Lightning makes no sound until it strikes (Martin Luther King, Jr).
We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now (Martin Luther King, Jr).
Only in the darkness can you see the stars (Martin Luther King, Jr).
No person has the right to rain on your dreams (Martin Luther King, Jr).
Change does not roll in on the wheels on inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle ((Martin Luther King, Jr).
We cannot walk alone (Martin Luther King, Jr).
We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends (Martin Luther King, Jr).
The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just (Martin Luther King, Jr: Why I am opposed to the War in Vietnam).
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will (Mahatma Gandhi).
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever (Mahatma Gandhi).
This is something my sister wrote after visiting the British Library in London during her first semester abroad. I feel at some level we can all relate to what she felt when she saw Shakespeare’s First Folio.
Sometimes in life, you come across things that simply take your breath away. While exploring the British Library earlier this week, I came across the Shakespeare folio, and the magnitude of what I was standing in front of was simply breathtaking. There are only a handful of things that are recognized by people throughout the world, such as Coca Cola, Apple, and Shakespeare.
Every student of Literature, whether it is in English or not, studies Shakespeare at some point in their academic lives. Quite possibly there is a Shakespeare production every single day somewhere in this world. On a daily basis we use phrases such as, “neither here nor there,” “break the ice,” and “refuse to budge an inch,” that are attributed to Shakespeare.
And here, in a case in front of me, was lying Shakespeare’s First Folio – the first edition of the complete works of Shakespeare. As I stood there and stared at the First Folio, my life as a distracted, rushed, grudging high school student of Shakespeare flashed in front of me – along with various versions of Cliff Notes, Spark Notes, and Shakespeare Made Easy.
Looking at this 500 year old folio containing the most important works of literature in the world, I wished I had made more of an effort to read what he wrote, analyzed and understood his quotes, related to his characters, laughed more at Puck’s mischief, cried more at the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and hero worshiped Julius Caesar some more.
Shakespeare and so many generations after him have gone – and yet these books with his words, stories, and characters have survived – and our lives have been enriched because of them. Standing in front of the First Folio – what can be considered the pinnacle of man’s creativity – was truly a humbling experience, one I will always remember and cherish.
During Christmas break, I visited Amsterdam, and the Anne Frank House. So much has been written about Anne Frank, that I wouldn’t know what to add. In one of the display cases, there were Anne’s journals, and a note saying that Anne’s father had told her to write down the beautiful, meaningful sentences or quotes she came across while reading. That registered with me – I too come across beautiful sentences and quotes, and I think every Sunday I will list a minimum of seven that I have come across during the week.
So here is my first list of seven.
Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better. Leave them different (Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming).
There are tales that are older than most countries, tales that have long outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which they were first told(Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming).
I took half a packet of smokes to Geel Piet, who thought all his Christmases had come at once (Bryce Courtenay: The Power of One).
Mankind at its most desperate is often at its best (Bob Geldof).
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world (Anne Frank).
Wie boter op zijn hoofd heft, moet uit de zon blijven (He who has butter on his head should stay out of the sun) (Dutch proverb).
I didn’t always have things, but I had people – I always had people (Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me).
No one is useless in this world, who lightens the burdens of another (Charles Dickens).
I’ve been eating a lot of the Gouda cheese we bought from our trip to Amsterdam over Christmas, and I have to admit it is fast becoming one of my favorite cheeses. Gouda is made from cow’s milk and is instantly recognizable because of its shape, which it gets from the mold in which the cheese is set.
Gouda gets its name from the town of Gouda in Amsterdam. The name, unlike some other cheese names, is not patented, so we can get a Wisconsin Gouda. To get the authentic Dutch Gouda, look for the name Noord-Hollandse Gouda.
One interesting thing to note is that one assumes that if it is named after the town of Gouda, it must be made there. In reality, it is called Gouda not because it is made there, rather because since 1540, Gouda had the sole market rights or a monopoly to sell this cheese in their market square.
