Today I learned that in 1831, French satirical artist Charles Philipon “published a drawing of the king’s head, metamorphosing in four stages to a rotting poire (pear-head), also French slang for ‘fool’ or ‘simpleton.’ Philipon was hauled into court and, as legend has it, avoided prison by demonstrating the resemblance—of king to pear—to the jury, by means of sketching and (very likely) verbal panache. He was acquitted of the charge of defamation.”
That’s a win!
Today I also learned that Standard Oil founders John D Rockefeller and William Rockefeller Jr. were sons of snake oil salesman William A Rockefeller Sr. aka Dr. Bill Levingston.
Today I learned that Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the flight that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens in 1959.
You know, people say that things move faster nowadays, but Napoleon’s empire only existed for ten years.
Today I learned about…Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.
-Epictetus
This list of terms of venery (the collective name for a group of animals) is often pleasantly alliterative and even quite poetic at times.
On this day in 1859, Joshua A. Norton of San Francisco proclaimed himself Norton I, Emporer of the United States. Where have all our visionary madmen gone? They’re still here, but, in our insecurity, we ignore them (or banish them), and elevate the facile instead.
On this day in 1914, the last known passenger pigeon, Martha, died in Cincinnati.
In architecture, critical activity has always been connected with the concept of utopia; utopia is not an alternative model: it puts forward unresolved problems (not ‘problem solving’ but ‘problem finding’). We could say that the original motive of utopia is hope. Utopia is the true preparation for projecting, as play is preparation of life. The revolutionary charge of utopia, the hope which is at its foundation and the criticism which is its direct consequence, bring back its dignity as a rational, ordering activity.
Let’s talk about utopias again. Rest in peace, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia
Wherever God erects a house of prayer / the Devil always builds a chapel there; / And ’t will be found, upon examination, / the latter has the largest congregation.
– Daniel Defoe, “The True-Born Englishman,” 1701
Whoever we are, we’re always moving along our own routes, finding ourselves in foreign lands, reaching beyond the curtains of our own experience; everyone we meet along the way remains in our memory, their every word and every touch.
-Serhiy Zhadan, Voroshilovgrad
- The energy of the universe is constant.
Rudolf Clausius, Concerning Several Conveniently Applicable Forms for the Main Equations of the Mechanical Heat Theory, 1865.
Today I learned about the Hayflick Limit: the number of times a human cell can undergo mitosis before its genetic telomeres disappear, causing the cell population to cease reproducing. Critically, cancer cells are able to extend their telomeres , reproducing forever.
History is the vast store of human conciousness adrift in the gulf of time, the present living in the past and the past living in the present…what survives the wreck of time is the force of imagination and the power of expression.
Lewis Lapham, The Art of Editing No. 4, the Paris Review, Issue 229
Switch ‘the’ to ‘a’ and the world changes.
Today I learned about Poles of Inaccessibility.
Today I learned that on this day in 1570, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, considered the first true modern atlas, was published by Abraham Otelius.
You weren’t educated, you were trained.
Alejandro Zambra, Multiple Choice (it’s a beautiful, fascinating, heartbreaking little book BTW)
Using in one tongue the word for a thing in the other makes the attributes of both reasound: if you say Give me fire when they say Give me a light, what is not to learn about fire, light and the act of giving? It’s not another way of saying things: these are new things.
Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World
Don’t take any guff from these swine
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(Profanity redacted)
And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made, and the sign flashed out its warning in the words that it was forming, and the sign said: “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sound of silence.”
Paul Simon
Today I learned about…The McGurk Effect, a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception.
Today I learned about…Allison Guyat. I should have been a geologist. Or an oceanographer. Or