JF Ptak Science Books

Maps of Extreme Beauty and Detail, 1555

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post 

These fabulous maps appear in the cartographer/privateer/navigator/explorer Guillaume Testu (1509-1572) Cosmographie universelle, selon les navigateurs tant anciens que modernes / par Guillaume Testu, pillotte en la mer du Ponent, de la ville francoyse de Grâce, which was a manuscript atlas composed in 1555 or so, and found online courtesy of the Bibliotheque Nationale (Gallica). It is extraordinarily rich in design, color, and most significantly in detail, much of which was real. 

The work is 118 pages with 57 plates (almost all of which are maps)--I've posted below six world map projections plus a few maps of North America and Central America. And a beautiful wind rose.  The rest are available via the previously-mentioned link. 

On Holes in and Life on the Sun, 1787

JF Ptak Science Books    Post 1982   History of Holes series  #44 

The composition of the sun remained basically hidden to scientists until relatively recently--certainly it was well into the 20th century before astronomers/astrophysicists got a good idea of what the sun is, exactly.  The perfection of god's creation and Aristotle's unchanging nature of the sun must've been suspected for a long time given its coronal displays during total eclipse and ancient unaided observation of sunspots (which at least suggested that the sun rotated), but the true nature of the "imperfect" nature of the star wasn't firmly exhibited until the work of Thomas Harriot and the Fabricus and Galileo and Scheiner--but then there wasn't that much that could be employed from the data. So too true even with Bunsen and Kirchhoff in their profound invention and discovery in 1859 of the spectrographic analysis of the sun revealing its chemical composition (finding the absorption lines in the spectrum of the sun contained hydrogen,m nicekl, iron, sodium,cacium, and magnesium as starters)--this information was essential in establishing discoveries that would come much later on. (Interesting to note here that the first record of a solar flare is made in this same year by Richard Carrington, and also that this year saw the publication of On the Origin of Species as well as Riemann's hypothesis and Maxwell's kinetic theory of gases--a big year in the history of science).

The interesting hypothesis of sunspots as "holes" in the surface of the sun was made by Alexander Wilson (professor of astronomy at the University of Glasgow) in his paper "Observations on the Solar Spots" on 1 January 1774 and published in the Philosophical Transactions  (volume 64, pp 1-30, and available here).  It was one attempt at an explanation for the mysterious black spots that also opened the door to the possibility of the sun being inhabited.  The spots then would have been conical holes in the sun's photosphere, with the dark part coming from a glimpse of the interior (and presumably cooler) part of the sun. 

From the vantage point here in the future this looked like not such a great idea, especially coming only a few years before the (1787) discovery by William Herschel that the sun and the rest of the solar system was in motion relative to the stars and was slowly moving towards a point in the contellation Hercules, which was an enormous scientific breakthrough as well as philosophical-theological chllenge, a cosmological "aha!" moment.  That said, Mr. Herschel also held the view that sun spots were possibly cavities in the surface of the sun, the reasoning for which was very good and at times convincing in the absence of anything better, a pretty good product for its time

The beautiful image introducing this post was designed about a hundred years after the Wilson paper, and appeared in the prolific Amédée Guillemin's (1826-1893) The Sun (translated from the original French in 1875), and which is available in full text pdf from The Haiti Trust. Guillemin spends a chapter on sunspots and holes and presents a convicing history of the idea, and that according to Wilson and others the spots were cavities in a liquid globule envelope and revealed the solid mass of the sun "through a cloudy atmosphere with a grey tiny all around" (page 214). 

The epilogue of Guillemin's book addresses the issue of life on the sun ("Is the Sun Inhabited?")  and in his review Guillemin very plainly makes the case that it is "absolutely impossible to support life" on the sun due to the heat--presently. He qualifies his assessment finally by asking "Will it become habitable?", and responding that it was "very possible" (page 295), but that it would have to take place in a future where the rest of the planets and everything else has gotten colder. 

