#pg 1856

[yikes-strikes-again]

YEEEEEEESSSSSS TIM AND BROOK SWEEP

[moonriver0312]

(A Little Life, Part 5, Chapter 2, pg. 602 - Hanya Yanagihara)

Why Schumann?

After some digging on the internet, I have learnt that it is not a coincidence that Hanya chose Schumann's Fantasie in C for this moment, and I believe Jude was playing the first movement in this part. Fantasie in C was composed in 1836 as only a piece called Ruines, expressing his distress at being distant from his beloved Clara, and then it became the first movement of Fantasie. The first movement of the work contains a musical quote from Beethoven's song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved) as a secret love message:

Take, then, these songs, beloved, which I have sung for you

However, this musical quotation was not acknowledged by Schumann. The movement also was prefaced with a quote from Friedrich Schlegel:

Durch alle Töne tönet / Im bunten Erdentraum / Ein leiser Ton gezogen / Für den, der heimlich lauschet.

Resounding through all the notes / In the earth's colorful dream / There sounds a faint long-drawn note / For the one who listens in secret

During this period, Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck was in separation because Clara's father disapproved of their relationship. Those quotations truly reflected his yearning to Clara, his passionate love to her, and it is more beautiful to learn that they communicated mostly through music and journals because Clara did not communicate verbally well. In a letter sent to Clara in 1838, he wrote:

The first movement may well be the most passionate I have ever composed - a deep lament for you.

They got married in 1840 but their marriage was not through an easy path because Schumann was not mentally well.

(Clara and Robert Schumann around 1850. Corbis, via Getty Images)

In August of 1844, he suffered a severe mental and physical breakdown. He was in pains, he trembled, wept, could not sleep and even became so sick that he could not walk across the room by himself. By February of 1854, Schumann insisted to be committed, as he felt that he had lost control of his mind. On 27th February, he attempted suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the Rhine River. He was rescued and taken to the hospital later and remained there until his death on 29th July, 1856. During his confinement, Clara was not allowed to visit him (they communicated thanks to Johannes Brahms, a very good friend of the family, especially Clara) and only able to meet him 2 days before his death.

In Clara's journal on 26th February, 1854 (1 days before his attempt suicide), she wrote:

He was so melancholy that I cannot possibly describe it. When I merely touched him, he said, "Ah Clara, I am not worthy of your love." He said that, he to whom I had always looked up with the greatest, deepest reverence.

The resemblance of Jude and Schumann's mental illness may be one of the reason that Hanya chose this piece for Jude to play after he and Willem got home after their big fight. Jude plays the song with the intention to ease his sadness and fear. In this moment, he feels that this might be the end of their relationship, he is afraid that Willem would leave him because now he finally sees how sick he is. The piece Fantasie symbolizes a yearning for love but in this moment, it is a calling for Willem to stay, to understand, to forgive his action, his sickness.

Sources:

Acreman, Thomas. (2017). The Love Story of Clara Schumann. Retrieved from http://www.classichistory.net/archives/clara-schumann

Wilson, Frances. (2019). A Love Letter in Music Schumann's Fantasie in C, Op. 17. Retrieved from https://interlude.hk/love-letter-music-schumanns-fantasie-c-op-17/

[mdwsp]

In America, the deeply archetypal notion of the town (the Old Norse 'tun'), has been particularly resonant: 'Small Town America', 'Our Town' and 'Main Street' are all coded signifiers of Americanized virtue. However, at other times 'town' can signify a kind of gossipy Peyton Place where individual freedom may be nullified by group mores and neighborhood nosiness. Writing of Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway described it as a place of 'wide lawns and narrow minds'. Several years after Shore made his sunlit picture, another artist, Gregory Crewdson, was repeatedly casting North Adams as a noir municipality where a darker reality waits in the bushes just beyond the white picket fence. Regardless of which view of town is taken, when the town/country duality is made, town is portrayed as the dark urban merchant, evil in comparison to the bright virtues of Nature and rural living. Nothing trumps Nature - it is pure, it is good. Its mythic credentials run deeper than those of any old 'tun'. Because Wilderness has not been touched by the hand of man, it provides a clean slate for the projection of idealized human attributes - or at least it did until the English critic John Ruskin came along in 1856 and referred to the personification of Nature as the 'Pathetic Fallacy’. The town/country or civilization/wild duality takes form in this picture in the contrast between a Rexall Drug store, where the cures for urban ills can be purchased, and the green hills in the distance rising up to a blue sky that does not admit of any ills at all. At the base of the hill is a white building that resembles a small-scale Parthenon. Look carefully and you will see that the second-floor windows of this distant edifice are slightly smaller than those of the first, and that the third story windows are slightly smaller still, so that the eye is tricked into seeing a noble building of classical proportions without receding lines. The explanation for this mini-temple goes back to the 1820s and 1830s, when America fancied itself the modern incarnation of democratic ancient Greece. New England, in particular, embraced this notion. Erudite Boston was regarded as the Athens of America; Lucy Larcom and the Lowell Mill Girls rose before dawn to read Ovid, and Greek revival architecture found its way to the hill country.

[magnetictapedatastorage]

What?

[From ferries to fire island 1856 to 2003 by capt mooney, pg 136]

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 3.20

Beer Birthdays

Benjamin Truman (1699/1700)

Robert Portner (1837)

Frederick August Poth (1840)

Frederick J. Poth (1869)

Lee Chase (1973)

Five Favorite Birthdays

A.J. Jacobs; writer (1968)

Spike Lee; film director (1957)

Marian McPartland; pianist, NPR host (1918)

Fred Rogers; children's television host (1928)

Louis Sachar; writer (1954)

Famous Birthdays

George Caleb Bingham; artist (1811)

Big Bird; Sesame Street muppet

Mookie Blaylock; Atlanta Hawks PG (1967)

John de Lancie; actor (1948)

Larry Elgart; saxophonist (1922)

Ray Goulding; comedian "Bob & Ray" (1922)

Holly Hunter; actor (1958)

William Hurt; actor (1950)

Henrik Ibsen; Norwegian writer (1828)

Kathy Ireland; model, actor (1963)

Michael Jaffe; writer (1970)

Hal Linden; actor (1931)

Jane March; actor (1973)

Ozzie Nelson; actor (1906)

Bobby Orr; Boston Bruins D (1948)

Ovid; Roman writer (43 BCE)

Carl Palmer; rock drummer, "ELP" (1950)

Slim Jim Phantom; rock drummer (1961)

Michael Redgrave; actor (1908)

Jerry Reed; country singer (1937)

Carl Reiner; actor, comedian (1922)

Sviatoslav Richter; pianist (1915)

Theresa Russell; actor (1957)

Sonny Russo; jazz trombonist (1929)

B.F. Skinner; psychologist, behaviorist (1904)

Frederick W. Taylor; industrial engineer (1856)

David Thewlis; actor (1963)

Jimmie Lee Vaughan; rock musician (1951)

[lonestarbattleship]

The first Commanding Officer of USS TEXAS (BB-35) was Captain Albert Weston Grant. In 1913, he took command of TEXAS during her builder's trials. He was her Captain from March 12, 1914 till June 10, 1915 and retired on April 6, 1920, Vice Admiral Grant. He passed away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 30, 1930.

He was born on April 14, 1856 at East Benton, Maine and grew up at Stevens Point, Wisconsin. "He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1873. Until 1913 the law required that Naval Academy graduates serve two years at sea before being commissioned ensign.

Upon graduation in 1877, Graduated Midshipman Grant served his two years in the old Civil War veteran ship USS PENSACOLA (1859) before transferring to USS LACKAWANNA (1862) and receiving his commission in 1879.

He had a long, distinguished career in the Navy, serving in a great many ships before being assigned to TEXAS. His early years as a young naval officer saw the transformation of the United States Navy from the age of wooden-hulled vessels, some still driven by sail, to modern all-steel, steam-powered ships. In fact, Grant later participated personally in the Navy’s modernization efforts by helping to bring electrical power to his venerable old ship Pensacola.

