John Cromwell - The Silver Cord

the lady scientist and the mad motherby Douglas MesserliJane Murfin (based on the play by Sidney Howard), John Cromwell (director) The Silver Cord / 1933  Legend has it that the original playwright of this 1926 stage play, Sidney Howard, thought of the work as a comedy of sorts, much as Tennessee Williams seems to have thought of his Streetcar Named Desire. And there certainly is a strong element in the film that bears witness to the kind of overwrought, fairly campy performance of Laura Hope...

sugar - madeira - and the canaries

Today's encore selection -- from Sugar: The World Corrupted by James Walvin. Sugar followed gold and silver as the most important commodity in the New World. Sugar had long been a small-scale luxury, limited by the lack of the right soil and climate for growing sugar cane. That changed dramatically with the discovery of the New World, leading to the establishment of large-scale plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean. But the tragedy of dependence on African slaves, as well as the pattern of ...

Summary of some interesting entries from the online dictionary of Symbols from University of Michigan

Sulfur as hellSourceURL: http://websites.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/S/sulfur.html Sulfur According to Christian legend, sulfur is associated with HELL and the Devil (Cooper, 1978), and is often referred to as brimstone. Up one level Back to document index ShadowSourceURL: http://websites.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/S/shadow.html ShadowWith light, the shadow is the Chinese yin and yang; shadows are often identified with a person...

Interview: Living in Silverado: Secret Jews in the Silver Mining Towns of Colonial Mexico

Professor Emeritus David Gitlitz is one of the world’s leading experts on Jewish-Catholic interactions in Iberia and the Americas. While initially drawn to the literature of the Spanish Golden Age as a student at Oberlin and Harvard, the history and culture of Spanish and Latin American Jewry later caught Gitlitz’s interest. He has since written extensively on Iberian Jews, the conversos, and pilgrimage. His Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews, fruit of extended visits to Inqu...

Coins, the Overlooked Keys to History | The New Yorker

Clip source: Coins%2C%20the%20Overlooked%20Keys%20to%20History%20%7C%20The%20New%20Yorker Skip to main content Under ReviewCoins, the Overlooked Keys to HistoryA delightful new book argues that numismatics—the study of coins—is the "beautiful science of civilizations." By Casey Cep July 28, 2021https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?&display=popup&caption=Coins%2C%20the%20Overlooked%20Keys%20to%20History&app_id=1147169538698836&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fbooks%2Funder-review%2Fc...

Alchemy and Colour | The Fitzwilliam Museum

Alchemy and Colour Alchemy, a discipline that prepared the ground for early modern chemistry and experimental science, focused on the transmutation of ‘base’ metals (lead, tin) into ‘noble ones’ (silver, gold). Since metals were commonly associated with celestial bodies, some artists’ recipes used the names of planets and metals interchangeably: for instance, the Sun for gold, the Moon for silver and Venus for copper. The transformation of artists’ materials was often understood in alchemica...

Fire Glider - poem

argent | Origin and meaning of argent by Online Etymology Dictionary

argent (n.)early 15c., "silver, silver coin," from Old French argent "silver, silver money; quicksilver" (11c.), from Latin argentum "silver, silver work, silver money," from PIE *arg-ent-, suffixed form of root *arg- "to shine; white," thus "silver" as "the shining or white metal." Earlier in English in the sense "quicksilver, the metal mercury" (c. 1300); the adjective sense "silver-colored" is from late 15c.Rel...

silver | Origin and meaning of silver by Online Etymology Dictionary

silver (n.)Old English seolfor, Mercian sylfur "silver; money," from Proto-Germanic *silabur- (source also of Old Saxon silvbar, Old Frisian selover, Old Norse silfr, Middle Dutch silver, Dutch zilver, Old High German silabar, German silber "silver; money," Gothic silubr "silver"), which is of uncertain origin.It seems to be Germanic/Balto-Slavic (source also of Old Church Slavonic s(u)rebo, Russian serebro, Polish srebro, Lithuanian sidabras "silver"),...

Adventures of a Shilling - How Human life has been bound to useless metals

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In 1919 Silver was more valuable than gold - briefly

Moses and Homer Were Color Blind?

Moses and Homer Were Color Blind A Brief History of Color in Literatureby Justin Rice, published on 06/19/2017 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.—from the King James Bible, 1611 It was red and yellow and green and brown And scarlet and black and ochre and peach And ruby and olive and violet and fawn And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve And cream and crimson and silver and rose And azure an...