Lascaux

It's Visual Arts Day and we have a little info on the Lascaux Cave Paintings near Montignac in France, some of the earliest works of art known to man.

I should think every Visual Arts Day entry should have a Visual Art included ... the editors of the book evidently didn't think that way; there is not even a drawing of a bull or a horn or a spear or even a dot. So I will try to include a little extra on each of my VAD submissions.

Today I am sharing Bartleby. If I had been an artist 15,000 years ago, this is most likely who I'd have drawn on the walls of the caves. Bartleby is mine. I sketched him. Pride of ownership.

But most of us have Bartleby within us, looking out at the world bewildered by the hurtful ways of man, by the harsh forces of an unforgiving nature, by the almighty and unknowable God who gives and takes with a seemingly random hand.

I'm sure Bartleby will show up again. Unless he, you know, prefers not to.

As to the cave, what excitement there must have been upon its' discovery! Exploring each room, deciphering each drawing, admiring primitive man's artwork and perspective, the one thing on everybody's mind had to have been: so much money to be made!

Guided tours; books and art reproductions; T-shirts; Mel Brooks immediately began making plans for a movie. (Parent Advisory: Video is R Rated. And yes, I know, it's "North America" 2 million years ago ... I only even brought it up because, well, it's Mel Brooks!)

I'm not sure who exactly benefits financially directly from the cave; highly unlikely that it's the boys who actually found it. I'm sure it's a governmental thang ... the official website is run by the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

But there were some serious problems due to the popularity of the cave. The book didn't provide details so I did a little investigating.

With all of the heat, humidity and carbon dioxide emitted by the thousands of visitors every day, the cave became quite ill. There was damage caused by condensation.

Then the cave caught both “green leprosy”, a spreading algae carried in on tourists' shoes, and “white disease”, calcite crystals (from the carbon dioxide) that covered the drawings.

Sure would have hated to clean up after all of that. I can't even bear the messes that the kids make. And as I've gotten older, I've become a whole lot less tolerant. Maybe it's because they are older and my expectations have naturally evolved.

Fortunately for me, my kids are responsible and take care of themselves, so they don't (often) hear FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND RIGHT PICK UP YER OWN FISH-CLOTTED MESSES! I AM NOT THE FLIPPIN SLAVE!

I'm sure I'd have been peevish had I been keeper-of-the-cave. WIPE YER FUSTULOUS* FUZZY GREEN PAWS! PICK UP AFTER YERSELVES, YA REEKING FOOLBORN MEASLES! I SAID ONE AT A TIME, YA BEDEAFENED SHEEP SQUALLERS! AND STOP WITH YER VAPOURS!

They've restored the original cave which is now accessible to only a handful every week. Hard to keep those molds at bay though. I've just read that there's some more fungal activity that they're doing battle against this year ... reminiscent of a demented stalker-boyfriend that just will not leave you alone ...

They have created a duplicate cave - even copied the texture of the rocks - which is open to the public. Modern technology is amazing. Rock and ancient art reproduction.

The best technological feature of The Intellectual Devotional:
The attached ribbon bookmark. There is no picture of it on Amazon. There is no picture of it here, either, which really surprised me. But! It's so shiiiiiny and smoooooth and greeeeen and not even frayed.

And I've been wondering, is there a special name (aside from the obvious) for such an important, attractive and utilitarian object?

After a quick search, I came upon this.
***

Date: 9/12/2004
Subject: ribbon bookmark

Question
What is the word that names a ribbon bookmark that is sewn into the binding of a book?

According to Jane Greenfield, the authority on book nomenclature, a "bookmark" is a ribbon or cord or strip of leather which is attached to a book and is used to mark one's place. It is also called a marker, register, signet, or finding ribbon.
In common usage, it may simply be laid in the book, rather than attached to it.
Thanks for asking. I learned a bit, also.
Rupert

***

I like signet. It sounds ... oppulent. And it sounds like cygnet, which happen to be young oppulent birds.

Now I'm off – must learn more about Jane Greenfield.

Glory! She wrote a book with Nicholas Basbanes – well, he wrote the foreword. *swoon*

And she wrote a book called Headbands, How to Work Them with Jenny Hille that is about ... ready? ... the attached ribbon bookmark, which is called a Headband! Why was that not mentioned in the above response? * putting on my Bartleby face *

BONUSES:Shakespeare Insult Generator 1
Shakespeare Insult Generator 2
Shakespeare Insult Kit

* fustulous: [fuhs-chuh-luhs] adj. fistulous + pustulous
(A Libraritarian word. Other incidences you may find were typographical errors and purely accidental. I'm sure.)

Ulysses

I haven't read Ulysses.

I haven't read The Odyssey either, although I do own a lovely copy of it. Same with The Iliad. Sad, isn't it. How did I get through Mrs. V's literature class without it! I also have Joyce's Dubliners. One day I'll crack that open, too. When I run out of books to borrow from our library. Until then I'll simply revel in the pleasures of ownership.

What I found most interesting about the article on Ulysses was that James Joyce explores the minutae of his characters' thoughts and actions. I like that. What made him think anyone would care what his characters' every little thoughts were. And care enough to spend (quite a long little bit of) their time reading them. And from there, discussing them. I mean, how did he know me?

