Splatter

Splatter (pronounced splat-er)

(1) To splash and scatter upon impact.

(2) An act or instance of splattering, typically a spray of mud, paint, blood or other liquids which results in many small blobs, some of which may coalesce.

(3) The quantity or the residue of something so splattered; An uneven shape (or mess) created by something dispersing on impact.

(4) In film as “splatter film” or “splatter movie”, a production characterized by gory imagery, often for its own sake (something of this the type often referred to as “a splatterfest”).  Splatterpunk is either a fork or synonym depending on interpretation.  In film, the splatter ecosystem is treated by those who take such things seriously as a sub-set of the horror genre.

(5) In modern art, as “splatter art” or “splatter painting”, a technique in which paint is (variously) dripped thrown, squirted, flicked etc onto the surface (although because of its history, “drip painting” to often treated as a separate stream (or drip)).

(6) In radio, spurious emissions resulting from an abrupt change in a transmitted signal.

1760s: The origin is uncertain but it’s presumed to be a portmanteau word, the construct being spla(sh) + (spa)tter.  Splash was probably a variant of the Middle English plasch & plasche, from the Old English plæsċ (pool, puddle) and thought likely an imitative form.  It was cognate with the Dutch plas (pool, watering hole) and related to the West Frisian plaskje (to splash, splatter), the Dutch plassen (to splash, splatter) and the German platschen (to splash).  The construct of spatter was probably the Middle Low German or Dutch spatt(en) (to spout, burst) +‎ -er (the frequentative suffix) and related to spit (saliva).  Splatter, splatterdash & splattering are nouns & verbs, splatterer & splatterfest are nouns, splattered is a verb and splattery is an adjective; the noun plural is splatters.

The verb in the sense of “splash; scatter about; make a noise as of splashing water” developed from the noun and was in use by at least 1784 but the earlier splatterdash (thought a variant of spatterdash) was noted a decade-odd earlier, a development of the noun spatterdash (leather covering for the lower leg to protect from mud) from the late seventeenth century.  Splatterdash meant “in a haphazard manner; work performed in a disorganized way” and was thought (either by intent or mistake) to have evolved from or been influenced by the earlier slapdash.  The early eighteenth century splatter-faced (having a broad, flat face) was probably a perversion of platter-faced, the modern version being “plate-faced”.  Splatterpunk was in 1986 apparently coined by award-winning US writer David J Schow (b 1955), noted for his many contributions to the horror industry and the splatter fork in particular. The first known reference to its use was during his celebrated appearance at the Twelfth World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island.  Devoted fans of the splatter movie genre often self-identify as splatterpunks.

I Know Who Killed Me (2007) was for years was a fixture on "Worst Movie Ever" lists but more recently it has built a cult following (for reasons right and wrong) and the longevity in the interest it sustains has made it one of the genre's more enduring (and profitable) titles.  It was an example of a splatter movie "cross-over" in that the splatter aspect was ancillary to the crime-focused plot.  IKWKM often appears in "midnight screenings".

The evolution of the splatter movie becomes obvious from around the early 1960s when graphical depictions of violence and increasing volumes of (fake) blood began to appear.  The censorship in most parts of the world was for most of the twentieth century quite rigorous and unlike the attitude of the authorities towards nudity & sex where some jurisdictions tended to be more permissive, the attitude towards violence in films was more restrictive.  The French Grand Guignol (1897-1962) theatre had staged naturalistic dramas in which the gore was said to be “most realistic” but it was unusual and tolerated as an example of intellectual Parisian bohemianism and in early cinema, about the only graphic depictions seen of blood and gore were those in battlefield scenes or anything intended to illustrate the savagery of non-white races.  The trend towards gratuitous violence in film grew in the post-war years and directors in the 1960s pushed the boundaries, something accommodated by different versions of films being released in different markets, some more cut than others.  Such was the flow of violent cinema that the authorities began banning distribution and it wasn’t until the 1990s the practice became uncommon in the West, the classification system restricting to adults those thought most disturbing thought sufficient.  If there’s a convenient watershed in the business, it might be The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) which lived up to its name; after that, all splatter movies can be considered a variation on the theme.

Freier Stress (Stress Free), Oil on linen by Albert Oehlen (b 1954).

Some regards splatter art as something distinct from drip painting (or action painting) while many claim not to be able to tell the difference although because drip painting has an establish place in modern art (one quite respectable according to many including those who pay millions for works by some of the most famous artists), it’s usually treated as something distinct.  As can be imagined, “splatter” is something within the rubric of abstract; throwing paint at a surface, sometimes from a distance of several feet rather than using a brush or even some form of spray, is going to results in something which, even if recognizably something, is at least at the margins going to be chaotic.

Lepanto, Panel 6, oil on canvas by Cy Twombly (1928-2011)

When drip painting burst (splattered?) upon the art world in the early post war years it was a novelty and at least since the late nineteenth century there had among the Western avant-garde been a thirst for the new and the shocking.  At the time first referred to as a form of abstract expressionism, what the early works did manage to convey was the feeling of something spontaneous, the relationship between what appears on the canvas and the physicality of the technique.  There had long been painters working in oil able to represent the gestures of their brush-strokes, usually with a graduated thickness in the layers on the surface but flinging the stuff around the room obviously brought a new violence to art.  Experimentation (and market differentiation) soon following and apart from the drippers and flingers, there were soon flickers, injectors (the use of syringes presumably thought a bit edgy), squeezers (wringing the paint from a soaked cloth), bursters (paint-filled balloons either thrown at the surface or popped from above) and even the odd spitter (paint ejected from the mouth).

