Thursday, May 27, 2010

Civilisation

Civilisation
Master Key

Old Seven

"G" Old

Matt.: 28:19
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
Acts 1.8 baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:"
golden1
Golden Gate Bride, California

Chess:
"Civilisation" "Master Key" "Golden Gate" "G OLd"

Sunday, May 23, 2010

George Washington

George Washington
Guanacaste



Prov. 20:27 
"The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly."


Chess: "George Washington" "Guanacaste"

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Britannia


Britannia
Kukulcan
1Cor 1:2
"Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:"


Spring Messengers




"To attain /the height and depth of thy Eternal wayes" [Milton ("Kukulcan: herpeto-ornithology: Quetzalcoatl")]





Chess:
Chess: "membrane" : [melodrama (Gr. melos, a song): properly (and in the early 19th century ) a drama in which song and music were introduced, an opera. These pieces were usually of a sensational character and the musical parts were gradually dropped. The word now denotes a lurid, sensational and highly emotional play with a happy ending in which the villain gets all he richly deserves. See RED BARN. "My idea of heaven is that there is no melodrama in it at all" [Emerson ("George Bernard Shaw"] . Memphis : MEM . Melusina, or Melisande : the most famous of all the fées of French romance, looked upon by the houses of Lusignan, Rohan, Luxembourg, and Sassenaye as their ancestor and founder. Having enclosed her father in a high mountain for offending her mother, she was condemned to become every Saturday a serpent from her waist downward. She married Raymond , count of Lusignan, and made her husband vow never to visit her on a Saturday; but the count hid himself on one of the forbidden days, and saw his wife transformation. Melusina was now obliged to quit her husband, and was destined to wander about as a spectre till the day of doom, though some say that the count immured her in the dungeon of his castle…A sudden scream is called un cri de Mélusine, in allusion to the scream of despair uttered by Melusina when she was discovered by her husband…bakery: in Poitou certain gingerbread cakes bearing the impress a beautiful woman "bien coiffée" with a serpent's tail …are still called Mélusines…..Melon: the Mohamedans say that the eating of a melon produces a thousand good works …see Elijah's melons… Memento mori (Latin., remember you must die) an emblem of mortality, such as a skull… "I make a good use of it[Bardolpn's face]as many a man doth of a death's head or a memento mori" SHAKESPEARE: Henry IV,Pt.I,III,iii….Melpomene muse of Tragedy…. "Up then, Melpomene,thou mournfullest Muse of nine, / Such cause of mourning never hads afore." SPENSER: Shepheard's Calendar (November)
"By the time Hadrian became Emperor in 117 AD the Roman Empire had ceased to expand. Hadrian was concerned to consolidate his boundaries. He visited Britain in 122 AD, and ordered a wall to be built between the Solway Firth in the West and the River Tyne in the east "to separate Romans from Barbarians"."… highlights along the wall : Carlisle…Banks East Turret & Pike Hill Watchtower…Birdoswald Roman Fort…Poltross Burn Milecastle…Chesters Fort…Denton Hall..Newcastle…South Shields Fort…Many people mistakenly believe that the wall was built by slaves. But by today's standards we could say that the wall was a kind of occupational therapy for Roman legionaries; men from all over the Empire who had voluntarily joined the army probably needed such an exercise to keep them fit and busy in what was, at that time, a lonely outpost at the farthest edge of the world.
The Roman army numbered amongst its ranks highly skilled architects, mason builders, surveyors and carpenters as well as soldiers for whom the wall was an opportunity to express their talents and also be part of what they felt was the greatest civilising force in the west at that time. Local people may have willingly helped for not dissimilar reasons. And undoubtedly local people benefitted from trade in goods and services. The majority of the wall was built of stone. At first 10 Roman Feet wide, and later 8, it began in the east and reached the river Irthing near present day Carlisle, from there it continues west to the Solway Firth but is built of 18" x 12" x 6" regulation turf blocks (460mm x 300mm x 150mm). Milecastles were placed at regular intervals. Each pair of Milecastles had two Turrets between them. A Milecastle could garrison between 8 and 32 men. Turrets could also shelter some soldiers though they may have served primarily as look-out vantage points. As Hadrian's project evolved, more legionaries were moved up to the wall and large Forts were built
which straddled it These Forts had gates to allow traffic to pass north and south through the wall. During six years of building the wall reached its final basic form: From the south; an earth mound, then a ditch and further mound, then an open area on which a road was built to allow easy access to all parts of the wall all along its length, then the main wall itself, and just to the north of that, a deep ditch. For native inhabitants the ditch and mounds to the south may have signified the start of a sort of reserved military zone. From the point of view of a "barbarian" from the North, the wall might have seemed an almost superhuman accomplishment; perhaps a psychologically daunting symbol of power.

