empire shops

Though the above euphemism for a colonial goods store (ultramarinos, comptoir des colonies, coloniali), a nineteenth century speciality retailer that sold non-perishable items like coffee, tea, spices, tobacco, etc. as opposed to butchers, bakers and green-grocers, has fortunately fallen out of common-parlance, retained through the 1970s when most former colonies were achieving independence, it is still present, fossilised in some unexpected places, like in the name of our local chain supermarket, an affiliate of the large co-op Edeka, founded in 1898 as E.d.K.—that is, Einkaufsgenossenschaft der Kolonialwarenhändler im Halleschen Torbezirk zu Berlin (Purchasing Cooperative for the Traders of Colonial Wares of the Halle Gate District of Berlin), phonetically abbreviated (see also) out of necessity.

there and back again

First published on this day in 1937, English author and academic John Ronald Reuel Tolkein’s (*1898 – †1973) premier work of high fantasy, The Hobbit (previously), was received with critical success and an avid readership with an appetite for more, retroactively finding a niche in the mythopoetic legendarium which Tolkien had been developing privately for decades, realised in his follow-on work The Lord of the Rings. Aside from his keen interest in Norse philology and folklore, Tolkien’s prose is influenced by designer, poet and activist for social justice William Morris and his correspondents C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden, the latter recollecting the author’s moment of inspiration while grading papers, jotting down: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

order uśmiechu

Distinguished from other knighthood and foreign honours, the Order of the Smile is conferred on recipients after being nominated and voted on by children in recognition of their love, care and aid.  Bestowed biannually from Świdnica outside of Warsaw since 1968, laureates—knights and dames, though the right to use the title is restricted to only those decorated with an official ceremony at one of the organisation’s chapters—include Astrid Lindgren—author of Pippi Longstocking, Saudi pediatrician Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Steve Spielberg, German singer Peter Maffay, Pope Francis, Nelson Mandela, Peter Ustinov, Oprah Winfrey, Mother Teresa and Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins.

alpha-beta

Not since the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (see alternatively) has the World Meteorological Organisation run short of names for storms for the year, having issued a list of twenty-one names with forecasters now predicting up to twenty-five significant events. 2005 called for the first six letters of the Greek alphabet—through Zeta (Ζ / ζ).

It being 2020 or that last best year with things only downhill from here on out, depending on how one frames we can halt and reverse climate change, we’ll see if that’s the Alpha and Omega. As history is yet good council even in these unprecedented times, today also marks the anniversary in 1971 when Hurricane Irene, having made landfall in Nicaragua weakened and dissipated, reconstituted herself (the first known instance since we had tracking capabilities) and remerged as cyclone Olivia, crossing from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts (see up top), raining out over Baja California. More recently, on the same day in 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico.

zwei kleiner jägermeister

Today marks the veneration of Saint Eustace (Eustachius) on the occasion of his martyrdom in 118 AD, whose life and legend were limned out and elaborated by medieval troubadours—beginning with a Roman General called Placidus separated in a wood from the rest of his hunting party while pursuing a stag. The deer at first gives chase but then charges back and leaves the hunter awestruck by a vision of the Cross in the antlers of the deer, followed by a booming commandment that Placidus and his family are to be baptised by the bishop of Rome. Placidus complies and takes the name of Eustace (from the Greek for “steadfast”). Soon afterwards, Eustace receives a second message that he and his family—much like Job—will be made to suffer a series of ordeals including loss of property and status.

Eustace contrives a plan to escape this fate and requests to resign his military commission to move out to the provinces—to which his superiors are amenable. Upon arriving at the first ferry crossing, however, they find that they don’t have sufficient fare and the boat’s pilot abducts Eustace’s wife Theopista and abandons Eustace and his four children. They are compelled to continue travelling on foot but have to cross the river at some point. Eustace successfully manages with the two unnamed children and attempts to do so with Agapius and Theopistus but fails and losses them to the swift current. Rather broken and alone, Eustace is employed tending a farmstead and protecting the fields for fifteen years when two envoys of the emperor find Eustace and summon him back to Rome to suppress an uprising, offering him back his former rank and position. The unrest is not started by those upstart Christians as one might suspect and might make for a better narrative but rather a run-of-the-mill skirmish at the frontier. Eustace is dispatched back to the ferry-point and puts down the rebellion and his reunited with his wife—sort of like Penelope and Odysseus, who recognises him after all these years, and with word spreading about the happy coincidence two soldiers come forward who were separated from their father while crossing the river but were rescued and raised respectively by a lion and a wolf and the parents realise it’s their children Agapius and Theopistus. Liking a good reunion story, the whole family is feted once they return to Rome by Emperor Hadrian (presumably the unnamed ones as well—let’s call them Barron and Tiffany) and after their lavish celebratory dinner and asked to make propitation to the pagan gods. Speaking for his whole entire family whom had yet to be consulted on their father’s plan for immortality, Eustace refused and Hadrian had them thrown to the lions, who declined to pounce. Frustrated, Hadian had Eustace and his family put in a brazen bull. They all expired this time but their bodies were uncorrupted by the heat and flames. With several miracles and interventions attributed to him, Eustace is considered the patron saint of firefighters and along with his co-patron Hubertus who had a similar, transformative vision the protector of huntsmen.