 

 

 



Finding Scientific Method in Uroscopy, 1577

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1981

[Image: the anatomical furnace for the distillation and diagnosis of urine. From: Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance, second edition,  Basel/New York 1982, page 193/194. the image also found on line here.]

While the ancient aspects of the inspection of urine as medical discovery seem distant, it is not so, the practice continuing for thousands of years, deep into the 17th century.  There are some surprises, though, here and there, in the recent history of uroscopy, particularly involving Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541), and specifically with his Anatomy, that is, the Dissection of the Living Body or of Distillation of the Urine, printed in 1577. This is one of the many of the works of Paracelsus printed posthumously--in his relatively short but very full life of 84 years, he published four books, but then in the 40 years or so following his death there were at least 14 more works that were published.  (A general overview of the works by and about Paracelsus--who worked in the areas of medico-occult and philosophy, alchemy, astronomy/astrology, theology, magic and more--can be found by piecing your way through the always-useful OCLC/WorldCat, here).

In the practice of general uroscopy  urine was seen as a window into the health of the body--rather the lack of health.  For centuries urine was simply observed, its color plotted against color wheels.  Paracelsus worked in a different vein, and although this approach seemed as antiquated as possible after hundreds of years of practice, he adopted a proto-scientific approach to his urine inspection.  The idea of urine and his "anatomical furnace", wherein the urine was distilled in a cylinder the size of the subject for interpretation, was a wide but interesting sidestep in the history of uroscopy, filled with some slight hope and more-than-slight abundance of need in belief. The point though is that Paracelsus went about this scientifically--no longer just an observational inspection: the urine was distilled, and coagulated bits (the "morbid species") was separated from the urine, and the precipitated items were studied, a "chemical dissection" (according to Walter Pagels in his standard biography of Paracelsus 1982).  The cylinder was graduated in proportion to the subject; there was careful collection and handling of the specimen, and attempts were made to see beyond the standard practice of centuries past.  So there was some hint of scientific method in this work--something that Pagels notes but still labels the work "disappointing, albeit a subtle new brand of uroscopy".

What Happened Underground: Mining, Orwell, Trench Bombers, & Waits

JF Ptak Science Books 

Looking at these two images of the shirtless miner laying down and working on his side in the semi-dark way underground in what looks to be a tunnel about twice the width of his shoulders makes you wonder about how in the name of great bog could people have done this, day in and day out.  The fact that the appearance of these images were both essential and mundane further tells us—as we sit here in a comfortable chair in the print’s future—that this is, simply, what people did, and what they had to do.

This was “holing”, as in working in a hole, and served to illustrate a point in Mr. M.G. Johnson’s paper “The Working of Steep Seams”, which I think appeared in a West Australian mining journal around 1900.  So, it seems, the guy, the worker, in the picture would spend his day chunking coal from a hard vein, laying down, scrapping (I think) away at the coal in a too-tight tunnel.  Did he do this for hours?  Days?  Weeks?  I guess the bad answer is that he did this as long as the coal could be followed.   (Also, it looks as though that the major tunnel in which the coal car is located may be 4 or 5 shoulders high—certainly not tall enough to walk in, which means that this guy could’ve crab-walked to this position for a half mile or more, just to get to work.  The tenacity of this worker to do his work and collect his pay to feed his family was just incredible. 

The first image really doesn't need much commentary, though calling the worker a "tugger boy" pulling up a "hudge" was probably a bit of sardonic camraderie--except that the doing of the job would distance you from its folksy name. Well, that, or the "tugger boy" really is referring to a boy, as we see in the followlign mining definition: "Tugger boy (Brist). One who draws small tubs or sleds underground by
means of a tugger. Called Tugger-work. (Gresley), 1883).  The depiction of what seems to be a mature man in the image might be a piece of propaganda. In any event,  the Tugger Boy carries his own flame on the top of his headgear, and the chain that attaches him to the heavy coal bucket runs from his waste down the front of his body and through his legs.  Very hard work needless to say--harder yet done by a child.