Built just after the wall was completed in AD 123, Chesters is the best preserved Roman Cavalry Fort in Britain.

At the turn of the 1800's Nathaniel Clayton, owner of Chesters House and Estate, moved hundreds of tons of earth to cover over the last remains of the fort as part of his parkland landscaping, thereby creating a smooth uninterrupted grassland slope down to the River Tyne. Admittedly, he did take the trouble to find and collect a number of Roman artifact which he preserved in the family. However his son John was fascinated by the vestiges of Roman presence in the neighbourhood, and went to the trouble of removing all his father's work, exposing the fort, excavating, and establishing a small museum for his finds. Not only that, but he also made excavations at Housesteads Fort, Carrawborough Mithraic Temple, and Carvoran, amongst others, and all this by apparently devoting himself to archaeology only on Mondays... Chesters was obviously very important to the Romans who built a sophisticated bridge (very little of which remains today except foundations) across the River Tyne at this point. It seems very likely that Chesters was the Roman Cilurnum referred to in the late Roman Military List Notitia Dignitatum, established first as a station for cavalry and, later, footsoldiers. Hadrian himself encouraged the "Cult of Disciplina" amongst legions stationed at the wall, and an early inscription on an altar dedicated to Disciplina, found in 1978, indicates the earliest known military presence was a wing of cavalry; ala Augusta ob virtutem appellata ("named Augusta because of its valour"). The Roman Army was made up of people who enlisted from all over the Empire, and inscriptions have been found showing that those garrisoned here included the First Cohort of Dalmatians (present day Yugoslavia) and the First Cohort of Vangiones from Upper Rhineland in Germany.
It seems that Cilurnum was built to house cavalry capable of rapid strikes into the "barbarian" north, but it is not known how many times it was called upon to fulfill this function


http://www.aboutscotland.co.uk/hadrian/

Hadrians wall

Hadrian's Wall

The  Roman Empire

One of the greatest monuments to the power
- and limitations - of the Roman Empire,
Hadrian's Wall ran for 73 miles across open country.

Why was it built?

At the time of Julius Caesar's first small invasion of the south coast of Britain in 55 BC, the British Isles, like much of mainland Europe was inhabited by many Celtic tribes loosely united by a similar language and culture but nevertheless each distinct. He returned the next year and encountered the 4000 war chariots of the Catevellauni in a land "protected by forests and marshes, and filled with a great number of men and cattle." He defeated the Catevellauni and then withdrew, though not before establishing treaties and alliances. Thus began the Roman occupation of Britain.
Nearly 100 years later, in 43 AD, the Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius and about 24,000 soldiers to Britain, this time to establish control under a military presence. Although subjugation of southern Britain proceeded fairly smoothly by a combination of military might and clever diplomacy, and by 79 AD what is now England and Wales were firmly under control, the far North remained a problem. However, the Emperor Vespasian decided that what is now Scotland should also be incorporated into the Roman Empire. Under his instructions the governor of Britian, Julius Agricola, subdued the Southern Scottish tribal clans, the Selgovae, Novantae and Votadini by 81 AD. Further to the North lived loose associations of clans known collectively as the Caledonians. Agricola tried to provoke them into battle by marching an army into the Highlands eventually forcing a battle with the Caledonian leader Calgacus in present day Aberdeenshire at a place called Mons Graupius. 30,000 Caledonians were killed, but the Roman victory was a hollow one, for the next day the surviving clansmen melted away into the hills, and were to remain fiercely resistant and independent.
By the time Hadrian became Emperor in 117 AD the Roman Empire had ceased to expand. Hadrian was concerned to consolidate his boundaries. He visited Britain in 122 AD, and ordered a wall to be built between the Solway Firth in the West and the River Tyne in the east "to separate Romans from Barbarians".