As important as the technological changes that were taking place in the Navy during Grant’s time, and the expansion of the numbers and types of ships in the Navy, was the need to transform the 'mind set' of officers and sailors alike. Naval vessels had always operated as independent entities responsible for carrying out the Navy’s mission at home and abroad. It was now becoming necessary to operate in units, with coordinated movements, to face the potentia threat of other nation’s navies in more complex combat actions than the simple line of ships. The creation of the Naval War College was part of the process of training naval officers in the new strategy and tactics of a modern navy.

Grant was one of the early student naval officers, and when completed the course at the War College he was sent back to sea in USS TRENTON (1876) (operating as part of the Asiatic Fleet), USS RICHMOND (1860) (Asiatic Fleet), USS SARATOGA (1842) (operating as a school ship) and then USS YORKTOWN (PG-1) (operating on the Atlantic Station). The latter two ship names will one day be much more familiar when assigned to aircraft carriers. Following his time in those four vessels, Lt (now full lieutenant) Grant returned to the Navy Yard at Norfolk. It was during this stint that he was part of the team bringing electricity onto Pensacola.

After a three-year posting as an instructor at the Naval Academy, an assignment reserved for the most impressive of young officers, Lt. Grant returned to sea duty, and soon found himself serving on USS MASSACHUSETTS (BB-2), during the Spanish-American War. Aboard Massachusetts, Grant experienced his first naval combat. As part of the initial blockade of Cuba, MASSACHUSETTS shelled Spanish forts and fought with Spanish ships. While missing the actual Battle of Santiago, she fought alongside USS TEXAS (1892) against Reina Mercedes, forcing that Spanish cruiser to ground herself.

That same year, 1898, he was transferred to the gunboat USS MACHIAS (PG-5). MACHIAS also fought in in the Spanish-American War, and at the end of 1899 steamed to Washington to participate in ceremonies honoring American naval hero Admiral George Dewey. While in MACHIAS, Grant was promoted to lieutenant commander, and then sent back to the Naval Academy to resume his role as instructor of future naval officers. Returning to sea in 1902, Lieutenant Commander Grant served in the battleship USS OREGON (BB-3), as Executive Officer (XO) and then was made Captain (CO) of USS FROLIC (1892) in 1903, operating in the Philippines.

In 1904, he returned to the Naval Academy again as an instructor, was promoted to Commander and soon put in charge of the Department of Seamanship. While in that capacity, he wrote the textbook for naval tactics, 'School of the Ship: Prepared for the use of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy', published in 1907 (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1907). His would be the textbook used by many other future captains of battleship TEXAS during their times at the Academy. Soon, the instructor became a student as he left the Academy and took the advanced course at the Naval War College.

Finishing there, Grant was given command of the supply ship USS ARETHUSA (AO-7), one of the support vessels for the upcoming Great White Fleet, sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt to show off the United States Navy.

When that fleet set out on its two-year cruise, Commander Grant was made the fleet Chief of Staff, onboard USS CONNECTICUT (BB-18). During the cruise he was promoted to captain, and then named commander of CONNECTICUT. When the cruise ended in 1910, he returned to shore duty and was made commander of the 4th Naval District and then commander of the Philadelphia Naval Yard. In 1912 he was given command of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, and in 1913 was named supervisor of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Naval Districts before being relieved of those jobs and transferred to the Newport News Shipbuilding Company.

At Newport News, Captain Grant was responsible for overseeing the construction of the Navy’s newest ship, the super-dreadnought TEXAS. TEXAS and her sister ship USS NEW YORK (BB-34) were the new breed of extraordinarily powerful battleships. Supervising her construction was a great honor and responsibility for Grant, taking official command on her launching in 1912 and upon her commissioning in March 1914, he was her first CO. As a TEXAS's 'plank owner' (part of the original crew of a new ship), Captain Grant had to deal with all the inherent problems of sea trials for the ship and training for the crew. One of her massive engines even threw a rod during her speed trials, much to the embarrassment of the contractors, but eventually she was declared sound and complete and handed over to the Navy. In her time, TEXAS represented the height of naval technology and complex machinery and training a new crew was a huge undertaking. For Grant and his crew her shake-down did not last quite as long as they might have hoped. Almost literally before her paint was dry, TEXAS was ordered to Mexico as part of President Woodrow Wilson’s show of force and seizure of Veracruz, April 1914, just a month after commissioning, making her shake-down cruise the journey south for her first assignment.

During TEXAS’ time in Mexican waters, she made a short November return to the United States and her name state where Captain Grant presided over the acceptance by the ship of a beautiful silver service donated by the people of Texas—still on display in the ship’s Officer’s Wardroom—and adoption of the ship’s first mascot, a bear cub named Ursa, December, she returned to the United States and a regular routine of training exercises, repairs and cruising up and down the east coast and into the Caribbean having developed into the efficient and powerful naval vessel she would be for her entire time in the Navy.

In 1915, Grant was promoted to rear admiral, left TEXAS and was made commander of the Submarine Force of the Atlantic Fleet while the United States maintained uneasy neutrality as much of the rest of the world was engulfed in World War I. Once the United States entered the war, Grant’s vast experience made him a great asset to the Navy, and in 1917 he was given the wartime rank of vice admiral and command of Battleship Force One, Atlantic Fleet, earning the Distinguished Service Medal in the process.

After the war, Admiral Grant was made commandant of the Washington Naval Yard and superintendent of the Navy Gun Factory before his retirement in 1920. His last years were spent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his wife Florence. Grant died in 1930, and was buried in Norfolk, Virginia."

-information from Chuck Moore, owner of battleshiptexas.info: link

A Fletcher Class Destroyer was named after him, USS ALBERT W. GRANT (DD-649). She was laid down on December 30, 1942 and was christened by his granddaughter Miss Nell Preston Grant on May 29, 1943. She commissioned on November 24, 1943 and decommissioned on July 16, 1946.

source, source, source, source, source

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command: NH 63406, NH 43579, NH 108650, NH 49907, NH 53960, NH 61686, NH 73318

NARA: 19-N-55226

[ghost-at-the-masquerade]

The Little Things

Rating: PG, for talk of preparing an animal carcass

Count: 1856

Summary: Link has dinner with a stranger out on the road

A/N: Yes, I’m going to make Link use they/them pronouns, no I don’t take criticism on this, don’t @ me

----------------

The smell of blood still wafted toward the camp, from where they had let the deer drain. They started at the collarbone, slicing all the way down to the groin, then up the inside of each of the legs. Someone could always use more leather, so they wanted to keep the hide well intact.

Sitting across from Link on a tree downed long ago, Stemm - a traveling chef, by his own description - started to peel carrots and potatoes. The skins he let fall among the grass, the clean vegetables he dropped into a large stockpot to wait. It was much too soon, but he needed something to do.

When Link went to wipe the sweat from their forehead with the back of their arm, they left a little smear of blood that caught a lock of hair and matted it to their eyebrow. The sight of it had Stemm’s face twisting into the most polite agony he could manage.

The time came to split open its belly and he excused himself to stoke and adjust the fires - meat and organs did better in different temperatures at different times, he said.

Link twisted around to grab another, larger pot to drop the more palatable organs in, and the rest were given back to the earth, that Farore may put them to better use.

Their boots were soiled as they worked to separate the carcass into manageable cuts, the better part of an hour drifting by them as they were engrossed in the work. Every now and again their gaze flicked over to Stemm, tutting around the camp proper. Always seeming to produce more cookware and utensils and little bottles of spices from his pack. He had a rather fine set of glass bottles he kept water in, too - as well as some spirit that stank all to hell. Highly impractical for travel compared to a waterskin, but lovely nonetheless. A pair of the ones filled with water were sitting in a half-rotted bucket with a pilfered ice rod.

They piled the meat onto a spare sheet of leather they had so they could haul it all the few feet to the fire, hefting it over the log with a grunt.

Stemm spared them a smile for all of their work. “Thank you, yes, it’ll be fine there.”

He took the opportunity to go on while they paused to take a breath, “It makes me feel like such a fraud, not doing all my own prep, but butchering is just… such ugly work.”

Link couldn’t help but cock the bloody eyebrow at him. The lock of hair came loose with the movement.

“Don’t look at me like that - it’s not that I had some… pampered upbringing, my parents did their own hunting when I was young. We just moved to a bigger town before it was my time to learn. And if someone has already prepared the meat for you, well…”

They wondered, at times, if people in their previous life had spilled their guts to them like this. Their silence left a lot of room for it.

