A Twixmas present

The week between Christmas and New Years may be a festive period, but the garbage bin still needs to be wheeled out to the roadside.  We've had recent snow and ice, so I needed reliable traction, and when I put my left foot into a galosh*, I felt something under my sock.  Expecting a curled shoelace there, I was surprised to find instead a food stash.

Expecting the items to be seeds from the crabapple tree, I was surprised again when I looked more closely and realized they were kernels of corn -

- and was triply surprised because there are no corn kernels in our birdseed stash (which in any case is kept in a tightly sealed container).  The colors of the kernels led me to the source -

- colorful "Indian corn" we had used for years as front door Thanksgiving decorations had been meticulously harvested.

There was no doubt about the identity of the culprit.  The unanswered question was - why were they placed in the galosh?  We have a typical American suburban garage - that is to say one that it is littered with (first world problem) lots of stuff, including lawn and garden equipment, plants in containers overwintering, cartons of odds and ends that can tolerate low temps in the winter.  Lots of nooks and crannies.  So why did Mrs. mus musculus choose to traverse the floor, climb (probably along the zipper) of my galosh and drop the corn kernels there?

Factoring in the number of kernels missing from the cobs I have to assume there are other stashes elsewhere in the garage, probably not to be found by me until springtime.  So I can only conclude that the placing of corn in the galosh is not storage for her, but is a gift to me in the traditional European fashion of the Custom of the Shoes.  She apparently is deeply appreciative of our providing her with a non-freezing garage as a "shelter from the storm."  And she is offering me the corn perhaps not for my consumption, but rather as a not-too-subtle hint to "plant more of these please."

And so the year comes to an end on a pleasant note.

* had to look it up.  Perhaps the first and last time in my life I will ever use the singular form (from Middle English galoche, from Old French galoche (“shoe with a wooden sole”).

"Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global"

This is one of the three best books I read in 2025 (the others being Orbital and Playground).  As the title indicates, this book elucidates in extensive but clear detail how one early proto-language radiated from the area north of the Black Sea outward toward what is now Europe and southeast into what is now the Indian subcontinent.

An analysis like this requires more than just linguistic skills.  Understanding the processes involved requires familiarity also with the anthropology of the movements of people, their occupations, their trading networks, their social behaviors, and also an understanding of archaeological findings, including DNA extracted from ancient bones. The author, Laura Spinney, is not a professional linguist, anthropologist, or archaeologist.  Instead (and presumably for the better), she is a professional science writer, able to compress immense volumes of information into a form suitable for the general public.  After reading this book, I immediately placed a request at our library for her previous work - Pale rider: the Spanish Flu of 1918 and how it changed the world.

The book is interspersed with excellent maps clarifying the locations of peoples and languages (two of which I am embedding).  I can't summarize all of the text, but here are some salient excerpts (my transcription will lack the umlauts and diacritic marks on some words):

"Now, eight billion humans speak arouind seven thousand languages.  Those languages fall into about a hundred and forty families, but most of us speak languages that belong to just five of them: Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic and Austronesian... If you include second or subsequent language-speakers, Indo-European is by far the largest language family the world has ever known... Almost every second person on Earth speaks Indo-European." (11)

"The suggestion [in 1786] that an archaic link existed between Europe and the Orient electrified the public imagination... there was awe to be had in gazing upon Latin-Sanskrit word pairs like domus-dam (house or home), deus-deva (god), mater-mata (mother), pater-pita (father), septem-sapta (seven) and rex-raja (king).  Or in comparing the first three numbers in German (eins-zwei-drei), Greek (heis-duo-treis) and Sanskrit (ekas-dvau-trayas)..." (15)

"... when the future emperor Hadrian addressed the Senate around 100 CE, the senators mocked his Spanish accent (he was born in what is now the Spanish province of Seville).  The fragmentation of Latin was underway, but Hadrian still spoke recognisable Latin rather than an early version of Spanish..." (25)

"The catfish of the Dnieper were up to two and a half metres or over eight feet in length, and three hundred kilogrammes - over six hundred pounds - in weight... They are wels catfish, where wels, the common name of the species in German, shares a root with English 'whale'." (37)

"As in the Balkans, people used fleeces to pan for gold in those mountain streams.  It was in Georgia, in the ancient kingdom of Colchis, that the Greek mythological hero Jason found the golden fleece..." (56)

"A word meaning 'star'... shines steadily through all its descendants.  Waypoint for night travellers since all humans were African, it was known to Sogdian merchants on the camels as stare, to homebound Odysseus as aster, and to Icelanders fishing for herring after dark as stjarna." (77)