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Deep Throat

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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

LG

Tailor
Dressing
Taj Mahal
Barkley

Prov. 12:7
"The wicked are overthrown, and are not: but the house of the righteous shall stand."



Chess: "Elegance" "Tailor" "Taj Mahal" "Leigh" "LG" "Sir Charles Barkley"

Brooke Shields 59 Feet Above the Bright Lights Launch of the New LG Lotus Elite and LG Rumor Touch


Aries

Aries
Sanborns
Abraham

1Cor 3:18
"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise."


8
Enjoying the View
Chess: "Aries" "Abraham" "Sanborns"

Fuel

Washington
Peachy Keen
Draco
Tower

1Cor. 3:15
"If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."


Needle Smoother

Chess:
"Draco" "Tower" "Washington" "Peachy Keen" "Babel" "Fuel"

“Potatoe”

P
High Voltage

Benedictus 16 : Bush-Clinton-Bush
Potatoe

1Cor.3:23

"and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."



Chess: "P" "Benedictus XVIII: Bush-Clinton-Bush" "Potatoe"



“Potatoe” « Iconic Photos

Potatoe”

with 4 comments

On June 15, 1992, in a classroom in Trenton, New Jersey, Vice-President Dan Quayle cemented his reputation as an intellectual lightweight. As Quayle himself later noted, the gaffe he committed was a perfect illustration of what people thought about him anyway. In Trenton, Quayle was asked to judge with sixth-graders for a spelling bee contest. Twelve-year old William Figueroa was asked to spell potato, which he did on the blackboard. Quayle looked at the spelling bee flashcard that he was given and said, “You’re close, but you left a little something off. The e on the end.”

Yes, the flashcard in his hand was misprinted, and Quayle thought potato was spelt with an ‘e’ at the end. As Figueroa added an ‘e’ on the blackboard, puzzled reporters frentically scavanged for a dictioonary in that sixth-grade classroom. The incident was not mentioned until at the end of the press conference afterward, when one reporter asked Quayle, “How do you spell potato?’’ Quayle gave him a puzzled look, and the press started laughing. It made the headlines the next day and was on the television even before Quayle got back home.

It didn’t help that William Figueroa called the vice-president ‘an idiot’ afterwards. He was invited onto the Letterman Show. From then on, the incident became a campaign weapon for the Democrats backing Clinton and Gore. Figueroa delivered the pledge of allegiance at the Democratic National Convention that summer. (Figueroa later dropped out of school, and fathered a child). Bush and Quayle handily lost that election. In his 1994 memoir, Quayle devotes a whole chapter to the event and its impact on his career. “It was a defining moment of the worst kind imaginable,’’ Quayle wrote, “Politicians live and die by the symbolic sound bite”.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Plaza Víquez

Zapote
Reyes
Plaza Víquez
Melbourne

1Cor.3:13

"Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is."


Melbourne CBD and Yarra River from Princes Bridge
Melbourne Nights
Chess : "Víquez" "Zapote" "Reyes" "Vieques" "Melbourne"

El puente
Carlos Salazar Herrera: Cuentos de angustias y paisajes.