George Orwell wrote perhaps one of the most brilliant descriptions of the mining environment in his superb The Road to Wigan Pier. (It is well worth reading all of Orwell’s books at this point—his insights almost never looked so fresh.)

                                                   

He  describes the crab-walk from the elevator to the place of work, telling how difficult and exhausting the process was of just getting to the place where you would then begin your difficult workday.  Of the miners he says at one point:  “Watching coal-miners at work, you realize momentarily what different universes people inhabit. Down there where coal is dug is a sort of world apart which one can quite easily go through life without ever hearing about. Probably majority of people would even prefer not to hear about it. Yet it is the absolutely necessary counterpart of our world above.”  Read more here.

The next series of images come from the pen of W Heath Robinson (1872-1944) who was a lovely, quirky, charming, skewed, dark, stiff-bouncing and creative illustrator capable of considerable whimsy (light and complex) and deep skepticism.  The images I’ve selected are from one of his three WWI books, Hunlikely, published in 1916 (Some "Frightful" War Pictures (1915), and Flypapers (1919), were the other two) and depict scenes from the intra-trench tunnel wars, which were battles fought in the midst (or, actually, beneath) other battles.  This was a savage, grueling, post-adjectival affair—exceedingly dangerous, difficult, awful.  And it happened a lot during the war, given the experience of stalemates between vast armies sunk into mole city trenches, with no one going anywhere for long periods because there was nothing in between the two impervious lines but a death vacuum.  So one of the solutions was to try and tunnel underneath the opposing army’s defenses, fill the far end with high explosives, and blow them up.  The other side was doing it too, and in the middle of it all was the incorporation of newer/better listening devices to detect forces rummaging around underneath your position dozens of feet into the ground.  It was a bad business. (One of the other means of breaching the trench lines was aerial combat, but bombers carrying tons of HE were still yet to be invented; poison gas was another.  Most of the time the armies would just meet in the middle  in wide plains of nothingness in a sea of hot, expanding metal,  where to this day in many of those places nothing can live).

Robinson’s illustrations are odd, and oddly funny, the dark humor coming at the expense of both sides of the conflict, piercing each.   

This puts me in mind of Tom Waits’ concrete-toothed “There’s A World Going On Underground” (1983) song from the Swordfishtrombones album. 

Rattle big black bones in the danger zone
There's a rumblin' groan down below
There's a big dark town, it's a place I've found
There's a world going on underground
            
They're alive, they're awake
While the rest of the world is asleep
Below the mine shaft roads, it will all unfold
There's a world going on underground
            
All the roots hang down, swing from town to town
They are marching around down under your boots
All the trucks unload beyond the gopher holes
There's a world going on underground

Beginning an Alphabet of Science Fiction -Punkisms

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 1981

“The most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with little bodily labor, may write books in philosophy, poetry, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.”  Jonathan Swift, in Gulliver’s Travels (Actually, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships).  1726.

I've produced the beginning of an alphabet of --Punkisms for variations of robot.machine/computer past and futures, science fiction indicators of possibility. Why should we stop at "Steampunk" when there's FuturePunk and DeadPunk and such to be had?  So, please find folllowing a few possibilities, and accept them in the playful way in which they are offered--also, the very abbreviated descriptions of the science fiction works desscribed are open to interpretation. And please give this a "pass" for the over-abundance of hyphens.

A

ActorPunk: Walter Miller, 'The Darfsteller' (1954), human actors are replaced by robots on stage, as compared to being replaced by digital figures online. Some steps have been made with great care over the years by “perfecting” the imaging of women in magazine advertisement—in this way even the models who appear in the ad and are modified find it impossible to live up to the expectations of what their ads depict.

Anti-technologicalPunk-topia: Samuel Butler, Erewhon, (1872).

AutomatoPunk:  Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (1955), like Brazil and 1984, but with machines.

