Camembert & Brie

Camembert (pronounced kam-uhm-bair or ka-mahn-ber (French))

(1) A village in the Normandy region of France.

(2) A mellow, soft cheese, the centre of which is creamy and of a golden cream color, made from cow's milk.

1867 (the cheese): The cheese is named after Camembert, the village near Argentan, Normandy where it originated.  The village name was from the Medieval Latin Maimberti (field of Maimbert), a West Germanic personal name derived from the Proto-Germanic maginą (strength, power, might) and the Proto-Germanic berhtaz (bright).  A rich, sweet, yellowish cream-cheese with the name Camembert was first sold in 1867, but the familiar, modern form of the cheese dates from 1791.  Camembert is a masculine form; the strong, genitive Camembertes or Camemberts and there is no plural.

Camembert labels from the Serge Schéhadé collection.

A tyrosemiophile is one for whom collecting the colorful (usually round) labels affixed to wooden boxes of Camembert cheese wheels is (depending on where they sit on the spectrum) variously a hobby, calling or obsession.  The practice is called tyrosemiophilia (the construct being the Ancient Greek tyro (cheese) + semio (sign; label) + philos (love) and while there appears to be no documented use of tyrosemiophobia (morbid dread or aversion to Camembert cheese labels), there’s no reason why someone who suffered some disturbing experience with a wheel of Camembert wouldn’t become a tyrosemiophobe.  Collecting objects with a high degree of structural similarity (Camembert cheese labels, beer bottle tops etc) has much appeal for some and in cultural studies is classed as “connoisseurial collecting”, described as a collecting focused on variations within a narrow type (which can be structural, thematic chronologic etc but tends to exclude much within the field collected by those casting a wider net).  The hobby (or whatever) falls under the rubric of “typological accumulation” in which objects are exemplars of a “type” and while each is to some degree different, their attraction lies in the similarity, something like Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) exasperated description of peasants as “…like a sack of potatoes, all the same, yet all different”.

Camembert labels from the Serge Schéhadé collection.

Whether such things especially draw “obsessional collectors” doesn’t seem to have been studied but the characteristics of the stuff (Camembert cheese labels a classic example): (1) structurally similar objects, (2) tiny differences (colors, typography etc) and (3) adaptability to being stored or displayed in a precise, geometrical form may hint at the personality type attracted.  Cognitive psychology has identified how pleasing some find “variation within sameness” and that seemed in some way linked to PRDW (pattern recognition dopamine reward) in which the brain rewards the subject for creating, modifying or spotting subtle distinctions within a structured set.  Cheese production being an ongoing business, the collecting of Camembert labels is obviously not a closed system but within the whole, it can be possible to achieve “complete sets” (a single producer, region, period etc) and this aspect too is a thing among collectors.

Camembert labels from the Serge Schéhadé collection.

Among producers, there is something of a tradition of making the labels miniature “works of art” with themes including, florals, farm animals, fields of grass, famous (dead) figures from history and, of course, comely milkmaids in period costumes.  There is in France the CTF (Club Tyrosémiophile de France), which has existed since 1960 and still conducts annual conferences (a significant part of which are the “swap-meet” sessions at which members can sell or exchange labels and like any commodity, based on desirability (the prime determinate usually rarity), the value of items varies.  Collectively the club’s inventory now includes several million labels, many of which are on display at the Camembert Museum in Vimoutiers, Normandy and there are plans to digitize the collection and make them publicly accessible.  That millions of different cheese labels exist may not surprise those who recall the (apparently apocryphal) quote attributed to Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969): “How can one govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” because, even in Le Général’s time, the true count was well into four figures.  In a sign of the times, as the CTF’s membership roll dies off, numbers are shrinking because the young seem not attracted to the cause.  Interestingly, it’s said the artistic labels (called étiquettes in French) date from circa 1910 where they were used as means of attracting children, the idea being the same as the little trinkets distributed in breakfast cereal boxes; the small proto-consumers being trained as “influencers” there to persuade their parents to buy more cheese so they could afforce their label collection.

