Futurism

Futurism (pronounced fyoo-chuh-riz-uhm)

(1) A movement in avant-garde art, developed originally by a group of Italian artists in 1909 in which forms (derived often from the then novel cubism) were used to represent rapid movement and dynamic motion  (sometimes with initial capital letter)

(2) A style of art, literature, music, etc and a theory of art and life in which violence, power, speed, mechanization or machines, and hostility to the past or to traditional forms of expression were advocated or portrayed (often with initial capital letter).

(3) As futurology, a quasi-discipline practiced by (often self-described) futurologists who attempt to predict future events, movements, technologies etc.

(4) In the theology of Judaism, the Jewish expectation of the messiah in the future rather than recognizing him in the presence of Christ.

(5) In the theology of Christianity, eschatological interpretations associating some Biblical prophecies with future events yet to be fulfilled, including the Second Coming.

1909: From the Italian futurismo (literally "futurism" and dating from circa 1909), the construct being futur(e) + -ism.  Future was from the Middle English future & futur, from the Old French futur, (that which is to come; the time ahead) from the Latin futūrus, (going to be; yet to be) which (as a noun) was the irregular suppletive future participle of esse (to be) from the primitive Indo-European bheue (to be, exist; grow).  It was cognate with the Old English bēo (I become, I will be, I am) and displaced the native Old English tōweard and the Middle English afterhede (future (literally “afterhood”) in the given sense.  The technical use in grammar (of tense) dates from the 1520s.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Futurism, futurology, & futurology are nouns, futurist is a noun & adjective and futuristic is an adjective; the noun plural is futurisms.

Lindsay Lohan in Maison Martin Margiela (b 1957) Futuristic Eyewear.

As a descriptor of the movement in art and literature, futurism (as the Italian futurismo) was adopted in 1909 by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) and the first reference to futurist (a practitioner in the field of futurism) dates from 1911 although the word had been used as early as 1842 in Protestant theology in the sense of “one who holds that nearly the whole of the Book of Revelations refers principally to events yet to come”.  The secular world did being to use futurist to describe "one who has (positive) feelings about the future" in 1846 but for the remainder of the century, use was apparently rare.  The (now probably extinct) noun futurity was from the early seventeenth century.  The noun futurology was introduced by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) in his book Science, Liberty and Peace (1946) and has (for better or worse), created a minor industry of (often self-described) futurologists.  In theology, the adjective futuristic came into use in 1856 with reference to prophecy but use soon faded.  In concert with futurism, by 1915 it referred in art to “avant-garde; ultra-modern” while by 1921 it was separated from the exclusive attachment to art and meant also “pertaining to the future, predicted to be in the future”, the use in this context spiking rapidly after World War II (1939-1945) when technological developments in fields such as ballistics, jet aircraft, space exploration, electronics, nuclear physics etc stimulated interest in such progress.

Untouched: Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) & Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) with cattle, 92^nd Annual Hopkinton State Fair, Contoocook, New Hampshire, September 2007.

Futures, a financial instrument used in the trade of currencies and commodities appeared first in 1880; they allow (1) speculators to bet on price movements and (2) producers and sellers to hedge against price movements and in both cases profits (and losses) can be booked against movement up or down.  Futures trading can be lucrative but is also risky, those who win gaining from those who lose and those in the markets are usually professionals.  The story behind crooked Hillary Clinton's extraordinary profits in cattle futures (not a field in which she’d previously (or has subsequently) displayed interest or expertise) while “serving” as First Lady of Arkansas ((1979–1981 & 1983–1992) remains murky but it can certainly be said that for an apparently “amateur” dabbling in a market played usually by experienced professionals, she was remarkably successful and while perhaps there was some luck involved, her trading record was such it’s a wonder she didn’t take it up as a career.  While many analysts have, based on what documents are available, commented on crooked Hillary’s somewhat improbable (and apparently sometime “irregular”) foray into cattle futures, there was never an “official governmental investigation” by an independent authority and no thus adverse findings have ever been published.  

The Arrival (1913), oil on canvas by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889-1946), Tate Gallery.

Given what would unfold over during the twentieth century, it’s probably difficult to appreciate quite how optimistic was the Western world in the years leading up to the World War I (1914-1918).  Such had been the rapidity of the discovery of novelties and of progress in so many fields that expectations of the future were high and, beginning in Italy, futurism was a movement devoted to displaying the energy, dynamism and power of machines and the vitality and change they were bringing to society.  It’s also often forgotten that when the first futurist exhibition was staged in Paris in 1912, the critical establishment was unimpressed, the elaborate imagery with its opulence of color offending their sense of refinement, now so attuned to the sparseness of the cubists.

The Hospital Train (1915), oil on canvas by Gino Severini (1883-1966), Stedelijk Museum.

Futurism had debuted with some impact, the Paris newspaper Le Figaro in 1909 publishing the manifesto by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti which dismissed all that was old and celebrated change, originality, and innovation in culture and society, something which should be depicted in art, music and literature. Marinetti exalted in the speed, power of new technologies which were disrupting society, automobiles, aeroplanes and other clattering machines.  Whether he found beauty in the machines or the violence and conflict they delivered was something he left his readers to decide and there were those seduced by both but his stated goal was the repudiation of traditional values and the destruction of cultural institutions such as museums and libraries.  Whether this was intended as a revolutionary roadmap or just a provocation to inspire anger and controversy is something historians have debated.  Assessment of Marinetti as a poet has always been colored by his reputation as a proto-fascist and some treat as "fake mysticism" his claim his "visions" of the future and the path to follow to get there came to him in the moment of a violent car crash. 

Futurismo: Uomo Nuovo (New Man, 1918), drawing by Mario Sironi (1885-1961).

As a technique, the futurist artists borrowed much from the cubists, deploying the same fragmented and intersecting plane surfaces and outlines to render a number of simultaneous, overlaid views of an object but whereas the cubists tended to still life, portraiture and other, usually static, studies of the human form, the futurists worshiped movement, their overlays a device to depict rhythmic spatial repetitions of an object’s outlines during movement.  People did appear in futurist works but usually they weren’t the focal point, instead appearing only in relation to some speeding or noisy machine.  Some of the most prolific of the futurist artists were killed in World War I and as a political movement it didn’t survive the conflict, the industrial war dulling the public appetite for the cult of the machine.  However, the influence of the compositional techniques continued in the 1920s and contributed to art deco which, in more elegant form, would integrate the new world of machines and mass-production into motifs still in use today.

Motociclista (Motorcyclist, circa 1924), oil on canvas by Mario Sironi.

