Holy Holly

Holly has been associated with spiritual rituals since Roman times.  The type that most people are familiar with is commonly called English or Christmas holly, but its formal name is Ilex aquifolium.  The Romans called it ilex because of the leaves' resemblance to oak (Quercus ilex).

Holly leaves can be bright, shiny green or have edges tinged with white.

Because the holly is an evergreen, it became a symbol early on in every kind of winter celebration for the renewal of life that would occur in spring.  In fact, many of the plants that now play a part in winter holidays and observances were evergreen, such as coniferous trees and mistletoe.

Part of a Tunisian mosaic showing
Dionysus with an evergreen tree.
Image courtesy of www.artehistoria.jcyl.es.

In this capacity of rebirth, holly was associated with Dionysus in ancient Greece, and later with some pagan sun gods.  The ancient Romans used it in their Saturnalia observances, and associated the plant with their god of agriculture and harvest, Saturn.  Early Christians in Rome hung Saturnalian holly to avoid persecution, and later just kept the tradition.

Image courtesy of Photobasket.com.

Druids are said to have hung it to ward off witches and evil spirits.  It was hung on walls, especially near beds to insure sweet dreams.  It was a pagan protection device, most likely because it stood out in the cold winter months when everything else was dormant and gray.  It was considered bad luck to chop a plant down.  The Celts believed in the Holly King, who ruled death and winter, as well as the Oak King, who ruled life and summer.  In the Middle Ages the Holly King and the Ivy Queen were honored, especially in mummers' plays.

Thor's Battle Against the Jötnar, 1872, by Mårten Eskil Winge.

In Norse mythology the holly was associated with Thor and Freya.   Thor used lightning as a weapon, and Freya was in charge of weather.  This led to the practice of hanging holly in one's house to protect against lightning.  Holly trees conduct lightning into the ground better than most trees and with little injury to the tree itself.

In Japan there are several legends that feature holly.  One features a Buddhist monk named Daikoku.  Once when he was attacked by a devil, his companion rat ran off and brought back a holly branch, which devils will not go near.  Thus, similar to European pagans, in rustic areas of Japan there is a tradition to keep devils away by hanging a holly branch on the doors of houses.

An engraved shell cup.

Archaeologists of the American southeast and southwest have found ritual shell cups with holly residue dating to 1,200 BCE.  This speaks of a long tradition of using holly, a type called Ilex vomitoria used to induce vomiting and hallucinations as part of a ritual.  The Cherokee and Creek tribes held it sacred even a century ago.

The smooth-leaved Ilex vomitoria.

The word is thought to have come from the Indo-European qel, which means prickly.  The name "Holly" comes from Old English holegn, related to Old High German hulis.  The French took hulis and called it houx.  It has no connection to the word "holy" despite its use in religious affairs.

While the holly became associated with men, women's counterpart was ivy, hence the Christmas song.  When all the winter traditions were coopted into Christmas, so was the holly plant.  Later it became used in Christian iconography to symbolize the crown of thorns (the sharp leaves), blood of Christ (the red berries), and the innocence of Christ (the white flowers).  There are claims that the tree from which the cross where Christ hung was a holly tree.

Berries...

...and flowers.

Although the prickly leaves are the first image that comes to mind when most people think of holly, there are smooth leaved varieties.  (The smooth ones are associated with women - apparently more dainty.)  The plant can be either a shrub or a tree, and though the popular one that comes to mind is an evergreen, there are deciduous types as well.  The ilex aquifolium is found in Asia, Europe, and North America.  While both male and female plants boost white flowers in the late spring, only the females produce berries.  They depend on pollinators, like bees.  While toxic to humans, the berries are an important food source for birds.

Ilex paraguariensis where Yerba Mate tea comes from.

Unlike the berries, the leaves are used in herbal concoctions to treat dizziness, fever, and hypertension, and are a popular purgative.  The leaves are also a source of caffeine, and the herbal tea Yerba Mate comes from a type of holly.  The type called Ilex Gauyusa has the highest known caffeine content of any plant.  The roots can be used as a diuretic.  The wood from the holly is hard and excellent for carving, sometimes used for walking sticks, chess pieces, and at one time for bagpipes.

Great Highlands bagpipes were often made with Holly wood.

Whatever you celebrate this winter, if you deck the halls with boughs of holly you are keeping a tradition with an ancient and multinational pedigree.

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Unless otherwise noted, images courtesy of Wikipedia.