“I suppose I was so excited to travel and to do it all myself that I didn’t think about what ‘doing it all myself’ would entail.”

Link’s expression softened some. They could sympathize with being in over one’s head.

“… What are you waiting around for? I can handle this part, you wash up.” He shooed them with one hand, pulling the meat toward himself with the other.

They huffed through their nose at his tone, but they didn’t need to be told twice.

-

Twilight’s somber blanket settled over the grass, made the soft sands twinkle as Link stepped into the shallow waters. Going in almost up to their knees, they found a rock to settle on, dipping their arms into the cool river flow and scrubbing the deer’s blood free from their arms and boots. Blood dried on skin is rather like the first layer of paint on raw wood, thin and clinging seamlessly.

Pulling back, droplets on their skin became flecks of gold in the dying light. They reached into a pouch at their hip for a bar of soap and comb. The bar was only about the length of their palm and a third of the width, off-white in color - not unlike honey diluted in milk. They rubbed a conservative lather into their palm; it would be some time before they returned to Hateno for more, but they wanted the copper smell off their hands. They only just remembered the smear on their face before rinsing off.

The comb was simple, a chunk of birch wood carved and left unfinished, but with much thicker teeth than their last one. Hair tie held between their lips, they dipped the comb into the river, closed their eyes and began to run it through their hair. Their ears twitched with every rustle of the trees behind them.

Clean and calmed, they took a deep breath and rose to return to camp.

-

Stemm greeted them heartily, in much higher spirits now that he was in his element. He already had several pounds of meat salted and packed into leather satchels, while another had been cubed for their supper.

Link took their seat at an angle to him, not quite next to him. Stemm was proving to be quite the multi-tasker around the cook pot, moving seamlessly between preserving the meat and prodding the chunk of fat he had rendering out in the bottom of the pot. It had been strung up by a chain, held aloft by three metal rods - an incredibly handy contraption, Link would have to see about finding one.

At each step, Stemm explained how staggering each ingredient’s addition would change their texture and flavor. Link sipped their chilled water and decided to keep their disagreements about what the texture should be to themself; they could deal with mushy onions in their stew for one night.

With everything coming together, he whipped out a smaller wooden spoon, took a taste and pursed his lips, looking up to the sky. “I wish I had a little sweetness to take that edge off, but I’ve just run out…”

Link’s ear twitched with a thought, and they dipped their fingers into another one of their hip pouches. From it they drew a flower, not unlike the Silent Princess, but half the size and without its luminescent qualities. They held it up as a suggestion, “Maybe this?”

“That?” Stemm leaned close to scrutinize the flower, “No, I’m afraid those are quite bitter.”

They shook their head and insisted, “Cousin of the star flower. Breeding out the glow takes out the bitterness.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Usually, yes, but they’ve been moving back that way for a while. Have you been under a rock?”

Rather than argue the point further, they popped the flower in their mouth - only to immediately stick out their tongue and let the mushed petals fall off.

Stemm laughed victoriously. “I told you!”

With their eyes unfocused on the grass, something deep within them wavered, but only momentarily. It was too silly a thing to unsettle them. Even if it was one of the few things they thought they remembered.

“The one thing I was prepared for was finding tasty plants!” He glanced again toward the dying light while digging something out of his bag.

“Don’t know how much you can do by firelight, but here-” He held out a small, leather-bound notebook, “You can copy this.”

It was soft in their hands, telling of its relative youth. The cover crackled quietly as they opened it. The pages detailed a number of edible wild plants native to central Hyrule and Necluda, including flavor profiles and notable lookalikes.

Link set it on their knee so they could sign, “Thank you, but, I don’t have anything to copy to.”

For a moment he seemed surprised. Then he shrugged, a relaxed smile crossing his face. “Keep that one, then. I can make another.”

Their mouth worked and they struggled to make the sign feel sincere enough, “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. It won’t do me much good when I head out to Akkala, anyway.”

With that reassurance they relaxed some, settling in to skim the notes while he finished.

The sun ducked away behind the far trees and its last light vanished, turning the camp into a bright bubble in a dark ocean.

Turned out Stemm was right about it needing a bit of sweet, but it was far from inedible. Link was more than glad to take a second helping. Simple, but warm and filling. He was definitely still wrong about onions, but the potato was good.

Stemm had no stories to tell and his sign wasn’t strong enough to keep up with Link’s, so the night air was left to the crickets, crackling of fire and the tittering of breeze through the grass and leaves. In time, they agreed to part in sleep.

Link settled down into the embrace of a nearby elm. Stemm stayed closer to the fire, with his sizable pack to prop him up. Firelight faded, gave way to the silver grace of the moon, orange glowing embers not unlike the shrines waiting for them in the distance.

——

Link woke at first light. Hummed deep in their throat and stretched, scratched their shoulder against the bark before even bothering to open their eyes. They could already feel the knot that had formed in their hair.

Sitting up, they saw Stemm still asleep, his mouth dangerously open to the sky. They shook their head, starting to fix their hair when they noticed a small line of leaves laid parallel on their thigh - korok mischief. A little smile tugged at the corner of their mouth. They carefully stacked the leaves and tucked them away in a pocket.

It was time to go - their deal was done and a number of important tasks awaited them. Link stood and took a final stretch. But still, they looked over to their companion. He had done them an extra kindness.

Stemm’s rig was still set up - perhaps they could make use of it. Link knelt with a bit of bounce, considering the remnants of the fire.

They reached into the depths of a pouch and grasped the handle of a short sword - though not short enough to keep them from having to bend over at a funny angle to get it out, falling onto their hip. Exposed to the open air, the blade flared to life with eerily silent fire. A bit of tinder, another log and the tip of the blade was all that was needed. A little extra kindness, then they would go.

Three eggs scrambled into fine curds, peppered with fresh herbs and salt flakes, gently folded over on itself with a wooden spoon. A hopefully respectable omelet they set nearby under a korok leaf.

Link put their hands on their hips and regarded a man they would likely not see again, one more time. The Dueling Peaks loomed. The sun crept higher. And strangers parted.

[ao3feed-tododeku]

Focused on You

Focused On You by DaddoRelated

PG:13 (language and ONE inuendo) Short Love story between Todoroki and Midorya No smutt just love ❤

Words: 1856, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Midoriya Izuku, Todoroki Shouto

Relationships: Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto

Additional Tags: Romance, LGBTQ Themes, Falling In Love, Established Relationship, Alternate Universe - Pro Heroes

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867762

[thelittleredheadedmusician]

To Roast or Not to Roast

It’s been a hot sec since I wrote a DC fic but I got an idea about the batkids being asked to participate in a schwanky roast of Bruce and it turned into this! Some light internal angst with a happy ending.  Gen Rating: PG Words: 1856 AO3

Dick frowned down at the invitation. The thick envelope made of paper that cost more than most kids in Gotham paid for their notebooks had fallen out of the pile of bills and magazines and postcards when he’d grabbed his mail. It was heavier than anything else in the stack with the cardstock it contained and slipped right out when he’d grabbed everything. He had carried it as though it were likely to explode at any moment or contained deadly poison or was a carrier of smallpox and living in Blüdhaven and having a return address of Gotham those weren’t wholly out of the realm of possibility.

When he’d finally reached his kitchen Dick dumped the rest on the counter and just held the cream envelope in his hands, studying it with narrowed eyed suspicion that only increased as he read and reread “Gotham City Chamber of Commerce” in the upper left corner.

Finally, Dick opened a drawer, pulling a steak knife from within it and tore through the top of the paper. He slipped the invitation out and carefully read the script.

You are cordially invited to a night honoring Gotham’s great businessman and philanthropist Bruce Wayne

The night will feature a four-course meal and conclude with a roast of our guest of honor.

Please RSVP with the card enclosed.

Dick felt his eyebrows raise as he read the invitation again. A roast. Bruce was getting a roast. Bruce agreed to a roast. Bruce agreed to a roast after Alfred pressuring him into it and making the Chamber of Commerce agree to donate a rather large sum of money was more likely. And running his own investigation to make sure he wouldn’t wind up literally on a spit Dick was sure.

