i have taken a casual meandering trip through the internets this morning and come upon many points of interest in my travels. what follows will encompass, in dizzying lack of appropriate depth or detail, all but two of the following subjects (with many more added besides): medieval women, margaret cavendish, tom stoppard, the 4th demension, egyptian rope stretchers, oscar the grouch, the squaring of the circle, pythagorean number symbolism, galileo’s moon drawings, the metaphysical and cavalier poets, samuel smith’s nut brown ale, kepler’s fourth law, map of mars by percival lowell, brunelleschi’s peepshow, the great vowel shift, courtly love, poisons and antidotes in the middle ages, the platonic solids, The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Phaal by Edgar Allan Poe. the list could continue but why bother? let’s get on with it…

alright my travels began with a visit to the luminariam. nice place. a one stop shop for medieval, renaissance, and 17 century english literature, augmented with bits of music and art of each period to “complement one’s rational experience.” very fine site. make sure you don’t miss their own on premises link collections for further resources on each of the three periods. some samples from these include:

medieval- lots to explore including the bit on the lives of medieval women mentioned above, the great vowel shift during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, an interesting paleography primer, the medieval science page,  and the medieval games page, some groovy armor and courtly love, love, love. etc.

renaissance- check out crime and law as well as crime and punishment in elizabethan england, syphilis and the shepherd of atlantis, the first book of natural magik by Giambattista della Porta, some bits about the black death / plague, redefining the sacred, and um… huswifery.

17th Century- crap i’m tired… i’ll leave the 17th century to you.

anyhow the luminariam led me to do a little reading on margaret cavendish... wow, what a character. as the almighty wiki puts it: She was a poet, philosopher, essayist, playwright and, some say, an efficient and tireless self-publicist. She took the step - unprecedented for a Duchess -of publishing her work under her own name which infringed the then prevailing ideas of propriety. Samuel Pepys called her “mad, conceited and ridiculous”. Whatever the quality of her work, she was the only woman in contemporary England to have published more than one book.”

you think Samuel Pepys would take the trouble to call her mad and ridiculous just because she broke the rules of propriety? i don’t think so. then why? how about because the better portion of her work dealt with natural philosophy and “as a philosopher she rejected the Aristotelianism of the 17th century, with its picture of nature as a great machine, as well as the views of Thomas Hobbes, Descartes, Boyle and members of the Royal Society of London.” yeah that’s more like it. in fact it’s pretty hilarious for a couple of reasons. 1- though she wrote about atoms, matter and motion, butterflies, fleas, magnifying glasses, distant worlds, and infinity she was not educated in the sciences and 2- though she wrote and published a slew of poems, plays, philosophies, orations, and discourses she admitted that she could not spell and thought it was “against nature for a woman to spell right”; and as for grammar, she confessed that she was unable to understand it, but that the little she did know was enough to make her “renounce it.” haha. she rules.

the thing is the writings, especially the huge poem cycle on “atomes” are spectacularly bad. just stop for a second and imagine it: think somewhat flowery, rhyming, romantic poetry, line after line of it, all on the subject of atoms. “The bignesse of Atomes, A World made by Atomes, Of Aiery Atomes” etc. fairly insane i must say. she was included in a book a while back called in search of the worlds worst writers and the author put it this way: “She did not just restrict herself to bad verse; no, she wrote bad plays, bad prose and even bad philosophy. Although unhampered by the trappings of an education, she was much given to scientific speculation and concocted several intriguing theories, including one which claimed that some people lived longer because their atoms were packed closer together.” yup. good stuff.

also of interest as concerns cavendish is the fact that she is evidently in the (crowded) running for the distinction of having written first science fiction novel. in her case it was the description of a new world, called the blazing world . as one commenter explains, “It’s a wonderfully peculiar work: part fantasy, part feminist utopia, part scientific compendium. During Cavendish’s lifetime, the book was seen as another manifestation of her profound oddness, and its critical reception has not been much better (‘evidence of schizophrenia’; ‘absolutely unreadable’) until the last decade.” more recently she’s been celebrated as a feminist role model of sorts. (for more on the gender aspect see here) all in all pretty fascinating stuff from a pretty interesting character.

anyhow… searching out more on “mad marge” happened to lead me to this page called “celestial themes in art” which turned out to itself be part of a larger offering called geometry in art and architecture seems that it’s a site meant to accompany a course at dartmouth. it is chock full of compact bursts of info on interesting subjects many of which i mentioned in the first paragraph. take a look through, it’s bound to send you off on some fun time destroying tangents (like these eclectic video lectures).

likewise there is exploring the cosmos which is hosted by u.c. irvine. this one seems to be the accompanying info to support a lecture series. it is packed with great illustrations and offers many links to transcripts of important related texts from throughout history. potentially a sink hole as well. you’re almost guaranteed to find some nugget for further investigation (like what galileo saw for instance).

lastly i want to point you toward the bbc’s history pages if you haven’t been there already. all sorts of goodies. make sure to check out the interactive content.

there is a section of games to pass the time like:

death in rome “Be a Roman sleuth - use your detective skills to unravel the events behind a mysterious death.”

muck and brass “you will have to imagine you are running a city at the height of the Industrial Revolution, and make choices regarding the welfare of your workforce and the prosperity of your business. How ready is your conscience for the realities of Victorian Britain?

the pyramid challenge “As the vizier, or head of state, you are about to undertake the most important project of your career - the building of the king’s pyramid.”

viking quest “takes you back to AD 793. Can you build a ship, cross the seas, loot a monastery and return home to claim your prize?”

wheew…

o.k. that’s it for me signing off. hope you enjoy.