the ghost of a flea

Sadly unrecognised during his lifetime, poet, painter and free love advocate, William Blake (*1757 - †1827, see also here and here) produced a large and diverse body of work under the ethos that to exercise the human imagination and push its limits was itself next to godliness. Misunderstood and dismissed as mad, Blake’s single showing while still on this plane was disastrous, one critic calling him an ‘unfortunate lunatic whose personal inoffensiveness secures him from confinement.’
The retrospective exhibition currently at London‘s Tate Gallery (see also from friend of the blog, Nag on the Lake) is certainly a belated vilification and underscores the resonance of his vision.  Perhaps most well known for his illustration of The Book of Job and Dante’s Divine Comedy, like the pictured vignette of Capaneus the Blasphemer, a besieger of Thebes whom Zeus struck down with a lightning bolt for his arrogance, and is confined to the Seventh Circle of Hell with the other souls whom have committed violence against God, though the form of his extinction make him impervious to the torture of the flames and as a pagan he addresses the deity as Jove and still curses him. The titular episode refers to a miniature panel inspired by a vision that came to his friend and collaborator John Varley during a séance and evokes comparison to Henry Fuseli’s 1781 The Nightmare.

iou

As if it wasn’t chilling enough that the grifter and bully in the White House would compel his own weather monitoring services to revise their forecast map to match his own mischaracterization, covertly disclosed communications suggest that United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is practising self-censorship in its agenda to skirt issues not aligned to US policy and politics for fear the US would pull funding and support.

While it might be seen as just a shrewd measure by some at the organisation to de-emphasise certain points for the pitch and focus on climate change and sustainable growth any way, the agency is compromising itself too far by conceding—however superficially—to Trump and his outlook on the world.  A rather nominal philanthropic donation could ensure that the programme could maintain its independence and integrity for decades.

5x5

barman: a historic archive of drinks recipes and other pub paraphernalia via Pasa Bon!

warp and weave: in her O.P.P. (Other People’s Photography) series Heather Oeklaus creates woven photo collages from vintage film stills, via Kottke  

arboretum: an art collector (previously) plants trees in a football stadium in memoriam

on murder considered as one of the true fine arts: true crime superlatives from each state in America via Coudal Partners’ Quick Links

central perk: the theme song from Friends performed in minor key

sharpiegate

The exhausting tedium of the Trump regime respecting nothing, it’s come to light that the US commerce secretary threatened staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency should they not recant and revise their hurricane forecast to match what the dullard Trump laughably drew on a map to extend the cone of probability into Alabama.
In order to preserve some sense of dignity in the federal government and its reputation, honouring instead of rubbishing the one kind of scientist—the meteorologist—that the public trusts and engages with on a regular basis, there are growing calls for the secretary himself to be dismissed or resign for this dangerous act of rank hypocrisy rather than stake everything on protecting the fragile ego of a man-baby.

quadriga

With the Queen’s leave, after the longest session since the English Civil War, Boris Johnson suspended Parliament until just two weeks before the date that the UK is scheduled to depart the European Union.
Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow resigned in protest, his last sentiment being that ‘we degrade this Parliament at our peril,’ a resounding rejection of Johnson’s argument for the extended recess, reasoning that the break was a time for reflection and reformulate legislative agendas and calls for a general election to break the impasse—also denied.  Like during a furlough, committees cannot convene or conduct official business without being in violation of their suspension, paralleling the law passed making Brexit contingent on a deal or otherwise risk being in contempt, which the prime minister is fully cognizant of and only serves to remind how tragic this whole squandering of time and resources and all encompassing has been.

auflösung

On this day in 1919 signatories of the Allied Powers held a ceremony at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye to ratify the terms of the treaty (see also) that dictated the dissolution of the Austrian Empire.
The successor states, formerly kingdoms, duchies and counties were often not consulted and very few held referenda regarding their own separate sovereignty and rather had it thrust upon them with adjustment period to follow. Cisleitania—the unofficial designation for the territory around Vienna and roughly the present day republic, referring to this side of the River Leitha—that became a much diminished Österreich had previously not had a national character in terms of uniting language or ethnicity (not that borders are ever easily redrawn) and only had in common their allegiance to the House of Hapsburg.

jupiter v

Suggested as a good base of operations for exploration of its host world due to its proximity and near synchronised orbit and discovered on this day in 1892, Amalthea—the third moon of the jovian gas giant (see also here and here)—was the first natural satellite identified since Galilean quartet in 1610 and the last by direct observation.
Its discoverer Edward Emerson Barnard (*1857 - 1923, the same astronomer of the namesake star) following the established convention for Jupiter‘s constellation named it after the goat nymph that nursed infant Zeus, secreted away from his murderous father Cronus and the epithet meaning tender goddess in Greek. Still a baby and not realising his supernatural strength, Zeus accidentally broke off one of the horns of his foster mother, rendering her the first unicorn—a conceit echoed by later storytellers.  Placed among the stars in Capra, not to be conflated with the zodiacal sign, her broken horn became the cornucopia.  The designation did not become official until it was formally adopted (to replace the above) in 1976 ahead of the moon‘s rendezvous with the Voyager space probes.

tag der offenen tür

The second Sunday in September marks the Day of Open Monuments (previously) all across Europe, and today we had the opportunity to visit a local landmark, the Ostheimer Kirchenburg, and inspect parts not normally accessible to the public.

Climbing up several levels on narrow wooden ladder, we got to see the original clockwork housed in the Waagglockenturm—so named as it used to also act as the city’s scales for weighing bushels of corn and other goods and the later repurposed counterweights powered the time-keeping mechanism, now installed at the Rathaus—and had a commanding view of the town below.

We also got to explore some of the networks of tunnels and storage space that connected all parts of the compound as well as the interior of the church with a chance to marvel at the eighteenth century pipe organ—complete with thirty-seven registers, designed by Johann Ernst Döring and biblical ceiling art by chief architect and engineer Nicolua Storant from 1615. Do you have any local landmarks hosting an open house today? If so, please do visit and share your impressions.