The weed is Datura wrightii, known variously as Sacred Datura, Jimsonweed⊕, Nightshade, Angel’s Trumpet, Moonflower, Thorn Apple, and Devil’s Weed. It’s classified as a “deliriant” which Wikipedia describes as follows:

“The deliriants (or anticholinergics) are a special class of acetylcholine-inhibitor dissociatives. The name comes from their primary effect of inducing a medical state of frank delirium, characterized by stupor, utter confusion, confabulation, and regression to ‘phantom’ behaviors such as disrobing and plucking. Other commonly reported behaviors include holding full and lifelike conversations with imagined people, finishing a complex, multi-stage action and then suddenly discovering you had not even begun yet, and being unable to recognize one’s own reflection in a mirror (and thus becoming angry with the ‘stranger’s’ acts of mimicry). The effects have been likened to sleepwalking, a fugue state or a psychotic episode.”

These effects are caused by the alkaloids present throughout the plant. 

Quote: “The leaves, stem, root and fruits of Datura contain a battery of tropane alkaloids, the most potent of which are atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine. These alkaloids affect the central nervous system, including nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord which control many direct body functions and the behavior of men and women. They may also affect the autonomic nervous system, which includes the regulation of internal organs, heartbeat, circulation and breathing. One autonomic response of atropine is the dilation of pupils, once considered to be a beautiful and mysterious look in Italian women. In fact, belladonna means ‘beautiful lady,’ so named because sap from the closely related belladonna plant (Atropa belladonna) was used as eye drops to dilate the pupils.”

Californian settlers called it “Indian Whiskey” because it was used ritually by soaking and steeping the leaves into a tea or by chewing the seeds or roots. It was used mainly in rites of passage and as a means of “seeing the future” though wikipedia also mentions that “during a frightening situation, such as when seeing a coyote walk like a man, a leaf was sucked to help keep the soul in the body.” And who couldn’t use a little help in that regard?

Elsewhere in the world, and throughout history, Datura has been used for varying purposes, all of which seemed to call for just a pinch of that special poison. Some examples-

Quote: In the East Indies, women fed Datura leaves to beetles, and then fed the poisonous dung to faithless lovers.

Prostitutes in India added the seeds to their patron’s drinks to induce sexual excitement. In fact, the use of Datura as an aphrodisiac spread throughout India, the Far East and Europe, and was an important ingredient in love potions and witches’ brews.

Specially prepared salves and ointments were also applied to various parts of the body. The famous seventeenth century Dutch artist, David Teniers the Younger, made several paintings of witches preparing for their demonic orgy or sabbat. The scenes frequently depicted a nude witch being anointed while she straddled a broom. According to M.J. Harner, writing in Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), the use of a broom or staff was undoubtedly more than a symbolic Freudian act, for it served to apply the salves to sensitive vaginal membranes.

Greek and Roman physicians used Datura mixed with opium as a sedative and general anesthetic during surgery.

Some aboriginal Indians in South America gave a Datura-alcohol beverage to wives and slaves of dead warriors and chieftains. The powerful brew induced stupor before they were buried alive to accompany their dead husbands and masters on the long journey to heaven.”

Whew! So enterprising and imaginative we humans are. In any case…

Though panic, blindness, convulsions, stupors, and respiratory depression are delightful prospects, and might seem a perfectly acceptable risk in trade for some people in order to achieve outlandish hallucinatory states, Datura can be lethal, and in as much has rarely been considered a substance to be taken recreationally.

Except by the moths of course.

The moths in question are the family Sphingidae called variously hawk moths, sphinx moths and hornworms. They are one of only three nectar feeders who have evolved the ability to hover (the others being the hummingbird and certain bats) and are very often mistaken by onlookers for hummingbirds. They are among the fastest flying insects on the planet, able to reach 30 mph, and as mentioned previously, they like to get high. Lucky for them, in return for a stint of pollination duty, Datura wrightii is all too happy to oblige.

Quote: “Several intoxicating alkaloids are known to occur in Datura, but heretofore have not been correlated with pollination. Apparently Datura nectar is ‘spiked’ with alkaloids and the hawk moths seem to like it and come back for more. Sometimes they arrive early and hover around the flowers, impatiently waiting for the blossoms to pop open. We have observed what appear to be intoxicated moths flying erratically around D. wrightii, clumsily landing on blossoms and crashing into leaves or falling upon the ground.”

Arriving early? Waiting impatiently? Sounds like Mr. Sphingid needs it bad.

