Apr 26, 2010

Lavender not in our garden

Dirk informs us by email that our lavender picture represents the lavandula stoechas, which blossoms March - June. Sadly, he continues, it is often mistaken for the common lavender of the Mediterranean area, ie. the lavandula officinalis and the lavandula angustifolia, which blossom June - August.

lavandula stoechaslavandula officinalis
lavandula angustifoliaThe bard

While I am putting Dirk's helpful comments into this blogpost, Chang is looking over my shoulder. "you've got the wrong lavender," he says. "We could have had the official lavender. But we didn't. They f@#ed us again." (He means Rubinio, the local pépinieriste where we buy the wrong plants). "Ask our money back," he continues, "call them, they sold us frass." That's what he always says, but he has a point. The lavandula stoechas not only isthe wrong plant, it also sounds the wrong plant. Compare that with lavandula officinalis, which looks terrible, but surely enlivens the popal, I mean, papal gardens, and blossoms from June through August, while Benedictus naps in the sun and enjoys sweet lavender dreams. Didn't the bard already sing in his famous sonnets "Here's flowers for you: Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram." "Yes, he did," Chang intersperses, looking over my shoulder again, "but not in his sonnets, it's from A Winter's Tale."

I disagree, of course, so we have to google (in the past, you had marital disputes, but now you have googles; not you, not yet?...we provide marital google advice at competitive rates).

Google, Shakespeare, google, Shakespeare & lavender, google. And there it is. Chang is right. A Winter's Tale. But that's not all. The thing that jumps off the page is the lavendula spica. What is this? Shakespeare's lavender is not the angustifolia, not the officinalis, not the stoechas. Yet another lavender, the lavendula spica. What now?

Stay tuned.

Apr 21, 2010

The economist and the lightning rods



Mark Twain died (or was born) today, a thousand years ago (OK, yesterday). This is the home where he was born, with the fence that opens Tom Sawyer, and a lost tourist that resembles Chang. (In fact, Becky's place (Becky, Tom's love interest) is just opposite the street. Samuel Clemens had a crush on her)



Here's a condensation of Twain's short story Political Economy.


[The first person is writing:] Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the---

Here I was interrupted and informed that a stranger wished to see me down at the door. I went and confronted him, and asked to know his business, struggling all the time to keep a tight rein on my seething political-economy ideas [...] He said he was sorry to disrupt me, but as he was passing by he noticed that I needed some lightning-rods. I said, "Yes, yes---go on---what about it?" [...]I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels...[...]I try to appear (to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently I said in an offhand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or eight lightning-rods put up, but---The stranger started, and looked inquiringly at me, but I was serene. [...]

Apr 12, 2010

History of the world, part I — the couch

When I was young we would spend the evenings at the central table of the living room and listen to the radio.

Then TV came. It arrived in Germany in 1956. We did not get one immediately, but were invited by richer friends to admire theirs. Joint TV watching became very popular, and very cosy, since everybody got a couch.

The couch appeared in the showrooms together with the TV. We went window-shopping a lot and always spent some time gawking at couches. My parents would teach me about good taste. Scandinavian style, that was good taste. We never really got a couch, just some sort of bench that could double as a bed. But the central table disappeared anyhow.
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