via my Brother

By Eirik So, via PetaPixel

Ночь, улица, фонарь, аптека,

Бессмысленный и тусклый свет.

Живи еще хоть четверть века -

Все будет так. Исхода нет.

-

Умрешь – начнешь опять сначала,

И повторится все, как встарь,

Ночь, ледяная рябь канала,

Аптека, улица, фонарь.

- Александр Блок

Картина от  Suhanova3887 

In 1066, the Normans crossed the English Channel and invaded Hastings on the Southern English coast. The Norman king, William I, won the battle, killing the English king, Harold II, in the process. Despite winning the battle, the Normans were sick, tired and ready to be done. William I waited in Hastings for the English to submit and when that didn’t happen he took his men riding toward London and destroying much of everything in his path. His attack was halted when he was recognized as king and finally crowned on Christmas Day, 1066 at Westminster Abbey.

The Norman Conquest completely changed the way we talk today. Since the English basically became servants to the Normans, the English language adopted tons of French words like poultry, beef and pork. This isn’t to say that English never had any Latin words, since the British Isles were a favorite trading ground for the Romans. But unlike most languages, we now have around one-third of our words from French, another one-third from Latin, one-quarter from Germanic origin and the remainder from other languages. Without the Norman conquest, we may never have had the Great Vowel Shift or been able to borrow from so many languages around the world effortlessly [my own unsubstantiated speculation]. The BBC cares about teaching you about the (more factual) history of the English language:

So what would English be like without the Conquest? It would definitely be much closer to Old English. We’d actually be able to read Beowulf and understand it, although Shakespeare would probably sound weird. The closest to Old English that we have today is Frisian, spoken in the Northern Netherlands, a close genetic relative represented below:

Paul Jennings in 1966 (the 900th anniversary of the Norman Conquest) wrote a series of articles describing what English would have turned into with the French influence (a language he calls Anglish). The following recounts in Battle of Hastings (which he can’t call a “battle” because that’s a French word), in Anglish:

In a foregoing piece (a week ago in this same mirthboke) I wrote anent the ninehundredth yearday of the Clash of Hastings; of how in that mightytussle, which othered our lore for coming hundredyears, indeed for all the following aftertide till Doomsday, the would-be imaginers from France were smitten hip and thigh; and of how not least our tongue remained selfthrough and strong, unbecluttered and unbedizened with outlandish Latin-born words of French offshoot. Our Anglish tongue, grown from many birth-ages of yeomen, working in field or threshing-floor, ringing-loft or shearing house, mead and thicket and ditch, under the thousand hues and scudding clouds of our ever-othering weather, has been emulched over the hundredyears with many sayings born from everyday life. It has an unbettered muchness of samenoiselike and again-clanger wordgroups, such as wind and water, horse and hound, block and tackle, sweet seventeen. The craft and insight of our Anglish tongue for the more cunning switchmeangroups, for unthingsome and overthingsome withtakings, gives a matchless tool to bards, deepthinkers and trypiecemen. If Angland had gone the way of the Betweensea Eyots there is every likelihood that our lot would have fallen forever in the Middlesea ringpath.

None of the words above have non-Germanic derivation. Cool. Orwell was actually a big proponent for what is called “Anglo-Saxon Linguistic Purism.” I think in practice the whole thing is totally absurd since we would basically just be robbing our language of about 1,000 years of history and gutting it of so many nuanced words, but it’s an interesting scholastic exercise.

You can actually see Latinate words next to their Germanic counterparts on a Wikipedia list. Also cool.

Тоска

(English translit. “toska”)

“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.” – Vladimir Nabokov

From a list of 20 untranslatable words. You can find the full list [here].

RIP Kim Jong Il

Father, Dear Leader, Friend, Sunglass Designer, Inventor of the Cheeseburger, Opera Composer, Fashion Designer, Controller of Weather, Resident of Central Luxury House

I am not going to hide my grieving, I will miss Kim Jong Il. It is no secret that I love dictators, I mean, not so much the cruelty they impose on their subjects, but more the fact you can’t have a full-blown personality cult without being a dictator. To me, there is a big difference between dictators. There are boring dictators like President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and then there are really fun ones, like Qaddafi and Turkmenbashi. However, they are now both recently deceased and sadly no one can ever fill those shoes. BuzzFeed and The Telegraph tried to compile all the zany things Kim Jong Il has done in his life and each one is more magical than the next. With Turkmenbashi, Qaddafi and now Kim Jong Il gone, who will build a militia of lady assassins? or design their own haircut? or just babble on and on at the UN General Assembly (I guess we still have Ahmadinejad, but it’s not the same)? With the recent death of Kim Jong Il, I am left with only one living, zany dictator, and even then, he’s pretty boring. Nevertheless, he’s our only hope.