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) at work, dripping.  To the untrained eye, it's really not possible to work out where the dripping ends and the splatter begins or if it matters or if a distinction between cause and effect is helpful.  The most famous of the drip painters and one of art's genuine celebrities, Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) claimed he was “...the greatest painter since Picasso.”

Number 17A (1948), oil on fiberboard by Jackson Pollock.  In 2015 it sold for US$200 million which made it then the world's fifth most expensive painting.  An early work, it's thought one of the purest examples of drip painting and as soon as it appeared in the August 1949 edition of Life magazine, Jackson Pollock became famous.   

One thing about splatter art which simultaneously is (for practitioners) an attraction and (for detractors) a damnation is that the conventional skills traditionally needed by painters are not only not required but are simply irrelevant.  One of the most common complaints of the form by an unimpressed public was usually something like “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”  In terms of the techniques that’s certainly true in that anyone can drip, fling, flick, inject, squeeze or burst (most might draw the line at the spit) but the matter for judgment remains what was produced, not how it was done.  It’s the critics who rule on these things and those specializing in splatter (and related techniques) claim the ability to tell the good form the bad and the masterpiece for everything else.  Of course the language used between such critics is something like that of a sect in that while the words might be familiar, the meanings conveyed and the knowledge known secrets concealed from all but the chosen few and their views can be the difference between a piece being worthless or selling at auction for a sex figure sum.  We really have to take their word for it.

Times Square (2022), oil on canvas being painted by Paul Kenton (b 1968).

Paul Kenton describes himself as a “cityscape artist” and combines variations of splatter techniques with some more traditional forms of “editing” to produce works which are closer to the more traditional forms of abstract expressionism than the drip genre defined by Pollock.

Siren

Siren (pronounced sahy-ruhn)

(1) In classical mythology, one of several sea nymphs, sometimes depicted as part-woman, part-bird (and sometimes as as sisters), who with their seductive singing (their “siren song” or “siren call”) lured mariners to destruction on the rocky shore.

(2) A woman who sings sweetly and charms.

(3) In slang, a seductively beautiful or charming woman, especially one who beguiles men; a seductress, temptress or vamp; a dangerous women who preys on the weaknesses of men.

(4) An acoustical instrument for producing musical tones, consisting essentially of a disk pierced with holes arranged equidistantly in a circle, rotated over a jet or stream of compressed air, steam, or the like, so that the stream is alternately interrupted and allowed to pass.

(5) An variation of this implement which makes a piercingly loud sound and used as a whistle, fog signal, or warning device; the sound made by such a device.

(6) In zoology, (1) any of several aquatic, eel-like salamanders of the family Sirenidae, having permanent external gills, small forelimbs, and no posterior limbs, (2) a member of Sirenia, an order of mammals or (3) any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Hestina.

(7) Anything seductive or tempting, especially dangerously or harmfully.

(8) In music, a musical instrument (one of the few aerophones in the percussion section of the symphony orchestra).

(9) An instrument for demonstrating the laws of beats and combination tones.

(10) In astronomy & astrophysics, an astrophysical event which can be used for calculating cosmic distances. 

1300-1350: From the Middle English siren & sereyn from the Old French sereine, (the Modern French sereine dating from the twelfth century), from the Late Latin sīrēna and the Classical, Latin Sīrēn & Sīrēna, from the Ancient Greek Σειρήν (Seirḗn).  The Seirēnes were the alluring sea nymphs of classical mythology and the figurative sense of "one who sings sweetly and charms" was first noted in the 1580s although the classical descriptions of them were mangled in medieval translations, resulting in some odd and fantastical notions of their appearance and they were often conflated with mermaids.  The Vulgate (the Biblia Vulgata, the fourth century translation of the Bible which, through the choices of words and senses made by the translator had a profound effect on Christianity and Christendom) also gifted to Middle English the use of the word to describe an imaginary species of flying serpents, based on glossary explanations of the Latin sirenes in Isaiah 13:22.    In the Greek the word was used also to mean "a deceitful woman" although etymologists note that may have been literally "binder, entangler", from seira (cord, rope).  In zoology, the mammalian sense appeared first in was first attested in French in Les entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène (Conversations between Ariste & Eugène) by the French Jesuit priest Dominique Bouhours (1628–1702) while the use to describe the aquatic salamander was introduced in 1766 by Swedish zoologist & physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778 and styled as Carl von Linné after 1761) for a genus of reptiles.  In organic chemistry, the scientists noted the attraction exerted by the sirens and coined “sirenin” to describe a sexual attraction pheromone in some fungi of the genus Allomyces.  Less charmingly, in early twentieth century Australian urban slang, a “stem siren” was a prostitute; in the Australian way, often it was clipped to “stem”.