By the early twentieth century when the Futurism movement emerged, machines and mechanism were already hundreds of years old (indeed the precursor devices pre-date Christ) but what changed was the new generations of machines had become sexy (at least in the eyes of men), associated as they were with something beyond mere functionalism: speed and style.  While planes, trains & automobiles all attracted the futurists, the motorcycle was a much-favored motif because it possessed an intimacy beyond other forms of transportation in that, literally it was more an extension of the human body, the rider at speed conforming to the shape of the structure fashioned for aerodynamic efficiency with hands and feet all directly attached to the vital controls: machine as extension of man.

The Modern Boy No. 100, Vol 4, Week Ending 4 January, 1930.

The Modern Boy (1928-1939) was, as the name implies, a British magazine targeted at males aged 12-18 and the content reflected the state of mind in the society of the inter-war years, the 1930s a curious decade of progress, regression, hope and despair.  Although what filled much of the pages (guns, military conquest and other exploits, fast cars and motorcycles, stuff the British were doing in other peoples’ countries) would today see the editors cancelled or visited by one of the many organs of the British state concerned with the suppression of such things), it was what readers (presumably with the acquiescence of their parents) wanted.  Best remembered of the authors whose works appeared in The Modern Boy was Captain W.E. Johns (1893–1968), a World War I RFC (Royal Flying Corps) pilot who created the fictional air-adventurer Biggles.  The first Biggles tale appeared in 1928 in Popular Flying magazine (released also as Popular Aviation and still in publication as Flying) and his stories are still sometimes re-printed (although with the blatant racism edited out).  The first Biggles story had a very modern-sounding title: The White Fokker.  The Modern Boy was a successful weekly which in 1988 was re-launched as Modern Boy, the reason for the change not known although dropping superfluous words (and much else) was a feature of modernism.  In October 1939, a few weeks after the outbreak of World War II, publication ceased, Modern Boy like many titles a victim of restrictions by the Board of Trade on the supply of paper for civilian use.

Jockey Club Innovation Tower, Hong Kong (2013) by Zaha Hadid (1950-2016).

If the characteristics of futurism in art were identifiable (though not always admired), in architecture, it can be hard to tell where modernism ends and futurism begins.  Aesthetics aside, the core purpose of modernism was of course its utilitarian value and that did tend to dictate the austerity, straight lines and crisp geometry that evolved into mid-century minimalism so modernism, in its pure form, should probably be thought of as a style without an ulterior motive.  Futurist architecture however carried the agenda which in its earliest days borrowed from the futurist artists in that it was an assault on the past but later moved on and in the twenty-first century, the futurist architects seem now to be interested above all in the possibilities offered by advances in structural engineering, functionality sacrificed if need be just to demonstrate that something new can be done.  That's doubtless of great interest at awards dinners where architects give prizes to each other for this and that but has produced an international consensus that it's better to draw something new than something elegant.  The critique is that while modernism once offered “less is more”, with neo-futurist architecture it's now “less is bore”.  Art deco and mid-century modernism have aged well and it will be interesting to see how history judges the neo-futurists.

Pencil

Pencil (pronounced pen-suhl)

(1) A slender tube, usually of wood, metal or plastic containing a core or strip of graphite (still referred to as lead) or a solid coloring material, sharpened to some extent, used for writing or drawing.

(2) A stick of cosmetic coloring material for use on the eyebrows, eyelids etc.

(3) Anything shaped or used like a pencil, as a stick of medicated material.

(4) In optics (from the seventeenth century), an aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from or converging to a point.

(5) In geometry (from the nineteenth century), a set of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.

(6) As a verb, "to pencil in", to schedule or list tentatively, as or as if by writing down in pencil rather than in more permanent ink.

(7) In animation, as "pencil-test", a first take of pictures, historically on black and white film stock, now emulated in software; also used to describe a test which assesses (1) the viability of bralessness (Western tradition) or (2) one's attainment of "real womanhood" (Chinese use).

(8) In medicine, a small medicated bougie (from the nineteenth century and now archaic).

(9) A paintbrush (from the fourteenth century and now archaic).

1350–1400: From the Middle English pencel (an artist’s fine brush of camel hair, used for painting, manuscript illustration etc), from the Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (artist's paintbrush) from the Old & Middle French pincel from the Medieval Latin pincellus, from the Latin pēnicillum & pēnicillus (painter's brush, hair-pencil (literally "little tail"), a diminutive of pēniculus (brush), a diminutive of penis (tail).  It’s from the old French variant pincel that Modern French gained pinceau (paintbrush).  The verb pencil emerged early in the sixteenth century as pencellen (apply (gold or silver) in manuscript illustration) and by the 1530s was being used in the sense of “to mark or sketch with a pencil-brush”, extended to work undertaken with lead pencils from the 1760s.  Despite the obvious similarity, there is no relationship with the word pen.  The spelling pensill is long obsolete.  Pencil is a noun & verb, penciler is a noun, penciled is a verb, penciled is a verb & adjective and pencillike is an adjective; the noun plural is pencils.  The additional "l" (penciller, pencilled etc) is used in traditional British spelling.

The alluring catwalk combination of a "pencil-thin" model (note the shoulder-blade definition) & polka-dots.  The industry has “solved” the problem of the perception of models being “dangerously thin” by adding a token number of “plus-size” units to their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) roster.  However, the agencies report the fashion houses still first select the slenderest.

Pencils are produced in quite a variety and specialized types include the carpenter's pencil, the wax (or china) pencil, and the color pencil although what’s more precisely defined are the technical descriptions based on the specification of the graphite (HB, 2B etc), used to rate darkness and hardness.  A propelling pencil is one with a replaceable and mechanically extendable lead that wears away with use, designed to provide lines of constant thickness without requiring sharpening and typically featuring a small eraser at the end opposite the tip.  Pencil pouches and pencil cases are containers in which one stores ones pencils and related items (sharpener & eraser); by convention a pouch was made of a soft material while cases tended to be fashioned from some hard substance (steel, wood, plastic etc) but the terms are used loosely.  A kohl pencil (also called an eyeliner pencil) is one with a kohl core (which can be sharpened in the usual manner) used for enhancing the eyes.  The golf pencil was originally designed for golfers and was about three inches (75 mm) in length though they’re now commonly used in situations where pencil turnover is high (election booths, gambling houses etc).

Despite the careful codification, the system of grading the lead in pencils is not an ISO.

Although in general use the ubiquitous HB has long been the default choice, pencils exist with different formulations used for the graphite (ie “the lead”) and specialists choose them according to purpose and the (almost) standardized labelling is based on the range running from “H” (hard) to “B” (soft) with HB in the middle.  That “B” (counterintuitively) means “soft: is explained by the tag being a reference to “black”: the softer the graphite mix, the blacker a pencil will write and the chemistry is simple in that clay makes the lead harder while graphite makes it softer so the more graphite, the softer and blacker the mark left.