El tema musical de aquel puente de madera, era como una llamada amorosa al corazón de la Chela. ¡Un puente de madera que sonaba como una marimba! Cada vez que el trote de un caballo hacía sonar la tablazón, la Chela se conmovía y sus alegres palpitaciones se confundían con el tableteo. La muchacha, entonces, se asomaba por la ventana de su casa, y tan pronto reconocía a Marcial Reyes, echaba a correr por el cercado hacia la vuelta del camino, y allí esperabaal jinete. Ya el potro sabía que era cosa de detenerse y, como si quisiera lucirse en un desplante, se empinaba en dos patas y adornaba la cabriola con un relincho. La Chela era huérfana y por eso, vivía arrimada a su padrino. Su padrino le dijo un día: —Si Marcial Reyes te quiere... ¿por qué no viene a verte a la casa? Y la muchacha: —¿Acaso es novio mío? —Entonces... ¿qué es? —Pos... nada. Amigo. —¡Mm!... Una tarde de luna, Marcial Reyes dejó su caballo al cuidado de un árbol de güitite, saltó sobre el alambre de púas y caminó con la muchacha pastizal arriba. Ola iba como ceñida a unas riendas trenzadas con palabras... Y en el refugio confidencial de los pedrones negros que rematan la colina, Marcial Reyes besó a la Chela, y la besó, y la besó... El viento hacía ondas en las espigas moradas de los pastos de calinguero, y en el refugio confidencial, el constante caer y caer de los cuchillitos de un poro enorme, que había crecido junto a los pedrones. —¡Cuidao vas a contarle a naide nada! —dijo él. —No. —¿Me lo juras? —Sí. La Chela hizo con sus dedos el signo de la cruz, y lo selló con un beso más, con un último beso. A partir de aquella vez, Marcial Reyes no volvió a pasar sobre la marimba del puente. Ahora daba la vuelta por el camino de las lajas, y por el camino de las lajas siguió pasando para ir al pueblo. Por eso, cada vez que un caballo pasaba sobre el puente, el sonido de las tablas repercutía con dolor en el corazón de la muchacha. El caso de la pobre Chela era un asunto vulgar; y para que fuera más común, cierta mañana de domingo, Marcial Reyes salía de la iglesia y cogida de su brazo, con el velo y azahares de naranjo, la linda Rosario Víquez. Pasaron algunos meses. Ya no estaba el pastizal de calinguero, pero en el remate de la colina seguían cayendo, cayendo siempre los cuchillitos del poró, acolchando un lecho vacío, protegido por aquellos pedrones mudos, cómplices, inconmovibles. Aquellas extrañas piedras como dólmenes... o como menhires. Y aquel puente sonoro se había vuelto un martirio para la afligida muchacha. Un día, el cura párroco del lugar, halló a la Chela, mordiendo un cogollito de jocote, sobre el puente de madera. —Hace tiempos —le dijo— que no vas a confesarte, hija mía. La muchacha bajó la cabeza. El párroco insistió: —¿Por qué no te vas a confesar? La Chela se encogió de hombros y sin levantar la cabeza, miraba el entablado sonoro del puente. ¡Cómo iba a confesarse, si había jurado... “no contarle a naide nada”! Una noche tostada de verano, alguien, —nunca se supo quién— le prendió fuego al puente. ¡Qué lástima, un puente de madera que sonaba como una marimba!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Alzira

Opera
Giuseppe Verdi

JFF

Prov.21:31

"The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD."

Alice has been eating mushrooms again
Congratulation to the Creative Challenge Winner: Big & Small!

Chess:
"Opera" "Giuseppe Verdi" "JFF" "Alzira" "Aida"

Monday, May 10, 2010

Face

Celeste
Sky Blue

New York

 
Ephesians 2:7

"That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."






New York, Rockefeller Center Tower - Symmetry
A new perspective of NYC's Rockefeller Center
Chess: "New York" "María Celeste" "Rockefeller Center" "Face"

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Fat Boy

Thomas Jefferson
Constitution
"Fat Boy"
Eccles. 11:2

"Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.



Chess:
"Fat Boy" "Thomas Jefferson" "Constitution"

Maternity

The Eye of Horus
Isis

Gesta

Eccles. 11:9
"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

A Colorful Inhabitant of Krabi Province in Southern Thailand
Chess: "Maternity" "Isis" "The Eye of Horus" "Gesta"


The Besieged and the Beautiful in Languedoc


The Châteaux de Lastours, where Cathars fought a church attempt in the 13th century to destroy them for heresy.
Published: May 9, 2010
Under the noonday sun, I was scrambling up a rugged mountain trail toward four stone towers called the Châteaux de Lastours, each one perched on a perilous crag, when it struck me that I should have had more than a croissant and café au lait for breakfast. Of course, access was never meant to be easy.

Eight hundred years ago, these castles in Languedoc, a region of vineyards and olive groves that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Pyrenees in the southwest corner of France, were hideouts of the Cathars, a zealous religious sect that denounced many basic tenets of the Catholic Church. Pope Innocent III was alarmed by the Cathars’ growing popularity, so in 1208 he declared a crusade to eradicate them.

