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Circular song – En la maison Dedalu

Image | | Paul Greer

reblogging erikkwakkel:


Circular song

“Medieval music books, with their merry notes jumping off the page, are a pleasure to look at. This sensational page from the 14th century adds to this experience in a most unusual manner. It presents a well-known song, the French ballade titled En la maison Dedalus (In the house of Dedalus), be it that the scribe decided to write both music and lyrics in a circular form. There is reason behind this madness. The maze created by music and words locks up the main character of the song, the mythological figure Ariadne, who is a prisoner in the house of Daedalus – she is represented by the red dot. The book contains treatises on music theory, notation, tuning and chant. In other words, it was meant for experts readers. The beholder likely enjoyed the challenge of singing a circular song (did he or she spin the book around?) and how it held its subject hostage in the merriest of ways.”

“Pic: Berkeley, Music Library, MS 744 (made in Paris in 1375).”

from erikkwakkel:

Sketches of Nikolai Gogol, Count Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, and other Russian artists by poet Alexander Pushkin.

Image | | Paul Greer


Sketches of Nikolai Gogol, Count Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, and other Russian artists by poet Alexander Pushkin.

“Pushkin would frequently jot down these charming black and white sketches both in his personal writings, and in the margins of his manuscripts. The final image, a page from Eugene Onegin, is a terrific example of his notebooks. Alongside the text, Pushkin included a sketch of a well-known Russian painter and aristocrat, with whom the author was certainly acquainted: Count Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy (not to be confused with the Leo Tolstoy).”

—  @iliablinderman

 

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer (Tezcatlipoca)

Image | | Paul Greer


Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

“The Codex Fejérváry-Mayer is an Aztec Codex of central Mexico. It is one of the rare pre-Hispanic manuscripts that have survived the Spanish conquest of Mexico. As a typical calendar codex tonalamatl dealing with the sacred Aztec calendar – the tonalpohualli – it is placed in the Borgia Group. It is a divinatory almanac in 17 sections.Its elaboration is typically pre-Columbian: it is made on deerskin parchment folded accordion-style into 23 pages. It measures 16.2 centimetres by 17.2 centimetres and is 3.85 metres long”


Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

“The earliest history of the codex is unknown. It is named after Gabriel Fejérváry (1780–1851), a Hungarian collector, and Joseph Mayer (1803–1886), an English antiquarian who bought the codex from Fejérváry. In 2004 Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez proposed that it be given the indigenous name Codex Tezcatlipoca, from the Nahuatl name of the god Tezcatlipoca (who is shown, with black-and-yellow facial striping, in the centre of its first page), although it is not certain that its creators were Nahuas.
It is currently kept in the World Museum Liverpool in Liverpool, England, having as its catalogue # 12014 M. It is published in Volume 26 of the series Codices Selecti of the Akademische Druck – u. Verlagsanstalt – Graz. It is believed to have originated specifically in Veracruz.”


Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

“Codex Fejérváry-Mayer is an important cultural artifact from the pre-Cortes destruction of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. An Aztec Code from Central Mexico, it is one of very few manuscripts to survive the Spanish conquest. A typical calendar code (onalamatl), including an Aztec world calendar (tonalpohualli) – both part of a larger series of codes called Code Borgija – it’s design is characterized by pre-colombian influence. It’s made of parchment and chamois, and folded like an accordion, stretching over twelve feet long when unfurled.”


Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

“The earliest history of the code is wrapped in darkness, it became known as Codex Fejérváry-Mayer after the Hungarian collector (Fejervaryju) and benefactor from Liverpool (Mayer) who acquired the piece. Most experts agree the true name was probably Code Tezcatlipoca, the name of the Nahuatl people’s god.”


Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer

via MagicTransistor

“Shake Appeal by Iggy and the Stooges (1972)

Image | | Paul Greer

“Little more than a slithering, turbulent, electrifying riff over which Iggy yelps his most histrionic yowl, “Shake Appeal” was originally titled “Tight Pants,” in which form it has since materialized on a string of Raw Power session compilations.The song was written in stark emulation of the untrammeled roar that first drew Iggy Pop to rock & roll, the sound of dragsters racing around the track, while Jerry Lee Lewis, Link Wray, Gary “U.S.” Bonds, and Cannibal & the Headhunters blare from the jukebox — “that’s the kind of shit that would light a fire under my tree,” Iggy enthused. “Let’s get some fucking action here!” “Shake Appeal” delivers precisely that.”

— Dave Thompson

see also:

RIP Ron Asheton

Plaque to Emily Wilding Davison

Image | | Paul Greer

Plaque to Emily Wilding Davison

“This plaque to Emily Wilding Davison was put up in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft by Tony Benn MP.

Tony Benn said in the House of Commons in 2001: ‘I have put up several plaques—quite illegally, without permission; I screwed them up myself. One was in the broom cupboard to commemorate Emily Wilding Davison, and another celebrated the people who fought for democracy and those who run the House. If one walks around this place, one sees statues of people, not one of whom believed in democracy, votes for women or anything else. We have to be sure that we are a workshop and not a museum.'”

Poland, 19th C. Egg decorated with micrographic text from the Song of Songs

Image | | Paul Greer


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 “Handwritten in ink. From the 18th century, and perhaps even earlier, hollow eggs on which sacred texts had been written in micrography were used to decorate European sukkahs. Not all the texts related directly to the holiday of Sukkot, the Festival of Booths: this example has Song of Songs 1-4:7 inscribed in miniscule letters. At times feathers were added to the hanging egg, so that it looked like a bird in flight.”

— via whiteshiningsilver