The Ascent of Man with Jacob Bronowsky, on youtube in six parts. A nicely philosophical and poetic approach to question “what makes us human?”. Thanks to Machteld
February 13th, 2011
you can’t lose something you aint never had
From 1964, England. Almost like a music video!
February 11th, 2011
an example of making anything signify anything
For much of his long and largely secret career, Colonel William F. Friedman kept a very special photograph under the glass plate that covered his desk. As desks go, this one saw some impressive action. By the time he retired from the National Security Agency in 1955, Friedman had served for more than thirty years as his government’s chief cryptographer, and—as leader of the team that broke the Japanese PURPLE code in World War II, co-inventor of the US Army’s best cipher machine, author of the papers that gave the field its mathematical foundations, and coiner of the very term cryptanalysis—he had arguably become the most important code-breaker in modern history.1
At first glance, the photo looks like a standard-issue keepsake of the kind owned by anyone who has served in the military. Yet Friedman found it so significant that he had a second, larger copy framed for the wall of his study. When he looked at the oblong image, taken in Aurora, Illinois, on a winter’s day in 1918, what did Friedman see? He saw seventy-one officers, soon to be sent to the war in France, for whom he had designed a crash course on the theory and practice of cryptology. He saw his younger self at one end of the mysterious group of black-clad civilians seated in the center; and at the other end he saw the formidable figure of George Fabyan, the director of Riverbank Laboratories in nearby Geneva, where Friedman found not just his cryptographic calling but also his wife Elizebeth (flanked here by two other instructors from Riverbank’s Department of Ciphers). And he saw a coded message, hiding in plain sight. As a note on the back of the larger print explains, the image is a cryptogram in which people stand in for letters; and thanks to Friedman’s careful positioning, they spell out the words “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.” (Or rather they almost do: for one thing, they were four people short of the number needed to complete the “R.”)
The photograph was an enduring reminder, then, of Friedman’s favorite axiom—and he was so fond of the phrase that some fifty years later he had it inscribed as the epitaph on his tomb in Arlington National Cemetery.2 It captures a formative moment in a life spent looking for more than meets the eye, and it remained Friedman’s most cherished example of how, using the art and science of codes, it was possible to make anything signify anything.
More at cabinetmagazine via 3qd.
January 15th, 2011
adventure with a purpose
Palaeontologist Paul Sereno talks about his archaeological adventures, dinosaur evolution, the connection between art and science, and more. Great talk!
December 28th, 2010
womby and woman-tired
Shakespeare is known to have introduced a lot of words and meaning to the English language, either by enshrining existing language in his immortal works, or by creating new words. Looking through a glossary of his collected works, I’m enjoying reading about the words he used that faded from use or never caught on…
“Englut”, v. t., to swallow. Othello i,3.
“Elf”, v.t., to entangle hair in so intricate a manner that it is not to be unravelled; supposed to be the work of fairies in the night. King Lear, ii, 3.
“Fire-Drake”, n., a meteor, fiery dragon. Henry VIII v, 4.
“Flap-dragon”, n., a small burning body lighted and put afloat in a glass of liquor, to be swallowed burning. Henry IV ii, 4.
“Frippery” n., an old clothes shop. Tempest, iv, 1.
“Horn-mad” adj, made like a savage bull. Comedy of Errors, ii,1. Merry Wives of Windsor, i,4.
“Woman-tired”, adj., henpecked. Winter’s Tale, ii,8.
“Womby”, adj., hollow. Henry V, ii4.
Just a small selection from Pordes’ The Complete Works of William Shakespeare edited by W. J. Craig.
More information about the “flap-dragon” drinking game at wikipedia.
December 22nd, 2010
masculine women and feminine men
Some great footage from the roaring twenties, including some colour shots towards the end.
Funnies. Source unknown. Impressively staged!
November 21st, 2010
how proust can change your life
Embedding disabled, view on youtube.
The person who dredged up this old BBC documentary and took the trouble of uploading it to youtube in 6 parts is presumably an example of someone upon whose life Proust made an impression. Proustian sentence unintended.
The volume of the videos is pretty low, so this article on how to boost youtube video volume beyond the maximum may come in handy.
October 8th, 2010
the best tea leaves must curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock
From The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura:
It needed the genius of the Tang dynasty to emancipate Tea from its crude state and lead to its final idealization. With Luwuh in the middle of the eighth century we have our first apostle of tea. He was born in an age when Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism were seeking mutual synthesis. The pantheistic symbolism of the time was urging one to mirror the Universal in the Particular. Luwuh, a poet, saw in the Tea-service the same harmony and order which reigned through all things. In his celebrated work, the “Chaking” (The Holy Scripture of Tea) he formulated the Code of Tea. He has since been worshipped as the tutelary god of the Chinese tea merchants.
The “Chaking” consists of three volumes and ten chapters. In the first chapter Luwuh treats of the nature of the tea-plant, in the second of the implements for gathering the leaves, in the third of the selection of the leaves. According to him the best quality of the leaves must have “creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like fine earth newly swept by rain.”