The use to describe the mechanical device which "makes a warning sound" was first recorded in 1879 when they were installed on steamboats and this may have been imitative of the similar French word.  In the course of the twentieth century, the things were adapted as audible warning devices for many purposes including air raids, emergency service vehicles and fire alarms.  In schools, workplaces and other geographically large sites, they were used to mark the start and finish of shifts, meal breaks etc.  As late as the 1940s, the spelling variation sireen also existed but it (like the Elizabethan adjectives sirenean, sirenian, sirenic, sirenical & sireny) is extinct although the writer & critic John Ruskin (1819–1900 and known for his fondness for nymphs), used sirenic so with that imprimatur, some modern aesthete might be tempted to revive the form.  Siren is a noun & verb, sirenize is a verb, sirenlike, sirenless, sirenical & sirenic are adjectives; the noun plural is sirens or sirenes.   

Odysseus and the Sirens

In Greek mythology, the sirens were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, the seduced seafarers would sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the nymphs' island and there be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the myths of antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Romans said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.  All were places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs.

Sirens and the Night (1865), oil on canvas by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be shipwrecked, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Odysseus had them tie him to the mast.  Sailing the rocks, when he heard the lovely voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and drowned but among the myths that was a rare fate.  The idea of the sirens persists in idiomatic use: the term “siren sound” refers to words or something which exerts a particular compelling attraction but “siren song” or “siren call” can be used of something not directly audible such as the thoughts evoked by a painting or even a concept; populism, fascism & communism have all been described thus.  That idiomatic use describes an enticing but dangerous appeal, especially a misleading one.

Lindsay Lohan (2011) by Richard Phillips (b 1962), hosted by Vimeo by courtesy of Richard Phillips and Gagosian Gallery.  Lindsay Lohan as a siren; it would seem almost a calling.

Screened in conjunction with the 54^th international exhibition of the Venice Biennale (June 2011), Lindsay Lohan was a short film the director said represented a “new kind of portraiture.”  Filmed in Malibu, California, the piece was included in the Commercial Break series, presented by Venice’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture and although the promotional notes indicated it would include footage of the ankle monitor she helped make famous, the device doesn't appear in the final cut.

Directed by: Richard Phillips & Taylor Steele
Director of Photography: Todd Heater
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Creative Director: Dominic Sidhu
Art Director: Kyra Griffin
Editor: Haines Hall
Color mastering: Pascal Dangin for Boxmotion
Music: Tamaryn & Rex John Shelverton

The Chrysler Air Raid Siren and the Firepower V8  

According to Guinness World Records, the loudest sirens ever were the 350-odd built by Chrysler for the US government in the early 1950s and installed around the country to warn of an impending nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.  The maximum volume the devices generated was recorded (at a distance of 100 feet (30.5 m)) as 138 decibels (dB), a level which meant a human would be deafened if within 200 feet (61 m) during their operation.  Guinness noted the compressor discharge throughput at peak volume was 74 m³ (2,610 cubic feet at 7 lb per square inch) of air per second and the physics of fluid dynamics (air a fluid in this context) was such that this would have caused a sheet of paper in the path spontaneously to ignite.  By comparison the now retired SST (supersonic transport) airline Concorde at take-off produced noise levels between 112-114 dB at a distance of 100 feet and even the afterburner equipped military jets (F-16, F-35 etc) haven’t been recorded as generating levels as high as 138 dB.

Although there were ebbs in the tensions, the “High Cold War” is regarded as the time between the early 1950s and late 1960s, the public perception of which was dominated by the fear of nuclear war. The US government made many preparations for such an event, notably building vast underground facilities where essential personnel (members of the administration, the Congress, their families and servants) could live until it was safe to emerge into the post-apocalypse world).  The tax-payers who paid for these facilities were of course rather less protected but the government in 1952 did install warning sirens in cities; people might still be vaporized by comrade Stalin's (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) H-Bombs but they would know what was coming so there was that.

The early version was co-developed by Chrysler and Bell Labs and named the CBVS (Chrysler Bell Victory Siren) which sounded optimistic but although the acoustic properties met the specification, the drawback was the devices were manually controlled and required someone physically to be on-location to start the thing and, being directional, rotate it so the sound would be broadcast 360^o.  The obvious flaw was that were there to be a nuclear attack in the area, the job-description potentially was was self-sacrificial, something comrade Stalin would doubtless have thought just the part of the cost of war with the unfortunate patriotic soul posthumously to be awarded the coveted Герой Советского Союза (Hero of the Soviet Union) decoration.  However, neither the White House or the Pentagon liked the optics of that and revised specifications were issued.

Photograph by Rob Storms of Chrysler Air Raid Siren atop Rochester Fire Department Maintenance Building, Rochester, Monroe County, New York.

Chrysler responded with a more elaborate device which was automated and remotely administrated, the CARS (Chrysler Air Raid Siren) introduced in 1952.  It was powered by the corporation’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) Hemi-head V8, rated at what was then a stellar 180 HP (134 kW), a three-stage compressor added to increase output.  Instead of demanding a potentially doomed operator, there was a control panel connected (with nothing more than the two-pair copper cables which became familiar as Cat3) to dedicated phone lines so it could be activated either by local civil defense authorities or the military.  The big V8 provided sufficient power to both increase the dB and the geographical coverage, the siren able to be heard over an area of some 15.8 square miles (41 km²), an impressive number given the electric sirens used today for tornado and tsunami warnings have an effective footprint of only some 3.9 square miles (10 km²).  The siren suit was unrelated to the seductive nymphs of Antiquity and owered its name to the mechanical device.  Pragmatically adopted by the British during World War II (1939-1945), it was a garment something like a mechanic's overalls though designed for warmth as well as coverage.  It gained its name for the notion of the sound of air-raid sirens being the trigger to put one one's siren suit over one's pyjamas and head for the air-raid shelter. 

