superfluidity

Jul
4th

Sat

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.

— Heinrich Heine

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

— Heinrich Heine

They [those who signed the Declaration of Independence] meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.

— Abraham Lincoln (SW.1.398) on the Declaration of Independence. It is a nice day to celebrate a wordsmith of almost unbelievable power, although I warn people against deliberately ignoring some of the horrid and unfortunate statements that he also made, eg. SW.1.636, 1.637, 1.512. I am reading a terrific book now about the Gettysburg address as oratory (Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America, by Garry Wills), and I am discovering anew the outstanding command of language which Lincoln possessed. He was a master miniturist (as Nietzsche said of Wagner), able to compress huge ideas into small sentences; he could also harness silence and subtlty in his own defense with remarkable control. Anyone interested in writing should study him, and politicians especially.

wtfdude:

Star size comparison.

Jul
1st

Wed

Edward Everett (1794-1865)

Edward Everett was one of America’s foremost Hellenists and orators in the nineteenth century. He was elected to the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, became the Governor of Massachusetts, and then Secretary of State under Millard Fillmore, and was a failed vice-presidential candidate in 1860. He also served at President of Harvard University from 1846-1849.

After graduating from Harvard and preaching from the Brattle Street pulpit, he was invited to a professorship of Greek at Harvard, and allowed to study in Germany first, while receiving full salary. It is claimed that he was the first American to receive a Ph.D., which he took from Göttingen in 1817. Ralph Waldo Emerson studied in his classroom at Harvard, and said of him: “There was an influence on the young from the genius of Everett which was almost comparable to that of Pericles in Athens.”

While he is clearly an interesting figure in American history for many reasons, it strikes me as remarkable that he had a relationship with both presidents Jefferson and Lincoln. He is well-known for his two-hour speech at Gettysburg which preceded Lincoln’s famous address, and corresponded with the president. For Jefferson, he served as a book buyer while in Europe, and corresponded with him also. In one series of letters, when he was 80 years old, Jefferson attempts to argue that Greek did, in fact, possess an ablative case, which was only formally identical to the dative. He finally concedes to Everett, saying, “I acknowledge myself…not an adept in the metaphysical speculations of Grammar. By analyzing too minutely, we often reduce our subject to atoms of which the mind loses its hold.”

Jun
29th

Mon

Somewhere Goethe writes of classical Greece as a magic mirror in which, when living men and women gaze seeking the image of a culture long dead, they see not unreturning ghosts but the half-veiled face of their own destiny.

As people, and as a people, we seem more confused than usual about what is worth cultivating, caring for, and nourishing.

Jun
25th

Thu

i12bent:

Roderick Mead (June 25, 1900 - 1971): Trojan Horse, ca. 1940s-1950s - color engraving, aquatint and soft ground etching on paper (Smithsonian)

“Mead was born in New Jersey in 1900. He studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts and in New York at the Art Students’ League and the Grand Central School of Art with George Luks. Together with a group of other artists he moved to Majorca in 1931; there, he married New Mexico born Jarvis Kerr. Moving to Paris in 1934, they met Stanley William Hayter and Mead began to work at Atelier 17.

In 1939, with the onset of World War II, the Meads left for Carlsbad, New Mexico where he spent the rest of his life. He continued to teach, paint and create prints and maintained a close connection with Atelier 17 in New York.” (Source)

Jun
23rd

Tue

easilyaroused:

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

This reminds me of Greek sculpture.

Jun
22nd

Mon

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal

—

Martin Luther King Jr. (via azspot) (via dalasverdugo)

I love this aspect of his philosophy. “Be the change you wish to see.”

photophobia:

Accident: moved the camera halfway through the exposure, got pissed, swiveled it completely up for the next shot, waved iPhone in front of lens to get it to hurry up and expose and close, etc. (Larger).

If not the most devestating of events, accidents are often the most beautiful things. I think my life would be less appealing if things had always gone according to plan.

Jun
18th

Thu

Are you interested in beauty, or just its representation?

Jun
9th

Tue

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

rd67:

Ali Farka Toure - Ali Aoudy [6:33]

Ali Ibrahim “Farka” Touré (October 31, 1939 – March 7, 2006) was a Malian singer and guitarist, and one of the African continent’s most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues. The belief that the latter is historically derived from the former is reflected in Martin Scorsese’s often quoted characterization of Touré’s tradition as constituting “the DNA of the blues”. Touré was ranked number 76 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

| Wikipedia | Amazon | last.fm |

Jun
6th

Sat

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jun
4th

Thu

In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles.

pica:

Sorry, not true. The “testes” root in “testify” is a false cognate.

“Testify” really comes from the Latin “testes,” meaning “witness.” The Latin word for “balls” is “colei.”

(original “fact” via onemoretimewithfeeling)

Pica is right, “testis” (m. or f.) is used of a witness, and probably comes from a combination of roots meaning “three” and “stand,” as in, “a third party standing beside.”

But “testis” only in the masc. gender can mean “testicle” in Latin as well, and there has been no satisfactory explanation for the relationship.