Götterdämmerung

• Germanic mythology) The myth of the destruction of the gods in a final battle with the forces of evil; the apocalypse.
• Any cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution.

Armistice Day

Armistice Day celebrations in Toronto, Canada in 1918

Front page of The New York Times on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.

Armistice Day (which coincides with Remembrance Day and Veterans Day, public holidays) is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. While this official date to mark the end of the war reflects the ceasefire on the Western Front, hostilities continued in other regions, especially across the former Russian Empire and in parts of the old Ottoman Empire.

The date was declared a national holiday in many allied nations, to commemorate those members of the armed forces who were killed during war. An exception is Italy, where the end of the war is commemorated on 4 November, the day of the Armistice of Villa Giusti. In the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway World War I is not commemorated as the three countries all remained neutral.

The Initial or Very First Armistice Day was held at Buckingham Palace commencing with King George V hosting a “Banquet in Honour of The President of the French Republic“^[1] during the evening hours of November 10 1919.

The First Official Armistice Day was subsequently held on the Grounds of Buckingham Palace on the Morning of November 11th 1919. This would set the trend for a day of Remembrance for decades to come.

Most countries changed the name of the holiday just prior to or after World War II, to honor veterans of that and subsequent conflicts. Most member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, like United Kingdom and (as Canada in 1931), adopted the name Remembrance Day, while the United States chose All Veterans Day (later shortened to ‘Veterans Day’) to explicitly honor military veterans, including those participating in other conflicts. “Armistice Day” remains the name of the holiday in France, Belgium and New Zealand; and it has been a statutory holiday in Serbia since 2012.

In many parts of the world, people observe a one or more commonly a two minute moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. local time as a sign of respect in the first minute for the roughly 20 million people who died in the war, and in the second minute dedicated to the living left behind, generally understood to be wives, children and families left behind but deeply affected by the conflict. The two minute silence was proposed to Lord Milner by South African Sir Percy Fitzpatrick in 1919.^[2] This had been the practice in Cape Town from May 1918, although it had quickly spread through the Empire after a Reuters correspondent cabled a description of this daily ritual.^[3]

From the outset, many veterans in many countries have also used silence to pay homage to departed comrades. The toast of “Fallen” or “Absent Comrades” has always been honoured in silence at New Zealand veteran functions, while the news of a member’s death has similarly been observed in silence at meetings.

Similar ceremonies developed in other countries during the inter-war period. In South Africa, for example, the Memorable Order of Tin Hats had by the late 1920s developed a ceremony whereby the toast of “Fallen Comrades” was observed not only in silence but darkness, all except for the “Light of Remembrance”, with the ceremony ending with the Order’s anthem “Old Soldiers Never Die”. In Australia, meanwhile, the South Australian State Branch of the Returned Sailors & Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia similarly developed during the interwar period a simple ceremony of silence for departed comrades at 9 p.m., presumably to coincide with the traditional 11 a.m. time for Armistice ceremonies taking place in Europe (due to the ten-hour time difference between Eastern Australia and Europe).

In Britain, beginning in 1939, the two-minute silence was moved to the Sunday nearest to 11 November in order not to interfere with wartime production should 11 November fall on a weekday. After the end of World War II, most Armistice Day events were moved to the nearest Sunday and began to commemorate both World Wars. The change was made in many Commonwealth countries, as well as Britain, and the new commemoration was named Remembrance Sunday or Remembrance Day. Both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday are now commemorated formally in Britain. In recent years Armistice Day has become increasingly recognised, and many people now attend the 11am ceremony at the Cenotaph in London – an event organised by The Western Front Association, a British charity dedicated to perpetuating the memory of those who served in the First World War.^[4]

In the U.S., the function of Veterans Day is subtly different from that of other 11 November holidays. Unlike the situation in other countries, where that calendar date is set aside specifically for honoring those who died in action, Veterans Day honors all American veterans, whether living or dead, killed in action or deceased from other causes. The official national remembrance of war dead is instead Memorial Day, originally called ‘Decoration Day’, from the practice of decorating the graves of soldiers, which originated in the years immediately following the American Civil War.

Starbucks digressions

To the staff:

If there are more employees than customers in the store and I’m waiting, that’s a problem.

Do you really need exact change? Spot me the goddamn penny so I don’t have 99 cents of change.