The flaccid cheese wheel in surrealist art: La persistència de la memòria (The Persistence of Memory) is Salvador Dalí’s (1904-1989) most reproduced and best-known painting.   Completed in 1931 and first exhibited in 1932, since 1934 it has hung in New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Salvador Dalí’s (1904-1989) most reproduced and best-known painting, La persistència de la memòria is better known by the more evocative title: Melting clocks.  Amused at the suggestion the flaccidity of the watches was a surreal pondering of the implications of Albert Einstein's (1879-1955) theory of special relativity (1905), Dalí provided an earthier explanation, saying his inspiration came from imagining a wheel of Camembert melting in a Catalan summer sun.  Dali's distortions were of course a deliberate device.  Celebrities who manage inadvertently to produce their own by not quite mastering Photoshop or other image-editing software quickly find the internet an unforgiving critic.  For better or worse, AI artificial intelligence has now reached the point where such manipulation is often close to undetectable.

Brie (pronounced bree)

(1) A mainly agricultural region in north-east France, between the Seine and the Marne, noted especially for its cheese.

(2) A salted, creamy, white, soft cheese, ripened with bacterial action, originating in Brie and made from cow's milk.

(3) A female given name (with the spelling variant Bree), from the French geographical region but also as a truncation of Brianna.

1848 (the cheese): The name of the cheese is derived from the name of the district in department Seine-et-Marne, southeast of Paris, the source being the Gaulish briga (hill, height).  The English brier (a type of tobacco pipe introduced circa 1859) is unrelated to the cheese or the region in France which shares the name.  The pipes were made from the root of the Erica arborea shrub from the south of France and Corsica, from the French bruyère (heath plant) from the twelfth century Old French bruiere (heather, briar, heathland, moor), from the Gallo-Roman brucaria, from the Late Latin brucus (heather), from the Gaulish bruko- (thought linked with the Breton brug (heath), the Welsh brwg and the Old Irish froech).  The noun plural is bries.

Lindsay Lohan with cheese board, rendered by Vovsoft as a pen drawing: Clockwise from top left, Camembert, Shropshire, Morbier, Nerina & Appenzeller.

Before the French crown assumed full-control in the thirteenth century, the region of Brie was from the ninth century divided into three sections ruled by different feudal lords, (1) the western Brie française (controlled by the King of France), corresponding approximately to the modern department of Seine-et-Marne in the Île-de-France region, (2) the eastern Brie champenoise (controlled by the Duke of Champagne), forming a portion of the modern department of Marne in the historic region of Champagne (part of modern-day Grand Est) and (3) the northern Brie pouilleuse, forming part of the modern department of Aisne in Picardy.  As well as the cheese, Brie is noted for the culturing of roses, introduced circa 1795 by the French explorer Admiral Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (1729–1811).  Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Bougainville Island and the Bougainvillea flower were both named after him.

Whipped Brie dip.

A trick of commercial caterers, wedding planners and others who have to gain the maximum visual value from the food budget is whipped Brie dip.  Often a feature of charcuterie boards or a flourish at wine & cheese events, apart from the taste, the main attraction is that aerating Brie almost doubles its volume, making it a cost-effective component.  Technically, the reason the technique works so well as a base is the aeration increases the surface area of the material which comes into contact with the taste receptors.  There are few rules about what goes into a whipped Brie dip although honey, salty bacon & lemon-infused thyme tend often to be used, some including crushed walnuts.  Timing has to be managed because it’s at its best just after being prepared and served at room temperature; if it’s chilled it sets hard and becomes difficult to spread and will break any cracker being dipped.  So, it can be a last-minute task but preparation time is brief and it’s worth it.

Brie & Camembert

Wheel of Camembert.

Both thought delicious by cheese fiends, Brie & Camembert are often confused because the appearance is so similar, both soft, creamy cheeses with an edible white rind and tending to be sold in wheels (squat little cylinders) though it’s easier to tell the difference with cheeses made in France because there they usually maintain the convention that a Camembert will be smaller (unless it’s a baby Brie or petit Brie which will be indicated on the label).  Because most Brie is matured in larger wheels, it’s often sold in wedges, rare among Camembert because the wheels are so small.  However, in the barbaric English-speaking world where anything goes, Brie is sometimes sold in smaller sizes.  Traditionally, like most, they were farmhouse cheeses, but have long been produced mostly in larger artisanal cheeseries or on an industrial scale.