B

BiologoPunk:  Philip K. Dick, 'Autofac' (1955), machines find that they can reproduce themselves in a '50's iron-bio kind of way. 

BrainPunk: Miles J. Breuer, 'Paradise and Iron' (1930).

C

ConsciousnessPunk: Philip K. Dick, Vulcan's Hammer (1960) and the development of computer consciousness.  Also David Gerrold, When Harlie Was One (1972);
Frank Herbert, Destination Void (1966); Harlan Ellison, 'I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream' (1967);  Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966), and many others.

On Educating Women in the Sciences, Nature Magazine, 1871

JF Ptak Science Books    Quick Post 

[The decorative gilt-stamped title of the cover of the volumes of my run of the great journal, Nature, 1871]

In the 23 November 1871 issue of Nature appears "Science for Women", a sort of unsigned editorial.  It is one in an interesting series of (for the most) part positive revelations about the education of women in the sciences, a step towards, well, not "equality", but a normalization, a rapprochement,  extending the field of technical education away from the ruling/private school/university class of men towards women. This was happening at a time when there was not only a distinct division between men and women in education but also between the classes. 

The Extreme Unction of Writing Posture

JF Ptak Science Books     Daily Dose from Dr. Odd

This semi-wincing image was found in George Gould's Righthandedness and Lefhandedness (Lippincott, 1908)--it is rather innocent, suggesting a study of penmanship posture; but taken out of context, it is quite something different, something with a bit of threat in it.  In- or out-of-context the author really meant to have the chin buried into the chest as a proper attitude.

On Looking at Things Straight Down

JF Ptak Science Books    Daily Dose from Dr. Odd

 

This Daily Dose from Dr. Odd combines two interesting categories today, "Looking Straight Down" and "Display of Information", and they involve food. Rather, its the placement of food, and maps of dinner tables, seen from above--directly above--and looking straight down.

The idea of representing a view straight down, of looking straight down from some height, is a relatively recent occurrence, this view being somewhat rare in the antiquarian world pre-balloon or pre-heavier-than-air flight.  The pre-human-flight reason for its scarcity is understandable, but even after the first Montgolfier ascension in 1787, there’s another 120+ years of scarcity yet to come before these views would start to pop up in common (and uncommon) literature..  Now I’m not talking about cartography, which is basically a straight-down view of the world—what I’m referring to is that same view but not as a map per se, but what you would see if you were dangling out of a plane or balloon. It is an unusual and scarce perspective.

On a Census of Senses in Oz-Land: Adventures in the Land of Silence and Light

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 1980   

With the endless images of the Land of Oz in our minds from the book and movie it is easy for the other lands generated by their creator L. Frank Baum to escape our attention   Oz isn't the only place that Dorothy traveled to--far from it.  She went very far and wide in the mind of Baum, who was extraordinarily prolific both inside and outside of the Oz series.

From 1900-1919, Baum (1856-1919) wrote 17 Oz books, as well as another 18 books in the non-Oz realm, plus 17 books in a juvenile series for girls under the pseudonym of Edith Van Dyne, plus six more books under the name of Floyd Akers, plus another seven other books under five other names, plus a pretty wide assortment (200+) of short stories, plus plays. Plus all of the stuff he wrote before 1900.  That's a LOT of writing in 19 years.

Missing the Obvious: WWI and Kriegsoptik

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post   

For some reason this particular defensive utility of the binocular/rangefinder/"scherenfernohr" hadn't occurred to me before seeing this photograph (in the September 1915 issue of Himmel und Erde).  Of course with the many billions of rounds of ammo that flew across open fields during the war, if it was your job to sight for artillery or what have you it would be better to do that from a trench (as this instrument was also known as a "trench periscope", as varieties of the binoculars could have vertical tubes) and behind cover, or if in the field to be able to find a defensive position for your work. I hadn't thought about standing behind a tree with the scope's optics wide enough to operate beyond the diameter of the trunk--seeing the picture made me think, "of course". On the other hand, this posture assumes that there's very little flank to that field...