I recently saw a postcard on the PostSecret website, or maybe it was in their latest book, A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book, someone confessed that they would like to have their life narrated, just like Dexter does. YoungBlood and I both are semi-obsessed with Dexter. I've always liked the books, and am impatient for Jeff Lindsay's next one. YoungBlood and I watch the shows together. I tell him how they differ from the books. I don't think he really cares, but for some reason it seems important (to me) that he understand where the character came from, and what the author is doing with him (or allowing him to do).

But the shows, yeah, we get to hear everything that Dexter is thinking ... which can be REALLY creepy. And it's great! Being not quite “right”, he has to study what people do so he knows how to “act” human, so there's a lot of him-in-his-head wondering and figuring out why people do the things they do which of course is just right up my alley, honey.

And aren't you reminded of Truman?




His entire life was narrated, every motion a voyeur's gratification, viewed, celebrated, mourned and discussed by millions, accompanied by a soundtrack, and oh the flashbacks! Definitely have to give some consideration to what would be included on the soundtrack of my life:

My life. Not a lot to look at here, except pretty faces ... kinda sad ...

Back to the Subject: evidently the last chapter of Ulysses contains only 8 sentences. Looooonnnggg ones. I'm a sucker for run-ons. Especially if it's amusing. Especially if I'm not reading it, but writing it myself. Here's an example, a note that I wrote to our computer tech at work when she wrote a note mentioning the quality of her own run-on sentence:

“Well now, I reckon I'd give it a B- as it really did have nice form and certainly was a good starting-point for a Grade A+ run-on sentence and yet it didn't have the length and breadth, full expansion if you will, that is the hallmark of the Grade A+ which ought to, ideally, include an aside or two -- as taught to me by my high school English teacher Mrs. V who does and always will inhabit a special place in my obsessive-compulsive grammatical heart -- and yet never truly veer far from the subject at hand, which in this case is of course the run-on sentence itself, and to truly achieve greatness please keep in mind the length of the sentence which should run on no less than any self-respecting paragraph, but there's no reason to get ridiculous about it, as the occasional published writer is apt to do, and write entire pages with nary a period in sight. Boring.”

OK, it really didn't even need the dashes and commas, and it's probably not as long as James Joyce's, but it's still longer than the norm, and it very much amused me to write it.

As to our lesson, I have been inspired to read Ulysses on my laptop, from Gutenberg. When I get to the end, and to that last chapter, I will most likely focus less on the content, Molly Bloom's thoughts, and more on the likelihood of Joyce's escalating feeling of amusement as he pushed ahead with word after word after word ...

The anticipation!

The Alphabet

In brief, today's lesson tells us that our present-day alphabet is in large part available to us due to the Egyptian slaves. Not that the slaves created the alphabet ... but the pharoahs had a tough time communicating with the overseers using thousands of little word pictures. Hence their system was greatly simplified, using pix to represent sounds instead of individual words.

Of course there has been much fine-tuning and branching and various variations along the way, but our present Roman alphabet seems to be working pretty well for us now.

Not all alphabets are learned in any sort of order as ours is, which, to me, seems a shirty dame. Just think of all of the darling alphabet books we wouldn't have were ours not an ordered alphabet. One of the best known is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Falling out of the tree and getting all mixed and banged up just wouldn't have the same charm if the letters were already scrambled to begin with.

The Icky Bug Alphabet Book has probably done as much to get young boys reading as any other book.

Personally I like H is for Hoosier: An Indiana Alphabet from the Discover America Alphabet Series.

And of course there's our familiar alphabet song, which I sing every time I have to restart a computer, giving it time to reset whatever the heck is wrong with it this time.

And there's Perry Como's romantic alphabet song:

And remember poor confused Big Bird, finding that marvelously long yet pronounceable word on Sesame Street – He just didn't know what it meant! His alphabet song is unforgettable... Look it up on YouTube:



I enjoy our alphabet. I enjoy words, written and spoken. I enjoy books. I used to read dictionaries for fun when I was a child. OK, I still do. I've always read anything that was handy ... ketchup bottles, cereal boxes, aerosol cans ... I sleep with books. I do. Not just stacked all around the bed, but there are always a few at the foot of the bed too, and sometimes one or two tucked under my pillow.

Marilyn Vos Savant's The Art of Spelling has been a favorite book for some time.

For Christmas, my sister Frith gave me Book Smart by Jane Mallison, Your Essential Reading List for Becoming a Literary Genius in 365 Days ... Well, of course I have no interest in becoming a Genius, Literary or otherwise, but WHAT FUN!

For Valentine's Day, YoungBlood bought me Um. . .: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean by Michael Erard which gratifies not only my word obsession but also satisfies my desire to find out why people do what they do.

I've recently purchased a Scrabble Travel game and it has done much to ease the bruised spot on my heart invoked when my beloved Scrabble Deluxe was stolen straight out from my garage during a move a few years ago.

I regularly play WordTwist, a Boggle-type of game that has proven a little too addictive for my comfort, but I can't stop, because, well, it is addictive ... ... check it out ... at your own risk. I have so much fun playing that I don't mind not being very good at it.

Just to make my head feel good, I proofread for Distributed Proofreaders for Project Gutenberg ... OK, it makes my heart feel good, too.

I am currently reading Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet. While his focus is on numbers, at one point he writes of his interest in the Phoenecian alphabet. I am only a little surprised that I find myself identifying with Mr. Tammet throughout his life story.

Top of my list. Nicholas Basbanes. A Gentle Madness. Enough said on that.

Books Books Books.
Words Words Words.
Letters Letters Letters.
I Love Them.