I understand I need to repeat my order twice.  3 times is your problem.

Is not brewing decaf after dinner that much of a cost saver?

To the first person on line:

If you’re paying with cash, don’t fumble for change. You’ve had more than ample time to pull out your wallet.

If there are people waiting-don’t refill your card.  Don’t have a conversation with the Barista.  Don’t tell them what you’re up to.  Don’t tell them about your new band, new book, new boyfriend/girlfriend, new job.  The people behind you don’t care.  They just want coffee.  Order coffee and move on.  If your order takes more than 30 seconds that’s a problem.

Guys

It’s okay to order the silly drink for your significant other.  If it’s for you and it includes the words  triple shot, whipped cream, pumpkin, frozen, cookie, or Frappucino-we’re all secretly laughing at you.

To the person at the milk/sweetener area

Again, this shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds. Don’t camp out there. Don’t be the person taking up the whole counter.  Adding 1/3 of  Splenda with 1/4 of Sweet and Low and 3 second pour of nonfat milk is ridiculous.  This is not a science experiment.

Final observations

Stay off of your phone during any of the above.

People really don’t like the taste of coffee and will add just about anything so it doesn’t taste like coffee.

An interesting take on Halloween

The ever-more early arrival of holiday merchandise is an unpleasant fact of modern life, but this is not another story about holiday creep. This is another story about a creepy holiday.

The consensus is that the lucrative, high treat/low trick modern Halloween we know today got started in Anoka, Minnesota in 1920, when civic leaders decided, after too many broken windows and overturned outhouses, that a socially acceptable, child-friendly celebration might redirect youthful exuberance toward more fun and less vandalism. The new, tamer Halloween celebration succeeded in redefining the holiday. By 1937, Anoka had convinced the US Congress to name it the “Halloween Capital of the World,” and the idea had spread far across the country.

After a hiatus in the 1940s due to World War II’s sugar rationing and blackout restrictions, Halloween came into its own as a children’s holiday in the 1950s and 1960s. Trick-or-treating kids initially wore homemade costumes, and newly-built suburbs resounded with gentle echoes of the rowdiness of the 1920s in the form not of overturned outhouses, but rather the occasional soaped window or toilet papered tree. The very real menace once associated with the holiday was a memory; the commercialization was well underway.

Due to widespread (and generally illegitimate) fears of poisoned candy, and allegations of razor blades concealed in apples, the holiday changed direction again by the early 1970s. Parents became more involved, using safety concerns as an impetus for hosting decoration-intensive parties, both private and public (often hosted by local schools). Now that the holiday had been moved into the public arena, where keeping up with the Joneses was crucial, store-bought costumes became more common than homemade ones, and adults got into the habit of wearing costumes, too.

Halloween was rapidly becoming more and more organized, with less emphasis on trick-or-treating, and more on polish and presentation. Period reporting indicates that in the mid-1970s Halloween was worth about “$400 million in candy sales and $37 million in costume rental and sales income.”[1]

Clearly, the holiday that repeatedly came close to being banned forever has come a long, lucrative way. Originally a red-letter night for juvenile delinquents, and once merely a celebration for children, Halloween is now indisputably a big night for adults as well

As difficult as that bit of information may be to digest, what’s most remarkable is that the tremendous retail boon that comes each October 31st can be directly traced back to overturned outhouses more than 90 years ago.

Bringing coals to Newcastle

Selling, carrying, bringing, or taking coal(s) to Newcastle is an idiom of British origin describing a foolhardy or pointless action.^[1]

It refers to the fact that historically, the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-eastern England was heavily dependent on the distribution and sale of coal—by the time of the first known recording of the phrase in 1538,^[2][3] 15,000 tonnes of coal were being exported annually from the area^[4]—and therefore any attempt to sell coal to Newcastle would be doomed to failure because of the economic principle of supply and demand.^[1] The phrase “To carry Coals to Newcastle” is first documented in North America in 1679 in William Fitzhugh‘s letters (“But relating farther to you would be carrying Coals to new Castle”)^[5] and first appears in a printed title in Labour in vain: or Coals to Newcastle: A sermon to the people of Queen-Hith, 1709.