He chuckled and shifted the cards to find the RSVP and hope they hadn’t skimped on return postage when he noticed something odd. There was another piece of paper, nicer still than anything he had in his printer but not the same thick cardstock of the invitation. He unfolded it curiously and frowned as he read.

Dear Mr. Grayson,

We hope that you are well and hope to see you in attendance. We are writing to ask if you might consider being one of our special guest speakers for the night. As Mr. Wayne’s eldest son we thought that you might bring a unique and entertaining perspective to the stage. We have also reached out to Mr. Drake-Wayne and Miss Cain-Wayne and greatly hope the three of you would consider speaking.

We await your reply on the matter.

The Gotham City Chamber of Commerce Lucy Plumber Events Chair

As he finished reading Dick let the paper fall onto the counter. He went to collapse on his couch, fishing his phone out of his pocket. They wanted him to speak at Bruce’s roast. They wanted him to roast Bruce. Not that he couldn’t, he did all the time it was quiet easy after all these years and well brooding in a dark cave while dressed as a bat kind of made you an easy target. The question was did he want to roast Bruce in front of these people?

It was one thing to tease Bruce and make fun of him when they were in their masks because that wasn’t Bruce, that was Batman. Batman deserved it more often than not and had bigger things to worry about than Nightwing making fun of him in front of a gang of would be arsonists. Batman was used to having his protegee complain about him with various members of the Justice League and Titans, most of them had just about as much right to complain.

It was another thing to tease Bruce to his friends and family. They got it. They either grew up with the guy too or had been sidekicks themselves. There was a something that came from growing up in the shadow of heroes and really only people who had done that understood it. So yeah, him and Babs or Tim or Cass ragging on Bruce in the cave was allowed. They’d earned that right. Bitching about him with Wally or Roy or even Jason and Steph – when they were on speaking terms – was allowed too.

Standing up in front of a room full of Gotham’s elite and making fun of the man that, to them, saved Dick? Yeah, no. Ok, yeah he did save Dick that was true but he didn’t need a bunch of rich snobs thinking he was some ungrateful circus brat, he’d dealt with enough of that those first couple years after high school thanks. Besides, they didn’t deserve to hear Dick’s jokes. Not the ones about Bruce. They wouldn’t understand. He didn’t want them to understand. Those were personal.

Besides, what was he going to say? “You know how you grow up and people tell you you’re ‘one of a kind!’ and all? Yeah, Bruce never said that and for proof please let me point to the three others who are apparently just like me and even with changes to the costume some still think we’re a singular person!” Or, “People always tell me ‘you’re so well adjusted!’ and yeah I am for a kid who watched their parents die. For a kid who was raised and trained to fight crime by a man in a Kevlar furry suit? Well the verdict’s still out.”

Dick could just say no, he wouldn’t do it. Hell, Dick should just say no. It just… He didn’t know. It bothered him. Everything about being asked bothered him.

He kept playing with his phone, spinning it around in his hand, as he thought when he finally remembered why he’d gotten it out in the first place. He checked the time as he unlocked it and yup, Tim should definitely be awake by now. He hit the call button, lifted it to his ear, and waited.

“Nnngh. Whu?” Tim’s voice was muffled when he picked up and maybe Dick underestimated how late the kid could sleep in on a weekend.

“Good afternoon Timbers,” he couldn’t keep the tease out of his voice, not that Dick tried.

“’M on the west coast. ‘S still mornin’,” he protested. Dick winced a bit, he hadn’t realized it was a Titans weekend so yeah maybe Tim got some slack.

“Sorry.”

“’S fine. What’s up?”

“Well I was going to ask you about something interesting I got in the mail-”

“If Steph sent you a live bat it you should blame Jason,” Tim interrupted quickly and Dick paused.

“Um. No. What?”

The younger boy sighed and Dick could just see him scrubbing his hand down his face before pushing it back up to push his long hair back. It was a movement he did often and one that often prompted a remark about haircuts from Alfred. “I dunno. Harper got her and Cass really into Les Mis and then she and Jason ran into each other on patrol the other night and he caught her belting out One Day More or something? I really don’t know. She was talking really fast, you know how Steph gets. Anyways, they started talking and Jason told her something about how Victor Hugo sent his fiancée a live bat in the mail and she thought it was hilarious and well we all remember what happened when she found those websites were you could send people glitter and gummy dicks and poop.”

Dick had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. He did remember that, vividly. Tim and Cass both had a fine coating of glitter over their apartments for weeks after that, though with all the pranks and Cass being Cass there was normally glitter coating their apartments. Dick had gotten the gummy dicks sent to him and work and truth be told they’d been pretty good. Bruce had received the elephant poop. At the office. And Tim had seen and told Kon who’d told Clark and then there was an article in The Daily Planet and Bruce had been forced to give an interview to a very amused Viki Vale about the whole thing when she made a very compelling argument about the failings of a Gotham paper not being able to report on Gotham news and the importance of the press and well there’s a reason she and Lois go toe-to-toe on scoops.

“There was no live animals, though that would have been preferable,” Dick admitted once he was sure he wouldn’t burst out laughing if he opened his mouth.

“What did you get then? A dead bat?”

Dick snorted. “No. At least not today. I got an invitation to a roast for Bruce. And to roast Bruce.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Apparently, you did too.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Neither do I,” Dick admitted. “I don’t know what I’d say. I don’t know what I’d want to say.”

“You could say no,” Tim said levelly. “I haven’t even seen it yet but I’m probably going to. Too bad they can’t ask Jason since he’s legally dead and all, he’d love this. Or Barbara. Let her roast him, she’s good at that.”

Dick smiled and shook his head, imagining those two tag-teaming. It wasn’t hard, they did it on the comms some nights and it was some of the most vicious and scathing remarks he’d ever heard. Thankfully, it was rare they were levelled at him. There had been times though and those had been rough.

“I don’t think any of what they’d say is fit for the general public,” he said dryly.

Tim gave a noncommittal hum. “Steph and Harper. They’d just rip into him for being a rich white guy.”

Dick sat up straight. “That’s not a bad idea Tim.”

“What? Have Harper and Steph do it? Um, I still haven’t seen this thing but I’m fairly certain they asked us cause we’re his kids but not like an actual child like Damian.”

“No, I know exactly who it should be. Thanks. Have fun with your friends this weekend, I’ll come to the Manor for dinner sometime this week.”

“Um ok? Bye?”

“Bye!” Dick hung up with a smile.

He pushed himself up over the back of the couch and grabbed the letter off the counter. There was an office number under the signature and while there was a chance she wasn’t in today Dick figured that being Events Chair meant you worked weekends. Besides, it’s not like he couldn’t just leave a message.

She picked up on the second ring and Dick’s smile grew. “Hi Lucy,” he pushed as much charm as he could muster into his voice, “this is Dick Grayson. I just got your invitation to Bruce’s roast and while I’m honored that you invited me to speak I just don’t think I’m the right person for the job. However, I do think I could put you in contact with someone who is. Have you reached out to Bruce’s cousin? Kate Kane? She’s a delight and if her barbs at holidays are anything to go by I think she would be perfect.”

[pilalaguna]

Pila's Antique Saints: Santo Sepulcro

Spain introduced Christianity and several religious images to the Philippines. One was the image of the dead Christ, the Santo Sepulcro (Holy Sepulcher) or Santo Entierro (Holy Burial).It is one of Pila's antique statues lying in state in a glass coffin. It is a popular image in the Philippines during Holy Week and Good Friday, where devotees venerate the image. Each town has its own image.

Pila's Santo Sepulcro was cared for by Carmen Rivera Agra. It is carried on a carroza (carriage) during the Holy Week procession. It is passed down through generations of Pila's families.

Photos by Luis Carillo.

The glass coffin on the carroza (carriage)

The handwritten last will and testament of Don Antonio Hilario de Rivera, April, 1856, on who to pass the statue down to.