The fourth chapter is devoted to the enumeration and description of the twenty-four members of the tea-equipage, beginning with the tripod brazier and ending with the bamboo cabinet for containing all these utensils. Here we notice Luwuh’s predilection for Taoist symbolism. Also it is interesting to observe in this connection the influence of tea on Chinese ceramics. The Celestial porcelain, as is well known, had its origin in an attempt to reproduce the exquisite shade of jade, resulting, in the Tang dynasty, in the blue glaze of the south, and the white glaze of the north. Luwuh considered the blue as the ideal colour for the tea-cup, as it lent additional greenness to the beverage, whereas the white made it look pinkish and distasteful. It was because he used cake-tea. Later on, when the tea masters of Sung took to the powdered tea, they preferred heavy bowls of blue-black and dark brown. The Mings, with their steeped tea, rejoiced in light ware of white porcelain.
In the fifth chapter Luwuh describes the method of making tea. He eliminates all ingredients except salt. He dwells also on the much-discussed question of the choice of water and the degree of boiling it. According to him, the mountain spring is the best, the river water and the spring water come next in the order of excellence. There are three stages of boiling: the first boil is when the little bubbles like the eye of fishes swim on the surface; the second boil is when the bubbles are like crystal beads rolling in a fountain; the third boil is when the billows surge wildly in the kettle. The Cake-tea is roasted before the fire until it becomes soft like a baby’s arm and is shredded into powder between pieces of fine paper. Salt is put in the first boil, the tea in the second. At the third boil, a dipperful of cold water is poured into the kettle to settle the tea and revive the “youth of the water.” Then the beverage was poured into cups and drunk. O nectar! The filmy leaflet hung like scaly clouds in a serene sky or floated like waterlilies on emerald streams. It was of such a beverage that Lotung, a Tang poet, wrote: “The first cup moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my loneliness, the third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some five thousand volumes of odd ideographs. The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration,—all the wrong of life passes away through my pores. At the fifth cup I am purified; the sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals. The seventh cup—ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of cool wind that rises in my sleeves. Where is Horaisan? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither.”
The book is a poetic guide through the history of tea culture in China and Japan. The fascinating relationship between tea, Taoism, Zenism and Confucianism is explained by Okakura, who is (was) skilled in writing for the Western perspective.
I feel inclined to quote the whole book, but instead I’ll just provide the link to where it resides online at the Gutenberg project. I’m reading the hardback version though — suitably more romantic.
September 29th, 2010
what’s at the end of the aspectral rainbow?
The above video offers some insight into Arnold Schoenberg’s technique for composing what’s now referred to as “atonal” music.
The term “atonality” itself has been controversial. Arnold Schoenberg, whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that “The word ‘atonal’ could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone. . . . [T]o call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis” (Schoenberg 1978, 432)
Atonality at wikipedia.
September 28th, 2010
penny university
Image: Discussing the war in a Paris Café, 1870. Frederick Barnard (1846-1896)
Penny University is a term originating from the eighteenth century coffeehouses in London, England. Instead of paying for drinks, people were charged a penny to enter a coffee house. Once inside, the patron had access to coffee, the company of others, various discussions, pamphlets, bulletins, newspapers, and the latest news and gossip. Reporters called “runners” went around to the coffee houses announcing the latest news, perhaps not too unlike what we might hear on the TV or the radio today.
This environment attracted an eclectic group of people that met and mingled with each other at these coffee houses. In a society that placed such a high importance on class and economic status, the coffee houses were unique because the patrons were people from all levels of society. Anyone who had a penny could come inside. Students from the universities also frequented the coffee houses, sometimes even spending more time at the shops than at school.
Since that time, various coffee shops all over the world have used the name “Penny University”.
The original sense, of a coffee house, probably grew out of a common experience: that you came out of a coffeehouse feeling ten times as smart as you were when you went in (as Montesquieu observed in The Persian Letters). As, indeed, wide-ranging conversations ensued therein, from the commercial (leading to the founding of, in London, Lloyd’s of London, and in New York, the New York Stock Exchange) to the political, and the purely intellectual; the idea that one could acquire an education for the price of a cup of coffee, that is, a penny, took hold of the poetic imagination.
Penny University at Wikipedia. Thanks Alice for the link!
September 19th, 2010
Johnnie Godbolt
The American Library of Congress has an initiative called the Veterans History Project, which interviews American war veterans (WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Korean War, Gulf War, Iraq & Afghanistan), and archives the videos and transcripts for the public.
Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of WW2 veteran Norman Wesley Achen, who is recalling his experience at boot camp:
There had been a Troop Train come in from Texas with 240 Texans on it and they, one guy got sick and they took it, took him off and put him in the hospital, and they said, ‘You’re lucky, you’re going to be with the 239 Texans.’ Most of the Texans and most of us, this was the end of the Depression and Texans particularly and still are very proud of their State. And very, very vocal about it, and they think the rest of us are inferior. And maybe they’re right. And so they rode me mercilessly for maybe six weeks and I had the first bunk in the up, in the upper floor in one of the barracks and so one night about 20 minutes before lights out I lost control, which I shouldn’t have done, but I did, and I got up and I said, ‘okay, you S.O.B.’s, one at a time.’ Down and about the eighth bunk was a guy by the name of Johnnie Godbolt. And Johnnie was very quiet, didn’t say much, you, he, I’d been told he was an All- Z American end from Texas A and M. Johnnie stood about six-one and probably weighed in close to 210. And he slowly uncorked from his bunk and started up the aisle, and I thought, oh boy, you’ve made a major, major mistake. The War may end for you. He came up and spun around next to me and put his hand out and he said, ‘No, two at a time.’ And nobody moved. And Johnnie said, ‘Good-night,’ and walked back to his bunk and laid down. About two weeks, two weeks that the, that the harassment quit, but they didn’t say anything. And about two weeks later a bunch of them cornered me again, seven or eight, and said, ‘can we talk to you.’ And I said, ‘Certainly,’ and I looked around for Johnnie but he wasn’t there. And they said, we, they had had a vote and the 239 voted that I become a Texan. And they presented me with a Texas citizenship and life changed, totally.
Read more of the transcript. And that was just the first transcript I happened upon; you can search the database here.
Posted in Past | No Comments »
September 18th, 2010
rakefingers
Above is a birch letter from the 13th century found at Novgorod, Russia. Wiki:
Birch-bark letter no. 202 contains spelling lessons and drawings made by a boy named Onfim; based on draftsmanship, experts estimate his age as between 6 and 7 at the time.
Birch Bark Document @ Wikipedia
There are thousands more examples from Novgorod, like letter 292, which contains an epigrammatic invocation against lightning.
September 12th, 2010
Bearded Queen Hatshepsut & Co.
Specemins at Kew are still pressed between paper for storage. Photo: Martin Godwin.
History’s first enthusiastic botanist [...] was the bearded Queen Hatshepsut, an Egyptian pharaoh in the 15th century BC. Reliefs from her prosperous reign show ships loaded with ebony and myrrh trees, as well as apes and panther skins taken from a mysterious land called Punt (its identity is still disputed).
The Observer’s Juliette Jowit has an extended article about Kew Gardens Herbarium and the work that has gone on there for centuries. It also puts botany into historical perspective.
Before he succeeded his father as Kew’s director, the young Joseph Hooker wrote from the Himalayas in November 1849 that he and his companion had been “seized, guarded and interrogated with intimidation”.Less ultimately successful was George Ramage who, after sending back a poor selection of plants from the West Indies in the late 1880s, wrote to justify his expenses to Kew’s then director : he pleaded that he had had “neither alcohol nor tobacco… society or amusement,” and luridly described suffering dysentery, malaria and an outbreak of ground itch which made his left ankle swell “to quite twice its size, and at one time a watery serum poured out of it so fast as to form a pool on the floor”.
One of Kew’s current botanists, Martin Cheek, works in west Africa, often following in the steps of another fabled collector, mid-19th century German botanist Gustav Mann. “Quite often people went out there for six weeks and died,” Cheek says. “If you go to the graveyard in Douala [in Cameroon] you see all the graves.”
Today’s collectors use helicopters to reach remote locations and have the benefit of inoculations, repellents and quick-dry clothing. But they still face dysentery and diseases, mosquitos and tsetse flies – perhaps the most dreaded biting insect – while spending weeks living in tents with few comforts. “You come back and say ‘I don’t want to do that again’, and then a few weeks later you do,” says one of Cheek’s colleagues, Marcella Corcoran.
[...]
“When we’re doing an identification,” says [Kew botanist] Martin Cheek, “and using a specimen collected by Gustav Mann, we know they were all by themselves in a forest writing the label, then and there. And 150 years later all their efforts are being preserved and being used now.”
Kew Gardens Herbarium: ‘Plants are not just beautiful. They help us to survive.’
September 8th, 2010
basket and broom
This vendor doesn’t only sell baskets and brooms (箒), but also brushes, sieves (笊), ladles (杓) and more, all piled up high on his cart, called a daihachiguruma (大八車). To protect himself from the elements, he is wearing a broad bamboo hat, known as a bachoukasa (バッチョウ笠). Vendors like him used special calls to make potential customers aware of their arrival.
Photo of a basket and broom seller, Japan 1890s (via Old Photos of Japan).
August 16th, 2010
oat harvest
An arresting scene photographed in the late nineteenth century by Norwegian photographer Axel Theodor Lindahl (wiki).
Unlike many of his contemporary photographers who emphasized the dramatic nature of Norwegian landscapes, Lindahl sought in his composition the harmonious aesthetic of his subject matter.
I found the photo at wikipedia. It’s in the public domain.
August 11th, 2010
Daytona Beach 1904
A Floridian beach view from 1904, thanks to Shorpy. Click the image to enlarge for glorious details.