Waves of cross-bearing warriors from northern France and Germany obeyed the holy call, laying siege to Cathar strongholds, slaughtering the heretics and pillaging their lands with a savagery that was startling even by the standards of the Middle Ages. In Béziers, at the northern edge of resistance, over 15,000 men, women and children — the entire population of the town as well as hordes of hapless refugees — were butchered. (The crusader monk Armond Amaury famously told his troops, when asked whom to spare, “Kill them all, God will know his own.”)

Here at the isolated Lastours castles, which were built along a defensive cliff spur, the Cathars spent much of 1209 heroically fending off the onslaught. So the crusader leader, the sadistic Simon de Montfort, resorted to primitive psychological warfare. He ordered his troops to gouge out the eyes of 100 luckless prisoners, cut off their noses and lips, then send them back to the towers led by a prisoner with one remaining eye.

This macabre parade only hardened the Cathars’ resistance, and they lasted until 1211 before capitulating. One by one, the other Cathar towns and strongholds fell to the sword. By 1229 the heresy was largely crushed, and the semi-independent counties of Languedoc, which had harbored it, had succumbed to French rule.

Dramatic stuff, you might say, but it’s hard to visualize these grisly images when surrounded by such seductive mountain scenery. How could this frenzied cruelty have occurred under the same pearly blue sky where the breeze brings the perfume of wildflowers? The main Cathar sites of Languedoc are now part of the 10,570-square-mile modern French region of Languedoc-Roussillon, whose spectacular gorges, rivers, forests and thermal springs make it today one of the country’s most popular summer destinations — a place where Parisians can be found hiking, swimming and savoring the excellent wine. In fact, on a sunny day, it comes as no surprise to learn that, at the same time as the crusade, Languedoc’s many troubadours were creating some of the most enduring love poetry of the Middle Ages.

After a 15-minute climb along the exposed hillside, I clamored inside each of the four stark castles of Lastours, which lie about 100 yards apart and have been rebuilt and restored. I made my way up spiral stone staircases and peered through ancient arrow slits and ceiling gaps — nicknamed murder holes — through which defenders dropped rocks and poured boiling oil.

And yet (perhaps like the happy troubadours) my mind too began to wander from the tragic Cathar saga to more immediate sensual pleasures. I couldn’t help remembering that in the tidy village of Lastours, where the steep trail had begun and where I had parked my car some 900 feet below, a very promising cafe had been putting out tables on a terrace beside the burbling River Orbiel. Instead of concentrating on medieval war crimes, I flashed back to the cafe’s blackboard, which reminded me that there was a fresh salad Niçoise in the offing. And so, surrendering to the inevitable, I tumbled back down the trail to this cafe, which turned out to be a casual annex of a renowned Michelin-starred restaurant called Le Puits du Trésor — more promising still.

As I took my first sip of crisp white Vin de Pays d’Oc, I did feel a twinge of guilt for the valiant heretics, many of whom were devoutly austere. The Cathars believed that the world had been created by a force of darkness and heaven by God, and that all earthly activity was tainted and sinful. Aspiring only to the purity of early Christianity, they were appalled by the worldliness of the medieval papacy and its debauched clerics.

BUT as my appetizer of baked chèvre arrived, I reminded myself that even some of the top-ranking Cathar holy men, known as “pure ones” or “Perfects,” were not entirely immune to Languedoc’s less spiritual attractions. The historian René Weis records how two Cathar sages called the Authié brothers had a fondness for exotic spices, as well as fish terrines, local cheeses, honeys and “good wine.” One of their hosts, concealing the brothers in his home from the Inquisition, set up to hunt down and purge the remaining Cathars, went forth “in search of a better and more renowned wine than the one he kept in his own residence,” at considerable personal risk. This was still the Mediterranean, after all.

Today, you could never accuse the good people of Languedoc of hiding their heretic heritage. “You are in Cathar Country” proudly blares a sign on the busy highway from Avignon, followed by concrete statues of Cathar knights.

The romantic castles, superbly positioned on mountain peaks that can now be reached by car, have almost all been lovingly salvaged and adorned with lavish visitor centers, daily re-enactments of medieval life and light-and-sound shows. There is a roughly 150-mile hiking trail that links the key sites, called the Cathar Way, and another following the routes that fleeing heretics took through the backcountry.

I realized that there was more to this than just bringing in tourist euros when I saw a series of graphic novels for kids called “I Am Cathar!”