Decoding the pencil scale

H = Hard: lighter, crisper lines; less smudging

B = Black (Soft): darker, richer lines; more smudging

F = Fine point: slightly harder than HB

HB: middle ground; the standard writing pencil

Of the tasks

HB or F: A balanced tone, good for general writing, office, or school use; not too dark or inclined to smudge.

2H to 4H: Preferred by artists and architects for creating initial or conceptual sketches and for outlining, the advantage being the light, easily erasable lines which can provide a base structure.

2B to 6B: A spectrum of soft pencils fused to produce rich, dark renderings and smooth blending; the softer the pencil, the darker and more expressive the mark.

HB to 2H: Much used in architectural designs (still a thing even in the age of CAD (computer-aided design)) and technical drawing because of the clean, precise line which can still easily be erased.

H to 6H: Produces crisp, precise lines not prone to fragmentation at the edges (ie, no smudging).

8B-9B: While the 2B-6B range is the standard “utility pencil” for shading and creating shadows, it’s the 8B-9B to which artists and others turn when very dark tones are needed.

Although it resembles the standardized classification systems used for a number of products, the pencil grading system mostly is a manufacturing convention and not an ISO administered by the International Standards Organization.  Instead, the H–B scale was developed and popularized by European manufacturers during the nineteenth century, most notably by Faber-Castell.  There is an ISO standard (ISO 9177-2) but it applies only to mechanical pencil leads and it grades only hardness, not composition; within IS0 9177-2 manufacturers may still use the H-B grading system because strict physical specifications for the lead’s mix are not included and that means a 2B mechanical pencil from one manufacturer may be darker or softer than a 2B from another.  What that means is there’s no universal calibration; it’s a relative system, consistent within a brand but variable across brands.  With a long history of calligraphy, writing instruments are go great cultural significance in Japan and the Japanese domestic standard (JIS S6004) reflects the tradition of use, Japanese pencils tending to be slightly softer than their Western equivalents for the same grade.

School pencils are a useful way to convey important messages to children.

The "pencil skirt" is a close-fitting garment which classically was knee to calf length.  In explosives, a "pencil detonator" (also as "time pencil") is a timed fuse designed to be connected to a detonator or short length of safety fuse.  "Pencil-thin" is a term (historically one of admiration but of late also used negatively) for an especially slender woman but it can be applied to any thin object (synonymous with "stick-thin", thought a clipping of the earlier zoological reference "stick insect thin").  The phrase "power of the pencil" is from professional gambling and refers to an authority to charge a punter's gambling or other bills to the casino (the house).  The "lead in one's pencil" is slang which referencing the state of erection of one's penis; to "put the lead into one’s pencil" referred to some form of stimulation which induced such an erection (including presumably the sight of an attractive, pencil-thin woman).  To "pencil something in" is to make a tentative booking or arrangement (on the notion of being erasable as opposed to using ink which suggests permanence or something confirmed); the phrase has been in use only since 1942.  The derogatory slang "pencil-pusher" (office worker) dates from 1881; prior to that such folk had since 1820 been called "pen-drivers", the new form reflecting the arrival at scale of mass-produced pencils.  The derogatory "pencil neck" (weak person) was first noted in 1973 while "pencil dick" (a penis of a girth judged inadequate or a man with such an organ) is documented in US slang since 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in pencil skirts: The pencil skirt can be thought the companion product to the bandage dress; while a bandage dress ends usually above the knee (the more pleasing sometimes far above) a pencil skirt typically falls to the knee or is calf-length.  If one is in fishnet stockings, an "above-the-knee" cut seems at least desirable, if not essential. 

Technical terms for the grips with which a pencil is held.

The test pencil is a device with a small bulb or other form of illumination which lights up when an active current is detected.  Available in many voltages (the most common being 12, 24, 48 (for automotive and other low-voltage applications) and 110/120 & 220/240v), they work either by direct contact with the wire through which the current passes or (through the insulation) as a proximity device.  The "test pencil" should not be confused with the "pencil test" which is either (1) in animation, an early version of an animated scene, consisting of rough sketches that are photographed or scanned (now overtaken by technology which emulates the process in software and almost obsolete but the term is still used by graphic artists to describe conceptual sketches or rough takes), (2) in apartheid-era South Africa, a method of determining racial identity, based on how easily a pencil pushed through a person's hair could be removed and (3) a test to determine the necessity (some concede on the advisability) of wearing a bra, based on whether a pencil placed in the infra-mammary fold (ie the "underboob") stays in place with no assistance (which sounds standardized but sources vary about whether a pencil test should be performed with the arms by the side or raised, the choice sometimes affected the result.

The Pencil Test

The pencil test: In the West this photograph would be graded "fail"; in China it’s a "pass", an example of "cultural specificity".

Although it sounds a quintessentially TikTok thing and did trend in 2016, the year the Chinese version of TikTok was released, re-purposing of the pencil test by Chinese women as the “true womanhood” test actually pre-dated the platform.  Like the best trends it was quick and simple and required only the most basic piece of equipment: a pencil (although a pen or any tube with the diameter of a classic pencil would do).  The procedure was the classic pencil test used to determine the viability of going braless but, unlike the occidental original where the pencil falling to the ground was graded a “pass”, in the oriental version, that’s a “fail”, the implement having to sit securely in place to prove one is “a real woman”.  Millions of images were uploaded to Chinese social media channels as proof challenge had been passed; this presumably will assist in ensuring one doesn’t become a leftover woman.

The Flying Pencil

Prototype Dornier 17 V1, 1934.

One of terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), imposed on Germany after the World War I (1914-1918) was it was denied the right to military aviation.  Those familiar with the operations of sanctions in the twenty-first century will not be surprised that within a few years, there were significant developments in German civil aviation including gliding clubs which would provide the early training of many pilots who would subsequently join the Luftwaffe, even before the open secret of the organization’s existence formerly was acknowledged in 1935.  Additionally, under well-concealed arrangements with Moscow, German pilots underwent training in the Soviet Union, one of the many programmes in a remarkably flourishing industry of military exchanges undertaken even during periods of notable political tension.  In those years, the German aircraft industry also had its work-arounds, sometimes undertaking research, development and production in co-operation with manufacturers in other countries and sometime producing aircraft notionally for civil purposes but which could easily re-purposed for military roles.  An example was the Dornier Do 17, nicknamed the “flying pencil” in an allusion to the slender fuselage.