"... migrants had radiated east and west from the steppe around five thousand years ago, and in Europe their ancestry had replaced up to ninety per cent or more of the gene pool... No later movement had anything like their genetic, cultural or linguistic legacies: not the massive migrations set in train by the fall of the Western Roman Empire, not the displacements that followed the Black Death, the 1918 flu or either of the world wars.  Most European men alive today, and millions of their counterparts in Central and South Asia, carry Y chromosomes that came from the steppe." (102)

"The core vocabulary of Tocharian was clearly inherited from Proto-Indo-European.  You can see that in these Tocharian B - Latin - English triplets:  pacer-pater-father, macer-mater-mother, procer-frater-brother, and ser-soror-sister.  Or in the Tocharian B words for 'cow' (keu), 'ox' (okso) and 'to milk' (Malk)." (127)

"The yearning for a better world is alive and well and as doomed to disappointment as it ever was (the word 'utopia' contains that disappointment within it, since it means 'nowhere') (140)

"Like the Greeks, the Etruscans and Italic-speakers wrote from right to left at first.  Later they went through a phase called boustrophedon or 'ox-turning', when a line written right to left alternated with one written left to right, until they plumped definitively for left to right." (146)

[note the four major rivers emptying into the Black Sea all begin with the letter D] "An Iranic word for 'river' was danu, which is the root of both Don and Danube.  Dniester comes from Danu nazdya, 'river to the front'. and Dnieper from Danu apara, 'river to the rear'.  These names were the legacy of the Scythians... One remnant of the Scythians survived, however, by retreating to the safety of the Caucasus.  Their modern descendants, the Ossetians, call 'water' don."

"Smok or Zmij, or Zmei or Zmaj, depending on which Slavic-speaking country you happen to be in, is the archetypal serpent, denier-of-life, and any resemblance you may notice to J.R.R. Tolkien's dragon Smaug is not coincidental.  Tolken was a philologist... There was actually a Proto-Indo-European word, smeuk that probably meant 'to slide' or 'glide', and if the Slavic dragon names are derived from it then they are living exhibits of taboo deformation - the phenomenon whereby taboo words [names of Gods you are not allowed to speak] are rapidly recycled through euphemism and circumlocution." (230)

Page 264 includes an interesting discussion of shibboleths (words or phrases, the pronunciation of which identify nationalities or ethnicities), which I don't have time to retype.  See also this list of shibboleths.

BTW, it's also useful to at least browse the endnotes, where I discovered that "Some Indo-European languages do without a word for 'one' entirely.  If there is only one of something, after all, you hardly need to count it.  Old Irish did have a word for 'one' (oen), but if a person wanted to say 'one cow' they would just say the word for 'cow'. 

The book concludes with this language tree:

This will not be a book for everybody.  It will delight those with a general intellectual curiosity, but will be TMI for the casual reader.  On the other hand, it's easy to skim over the parts where the details are beyond one's personal needs or interests.  For those TL;DR people, I would encourage reading the excellent "Introduction" and the equally excellent "Conclusion" chapters.  The latter closes with this observation:

"Language is becoming a battleground in the identity wars, and preserving our linguistic 'purity' a justification used by those who want to raise walls.  Unfortunately for them, the most successful language the world ever knew was a hybrid trafficked by migrants.  It changed as it went, and when it stopped changing, it died."

Centuripe

I previously posted an aerial image of this Italian mountaintop community about five years ago, but this evening image enhanced by city lights is much more impressive (click to embiggen).

This image (credit Fabrizio Villa / Getty), was one of the Photos of the Week at The Atlantic. 

"Architectron" looks like a fascinating movie

"Coming soon."  I generally enjoy movies made by A24.  I'll do a proper review when it arrives.

The "Thinker of Hemangia"

I had not heard about this sculpture until I recently read about it in a book about the history of language (which I'll blog later).  Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry:

The Thinker of Hamangia (Romanian: Gânditorul de la Hamangia), also known as Thinker of Cernavodă or collectively The Thinker and the Sitting Woman, is an archaeological artefact, specifically a terracotta sculpture. This ancient Neolithic figurine is believed to date back to the Hamangia culture, which existed in what is now Romania around 5,000 BC...

