Scribal Terror

Global warming on Mars

The Times reports:

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature.

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

The Earthquake and the Earthquake Synod (1382)

Geology Shop provides some interesting details of an earthquake that struck England on May 21, 1382, and made its way into the history books by an unusual coincidence:

Various contemporary chronicles reported effects in England, such as severe shaking of trees, houses, churches, towers and castles, and panic among the population. The accounts of the archdiocese of Canterbury and papers attributed to Archbishop Courtenay describe the repairs needed after the earthquake. Significant damage was caused to St Augustine's Abbey and to Christ Church (collapse of the belfry, damage to the presbytery, priory and cloister). All Saints, to the west of Canterbury, needed repairs to the choir and strengthening to the (up to 1 metre thick) walls. The treasury accounts of the manors of Hollingbourne and Loose similarly record the costs for various repairs. At Saltwood a prisoner was able to escape in the confusion caused by the earthquake.

In London a sitting of Parliament and a trial of heretics at Blackheath were interrupted by the earthquake. Damage to St Paul's Cathedral, repaired in 1387, was attributed mainly to the 'terrible earthquake'.

The "trial of heretics" was actually a synod, later known as the Earthquake Synod, which had been convened to determine which of John Wycliffe's teachings were to be condemned. Archbishop of Canterbury William Courtnay presided:

About 2 p.m., just as the synod had reached the point of declaring which of the 24 articles were heresies, their meeting place shook. Screams from town showed that London was in a panic. An earthquake had struck! The center of the quake was nearby. Steeples toppled, buildings fell down, and large waves rolled up the Thames River, overturning ships. The bell tower of Canterbury Cathedral tumbled down.

The terrified clergymen fled the building. Their consciences told them that the earthquake was a warning from God. But Archbishop Courtnay ordered them back to their seats. The earthquake was a natural phenomenon, he assured them, the result of noxious vapors--vapors which would lose their force once they burst out of the earth. (This is what Aristotle taught.) Wycliffe's teachings were similar vapors, he said. Expel them from the church and its convulsions also would end. The council accepted Courtnay's ; explanation and condemned ten of Wycliffe's teachings as heresy and said fourteen others were at least doubtful.

Wycliffe's followers and the common people, however, insisted the earthquake came from God as a judgment on the council. "They may have condemned Wycliffe," they said, "but God has condemned them!" The council became known as the "Earthquake Synod."

Note: some sources date this earthquake as May 19 rather than 21. The illustration depicts Wycliffe commissioning his preachers, called the Lollards.

Earthquake in Kent

A 4.3 tremor struck the town of Folkestone in Kent UK yesterday. Only one injury was reported. Apparently, this is not as unusual an occurrence as I had thought at first. The BBC reports:

"This is by no means a complete surprise," [British Geological Survey (BGS) seismologist Roger Musson] said. "There have been earthquakes in this location before.

"Two of them have been some of the biggest earthquakes ever to affect Britain.

"The first was in 1382 and in 1580 a quake with a magnitude of about six killed two people in London.

"There were also smaller tremors in 1776 and 1950 in the area, which were in the "low fours" and on a similar scale to the one today."

I'm going to look into contemporary accounts of the 1382, 1580, and 1776 quakes to see what the people of the time thought of them.

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

Reflection Locust Eater

A Worn Corduroy Kind of Life

I was traveling back to New Jersey from the New York City area late this evening, and as I came across the George Washington Bridge, along route 95 and then 80, it struck me that somehow this bit of road was a bit like a worn old pair of corduroys.

Worn smooth in some places, patched in others;

Comfortably out of style, with its pink and green Marcal Paper Products sign, and its cylindrical Holiday Inn.

And comfortable in how many times it has taken me home, along with thousands and millions of others, rolling home, year after year, to lives that changed radically over time.

As if to rub it in, the radio started playing Chuck Mangione’s “Give it All you Got” from, what was it? 1970-something. Remember those Olympics? Lake Placid? Long time ago now.

My life is like that. Patched, worn smooth in places. Holes in it where it doesn’t really work right anymore, where you can see layers of something that came before underneath. Funny, half-remembered bits and preserved things that don't really make sense anymore patched in or poking through.

Probably your life is like this too, and if it isn’t, it probably will be.

That is one of the wonderful things about life though, like corduroys and asphalt, it takes patching well, and can take you to places you never imagined, while staying kind of plain and ordinary every step of the way. May you all, when you look at your life, see it as less worn out, and more worn in, broken in, and comfortable, and may you find many friends and angels among your fellow travelers, friends who appreciate a comfortable old corduroy kind of a life.

Poem Michael Healey

perfection
is built on imperfection,
reality
is built on a dream.
hope
resides in all that can be,
love
is built on all three.

The San Francisco wave organ

 

The Wave Organ is a wave-activated acoustic sculpture located on a jetty in the San Francisco Bay. The concept was developed by Peter Richards and was installed in collaboration with sculptor and master stone mason George Gonzales. . . .

The Wave Organ is located on a jetty that forms the small Boat Harbor in the Marina district of San Francisco, walking distance from the Exploratorium. The jetty itself was constructed with material taken from a demolished cemetery, providing a wonderful assortment of carved granite and marble, which was used in the construction of this piece. The installation includes 25 organ pipes made of PVC and concrete located at various elevations within the site, allowing for the rise and fall of the tides. Sound is created by the impact of waves against the pipe ends and the subsequent movement of the water in and out of the pipes. The sound heard at the site is subtle, requiring visitors to become sensitized to its music, and at the same time to the music of the environment.

It seems to differ from the Sea Organ in Croatia in that it is not a tuned instrument. It projects natural sounds rather than playing chords.

My favorite part of Hamlet

From the end of Act 3, scene ii

ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you
do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if
you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET
Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ
How can that be, when you have the voice of the king
himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAMLET
Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb*
is something musty.

Re-enter Players with recorders

O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
you:--why do you go about to recover** the wind of me,
as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly.

HAMLET
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN
My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET
I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN
Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET
I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET
'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN
But these cannot I command to any utterance of
harmony; I have not the skill.

HAMLET
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
cannot play upon me.

____________

*“The remainder of this old proverb is preserved in Whetstone’s Promos and Cassandra, 1578: ‘Whylst grass doth growe, oft sterves the seely steede.’ Hamlet means to intimate, that whilst he is waiting for the succession to the throne of Denmark, he may himself be taken off by death.”

** recouer the wind] Hudson (ed. 1856): “‘To recover the wind of me’ is a term borrowed from hunting, and means, to take advantage of the animal pursued, by getting to the windward of it, that it may not scent its pursuers. ‘Observe how the wind is, that you may set the net so as the hare and wind may come together; if the wind be sideways it may do well enough, but never if it blow over the net into the hare’s face, for he will scent both it and you at a distance.’—Gentleman’s Recreation.” . . . .

In other words, "Why do you go about, in such an underhand manner, to sift my thoughts, or lay stratagems to drive me into a toil? The idea is taken from a trap to catch wild beasts.”

Why are you still sitting around in your jammies on a Saturday morning . . .

. . . when you could be doing something productive like the Peruvian scissors dance? Via Cellar