Further: “Although the potent alkaloids of Datura have produced untold suffering and psychedelic binges among people through countless generations, they may also be an ingenious strategy to insure repeat visits by long-tongued hawk moths through the medium of drug addiction. When the moths sober up they come straight back for more nectar.”

So enterprising and imaginative these plants are, ay?

In our weakling 21st century brains, browbeaten into hypersensitivity over anything habitual, and so very quick to pull the “addiction” trigger, many people will involuntarily view this symbiosis as a dealer/junkie relationship and be tempted, against their own good sense, to heap moral scorn on a flower⊕. It’s useful to remember, however, that pollination can be a brutal business-

Quote: “In truth, pollination often involves abuse, a range of violence and deceit. Some orchids imprison their pollinators in a carnival fun-house of chutes and cages. Sometimes these flowers eject their pollinium (a disk of pollen with a stem attached) into a sphinx moth’s eye, an experience akin to having a hockey stick attached to your face. Eventually, the vision-impaired insect may starve if it cannot feed itself. In the meantime, it might pollinate a few more flowers. Flowers pretend to have nectar when they don’t, or they exaggerate the richness of their pollen with bright yellow coloring. In the common milkweed, pollen can stick so persistently to a visiting bumblebee that, as the bee flies away, its legs tear off. By comparison, the interaction between a sacred datura and a moth almost seems romantic. At least no one is getting hurt.”

Indeed. The flower gets laid and the moth gets high. It’s a victimless crime baby.

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To the adults- Hope you ejoyed.
To the kids- Just say no to deliriant flowers… and stay in school.

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The information for this post was drawn from the following:
Wayne’s Word: Plants That Make You Loco
One Earth: Sex in the Garden
Wikipedia: Detura Wrightii
Wikipedia: Sphingidae

Xensen: Suppose you love someone romantically—a woman, let’s say. Do you parcel out your love, setting it in scales and weighing it out against little blocks, one that says “improved character,” another that says “better self-understanding”? Or do you simply love her, without inhibition? Now suppose her name is The Humanities.

Conrad H. Roth: I do love someone romantically, and it is even a woman. However, if I spent my whole life—or even a large part of my life—stroking her lovely face, I might have reason to worry I was not spending my time as well as I should be.

Myself: Now suppose multitudes of people all over the globe love her, passionately, covetously, and these multitudes spend their whole lives stroking her face as well. This stroking, however reverent and gentle, has, through the constant attentive friction of countless fingertips, an unintended effect; A quantitative effect oblivious to the romantic clink of wine glasses and undiminished by concupiscent cooing.

The affectionate caress, when administered by a mob, feels decidedly more ardent. 

Capillaries are broken, bruises formed, skin stripped, layer by layer, from her cheeks and forehead and chin. The Zygomaticus and Orbicularis oculi and Oribicularis oris are tenderized, breaking peptide bonds between amino acids and dissolving sinewy connections. Her lovely face breaks down. The fervent hands of the multitudes, with fingertips pressing into a slurry of scrap and cartilage, caress their way straight through the processes of autolysis, putrefaction, decay, and diagenesis until they are left, finally, pawing at a beautifully polished bone.

- 

Notes:

The image is adapted from a shot of Clown Skull by Vik Muniz, 1989.

Any resemblance to loved ones, living or institutional, is purely coincidental.

Ancient Mythologies represent the ultimate expression of the game telephone. The stories, the names and places and outcomes, shift endlessly from source to source and from age to age. In as much I will make no attempt to recount the myth of the The Hundred-Handed Giants here. I’ll supply some links and leave the neat knot tying to you, if you’re interested. I mention the Myth only because I recently came across a group of paintings which I wanted to share that are related.

I picked up a slim volume containing some work by the French painter Lionel Guibout. Being woefully unilingual I could not read any of the accompanying text. The paintings were quite handsome, each depicting this crazy cluster of writhing bodies. They seemed to be angry and fearful and accusing and lunatic all at once. I had no idea what they represented, only that their frantic discomposure seemed meaningful somehow, and true. It wasn’t until I did a bit of research that I figured out that they were essentially portraits of the three Hecatoncheires.

Also known as Cottys, Cottus, or Kotos. Sometimes appended “The Striker” or “The Furious.”

Also known as Briareus, Ægæon, or Egeon. Sometimes appended “The Vigorous” or “The Strong.”

Also known as Gyes. Sometimes appended “The Big-Limbed” or “The Vaulter” or “The Crippler.”

Unfortunately, as with the book these were taken from, pretty much all the information on Lionel Guibout I was able to find is in French, or at very least a language other than English.Biographical info
Galleria Delleone
Vid of an exhibition in which the paintings above are are seen among other work.