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Long Before the Internet: The Mundaneum

An institution was opened in 1910, with the lofty goal of collecting all the world's knowledge on 3x5 index cards - then considered "state of the art" for data storage. Called the Mundaneum, it eventually amassed a total of 12 million cards, each classified according to the Universal Decimal Classification system.  This system was the brainchild of two Belgian lawyers - Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine.

Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet.  Image courtesy of www.infoamerica.org.

Paul Otlet is considered one of the fathers of information science, a field once known as (and what he called) documentation.   He devised the Universal Decimal Classification, one of the best examples of faceted classification.  It is based on the Dewey Decimal System, but uses auxiliary signs to indicate special aspects of a subject, and that subject's relationship to other subjects.  It is commonly used in specialist libraries.  It is used for varied media, from film and sound recordings to maps and museum pieces.  A list of the number codes for this system can be found here.  Otlet is also known for promulgating the adoption in Europe of the standard American 3x5 index card, which was used in library catalogs worldwide until replaced by online public access catalogs (OPAC).  He was also influential in developing the ideas of the forerunner of UNESCO, the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation.

Henri La Fontaine.

La Fontaine was the president of the International Peace Bureau, and was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913.  He proposed a world school, university, and parliament.  He also promoted women's rights and suffrage. Together with Otlet he founded the Institut International de Bibliographie, which later became the International Federation for Information and Documentation, or FID.

This and next two images courtesy of the Mundaneum.

Documentation was once a field of study whose name was changed to Information Science.  There are movements seeking to reintroduce documentation as a separate field, as it pertains to storage and retrieval.  The word is well-known in French-speaking countries where there is a difference between libraries and documentation centers, and the personnel employed at both have different educational backgrounds.

The Mundaneum was visualized as the center of a new "world" city.  Otlet dreamed that someday people would access it from their own homes.  Today it is considered a forerunner of the internet, and so his dreams, in a sense, have come true.  In a lecture in 1908, Otlet mused that the most important transformations in the future of the book would not take place in the book itself, but in substitutes for it.  He predicted that wireless technology would affect the most radical change, transmitting sounds and images unlimited by physical location and direction.  At the time he was hopeful about experiments with electromagnetic waves, although the radio and television had not been invented yet. It is in this sense that he can be considered to have "foreseen" the internet, or at least he had mentally conceived of it.

In 1895, Otlet and La Fontaine sought to collect data on every book ever published.  They also decided to amass a collection of magazine and journal articles, photographs, posters, pamphlets, and the like, which were beyond what libraries then collected.  They put this data on the 3x5 index cards.  Once housed in their first building, Otlet established a fee-based research service whereby anyone in the world could snailmail or telegraph a search query.  He got more than 1,500 a year from all over the world.  As the process became unwieldy, he realized that paper would have to be eventually replaced by something better.  He wrote a book, Monde, in 1934 which outlined his vision of a mechanical, collective brain housing all the information in the world readily accessible via a global telecommunications network.  Just as this idea began to form, the Belgian government lost interest in the Mundaneum, the collection was moved to a smaller space, and it eventually closed due to financial struggles.  In 1939, the Nazis destroyed thousands of boxes filled with the index cards, and Otlet died in 1944, most likely discouraged and heartbroken.

Card division of the Library of Congress, circa 1900-1920.

Tim Berner-Lee, acclaimed as the inventor of the World Wide Web, has said he "married" hypertext and the internet.  Although this wasn't foreseen in Otlet's day, both hypertext and the internet were concepts at the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.  Otlet's reigning ability was to conceive of architecture not just for physical structures, but also as a frame for information.  In 1934 he sketched out plans for "electric telescopes" which would allow one to search and browse through interlinked media, send messages, and share files.  He called it a "réseau", which has been translated as "network".  Ex-editor of Wired Kevin Kelly called Otlet's idea "a Steampunk version of hypertext".

Originally the Mundaneum was housed at the Palais du Cinquantenaire, part of the Royal Museums for Art and History, in Brussels.  It closed for good in 1934.  The architect Le Corbusier was to design a project to be constructed in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1929, which was never built but was the cause of a theoretical argument known as The Mundaneum Affair.  Le Corbusier was intrigued enough to want to design an international "city of intellect" around it.

This image and one below of Yale's Sterling Memorial Library.

In 1968, a young graduate student came across the remainder of the original Mundaneum collection while researching Otlet.  He led renewed interest in Otlet, which in turn led to the development of the current Mundaneum, housed in a converted 1930s department store in the city and municipality of Mons, Belgium. Full-time archivists are cataloging the collection.  Although the current Mundaneum has been able to attract funding, it needs to attract more visitors.