Wheel of Brie.

Both originally created using unpasteurized cow's milk, thanks to the dictatorial ways of humorless EU eurocrats and their vendetta against raw milk, they’re now almost always made with pasteurized milk although there remain two AOP (Appellation d'origine protégée (Protected designation of origin)) unpasteurised Bries, Brie de Meaux & Brie de Melun and one AOP Camembert, Camembert de Normandie, said best to be enjoyed with French cider.  As a cheese, Brie is characterized as being refined, polite and smooth whereas a Camembert is more rustic, the taste and texture earthier (food critics like to say it has more of a “mushroomy taste”), cream being added to the curd of Brie which lends it a milder, more buttery finish and double and triple Brie are even more so.  To ensure the integrity of the brand, French agricultural law demands that a double-cream cheese must contain 60-70% butterfat (which results a fat content around 30%+ in the finished product.  Although variations exist, according to calorieking.com.au, Brie contains 30.5g fat and 18.5g protein per 100g and the same amount of Camembert, 25g fat and 19.5g protein.

Visually, if left for a while at room temperature, it’s easier to tell the difference because a Camembert will melt whereas Brie will retain its structure.  Because of the marked propensity to melt into something truly gooey, Camembert is often used in cooking, sometimes baked and paired with cranberry sauce or walnuts but. Like Brie, is also a staple of cheese plates, served with things like grapes or figs and eaten with crackers, crusty bread and just about any variety of wine.  One local tradition in the Brie region was the Brie Noir (a type of longer-ripened Brie) which villagers dipped into their café au lait over breakfast.

Turkey, Camembert and cranberry pizza (serves 4)

Ingredients

4 medium pita breads
Olive oil spray
120ml cranberry sauce
1 small garlic clove, minced
80g Camembert, sliced and torn
200g lean shaved turkey breast
8 table spoons parmesan cheese
1 cup rocket leaves

Instructions

(1) Heat oven to 390°F (200°C) conventional or 360°F (180°C) fan-forced and line 2 oven trays with baking paper.

(2) Place pita bread on trays and spray lightly with olive oil.

(3) Mix cranberry sauce with garlic and smear onto the pita bread.

(4) Top with Camembert, shaved turkey and finish with a sprinkling of parmesan.

(5) Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden and the cheese has melted.

(6) Remove from the oven, sprinkle over rocket leaves and serve.

Phyllo-Wrapped Brie With Hot Honey and Anchovies (serves 10-12)

Ingredients

¼ cup chopped roasted red bell pepper (pre-packaged is fine as well as fresh)
3 oil-packed anchovy fillets, minced
1 garlic clove, finely grated or minced
¾ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 pound phyllo (or filo) dough (must be thawed if bought frozen)
10 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 large (about 26 ounces (750 grams)) wheel of Brie
Hot honey (or regular honey (see below)) for serving
Crackers and/or sliced bread, for serving

Instructions

(1) Heat the oven to 425°F (220°F). In a small bowl, stir together the roasted bell pepper, anchovies, garlic, and lemon zest. Set aside.

(2) On a clean work surface, lay out the phyllo dough and cover it with a barely damp kitchen towel to keep it from drying out. Take 2 phyllo sheets and lay them in an 11 × 17-inch rimmed baking sheet. Brush the top sheet generously with melted butter, then lay another 2 phyllo sheets on top the opposite way, so they cross in the centre and are perpendicular to the first two (like making a plus sign). Brush the top sheet with butter. Repeat the layers, reserving 4 sheets of phyllo.

(3) Using a long sharp kitchen knife, halve the Brie horizontally and lay one half, cut-side up, in the centre of the phyllo (you will probably need another set of hands to help lift off the top layer of cheese). Then spread the red pepper mixture all over the top. Cover with the other half of Brie, cut-side down, and then fold the phyllo pieces up around the Brie. There will be a space in the centre on top where the Brie is uncovered, and that’s okay.