Battle of Britain era Dornier Do17 E, 1940.

In 1934, Dornier’s initial description of the Do 17 as a passenger plane raised a few eyebrows in air ministries around the continent but in an attempt to lend the ruse a (thin) veneer of truth, the company submitted the design to Deutsche Luft Hansa (which became the modern carrier Lufthansa), the airline admiring the speed and flying characteristics but rejecting the proposal on the reasonable grounds the flying pencil had hardly any room for passengers.  To all observers, the thing was obviously a prototype bomber and one of the fastest and most advanced in the world but to maintain the subterfuge, Dornier instead claimed it was now a “fast mail transport”.  That fooled few but so soon after the Great War, there was little appetite in Europe for confrontation so Dornier was able to continue to develop the Do 17 as a bomber, adding a glazed nose, provision for internal armament and an internal bomb bay.

Dornier Do 217 E, 1943.

The deployment as part of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) provided valuable information in both battle tactics and the need for enhanced defensive armaments and it was these lessons which were integrated into the upgraded versions which formed a part of the Luftwaffe’s bomber and reconnaissance forces at the start of World II.  They provided useful service in the early campaigns against Poland, Norway & the Low Countries but the limitations were exposed when squadrons were confronted by the advanced eight-gun fighters of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Battle of Britain (July-September 1940).  However, in the absence of a better alternative, they played an important part in the early successes Germany enjoyed in the invasion of the Soviet Union but such was the rapidity of art-time technological advances that by 1942 the Do 17 was obsolescent and withdrawn from front-line service, relegated to training and other ancillary roles.  The slim frame which had in 1934 helped provide the flying pencil with its outstanding performance now became a limitation, preventing further development even as a night-fighter, the role assigned in those years to many airframes no longer suitable for daytime operations.  Its successor, the Do 217 was notably fatter in the fuselage but even it was soon rendered obsolete and by 1944 had been withdrawn from front-line service.

Mohammed Rafieh's extraordinary Persian pencil place

A COVID-19 era Mohammed Rafieh at work in Medad Rafi, located in the vast bazaar which sits between the two mosques in Tehran's district 15.

Mohammed Rafieh opened Medad Rafi in Tehran in 1990, specializing in color pencils, a description which is no exaggeration.  Although his inventory numbers in the thousands, Mr Rafieh has no need for databases, barcodes or lists of part-numbers, having committed to memory the place of every pencil in his shop, his stock said to include every color known to be available anywhere in the world.  Medad (مداد) is Persian for pencil and Rafi the affectionate diminutive of Rafieh so in translation the shop is thus "Rafi's Pencils"; never has Mr Rafieh been accused of misleading advertising.

Mr Rafieh at work.

The essential accessory: Of the pencil sharpener

The pencil in its familiar, mass-produced form is surprisingly modern.  Quills made from bird feathers and small brushes with bristles from a variety of creatures were used long before chalk or lead pencils.  Sticks of pure graphite (commonly (if chemically inaccurately) known as "black lead") were used in England for marking writing instruments from the mid sixteenth century while the wooden enclosure was a contemporary innovation from the Continent and it seems to have been in this era the word pencil was transferred from a type of brush to the newly encapsulated "graphite writing implement".  The modern clay-graphite mix, essentially little different to that still in use, was developed in the early nineteenth century, mass-production beginning in mid century, something made possible by the availability of cheap, precision machine tools.  The inventor of the handy innovation of an eraser being attached to the end opposite the sharpened lead was granted a patent in 1858.  Some like these on pencils and some don't.

Pencil sharpeners of increasing complexity.  Unless one has specific needs, the old ways are usually the best.

The modern pencil also encouraged the development of the pencil sharpener, one of the world's most simple machines and something which really hasn't been improved upon although over the last century an extraordinary array of mechanical and electro-mechanical devices have been offered (some so wondrously complex it's suspected they existed just to flaunt the engineering although they do make fine gifts for nerds; it's likely nerds do prefer pencils to pens).  Apparently first sold commercially in 1854 (prior to than a hand-held blade of some sort would have been the usual method), some have been intriguing and imaginative designs which sometimes found their specialized niche but none sharpen a pencil better than the cheapest and most simple.  Even now, if one has paper, the creation of just about anything in theoretical physics, poetry or literature demands little equipment beyond pencil, paper, sharpener & eraser.  

The Faber-Castell production process.

The pencil as collectable relic

Lot 278: Four volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.

Pencils can be collectables if their provenance adequately is documented.  Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024 conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim devotees and Lot 278 was indicative of the strength of bidding: four (well worn) volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.  Although one was from the first printing (June 1946), it lacked a dust jacket and came with library markings and a “Withdrawn” stamp.  None of those offered were rarities (reflected in the pre-sale estimate of US$200-300) but the hammer fell at an impressive US$25,600.  The stationery freaks (it really is quite a thing) were also in the crowd, a signed spiral notebook selling for what one commentator called “a startling US$15,360.”

Lot 275: Three boxes of Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils.  The Blackwing was not cylindrical so, like a "carpenter's pencil", it was less prone to rolling onto the floor.  Decades after the pencils entered the market, there would be a Cadillac Blackwing V8, a notable piece of engineering doomed by its high cost. 

What was most surprising though was the fate of Lot 275: “Three boxes of vintage Blackwing 602 pencils (Circa 1940s-1950s).  Three blue boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32 pencils).  Some wear to the boxes and drying of the erasers.”  Sondheim was a devoted Blackwing user, telling one interviewer: “I use Blackwing pencils. Blackwings.  They don’t make ’em any more, and luckily, I bought a lot of boxes of ’em.  They’re very soft lead.  They’re not round, so they don’t fall off the table, and they have removable erasers, which unfortunately dry out."  The pencils sold for US$6,400 against a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.

The pencils were an example of how critical is provenance in the collectables market.  In June 2023, Bloomfield Auctions in east Belfast, Northern Ireland, held a “specialist” sale focused “militaria, police and important Irish historical items”, one entry with a pre-sale estimate of US$65,000-100,000 being Lot 148: “An engraved, silver-plated pencil, believed to have been a 52nd birthday present (20 April 1941) from Eva Braun (1912–1945) to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  On the day, the pencil sold for US$6,900.