Today Otlet and his ideas have been largely forgotten, even in French-speaking countries like his native Belgium.  A man born too early to have his concepts meet the technology they required, it's hard to estimate his influence on today's information accessibility, but clearly he was a visionary.

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Unless otherwise noted, images courtesy of Wikipedia.

For the official Mundaneum site in English, click here.

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Repost: The Making of "Merry"

“If I could work my will…every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding.”  

           

Ebenezer Scrooge

In 1843 Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, and it was around this time that the Christmas traditions that are known and cherished began.  Up until that time people would wish one another “Happy Christmas”, a greeting that Queen Elizabeth seems to prefer today.  But with the publication of Dickens’ book, the word merry began to take up a new meaning of “joyful, jolly, cheerful, and gay” ("gay" has changed in meaning itself), and in some cases intoxicated.  It still had a bit of a bawdy reputation.  All the new Christmas traditions and the use of this word in the instantly popular Dickens cemented the change of meaning for merry.

Prior to Victorian times, the word had less stellar implications.  In Middle English it had wider meaning:  “pleasant-sounding”; “pleasant-tasting”; “fine” weather; “handsome” dress.  In the 14th century, a merry-man was the companion or follower of a knight or outlaw.  (Remember Robin Hood and his Merry Men?)  A merry-bout was slang for an occasion of sexual intercourse circa 1780, or a drinking session (presumably and hopefully ending in intercourse).  Merry-begot meant illegitimate or a bastard in 1785. 

There have been many phrases using merry since the 1300s, when one would make merry (and it still means partying!)  Merry England, which meant more along the lines of prosperous in 1400, is now commonly used mockingly.  The merry month of May in the 1560s meant pleasant.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) was a British poet who wrote a very popular Christmas carol still sung today:

God rest you merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,

Was born upon this day,

To save us all from Satan's power

When we were gone astray.

O tidings of comfort and joy!

For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,

Was born on Christmas Day.

It is important to note the punctuation in this song.  Merry is not an adjective describing gentlemen.  Rather it is wishing for God to allow the gentlemen to be content, as in “rest easy” or “rest assured”.  This is further stressed by the next line, "Let nothing you dismay."

Dickens was referring to the song when he wrote A Christmas Carol, and quotes it, in part, in the book.  Little did he realize he was legitimizing a phrase that would be used over 150 years later.

“I am as merry as a school-boy.  A Merry Christmas to everybody!”    

       

Ebenezer Scrooge

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Note:  This was first posted 12/21/10.

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A New Type(writer) of Art

I know people who prefer typewriters to computers.  There is something satisfying about clicking away on a manual machine, although I'm glad to not have the need for white-out any more.  But Jeremy Mayer is into typewriters in an unusual way - he makes art with them.

Mayer disassembles typewriters and uses the parts to make life-size human figures and other creatures.  The human figures are anatomically correct.  Before using the pieces he categorizes them according to what anatomical parts they remind him of.

He sketches his ideas digitally using Photoshop or a CAD or 3D program. Sometimes he uses live models.  For human figures he starts with the spine and pelvis to insure that the weight of the piece will be supported, just like a live human.

He does not use glue, nor does he solder or weld the parts.  Instead he uses screws, pins, nuts and bolts, and other common devices.  No parts that did not come from a typewriter are used.  It takes him between 400 and 1,400 hours to build a full-size human figure, and about 40 typewriters.

Mayer describes his work as a cross between Da Vinci's drawings and the futuristic ideas of sci-fi writers like Philip K. Dick or William Gibson.  He seems to lean towards steampunk, as well, although that is apparently not his intention.

Whatever his influences, his work is an interesting blend of science/technology and nature.  His interests include molecular engineering and biotechnology.  Of course, sci-fi is not only an interest but has inspired him since he was child intrigued by his mother's manual typewriter.

Recycling and repurposing was also his intent and when he started using typewriters he thought they were becoming obsolete artifacts.  His feelings have changed somewhat as typewriters made a sort of comeback, even though its been for their historical value rather than use.

He strives to make all his sculptures anatomically correct.  To make the penguin sculpture, he went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to study them.  He will alter his sculptures minimally by bending, drilling, and cutting, but not so these adjustments are visible.

The California Bay Area resident finds inspiration in meditating and letting the parts he has accumulated come together in his head.  He seems to have given wide berth to his imagination since he was a boy, and the sculptures he makes are the fruits of that mental wandering.