The Machine in the Mind, 1919

JF Ptak Science Books    Post 1979  

I'm unsure of when the first images appear representing the human mind as a sort of anthropomorphic filing system, utilizing a desk or filing cabinet or (later) a computer. From the early history of human memory-making mnemonic devices and memory palaces there are represnetations of where information in the brain could be stored for rapid access and retrieval, like memories being stored in rows of theater seating, or in the branches of complex trees, or in the buildings of a bird's eye street map.  But these show where the memory "goes", and not where this memory set sits in the brain of the individual. 

(An example of a memory palace, from Giulio Camillo,  L'idea del Theatro, 1550, from Bourbakisme blog).

This came to mind seeing this odd little ad in the magazine Illustrated World for July 1919 seeing these fairly high-creep factor faces endowed with different sorts of cerebral applications. The top man is depicted with a messy desk and a hand-cranked calculator; at bottom we see the organized man, with papers sorted in their labeled places. (As it turns out, the image used for a company selling memory-improvement books).

 Perhaps this image was in a small way a pre-historic insight to brain computer interface (the acquired, direct signal processing of the brain to a computer), in the same way, say, as Hans Berger's 1924 invention of the electroencephologram, where we can actually see electrical activity of the brain displayed on a piece of paper.  Of course, one image is a simple semi-folly to help hawk a mostly-useless huckerter book on memory improvement, while the other is a bona fide medical breakthrough.  But in similar ways they were insights into looking at the activity of the brain in connection to an external resource.

In 1944 there was something else, something quite different allocated to the Leonardo-like head, something far in advance of the filing system of 1919: the computer.

This may well be the first public, popular, report on the Harvard Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) (appearing in the American Weekly, 15 October 1944), the first automatic, general-purpose, digital calculator.  Known as the MARK 1, it was the brainchild of Howard Aiken (1900-1973), a graduate student at Harvard, who started it all in 1937 by proposing a series of coordinated Monroe calculators to function as a unified whole  that would cross the threshold of the physically-impossible calculation (though theoretically possible) to the eminently doable.  The project was immeasurably aided by the input of Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley (who had earlier dealt with the enormously problematic aspects of the scale of the universe) who put Aiken in the hands of IBM at Endicott (NY).  From there the building of the computer came under the supervision of Clair D. Lake, with the engineering and theoretical team of Francis Hamilton, Ben Durfee and Howard Aiken.

The machine was basically completed in 1943 and tested in Endicott for the better part of the year before it was shipped of to Harvard in February 1944, where it was put almost instantly to work on ballistic calculations (like its cousin ENIAC at the Moore School at U Penn), as well as naval engineering and design issues. 

The author of this article, Gordind Bhari Lal (“noted science analyst”), actually does a pretty decent job describing the machine and its (1940’s) possibilities, noting at the end that “it may even unleash for Man’s Use the long-dreamed-of energy of the atom”.  This part did come true, especially post-war, when the machine was put to fair use by the US Atomic Energy Commission. 

The part I really don’t understand in this article is comparing the speed and function of the ASCC to two women working on calculators and Albert Einstein, working with a pencil, paper and pipe, none of whom look comfortable or happy.  (Actually the dresses on the women look a little hiked-up to me, just a little too high.)  Lal does make a decent comparative point (of uncertain veracity) about four generations of humans (the three above-mentioned calculators?) doing calculations that the ASCC could do in seconds.  Right or wrong, it gave the crowds in 1944 a real something to think about.

And so at the end of this post I believe that the representation of the brain as a mechanical device is relatively new, and I wonder if it isn't a mostly-20th century creation.   Finding images of SteamPunk humans and robots and such roaming their ways through the literature in the 1920's-1950's is fairly easy, but showing the stuff inside the head and representations of how the mechanical brain was functioning seems to be a different matter.