More on the Hecatoncheires-
Wikipedia entry
Theoi Greek Mythology
Greek Mythology Link
Clash of the Titans at Infoplease
Encyclopedia Mythica entry
Orpheus, Myths of the World
The Age of Fable
Giants, Monsters, and Dragons
Classical Gods and heros

Postscript-
Dante actually encounters one of the Hecatoncheires, Briareus, in Pergatory (12:28-30). After seeing Briareus Dante concludes his monstrosity was his lack of intellect rather than his gigantic stature, which he declared was quite in proportion. Zing!

I knew there was something inherently “true” about those paintings.

Further description: The gold false cuvette opening to reveal the erotic scene of an African woman wearing pearls and a man with a dog at his heels. The polychrome enamel figures engaged in an amorous encounter spring to life when the repeat mechanism is activated. Anonymous Swiss. Circa 1900.

Oh to be a human of any epoch! Brilliant I tells ya. Brilliant.

(Found on Antique-watch.com. Also: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)

That last part is what’s interesting. In finding a planet around a star so old and far along its path to red-gianthood, a first, the implication is a glimmer of hope for our own planet’s survival, 5 billion years or so from now when we will shake hands with our own red giant, Sol 2.0. Of course, “survival” in this context is a silly sort of word because though the actual ground beneath our feet might not be vaporized and molecularly mingled with our sun, there won’t be any feet at that point to appreciate the solid footing. Which is simply to say there wont be any “survivors” in terms of life as we know it. 

I can hear you asking- “If our civilization is headed for a nasty and ultimately fatal sunburn regardless then why exactly are the implications so interesting? Scorched rock floating through empty space beholden to cold dispassionate forces for near eternity is interesting? Further more,” You continue, a bit snarkily for my liking, “If there is no mind left to be interested then surely the term ‘interesting’ ceases to apply?”

True enough that we won’t be around to see how it shakes out, but honestly… do you think we’ll be around 5 billion years from now, red-giant or no? Hahaha. Fat chance. In any case it’s not the prospect of human survival on a scorched Earth which interests me… quite the opposite. These observations essentially hint at a possible second option for our eternal rest. Previously cremation was the only game in town, now we have the prospect of burial as well.

Personally, in terms of my own meat-sack, I will opt for, nay, insist on, cremation. But for the remains of human civilization at large I think the prospect of burial is a happy one, and for a couple of reasons-

1) “Life” does not equal “humanity.” Extremophiles may yet survive on a scorched Earth, and perhaps long enough even to evolve convertibles and ray-bans and sun-block.

2) It would be a damn shame if another race of sentient beings, blind to their own origins and terrified at the apparent lifelessness of space, caught some lingering radio signals and came looking for the source, only to find a big fat nothing. They might be tempted to attribute C-span broadcasts and Who’s the Boss re-runs to the lips of Gods. That at least, I’d like to spare them.

The truth is attaching significance to a mortal life is difficult enough, to your own tiny place in a mortal civilization even more so. But finding a way to soldier on when you know every last scrap of evidence that humanity ever existed will be vaporized? Well that’s just fucking unreasonable.

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P.S. the image which accompanies this post was adapted from the first plate of The Outline of Science, A Plain Story Simply Told from 1922, which is available at Gutenberg.org

Let’s do a visualization exercise.

Try to let go of your movie-induced visions of post-apocalyptic struggle, centered on flesh eating irradiated men, broken eyeglasses, and thunderdomes, and focus instead on standing in a dark, rubble-strewn bunker trying to make heads or tail out of a (greek to me) number-laden slide rule… do you see what I see?

Now that’s horror!

(Why, oh why, am I so unprepared? And why did I take so many gad damned Humanities courses anyway? Fucking art school!)

Personally I don’t remember ever even seeing one of these items first hand. That seems to have as much to do with the timing of my birth (1974) as with my decidedly hippy-leaning parentage. Let’s look to John Walker (maintainer of fourmilab.ch and co-author of AutoCAD) for some firsthand accounting-

Quote: “Anyway, when some champion of human liberty in a Che Guevara T-shirt and Mao jacket was haranguing his audience with claims like “A single Hiroshima bomb set off downtown would annihilate this university and all of us in the blink of an eye”, what better way to burnish one’s Strangelovian credentials than to whip out a handy-dandy nuclear bomb computer slide rule, whip—slip—slide, and interrupt, “Naaah . . . fifteen kilotons at five miles? Surface burst? Why, that’s only a quarter to a third of a pound per square inch overpressure—it’ll probably break some window glass but that’s about it.” Flipping the slide rule over, “The flash isn’t even enough to cause sunburn, and the immediate radiation is next to nothing.” For some unfathomable reason, this never seemed to either carry the argument or suitably impress chicks.