Even now, every spring and summer, the cheese market is in full swing every Thursday, where the cheese is weighed and traded in exactly the same way today as it has been for hundreds of years. The cheese wheels are delivered on house cart by farmers to the trading market in front of the town hall. The farmers and traders settle on a price by the clapping of hands known as handjeklap – smacking each other’s hands as they negotiate the price.
Trading market at Gouda (image courtesy: visitholland.com)
Hope you enjoyed this little background on the world’s most popular cheese and where it gets its name.
Earlier this week I learned about another wonderful punctuation mark that seems to have fallen out of use – or I should say never really caught on – Percontation point or the Rhetorical Question mark. It might be used most appropriately in – are you crazy – where clearly the speaker is not expecting a response.
The backward question mark.
In the late 16th century, English printer Henry Denham was concerned that the unsavvy readers of English may not catch on to the fact that the question did not require a response and proposed the use of a backward question mark to indicate a rhetorical question. It didn’t really catch on and it fell out of use completely by the 17th century.
I can see it being quite useful on Twitter where one often doesn’t know whether a response is required or not. It also has found use in art work and tshirts.
As I started thinking about the superstition and fears connected with today, Friday the 13th, I came across the brilliant name for this fear –paraskevidekatriaphobia – now that’s a final round American Bee Spelling word right there!!
Paraskevi – which in Greek means Friday
Dekatria – Greek for thirteen, and
Phobia – fear in English.
The word led me to thinking about other phobias. If you are fearful of number 13 you have Triskaidekaphobia – so Paraskevidekatriaphobia without the Paraskevi.
Sesqui Chocolate Chip Cookies and milk
Ironically, Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words, it’s also called sesquipedalophobia for short!!
Sesqui – Greek for 1.5 – as in I had sesqui chocolate chip cookies and milk for lunch today .
Pedalis – Greek for anything related to feet.
So a fear of words that are a foot and a half long, with hippo and monstrose thrown in for good measure.
Another really useful one is Arachibutyrophobia, which is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth – hmmm…should have saved some of my milk for the arachibutyro instead of finishing it with my sesqui cookie treat.
Arachibutyrophobia – Need Milk?
Arachi – Greek for peanut
Butyro – from the Greek word for Butter
So did the Greeks have peanut butter? And not sure what part of the word means sticking to the roof of your mouth. But an important word nonetheless for when one finds themselves in this sticky situation.
One that I definitely do not have is Turophobia – a fear of cheese – on the contrary I have an absolute love for Parmesan, Gouda, Cheddar, Swiss – but I digress. The Greek word Turi which means cheese, gives this phobia its name.
Ah .. for the love of Gouda, Parmesan, Swiss, & Cheddar
My parents sometimes behave like they have Ephebiphobia – a fear of teenagers though I can’t imagine why.
No Ephebiphobia causing teenagers here
Ephebi – from the Greek word ephebos meaning youth. The word was coined in 1994 – wonder what the teenagers were up to in 1994 to trigger their own phobia.
Here’s one I have for sure – Nomophobia – the fear of being without my phone. The word is a portmanteau of no – mobile phone – and phobia. Maybe this is what Munch was warning us about in The Scream.
Nomophobia – I’m not making it up – actually it was made up during a 2010 UK Post Office Study about the world’s obsession with their cell phones.
What are your favorite phobia words ? Please share them in the comments section.
Happy Birthday to the artist who gave us The Scream
Self-Portrait with Cigarette, 1895
Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu, 1919
Munch’s style changed over time – and in the later painting the influence of Gauguin and Van Gogh is clear from his use of color.
In the late 19th Century there was a flourishing of the arts in Norway – the country’s three shining stars of the era were composer Edvard Grieg, the playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Edvard Munch, the expressionist whose “The Scream” is the second most iconic and well-known painting in the world – second only to the Mona Lisa. Munch’s existential angst expressed in The Scream is of course a complete contrast to the calmness and serenity of the Mona Lisa.