Chrysler Air Raid Siren being delivered, 1953.

In 1952, there was no engine better suited to the task than Chrysler’s new “FirePower” V8.  Applying their wartime experience building a number of high-output, multi-cylinder engines (the most remarkable a V16 aero-engine rendered obsolete by jet technology before it could be used), the FirePower featured hemispherical combustion chambers and was the corporation’s first use in passenger vehicle engines of OHV (overhead-valves).  Both designs had been around for decades but in time, Chrysler would make a (trade-marked) fetish of “Hemi”, continuing cheerfully to use the name for a range of V8s introduced in 2003 even though they were no longer a truehemi-head, the design unable to be adapted to meet modern exhaust emission laws.  The so-called “third generation” Hemi remains available still although how long it will last will be a matter of the interplay of politics and demand.  Doubtless, it’s on Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) hit-list and that she and the engine debuted in the same year will impress her not at all.

Chrysler FirePower 392 cubic inch V8 in 1957 Chrysler 300C Convertible.

The FirePower was first sold in 1950 in 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) form, growing over the decade first to 354 (5.8) and then 392 (6.4) before being retired in 1959, the wedge-headed alternative with increased displacement a cheaper path to power.  Chrysler and Imperial shared the engines but remarkably, in an approach which today must shock accountants and efficiency experts, the companion divisions (De Soto & Dodge) produced nine different hemi-head V8s with capacities between 241 (4.0) and 345 (5.6) with relatively little commonality of components between them all.  The last of the FirePowers were noted also for being one of the first offered with electronic fuel injection which offered real advantages over the mechanical systems then available in a handful of models in Europe and the US but the technology was then too fragile to be reliable and most of the 16 sold (reputedly all but one) were recalled and retro-fitted with a pair of faithful four barrel carburetors.  In 1964, the hemi-head was revived for a racing engine and, to satisfy the regulatory body which had been unimpressed with the use of such a thing in a series for “stock” cars, it was made available to the public between 1966-1971, this time actually called “Hemi”.  In 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) form, it was this iteration which built the reputation which Chrysler still exploits.

Some 350 CARS were built, all by the Marine & Industrial Engine division based in Trenton, Michigan, some still in service as late as the 1970s.  During the era of détente, the last were retired, some sold to museums or collectors while some were just abandoned because, mounted atop tall buildings to maximize their acoustic coverage, the cost of removal far exceeding their value as units to be re-purposed or scraped.  Three fully functioning Chrysler Air Raid Sirens still exist, one in a remote part of Texas where it’s safe to stage the occasional demonstration of the sound.  During these displays, the clear zone (minimum safe distance) extends 320 feet (97.5 m) but even at this range, anyone standing directly in front of the projection horns would find the experience uncomfortable, prolonged exposure likely to damage one’s hearing.  Although directional, there’s much “sound soak” otherwise in the proximity in the device just operating the siren from the side control panel requires a minimum hearing protection of 30 dB.

Chrysler Air Raid Siren at the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing, re-awakened after decades, 1997.

One collector attracted to them was Don Garlits (b 1932) who in the post-war years was among the most innovative and successful drivers and builders in the sport of drag-racing which became wildly popular and it was with Chrysler Hemis he built his reputation.  In 1997, a documentary crew from the UK visited Garlits and saw one of the old sirens sitting neglected in the storeroom where it’d sat for decades after having spent some twenty years in the salt-laden air atop a Florida high-rise.  Remarkably, after doing little more than connecting a battery and checking the oil and coolant, once a carburetor had been bolted on with a can of gas (petrol) rigged up, it started almost immediately.  What was most surprising was that it had never before run on gasoline because the sirens had always used propane.  As Garlits over the decades discovered a ¼ mile at a time, the FirePower was a tough old thing.

Limbo

Limbo (pronounced lim-boh)

(1) In (informal) Roman Catholic theology, a region on the border of hell or heaven, serving as the abode after death of unbaptized infants (limbo of infants) and of the righteous who died before the coming of Christ (limbo of the fathers, or limbo of the patriarchs); often with initial capital letter.

(2) A place or state of oblivion to which persons or things are regarded as being relegated when cast aside, forgotten, past, or out of date.

(3) An intermediate, transitional, or midway state or place.

(4) A place or state of imprisonment or confinement.

(5) A dance from the West Indies (originally restricted to men), in which the dancer bends backward from the knees and moves with a shuffling step under a horizontal bar that is lowered after each successive pass.  Among university under-graduates (and other disreputable types), the activity is now often combined with drinking contests where the bar's height is inversely proportional to the contestant’s consumption of alcohol.

(6) Used loosely, a synonym for oblivion, nothingness or nowhere.

(7) In the slang of the military slang, a demilitarized zone (DMZ).

(8) A colloquial form used to refer to a Limburger, a person from Limburg (the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands; the French form being Limbourgeois).