The lower than expected price may have been the result of doubts being cast on the authenticity of the item’s claimed history.  Technically, Lot 148 was a mid-20th-century mechanical pencil, of white metal (presumably one with a high nickel content) and silver-plated, engraved along one louvered side facet with the inscription: ZUM 20 APRIL 1941 HERZLICHST EVA.  That’s an abbreviated form of phrase typically used on occasions such as birthdays, the brevity necessitated by the surface area with which the engraver had to work, the pencil only some 3¼ inches (82.5 mm) long.  Deconstructed, the sentence fragment begins with the preposition “to” and a contracted, inflected article of speech, “the” expressed in the dative case.  Zum is literally “To the...”, understood as “Upon the...”.  So, the signatory (“Eva”) is marking the occasion the birthday on 20 April 1941, the inherent formality of form what one would expect in a gift to a head of state though perhaps not one from a lover.  However, the very existence of the relationship between the Führer and the woman who later briefly would be Frau Hitler was unknown beyond his court circle and it may have been even the jeweller wasn’t to be given a hint; the exact (physical) nature of their relationship remains a mystery.  However, the word herzlichst is from the root noun Herz (heart) and as an adjective or adverb, herzlich, is often used in the sense of “heartful” or “heartfelt” which at least suggests something intimate and the –st suffix operates to create a superlative, which if literally translated (“most heartful” or “most heartfelt”) sounds in English like something which might be used ironically or cynically but there’s nothing to suggest it should be understood as anything but something like: On the occasion of the 20th April, 1941, most heartfully, Eva.

The "Hitler" Pencil top.

The provenance of the pencil however proved controversial, something not helped by the anonymity of the seller and the lack of any documentary trail which might have helped confirm the veracity of the back-story.  While one could speculate any number of the life the pencil may have led over the decades, no evidence was offered.  The sale also attracted criticism which is increasingly heard when auction houses offer any of the militaria, memorabilia and ephemera connected with Hitler or the Nazis in general.  Although such objects have for decades been collectables there’s now more resistance to the notion of profits being derived from the trade in what is, in some sense, “the commemoration of evil” and the Chairman of the European Jewish Association had called for the pencil to be withdrawn from sale, issuing a statement in which he called the auction part of a “…macabre trade in items belonging to mass murderers, the motives of those buying them are unknown and may glorify the actions of the Nazis, and lastly, their trade is an insult to the millions who perished, the few survivors left, and to Jews everywhere.”  The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews described the sale as “…distressing, disturbing and hugely disrespectful”, arguing that even if of historical significance “…these items have no place in our country other than inside the walls of a museum or other institution where they can be used to teach about the results of anti-Semitism.”

1938 Mercedes-Benz 770K (W150) Cabriolet F, a seven passenger tourer & parade car, pictured here with the folding soft-top in sedanca de ville configuration.

There is still some tolerance for the trade in items which would otherwise anyway be collectables (such as the Mercedes-Benz 770Ks (W07 (1930-1938) & W150 (1938-1943), many of which when offered are claimed (dubiously and not) to have some association with Hitler) and for anything of genuine historical significance (such as diplomatic papers) but the circulation of mere ephemera with some Nazi link is increasingly being condemned as macabre and the higher the prices paid, the more distasteful it's alleged to be.  A spokesman for Bloomfield Auctions defended the inclusion of such items in the sale, arguing they “…preserve a piece of our past and should be treated as historical objects, no matter if the history they refer to was one of the darkest and most controversial in recorded history.”, adding “We do not seek to cause hurt or distress to any one or any part of society” and that buyers typically were “legitimate collectors who have a passion for history… all items are a part of history, and we shouldn't be writing history out of books or society.”

Pencil sculpture by Russian artist Salavat Fidai (b 1972).

Zephyr

Zephyr (pronounced zef-uhr (U) or zef-er (non-U))

(1) A gentle, mild breeze, considered the most pleasant of winds.

(2) By extension, any of various things of fine, light quality (fabric, yarn etc), most often applied to wool.

(3) In the mythology of Antiquity, the usual (Westernised) spelling of Ζεφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros), the Greek and Roman god of the west wind, son of Eos & Astraeus and brother of Boreas; the Roman name was Zephyrus, Favonius.

(4) As a literary device, the west wind personified which should be used with an initial capital letter.

(5) In the mythology of Antiquity, as Zephyrette, a daughter of Aeolus; a tiny female spirit of the wind. 

(6) A model name used on cars of variable distinction produced by the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) and sold under the Ford, Mercury & Lincoln brands.

(7) A type of soft confectionery made by whipping fruit and berry purée (mostly apple purée) with sugar and egg whites, to which is added a gelling agent such as pectin, carrageenan, agar, or gelatine.  Often called zefir, the use was a semantic loan from the Russian зефи́р (zefír). 

Circa 1350: From the Middle English zeferus & zephirus, from the Old English zefferus, from the Latin zephyrus, from the Ancient Greek Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros or Zéphyros) (the west wind), probably from the Greek root zophos (the west, the dark region, darkness, gloom).  The Latin Zephyrus was the source also of zéphire (French), zefiro (Spanish) and zeffiro (Italian).  The feminine form zephyrette (capitalised and not) is rare and the alternative spellings were zephir & zefir, the latter (in the context of food) still current.  The casual use in meteorology dates from circa 1600 and the meaning has shifted from the classical (something warm, mild and occidental) to now be any gentle breeze or waft where the wish is to suggest a wind not strong and certainly not a gust, gale, cyclone, blast, typhoon or tempest.  Zephyr is a noun & verb, zephyred is a verb & adjective, zephyring is a verb and zephyrous, zephyrlike & zephyrean are adjectives; the noun plural is zephyrs.  The adverb zephyrously is non-standard.

Cupid and Psyche (1907) by Edvard Munch (1863–1944).

In Greek mythology, Ζεφυρος (transliterated as Zéphuros or Zéphyros) was the god of the west wind, one of the four seasonal Anemoi (wind-gods), the others being his brothers Notus (god of the south wind), Eurus (god of the east wind) and Boreas (god of the east wind).  The Greek myths offer many variations of the life of Zephyrus, the offspring of Astraeus & Eos in some versions and of Gaia in other stories while there were many wives, depending on the story in which he was featured.  Despite that, he’s also sometimes referred to as the “god of the gay”, based on the famous tale of Zephyrus & Hyakinthos (Hyacinthus or Hyacinth).  Hyacinth was a Spartan youth, an alluring prince renowned for his beauty and athleticism and he caught the eye of both of both Zephyrus and Apollo (the god of sun and light) and the two competed fiercely for the boy’s affections.  It was Apollo whose charms proved more attractive which left Zephyrus devastated and in despair.  One day, Zephyrus chanced upon the sight of Apollo and Hyacinth in a meadow, throwing a discus and, blind with anger, sent a great gust of wind at the happy couple, causing the discus to strike Hyacinth forcefully in the head, inflicting a mortal injury.  Stricken with grief, as Hyacinth lay dying in his arms, Apollo transformed the blood trickling to the soil into the hyacinth (larkspur), flower which would forever bloom in memory of his lost, beautiful boy. Enraged, Apollo sought vengeance but Zephyrus was protected by Eros, the god of love, on what seems the rather technical legal point of the intervention of Zephyrus being an act of love.  There was however a price to be paid for this protection, Zephyrus now pledged to serve Eros for eternity and the indebted god of the west wind soon received his first task.  There are other tales of how Cupid and Psyche came to marry but in this one, with uncharacteristic clumsiness, Cupid accidently shot himself with one of his own arrows of love while gazing upon the nymph Psyche and it was Zephyrus who kidnapped her, delivering his abducted prize to Cupid to be his bride.