While the theological basis of their fight is alien to most of us today, the Cathars maintain a heroic aura for holding out as long as they did against overwhelming odds. For over a century after the official defeat, the survivors behaved like resistance fighters against the Inquisition, hiding out in the countryside and smuggling Cathar holy men from barn to barn. And quite apart from their underdog appeal, there is something compelling about their self-denial, which often led Cathars to choose being burned at the stake rather than renounce their faith. In the words of the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Cartharism is like a dead star, which, after an eclipse of many centuries, again gives off “a cold and fascinating light ...”

My plan was to take a weeklong road trip through Languedoc toward the rugged border with Spain, to get to the heart of this medieval epic.

Unfortunately, my chances of imagining the historical drama seemed remote at my first stop, the town of Carcassonne, the famous gateway to Cathar Country, which manages to be both wildly spectacular and hopelessly cheesy. The first vision of its fairy tale fortress, La Cité, takes your breath away: Its enormous double ramparts, hovering on a hillside above the town, have 52 towers, each one crowned with fantastical “witch hat” turrets. These were actually added during Carcassonne’s restoration in the 19th-century Gothic revival, but the effect is magical — from a distance. The down side to all this splendor strikes you when you enter the imposing fortress on foot, having parked your car in the vast lot or the Ville Basse, the Lower Town, where almost all of the 45,000 inhabitants live today. Carcassonne is now one of Europe’s most popular tourist sites, and a tide of visitors is continuously pressing over the drawbridge into La Cité’s only entrance, then squeezing into the even narrower Rue Cros Mayrevieille, where rows of souvenir shops sell Lord of the Rings daggers, wooden halberds and plastic helmets, like an endless Gothic Halloween store. Still elbowing through the crowds past a torture museum and haunted house, I started to feel like I was in Duloc, the “perfect” medieval town of “Shrek.”

Clearly, one has to attack the fortress outside peak hours. I found a room in the heart of La Cité, so that I could explore its winding alleyways when the crowds had all but disappeared. Now more than a day-tripper, I set off in the silence of early morning to peer at the stone portraits that line the balustrades of the Basilica of St.-Nazaire, which dominates the southern edge of the fortress — each 13th-century face extraordinarily alive.

I even got over my aversion to the live jousting show performed several times every day, which at first (for obvious reasons) seemed very Medieval Times. It turned out that everything involved in the event had an authentic air, right down to the falconer advertising the event with his battered face, straggly long hair and 13th-century dentistry. The performance itself maintained an edge of danger, with the horsemen throwbacks to a more macho age.

Still, the true allure of the heretic trail lies outside Carcassonne. I soon realized that the fortress was the last reminder of the sunny, gentle postcard south of France of lavender fields and quaint B & Bs.

As I drove south into the mountains, the atmosphere grew more brooding, the temperature cooler and the tourists fewer with every mile. Even the people became different, their faces more closed, their eyes more suspicious, their accents thicker. (The name Languedoc refers to the Occitan dialect, where people say “oc” instead of “oui.”) In the foothills of the Pyrenees, narrow roads meander along thousand-foot cliffs and stunning gorges. Side routes lead to half-deserted villages, ruined abbeys and ancient vineyards that produce a quaffable sparkling wine called blanquette de Limoux. After a couple of nights in the atmospheric spa town of Alet-les-Bains, where the tradition of taking the waters is alive and well and every cafe serves an excellent cassoulet, Languedoc started to feel like a quieter, more haunted cousin of Provence.

In this rugged Cathar heartland, nature itself sets your historical imagination working. After hours of white-knuckle hairpin turns, I arrived at the vertiginous Château de Peyrepertuse at the same time as an apocalyptic thunderstorm. I had to cower with a few other visitors while lightning bolts crackled for an hour, before we were allowed to clamor up to the fortress, which icy fogs had all but concealed.

Just as memorable was Montségur, some 40 miles west along winding mountain roads, the most forbidding of the Cathar fortresses, and the last to fall after a renewed spasm of rebellion in 1244. It sits on a fist of limestone at 3,000 feet, rising like some Machu Picchu of the Pyrenees; even the massive cut stonework seems to evoke Inca masonry. At these heights, tourists simply disappear in bad weather. During another torrential downpour I found myself alone on the steep trail leading up to the fortress. Through the mist and the sound of my own gasping breath, I could picture the crusader armies camped far below, 10,000 heavily armored troops starving the small citadel into submission. Today, fresh flowers are still placed around a memorial to the last defenders of Montségur, who were given the choice to convert or be burned alive; some 200 chose the latter. A museum in the village displays the skeletons of two Cathars. They were found by archaeologists, with arrowheads embedded in the bones, presumably killed while trying to escape.

