bell, book and candle

Having just recently made the acquaintance of Marginal Revolution and reading the blog with some regularity, I was intrigued to learn of an upcoming book by its caretaker, Tyler Cowen.
Titled The Complacent Class, the work examines how relentlessness and insistent perseverance (first observed by Alexis de Tocqueville in his travelogue Democracy in America) that once characterised American gumption or at least framed the American Dream—with due caution for the dangers of exceptionalism and appreciating that such phenomena carry with them a Manifest Destiny that does not respect borders, is being eroded into a sort of smugness that’s cushioned by apathy and disengagement by what Tyler identifies as the “matching culture.” Just as there are fewer and fewer of Noah’s Arks of apartment buildings, no menageries from all walks of life housed together, and people self-segregate—much of our thinking, choices, loving is governed by algorithm that while delivering the kindred and the resonant also threatens to isolate and insulate. Of course demagogues, media and marketing have always been instruments of manipulation but we have not been able to so exclusively people our world’s—thus limiting our horizons—with like-minded and reaffirming furniture. I was excited to see the preview of this publication and think it will be a very worth-while read.

ancinne régime

At first I thought that the high concentration of châteaux along the Loire, some three hundred and each more picturesque than the last, was at first something like a competition among the favoured and bourgeoisie, like the skyscrapers of San Gimignano that were built taller and taller to try to keep up with and out-do the Joneses, but I quickly realised that side-by-side comparisons of grand-opulence were not possible as the stately homes were located on vast, landscaped estates—well away from any prying neighbours. Once I thought there was another palace within view but found out that that was just the carriage house.
The monarch of France throughout the Middle Ages until the dawn of the Renaissance only ruled a very small kingdom—confined to the region around Paris, the Île de France, but consolidating power in the capital caused the landed-gentry to shift their power-base as well but rather than abandon their beloved countryside in Central France for the city, ancient fortifications were transformed into outstanding summer residences, maintained at great expense but keeping the fertile river valley (the Loire being the longest river in the country) in the hands of the aristocracy.
The walls, moats and high-ground locations betray their defensive roots but the structural elements of castle and keep were civilised after a fashion and converted into quite luxurious accommodations. Each rich with heritage and history, the three châteaux we visited were (from top to bottom) Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord and Chenonceau but we know we must return soon for more exploration.

glaubengeist or calling doctor bombay

Via Strange Company’s weekly link amalgamation, comes an interesting look into the rebellious character of early Renaissance Swiss alchemist and physician Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim—better known by the handle Paracelsus (for surpassing Aulis Cornelius Celsus, the heretofore authoritative source on anatomy and medicine from Ancient Rome), whose unflagging disdain for convention and endless curiosity places his genius up there with his less well traveled (engaged as a field surgeon) but better-known contemporaries Copernicus and da Vinci.
Though criticised by the establishment for rough-manners, constant drunkenness and sacrilege, Paracelsus’ scientific approach that held no deference to past experts (scholastics) and experimentation brought about the discovery of toxicology when most alchemists—not to mention gold- and silversmiths, were content to douse themselves with lethal doses of poisons and the concept of the Glaubengeist: not that the agents of disease were purely of a psychical nature nor that contagion was telepathic but rather invasive entities. Glaubengeister were distinct from the pathogens, germs that Paracelsus believed caused and spread most ailments as notion of a sickness, mania or panic having psychosomatic, restricting the idea of moods and humours to only in specific cases and to specific individuals, and not demonic possession. Carl Jung famously, centuries later, incorporated Paracelsus’ occult alchemic flow-charts and symbols into his own work in the field of psychoanalysis, believing that dialectic encoded the experience of the shared and idiomatic unconsciousness.

mo(u)rning in america

Via Marginal Revolution’s curated links, we are invited to check our punditry-meter when considering—or privileging—the current political landscape in America and abroad. Rhetoric is certainly spun-up to a fevered-pitch but the other thing about persuasive or sophistical speech is that is also serviceably modular and forgettable. While there is certainly cause for alarm and precedence for danger and intrigue and an awful redux of some things we’d thought we had dispatched, maybe there’s little novel in the present situation to bemoan.
Looking at these melodramatic instances from recent campaigns and critiques, I am reminded of far older politicking that conceived the polarising two-party system of the US: like the Tea-Partiers of the last election cycle, there was in the mid-1850s a movement called the Know Nothings—being a quasi-secret society whose membership and activities they’d never divulge to outsiders, owning up to no knowledge of whatever accusations. Even more anachronistically, they called their political caucus the Native American Party in order to balance out the political vacuum with the collapse of the of the Whig constituency and existed exclusively to warn-off the decent suffragans of the country about the dangers of immigration—especially of the Catholic persuasion with marching orders from the Pope to subvert the country. Unsuccessfully, they campaigned to reinstate former president Millard Fillmore and in the wake of the US Civil War, sublimated themselves into the grandees of the GOP. Fillmore had the first bathtub put in the White House, among other things. Even compared to contemporary events, the politics of America seem almost abruptly passé, given that BREXIT has effectively already built that border-wall, Theresa May has been installed as an unelected Prime Minister (though a Bremain-supporter, is quite a boon to an Anglo-Saxon named Status Quo) and dotty former London mayor Boris Johnson has been elevated in the caretaker cabinet to the office of Foreign Minister. America, for once, might have an uphill battle for lunacy.

art funéraire

While touring the Île d’Oléron and stopping to explore the village of Saint-Pierre, we were struck by this significant though rather mysterious monument from the Middle Ages.
This model so- called lantern of the dead (lanternes des morts oder Totenleuchte) dates from at least the 1150s appear throughout western France, and though the oldest and highest at twenty-eight meters, inland, it was not visible for great distances—mostly on the periphery of cemeteries, as this one is, probably was kept as an eternal flame or lit to recall the parish to funerary rites. No one knows for certain to their custom and origin, however.
Most presume that these free-standing spires were early dedications akin to wayside shrines (Weg- oder Bildstöcke) that commemorate accidents or escapes on pilgrimage routes, but given their sturdiness and clean polygonal symmetries (the church of the village had similar early gothic angles), people entertain all sorts of influences (cheminées sarrasines they are sometimes called perhaps as a memory from the Battle of Tours) and forgotten rituals, perhaps even originally to purpose as warning of quarantine or danger, despite the continuance of history.

du hast den farbfilme vergessen

Via Der Spiegel (nur auf Deutsche), we are introduced to a demonstration project in artificial-intelligence “deep learning” in the form of an algorithm that can add a splash of colour to black-and-white photographs.
Like the routine that offers to caption one’s images, the better it gets (provided it is not subject to abuse and ridicule) the more experience it has. It is interesting how when context is available, it’s already very good at inserting the proper soft hue to grass and half-lit canyons, but for historical photographs, things start to fade and come up a wash, as it cannot guess the colour of Kaiser Wilhelm’s dress-coat or differentiate building colour among sepia tones. Give it a try yourself and also help improve the algorithm’s confidence.