Back in those psychedelic days of yore, you could order your own fantastic pastel plastic nuclear bomb effects computer directly from the U.S. Government Printing Office for a single green dollar, and for three dollars more, obtain the authoritative 730 page book, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, upon which it was based. With the winding down of the nuclear arms race and eventual end of the Cold War, interest in the actual consequences of setting off nuclear weapons waned. The book and computer were last updated in 1977, and subsequently went out of print.”

Indeed.

Well that explains why when I look at one of these circular slide rules all I see is some nifty looking, though totally opaque, information design and why rather than envisioning all sorts of weighty cause and effect scenarios my first thoughts are instead, “mmmm pretty” and “I bet Tufte would approve of those.” Have a look at some for yourself and see what you think.

I must admit the very thought of some determined engineer brandishing one of these after a bomb blast, to calmly draw even a smidgeon of rational data out of the situation, is a heartening thought. Where as most of us would immediately set about trying to cobble together flying machines out of lawnmower parts or riot down at the sporting-goods store in covetous search of hockey masks and shoulder pads some among us might yet be able to do something useful.

Obviously the slide rule in general has largely become a outmoded technology with the coming of the scientific calculator and more recently, these, how-you-say, computronics. But as with all technological corpses there remains a fervent underground of admirers and collectors who keep a fire burning in the tomb. Which in the case of slide rules, nuclear themed specimens especially, is a blessing. After all with a few well placed electromagnetic pulses -care of some lovely nuclear explosions- they could very quickly return to state of the art, technophile coveted, status.

If you’re a true technology junky and want to get a jump on the apocalyptic gadget frenzy (sure to be kicked off in the pages of the mimeographed editions of endgadget and gizmodo) or would simply like to feel less stupid when all hell breaks loose, Fourmilab offers the Build Your Own Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer page as a public service.

Happy computing!

The images in this post were adapted from the following:
ORAU’s page on Nuclear Slide Rules
Cyberheritage.org’s Pounds House, Plymoth

For a bit more-

Micro-history of the slide-rule
Wiki history of the slide rule
Curious Lee

Lastly, I ought to mention that the slide rules pictured here were chosen not for their visual niftiness but strictly for their function. There are MANY handsome looking slide rules to be seen out there which would surely prove inspirational to purveyors of information graphics and retro-design lovers alike. I can recommend the following-

Rekeninstrumenten’s slide rule catalog
Sphere’s circular slide rules page and slide rule universe
Greg’s slide rules
Slide rule museum

Hope you enjoyed.

Quote: “The total solar eclipse of 18 July 1860 was probably the most thoroughly observed eclipse up to that time. The drawings are a sample of those produced at the time which include depictions of a peculiar feature in the SW (lower right) portion of the corona. Based on comparison with modern coronal observations, it is quite likely that these represent the first record of a Coronal Mass Ejection in progress. Today coronal mass ejections are known to represent one of the more energetic -and geoeffective- manifestation of solar activity, with up to 10 billion tons of material being ejected into interplanetary space at speeds reaching up to 1000 kilometer per second.”

(All from the page Great Moments in Solar Physics.)

I’m fascinated by the prevalence of “interpretation” in scientific observation prior to the 20th century. Today we are very comfortable with the exactitude of our images, be they from massive telescopes, electron microscopes, or super high speed / high resolution cameras, but for much of the history of science we depended on what amounts in no small degree to the artistic abilities (and fancies) of our scientists.

A great example of this is offered by Dr. David Malin, photographic scientist-astronomer and Adjunct Professor of Scientific Photography at RMIT University in Melbourne, in his introductory essay for RIT’s Images from Science exhibition of 2002-

Image at left: John Herschel’s drawing of the Orion nebula, made with an 18-inch telescope during his period in Cape Town, South Africa, in the 1830s.

Image at right: In Ireland in the 1840s, William Parsons (Lord Rosse) constructed the world’s largest telescope, which he used in making this drawing of the Orion nebula.

Quote: “I reproduce Herschel’s and Parsons’s drawings… and the differences between them are obvious. They result not from changes in the nebula or in telescopic power, but from subjective differences in the way their creators saw, remembered, and sketched what was essentially the same subject.”

I think that my composite image of the 1860 eclipse illustrates the point in a different way. Separately each man captured an aspect of the reality. When you combine their observations the result is unmistakable and seems to capture something more… elemental.

