Sweden Launches Campaign to Stop Tourists Confusing It With Switzerland – A funny video from Sweden’s tourist board to help people distinguish between the two countries. Yes, it’s hard to believe that people confuse the two European countries, but it’s true. The same goes for Austria and Australia. This is what happens when schools stop teaching geography.
These days folks in North America go overboard with Halloween decorations, costumes, parties, candy, and spending, but in the early 20th century they celebrated in a less ostentatious way. As the autumn festival began to emerge in its modern form picture postcards entered their so-called “golden era”, ca. 1905–1915. Rarely seen or used in the US before 1893, an estimated 900 million postcards had been mailed two decades later. And quite a few of these were Halloween themed. Thousands of unique designs for Halloween cards were created, cards which helped popularize the celebration and standardize its imagery.
Even today much of the iconography is familiar — black cats, jack-o’-lanterns, witches’ brooms — but many of the games and rituals have fallen out of favor: scrying, ducking or bobbing for apples, pranks involving farm animals.
In recent years, I’ve noticed more Halloween themed greeting cards in the stores, but I don’t know anyone who actually sends them. And even with my advanced age, I’ve never received a Halloween themed postcard.
I have to admit that I geeked-out on this fascinating website devoted entirely to global writing systems. During my life I’ve actually learned four writing systems, but in my old age I’m only fluent in one of them. World Writing Systems is an elegant site that allows users to sort by time (proto-cuneiform to Toto), region, name (Adlam to Zou), and whether the scripts are living or historical. Take it for a spin.
In keeping with the festive holiday season, I thought I would share this classic offering from the great thespian Vincent Price. Although he had a storied careen in theater and in cinema, Price has mainly been remembered for his work in horror films. He was ideally suited for this performance of four enduring tale by Poe : “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Sphinx,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.”
Here in the Americas we are in the midst of a two-fer holiday season. We can take a short break from the horrors of real life and celebrate the festive spookiness of Halloween and the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos). While most people around the world have become well acquainted with Halloween traditions, Dia de Muertos celebrations have only recently been recognized outside of North and South America.
Day of the Dead or Día de Muertos has been celebrated for centuries in Mexico. The Mexica or Aztecs had memorialized their dead during the summer: Miccailhuitontli (for children) and Hueymicailhuitl (for adults). During Spanish colonial occupation the European Catholic calendar was imposed in Mexico and the celebrations honoring the dead were moved to All Souls Day, celebrated on November 1st.
Traditionally, the indigenous people of Mexico held the belief that life on earth is just preparation for the next world and that it was essential to maintain a personal relationship with the dead. Historically,families have gathered in the cemetery during this celebration to welcome the souls on their annual visit home. People also create altars known as ofrendas with traditional elements of the season, such as cempasúchil (marigold) flowers, copal incense, fresh pan de muerto bread, candles, papel picado, and calaveras (sugar skulls). Photographs, mementos, and favorite items used by the departed are included.
The pre-Colonial people of Mexico believed that when a person died, their teyolia, or inner force, went to one of several afterworlds, depending on how they died, their social position, and their profession. Interestingly, how people behaved during their lives didn’t matter. There were special afterlifes for children, warriors, women in labor, people who died by drowning, and all others. This belief still endures today, with special altars built on October 28 for people who have died in accidental deaths, November 1 for deceased children, and November 2 for adults who have died a natural death.
In Mexico, the festival is traditionally called Día de Muertos. However, in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries, it is usually referred to as Día de los Muertos, a back-translation of the Day of the Dead into Spanish.
In Mexico, folks prepare for the Day of the Dead well in advance. Farmers grow flowers, and artisans craft decorations, sugar skulls, folk art, and other items for the festivities. The Día de Muerto is observed from October 28 to November 2. In many rural areas, the celebrations begin on October 28. However, the festivities mostly occur in larger cities and metropolitan areas on November 1 and 2.
Since the festival has spread to the U.S., people on both sides of the border have begun to wear costumes for the holiday. In some areas there are even elaborate costumed parades. Since the Day of the Dead and Halloween overlap on the calendar there has been a blending of the festivites especially in the U.S., with a blurring of the lines between the Mexican and European traditions.
October by Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to us less brief. Hearts not averse to being beguiled, Beguile us in the way you know. Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away. Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow! For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, Whose clustered fruit must else be lost— For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.”
Well, here we are back in what I like to call the Edgar Allan Poe season. Invariably blogs and websites trot out stories about the tragic author of so many classic 19th century poems and novels. I suppose that this post falls naturally in that catagory as well.
The other day I ran across an interesting story referencing the wonderful 1884 edition of Poe’s heartbreaking tale The Raven (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1884) illustrated by Gustave Doré . The post reminded me of an account that I read many years ago about the very same edition. Oddly, the blog post failed to mention that Doré died before he had completed the engravings for the book and that many, if not most, were actually the work of other artists. This fact was likely hidden by the publisher at the time since the book was quite expensive in 1884— $10 —equivalent to about $250 today.
This was Doré’s last project before his death on January 23, 1883. His drawings were turned over to Harper & Brothers in New York City, where fourteen master engravers were hired to complete his work and rush the volume to press. The plates had to be cut in steel rather than copper because of the size of the edition: 10,000 copies with 26 engravings each, requiring at least 260,000 full-page sheets to be printed, collated, and bound.
Project Gutenberg has digital editions of the complete Doré edition of “The Raven,” as does the Library of Congress.
Book lovers the world over have their own special nicknames. In English speaking countries, folks who are especially fond of reading are of often called “bookworms”. The term bookworm comes from the holes in printed materials caused by larvae of various types of insects. This includes a huge variety of species of beetles, moths and, cockroaches. The term appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1580 for the first time. While first recorded use of the word “bookworm” referring to a person was in 1580, in a correspondence between the English poet Edmund Spenser and his friend Gabriel Harvey.
In France, the word for “bookworm” is “rat de bibliothèque” (library rat). In German, it’s “Bücherwurm” (bookworm). In Italy, the most common way to describe a book lover is “topo di biblioteca,” which is a library mouse. The same in Spain – “ratón de biblioteca” is nothing else but a library mouse.
Personally, I’m partial to the Scandinavians who lean towards “booknerd” rather than “bookworm”. In Swedish, it’s “boknörd,” in Danish – “bognørd,” and in Norwegian – “boknørd”.Whatever your favorite terminology is for bibliophiles, the excellent infographic map above from Mapologies shows what bookworms are called in almost any language spoken in Europe.
Travel Between The Pages 