1300–1350: From the Middle English, from the Medieval Latin phrase in limbō (“on hell's border” literally “on the edge”), the being construct in + limbō, ablative of limbus (edge, border) the term in Medieval Latin best translated as a “place bordering on hell”.  The West Indian English limba (to bend, easily bending) is relatively recent, emerging 1955-1960 and is of uncertain origin but most etymologists suggest it likely came from Jamaica, probably an alteration of limber as it is a test of physical agility.  Limbo is a noun & verb, limbo-like is an adjective (limbolike is a registered trademark and thus a noun), limboed & limboing are verbs; the noun plural is limbos or limboes.

Medieval conjecture which became informal theology

Surprisingly, despite the place it has in language and popular imagination, limbo has never formerly been part of Roman Catholic doctrine and was a bit of a medieval fudge.  It was championed by Italian Dominican friar, philosopher & theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), taking hold in the western Church and perhaps most influential in the popularity was the Italian Dante (Dante Alighieri (circa 1265–1321) who, in his Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)) used limbo as the resting place for virtuous pagans.  Dante sticks in the mind.

In April 2007, early in his papacy, Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) authorized the publication of “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptised” which some suggested appeared to render defunct limbo, the place centuries of tradition and much teaching held was the place the souls of babies who die without baptism were sent.  An explanatory memorandum from the Church’s International Theological Commission accompanied the document, suggesting it was issued to correct what was “…an unduly restrictive view of salvation”.

The commission however stressed there was no change to Church doctrine.  It remains Church teaching that baptism removes original sin which stains all souls since the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden and that its conclusions should not be interpreted as questioning original sin or “…used to negate the necessity of baptism or delay the conferral of the sacrament”.  Instead, the document merely notes “… God is just and merciful and would not …exclude infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness… from the kingdom of heaven”.  It added the need for publication was not without urgency because the number of “…non-baptised infants has grown considerably, and therefore the reflection on the possibility of salvation for these infants has become urgent”.

Christ in Limbo (1510), one of a series of twelve woodcuts (eleven scenes and a title page) from The Large Passion by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).

In theology, limbo had long been understood in two senses:  Firstly (denoted as limbus partum) as the temporary place of rest for the souls of the just awaiting the salvation of the Messiah and secondly (limbus infantium or limbus puerorum), as the final state of the souls of those who died without baptism yet without mortal sin.  Because the Church never officially defined this as doctrine, it’s regarded as theological supposition or, as Benedict put it “medieval conjecture”, constructed probably to avoid the creation of a loophole which unworthy sinners and lawyers might exploit to get into heaven.  All the same, scripture does seem explicit, Jesus teaching that no one “can enter into God’s kingdom without being begotten of water and Spirit” (John 3:5), thus the old assertion in the old Catechism that God Himself “…affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.” 

The term "in limbo" is now used to describe an uncertain, undecided, transitional (though not indeterminate) state or condition and can be applied to people, things or concepts.

In Constantinople, because the Byzantines were never as in thrall of Augustine as the folk in Rome, Limbo never really bothered the many but over the centuries, the issue attracted the attention of notables.  Saint Gregory Nazianzen (circa 329–390) implied somewhere like limbo might exist, believing the unfortunate infants would neither “…be admitted by the just judge to the glory of Heaven nor condemned to suffer punishment” and Tertullian (155–circa 220) before and Saint Ambrose (circa 340–397) after, concurred.  Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was more stern and said there was no limbo, there was just Heaven and Hell and that of course unbaptized souls are sent to Hell because they were born in original sin and nor could they go to Purgatory since that is a pathway to Heaven.  All he would concede was of those in Hell, the torment of infants would be the mildest although he didn't go into detail.  Eight-hundred odd years later, Aquinas was more generous, noting the original sin was committed by the parents and not by the child and since (1) Hell was the place where unrepentant mortal sinners are sent for eternal punishment (2) only the baptized could enter Heaven, then (3) the souls of unbaptized children must go somewhere else and here was the (admittedly shaky) foundation of limbo.  In a quite modern flourish, Aquinas helpfully added that because they’d never been born, the infants would never have learned of the glories of Heaven so, not knowing what they’d missed, they’d probably find limbo rather nice.  It was a fudge worthy of any Lambeth conference.

Luca Signorelli (circa 1444-1523), The Resurrection of the Flesh (1499-1502) Fresco Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

The issue didn’t go away and in the eighteenth century, a radical group of neo-Augustinites, a kind of Romish version of the Republican Party's Freedom Caucus and known as the Jansenists, rejected limbo, the idea of which had for hundreds of years provided comfort to grieving parents, forcing Pope Pius VI (1717–1799; pope 1775-1799) in 1794 to issue the Papal Bull Auctorem Fidei (Of our Faith), condemning, inter alia, the denial that there is a place “which the faithful generally designate by the name of limbo for children”.  It was a rare official mention of limbo but well short of a definitive statement.  Interest was renewed in the twentieth century but Pope Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958), hardly one fond of radical change, in 1943 issued a statement in the Holy See’s periodic gazette again neither defining nor rejecting limbo.  