Despite crusader victories, the Cathar heresy lingered subversively for about a century, eluding the most ruthless efforts of the Inquisition. The last bastion of the heresy was a village called Montaillou, hidden in the mountains south of Montségur, which has earned outsized fame among history lovers. In 1308, the Inquisition’s officers arrested all 250 adults in the village, beginning a grueling series of investigations that would force the villagers to confess their most intimate secrets. The original Inquisition documents were discovered centuries later in the Vatican archives, and have proved to be a unique trove of information about everyday life in the Middle Ages.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie used the material in his groundbreaking work of social history, “Montaillou,” first published in 1975. The fascinating medieval soap opera, filled with lecherous priests, adulterous chatelaines and conniving peasants, became an international bestseller, adding a colorful new dimension to our pale vision of the medieval world.

Montaillou would be my final stop. But while the outpost looms large on the historian’s world map, I had a hard time finding it near the remote border with Spain and Andorra. Finally, driving through rolling green pastureland, I spied the village near the Ariège River, crowned by an exquisitely decrepit tower of honey-colored stone. As I got out of the car, the only sound was the tinkling of water from a trough.

Somnolent it may be, but Montaillou has come back from the brink of nonexistence. Twenty years ago, it had only 10 permanent inhabitants; today it has 37, and a summer population nearly 10 times that. The Cathars have actually saved the village. “In the early 1990s, Montaillou was virtually a ghost town,” said the mayor, Jean Clergue, who was born here and is an descendant of the same Clergues clan that dominated the area in the Middle Ages.

“But because of Le Roy Ladurie’s book, everyone in France came to hear of it,” he continued. “So when I moved back here in 1992, I met some friends and we said, ’We have to do something or this village is going to disappear!’ ” Mr. Clergue and several others first formed a group called Castellet to salvage the crumbling castle, promote archaeological excavations and hold historical festivals. Today, there is a store selling handicrafts, houses for summer guests and a small restaurant that opens in summer. There is even a radio station, Radio Montaillou.

Its castle may not be as imposing as others, but Montaillou is a strangely affecting place, perhaps because it is still alive; you could almost imagine that the few remaining villagers were the last of the Cathars. I strolled through the site of the original medieval village and followed an ancient trail to a lookout called the Col de Balagues. I was suddenly on the roof of Europe, gazing out at a jagged line of the Pyrenees to the south.

Cathar Perfects had used this same trail to elude the Inquisition, usually at night, often through blizzards. Of course, despite so much self-sacrifice, the heretics were doomed. Languedoc’s last known Perfect was trapped and burned in 1321. But the brutality was almost too much to take in. I turned around and headed back to the village, where I’d noticed the only restaurant was advertising coq au vin for lunch.


Exploring Cathar CountrySlide Show

Exploring Cathar Country

Languedoc, FranceMap

Friday, May 7, 2010

Flamboyán

C
Charlie

Atún

La Marina

Ecless. 11:3

"If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be."
Enjoying Sunset at Death Valley Dunes
You can see everything from up here!
Chess: "Charlie" "La Marina" "Flamboyán" "Atún"

Thursday, May 6, 2010

MGM

Exodus
Lecture

Reading

Eccles.11:1

"Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."

Entrevaux and the river Var, France
Chess: Exodus "Lecture" "Japan" "sushi" "Reading"

Essay: Where Is Our Dover Beach?