WWII as Advertising Prop, 1943

JF Ptak Science Books 

I was making my way through LIFE magazine for 1943 and was struck by the ratio of the number of advertisements using the war as a backdrop (and American soldiers as convenient props) for sales against the actual space dedicated to war reporting.  Concentrating on just two randomly selected  weekly issues (November 1 and November 15 1943) I was surprised to find  28 ads (most of which were full-page); there was no war reporting in November 1 and just half a story (on the history of the Prussian General staff) in November 15.  Most of the ads were directly war-related, the companies mostly relegated to vast production of war goods, like General Motors, Cadillac and Boeing. The others were less clear, like the ad pictured here for Green Giant peas and corn.  This company was informing the home front that if there were shortages of their product it was because they were selling it to the Army or Navy--others were more adventurous for their spirited attempt at patriotism. I'm not sure that Wembly Ties really needed to include a GI in their ad, nor did I like the use of American soldiers to sell Interwoven socks. 

Comet, Meteors, Aristotle, and Astrological Nothingness

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1977 

 

It seems to me that in the history of astrology--or at least for what seems to be most of it, at least through the late antiquarian publishing aspect of it--that comets and meteors were basically not utilized.  Perhaps it was because in that world these entites didn't really effect anything--perhaps they were simply mysterious, spurious, and incongruent, and not a subject for installation in the astrological night sky.  Comets (from the Greek, kometes,  "long-haired") and meteors (Greek again, from meteoran, a "thing in the air") and bolides (exploding meteors, from the Greek bolis, or "missile"), holosiderites, siderolites, aerolites uranolites, and so on, have a long and complex story in the history of astronomy, at least in some ways; perhaps the most influential thinker on comets held thinking at bay and did so for two milennia: Aristotle's Meteorology made the case that comets were not a planet or associated with planets or even necessarily part of the heavens--rather they were a phenomena of the atmosphere.  So perhaps their use as astronomical/astrological objects was limited by their very Aristotlean obviousness of being near-Earth objects. 

The Comet of 1066 (later named Halleys' Comet), as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry (completed in the 1080's)

The fear aspect of comets--the Comet of 1528--was depicted in Ambrose Pares Livres de Chirurgie (1597), and shows what part of the concern was (the coming demise of nations, the death of rules) with the appearance of decapitated heads and a large sword and raining daggers:

[Nicolas Le Rouge, Le Grand Kalendrier et Compost des Bergieres, published in 1496 in Troyes.

The night sky is a mnemonic device, a place to store memory and a holder of the alphabet of myths and beliefs of all, a culture written large across the sky. Meteors and comets were not predictable, and could add nothing insofar as a consistent bit of storytelling was concerned, though they certainly created their own stories in each observed appearance; they could also add punctuation and exclamation to whatever constellation they appeared in. For example if one appeared in a juncture with Jupiter, a major event for royalty would possibly be foretold.   But as a permanent element to the visualization of the night sky, they had little power even though they seemed to be displays of fantastic energy and power in themselves.

[For some reason the celestial court, divided by sunlight and flanked by two other sources of light, have ofund it expedient to issue comets from the mouths of Heaven Canon.  I'm not sure what's going on in the forground with the fellow working his spade next to the triangular blankness.  the man to his right seems to have been overtaken in fear (as have the group of people visible to the left over the shoveler's shoulder).]

[Halley's comet appears again on the title page of this work by the Hungarian George Henischius, a professor of rhetoric, mathematics and medicine at Augsberg.]

Imaginary History: 2-D and 3-D Shadows

JF Ptak Science Books    Post 1975 

 

In preparing an alphabetic sampler atlas of imaginary places (a thing which looks much finer capitalized, so An Alphabetic Sampler Atlas of Imaginary Places), I wondered about the non-existent relationships between these nonexistent places, and thought that this too might make an interesting alphabetization project. So an Alphabetic Sampler of Non-Existent Relationships Between Non-Existent Places came to be, and since it has such an oddly appealing ring to it, with a certain amount of surrealist qualities (really more affectations) it might be appropriate to start with Alfred Jarry, and here with his wonderful creation, Laceland^1. and its relationship to Edwin Abbott's Flatland².^. Their's could be a war in the relationship of their light--or more exactly, their relationship of shadows.