Timothy Dexter, an American entrepreneur, succeeded in defying the idiom in the eighteenth century. Renowned for his eccentricity and widely regarded as a buffoon, he was persuaded to sail a shipment of coal to Newcastle by rival merchants plotting to ruin him. However, he instead got a large profit after his cargo arrived during a miners’ strike which had crippled local production.^[6][7]

 

Although the coal industry of Newcastle has declined in its relative importance to the city since its historic heyday, the expression can still be used today with a degree of literal accuracy, since the harbour of Newcastle in Australia (named for Newcastle in the UK after abundant coal deposits were discovered there and exploited by early European settlers^[10]) has succeeded its UK namesake by becoming the largest exporter of coal in the modern world.^[11]

With the increasing onset of globalization, parallels in other industries are being found, and the idiom is now frequently used by the media when reporting business ventures whose success may initially appear just as unlikely. It has been referred to in coverage of the export to India of Saudi Arabian saffron and chicken tikka masala from the United Kingdom,^[12][13] the sale of Scottish pizzas to Italy,^[14] the flowing of champagne and cheese from Britain to the French,^[15][16] and the production of manga versions of William Shakespeare from Cambridge for Japan.^[17]

Even though its original geographic origin may have been displaced, this cliché continues to be used.^[18]

canary in a coal mine

An allusion to caged canaries (birds) that mining workers would carry down into the mine tunnels with them. If dangerous gases such as methane or carbon monoxide leaked into the mine, the gases would kill the canary before killing the miners, thus providing a warning to exit the tunnels immediately.

Noun

canary in a coal mine (plural canaries in a coal mine)

1. (idiomatic) Something whose sensitivity to adverse conditions makes it a useful early indicator of such conditions; something which warns of the coming of greater danger or trouble by a deterioration in its health or welfare.

The famous cuckoo clock speech from “The Third Man” (1940’s film)

Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

Place de la Concorde

 

Place de la Concorde
Arrondissement	8th
Quarter	La Madeleine
Length	359 m (1,178 ft)
Width	212 m (696 ft)
Creation	1772
Denomination	1830
The Place de la Concorde seen from the Pont de la Concorde; in front, the Obelisk, behind, the Rue Royale and the Church of the Madeleine; on the left, the Hôtel de Crillon.

 

The Place de la Concorde (French pronunciation: ​[plas də la kɔ̃kɔʁd]) is one of the major public squares in Paris, France. Measuring 8.64 hectares (21.3 acres) in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city’s eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.

 

 

 

History

 

The Place was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the Champs-Élysées to the west and the Tuileries Garden to the east. Decorated with statues and fountains, the area was named Place Louis XV to honor the king at that time. The square showcased an equestrian statue of the king, which had been commissioned in 1748 by the city of Paris, sculpted mostly by Edmé Bouchardon, and completed by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle after the death of Bouchardon.

 

At the north end, two magnificent identical stone buildings were constructed. Separated by the rue Royale, these structures remain among the best examples of Louis Quinze style architecture. Initially, the eastern building served as the French Naval Ministry. Shortly after its construction, the western building became the opulent home of the Duc d’Aumont. It was later purchased by the Comte de Crillon, whose family resided there until 1907. The famous luxury Hôtel de Crillon, which currently occupies the building, took its name from its previous owners; it was the headquarters of the German High Command during World War II.

 

French Revolution

 

During the French Revolution the statue of Louis XV of France was torn down and the area renamed “Place de la Révolution”. The new revolutionary government erected the guillotine in the square, and it was here that King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793.

 

Other important figures guillotined on the site, often in front of cheering crowds, were Queen Marie Antoinette, Princess Élisabeth of France, Charlotte Corday, Madame du Barry, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Antoine Lavoisier, Maximilien Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just and Olympe de Gouges.

 

The guillotine was most active during the last part of the “Reign of Terror“, in the summer of 1794, when in a single month more than 1,300 people were executed. A year later, when the revolution was taking a more moderate course, the guillotine was removed from the square.

 

The old plaque, for “Place Louis XVI”, and replacement plaque at the corner of Hôtel de Crillon.

 

The Fountain of River Commerce and Navigation, one of the two Fontaines de la Concorde (1840) on the Place de la Concorde. Behind: the Hôtel de Crillon; to the left: the embassy of the United States.

 

Execution of Louis XVI in the then Place de la Révolution. The empty pedestal in front of him had supported a statue of his grandfather, Louis XV, torn down during one of the many revolutionary riots.