Essay: Where Is Our Dover Beach? Poem of the week: Dover Beach Waves crash onto a beach Waves crash onto a beach. Photograph: Graham Turner View more sharing options Shares 90 Comments 114 Carol Rumens Monday 20 October 2008 16.05 BST First published on Monday 20 October 2008 16.05 BST Dover Beach is a 'honeymoon' poem. Written in 1851, shortly after Matthew Arnold's marriage to Frances Lucy Wightman, it evokes quite literally the "sweetness and light" which Arnold famously found in the classical world, in whose image he formed his ideals of English culture. In fact, those public values are privatised in the very word the poem conjures for us: honeymoon. Dover Beach fundamentally seems to be about a withdrawal into personal values. Historical pessimism moves in swiftly as a tide. Arnold's description of the noise of the waves is superbly accurate. Even when he ventures into Miltonic (and Greek) mode, with that "tremulous cadence slow," he maintains a certain realism. "Tremulous" may be emotive, but it also brilliantly evokes the soft rattling of the millions of pebbles and grits as the waves redistribute them. Sign up for the Bookmarks email Read more Arnold's classical learning is unpretentiously apparent. The verse-movement, with its fluid alternation of three, four and five-beat lines, suggests the rhythmic flexibility of Greek choral poetry. Stanza two, with its reference to Sophocles, brings home a sense of tragic fatedness. The following lines from Antigone may be relevant: "Blest are they whose days have not tasted of evil. For when a house hath once been shaken from heaven, there the curse fails nevermore, passing from life to life of the race; even as, when the surge is driven over the darkness of the deep by the fierce breath of Thracian sea-winds, it rolls up the black sands front the depths, and there is sullen roar from wind-vexed headlands that from the blows of the storm." While Sophocles can invoke the Greek ideal of the 'thinking Warrior', Arnold sees order and sanity destroyed in the antithesis of "ignorant armies". Religion ("The Sea of Faith") might have once provided protection to the Christian world, but is now feared to be in recession. Though, for the ancient Greeks, Desire "sits enthroned among the mighty laws", romantic love has no supreme virtue. Arnold, on the other hand, seems to suggest that the lovers' vow is the only value left with which to counter history. The speaker realises that, out there in the world, there is "neither joy, nor love, nor light…". The two newlyweds, standing at the window looking across the moonlit sea, have become, in a sense, the whole of love. It's quite a jolt to contrast the modernity of this view with the poem's actual date. Arnold was not wholly comfortable with the idea of himself as a poet. He wrote: "... It is not so light a matter, when you have other grave claims on your powers, to submit voluntarily to the exhaustion of the best poetical production in a time like this ... It is only in the best poetical epochs ... that you can descend into yourself and produce the best of your thought and feeling naturally, and without an overwhelming and to some degree morbid effort." In Dover Beach, the poet in Arnold has insisted that the descent be made, however painful. His most anthologised poem is, formally, his most radical. If he had written more in this vein, he would have been canonised as a great poet. Instead, until relatively recently, he was regarded as a great thinker. Works like Culture and Anarchy have been an enormous influence on twentieth-century literary criticism. Perhaps they deserve to be revisited. Of course, the idea of culture Arnold presents would be utterly alien to us now – but have we better replacements? Creative Britain, perhaps, instead of classical "sweetness and light"? Progress indeed. Dover Beach The sea is calm tonight, The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! You hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back and fling At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. (1867).

Delaware

Dover
Sorghum

Hadrian's Wall
Eccles.11:4
"He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."


After Sunset Camp Cady CA
Sunset at Camp Cady, California cast the desolate barn in a world of color.

Chess:
"Dover" "sorghum" "sorgo" "Hadrian's Wall" "Delaware"

Strait of Dover

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Map showing the location of the Strait of Dover.

The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait (French

: Pas de Calais, IPA: [pɑdə kalɛ], literally Strait of Calais, Dutch: Nauw van Calais) is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel. The shortest distance across the strait is from the South Foreland, some 4 miles (6 kilometres) north east of Dover in the county of Kent, England, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French département of Pas-de-Calais, France. Between these two points lies the most popular route for cross-channel swimmers as the distance is reduced to 34 km (21 mi).[1]

On a clear day, it is possible to see the opposite coastline and shoreline buildings with the naked eye, and the lights of land at night, as in Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach".

Essay: Where Is Our Dover Beach?

Dover Beach
 The sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -- on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
-- Matthew Arnold

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sands

Sandy Hook
Berlin Wall
Punta Arenas

Cream 
Prov. 21:30
 

"There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD."
BIG BEN AND WHEEL.
The Eye of London can see Big Ben

Chess: "Sands" "Pancho Lopez" "Punta Arenas" "Berlin Wall" "Cream"