margrave: picturesque gallery of the borderless borders of Europe
goldielocks: latest achievements from the Kepler Mission’s search for Earth-like exo-planets
stand-alone orchard: an artistic horticulturist is making a tree of forty fruits through grafting
kismet or tempest in a teapot: curated collection of mind-boggling nuclear testing certificates of participation
my beautiful laundrette: nineteenth century washer branded with the enigmatic name Vowel A
Saturday 25 July 2015
5x5
Friday 24 July 2015
die stadt oder can't you smell that smell
From a Liverpudlian of renown (the smell would turn you too), I learnt of the lyrical farewell that Samuel Taylor Coleridge bid Kรถln, titled On My Joyful Departure from the Same City:
And now at least a merry one,
Mr. Mum’s Rudesheimer And the church of St. Geryon
Are the two things alone
That deserve to be known In the body-and-soul-stinking town of Cologne.
I am far from sharing that sentiment and rather look forward to visiting again, but thought it a nice collection of lines nonetheless. Aside from the endorsement of the Basilica of Saint Gereon, one of the twelve ancient Romanesque churches of Kรถln, it’s interesting to think about how urban decampments might be remembered, bottled with a certain fragrance—which only one takes away with leaving them.
5x5
arbeit-leben-gleichgewicht: having homesteaded myself in Germany for over a decade I can relate to the feeling of being spoiled
tomatillo: miniscule ancestral tomato may save its supersized progeny—all our familiar grains, fruits and vegetables had equally humble beginnings
artisanal landlord price-hike sale: creative campaign to save a beloved Brooklyn corner-shop
cameo, intaglio: curiously shaped record albums
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ฑ, ๐ถ, environment, food and drink, labour, lifestyle
cytherean
From H’s parents, I received a Venus Flytrap to care for. Although I think we both have been blessed with green-thumbs, I understand that these plants are notoriously hard to care for, and I tried once before but I think I ended up over-feeding the delicate thing, so I’ve embarked on a course of study to improve its chances. I located a very good and comprehensive resource here and will take these lessons to heart, but there’s a pretty interesting story behind these not wholly sessile plants as well. Their native habitat is restricted to marshes in the Carolinas though propagated by fanciers all over the world—with varying success—and after devising the Theory of Evolution, Charles Darwin didn’t exactly call it a day but devoted his attention to the subject of locomotion in these plants—the mechanism and adaptive cultivation still something of a mystery.
And despite their very alien appearance, the plant’s name does not have anything to do with the planet Venus, rather it is the chomping jaws that suggest the clam from which the goddess was birthed. Although adjectival just Venus would, as before science saw the need for terms like Venusian, Martian or Earthling, things pertaining to Venus were unfortunately described as venereal, as Mars was martial. An old-fashioned adjective that’s rarely seen since we have Venusian—to avoid other connotations—comes from the island Cythera in the Ionian archipelago, near where the sea-shell emerged from the sea, buoying up the goddess. Curiously, the plant’s taxonomical name Dionaea muscipula, a daughter of Dione (namely the Greek counterpart Aphrodite) and “mousetrap.”
And despite their very alien appearance, the plant’s name does not have anything to do with the planet Venus, rather it is the chomping jaws that suggest the clam from which the goddess was birthed. Although adjectival just Venus would, as before science saw the need for terms like Venusian, Martian or Earthling, things pertaining to Venus were unfortunately described as venereal, as Mars was martial. An old-fashioned adjective that’s rarely seen since we have Venusian—to avoid other connotations—comes from the island Cythera in the Ionian archipelago, near where the sea-shell emerged from the sea, buoying up the goddess. Curiously, the plant’s taxonomical name Dionaea muscipula, a daughter of Dione (namely the Greek counterpart Aphrodite) and “mousetrap.”
Thursday 23 July 2015
mensch und รผbermensch
I’d guess I’d need to categorise this as one of those things the more one thinks about it, the more manifest it becomes, and I had not given much thought to the thesis beforehand that comics as more than caricature or a stock-epithet is an act of cultural reclamation.