I can see across the vast and extremely limited sea that separates these two places a commonality in at least one dimension--and maybe only one, though being light, it is a rather large one. Light plays a big part in Flatland. The slender book Flatland is perhaps one of the best books ever written on perception and dimensions, a beautifully insightful book that was quick and sharp, and in spite of all that was also a best-seller. Written in 1884 when Abbott was 46 (Abbott would live another 46 years and enjoy the book’s popular reception), it introduces the reader to a two dimensional world with a social structure in which the more sides of your object equals power and esteem. Thus a lower class would be a triangle (three sides) while the highest (priestly) class would be mega-polygons, whose shape would then become a circle. On the lowest but complex strata is woman, who is represented as a line, but which is also the most contentious and unpredictable of all of the Flatland shapes. That is, until they all encounter a sphere, and the introduction of the third dimension, where Abbott’s magistry comes in explaining to the three-dimensional reader what it was like to be in a two-dimensional world.

Jarry's Laceland--along with Amorphous Island, Fragrant Island, Bran Isle and what is almost the pluralization of my surname, Ptyx--was an island kingdom that was surrounded by shadow and semi dark, but upon approaching it there would appear absolutely brilliant and blinding light the power outmatching that of the sun, glorious and fantastic, the light greater than that of the light of creation. The light is beautifully described by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi in their excellent The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1980):

"The King of Lace spins this bright light, weaving pictures of madonnas, jewels, peacocks and human figures which intertwine like the dances of the Rhine-maidens. Clear patterns apper against the pitch-black darkness of the surrounding air, like shapes painted on windows by the first, and then disappear again into the shadows" (Page 204)

Now in Flatland, light is a different sort of thing, coming as it does in only two dimensions, which means that two-dimensional light in a two dimensional world makes for a different sort of shadow, one that is rather flat and uninspired, especially compared to those of Laceland, which must be magnificent. Perhaps the shadow relationship between Laceland and Flatland is one of opposites. Polar opposites. Impossibles.

This all seems to come together a little when considering that the Dr. Faustroll of the Laceland adventures, is the inventor of "pataphysics", which is "the science of imaginary solutions".

Notes:

1. Alfred Jarry. Ptyx, Laceland, Amorphous Island, Fragrant Island and Bran Isle, Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician, 1911.

2, Edwin Abbott. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884).

A Sharp Insight on Fascists, Union-Busters & other Armed Vigilantes, 1937

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post 

 

The iconic, prodigiously-talented illustrator, old lefty and great inventive soul Rockwell Kent designed and drew this cover for Isobel Walker Soule's The Vigilantes Hide Behind the Flag, a slim but powerful little pamphlet published by the National Committee for Defense of Political Prisoners in 1937.  Ms. Soule was a very present social worker and protagonist for the rights of workers--she and Kent would have shared this great passion--and published this work dealing with armed strike breakers (the "vigilantes") as small targets and Fascists and the like as the larger--those, as well as the groups established by "the economic royalists (who) have given marching orders to their hordes and hope to trap the middle class into the vigilante net they've spread".  

{Soule could really spike a paragraph:  here's an example of her addressing former Ashevillean William Dudley Pelley, founder of the lost-soul hate group the Silver Shirts:

"...He was a YMCA representative with the AEF to Siberia in 1917. Returning to America he wrote for pulp magazines. he became a spiritualist. He had an inspiration and wrote  a story in which he claimed to have died,and spent seven minutes in eternity. On the basis of his fan mail he founded a magazine in North Carolina  with his clair-audient voices from the ether as assistant editors. Out of the magazine he founded the Silver Shirts".)

Soule fills up a stubby thirty pages like few others, addressing the very-present issues of thug-backed union-busting and the powerful growth of fascists at home and abroad.