Archive for April, 2014

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows…

A beautiful, dark, much appreciated creative project about words and emotions.

 

Welcome to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows…

 

“The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a compendium of invented words written by John Koenig. Each original definition aims to fill a hole in the language—to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don’t yet have a word for.

 

The author’s mission is to capture the aches, demons, vibes, joys and urges that roam the wilderness of the psychological interior. Each sorrow is bagged, tagged and tranquilized, then released gently back into the subconscious.”

 

Peruse it here.

 

Visit the facebook page to hear the backstory behind each word

 

 

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England’s biggest peacetime witch trial: The Trial of The Lancashire Witches

It was England’s biggest peacetime witch trial: The Trial of The Lancashire Witches. And it was brutal…

 

Does it have relevance today?

 

Illustration from James Crossley’s introduction to Pott’s Discovery of witches in the County of Lancaster (1845) reprinted from the original edition of 1613. - See more at: http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/08/22/the-lancashire-witches-1612-2012/#sthash.zZSj2BFu.dpuf

Illustration from James Crossley’s introduction to Pott’s Discovery of witches in the County of Lancaster (1845) reprinted from the original edition of 1613.

 

The Lancashire Witches 1612-2012 (The Public Domain Review)

 

Not long after ten Lancashire residents were found guilty of witchcraft and hung in August 1612, the official proceedings of the trial were published by the clerk of the court Thomas Potts in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. Four hundred years on, Robert Poole reflects on England’s biggest witch trial and how it still has relevance today.

 

 

Four hundred years ago, in 1612, the north-west of England was the scene of England’s biggest peacetime witch trial: the trial of the Lancashire witches. Twenty people, mostly from the Pendle area of Lancashire, were imprisoned in the castle as witches. Ten were hanged, one died in gaol, one was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and eight were acquitted. The 2012 anniversary sees a small flood of commemorative events, including works of fiction by Blake Morrison, Carol Ann Duffy and Jeanette Winterson. How did this witch trial come about, and what accounts for its enduring fame?

 

We know so much about the Lancashire Witches because the trial was recorded in unique detail by the clerk of the court, Thomas Potts, who published his account soon afterwards as The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster…

 

See the rest here.

 

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The “Manual” on how to rebuild civilization after an apocalypse…

Old_Library_by_Forozan

 

What books do you think humanity would need (or want) to rebuild things after a global apocalypse? The Long Now Foundation has been pondering this question, and they have asked some great modern day thinkers to curate lists of books for their  MANUAL FOR CIVILIZATION. The actual books themselves will be housed in the new library at the INTERVAL salon space — a San Francisco cocktail bar/library for contemplating the Long Term.

 

Here is a bit about Brain Pickings‘ Maria Popova’s reading list for the Manual of Civilization:

 

33 Books on How to Live: My Reading List for the Long Now Foundation’s Manual for Civilization

by Maria Popova

 

Books that help us make sense of ourselves, our world, and our place in it.

 

“In a recent piece about the Manual for Civilization — the Long Now Foundation’s effort to assemble 3,500 books most essential for sustaining or rebuilding humanity, as part of their collaboratively curated library of 3,500 books for long-term thinking — I lamented the fact that Stewart Brand’s 76-book contribution to the Manual contained only one and a half books authored by a woman. To their credit, the folks at the Long Now reached out immediately, inviting me to contribute my own list to the collaborative library they’re building.

 

In grappling with the challenge, I faced a disquieting and inevitable realization: The predicament of diversity is like a Russian nesting doll — once we crack one layer, there’s always another, a fractal-like subdivision that begins at the infinite and approaches the infinitesimal, getting exponentially granular with each layer, but can never be fully finished…”

 

 

Click here for the list, and more. Learn more about The Long Now and its Manual for Civilization here.

 

 

 

 

 

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