Since he's proven a tendency to follow his mind and imagination, I expect more good things to come from his creativity.  As he grows and learns more, his art should grow in interesting ways.  An artist to keep an eye on, for sure.

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All images courtesy of the artist - take a look at his website.

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The Food We Love to Hate...and Toss

Image courtesy Getty Images.

There is an urban legend that there is only one fruitcake in the world, but it has been passed around (re-gifted) so many times people think there are multiple.  I once sent out holiday cards that had a recipe for fruitcake on the cover, the ingredients of which included a 100-lb bag of cement, rebar, and a keg of nails.  If I remember correctly, there were pieces of broken glass to stand in for the candied fruits.

This image and the image below courtesy of this site.

Fruitcake is the dessert people love to hate.  A tradition for the winter holidays, it can be found in fine gift shops and catalogs or at your local dollar store. Depending on what type you like, and where you buy it (or what recipe you use to make your own), it can be delicious or it can live up to its loathsome reputation.

This fruitcake is 150 lbs. and measure 5x6'.
Proof that Texas likes big fruitcakes.  ;-)

Fruitcakes were placed in tombs in ancient Egypt.  They were also carried by Roman soldiers on the march.  Crusaders packed them to take on their way to find the Holy Grail.  All these facts attest to their durability, and their reputation for longevity, since ancient times.  This durability is what has earned their reputation as doorstops.

Image courtesy of www.yahoocake.com.

There are basically two types of fruitcake.  The "light" fruitcake is made with light-colored ingredients such as granulated sugar, light corn syrup, pineapples, apricots, and golden raisins.  "Dark" fruitcake is made with darker ingredients such as molasses, brown sugar, dates, dark raisins, and prunes.  They can contain candied fruits or dried fruits, nuts, spices, and often some kind of liquor.  There is a high ratio of fruit and nuts to batter, the batter usually being just enough to hold everything together.

The earliest recipe is from ancient Rome, and lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins mixed into a barley mash.  Preserved fruits, honey, and spices were added in the Middle Ages.  When it was discovered that sugar could preserve fruits in high concentrations, candied fruits became popular.  This also made fruitcakes more affordable.  Fruits would be soaked in progressively greater concentrations of sugar.  This made both the flavors and colors intensified.  The inclusion of nuts caught on in areas where they were grown.  In the 18th century fruitcakes, which had by now included some sort of liquor, were outlawed because of it in Europe, but the law was soon repealed because fruitcake had become a standard teatime fare.

Image courtesy www.farmersmarketonline.com.

What turns most people off is the candied fruits.  Candied citron is made from the peel of that fruit.  Pineapple, cherries, and citrus rind is made by dipping or boiling pieces in heavy syrup and then drying them.  Often they are then rolled in granulated sugar.  The bright green cherries are also a turn-off - the color is unnatural and unappealing.  (I personally have never seen fruitcake on a menu, except as one of the multiple offerings at tea.)

Image courtesy of www.mabelbakes.com.  This was made with 23 ingredients.

The average weight of a fruitcakes is two pounds.  Because of the high density of sugar, mold doesn't develop which accounts for much of its longevity.  The alcohol helps.  Aging is an important element, most bakers agreeing that it should be made at least one month before eating.  Kept in an air-tight tin, and moistened with small amounts of alcohol every few months, fruitcakes are said to last three years.  This allows the flavors to meld.  Since fruits contain tannins, the aging process is similar to wine.  When ready to consume, the fruitcake should be heavy but moist.  In 2003, Jay Leno made fruitcake history by agreeing to taste test a 125-year-old fruitcake brought to the show by Morgan Ford.  The fruitcake was his great-grandmother's, and had been handed down through the generations. Apparently it wasn't lethal.

Gethsemani Farms in Kentucky is widely praised for their fruitcakes.

In Manitou Springs, Colorado, there is an annual Great Fruitcake Toss.  It is held the first Saturday in January.  If you don't have a fruitcake, you can "rent" one for a dollar.  Admission is one non-perishable food item.  Fruitcakes can be hurled, tossed, or launched by a non-fuel device.  There are two weight divisions - two pound and four pound.  Fruitcakes must contain glacéed fruits, nuts, flour, and be edible.

This image and the image below courtesy
Andra DuRee Martin/Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce.