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow to me to introduce Aleksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus!

Since we have no other suitable candidates from whom to expect mischief, or at least some crazy stunt like a giant golden statue of themselves that they think makes the sun rise and set, you better start getting used to this guy. First of all, look at that stache! Take a few moments to appreciate it, it’s been through a lot with him. And that comb-over – killer. Now I’ll let you get a bit more acquainted with Alex. Alex is from a tiny village called Kopys. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Galina (of whom there is basically no mention of ever in his biographies because they hate each other [actually true]) and has three healthy sons who all sound like they are named after a Chekhov novel.

“I want you to build me a small doghouse.” – Aleksandr Lukashenko

Alex enjoys lying to himself, motorcycles and Libya. He does not like Jews unfortunately. The guy is really fun, but please, hold your applause. No, seriously, hold your applause, Lukashenko has outlawed clapping in Belarus. He has even gone so far to answer the age-old Zen question, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” by arresting a one-armed man for clapping. Seriously, the dude has a lot of jokes up his sleeve. We are lucky to still have him. Please pray for his health so that he may never leave us, lest we be left in a dictator-less world, or worse yet, a world with dictators who lack any pizzazz. Speaking of pizzazz…

Also, best 2012 halloween costume idea: Zombie Kim Jong Il. Just sayin’, you heard it here first.

1. Catalonian Christmas
Definitely the weirdest Christmas on Earth, I am not even sure where to start with this one. I have to say that seeing this thing on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations Holiday Special is what made me start thinking about all this in the first place (although #4, Zwarte Piet, really made me write a post.). It begins in Catalonia, where they have a christmas log (“Tió de Nadal“). On Christmas, they put the log into the fireplace and tell it to take a shit, and to encourage the activity, they begin beating him with the log stick. The log then craps out candies and nuts as the family hits it with a stick and sings a song like the one from No Reservations below. And let’s not forget about El Caganer (“The Pooper”) who craps on a log at the periphery of the nativity scene.

2. Krampus
Basically Demon Santa and, not surprisingly, 100% Germanic. He thoroughly enjoys whipping children with his switch. When he finds a particularly naughty child, the Krampus carries the kid off in his sack. Accurately depicted to the left seated upon a handsome pony.

3. Olentzero
In Basque country, a descendant of mythological giants who, rather than become a Christian, asked his neighbors to throw him off a cliff to his death. Inadvertently living thorugh the debacle, he became a weird Santa-like figure. Although now people carry effigies of him around the town, he used to threaten to cut children’s throats if they cheated on their pre-Christmas fasts.

4. Zwarte Piet
In bold racist form, Dutch Santa is served by men in blackface wearing golden hoop earrings and bright red lipstick and is described as stupid and “mischievous but rarely mean-spirited.” He helps Santa hand out the gifts, or more commonly, candy. Bad kids are carried off in a burlap sack to Spain, where Zwarte Piet and Santa (inexplicably) reside in the off-season. To no surprise, most foreigners find the entire tradition racist.

5. Kentucky Fried Christmas
In keeping with a long line of off-the-wall cultural norms, a popular Christmas meal in Japan is KFC. They even dress up the Colonel like Santa. You can order your meal, which includes Christmas cake, up to two months in advance of the holiday. Good bless American marketing.

As I bid you all a Merry Christmas, I leave you with Werner Herzog musing upon the human condition whilst reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas:

I always make it a point of getting to Whalebone Winery. It is more for the atmosphere and visitors, including a couple adorable cats, than simply tasting wine. Those pouring the wine are more often than not related to the winemaker in some way. It is a winery with a great beginning. Originally intended as just a source for fruit for other winemakers, and only making small batches for personal consumption, the winery has a tradition of making what tastes good.

The valley that leads off Peachy Canyon Road is filled with limestone deposits and really make the grapes sing. Just driving through the road (which is a trip in and of itself) show off the amazing layers of soil that the grapes feed off of. Okay, so the vineyard is blessed with good soil, there is a steady supply of rain (especially for the 2009 and 2010 vintages), but the kicker are the staff. I mean, they will sit with you and tell you the fishing stories that sculpted BOB wine (one of my favorites) in a completely down-to-earth sort of way.

That is not to say that other neighboring vineyards are not worth visiting. I just have my preferences (one of which includes the nearby llamas – which I unfortunately was unable to find the last trip…).

Drink hearty!

More photos after the jump…