The Santo Sepulcro

Additional photos from The Pila Family Archives :

This text was also found in Dr. Luciano P. R. Santiago's book:

"Among the heirlooms Doña Mercedes Lina Rivera, (co-founder of the Philippine Women's University), inherited from her parents (Don Luis Nicolas Rivera y Alava, 1850-1912, mayor of Pila from 1883-1885, and Doña Francisca Rivera y Agra, 1853-1921), she cherised most the image of the dead Christ in a glass casket called Santo Sepulcro. Devoutly, she adorned the image with flowers and embroidered satin every year for the Good Friday procession." (Santiago, Doña Mercedes Lina Rivera, pg 2). Santiago, Luciano P. R. “DOÑA MERCEDES LINA RIVERA (1879-1932): A FILIPINA MAESTRA IN THE COLONIAL TRANSITION.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, vol. 20, no. 1, 1992, pp. 14–23. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/29792072.

[japaneseotakucult]

Analyzing the stylistic characteristics of the scenery depicted in Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Ana M. Poot

Introduction

The anime Ghost in the Shell (1995) has been regarded by Western critics as cyberpunk, which is a subgenre of science fiction featuring dystopian futures where humanity struggles for power against technological forces (Napier, 11; Denison, 20-40). In Japan, this anime is considered part of the mecha genre (short for mechanical), since it combines robotics with high-tech urban settings (Denison, 35). However, Ghost in the Shell is far less action-driven than most Western cyberpunk films or mecha anime, setting its style apart from such genres to a degree. Rather than containing this anime within a specific genre, the following review takes on a broader cultural approach that investigates the aesthetic expressions of the film’s scenery. To understand the unique style of Ghost in the Shell, scenes have been analyzed in connection to traditional and contemporary Japanese culture.

Figure 1. Film Still from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Captured at 33:12.

Figure 2. Film Still from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Captured at 34:31.

Connections between traditional Japanese culture and the scenery of Ghost in the Shell

There are some particular shots in GitS (Ghost in the Shell) that have struck me for their purely aesthetic qualities. No action or dialogue takes place during these scenes, but a multitude of imagery is shown depicting the fictional New Port City in a futuristic vision of Japan. In a slow-paced sequence of long shots, the viewer sees the city through the protagonist’s eyes, as she travels alone on a boat across the canals. There is something distinctively Japanese about the style of the animated scenery depicted, which expresses aspects of traditional Japanese culture.

Firstly, this series of wordless images (Figures 1-6) can be tied to the Japanese expression mono no aware. Despite its origins in classical Japanese literature, the term has been adopted by writers to describe elements found in many Japanese art forms (Meli, 60-63; Napier, 32). The term can be translated as the “sorrow or misery of things” which signifies an awareness of the transitory nature of life, evoking a profound sadness within the spectator (Meli, 60). This concept has mostly been linked to nature, finding its expression in the passing of seasons, water imagery, and cherry blossom (Napier, 31). In GitS, references to mono no aware are expressed through images of urbanscapes in combination with sentimental, Japanesque music (Napier, 32). As the pouring rain submerges the city and its citizens, the protagonist, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is shown observing the world (Figures 1-6). The element of water plays a crucial role in these scenes since it induces a melancholic atmosphere. Rain is also indicative of autumn, which is an important motif in Japanese aesthetics as it symbolizes the season of change. In Figure 4, a broken bicycle is depicted in muddy water, which may further symbolize the impermanence of things, regardless of whether they are organic or artificial. This slow-paced representation of the city allows viewers to become aware of the mutability of life since it captures everyday moments that pass us by incessantly. According to anime author, Napier, this series of images is presented to draw attention to the vulnerability and alienation of humanity (32). And even though Kusanagi is a cyborg, she is mortal, and in these scenes, she appears to be pondering on the meaning of her existence. Although the depicted urbanscapes are visibly dark and gloomy, they evoke a unique kind of beauty associated with the concept of mono no aware, as its aesthetic qualities emerge from a world of sorrow (Meli, 62).

Figure 3. Film Still from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Captured at 34:53.  

Figure 4. Film Still from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Captured at 34:27.

Figure 5. Film Still from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Captured at 34:01.

Secondly, the stylized nature of the animated urbanscapes of GitS brings forths visual codes characteristic of traditional Japanese woodblock prints. According to Napier, the scenery depicted in GitS is reminiscent of woodblock prints by artists such as Hiroshige (32). Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 –1858) was an artist of the Edo period in Japan, who became famous for his ukiyo-e prints depicting landscapes and other scenes from nature. Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) was a popular genre of woodblock printing and painting, produced between the 17th and 19th centuries in Japan (Harris, 9). Ukiyo-e prints portrayed reality in a stylized, simplified manner through the rendering of Japanese figures such as theatre actors and courtesans, as well as scenes from everyday life. The style of ukiyo-e has had an impact on the emerging modern arts of Japan, whose influences can be seen in the development of manga and anime in the latter half of the 20th century (Brenner, 2). This influence can be perceived in GitS’s urbanscapes, for instance in Figure 7, the depiction of diagonally inclined rows of buildings evokes the representation of Hiroshige’s Night View of Saruwaka-machi (Figure 8). Common characteristics between the depicted scenery of GitS and Hiroshige’s prints are the use of aerial perspective, two-dimensional rendering of space, and asymmetrical composition. In both cases, the imagery depicted captures moments from everyday life to highlight the beauty found in our vulnerable world.

Figure 6. Film Still from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Directed by Mamoru Oshii. Captured at 33:25.

Figure 7. Saruwaka-machi yoru no kei (Night View of Saruwaka-machi), Utagawa Hiroshige, 1856. Print. https://woodblock-print.eu/utagawa-hiroshige-saruwaka-machi-yoru-no-kei-night-view-of-saruwaka-machi-detail.html.

Is anime like Ghost in the Shell considered subcultural?

Anime was introduced on a larger scale to the West in the 1990s, but it was initially critiqued by mundane audiences for its controversial tendencies and was associated with subaltern groups (Denison, 3; Napier 5). While a few years ago anime was watched by small subgroups, it is progressively becoming part of global popular culture (Napier, 6). Napier argues that anime belongs to mainstream culture in Japan, while in foreign countries it exists as a subculture (4). Perhaps at the time of its release GitS and other anime were considered subcultural by foreign audiences since they did not fit the standards of dominant Western mass culture. Nonetheless, anime has spread throughout the world on an immense scale, becoming a part of global media production and consumption. GitS, in particular, has become very famous, so despite its distinctively Japanese roots, it can be considered mainstream due to its extensive dissemination.

Conclusion

Anime is increasingly regarded as an art form that builds on the traditional low and high arts of Japan. Although GitS deals with contemporary issues, namely the impact of technology on society and the shifting nature of identity in a rapidly changing world, the pacing, and representation of its scenery evoke aspects of traditional Japanese culture.

Bibliography

Brenner, Robin E. Understanding Manga and Anime. Libraries Unlimited, a Member of the Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.

Denison, Rayna. Anime: a Critical Introduction. Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Groemer, Gerald. “Merchant Japan The Momoyama and Edo (Tokugawa) Periods.” Traditional Japanese Arts and Culture: An Illustrated Sourcebook, edited by Thomas Rimer and Stephen Addiss, University of Hawaii Press, 2006, pp. 137–224. De Gruyter, www-degruyter-com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2443/view/book/9780824874469/10.1515/9780824874469-007.xml.

Harris, Frederick. Ukiyo-e: The Art of the Japanese Print. Tuttle Publishing, 2011. Google Scholar, books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LznRAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=woodblock+print&ots=y5ZBwItBLh&sig=zjLSqbsflVqLDxFXsYdq4Esh7oM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=woodblock%20print&f=false.

Meli, Mark. “Motoori Norinaga’s Hermeneutic of Mono No Aware: The Link between Ideal and Tradition.” Japanese Hermeneutics: Current Debates on Aesthetics and Interpretation, by Michael F. Marra, University of Hawaii Press, 2002, pp. 60–75, www-degruyter-com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2443/view/title/530856.

Napier, Susan J. Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. Updated ed., Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Oshii, Mamoru, director. Ghost in the Shell. Production I.G, 1995.

