the more things change the more they remain the same, or there’s nothing new under the sun, or the only constant is change, or … balderdash.
I read or heard recently, and you’ll just have to trust me on this one, because, well, I can’t find my source, that even in world war II (hate to give it capitals) a surprising [that’s the way to avoid nit-pickers, ed.!] number of people’s lives carried on virtually unchanged, even in Europe.
What has been bringing this to mind lately is a re-birth of interest in early British life and the Roman invasion of Britain and the subsequent fascinating history of the English people through the middle ages. My aged mum and I have been watching some excellent BBC propaganda
about the ‘people’s history’ as well as documentaries of various archaeological digs and I have been struck by the enthusiasm of so many for even little shards of pottery, myself included, and the attempt to recreate the basic living conditions of people from thousands of years ago.
I think the enthusiasm comes from finding so much in common with our ancestors. There is immense comfort somehow in the notion that they too drank wine from cups, built their homes around a hearth, mourned the deaths of their kin, and threw their garbage out the back. And much more comfort from the thought that the lot of the common man has clearly greatly improved, while remaining much the same in crucial ways.
There was less change, obviously, initially for those bronze age folks in the pre-written history days, and their lives were insanely difficult, carrying on somewhat unchanged as long as the weather permitted, for generations. But even after the Romans invaded around the beginning of the first millennium, and put to death whatever ruling class the British had developed, life for many really just carried on, improved, however, through the introduction of Roman technology, central heating and baths for example, and one could argue, creating the beginnings of a British middle class.
And when the Romans left in 410 A.D., the British seem to have carried on with developing law and language, keeping the Latin and losing the invaders. Working on the notion of juries, for example, and creating town councils and other aspects of good government that we take for granted to this day. Creating a literate society that produced the Venerable Bede,
able to write the first history of the English People, at the end of the 8th century, a work that while written in Latin, was also translated at some point into old English, forming a link between the two languages that blended to create modern English. And ultimately the British developed a peasantry that was literate and able to petition the ruling classes with articulate and heartfelt arguments that slowly but surely fell on less and less deaf ears, as an innate sense of the dignity of man began to more formally assert itself.
Even when the Romans first arrived they clearly did not kill all the farmers or tradesmen as they used them and enslaved them. The Normans did the same thing a millennium later, killing the upper class and replacing them, but leaving the peasantry intact for enslavement.
The crucial lesson from all of this disruption and mayhem wrought on an essentially indomitable people is that a more and more literate peasantry is harder and harder to enslave. And despite the mayhem and confusion of modern life, and the repulsive excesses of the banking and governing classes, there is a much more informed public body growing through the wide-spread use of modern technology than has ever existed before. Yes, there are many idiots, as there always have been. But as the printing press widened the bottle-neck of the information flask, the internet blew the whole thing apart, removing authority from any real role in putting out information. Information now needs to rest on its own laurels, with no more appeal to authority, that strange mirror to the much, and correctly, lambasted ad hominem approach to argument.
And so you get me, unedited. How can this not be a good thing for the peasants!
Well that shut everyone up!
Insipid musical interlude:
I was busy drinking from the bottle neck of the information flask, well o.k. chugging actually. In all reality I was uploading a surplus camera and equipment on eBay.
your topic today gave me an excuse to post another picture of an unusual object in my “rubble” collection. this is one very old knife. this blade was found long ago on the Aegean Sea coast of Greece by one of my relatives. it is late paleolithic (Stone Age), and manufactured using the Levallois technique. it would have been hafted to a wood, antler, or bone handle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levallois_technique
I just made parched corn for the first time from corn I grew this summer. My contribution today to things historical, catches Xty’s time frame and although not paleolithic as corn’s ancestor teosinte only goes back 4000 years, it is considered as a component of today’s Paleolithic Diet.
Not all corn is created equal. Bloody Butcher- fail. Hooker’s Sweet Indian-eureka!
This vid also becomes a music vid @ :30. Guy sounds like he could be a Canadianista. After 2:00 mark, I left mine whole so is not like mine.
Woodpecker, i like your paintings, really, no shit…especially the one you made for me (please share again)….Jerry has agreed to bring some history to keep me ot, yes he knows about the fiesty moderator.
just heard this earlier for the first time and wanted to pass along.
The decline and fall of the British Empire:
DN – i usually create and post my art all in one sit. for what ever reason i saved that one on my desktop, and never got back to it. so i’m not sure if it looks finished. i do not take any of it too seriously – my writing (rambling) or my art pics. so don’t be looking for any symbolism! i don’t even know if any of my stuff is any good. very hard to tell especially since i was largely despised at the last place. i always thought that it was because i refused to be intimidated and spoke my mind. but it could very well be that i just plain suck! the truth is that i don’t really care that much – at least a lot less than i used to.
The Painting…
There is nothing missing. Nor is there anything extra. This is a very powerful, quite amazing, and perfectly clear(honest) painting. This painting is about the painter from inside the painter, almost unbeknownst to the painter. It is loaded… LOADED with symbology!! From basic visual, metaphorical, and even ‘otherworldly’!.. and it doesn’t tell a story as much as it clearly describes a situation… in simple visual terms, and also in the most complex metaphorical terms. All levels and all angles saying the same thing! And NO, the painter didn’t intentionally provide this introspective snapshot. just as someone who has a dream that they do not understand doesn’t intentionally convey the unknown meaning of the dream when they relay the details of the dream.
This painting is extremely complex, in all the angles and levels from which it describes the same situation, but very simple. And while simple, it’s very personal and very deep, an extremely clear peek inside the painter as he describes his perspective on his own thoughts regarding his most deeply held beliefs… which is why i’m not putting any details here. There are some serious ‘other-world’ly things that came through on this painting and could not have been on purpose! What a painting!
