Helena.

People were absolutely astonished to see such a beast, which was unknown in Europe since Roman times—the animal described by the classic naturalist Pliny but generally regarded the rhino as some legendary creature. Vilified and curious, Europeans at this time were also rediscovering elements of their heritage that had gone missing during the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages weren’t all that grim and backwards but it is interesting to think how we know more of the Romans than people half a millennium nearer to them, and ruins were being excavated and art uncovered that no one suspected. Manuel was keen on getting this exotic specimen, however, to present to the Pope—thinking it would complement his pet white elephant Hanno, which the Pope rode around the streets of Rome on. Sadly, after being admired in Lisbon and communicated to draughtsman Dürer, the rhinoceros went down in a shipwreck off the coast of La Spezia and never made it to Rome—doubly sad because the rhinoceros is an able swimmer and probably would have survived had he not been chained to the deck. Of course, this print became as famous as it did and still remains in circulation because of emerging printing-technology in Dürer’s home-haunt of Nürnberg, another aspect of the modern age.

the art of asking or just take the doughnuts

Ranked as one of its top literary picks for the past year, Brain Pickings’ maven Maria Popova interviewed author Amanda Palmer on her new work with the subtitle or: how I learned to stop worrying and let people help, which seems to be a very necessary and circumspect exploration of compassion and self-esteem.

The lessons speak in the language of creativity and talent but the message is not meant exclusively for the artistic set, as we are all trying to carefully navigate the chasm between individual and social entitlement narratives, wanting too much, and the inability to welcome that which we truly need—all the sharing and caring and small kindnesses that make us human to each other. Palmer provides a series of imaginative images that don’t allow one to forget their callings—decrying the common measures of success, saying no one is to the manor born, and long before any one of us is illegitimised, recognized, we need to christen ourselves with a spell and magic wand of our own making and feel ridiculous doing so. Problematically, most of us don’t think our passions are worth that kind of bother—especially when others might be charitably disposed to help—and yet, most of us will still have the gall to ask when is our ship coming in. We may have adopted some sort of purist standard to apply to our entertainers and celebrities—maybe so we can see them fail, and are certainly quick to call fraud, poser and imposter even when trifling assistance is ultimately a means to a greater end. Henry David Thoreau, as the author illustrates, gave up a lot of comforts to pursue a quiet and contemplative life on Walden Pond and eventually came to realise his goal.
Thoreau did also graciously accept help when offered by kindred spirits—including fellow author Ralph Waldo Emerson and his mother and sister who brought the hermit doughnuts. Most of us would think less of what Thoreau created because of that detail. What do you think? Do such aspirations only belong in the rarified world of artists or is it a universal and daily struggle?

ill-will ambassador

For Christmas from H, I received this wonderful Grumpy Cat stuffed animal. Better known by her stage name, the cat called Tartar Sauce made her human caretakers millionaires through a substantial media empire.  Apparently, I am known to pull the same facial expression, from time to time. Though not exactly intended to convey cuddliness—more like, “...no, Mister Bond, I expect you to die”—I think she’ll make a very good mascot, nonetheless.

spatial fossils

The ever brilliant BLDGBlog revisits the field-trip they got to take two summers ago to the secretive compound that manages the constellation of satellites that form the global positioning system for military and civilian applications.

Surely being treated to such a tour could inspire many tangential musings on place and time and the technological triangulation behind translating this vast array with many moving parts into something reliable and useful. The visitors, however, choose not to reflect on the navigation aspect but rather how GPS coordinates are being used more and more in large-scale architectural projects and how the errors in mapping—precision that’s only off by millimetres but still nonetheless present and preserved—are being set in stone, fossilised as it were in big building programmes. Such cosmological footprints are found in the unburied strata of the Earth and, as in the reflection, evidence of solar flares and sunspots in the growth rings of trees. The philosophy is not lost on the team that runs GPS neither, realising that this fifty-thousand kilometre wide array could also be used a massive detection field for the aberrations of space-time due to encounters with gravitational waves or dark matter. Every sub-system on Earth that accesses and makes decisions based off of this satellite telemetry is a part of this experiment and exotic, cosmic discontinuities may be leaving subtle footfalls everywhere.

gonwanda-projection

Mental Floss has a semi-regular special series entitled Afternoon Map that invites one to pour over imaginative cartography and charts visualising demographics. With some concession to sea-levels and icecaps to keep geo-politics recognisable, contributors at Open Culture share the land masses aligned as Pangea with modern borders included. What is most amazing about such a venture is to think how much has changed before and since with continental-drift and we know a little bit about how those puzzle-pieces fit together.