[kkb385brisbaneopenhouseuniverse]

ALL SAINT’S ANGLICAN CHURCH

All Saints' Church in Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, is the oldest surviving Anglican church in the inner city of Brisbane. It was preceded by St John's Church, but the latter was demolished in 1904. Both were preceded by St Stephen's Catholic Church, which was opened some six years before, and which still stands. Land was granted on 'Windmill Hill' in 1856 for a church to be built where All Saints' now stands. The first church on the site was built to the design of the architect Benjamin Backhouse, and opened on 23 February 1862. The 1862 building was known officially as the Wickham Terrace Episcopalian Church, or as the Wickham Terrace District Church (though unofficially as 'Brisbane Tabernacle'). It was not until 1869 that the parish was designated as All Saints'. (Cox, 2020)

References

Cox, G. (2020). All Saints' Anglican Church, pg. 2.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 3.20

Beer Birthdays

Benjamin Truman (1699/1700)

Robert Portner (1837)

Frederick August Poth (1840)

Frederick J. Poth (1869)

Lee Chase (1973)

Five Favorite Birthdays

A.J. Jacobs; writer (1968)

Spike Lee; film director (1957)

Marian McPartland; pianist, NPR host (1918)

Fred Rogers; children's television host (1928)

Louis Sachar; writer (1954)

Famous Birthdays

George Caleb Bingham; artist (1811)

Big Bird; Sesame Street muppet

Mookie Blaylock; Atlanta Hawks PG (1967)

John de Lancie; actor (1948)

Larry Elgart; saxophonist (1922)

Ray Goulding; comedian "Bob & Ray" (1922)

Holly Hunter; actor (1958)

William Hurt; actor (1950)

Henrik Ibsen; Norwegian writer (1828)

Kathy Ireland; model, actor (1963)

Michael Jaffe; writer (1970)

Hal Linden; actor (1931)

Jane March; actor (1973)

Ozzie Nelson; actor (1906)

Bobby Orr; Boston Bruins D (1948)

Ovid; Roman writer (43 BCE)

Carl Palmer; rock drummer, "ELP" (1950)

Slim Jim Phantom; rock drummer (1961)

Michael Redgrave; actor (1908)

Jerry Reed; country singer (1937)

Carl Reiner; actor, comedian (1922)

Sviatoslav Richter; pianist (1915)

Theresa Russell; actor (1957)

Sonny Russo; jazz trombonist (1929)

B.F. Skinner; psychologist, behaviorist (1904)

Frederick W. Taylor; industrial engineer (1856)

David Thewlis; actor (1963)

Jimmie Lee Vaughan; rock musician (1951)

[engmjr419]

Skipping along the Surface: Exaggeration in the Antebellum Era

Illustrations from a collection of animal fables, The Public and Private lives of Animals from 1877. Source.

       In the early half of the 19th century, the cities were where you wanted to be. An unexpected number of young people were suddenly packing their humble, rural lives and going to the city in hopes of wealth, social life, and to join the tail end of the industrial revolution.

From the moment people set foot in these utopias of stone and iron, the culture around them shifted. These people were no longer in their small towns where everybody knew everybody else (think Huckleberry Finn) instead they were in large cities, with streets full of bustling strangers (who you could never know every single of as more arrived daily). This caused a massive cultural shift in how people interacted with each other (not unlike our technological age), where people feared each other, the unknown, the stranger.

An illustration of a New York Street from the book “Nooks and Crannys of Old New York” (1899). Source

Granted, a fear of strangers has always been present, however there is a stark difference between a single carpetbagger (a lovely word I know) entering your small farming town and an entire street being filled with faces you don’t know. This fear of being unable to discern who can be trusted and who cannot from face alone, caused people to turn to Advice manuals, psuedosciences, and become interested in the externality of the human form with daguerreotype (a form of early photography) galleries, the “art” of Minstrelsy, and what the surface of the form tells. This use of Exaggeration of the human form in the 19th century, from Literature to the pseudoscience of Physiognomy to Minstrelsy, served as the surface of underlining societal fears and beliefs.

The term “Exaggeration” typically simply means, as defined by Merriam – Webster “an act or instance of exaggerating something, overstatement of the truth.” However, I will be asking you to, well, exaggerate the meaning a bit, to include any act twists the truth, draw excessive notice to certain aspects to something, or overall, to make a situation seem comedically unrealistic.

Count Alfred D’Orsay’s 1843 Help Manual on Proper Etiquette, Howe’s 1856 Complete Ball-room Hand Book. Source / Source

        This mass migration of the youth to urban areas caused moralists to worry over how these young middle-class people separated from the “surveillance” of their families, towns, and churches would learn how to “properly” live life. Thus, this issue was solved by dozens of teachers, clergymen, and writers in the 1830s who published numerous manuals for living life, in an endless number of topics, like the ones pictured above. These manuals instructed young readers how to have proper manners, morals, appearance, good habits, along with more specific topics like proper dress, ball room dance, what to eat, when and whom to marry, among all other things (Haltunnen 1).

While some were simple etiquette books other manuals exaggerated the dangers of the city, likely only furthering this fear of strangers. While new arrivals were likely easy targets for what these authors describe as “Confidence Men” who preyed on trust, the descriptions of them and their influence was often fantastical. One manual stated, “The moment the inexperienced youth sets his foot on the sidewalk of the city, he is marked and watched by eyes that he never dreamed of” later on in the same passage, “There is she…who now makes war upon virtue and exults in being a successful recruiting-officer of hell.” (2)

These manuals would use words and phrases like “Seducer” and “Force of Evil” to describe the criminals in the cities, linking them to the devil and hell (as Christianity still held a firm grasp on people). Some even claiming the mere presence of these young people in the city can “corrupt them”:

“Feel as they may, contact with evil it is impossible to avoid. If they walk the streets of the city, or tread the floors of the hall, it is to see the sights, and hear sounds, and be subjected to influences, all of which, gradually and imperceptibly, but surely and permanently, are drawing the lines of deformity on their hearts” (5).

They would twist and exaggerate these conmen into masterful archetypal villains, cloaked in the shadows of the large city buildings. In the antebellum advice literature, the dramatic plot became an “inexperienced young man had just set foot in the city when he is approached by a confidence man seeking to dupe and destroy him” (3). This exaggeration of these conmen simply stood in because of people’s fears about strangers in this era (and their influence), along with the fears people had about being duped and deceptions.

The Norton Critical Edition Cover for The Confidence-Man. Source

      Herman Melville, famously known for Moby Dick, published a satirical book in 1857 about “Confidence Men” simply titled The Confidence-Man, commenting on people’s fears of these conmen and the general fear of “the other” people held. In this book, nearly every character is questionable regarding their motives, personality, and “truth” as it were, with very little description regarding them beyond appearance. Some characters only characteristic is their appearance, like “the man in the gray suit” who is a supposed charity man, making light of how people constantly questioned the people around them on surface level characteristics. The man in the grey suit makes a plea of charity, of confidence, to a rich man after explaining his dream of a “world-wide” charity fueled by the taxation of the entire globe:

"Eight hundred millions! More than that sum is yearly expended by mankind, not only in vanities, but miseries. Consider that bloody spendthrift, War. And are mankind so stupid, so wicked, that, upon the demonstration of these things they will not, amending their ways, devote their superfluities to blessing the world instead of cursing it? Eight hundred millions! They have not to make it, it is theirs already; they have but to direct it from ill to good.” (The Confidence Man, pg. 61)

The expanse and exaggeration of this scheme was obviously a prodding to the audience, as the man repeats the phrase “Eight Hundred Millions” to draw the listener back in time and time again as they get lost in his words. While this man is purposely left grey, he uses the language help manuals specified to “Confidence Man” later in the book egging a woman on by preying on her religion and morals. “"Entire stranger! …Ah, who would be a stranger? In vain, I wander; no one will have confidence in me… No one can befriend me, who has not confidence” He says, stretching a hand out to the woman in true or mock desperation, exaggerating his words so it seems he has no assistance in the world (despite the fact two other people gave money to him earlier in the book) (68). The book allows a fog to be cast over everybody, the conmen might be a singular conman in costumes, multiple conmen, or not conmen at all, it is up for the reader to decide after all.

Leonine specimens: Illustration in Giambattista della Porta’s De humana physiognomia (Naples, 1602). Source

      This fear of strangers pushed people to figure out methods of determining who is “malicious” and “conniving” in the streets. What better place to turn than a pseudoscience entirely focused on outer appearance? Physiognomy is a pseudoscience about determining people’s inner characteristics by their outer appearance. It focuses on how people’s heads, features, and sometimes limbs are shaped, sized, and compared with themselves and each other. It is readily apparent why people in the 19th century readily enveloped this, choosing to exaggerate people’s appearance for the sake of satisfaction.