There is nothing missing, the painting is finished. It’s message describes a position/perspective that does contain pressure(?)… conflict(?).. and may be what caused the “what is missing?” feeling.
Again, i won’t go into the details here in public. Would be glad to email them to the painter, even though my lousy writing ability would make it a bit of a challenge.
Thanks for sharing the painting. It is amazing, clear, consistent, deep, personal, and is likely never going to be appreciated by folks who can’t see, and that includes 99.999% of the “art” world. A member of which, I am not.
Maybe non-writer me could do a YouTube vid (non-public link)… point and talk through painting.
That the simple visual symbology says the obvious and exact same things as the metaphorical and even the otherworldly parts… all saying the same thing. The perspective/thoughts about someones own thoughts, and concerning such a subject!! wow. I know i’m rambling on… but I spent at least an hour looking at this today. With a few breaks to wander around outside thinking “how do you say this?” Every break the obvious details stay the same, but “how to say it” becomes simpler and simpler. Hard to believe from the above rambling, but that’s mostly me being a non-writer.
The bird, the sun, the green, the blue, the mountains(4) the cactii(3) the lighting, the edges, the almost undetectable green glow around the bird(look closely)
Definitely done in one sitting, a clean capture. An amazingly advanced work right there my friend. Thanks again for sharing it, let me know if/how you want me to play it out other than this purposefully non-revealing ramble.
i tried to repost the painting… will try again…
http://www.xtybacq.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wwww_Painting1.jpg
… nope
Dude – you sent me off on another tangent. i read up on parched corn. it’s a healthy and high energy food that stores. good for emergencies, or for a light weight, high energy snack on the trail. i’d like to try yours sometime.
m44 – i need to go over there and retrieve my art. i didn’t save most of them because i was just goofing around, at least at first, and also didn’t really believe they were that good! let me know which one i dedicated to you and i will go get it. i just do not want to spend much time at that forum because something there makes me uncomfortable now.
DN – wow! i don’t know how to respond. it’s hard to explain how i am making these images, but it is only partly mind to matter because i am using art programs. in some ways using these program, art is easier to create, in other ways more difficult.
like i said, i usually just belt one out. i have to be in the right mood and i generally only have a rough idea of what i want to create. i use Sumo Paint and Corel Paint It. you should see what you can do with a little practice because i think anyone can probably do what i am doing.
i am interested in your interpretation. you can share it publicly, unless you consider the subject matter too personal. in that case, would you care to be the middle(wo)man Xty? 🙂 you have my contact info of course. that way both DN and i can remain anonymous.
i think this is the one 44. i had it saved.
thank you my friend, i’ve added some music.
Fad saol agat, gob fliuch, agus bás in Éirinn!
Gonna die right here, thank you very much.
Exclaim “Fad saol agat, gob fliuch, agus bás in Éirinn!” This phrase expands on the wish for longevity and drink by also wishing the toasted a full life in Ireland.
As a direct translation, this phrase means, “long life to you, a wet mouth, and death in Ireland.”
“Fad” means “length” or “long,” “saol” means “life,” and “agat” means “you.”
“Gob” means “beak” or “mouth” and “fliuch” means “wet.”
Agus” means “and.”
“Bás” means “death,” “in” means “in,” and “Éirinn” is the Irish name for “Ireland.”
You should pronounce this phrase as fah-d seal, gob fluke, ah-gus boss in Air-inn.[4]
Ain’t goin’ anywhere just yet (even though my taxes are high, too).
Beidh brú ort ansin i gceann cúpla lá!
Dá fhaid é an lá tiocfaidh an tráthnóna!
Good Gmorning!
Kudus (as above) to Neal for writing it but I like this better.
i have just found my own word of the day. or maybe i should call it the word of my life. unreal. um, i’ve been having a weird day… sorry for another OT post! (or maybe it isn’t.)
“The Welsh word hiraeth has no equivalent in English. It often translates as “homesickness,” but the actual concept is far more complex. It incorporates an aspect of impossibility: the pining for a home, a person, a figure, even a national history that may never have actually existed. To feel hiraeth is to experience a deep sense of incompleteness tinged with longing. The only living language with an exact equivalent is Portuguese, through the term saudade, which refers to an impossible longing for the unattainable. Other languages, however, hold terms that come close in meaning: dor in Romanian, Wehmut in German, kaiho in Finnish. In some cases, the term refers to issues of national history and identity. In Wales, for example, hiraeth is tied to the national loss of self-determination in 1282. In Portugal, saudade emanates from the Age of Discovery, when Portuguese explorers set sail for the east and west, many never to return. Sometimes these sentiments are yoked to scientific discovery and the disorientations of modernity. In her book, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, Jane Brox notes that each technological step forward in erasing night’s darkness has carried a price—personal isolation, disruption of animals’ nocturnal rhythms, and other responses that have caused people to feel both gain and loss at the same time…a form of global hiraeth.”
http://www.smith.edu/kahninstitute/shortterm_projects_hiraeth.php
Woodpecker, you are not on this journey alone, as i too am familiar with this place. Remember me mentioning the confusion and frustration for the first wave?
someone gets my gist. thanks. there just has to be more to it all, heh?
but back down to Earth… it has to become cool again to give a shit. what has happened to this country, Europe, “western civilization”? i think this article mostly nails it, but it is a bit too wordy. hope you guys will give it a shot.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21113-disimagination-machines-and-punishing-factories-in-the-age-of-casino-capitalism