(4) Lightly crumple one of the remaining sheets of phyllo and place it on top of the phyllo/Brie package to cover up that space. Drizzle a little butter on top, then repeat with the remaining phyllo sheets, scattering them over the top of the pastry and drizzling a little butter each time. It may look messy but will bake up into gorgeous golden waves of pastry, so fear not.

(5) Bake until the phyllo is golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let it rest for about 15 minutes before drizzling it with the hot honey. Slice (it will be runny) and serve with crackers or bread, and with more hot honey as needed.

Most baked Bries tend to the sweet with layers of jam or chutney beneath the crust but this is a savoury variation using anchovies, garlic, and roasted bell peppers.  A drizzle of honey and the pinch of lemon zest lends the dish a complexity and for the best effect it should be served straight from the oven because that’s when the Brie is at its most seductively gooey.  It’s ideal with crisp crackers or crusty bread for crunch.  The hot honey is a bit of a novelty and those who want to enhance or tone-down the effect can create their own by stirring a pinch or more of cayenne into any mild honey.

Pavlova

Pavlova (pronounced pav-luh-vuh, pahv-loh-vuh, pav-luh-vuh or pah-vluh-vuh (Russian)).

A meringue cake, topped typically with whipped cream and fruit or confections.

Circa 1930: Named after Russian ballet ballerina Anna (pronounced ah-nuh) Pavlova (1885-1931).  Pavlova is a transliteration of the Russian surname Па́влова (Pávlova), the feminine variant of Па́влов (Pávlov).  Pavlova is a noun and Pavlovian is an adjective; the noun plural is pavlovas.  The standard short form (of the cake) is "pav" and if used as a proper noun, there's an initial capital.

Julia from Pampered Menial (1975) by Pavlov’s Dog.

Although coined at much the same time, the adjective Pavlovian is unrelated to the Russian ballerina or meringue cakes.  It refers to the theories & experimental work of Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов; 1849-1936), especially in connection with the conditioned salivary reflexes of dogs in response to the mental stimulus of the sound of a bell (in the West, his work was in 1911 originally referred to as the “Pavloff method” because of a misunderstanding by editors).  His work was a landmark in experimental behavioralism, inducing a dog associatively to link a biologically potent stimulus (food) with a previously neutral stimulus (a bell).  The phrase “Pavlov’s dog” entered English to describe a conditioned response (reacting to a situation on the basis of taught behavior rather than reflectively).  One interesting aspect of comrade Pavlov’s career is he made no secret of his opposition to many aspects of communism in the Soviet state built by comrade Stalin (1878–1953; leader of the USSR 1922-1953), on occasions making his views plain even to the general secretary himself.  Despite that, no action appears ever to have been taken against him and after he died (at 86 of natural causes), he was granted a grand funeral.

Anna Pavlova with Jack.

Anna Pavlova was famous for her interpretation of The Dying Swan, a solo dance choreographed by Mikhail Fokine (1880-1942) to Camille Saint-Saëns's (1835-1921) Le Cygne (The Swan) from Le Carnaval des animaux (The Carnival of the Animals (1922)), commissioned as a pièce d'occasion (an artistic work produced for a special event) for the ballerina who performed it on some 4000 occasions.  It's a short, intense piece which follows the last moments of a swan and for years Ms Pavlova kept a pet swan called Jack.  That she lent her name to a light, meringue-based dessert with a crisp crust and soft, marshmallowy centre was a consequence of the impression she made on tours of Australia & New Zealand during the 1920s.  Such was her elegance, lightness, and grace on stage, the meringue’s airy texture was seen as the culinary expression of her ethereal dancing style, chefs seeking to create something which was at once a thing of swirling style yet also ephemerally fragile.

Rendered by Vovsoft as cartoon character: Lindsay Lohan with a pavolva she'd just whipped up.