Chloris and Zephyr (1875) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), Musee des Beau-Arts of the Musées Mulhouse Sud Alsace.

Zephyros was in classical art most often depicted as a handsome, winged youth and a large number of surviving Greek vases are painted with unlabeled figures of a winged god embracing a youth and these are usually identified as Zephyros and Hyakinthos although, some historians detecting detail differences list a number of them as being of Eros (the god of Love) with a symbolic youth.  Although sometimes rendered as a winged god clothed in a green robe and crowned with a wreath of flowers, in Greco-Roman mosaics, Zephyros appears usually in the guise of spring personified, carrying a basket of unripened fruit.  In some stories, he is reported to be the husband of Iris, the goddess of the rainbow and Hera’s messenger and in others, Podarge the harpy (also known as Celano) is mentioned as the wife of Zephyrus but in most of the myths he was married to Chloris.  Chloris by most accounts was an Oceanid nymph and in the tradition of Boreas & Orithyia and Cupid and Psyche, Zephyrus made Chloris his wife by abduction, making her the goddess of flowers, for she was the Greek equivalent of Flora and, living with her husband, enjoyed a life of perpetual spring.

Standardized wind: The Beaufort wind force scale

With strategically placed palms, Lindsay Lohan resists a zephyr's efforts to induce a wardrobe malfunction, MTV Movie Awards, Los Angeles, 2008 (left) which may be C&Ced (compared & contrasted) with the stronger breeze (probably 3-4 on the Beaufort Scale) disrupting the modern art installation that is Donald Trump's (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) hair (right).

Beaufort Wind Scale, circa 1865.

The Beaufort wind force scale was devised because the British Admiralty was accumulating much data about prevailing weather conditions at spots around the planet where the Royal Navy sailed and it was noticed there was some variation in way different observers would describe the wind conditions.  In the age of sail, wind strength frequency and direction was critical to commerce and warfare and indeed survival so the navy needed to information to be as accurate an consistent as possible but in the pre-electronic age the data came from human observation, even mechanical devices not usually in use.  What Royal Navy Captain (later Rear Admiral) Sir Francis Beaufort 1774–1857) early in nineteenth century noticed was that a sailor brought up in a blustery place like the Scottish highlands was apt to understate the strength of winds while those from calmer places were more impressed by even a moderate breeze, little more than what a hardy Scots sold salt would call a zephyr.  Accordingly, he developed a scale which was refined until formally adopted by the Admiralty during the 1930s after he’d been appointed Hydrographer of the Navy.  The initial draft reflected the functional purpose, the lowest rating describing the sort of gentle zephyr which was just enough to enable a ship's captain slowly to manoeuvre while the highest was of the gale-force winds which would shred the sails.  As sails gave way to steam, the scale was further refined by referencing the effect of wind upon the sea rather than sails and it was adopted also by those working in shore-based meteorological stations.  In recent years, categories up to 17 have been added to describe the phenomena described variously as hurricanes, typhoons & cyclones.

The National Biscuit Company's Zephyrettes, circa 1915.

In the mythology of Antiquity, Zephyrette was a daughter of Aeolus and a tiny female spirit of the wind.  That the nymph's name was early in the twentieth century appropriated by the National Biscuit Company (1898–1971, Nabisco (1971–1985) & RJR Nabisco (1985–1999) and now a subsidiary of Mondelēz International) to describe a light, crisp cracker, recommended to be used for hors d'oeuvres might outrage feminists studying denotation and connotation in structural linguistics and the more they delve, the greater will be the outrage.  Mostly, the word "zephyr" now is used by novelists and poets because while indicative of the force of a wind, it's not defined and is thus not a formal measure so what's a zephyr in one poem might be something more or less in another.  In other texts, such inconsistencies might be a problem but for the few thousand souls on the planet who still read poetry, it's all part of the charm.

For good & bad: FoMoCo's Zephyrs

Lincoln Zephyr V12, 267 cubic inches (4.4 litre).  It was the last of the American V12s.

In the inter-war era, the finest of the big American cars, the Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards and Duesenbergs, offered craftsmanship the equal of anything made in Europe and engineering which was often more innovative.  The 1930s however were difficult times and by mid-decade, sales of the big K-Series Lincolns, the KA (385 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8) and KB (448 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V12) were falling.  Ford responded by designing a smaller, lighter Lincoln range to bridge the gap between the most expensive Ford and the lower-priced K-Series Lincolns, the intention originally to power it with an enlarged version of the familiar Ford V8 but family scion Edsel Ford (1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo), 1919-1943), decided instead to develop a V12, wanting both a point of differentiation and a link to K-Series which had gained for Lincoln a formidable reputation for power and durability.  Develop may however be the wrong word, the new engine really a reconfiguration of the familiar Ford V8, the advantage in that approach being it was cheaper than an entirely new engine, the drawback the compromises and flaws of the existing unit were carries over and in some aspects, due to the larger size and greater internal friction, exaggerated.

Lincoln Zephyr V12, 292 cubic inches (4.8 litre).

The V12 however was not just V8 with four additional pistons, the block cast with a vee-angle of 75^o rather than the eight’s 90^o, a compromise between compactness and the space required for a central intake manifold and the unusual porting arrangement for the exhaust gases.  The ideal configuration for a V12 is 60^o and without staggered throws on the crankshaft, the 75^o angle yielded uneven firing impulses, although, being a relatively slow and low-revving unit, the engine was felt acceptably smooth.  The cylinder banks used the traditional staggered arrangement, permitting the con-rods to ride side-by-side on the crank and retained the Ford V-8’s 3.75 inch (90.7 mm) stroke but used a small bore of just 2.75 inches (69.75 mm), then the smallest of any American car then in production, yielding a displacement of 267 cubic inches (4.4 litres), a lower capacity than many of the straight-eights and V8s then on the market.