In the past there has been four categories.  Catch the fruitcake is done by teams. Accuracy at hitting targets placed at 75, 125, and 175 feet is another category. The crowd judges the most creative launch, and finally the showmanship/peoples' choice award is judged by costume, slogans, and decorated devices.  The 2012 event will take place on January 14th, from 9:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M. at the Manitou Springs High School track.

Westerners are not alone in the getting-cakes-we-don't-particularly-want category. Asians have mooncakes - thin and tender crusts with a sweet and dense filling, sometimes with whole salted egg yolks inside to symbolize the full moon.  The fillings range from lotus seed paste to sweet bean paste to five kernel (5 types of nuts and seeds mixed with a syrup), depending on the region.  They are very, very sweet, and traditionally not very healthy.  They began in China, but are now found in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  They are traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn festival, an important Chinese festival dedicated to lunar worship and moon watching.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

This year, if and when you receive a fruitcake gift, think of its glorious history.
You can also wonder if the ancients held fruitcake tosses, and if they re-gifted it among themselves as well.  Perhaps the one you receive has an illustrious pedigree.

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For more information on The Great Fruitcake Toss, check this site.

Fruitcake lovers may want to check this site.

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Unsung Heroine of the Polish Ghetto

Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing 

children are not some kind of heroes.  Indeed, that term 

irritates me greatly.  The opposite is true.  I continue to
have pangs of conscience that I did so little.

Irena Sendler in 1942.

Thanks to Steven Spielberg, most people have heard of Oskar Schindler.  Few people have heard of Irene Sendler.  Yet the Polish Catholic social worker helped save some 2,500 Jewish children during WWII.

Image courtesy of this site.

She was born to a physician who died when she was seven from typhus contracted from his patients, many of them Jews that other physicians wouldn't treat.  Jewish community leaders offered to pay for her education; she had close links to the Jewish community and even spoke Yiddish by the age of seven.  In 1935, ghetto benches were introduced in Polish universities - segregated seating in a special section where Jewish students were forced to sit under threat of expulsion.  Sendler was opposed to this and sat with her Jewish friends, and thus was almost expelled. A professor intervened, allowing her to continue with her studies.

Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto.

This early testament to her ethical beliefs was a harbinger to her future endeavors. The Zegota, a codename for the Polish Council to Aid Jews, existed for the express purpose of helping Polish Jews get to safety.  Poland was the only country in occupied Europe to have a dedicated secret organization.  Prior to joining the Zegota, Sendler with a group of other like-minded people created over 3,000 false documents to help Jewish families.  This was an extremely risky undertaking, as Poland had the most severe punishment of all occupied European nations for anyone harboring Jews.  She was selected by the Zegota in 1943 to head the children's section.  Since she was employed by the Social Welfare Department she had a special permit to enter the Warsaw Ghetto to check for signs of typhus. Under this pretext, she and others smuggled babies and small children in ambulances, packages, and even a toolbox.  She also used an old courthouse and sewer pipes as routes to smuggle children out.

1942 poster warning of death for any Pole who aided Jews.

Sendler assured the children that they would be reunited with their relatives when the war was over.  The group hid lists keeping track of everyone they rescued in jars buried in the ground.  She worked with a Catholic orphanage in Warsaw, convents, and parishes to place the children.  She was arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo, who tortured her and sentenced her to death.  She bribed her guards who released her on her way to her execution, but was listed on a public bulletin as one of the executed.  She lived in hiding until the end of the war, but continued aiding Jewish children.  After the war she turned over her lists, but most of the families of the children had been exterminated or were missing.

Image courtesy of this site.

During the Soviet takeover of Poland she was persecuted for being in contact with the Polish government in exile.  She was not allowed to travel abroad by the Polish communist government to Israel to receive the Commander's Cross she was awarded by the Israeli Institute in 1964.  She finally received it in 1984.  She was also honored with the Righteous Among the Nations, a medal awarded by the State of Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust.  In 2003, fellow Pole and rescuer Pope John Paul II send her a personal letter of praise.  That same year she was given the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest civilian honor.  She received many other awards.  She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, but lost to Al Gore for his work on global warming.

Sendler in 2005.

She died in 2008, known and honored by those who were aware of the efforts to save those threatened by the Holocaust, but little known to the world in general. She first came to public awareness in the year 2000, when a group of Kansas schoolgirls wrote a play about her called Life in a Jar.  A documentary was made featuring her last interviews.  It premiered earlier this year on PBs in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day - Irena Sendler, In the Name of Their Mothers.  But to those she saved, and their progeny, she will be loved and remembered always.

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Images, unless otherwise noted, courtesy of Wikipedia.

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