The Fall Cometh

When I see ancient ruins, I'm struck by the ephemeral nature of the societies that built them. Mycenae was a powerful empire, it traded widely, it was a central antagonist (with Sparta) in the Trojan War. And then it was sacked and burnt, no one knows by whom. It fell and never recovered. Other city states and empires rose and took its place—until they collapsed in their turn. All their impregnable fortresses were breached, their eternal tombs robbed, their people thrown into chaos, often for generations. What is history telling us?
        Looking for a scary Halloween? Ponder that thought.

Inspired by the Exquisite Corpse’s recent Halloween theme and a visit to Mycenae this week. Photo by Sergii Figurnyi.

Deadline Comeuppance

The word “deadline” has its origins in the US Civil War. At the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Andersonville, Georgia, commandant Henry Wirz declared a do-not-cross line around the prison. He ordered guards to shoot any Union soldier who crossed, touched, or even fell upon this “dead line.” By the 1920s, the term had been adopted by writers to refer to a time limit, although few editors enforced it with the sick panache of Wirz--who was tried and executed as a war criminal after the Confederate surrender. His brutal comeuppance puts deadlines, and pushy editors, right where they belong.

Inspired by Deadline.

“I have to post this.” (1517)

“Martin, you're just sitting there, thumbing through their horrible comments. Go outside and get some air.”
     “I will, Kath, in a while . . . almost done . . . I have to post something. These ‘influencers’ drive me crazy. They take people’s money and don’t care what hell they unleash. They try to monetize absolutely everything. It burns me so—”
     “Martin. Calm down.”
     “No! I won’t tolerate their indulgences a second longer. I’m going to post my reply, today, consequence be damned . . . Have you seen my hammer?”
     Thus Martin Luther set out to nail his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg.

Inspired by Progress. Image from Luther und dessen Reformation by Baron von Löwenstern, 1830.

Brentrance

In 1065, the European Union brought King Harold of Little England and William of Normandy to Brussels to discuss their dispute.
     “We won’t have your smelly garlic or your fizzy champagne,” Harold huffed. “Little Englanders are happy with turnips and beer.”
     “Suit yourself,” William said.
     “We don’t want your snivelly continental measurements. We will live and die with sturdy pounds and pints.”
     William shrugged.
     “Finally. We don’t want any of you people coming across. England is closed to foreigners.”
     Hmph, William thought. We’ll see about that. Mon Dieu, this guy really needs a poke in the eye with a stick.

Inspired by Propaganda. Image of King Harold, struck in the eye, from the Bayeux Tapestry.

Heresy Above

All this talk of stars and movement made him nauseous. Or was it Galileo’s voice? The fool was droning on about the earth revolving around the sun. A ridiculous notion; and if it wasn’t nipped in the bud some nutbar might eventually question Genesis itself.

The Pope glanced at his sundial. His next audience was with a delegation of Bohemians pushing Saint Barbara for patron saint of miners. Jesus. A woman—what next? 

     “Just kiss the ring and go,” he told Galileo curtly, wondering what he would tell the faithful at the “Make Rome Great Again” rally later that afternoon.

Inspired by Starry Night. Image: Galileo before the Holy Office by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

Archimedes’ π

Archimedes had observed an intriguing relationship between a circle’s circumference and its radius: it was constant! He’d publish the finding immediately, but he had to come up with a term. He couldn’t think . . . Mrs. Archimedes kept banging around next door. “Would you please,” he said, barging into the kitchen. “I’ve just discovered—”
     “You old coot! You’re not the only one gets ideas around here!” There was flour on Mrs. Archimedes’ chin and perspiration on her forehead. She held up a circular dish topped with pastry. “I wrapped dough around apples and baked them at 360.  I’m calling it ‘pie’.”

Zulu Dawn

Wednesday was movie night in our little village on the edge of the Kalahari. We showed up at sunset not caring what film would show. The screen was an exterior wall, and everyone – locals, the few expats – sat beneath the southern constellations to watch, enthralled. That’s where I saw Zulu Dawn, in which Zulu warriors unexpectedly triumph over a modern British army. Burt Lancaster, playing an enlightened British officer, falls valiantly in battle – a scene calculated to generate sympathy in filmgoers. But that night, the crowd cheered enthusiastically at his skewering, and I realized how far I was from home.

[Image source: Copyright American Cinema Releasing, 1979]

Yanks

In June 1944, Britain was an armed camp. There were a million and a half American GIs in the country. “Overpaid, oversexed, and over here,” the Brits grumbled. There were a quarter million young Canadians, too, with libidos equivalent to the Americans, but they weren’t resented at all. Maybe it was that they wore British battledress and deferred to royalty, despite their horrible accents. Whatever; in the build-up to the invasion, supplies and men continued to pour in from “America”, which for convenience sake included Canada. Not for the first time, nor the last, the Yanks got all the credit.

World View

There were certainties when we were youngsters. Canada was the best country in the world. The U.S. was good, too, our best friend, and we were Americans also because we lived in North America and talked like them (especially the ones who’d freed the slaves). We were also part of that pink grouping on the globe, and all those pink countries were good, because they stood for fair dealing and wise governance by white people. Riots, strikes and human rights violations were the work of evil, godless communists.
     There are no such certainties now. These days, everything’s so darned complicated.

Tobacco’s Trials

“No, I did not ‘anticipate the scourge tobacco would become’,” Walter Raleigh replied tersely. “The Indians enjoyed a pipe and didn’t go overboard. They seemed perfectly healthy.”
     The plaintiffs’ attorney smirked at the jury. “You gave it to people? You recommended it here in England?”
     “It became fashionable quickly,” Raleigh replied vaguely.
     “Indeed... fashionable. Did you do any research? Clinical trials?”
     “Clinical trials won’t be invented for centuries!” Raleigh snapped.
     The attorney smiled. Raleigh’s temper would do his case no good. But he was worried about a couple of the jurors. During lunch, he’d spotted them outside, sharing a cheroot.

Moonshot

     Werner von Braun tapped a wooden pointer on a corkboard to draw attention to a sketch of the command module.
     “How big is that thing?” Neil Armstrong asked.
“A little smaller than zhe Volkswagon camper van,” von Braun replied. “Unt zis,” he said, waiting for a whitecoat to tack another chart on the board, “iss the lunar landing module.”
     Armstrong exchanged glances with Buzz Aldrin. The capsule was the size of a VW Beetle.
     Their mission relied on the knowhow of German rocket scientists. Why, he wondered, couldn’t someone, in the last twenty years, have shown them a goddamn Buick?