Because the exhaust system was routed through the block to four ports on each side of the engine, cooling was from the beginning the problem it had been on the Ford V8 but on a larger scale.  Although the cooling system had an apparently impressive six (US) gallon (22.7 litre) capacity, it quickly became clear this could, under certain conditions, be marginal and the radiator grill was soon extended to increase airflow.  Nor was lubrication initially satisfactory, the original oil pump found to be unable to maintain pressure when wear developed on the curfaces of the many bearings; it was replaced with one that could move an additional gallon (3.79 litre) a minute.  Most problems were resolved during the first year of production and the market responded to the cylinder count, competitive price and styling; after struggling to sell not even 4000 of the big KAs in 1935, Lincoln produced nearly 18,000 Zephyrs in 1936, sales growing to over 25,000 the following year.  Production between 1942-1946 would be interrupted by the war but by the time the last was built in 1948, by which time it had been enlarged to 292 cubic inches (4.8 litre (there was in 1946, briefly, a 306 cubic inch (5.0 litre) version) over 200,000 had been made, making it the most successful of the American V12s.  It was an impressive number, more than matching the 161,583 Jaguar built over a quarter of a century (1971-1997) and only Daimler-Benz has made more, their count including both those used in Mercedes-Benz cars and the the DB-60x inverted V12 aero-engines famous for their wartime service with the Luftwaffe and the Mercedes-Benz T80, built for an assault in 1940 on the LSR (Land Speed Record).  Unfortunately, other assaults staged by the Third Reich (1939-1945) meant the run never happened but the T80 is on permanent exhibition in the factory's museum in Stuttgart so viewers can ponder Herr Professor Ferdinand Porsche's (1875–1951) pre-war slide-rule calculations of a speed of 650 km/h (404 mph) (not the 750 km/h (466 mph) sometimes cited).

1939 Lincoln-Zephyr Three Window Coupe (Model Code H-72, 2500 of which were made out of the Zephyr’s 1939 production count of 21,000).  It was listed as a six-seater but the configuration was untypical of the era, the front seat a bench with split backrests, allowing access to the rear where, unusually, there were two sideways-facing stools.  In conjunction with the sloping roofline, it was less than ideal for adults and although the term “3+2” was never used, that’s probably the best description.  The H-72 Three Window Coupe listed at US$1,320, the cheapest of the six variants in the 1939 Zephyr range.

It may sound strange that in a country still recovering from the Great Depression Ford would introduce a V12 but the famous “Flathead” Ford V8 was released in 1932 when economic conditions were at their worst; people still bought cars.  The V12 was also different in that although a configuration today thought of as exotic or restricted to “top of the line” models, for Lincoln the Zephyr was a lower-priced, mid-size luxury car to bridge a gap in the corporate line-up.  Nor was the V12 a “cost no object” project, the design using the Flathead’s principle elements and while inaccurate at the engineering level to suggest it was the “Ford V8 with four cylinders added” the concept was exactly that and if the schematics are placed side-by-side, the familial relationship is obvious.  Introduced in November 1935 (as a 1936 model), the styling of the Lincoln Zephyr attracted more favourable comment than Chrysler’s Airflows (1934-1937), an earlier venture into advanced aerodynamics (then known as “streamlining”) and the name had been chosen to emphasize the wind-cheating qualities of the modernist look.  With a raked windscreen and integrated fenders, it certainly looked slippery and tests in modern wind tunnels have confirmed it indeed had a lower CD (drag coefficient) than the Airflows which looked something like unfinished prototypes; the public never warmed to the Airflows, however accomplished the engineering was acknowledged to be.  By contrast, the Zephyrs managed to cloak the functional efficiency in sleek lines with pleasing art deco touches; subsequently, New York’s MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) acknowledged it as “the first successfully streamlined car in America”.  So much did the style and small V12 capture the headlines it was hardly remarked upon that with a unitary body, the Zephyr was the first Ford-made passenger vehicle with an all-steel roof, the method of construction delivering the required strength at a lighter weight, something which enabled the use of an engine of relatively modest displacement.

The American Home Front 1941-1942 (2006) by Alistair Cooke (1908-2004),  The cover illustration was of him filling up the Zephyr's V12, Pasadena, California, 1942.

In 1942, just after the US had entered the war (thereby legitimizing the term “World War II” (1939-1945)) the expatriate (the apocope “expat” not in general use until the 1950s when Graham Greene's (1904-1991) novel The Quiet American (1955) appears to have given it a boost) UK-born US journalist Alistair Cooke began a trip taking from Washington DC and back, via Virginia, Florida, Texas, California, Washington state and 26 other states, purchasing for the project a 1936 Lincoln Zephyr V12, his other vital accessories five re-tread tyres (with the Japanese occupation of Malaya, rubber was in short supply and tyres hard to find), a gas (petrol) ration coupon book and credentials from his employer, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).  It was a journalist’s project to “discover” how the onset of war had changed the lives of non-combatant Americans “on the home front” and his observations would provide him a resource for reporting for years to come.  Taking photographs on his travels, he’d always planned to use the material for a book but, as a working journalist during the biggest event in history, it was always something done “on the side” and by the time he’d completed a final draft it was 1945 and with the war nearly over, he abandoned the project, assuming the moment for publication had passed.  It wasn’t until two years after his death that The American Home Front 1941-1942 (2006) was released, the boxed manuscript having been unearthed in the back of a closet, under a pile of his old papers.

Cooke had a journalist’s eye and the text was interesting as a collection of unedited observations of the nation’s culture, written in the language of the time.  In the introduction Cooke stated: “I wanted to see what the war had done to the people, to the towns I might go through, to some jobs and crops, to stretches of landscape I loved and had seen at peace; and to let the significance fall where it might.”  During his journey, he interviewed many of the “ordinary Americans” then traditionally neglected by history (except when dealt with en masse), not avoiding contentious issues such as anti-Semitism and racism but also painted word-pictures of the country through which he was passing, never neglecting to describe the natural environment, most of it unfamiliar to an Englishman who’d spent most of his time in the US in cities on the east and west coasts.  As a footnote, although the Zephyr’s V12 engine has always been notorious for the deficiencies in its cooling system, at no time during the journey did Cooke note the car overheating so either the radiator and plumbing did the job or he thought the occasional boil-over so unremarkable he made no remark. 

