aliolio oder orange is the new black

I had to wonder about the fancy, pulpy but paper and disposable napkins that dressed our table the other day. Alliums Dream it read, which I interpreted as garlic in Latin—close but more in the direction of shallots or leeks and had to retract my answer, though one could still fairly wonder why even in a restaurant (and taxonomically vindicated), one would be wished oniony dreams.
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, perhaps.  I had to wonder at the coincidence of receiving a sturdy mug as a gift that was patterned with little constellations of the same horticultural bulb florets the following day. There is quite a lot going on with what we would refer to as tubers, much more interested in what is going on underground and conveniently out of sight.  H replied that maybe that was the new fashion-flower of the year. Maybe poke-salad is next.

sir top of notch

Nag on the Lake as always has a wealth of interesting and intriguing posts to pore over and often it’s hard to settle on one—of course, you, gentle readers do not need to settle for just one article—but this item about a concept car that was to be the final word in automotive safety struck me especially as bearing further investigation. 
The unique chassis of the Sir Vival has a cyclopean turret for the driver above the passenger cabin and had segmented front-wheel drive motor (sort of like the Enterprise being able to separate the saucer section from the warp-core) and a host of other ingenious safety features. In an age where we’ve drifted away from these retro-futuristic visions and are moving towards vehicles that are self-driving but are non-starters without a strong WiFi connection and would never suffer a tinkerer or any non-authorised repairs as that would violate the terms of the lease, I hope enough jalopies are preserved for our post-Apocalyptic steeple-chases—as these newest models would not fare very well, I think.

great seal

Happening to revisit an article that celebrated the ban of the Confederate States flag as a symbol of hate by lampooning all of America’s state banners as derivative and perhaps designed by those not well-versed in the rules of vexillology, I had to pause over the emblem of South Carolina: I had seen the palm—palmetto tree, with crescent moon on the bumpers of a few co-workers and in the parking-lot and had always assumed that it was a symbol of solidarity of those who had been deployed to a certain forward-operating base in the Middle East, a unit badge and not any home-town patriotism. I would sing to myself, “Midnight at the Oasis—put your camel to bed.”
It turns out that this flag—which is an outlier being within the rules of simplicity and proportion where most flag-makers, either with only scant history to draw on or uninterested in aboriginal traditions, belted out what they could as eager members of the coalescing federation. Surely I’d seen this banner, along with all the others, on display in the parade-grounds but it struck me as something wholly new.
South Carolina’s flag directly recalls the battle-garb of the rebel militia with the crescent charge and the palmetto trunks that defend the fortifications against British assaults during America’s revolutionary war, instead of invoking the colours of the constituents of Yugoslavia or other desperate campaigners of inclusion and splitting the difference. Michigan’s motto is basically “if you lived here you’d be home by now,” in Latin.  Surely having a distinctive symbol is a requirement for membership, but it does seem as if some ran out of ideas and were under pressure of a deadline to throw together something.  One has to wonder what barriers to ascension that later territories had to face.

moral turpitude and misheard lyrics

This news flash from Dave Log 3.0 reminds me of that rather earth-shattering revelation that there was never a family of Berenstein Bears: that little, obnoxious ditty that Pebbles Flintstone and Bam-Bam Rubble performed in one episode wasn’t the catchy lullaby we remember.
I always thought it went “winners never lose and losers never win” and would hum that to myself, but it’s rather a creepy, anachronistic admonishment for cavemen toddlers to keep smiling, lest Satan take your souls. Not that vacuuming the house with a baby mastodon makes much sense under scrutiny, but now this song rests as really something disconcerting and jarring. I think Betty and Wilma had to witness their children grow up to be delinquents all the same.

amenities oder unterkunft

Over the weekend, H and I got a chance to dine at the oldest guesthouse in the storied and venerable city of Leipzig. 
The institution that eventually became famous, as widely known as Leipzig’s other famous restaurant Auerbachs Keller or the Hofbräuhaus of München, as Thüringer Hof came into existence in the early fifteenth century as the urban estate of the rector of the University of Leipzig (a Freihaus as such in town residences are called was exempt from city tax although it was afforded the protection of the city wall) who in 1466, realised that there was a significant market gap when it came to feeding and sheltering students—especially until they were sponsored by fraternal societies.
The rector opened up a corner of his home as a public-house—doing a brisk business for over six centuries, with just a few interruptions.

Multiple dining halls could accommodate some twelve hundred guests and the establishment was known to the likes of Martin Luther, Bach, whose home-church and choir are just around the corner (along with another less famed watering-hole, but I liked the name, nonetheless) and Richard Wagner.