The Thinker figurine is made of fired clay and depicts a person seated with their chin resting on one hand, suggesting deep contemplation. The figurine is 4.5 inches (11 cm) tall. This posture unmistakably conveys a meditative disposition, which led to its name, The Thinker, drawing inspiration from Rodin's renowned sculpture of a similar name. The recent finding of the "thinking" man seems to argue for the existence of a developed ideology of some type in this period, while it is impossible not to refer us to similar timeless types, such as the Karditsa Thinker of the Neolithic era, Thinker from Yehud of the Middle Bronze Age II, or even to the Pensive Christ in modern times.

The Sitting Woman, on the other hand, assumes a contemplative posture by placing both hands on a single leg while sitting directly on the ground, without the use of a chair. Her left leg extends outward, her right leg is bent, her hips are distinctly delineated, and her facial expression is equally evocative..."

Interesting to me both for the artistic styling and the extreme age.  For a quick review there is a Wikipedia page for the 5th millennium BC to brush up on what was happening around the world at that time.

Related: Rodin's "Thinker" reinterpreted

Rodin's "Thinker" reinterpreted

An excerpt of a poem by W. H. Auden offers a different viewpoint of Rodin's iconic work:

Lifted off the potty,
Infants from their mothers
Hear their first impartial
Words of worldly praise:
Hence, to start the morning
With a satisfactory
Dump is a good omen
All our adult days.

Revelation came to
Luther in a privy
(Crosswords have been solved there)
Rodin was no fool
When he cast his Thinker,
Cogitating deeply,
Crouched in the position
Of a man at stool. 

The full text of his The Geography of the House is here. And we can't resist adding that even the Wikipedia entry describes the figure as "a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle."

Via The Dish.

Reposted from 13 years ago to accompany a new post.

An interesting side effect of piercing

The pale region "fades in and out during the day."  You can read an informed discussion in the comment thread at the piercing subreddit.

A collective holiday greeting to and from the readers of TYWKIWDBI

"Three suns are better than won! On two, the New Year!" - Skeetmotis

Happy Holidays & Merry New Year - from Dutch !

Greetings, all, from my right arm: on a sunny Jan day in southern Spain. - alecartuja

Merry Christmas from Canada. - James Colter

 In '26 may we rest as peaceful as a Galapagos sea lion on a park bench. - Erin

May the good vibes you give, be returned ten-fold. - The Slide Guy

Seasons Greetings from Professor Batty at Flippism is the Key

Seasons Greetings, however one celebrates! - Martia in Espana

"Laughing all the way!" Have a Merry Merry - Bulletholes

Hang in there. We will make it through. (Redwood Scout)

Merry Christmas from the Gulf Coast of Texas. - Reese Vaughn

Cold air. Warm hearts. Loud sweaters.  Presence > presents.

Merry Everything!  Tina, Jeremy, Josephine & Coco

Loki, resident prankster in the TYWKIWDBI household, 

will come out if next year is better.

I can add more if you will submit a phrase and a photo to the Comments section for this post...

Our cats love christmas for the tree or the tree-skirt, idk which. Merry Merry! - Dave J

Today I learned I should poke the eyes out of dead fish

I encountered the above image on the interestingasfuck subreddit, apparently a sign at a fish-cleaning station at a resort or motel.   I thought it might be a joke, but apparently not.  This was one explanation offered:

"So the eyeballs are buoyant. Might be the eyeballs themselves, but someone said gas builds up behind the eyes in the sockets after the fish dies, but either way, once you take all the filet meat off the fish and toss other scraps, the bony carcass with intact eye balls float. Stabbing the eyeballs makes that carcass sink.

Why do we care about that?

Because floating carcasses tend to decompose on the surface, produce smells, and attract more birds for longer periods of time. This is very unpleasant for anyone living, working, or spending leisure around that dock area. Sinking the carcasses forces the decomposition to happen underwater and feed underwater ecosystems, like other fish, crabs, etc. This is generally good for the water ecosystem and prevenrs smelly carcasses and overzealous gulls and pelicans from swarming the areas, also creating more bird poo, noise, and smells."

All of that makes sense.  When I was a kid and my dad cleaned walleyes at the dock, all of the scraps were just left on the shore for land-based carnivores and eagles and other raptors, or tossed in shallow water by the shore.  Perhaps the need for eye-piercing is more relevant at resorts used by large numbers of fishermen.

Addendum:  The best comment in the thread at the link was by "pop rocks" :

"Do they become Fsh?"