Physiognomy have roots dating back to 500 BC, where “Aristotle wrote that large-headed people were mean, those with small faces were steadfast, broad faces reflected stupidity, and round faces signaled courage”. In the 1600s, the first book regarding Physiognomy was published by Giambattista della Porta, believed to be the “Father” of the psuedoscience. The above illustration is from that book, comparing humans to animals (that one being a rather odd-looking lion), implying shared personalities. He guessed that humans have a “pure essence”, suggesting “that one could deduce an individual’s character from empirical observation of his physical features” (Waldorf).

Various books were published regarding Physiognomy in the 19th century, including Comparative Physiognomy: or, Resemblances Between Men and Animals in 1852 and Portraits of Patients from Surrey County Asylum in 1855. We can see the fascination of Physiognomy continue into the 1900s with books such as Vaught's Practical Character Reader from 1902, and The Physiognomy of Hands from 1917.

An illustration from Comparative Physiognomy, comparing “Negreos” to the profile of a fish, pg. 171. Source.

     Comparative Physiognomy: or, Resemblances Between Men and Animals thus calls back to the first book of Physiognomy, comparing the human form to that of animals and implying shared traits with an emphasis on nationality. From simply reading the chapter list it becomes obvious there is some racial bias in play (Which comes all too easily to Physiognomy).  Germans, Englishmen, and Prussians are compared to animals representing strength and cunning like lions, bulls, and cats while “Negroes”, Jews, and “Chinamen” are compared to prey and service animals like fishes, goats, and hogs. The book states, “Are not those half-closed, drowsy eyes, as seen in the portrait on the following page, a striking element of Chinese beauty?”  and “The best point in the character of a hog is not a ravenous disposition, but simply a taste for anything and everything—an un-bounded appetite, perfect digestion, and great tendency to grow fat” (Redfield, 167-168).

An illustration from Comparative Physiognomy comparing a portrait of a woman to that of a hog, pg. 167. Source

In the chapter that compares Africans to the fishes along their coast, the author states an interesting argument:

Catching negroes is akin to fishing, and the caught are stowed away on board vessels like cod-fish and whale oil; and were it not that they resemble fishes, and that there is a feeling of this, and a dim perception of it, the business would be perfectly infernal. There is always something to relieve men from the charge of being devils incarnate, and to place them in a position in which their reformation is not to be despaired of  (81).

James W. Redfield, M.D. (the author of this strange fiction) implies, moreover states, that Physiognomy, the exaggerated dehumanization, enables them to conduct the act of slavery without being condemned in the eyes of god. By dehumanizing the people they are enslaving, comparing them to mere fish on a pole, it enables them to characterize the other. By exaggerating the African form, they enable themselves to follow the beliefs they hold, primarily the act of slavery.

It is curious then that Physiognomy manages to survive to our present day, from the stereotype of the “jewish” nose and exaggeration of African Americans lips, to my mother saying my hands are “piano players hands” to people being described as “mousey” to the term “stuck-up” which comes from Physiognomy thinking.

          Various works of the time touched on the topic of Physiognomy either by using the pseudo-science, either seriously or satirically, reversing it as means of discussion, or using it as a means to explore identity. We return to our friend Herman Melville, as he forces the reader to use Physiognomy to decern people, primarily a character called “Black Guinea”. “Black Guinea” is described as “cut down to the stature of a Newfoundland dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured, honest black face rubbing against the upper part of people's thighs” he later is continually being described as having a “Newfoundland-dog face”. This use by Melville is both a racial and Physiognomy comment, as “Black Guinea” is first treated as if he literally were a dog and later he is considered a conmen, a white man in black makeup (Melville, 13-25).

Lydia Maria Child in her older years. Source.

Lydia Maria Child, known for her skills at letter-writing and endeavors for racial justice, fights this pseudoscience by stating the “incongruities” plain in life. Child writes to an unknown, probably nonexistent, recipient about a Scotsman she met:

“A regular Sawney, with tartan plaid and bag-pipe. And where do you guess he most frequently plies his poetic trade? Why, in the slaughter house!...There, if you are curious to witness congruities, you may almost any day see grunting pigs or bleating lambs, with throats cut to the tune of  Highland Mary, or Bonny Doon, or Lochaber No More.”

Alongside this, she talks about a sea captain, “Few have interested me more strongly than an old sea captain, who needed only sir Walter’s education…his familiarity with legendary lore, to make him, too, a poet and romancer” (Child, 58). By revealing these incongruities in life, she breaks this simplicity Physiognomy attempts to create, by showing a Scotsman playing beautifully in a place of slaughter, and a sea captain as a poet, a romancer of the masses (a slight jab at “Confidence  Men” as well).

Walt Whitman, a poet famously attributed as creating the modern poem, also comments on Physiognomy. In his poem Faces he has lines “Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their own finalé (truth)?” and “This face is a dog’s snout sniffling for garbage. Snakes nest in that mouth, I fear the sibilant threat” And later in, a whole stanza criticizing judging people from the surface:

“I saw the face of the most smear’d and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum,

And I knew for my consolation what they knew not,

I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,

The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement,

And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,

And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharm’d,

Every inch as good as myself” (The Portable Walt Whitman, 103-105).

Whitman argues that the exaggeration and focus on the human outer form, does not truly state the complexities a human has reducing them to, as he says, a “smear’d and slobbering idiot”. He says you cannot be content if you simply took people at face value, quite literally in this context.

An advertisement for the Virginia Minstrels, a pioneer minstrel show company from 1843. Source.

       Finally, exaggeration of the human form in this era is blatantly seen in the tradition of Minstrel shows, otherwise called Minstrelsy. Minstrelsy in the basic sense was white men in blackface, performing the enslaved African Americans dances and songs in an exaggerated caricature. Popular performers of this style were Jim Crow and Tom Rice (jokes on African Americans skin color and occupations). Minstrel shows were popular from the early 19th century, reaching its high point in the years 1850 to 1870. The advertisement above is from one of the most popular and pioneer minstrel groups, the Virginia Minstrels (“Minstrel Show”). This tradition typically had the performers exaggerating their lips and nose, performing a form of theatrical physiognomy.

Again, we return to our friend “Black Guinea” from Melville’s Novel, The Confidence-Man. A part of “Black Guinea’s” implied con is that he is accused of being a white man in black face. “He's some white operator, betwisted and painted up for a decoy. He and his friends are all humbugs” states a man with a wooden leg (Melville, 18). Prior to this, “Black Guinea” is acting extremely exaggerated as these minstrels would be, stating he lives “On der floor of der good baker's oven, sar” then reveals that the baker is the sun, and crawling around like a dog as stated previously. Additionally, he performs a popular minstrel act that readers in the era would know,

“Still shuffling among the crowd, now and then he would pause, throwing back his head and, opening his mouth like an elephant for tossed apples at a menagerie; when, making a space before him, people would have a bout at a strange sort of pitch-penny game, the cripple's mouth being at once target and purse, and he hailing each expertly-caught copper with a cracked bravura from his tambourine” (15)

This exaggeration is used to further cloud what “Black Guinea” really is, is he a crippled black man exaggerating his identity for the sake of the white crowd, or is he a white man in black face performing the illusion of blackness in exaggeration? The book never tells for sure.

      Exaggeration in art has, is, and will always be a part of the process. As humans focus on certain aspects, those aspects get enlarged, spotlighted, exaggerated to the point their impossible to ignore. These exaggerations can reveal concerns and beliefs of that society, from the Antebellum help manuals fears of young getting conned, to Melville’s pessimistic satire on way people interacted, to cartoons depicting grown men as cowering children, to comparing humans to fish, to the overtly racist acts of Minstrel shows. These over-the-top, fantastical views of the world reveal to us, in the present, the society’s deepest beliefs and fears of the new age.

It is peculiar then how some of the Antebellum era manages to reflect our own, from the polarized political state, to the discussions of race as unanswered, silenced minorities seek a voice, to the new era of interaction we have over the metaphorical city of the internet.  I may be making yet another exaggeration to add on top of the ones I have already shown. What can I say but, it is just another skipping stone along the surface of our culture.

