exemplum

Treating the needlework sampler as the record of a life overlooked, the Fitzwilliam Museum of the University of Cambridge has curated a collection of over one hundred of these crafty examples (both words have the same Latin root) from the sixteen hundreds up until modern times—often with the morose realisation that these creations made to demonstrate literacy, stitching skills as a future home-maker and cottage-industry entrepreneur are the only trace of their existence remaining. The exhibition also explores how symbolism and subject shifts with time and how in depth research centred around these artefacts—which also were the makers’ creative outlet—can reveal further details about the fortune and circumstance of the individuals and their families.

mossery (with frippery to taste)

Researching the subject for another recent post, I came across the Victorian craze for ferns and mosses (dubbed pteridomania) which went beyond collecting and on to cultivation.
This particularly fine and verdant specimen cleaving to a stone wall near home, dabbled in just the right mix of light and shadow, reminded me of the nineteenth century garden-feature known as the mossery, a covered slatted wood box with northern exposure. Samples stuck into the cracks would grow and fill the box if moistened regularly. Though not able to find plans for a mossery—like a guide for building a proper beehive for apiculturists—I think we’ll experiment and report on success. Meanwhile and alternatively there’s a wide range of moss-centric terrariums and moss-centric forums for one’s emendation—with ostentation and folly (sunken ships and treasure chests in aquaria) to taste.

7x7

microcosm: an annual photography competition invites us to explore the world around us just below the threshold of the naked eye

the luwians and the trojan war: the intriguing tale behind the lost frieze that may document the collapse of the Bronze Age

point and shoot: using algorithmic processes to inform the shutter when a photo-worth opportunity presents itself, one internet and technology giant is offering an automatic camera for home use—relatedly

gastaloops: one hundred day push to create gorgeous, encircling animations—via the Everlasting Blört

high rate of staff turn-over: activities offered at the White House adult day care facility

extinction cos-play: crocheted costumes for the common pigeon to highlight the importance of biodiversity and fighting to protect endangered species—via Nag on the Lake

trek ‘splaining: a visual physics lesson on the problem-fraught workings of as seen on TV teleportation

(rainy) day-trip: büdingen

The weather in Wetterau is not always cooperative and most days like these would see cancelled excursions, but on my way back to my work-week apartment, I took a detour to try to see the fortified and well-preserved medieval town of Büdingen. I recall having visited before—when it was still host to a US Army housing detachment—but that was ages ago and probably one of the wind-shield tours I was taking at the time and having tried to visit again once before during a trip to Burg Ronneburg but was overcome (incredulously) for lack of parking, so despite the dodgy skies, I marched up and down the still charming but be-puddled streets of town.

Described variously as the Rothenburg of Hessen and with other superlatives, the heavy stone defensive walls were formidable and impressive and all the streets of the historic core were awash with the idiosyncratic geometry of fine half-timbered (Fachwerk) structures—angular unto itself, rays emanating off in all directions—and there was a stately church and castle. The town in the centre of a marshy valley and the fortress and Altstadt are resting on millennia old matrix of oak planks and beech poles. Whereas a lot of German town have papier-mâché cows or lions to celebrate local craft and heritage, Büdingen uniquely has a collection of frogs, its unofficial mascot.
The rain, however, didn’t relent, and while I knew that every place is unique and embraces their stories of pogrom and plague, witch-trials and religious tribulations—and perhaps it was the combination of the rain and vague spatial memories, I was feeling rather disoriented and it was hard to take in the scenery, echoes of other places resonating strongly to the point I could recall the town’s name when relating it to H afterwards.
I suppose those discomforts are indicative of why sensible people (unless on holiday abroad when one has no other choice than to go out and enjoy the grey and drizzle) wouldn’t choose this battle for a rewarding tourist-experience. H and I will have to choose the opportunity to return and give Büdingen the attention and intention that it deserves.

great waters

Much like the contemporary movement to furnish the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with all the trappings and legitimacy of a sovereign member of the United Nations so that others might take the issue of marine pollution with the level of urgency it demands of us, in 1975 a US federal judge briefly championed the idea that Lake Michigan—the only Great Lake not shared with Canada but with interstate shores shared with Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan—be incorporated as America’s fifty-first state, so as to be better equipped to protect herself from the infringements of over-fishing, contamination and other exploitation. Failing full-fledged statehood, the judge, who was an emeritus steward of the pollution and water resources commission of Chicago, offered that managing the lake under a scheme similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority would be a suitable compromise.