It fascinates me that for so very long our picture of the universe was, as Dr. Malin points out, so very subjective. From a visual standpoint, the idea of subjectivity in astronomy seems pretty foreign to us today. We know, without any doubt, just what the surface of mars looks like, what the horsehead nebula looks like, what the sun, churning in its insane power looks like. The room for artistic interpretation in representation of the universe has narrowed considerably. The truth is that photography and science are utterly perfect bedfellows; meant for each other really. There are without question massive amounts of subjective “interpretation” happening in science still, but the interpretation involved is in the data.

I mentioned earlier that when these drawings of the eclipse of 1860 were made photography was already in swing. It so happens that 6 years earlier photographs of an eclipse were in fact taken-

The daguerreotypes above are in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have this to say about them-

Quote: “In 1841–42, William and Frederick Langenheim opened a daguerreotype studio in Philadelphia. Known for their technical innovations, the former journalists were not the city’s first but were certainly its most celebrated photographers. On May 26, 1854, the Langenheim brothers made eight sequential photographs of the first total eclipse of the sun visible in North America since the invention of photography. Although six other daguerreotypists and one calotypist are known to have documented the event, only these seven daguerreotypes survive.”

Good thing astronomers were still handy with pencils huh?

Anyhow, expect more on this subject as examples come to me.

Hope you enjoyed.

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It dawned on me only recently that in the vaults and safes and state of the art library humidors which house the priceless historical paper trail of the American ascent, there are legal documents, many still binding, which, beside the paragraphs of legalese, the caveats, the statutes, the declarations, and the protocol, feature, of all things, small enigmatic drawings of woodland creatures.

Beside heavy wax seals you’ll find the beaver, the wolf, the turtle, and the deer, in a loose free-hand application of ink. The eagle, which eventually became a symbol of the American State, and seems ever present in the form of impossibly intricate etchings, might conceivably have made its first appearance in the annals of American documents⊕ as an Indian Chief’s totemic signature.

Quote: “Not much is understood about the exact function of totem symbols, or indeed what totems meant to the individuals who made their mark on documents. The following quote from Benjamin Slight (1844), offers a fairly typical explanation of what Europeans of the time believed these symbols to mean: When their signature is required to any document of any kind, in connexion with their names, they affix what is called their tootams, having the same juxtaposition as the seal of an English transaction. The tootam is a rude sketch of some fish, fowl or animal, which is designative of the tribe to which the individual belongs, or expressive of the name, he as an individual, bears.

Totem symbols may well have reflected band or family affiliation, and may also have suggested territorial or community ancestry, but they may have also referred to personal names or descriptive characteristics of the individual who adopted the symbol. Generally, these symbols remain a mystery, and perhaps rightly so, given the sometimes quite private and personal importance they had for the individual.” -Neal Ferris, Preface to Deeds/Nations by Greg Curnoe.

Quote: “A totem could be used to represent an individual or a group. Original documents signed by Native Americans using their totem are extremely rare. Most researchers who look at printed versions of documents signed by Native Americans, such as peace treaties, are familiar with the phrase “made his mark,” followed by an “X.” The impression left by these printed documents are that Native Americans were devoid of a written means of expression and that even tribal leaders were reduced to signing critical documents such as treaties with a crude mark. Actually the Native American’s totem, or signature, was often a fine drawing that reflected a characteristic of the individual’s name or a central event in their life. Because printers had difficulty inexpensively reproducing these art-like totems, the practice arose of simply stating that the signer had “made his mark” and placing an “X” in the appropriate location on the printed document.” -Clarke Historical Library at CMU.

Of course animal totems were by no means only used as signatures-

Were it not for the grim circumstances of their creation the very thought of our weighty and hallowed American historical documents being peppered here and there with naive drawings of indigenous animals would make me smile, surprising and counterintuitive as it feels. In context, however, the little creatures take on a mournful aspect which force you instead to visualize anxious and uncertain hands hovering just above dubious pieces of paper. Naive as they may appear, these animal drawings may actually have more import and consequence for the hands that created them than any ever made.

The materials for this post were adapted from the following:

A History of the Art of Writing
Collectionscanada.ca
Deeds/Nations
Earlytreaties.unl.edu
Clarke Historical Library
American Historical and Literary Antiquities
College of William and Mary, Swem Library
The Canadian Encyclopedia
The Empire State: A Compendious History of the Commonwealth of New York.

The image which began this post was adapted from Clarke Library’s page The Native American Treaty Signers in the Great Lakes Region.

Hope you found this of interest.