Works Cited

Child, Lydia Maria. “Letters from New-York”. 1841. Pg. 58.

Halttunen, Karen. “Confidence Men and Painted Women : A Study of Middle Class Culture in America, 1830-1870.” 1982, pg. 1-5.

Melville, Herman. “The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade.” 1857. Pgs. 13-25, 61, 68.

“Minstrel Show”. Encyclopædia Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, September 2nd, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/art/minstrel-show

Redfield, James W. M.D., “Comparative Physiognomy or Resemblances between Men and Animals.” 1852, pgs. 81, 167-168.

Waldorf, Sarah. “Physiognomy, The Beautiful Psuedoscience.” The Iris, October 8th, 2012. https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/physiognomy-the-beautiful-pseudoscience/

Whitman, Walt. “The Portable Walt Whitman.” Edited by Michael Warner, December 30th, 2003. Pgs. 103-105.

[lambert-lambert-antiques]

1856 Pattern Royal Highlander Pioneer’s Sword £400

In 1856 the British Military adopted a new side arm for issue to the engineers, the Pattern 1856 Pioneer’s Sword. The sabre was designed to be a multi-purpose tool, and featured a saw back blade and a long spear point blade. The sword remained in service for nearly 50 years, being withdrawn in 1903.

This sword was originally issued to the Royal Highlanders regiment, also known as the Black Watch. The blade, made by wilkinson comes with full inspection and regimental markings showing its history.

The blade is in excellent condition, with some minor pitting towards the tip. The blade remains unsharpened as originally issued, with the general thought that it was more of a hacking machete, saw and general tool than a true slicing weapon. The scabbard has some minor damage towards the tip, but is in overall excellent condition for its age, and still retains much of its original finish. The sword fits smoothly and completely into the scabbard.

This is an excellent example of this sword form a famous regiment at would benefit any collection

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Lambert.Lambert.Antiques/photos/?tab=album&album_id=375621862888988

£400

[topworldhistory]

Having a single candidate by the time of the convention has been a key stepping stone for a party’s victory. But it hasn't always worked out that way.

For all the pomp and circumstance that once surrounded presidential party conventions, they’re rarely all that dramatic today. In fact, the last time Democrats faced a tight delegate race was in 1980, when Jimmy Carter narrowly edged out Ted Kennedy for the nomination, avoiding a contested convention. And for Republicans, 1976 was the most recent time there was a delegate nail-biter, when Ronald Reagan made a surge—but eventually lost to—Gerald Ford, the incumbent president.

The first Democratic presidential convention dates back to 1832, when Andrew Jackson was named the party’s nominee. The first Republican convention took place in 1856, with Senator John Fremont earning the party nomination (he went on to lose to James Buchanan).

A contested convention takes place when the state primaries and caucuses don’t result in a single candidate earning a majority of delegate votes before the convention. When there’s no clear nominee on the first ballot, that’s when the stuff of political legend—smoky closed-door wheeling and dealing, dark horse candidates brought in—would begin. But no convention has gone past the first ballot since 1952, and by the 1970s, state caucuses and primaries became the norm for both parties, typically resulting in one candidate securing enough delegates to assure the party’s straight-forward nomination at the convention.

History has shown that having a single candidate by the time of the convention is a key stepping stone for a party’s victory. Candidates who win their party’s nomination after multiple ballots at a convention rarely go on to win the presidency, as a survey from the Pew Research Center shows. Here’s a look at four of the most contentious contested conventions in American history.

Democratic National Convention, 1860

The Democratic Convention in session at Charleston, South Carolina, April 23, 1860. This convention was a critical event which led to the start of the American Civil War. 

With slavery dividing the nation, the 1860 Democratic National Convention, held in Charleston, South Carolina saw its members torn in two, and ended with a walk-out from Southern delegates.

A few months later, Southern Democrats met and nominated John C. Breckenridge, a Kentucky Congressman who served as vice president to James Buchanan and believed in secession. Northern Democrats cast their votes for Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, known for the Lincoln-Douglas debates and his sponsorship of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which gave those two states sovereignty in deciding whether to allow slavery.

They faced eventual Republican nominee—and election winner—Abraham Lincoln. The one-term Representative from Illinois secured his party nomination on the third ballot and, in addition to the two split-Democrat candidates, he faced a fourth candidate, Tennessean John Bell, former speaker of the House, who ran on the Constitutional Union Party ticket.

Democratic National Convention, 1924

When Andrew C. Erwin of Georgia arose to address the Democratic Convention at the sixth session, he condemned the Ku Klux Klan and his remarks were drowned in salvos of cheers and applause.

During what was perhaps the most famous contested convention in U.S. history, and certainly the longest, West Virginia Congressman John W. Davis finally secured the party’s nomination after 103 ballots were cast over 17 days in New York.

“On the second day of that debacle, antagonisms had already reached the point where the 13,000 gallery spectators were spitting on the delegates, who were screaming, jeering and waving their fists at one another,” the New York Times reported. “By the time Mr. Davis was nominated, more than 100 delegates had already packed up and gone home, having run out of money, patience, or energy.”

Davis was a dark horse introduced as a compromise after neither New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, an anti-Prohibitionist, or William G. McAdoo, who had the support of the Ku Klux Klan, could wrangle a then-necessary two-thirds majority.

Davis lost the general election resoundingly to Republican President Calvin Coolidge.

Republican National Convention, 1964

Ku Klux Klan members supporting Barry Goldwater's campaign for the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, San Francisco, California, as an African American man pushes signs back.

In a clash of Republican conservatives vs. moderates, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the former, had managed to fend off New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the latter, during primary season. But the senator was still shy of the total delegates needed to clearly clinch the party’s nomination at the San Francisco-held convention on the first ballot.

With support from former President Dwight Eisenhower, as well as failed candidate Rockefeller, a last-minute bid from Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton threw a wrench in Goldwater’s plan to secure the nomination.

Just a month before the convention, Goldwater was one of six Republicans to vote against the Civil Rights Act. A “Stop Goldwater” movement ensued, with moderates throwing their support to Scranton and massive anti-Goldwater protests taking place outside the convention hall.

“The 40,000-person demonstration in San Francisco was the largest protest since the March on Washington,” author and political correspondent John Dickerson writes in Slate. “Signs read, ‘Goldwater for Fuhrer, Freedom Is Dead, Hitler Was Sincere, Too. ‘Goldwater in ’64: Bread and water in ’65; hot water in ’66,’ ‘Vote for Barry, stamp out peace,’ ‘I’d rather have scurvy than Barry–Barry.’ ”

But while he may not have held the popular vote, he held the delegates’ votes and Goldwater ended up wresting the nomination from Scranton with a vote of 883 to 214. He went on to lose the national election to Lyndon Johnson in one of the largest defeats in presidential history.

Democratic National Convention, 1968

1968 Riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (TV-PG; 2:03)

WATCH: 1968 Riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago

Facing a strong challenger in Robert F. Kennedy and continuing Vietnam War protests, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would drop out of the presidential race and not seek reelection. Combined with a year filled with civil unrest and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Kennedy soon after, the stage was set for a contentious Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Following Kennedy’s death, anti-war candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota faced Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who had entered the race following Johnson’s withdrawal, and followed Johnson’s platform on the war. Humphrey, who didn’t participate in any primary races, was given Johnson’s pledged delegates, while Kennedy’s delegates were divided between McCarthy and Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.

READ MORE: 1968 Democratic Convention

Humphrey clinched the nomination on the first ballot, more than doubling the vote over second-place contender McCarthy, but “... the delegates and spectators paid less attention to the proceedings than to television and radio reports of widespread violence in the streets of Chicago, and to stringent security measures within the International Amphitheatre,” according to an Aug. 30, 1968, report in the New York Times.

Outside the convention hall, an estimated 10,000 protesters took to the streets, and a national TV audience watched as anti-war demonstrators clashed with 12,000 Chicago police officers, plus Army forces, members of the Illinois National Guard and Secret Service agents. 

from Stories - HISTORY https://ift.tt/2PoDql1 February 26, 2020 at 10:40PM