rip rbg

As consequential and inopportune her death is and one hopes that her “most fervent” wish will be respected, one also hopes that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s departure (1933 – 2020) and vacancy in the US Supreme Court does not eclipse her life and career as a champion for justice, equality and access. One of my favourite details of her biography was her early desire to become an opera singer—before having any aspirations at law—and the eventual pop culture icon’s supernumery stage roles (extras—usually non-speaking parts but was once appointed to the judgeship in decide the case in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, bring justice for Shylock) and her regular attendance at shows in Washington, DC.

Despite pronounced ideological differences, Ginsburg considered fellow justice (at the Supreme Court and previously at the US Court of Appeals) Antonin Scalia (1936 – 2016, see also that succession crisis with this vacancy likely to be the encore) and often went to the opera together, twice appearing together in the Richard Strauss comedy of manners Ariadne auf Naxos—an instance of unexpected collegiality that inspired its own opera buffa in 2015. The string of lace jabots illustrated is from the excellent SCOTUS Blog (their obituary linked up top) and was Ginburg’s signature accessory and was said to wear particular one’s depending on her mood and what sort of opinion—dissenting or majority—she was issuing. Let’s all wear black and gold and uphold her legacy and hard-won victories.

steering committee

With the expressed aim of empowering parental control over children’s and adolescences’ access to music and restrict exposure to material deemed violent or sexual, founding member of the “Washington Wives” Tipper Gore, spouse of Al Gore, formed the Parents’ Music Resource Center early in 1985. Encouraging the record industry to adopt a voluntary censorship regime with a rating system akin to that of the Motion Picture Association, Gore and other concerned citizens convinced the US Senate to hold a hearing on so-called “porn rock,” having identified a catalogue of their Filthy Fifteen, a selection of popular songs from that era—suitable as a playlist (see below), they felt proved the need for regulation.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) agreed on 19 September of the same year during compelling testimony by expert witnesses to place a label on their products (though more than a decade in the making) warning of explicit content not age-appropriate for young people. Susan Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker, testified that while there are many causes for the ills of society, it is “our contention that the pervasive messages aimed at children which promote and glorify suicide, rape, sadomasochism and so on have to be numbered among the contributing factors.” The Filthy Fifteen are:

She Bop by Cyndi Lauper—for its message of masturbation 

Possessed by Venom—for the Occult overtones 

In My House by Mary Jane Girls—Sex 

Trashed by Black Sabbath—glamourizing Drugs and Alcohol 

Mercyful Fate’s Into the Coven—Occult 

High ‘n’ Dry by Def Leppard—Drugs and Alcohol 

Animal by W.A.S.P.—Sex, Language and Violence 

Dress You Up by Madonna—Sex 

We’re Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister—Violence 

Let Me Put My Love Into You by AC/DC—Sex 

Bastard by Mötley Crüe—for Language and Violence 

Vanity’s Strap On Robbie Baby—Sex 

Eat Me Alive by Judas Priest—for Violence and Sex 

Sugar Walls by Sheena Easton—Sex 

Darling Nikki by Prince—Masturbation and Sex

the long now

Having previously (see here and here) assayed the conundrum of deflecting curious future explorers from spelunking in our present nuclear waste, we were intrigued to see what sort of out-the-box solutions our artificial intelligencer Janelle Shane (see previously) might be able to coax out of her neural network to serve as a ten-thousand year warning.  Summarising the schema to the GPT-3 routine, its designs seemed to match that of its human engineering inspiration to intrigue as much as dissuade any future civilisation. Giant tube worms and a field of Tulips Shrieking Madness might deter exploration but I am not sure about Dangerous Stairs or Disrupted Pollen Lines. Much more to explore at the links above.