Addendum:  I submitted the post to a family member who runs a campground in northern Minnesota.  This was her reply:

"I think it is illegal to dump minnows and dead fish into the lake.  Plus, It's a major operation to dispose of fish guts.  For years,  we used to collect it in big buckets and hauled it out to the woods in the back of an old, stinky truck.  Then the DNR told us we could not do that anymore.    Now, we need to freeze the fish guts after filleting the fish. We keep a deep freeze in the fish cleaning area up at the bath house. Early on monday mornings,  we need to dump the frozen fish guts into the big garbage dumpster for pick up.  The garbage man only accepts frozen fish guts.    Alternatively,  we have campers who frequently take the frozen fish gut bags home for their garden compost.  " 

This is a "timeout box" in an elementary school

As reported in The New York Times:

It has ignited an uproar in the school system, the Salmon River Central School District, a small district with 1,300 students on the Canadian border.

Within days, the school board enlisted a law firm to investigate what happened. It reassigned the district’s superintendent to “home duties” until the review is completed. And it placed several other leaders on leave, including a principal and the district’s special education director.

Officials also revealed that the box depicted in the social media post was not the only one: Two others had been installed in schools, according to the superintendent. They have been removed.

Images brightened and cropped for size from the originals at the link, where there is additional information and commentary.

Planning a collective holiday greeting card

Reposted to remind readers there is still time to offer greetings and pix to fellow readers.  I'll plan to post the submissions sometime between Christmas and New Year's.

I first tried this in December of 2009 as a Christmas card, then revived the concept in 2017 and again in 2018 as a New Year's endeavor.

Here are the instructions on how to participate:

1) In the comment section of THIS post, give me a LINK to a photo (or a bit of artwork or other image) that you have in your blog, or in your Flickr photostream or in some other online storage site that I can access. I'd prefer that you not email me the photo - just give the link and I'll go there and copy/paste it.* (but see addendum)

The picture can be of you, or your family, or your computer, or your cat, or whatever - it doesn't matter.  It should belong to you (not a commercial image with copyright issues).

2) With the photo link send a brief (~25 words) greeting, directed to the other readers and visitors.  This is to be a greeting to other readers, not a comment to me or about TYWKIWDBI.

3) Sign with the avatar name you use in commenting here, or in your blog, or your real name if you wish. This is not a venue to be used to say "Hi from anon."  I recognize that a number of readers here prefer to leave comments anonymously - which is fine - but this greeting card is for identifiable people.

Note - as various trolls have realized, for TYWKIWDBI I am the "autocrat at the breakfast table" and reserve absolute right to control the content.  For this venture I may edit comments for length and trim pictures if they are too big.  I may limit the number of entries if there are too many, and I will absolutely vaporize anything that hints of spam or might be offensive to other readers.

And it doesn't need to be "Christmasy" - this will be posted after Christmas as a New Year's greeting, so it can celebrate the end of the past year or express hope about the one to come.  But mostly it's just to say "hi" to other readers whose names you have seen in the comments.

*Addendum: I realize that not everyone has online places to store photos, so once again I will let you email me a photo/text/name if you have no other option.  You can send it to the blog's address: retag4726(at)mypacks.net.  

I'm looking forward to seeing what arrives.  This was last year's collective greeting.

Reposted from 2021 because collective greetings and good wishes are more necessary now than ever before.  Please note this feature is only for readers/commentors with established identities.  I know some readers prefer to click the "anonymous" button when writing a comment for privacy reasons, but I encourage you if you log in anonymously to establish some kind of identity by signing your comments with a cryptic identity ("old lady in Peoria", "the guy with two bicycles" or whatever).

This was the holiday greeting for December 2021.

Here is the one from 2022.

Listening to auroras

Well done and quite interesting.  Amazing that in the Sami region of northern Finland there are auroras 150 nights per year.

People having fun singing "Creep"

I've posted multiple versions of Creep in the past, so this might be a duplicate, but if so it's worth redoing because of the joy visible in the crowd - an emotion sadly seen too seldom nowadays.

Alexis conquers the hurdles - includes also the Scala Choir version.

Radiohead's Creep animated.

Creep covered by Chrissie Hynde/The Pretenders

Creep - featuring Donald Trump's "Walk of Shame"

and a reader sent me a link to a "bardcore" [medieval] version.

Children having fun with music

"El Cumbanchero" is a classic (1943) piece of Latin music whose title roughly translates as "party animal."  Lots of previous covers, including one by Liberace.

Monteggia fracture

A 26-year-old woman with elbow pain after falling on her outstretched hand while ice skating.  The radiograph shows a dislocated radial head and a fracture of the proximal ulna.  There are a few details on differential diagnosis and treatment at Wikipedia.