1969 Ford (UK) Zephyr Zodiac Mark IV.

Lincoln ceased to use the Zephyr name after 1942, subsequent V12 cars advertised simply as Lincolns, distinguished in name only by the coachwork.  The Zephyr badge was in 1950 revived by Ford of England for their line of mainstream family cars, augmented after 1953 by an up-market version called the Zodiac, noted for its bling.  The first three generations (1950-1966) were well-regarded (the Mark III (1962-1966) in most ways a superior car to the contemporary US Ford Falcon) and enjoyed success in both the home and export markets but the Mark IV (1966-1972), despite a tantalizingly advanced specification and offering a lot of interior space and external metal for the money, proved so ghastly the name was retired when the range was replaced with something (the Mark 1 Granada (1972-1977)) which was on paper less ambitious but was, on the road, much superior.  Not having suffered the tainted Mark IV Zephyrs, Ford felt it safe to recycle the Zephyr name in the US, firstly on the bland Mercury clone (1978-1983) of the (US) Ford Fairmont and finally, for two seasons (2005-2006), on an undistinguished Lincoln which with some haste was re-branded "MKZ".  On either side of the Atlantic, there have been no Zephyrs since and it does seem strange that the "Zodiac" name has never been re-used because it offers at least twelve thematic possibilities for sub-models or "special editions".

 

1962 Ford Galaxie 500/XL Sunliner Convertible 390 (left), 1967 Ford Zodiac Executive (centre) and 1974 Leyland P76 V8 Executive (right). 

The Mark IV Zodiac's wheel covers (the design concept known as "starburst") had first been seen in the US on the 1962 Ford Galaxie and for Detroit's colonial outposts the use of components, years after they'd been discontinued in the US, was common.  In Australia, for the Fairlane and LTD, Ford at various times used the wheel covers introduced on the 1969 & 1970 Thunderbird (replacing the former with something flatter after owners reported vulnerability to damage from curbsides so either Australians were less competent at parking or the guttering designs used by cities was different) and some were still being fitted as late as 1982.  At least that was within the corporate family.  in 1973, Leyland Australia clearly so liked what ended up on the Zodiac they pinched the idea for the ill-fated P76 (1973-1976).  God punishes those who violate his seventh commandment but in fairness to Leyland (even in retrospect they need all the help they can get), the "starburst" motif had long been popular for wheelcovers, hubcaps (there is a difference) and aluminum wheels.

Starburst sea anemone (left), Kelsey-Hayes cast aluminum wheel for 1967 C2 Chevrolet Corvette (centre), the five-stud (option code N89) version unique to the 1967 range, replacing the knock off version (option code P48, 1963-1966) which had to be retired when US regulators passed rules restricting the use of the centre-lock, knock-off hubs.  To conceal the five studs, there was a "centre cap" (ie a hubcap in the classic sense) in the style of the wheel and these colloquially are known as "starbursts" (right).  The Corvette's wheels were manufactured by Western Wheel Corporation (a division of Kelsey-Hayes).

As a noun & verb, “starburst” widely has been used in slang and commerce but its origin is owed to astronomers of the 1830s and in the field it’s been used variously to describe (1) a violent explosion, or the pattern (likened to the shape of a star) supposed to be made by such an explosion and (2) a region of space or period of time (distinct concepts for this purpose) with an untypically or unexpectedly high rate of star formation.  In SF (science fiction), starbursts can be more exotic still and have described machines from light-speed propulsion engines to truly horrid doomsday weapons.  In typography, a starburst is a symbol similar in shape to an asterisk, but with either or both additional or extended rays and it’s used for a brand of fruit-flavored confectionery, the name implying the taste “explodes” in the mouth as one chews or sucks.  In corporate use, starburst is slang for the breaking up of a company (or unit of a company) into a number of distinct operations and in software it was in the early 1980s used as the brand name of an application suite (based around the Wordstar word-processor) which was (along with Electric Office) one of the first “office suites”, the model Microsoft would later adopt for its “Office” product which bundled, Word, Excel, the dreaded PowerPoint and such.  It was the name of a British made-portable surface-to-air missile (MANPADS) produced in the late twentieth century, in botany it’s a tropical flowering plant (Clerodendrum quadriloculare), the term applied also to a species of sea anemone in the family Actiniidae and, in human anatomy, certain cell types (based on their appearance).  In photography, the “starburst effect” refers to the diffraction spikes which radiate from sources of bright light.

 

2006 Lincoln Zephyr.

 

Available only in 2005-2006 before it was “refreshed” and renamed MKZ (2007-2012), the Lincoln Zephyr picked up its styling cues from a concept car displayed at the 2004 New York International Auto Show although with the lines tempered for production-line reality.  In a sign of the times, it replaced the rear wheel drive (RWD), V6 & V8 powered LS sedan (2000-2006, with one model sharing showrooms with the Zephyr for its final year) which had been well-reviewed in press reports but never succeeded as a challenger to the BMW 5-Series and Mercedes-Benz E-Class.  The twenty-first century Zephyr wasn’t a “bad” car in the sense the word is attached to the English Mark IV Zephyr & Zodiac but it was bland and built on the Mazda CD3 front wheel drive (FWD) platform which provided the underpinnings for also the Mazda 6, Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan; despite Lincoln’s efforts, had it not had the badges, most would have assumed the Zephyr was a fancy Ford or a Mercury, so closely did it resemble both.  Struggling to find some point of differentiation, journalists always mentioned the wood trim in the interior was “real timber”, quoting with approval from the document in the press-pack: “Ebony or maple wood inserts”.  Even that wasn't enough to persuade many it was worth some US$30,000, a US$6000-odd premium over the substantially similar Mercury Milan Premier V6.  It did though undercut by US$4000 what a basic V6 LS has cost the year before so the price of entry to Lincoln ownership became less but that also brought the usual marketing conundrum: “Lowering the price increases sales but tarnishes the perception of the brand as a prestige product”.

 

2012 Lincoln MKZ.

There was also the name.  The original Lincoln Zephyr had existed only between 1935-1942 and, except a as niche among collectors, had long ago faded from public consciousness, the same phenomenon which made the choice of “Maybach” by Mercedes-Benz so curious; Toyota’s decision to create “Lexus” was a much better idea and perhaps an indication Japanese MBAs were better informed than German MBAs.  For 2007 the Zephyr was renamed MKX and even that “naming strategy” (now an MBA fixation) may not within the corporation been well-communicated because initial suggestions for pronunciation included “Mark 10” & “Mark X”, picking up on the (actually quite muddled) history of Lincoln's “Mark” cars which, off & on, existed between 1956-1998 (although the label was in 2006-2007 revived for a pick-up truck(!)).  Neither caught on and before long, like everyone else, company executives were saying “em-kay-zee”.  The “Mark” moniker would have been tempting because, as the “Zephyr affair” demonstrated, despite a history stretching back to 1917, the only Lincoln brand names with any traction in the public imagination are “Continental” and “Mark something”.  When MKZ production ended in 2012, the demise wasn’t so much unlamented as unnoticed.