So, press releases aside, the commission’s document suggests in the eight centuries between Aquinas and Benedict XVI, in limbo, not much has changed; the Catechism still asserts only that children who die before baptism are entrusted into the mercy of God.  Benedict XVI, no stranger to dancing on the head of a pin, seemed both to clarify and cloud the waters by saying limbo was only ever “medieval conjecture” and given there is no explicit answer from Scripture, people seem still free to make of it what they will.

Apollo

Apollo (pronounced uh-pol-oh)

(1) The ancient Greek and Roman god of light, healing, music, poetry, prophecy, manly beauty and quite some more.

(2) A popular term to describe a strikingly handsome young man.

(3) In aerospace, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) programme of spacecraft (1961-1972) which between 1969-1972 carried 12 US astronauts to the Moon and back, the best known of which were Apollo 11 (which carried the first men to set foot on the Moon) and Apollo 13 (the mission successfully aborted after mid-flight equipment failure).

(4) A Eurasian mountain butterfly, Parnassius apollo.

From classical Greek mythology, the name is a Latin form of the Greek Apollon, often cited as related to an obsolete Greek verb apollymi (to destroy) but there’s nothing conclusive.  More compelling is the notion it’s a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios and the offerings apellaia at the initiation of young men during the family-festival apellai.  Essentially, theories about Greek origins and a number of non-Greek etymologies are all speculative.

Apollo and the Muses, oil on canvas pentyptych (circa 1985) by Charles Meynier (1763 or 1768-1832).  Although in his notes the artist referred to the five panels as a pentyptych, that reference was conceptual and they've always been hung as five separate, framed canvases. 

From left to right: (1) Polymnia was one of the nine muses in Greek mythology and a patron of dancing or geometry.  Here she is depicted  standing in front of a bust of the Athenian orator Demosthenes. (2)  Erato, the muse of lyric and erotic poetry, is often shown with the golden arrow received from Eros (or Cupid), a sign of the emotion that inspires her.  (3) Urania leans on a starry orb, an allusion to her role as the muse of astronomy.  As all good muses must, she is staring dreamily at a god or man.  (4) The eldest of the nine Greek muses, Calliope was the goddess of music, song, and dance.  She was also known as the goddess of epic poetry and conferred the gift of eloquence on kings and princes. She stands here before a bust of Homer, the ancient Greek poet who history credits with having written the epic poems the Odyssey and the Iliad.  (5) Clio, the Greek muse of history, was the daughter of Zeus and Titaness Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and is here depicted writing while surrounded by objects associated with preserving the memory of historical figures and events: busts, reliefs, and sculptures.  Clio's name was from the Greek root κλέω or κλείω (to recount; to make famous; to celebrate) and Clio is the traditional Latinisation but there has among classicists for centuries been a faction which uses K to represent the original Greek kappa, and ei to represent the diphthong ει (epsilon iota), thus the appearance in some texts of Kleio.

The paintings were commissioned by a textile merchant who planned to hang them in a grand gallery in his Toulouse townhouse but he went bankrupt prior to delivery and the paintings were purchased by a Swiss general who took them to his castle in Wallenried.  A wing had been added to the castle just to display the general's collection and there Apollo and the Muses remained for almost 180 years.  Although in good condition, when re-discovered, there were signs of neglect typical of works not carefully curated under controlled conditions.  The fluctuations in temperature and humidity at the castle had caused cracking in the surfaces and, over time, the sheer weight of the canvases caused the tacking edges to deteriorate and pull away from their stretchers, creating large drape-like buckles.  Most also exhibited varying degrees of the dreaded “traction crackle”, the degenerative process in which a paint layer on the surface shrinks faster than an underlying layer underneath, resulting in wide cracks revealing the color below.  The original hand-carved frames were intact and needed only the time-consuming conservation work to address the deterioration of their gesso and gold.

All of the paintings needed reduction of their varnish layers which had grown dull and discolored, descending to a brownish-orange tinge and when first viewed, all the works were dark, dull and murky, as if the muses were stepping out of a dense fog.  Worse, at some point, a prudish white veil had been painted over the body of Cupid many years after Meynier had died, a contemporary watercolor by the artist and an etching documenting the Salon of 1801 both showing the radical intervention was not part of the original.  Restoration was challenging because the original paint had aged for least 75 years before Cupid’s drapery and working under high magnification, conservators spent much time removing the 180 square inches of overpainting, re-shaping and re-sharpening scalpels so the unwanted could be chipped away without harming the original paint.  When complete, the restoration enhanced Meynier’s reputation because for the first time it became apparent he was one of the era's great colorists, his use of juxtaposed, muted complementary colors in draperies and skin tones creating soft vibrancies that undulate throughout the entire suite.

NUMEC headquarters, Apollo, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, circa 1961 (the site since razed).

The now defunct Apollo-based NUMEC should not be confused with the Northern Uganda Media Club (NUMEC), a most respectable and (as far as is known) nuclear-free institution.  The USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) has indicated its “clean-up” of NUMEC's waste disposal site is unlikely to be completed before the mid-2030s.  