New Zealand is a small country in the remote South Pacific which has over the years produced some notable figures such as (1) Lord Rutherford (1871–1937) who, although a physicist who regarded other branches of science as mere applications of engineering which worked within the laws of physics, was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in chemistry and is most remembered for his work which led to the atom being split in 1932, (2) Sir Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) who, with the Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay (1914–1986), was the first to ascend Mount Everest and (3) Sir David Low (1891–1963) who was among the most noted and prolific political cartoonists between the troubled 1930s and the early Cold War years.  The country has also for more than a century fielded what has been usually the world’s most successful rugby union side (the recent inconsistency of the All Blacks not withstanding) and memories are long, the try disallowed by a Scottish referee in a 1905 test against Wales at Cardiff Arms Park (Wales 3, All Blacks 0) still a sore point.

Mango, passion fruit & limoncello pavlova.

Less bitter but no less contested than the matter of the disallowed try is the origin of the pavlova, the invention of which is claimed by both Australia and New Zealand.  What all agree is the cake is a mixture of egg whites and sugar, topped usually with cream and fresh fruit, named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova who toured both countries during the 1920s.  Researchers on both sides of the Tasman Sea (referred to by locals as “the ditch”) have long trawled cook books and newspapers to find the earliest entry but according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), New Zealand appears to hold the evidential advantage, a recipe from there having been verified as published in 1927 while the oldest claimed entry from Australia dates from 1935.  That however resolves only the use of Ms Pavlova’s name as the description, pastry chefs adding cream to meringue known even in the nineteenth century and the 1927 recipe in the book Davis Dainty Dishes, published by the Davis Gelatine company, was a multi-colored jelly concoction.  New Zealand’s historians of food concede the culinary point but cite recipes from 1928 & 1929 which are definitely of meringue, cream and fruit.  Strangely perhaps, the OED remained on the lexicographical fence, listing the origin as an ambiguous "Austral. and N.Z."

Espresso martini pavlova

Preparation: 1 hour

Cooking: 2 hours:

Serves: 10-12

Ingredients

8 egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar
1 tablespoon ground coffee powder
430 gm (2 cups) caster sugar
2 tablespoons of corn-flour
1 teaspoon white vinegar
600 ml (l carton) thickened cream
125 ml (½ cup) coffee liqueur
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
Chocolate-coated coffee beans (to decorate)
Dark chocolate curls (to decorate)
Coffee vodka syrup
2 tablespoons vodka
2 teaspoons arrowroot
100 grams (½ cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
125 ml (½ cup) prepared espresso coffee

Instructions

(1) Preheat oven to 120^o C (100^o C fan forced) (250^o F (210^o F fan forced).  Draw a 200 mm (8 inch) circle on 2 sheets of baking paper.  Place each sheet, marked side down, on a baking tray.

(2) Use an electric beater with a whisk attachment to whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar in a clean dry bowl until firm peaks form.  Gradually whisk in the coffee powder.  Add the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, whisking constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is thick and glossy.  Beat in the corn-flour and vinegar.

(3) Divide meringue mixture among the 2 marked circles on the prepared trays. Use a palette knife to spread mixture into 2 evenly shaped discs.  Bake for 2 hours or until meringues are dry and crisp.  Turn off oven. Leave meringues in the oven, with the door slightly ajar, until cooled completely.

(4) Meanwhile, to make the coffee vodka syrup, combine the vodka and arrowroot in a small bowl.  Combine the sugar and coffee in a small saucepan.  Bring to the boil over high heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes or until the syrup has thickened slightly.  Stir in the vodka mixture and return to the boil, boiling for 1 minute or until thickened.  Remove from heat and transfer to a small bowl and set aside to cool.  Place in the fridge until required.

(5) Use electric beaters to beat the cream in a bowl until soft peaks form. Beat in the coffee liqueur and cocoa until firm peaks form.

(6) Place 1 pavlova disc on a serving plate. Top with half the cream mixture. Drizzle with a little coffee vodka syrup. Scatter with coffee beans and chocolate curls.  Repeat with the remaining disc, cream mixture, syrup, coffee beans and chocolate curls.  Serve.

A century-odd on, an issue still: Auckland Airport, New Zealand, December 2023.

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).