 

In 1795, under the Directory, the square was renamed Place de la Concorde as a gesture of reconciliation after the turmoil of the French Revolution. After the Bourbon Restoration of 1814, the name was changed back to Place Louis XV, and in 1826 the square was renamed Place Louis XVI. After the July Revolution of 1830 the name was returned to Place de la Concorde and has remained since.

 

Features

 

• To the west of the Place is the famous Champs-Élysées.
• To the east of the Place are the Tuileries Gardens. The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume and the Musée de l’Orangerie, both in the Tuileries Gardens, border the Place
• North of the Place: two identical stone buildings, separated by the Rue Royale. The eastern one houses the French Naval Ministry, and the western one is the Hôtel de Crillon. The Rue Royale leads to the Église de la Madeleine. The Embassy of the United States is located in the corner of the Place at the intersection of Avenue Gabriel and Rue Boissy d’Anglas
• The northeastern corner of the Place is the western end of the Rue de Rivoli
• South of the Place: the River Seine, crossed by the Pont de la Concorde, built by Jean-Rodolphe Perronnet between 1787–1790 and widened in 1930-1932. The Palais Bourbon, home of the French National Assembly, is across the bridge, on the opposite bank of the river
• At each of the eight angles of the octagonal Place is a statue, initiated by architect Jacques-Ignace Hittorff, representing a French city:
  • Brest and Rouen by Jean-Pierre Cortot
  • Lyon and Marseille by Pierre Petitot
  • Bordeaux and Nantes by Louis-Denis Caillouette
  • Lille and Strasbourg by James Pradier. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, when Alsace-Lorraine was lost to Germany, the Strasbourg statue was covered in black mourning crepe on state occasions,^[1] and was often decorated with wreaths; this practice did not end until France regained the region following World War I.^[2]

 

Obelisk

 

Main article: Luxor Obelisk

 

The Obelisk of Luxor stands on top of a pedestal that recounts the special machinery and manœuvres that were used to transport it.

 

The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II. It is one of two the Egyptian government gave to the French in the 19th century. The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time. In the 1990s, President François Mitterrand gave the second obelisk back to the Egyptians.

 

The obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple. The Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, offered the 3,300-year-old Luxor Obelisk to France in 1829. It arrived in Paris on 21 December 1833. Three years later, on 25 October 1836, King Louis Philippe had it placed in the center of Place de la Concorde, where a guillotine used to stand during the Revolution.

 

The obelisk, a yellow granite column, rises 23 metres (75 ft) high, including the base, and weighs over 250 metric tons (280 short tons). Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was no easy feat — on the pedestal are drawn diagrams explaining the machinery that was used for the transportation. The obelisk is flanked on both sides by fountains constructed at the time of its erection on the Place.

 

Missing its original cap, believed stolen in the 6th century BC, the government of France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk in 1998.

 

Without warning, in 2000 French urban climber Alain “Spiderman” Robert, using only his bare hands, climbing shoes and no safety devices, scaled the obelisk all the way to the top.

 

The Fountains

 

Fountain of River Commerce and Navigation (1840) with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

 

Main article: Fontaines de la Concorde

 

The two fountains in the Place de la Concorde have been the most famous of the fountains built during the time of Louis-Philippe, and came to symbolize the fountains in Paris. They were designed by Jacques Ignace Hittorff, a student of the Neoclassical designer Charles Percier at the École des Beaux-Arts. The German-born Hittorff had served as the official Architect of Festivals and Ceremonies for the deposed King, and had spent two years studying the architecture and fountains of Italy.

 

Hittorff’s two fountains were on the theme of rivers and seas, in part because of their proximity to the Ministry of Navy, and to the Seine. Their arrangement, on a north-south axis aligned with the Obelisk of Luxor and the Rue Royale, and the form of the fountains themselves, were influenced by the fountains of Rome, particularly Piazza Navona and the Piazza San Pietro, both of which had obelisks aligned with fountains.

 

Both fountains had the same form: a stone basin; six figures of tritons or naiads holding fish spouting water; six seated allegorical figures, their feet on the prows of ships, supporting the pedestal, of the circular vasque; four statues of different forms of genius in arts or crafts supporting the upper inverted upper vasque; whose water shot up and then cascaded down to the lower vasque and then the basin.