aka manto or things that go dump in the night

As part of its annual celebration of the spooky and ghoulish leading up to Halloween, Atlas Obscura gives us a brief but intimate—to let one’s imagination get the better of oneself—primer on the Japanese yōkai (previously here, here and here) that tend to haunt private bathrooms and public, communal facilities.
The bathroom horror trope, predictably, since one is by all rights alone (or within maybe uncomfortable earshot) can be terrifying and could easily become more than one cares to indulge (even the idea of looking in a mirror can be hijacked into a horrific prospect with the right milieu) so consider oneself forwarded, but most seem to be just mischievous, muttering just out of range, making untoward noises or swiping toilet paper and other pranks, if not pitiable spectres and there’s a very specific ritual to summon up, sort of like scrying Bloody Mary (or if you’d rather, Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter), these tortured ghosts that inhabit certain stalls (the third one or the last one) and people are supposedly due for an encounter with these ghosts within a month after learning of their sad fates. Others still seem more sent to clean-shame those who might not keep theirs in the most hygienic of conditions, with a nasty little water sprite that’s said to lick the mildew off of one’s sink and bathtub. Visit, if you dare, the links above to learn more.

murder was her hobby: the nutshell studies

Via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake we find ourselves rather taken with these detailed, macabre dioramas produced in the 1940s and 1950s by smart and crafty lady Frances Glessner Lee—who being denied the chance to study criminal sciences herself became a sort of den mother for aspiring Harvard medical examiners and made immeasurable contributions to modern forensic science. Each of her miniature crime scenes were based on real, sometimes unsolved cases and contained a multitude of clues and evidence to cull and work out how the murder was committed.
An investigator-in-training examining one of the Nutshell Studies for the first time would not necessarily know what to look for and where the significant clues lie but the intricate little tragedies who hopefully keep him engaged and thinking critically and maybe learn to appreciate how everything may not be what it seems and that everything was not an open-and-shut case. Be sure and visit the links above to see more of the dioramas and find out details for their upcoming exhibition.

501(c) or because i was not a trade-unionist

Failing to pass any meaningful or positive legislation, the nihilistic regime of Dear Dotard has advanced a tranche of legislation that privileges religious conviction (or at least the claim, pretense thereof as the expanded language no longer requires that an employer or service-provider have a stated religious purpose) as promised—this is the nightmare that we choose—over not just laws offering protections to employees aimed at reducing discrimination and increasing equal employment rights but woefully also over women’s health and reproductive choices, education, marriage equality to include miscegenation laws, economic opportunities and community health—as it’s surely designed to allow parents to opt out of vaccinating their children too.
This false dichotomy of pitting lifestyle choices, identity and, yes—this is what we’ve returned to, women’s health against religious adiaphora (no central article of faith is based on hate and fear) and is of course the same sort of culture war that propelled these miseries to high office and will make it impossible to dislodge the criminal syndicate any time soon. How far backward could we go?  Previously, it was possible for objectors of certain provisions provided in health care coverage to argue their case to the government and secure the right to be exempted from the requirement but the process was public with due controls—but under the relaxed rules, corporations can distance themselves from the controversial, bothersome or potential costly just by asserting its stance to its insured staff with no requirement to notify state or federal authorities.  It’s easy to tease out trepidation and hatred and no force of law is required but the one manoeuvre underlying both the attack and roll-back of gay and women’s rights is what’s known as the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 addition to the US tax code that prohibits non-profit organisations—like churches and charities—from endorsing or opposing political candidates at the peril of losing their tax exempt status. This key component in the separation of church and state was recommended and adopted without controversy by then Texas senator Lyndon Baines Johnson and remained as something sacrosanct until it all of a sudden wasn’t and came under assault after a Rose Garden speech back in May, pandering to religious conservatives. Using the same argument that restricting their religious expression to vote as a congregational bloc infringes on their fundamental freedoms, the White House has essentially eviscerated the intent of the regulation by directing agencies of the executive to not enforce it any differently than it would against a secular (profane) entity in so far as taking sides.