The “Apollo affair” describes a mysterious “incident” (which some prefer to describe as “a process”) in which the company NUMEC (Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation) “lost” some 90-275 kg (200-600 lb) of highly enriched uranium, the suspicion being the material had been diverted to the state of Israel, then highly focused on developing its own IND (independent nuclear deterrent).  The name of the affair came by virtue of NUMEC being located in Apollo, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the place gaining the name in 1848 after instances of its mail being wrongly delivered to another town in the state, both then called “Warren”.  Despite an investigation which continued for almost two decades, the findings were inconclusive and the Apollo affair remains one of the murkier tributaries of the US nuclear industry.  Remarkably, one of explanations offered as an alternative to the stuff being smuggled to Israel was it merely was “absorbed” into the physical structure of NUMEC’s buildings and the environs of Apollo, one of the implications of that being some must have ended up in the air and water, making the extent of the contamination uncertain.  The stance of successive US administrations has been they'd prefer we conclude several hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium (ie of or close to "weapons grade") didn't by whatever means make its way to Israel but was instead absorbed into NUMEC's physical infrastructure, grounds and surrounding parts of Pennsylvania.  For those sceptical about that, the approach seems to be something like the approach taken by the more pragmatic of Vatican-approved theologians advising anyone troubled by the less plausible tales of Christianity: "You need not believe it but you must accept it".  

Planet Earth photographed from Apollo 8 as it rounded the dark side of the moon, 1968.  Our lovely blue home is like the most precious jewel in a desert of cold rocks, swirling gas and fiery relics.  We should look after it. 

Apollo has variously been recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more.  Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto, and had a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.  An oracular god, the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle, medicine and healing were associated with Apollo although, in one of the paradoxes which are part of the charm of the myths of Antiquity, he was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and plague.  As the leader of the Muses and their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry and, using the lyre created for him by Hermes became the most common attribute in the works of art created in his honor.  The hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans and his most important daily task was to harness and ride his four-horse chariot with which he moved the Sun across the sky.

Map of the Greek Islands.

In most of the tales in Greek mythology, Apollo was born on the island of Delos and it's said Leto was unable to find a safe place to give birth because the jealous goddess Hera had placed a curse on her.  However, the island of Delos which until that moment had been floating around the Aegean suddenly became stable and anchored to the seabed, providing a safe birthplace for Apollo and his twin sister Artemis.  After that, not much happened in the region for a few millennia, the next significant event in 2019 when the MTV series Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club was filmed on the neighboring island of Mykonos which lies to the north-east.

Fate

Fate (pronounced feyt)

(1) That which unavoidably befalls a person; their fortune or “lot in life”.

(2) The universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time.

(3) That which is inevitably predetermined; the inevitable fortune that befalls a person or thing; destiny; the ultimate agency which predetermines the course of events.

(4) A prophetic declaration of what must be.

(5) A common term for death, destruction, downfall or ruin; a calamitous or unfavorable outcome or result.

(6) The end or final result (usually in the form “the fate of”).

(7) In Classical Mythology, as “the Fates”, the three goddesses of destiny (Clotho, Lachesis & Atropos), known to the Greeks as the Moerae and to the Romans as the Parcae.

(8) To predetermine, as by the decree of fate; destine (used in the passive and usually in the form “fated to”).

(9) In biochemistry, the products of a chemical reaction in their final form in the biosphere.

(10) In biology, as fate map, a diagram of an embryo of some organism showing the structures that will develop from each part.

(11) In embryology, the mature endpoint of a region, group of cells or individual cell in an embryo, including all changes leading to that mature endpoint (the developmental pathway).

1325–1375: From the Middle English fate (“one's lot or destiny; predetermined course of life” or “one's guiding spirit”), from the Old French fate, from the Latin fātum (oracular utterance; what has been spoken, utterance, decree of fate, destiny), originally the neuter of fātus (spoken), past participle of fārī (to speak), from the primitive Indo-European root bha- (to speak, tell, say).  The Latin fata (prediction (and the source of the Spanish hado, the Portuguese fado and the Italian fato)) was the plural of fatum (prophetic declaration of what must be; oracle; prediction), from fātus (“spoken”), from for (to speak) and in this sense it displaced the native Old English wyrd (ultimate source of the modern English weird).  When a Roman Emperor said “I have spoken” it meant his words had become law, subject only to the dictates of the gods, a notion in 1943 formalized in law in Nazi Germany when a decree of the Führer was declared to be beyond any legal challenge.

In Latin, the usual sense was “that which is ordained, destiny, fate”, literally “that which was spoken (by the gods) and often was used in some bad or negative way, (typically as some kind of harbinger of doom) and this association with “bad luck, ill fortune; mishap, ruin; pestilence or plague” carried over into Medieval Latin and from there to many European languages including English.  From the early fifteenth century it became more nuanced, picking up the sense of “the power or guiding force which rules destinies, agency which predetermines events” (often expressed to mean a “supernatural predetermination” and presented sometimes as “destiny personified”.  The meaning “that which must be” was first documented in the 1660s and that led (inevitability as it were) to the modern sense of “final event”, dating from 1768.   The Latin sense evolution came from “sentence of the Gods” (theosphaton in the Greek) to “lot, portion” (moira in the Greek, personified as a goddess in Homer; moirai from a verb meaning “to receive one's share”).  The Latin Parca (one of the three Fates or goddesses of fate) was the source of the French parque (a fate) and the Spanish parca (Death personified; the Grim Reaper) and may be from parcere (act sparingly, refrain from; have mercy upon, forbear to injure or punish (which etymologists suspect was a euphemism) or plectere (to weave, plait).  The Moerae (the Greek plural) or the Parcre (the Roman plural) were the three goddesses who determined the course of a human life (sometimes poetically put as “the three ladies of destiny”) and were part of English literature by the 1580s).  Clotho held the distaff or spindle; Lachesis drew out the thread and Atropos snipped it off, the three goddesses controlling the destinies of all.