 

The north fountain was devoted to the Rivers, with allegorical figures representing the Rhone and the Rhine, the arts of the harvesting of flowers and fruits, harvesting and grape growing; and the geniuses of river navigation, industry, and agriculture.

 

The south fountain, closer to the Seine, represented the seas, with figures representing the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; harvesting coral; harvesting fish; collecting shellfish; collecting pearls; and the geniuses of astronomy, navigation and commerce.^[3]

Taxis of the Marne, September 1914

 

With German forces close to achieving a breakthrough against beleaguered French forces outside Paris between 6-8 September 1914, a decision was taken by French military authorities to despatch emergency troop reinforcements from Paris.

Extraordinarily these were despatched – on 7 September – using a fleet of Parisian taxi cabs, some 600 in all, ferrying approximately 6,000 French reserve infantry troops to the front.

The tactic worked and Paris was saved – barely.  The incident quickly gained legend as “the taxis of the Marne”.  Events at the ensuing First Battle of the Marne led to a throwing back of German forces, ensuring Paris’ safety – and military stalemate and with it the onset of trench warfare.

 

1984 (advertisement) Apple Commercial

 

The heroine running with her sledgehammer
Directed by	Ridley Scott
Distributed by	Apple Inc.
Release dates	January 22, 1984 (only nationally televised broadcast)
Running time	1 minute

 

“1984” is an American television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. It was conceived by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas and Lee Clow at Chiat\Day, produced by New York production company Fairbanks Films, and directed by Ridley Scott. English athlete Anya Major performed as the unnamed heroine and David Graham as Big Brother.^[1][2] It was televised nationally on January 22, 1984, during a break in the third quarter of the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS.^[3] It was also aired in 10 local outlets,^[4] including Twin Falls, Idaho, where Chiat\Day ran the ad on December 15, 1983, shortly before the 1:00 a.m. sign-off on KMVT, so that the advertisement qualified for 1983 advertising awards.^[5][6] After the ad’s premiere, widespread media coverage generated an estimated $5 million in “free” airtime.^[5] In one interpretation of the commercial, “1984” used the unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by her white tank top with a stylized line drawing^[7] of Apple’s Macintosh computer on it) as a means of saving humanity from “conformity” (Big Brother).^[8] These images were an allusion to George Orwell‘s noted novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described a dystopian future ruled by a televised “Big Brother”. The estate of George Orwell and the television rightsholder to the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four considered the commercial to be a copyright infringement and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Apple and Chiat\Day in April 1984.^[9]

 

Originally a subject of contention within Apple, it has subsequently been called a watershed event^[10] and a masterpiece^[11] in advertising. In 1995, The Clio Awards added it to its Hall of Fame, and Advertising Age placed it on the top of its list of 50 greatest commercials.^[12]

 

 

 

Plot

 

The commercial opens with a dystopic, industrial setting in blue and grayish tones, showing a line of people (of ambiguous gender) marching in unison through a long tunnel monitored by a string of telescreens. This is in sharp contrast to the full-color shots of the nameless runner (Anya Major). She looks like a competitive track and field athlete, wearing an athletic “uniform” (bright orange athletic shorts, running shoes, a white tank top with a cubist picture of Apple’s Macintosh computer, a white sweat band on her left wrist, and a red one on her right), and is carrying a large brass-headed hammer.^[13] Rows of marching minions evoke the opening scenes of Metropolis.^{[original research?]}

 

The Big Brother-like figure (David Graham) speaking to his audience

 

As she is chased by four police officers (presumably agents of the Thought Police) wearing black uniforms, protected by riot gear, helmets with visors covering their faces, and armed with large night sticks, she races towards a large screen with the image of a Big Brother-like figure (David Graham, also seen on the telescreens earlier) giving a speech:

 

Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology—where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!

 

The runner, now close to the screen, hurls the hammer towards it, right at the moment Big Brother announces, “we shall prevail!” In a flurry of light and smoke, the screen is destroyed, shocking the people watching the screen.

 

The commercial concludes with a portentous voiceover, accompanied by scrolling black text (in Apple’s early signature “Garamond” font); the hazy, whitish-blue aftermath of the cataclysmic event serves as the background. It reads:

 

On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984.”

 

The screen fades to black as the voiceover ends, and the rainbow Apple logo appears.