The Sick Child, 1885
Death in the Sickroom, 1895
Illness, Madness and death were the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life.
Munch was born on this day, December 12, 1863 into a family that battled illnesses and mental issues, and much of this was expressed in his painting. His mother and beloved sister both died of tuberculosis, and he was raised by his father who suffered from mental illness. The scars of his childhood carried into his adult life and expressed themselves in his art. The Scream was part of a series known as The Frieze of Life – the other were called Melancholy, Jealousy, Despair, Anxiety, and Death in the Sickroom – all of which gives us an insight into Munch’s state of mind.
Inger, 1892
The Girls on the Bridge, 1901
Munch painted his sister Inger in his first full-length portrait. She stands in isolation between the ethereal blue of the wall and the earthy floor. He painted many versions of the bright and contemplative Girls on the Bridge, which despite its poetic composition is a literal translation of a scene in the town of Aasgaardstrand, Norway.
The Scream is so well-known that the rest on Munch’s incredible body of work mostly seems to get neglected. Munch lived alone and for him his paintings were like his children. He lived in isloation in his estate outside Oslo surrounding himself with his huge body of work. When he died in 1944, authorities found a collection of over 15,000 prints, almost 4500 drawings, and over a 1000 paintings in his estate. One of the largest collections of his works can be found in the National Museum in his hometown Oslo.
English artist Joseph Wright of Derby (1734 – 1797) was the scientist artist, a master of chiaroscoru – of capturing candlelit nocturnal scenes of fascinating science experiments, a master at capturing the varied human reactions to these experiments. At the same time, his paintings tell us he is an enlightened thinker, a philosopher who is questioning the morality of these experiments, the wisdom in tampering with nature, and in interfering with God’s will.
In An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), he captures the essence of childhood wonder, the passions of youth, and the wisdom of age in the motley group of people that that are viewing the experiment. But for the rudimentary scientific experiment, this could be happening today – and the human element of the painting would remain unchanged – which I think is what makes Joseph Wright of Derby’s work so timeless.
A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery (1763 -65), The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus (1771), and The Iron Forge (1772) (clockwise). In addition to showing the artist’s mastery with the use of chiaroscuro or candlelit effect, they stand as a record of the scientific progress being made in the Age of Enlightenment.
Paris at the dawn of the 19th Century was a very different city from the one that closed out the century – a medieval, overcrowded, dark city with narrow streets was transformed into an light and airy city that radiated out of the Arc de Triomphe with wide boulevards flanked by Chestnut trees and beautiful buildings made of white Lutetian limestone and adorned with carvings and wrought iron balconies. The two people responsible for this transformation were Emperor Napoleon III (nephew of the Napoleon) and Georges-Eugene Haussmann.
Emperor Napoleon III & Baron Houssmann
It was a match made in heaven for these two – they gutted the city with little regard for its present or past residents and displaced 350,000 residents and over 6 million graves. And while people complained endlessly about the endless construction and the endless cost – out of all this finally arose the beautiful City of Lights we know today.
Paris before Haussmann
It is to the brilliant Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, that Paris owes much of its beauty. The buildings that line the wide boulevards are called Haussmanns and are one of Paris’s most defining features. Each apartment building was five stories high, with a nonnegotiable uniform exterior façade – its height in proportion to the width of the boulevard. The interiors could vary according to the owner’s preference.
Beautiful Haussmann Apartments in Paris
The ground floor had high ceilings and was for retail stores and offices, the first or mezzanine floor had low ceilings and was for storage for the first floor. The most desirable floor was the second floor or the noble floor, which had beautiful windows and wrought iron balconies. The third and fourth floor had smaller balconies and windows. Each building has a uniform 45-degree mansard roof.
Artist Gustave Caillebotte seemed to love the newly transformed Paris as well!!
Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877) & Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann (1880)
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