The verb in the sense of “to preordain as if by fate; to be destined by fate” was first used in the late sixteenth century and was from the noun; two centuries earlier the verb had meant “to destroy”.  The adjective fateful dates from the 1710s and was from the noun, the meaning “of momentous consequences” noted early in the nineteenth century and both “fateful & “fatefully” were used by poets of the Romantic era with the meaning “having the power to kill” which belong usually to “fatal”, the attraction being the words better suited the cadence of the verse.  Just as the noun fate enjoyed some broadening and divergences in its meanings, other adjectival use emerged including fated from the 1720s which meant “doomed” (and “destined to follows a certain course” & “set aside by fate”), fatiferous (deadly, mortal) from the 1650s (from the Latin fatifer (death-bringing) and the early seventeenth century fatific & fatifical (having the power to foretell) from the Latin fatidicus (prophetic).  Fate is a noun & verb; fatalism, fatefulness & fatalist are nouns, fated & fating are verbs, fatalistic & fateful are adjectives and fatalistically & fatefully are adverbs, the noun plural is fates.

Fate has in English evolved to enjoy specific meanings and there’s really no exact synonym but the words destiny, karma, kismet; chance, luck, doom, fortune, lot, foreordain, preordain & predestination are related in sense while the antonyms (with a similarly vague relationship) include choice, free will, freedom & chance.  The idiomatic phrases using “fate” includes “as fate would have it” (the same meaning as “as luck would have it”, an allusion to the randomness of events and how so much good fortune in life is a matter of chance”; fate-fraught or fatefraught (fateful), quirk of fate (same as “quirk of fate”, a usually unfortunate (often ironic) change of circumstances or turn of events; seal someone's fate (to prevent (a decision, event, etc.) from being influenced or changed by a wilful act; to pre-empt someone's future actions by deciding the course of events ahead of time); sure as fate (with certainty); tempt fate (to court disaster; to take an extreme list); fate worse than death (which can be used literally (eg being sent to the Gulag in comrade Stalin’s time was often described thus on the basis a quick death was better than a slow one or the phrase “the living will envy the dead”, used often of those imagined to have survived a nuclear war) or figuratively (eg “going to a country & western concert is a fate worse than death” although that one may not be too far from literal.  The words “fate”, “destiny” & “doom” all relate to the hand of fortune (usually in the adverse) that is predetermined and inescapable and although they’re often used interchangeably, there are nuances: Fate stresses the irrationality and impersonal character of events; the randomness of what happens in the universe.  Destiny emphasizes the idea of an unalterable course of events, and is used of outcomes good and bad but rarely of the indifferent.  Doom is unambiguously always something bad, especially if final and terrible.  Doom may be brought about by fate or destiny or it may be something all our own fault.

Fatalist Lindsay Lohan and her determinist lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Many notable political and military leaders like to damn the hand of fate when it doesn’t favour them but the word is often invoked when things look good.  In July 1939, the vice-chief of staff of the Imperial Japanese Army (Lieutenant General Shigeru Sawada (1887–1980)), impressed by the dynamism of the fascist states in Europe declared : “We should resolve to share our fate with Germany and Italy”.  In that he was of course prophetic although the fate of the three Axis powers a few years on wasn’t what he had in mind.  By 1939 however, things in Tokyo had assumed a momentum which was hard for anyone in the Japanese military or political establishment to resist although there were statesmen aware they were juggling in their hands the fate of the nation.  Yōsuke Matsuoka (1880–1946; Japanese foreign minister 1940-1941), almost as soon as the signatures has been added to the Japanese-German Anti-Comintern Pact (1936) observed: “It is characteristic of the Japanese race that, once we have promised to cooperate, we never look back or enter into an alliance with others.  It is for us only to march side by side, resolved to go forward together, even if it means committing double suicide”.  Even by the standards of oriental fatalism that was uncompromising and Matsuoka san probably reflected on his words in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941) when he lamented: “Entering into the Tripartite Pact was the mistake of my life.  Even now I still keenly feel it. Even my death won't take away this feeling.”

In the Western philosophical tradition, the difference between fatalism and determinism is sometimes misunderstood.  In essence, what fatalism says is that one does not act as one wills but only in the pre-ordained way because everything is pre-ordained.  Determinism says one can act as one wills but that will is not of one’s own will; it is determined by an interplay of antecedents, their interaction meaning there is no choice available to one but the determine course.  So, fatalism decrees there is an external power which irresistibly dictates all while determinism is less assertive; while there are sequences of cause and effect which act upon everything, they would be ascertainable only to someone omniscient.  That’s something to explore in lecture halls but not obviously of much use in other places but the more important distinction is probably that determinism is an intellection position that can be mapped onto specific situations (technological determinism; political determinism; structural determinism etc) where as fatalism, ultimately, is the world view that would should abandon all hope of influencing events and thus repudiate any responsibility for one’s actions.  Determinism is a philosophy, fatalism a faith.