Ultracrepidarian

Ultracrepidarian (pronounced uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uhn)

Of or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of expertise

1819: An English adaptation of the historic words sūtor, ne ultra crepidam, uttered by the Greek artist Apelles and reported by the Pliny the Elder.  Translating literally as “let the shoemaker venture no further” and sometimes cited as ne supra crepidam sūtor judicare, the translation something like “a cobbler should stick to shoes”.  From the Latin, ultra is beyond, sūtor is cobbler and crepidam is accusative singular of crepida (from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís)) and means sandal or sole of a shoe.  Ultracrepidarian is a noun & verb and ultracrepidarianism is a noun; the noun plural is ultracrepidarians.  For humorous purposes, forms such as ultracrepidarist, ultracrepidarianish, ultracrepidarianize & ultracrepidarianesque have been coined; all are non-standard.

Ultracrepidarianism describes the tendency among some to offer opinions and advice on matters beyond their competence.  The word entered English in 1819 when used by English literary critic and self-described “good hater”, William Hazlitt (1778–1830), in an open letter to William Gifford (1756–1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, a letter described by one critic as “one of the finest works of invective in the language” although another suggested it was "one of his more moderate castigations" a hint that though now neglected, for students of especially waspish invective, he can be entertaining; the odd quote from him would certainly lend a varnish of erudition to trolling.  Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion, Pliny the Elder (circa 24-79) recording the habit of the famous Greek painter Apelles (a fourth century BC contemporary of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356-323 BC)), to display his work in public view, then conceal himself close by to listen to the comments of those passing.  One day, a cobbler paused and picked fault with Apelles’ rendering of sandals and the artist immediately took his brushes and pallet and touched-up the errant straps.  Encouraged, the amateur critic then let his eye wander above the ankle and suggested how the leg might be improved but this Apelles rejected, telling him to speak only of shoes and otherwise maintain a deferential silence.  Pliny hinted the artist's words of dismissal may not have been polite.

So critics should comment only on that about which they know.  The phrase in English is usually “cobbler, stick to your last” (a last a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning “to follow a track'' hence footstep) and exists in many European languages: zapatero a tus zapatos is the Spanish, schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest the Dutch, skomager, bliv ved din læst the Danish and schuster, bleib bei deinen leisten, the German.  Pliny’s actual words were ne supra crepidam judicaret, (crepidam a sandal or the sole of a shoe), but the idea is conveyed is in several ways in Latin tags, such as Ne sutor ultra crepidam (sutor means “cobbler”, a word which survives in Scotland in the spelling souter).  The best-known version is the abbreviated tag ultra crepidam (beyond the sole), and it’s that which Hazlitt used to construct ultracrepidarian.  Crepidam is from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís) and has no link with words like decrepit or crepitation (which are from the Classical Latin crepare (to creak, rattle, or make a noise)) or crepuscular (from the Latin word for twilight); crepidarian is an adjective rare perhaps to the point of extinction meaning “pertaining to a shoemaker”.

The related terms are "Nobel disease" & "Nobel syndrome" which are used to describe some of the opinions offered by Nobel laureates on subjects beyond their specialization.  In some cases this is "demand" rather than "supply" driven because, once a prize winner is added to a media outlet's "list of those who comment on X", if they turn out to give answers which generate audience numbers, controversy or clicks, they become "talent" and may be asked questions about matters of which they know little.  This happens because some laureates in the three "hard" prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine) operate in esoteric corners of their discipline; asking a particle physicist something about plasma physics on the basis of their having won the physics prize may not elicit useful information.  Of course those who have won the economics gong or one of what are now the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) prizes (peace & literature) may be assumed to have helpful opinions on everything.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956): Blue Poles

Number 11 (Blue poles, 1952), Oil, enamel and aluminum paint with glass on canvas.

In 1973, when a million dollars was a still lot of money, the NGA (National Gallery of Australia), a little controversially, paid Aus$1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 11, 1952, popularly known as Blue Poles since it was first exhibited in 1954, the new name reputedly chosen by the artist.  It was some years ago said to be valued at up to US$100 million but, given the increase in the money supply (among the rich who trade this stuff) over the last two decades odd, that estimate may now be conservative although the suggestion in 2016 the value may have inflated to as much as US$350 million was though to be "on the high side".  Blue Poles emerged during Pollock’s "drip period" (1947-1950), a method which involved techniques such throwing paint at a canvas spread across the floor.  The art industry liked these (often preferring the more evocative term "action painting") and they remain his most popular works, although at this point, he abandoned the dripping and moved to his “black porings phase” a darker, simpler style which didn’t attract the same commercial interest.  He later returned to more colorful ways but his madness and alcoholism worsened; he died in a drink-driving accident.

Alchemy (1947), Oil, aluminum, alkyd enamel paint with sand, pebbles, fibres, and broken wooden sticks on canvas.

Although the general public remained uninterested (except in the price tags) or sceptical, there were critics, always drawn to a “troubled genius”, who praised Pollock’s work and the industry approves of any artist who (1) had the decency to die young and (2) produced lots of stuff which can sell for millions.  US historian of art, curator & author Helen A Harrison (b 1943; director (1990-2024) of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, the former home and studio of the Abstract Expressionist artists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in East Hampton, New York) is an admirer, noting the “pioneering drip technique…” which “…introduced the notion of action painting", where the canvas became the space with which the artist actively would engage”.  As a thumbnail sketch she offered:

Number 14: Gray (1948), Enamel over gesso on paper.

“Reminiscent of the Surrealist notions of the subconscious and automatic painting, Pollock's abstract works cemented his reputation as the most critically championed proponent of Abstract Expressionism. His visceral engagement with emotions, thoughts and other intangibles gives his abstract imagery extraordinary immediacy, while his skillful use of fluid pigment, applied with dance-like movements and sweeping gestures that seldom actually touched the surface, broke decisively with tradition. At first sight, Pollock's vigorous method appears to create chaotic labyrinths, but upon close inspection his strong rhythmic structures become evident, revealing a fascinating complexity and deeper significance.  Far from being calculated to shock, Pollock's liquid medium was crucial to his pictorial aims.  It proved the ideal vehicle for the mercurial content that he sought to communicate 'energy and motion made visible - memories arrested in space'.”

Number 13A: Arabesque (1948), Oil and enamel on canvas.

Critics either less visionary or more fastidious seemed often as appalled by Pollock’s violence of technique as they were by the finished work (or “products” as some labelled the drip paintings), questioning whether any artistic skill or vision even existed, one finding them “…mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless.”  The detractors used the language of academic criticism but meant the same thing as the frequent phrase of an unimpressed public: “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”

Number 1, 1949 (1949), Enamel and metallic paint on canvas. 

There have been famous responses to  “That’s not art, anyone could do that” but Ms Harrison's was practical, offering people the opportunity to try.  To the view that “…people thought it was arbitrary, that anyone can fling paint around”, Ms Harrison conceded it was true anybody could “fling paint around” but that was her point, anybody could, but having flung, they wouldn’t “…necessarily come up with anything” by which she meant the wouldn't necessarily come up with anything of which the critical establishment (a kind of freemasonry of the art business) would approve (ie could put a price tag on).

Helen A Harrison, The Jackson Pollock Box (Cider Mill Press, 96pp, ISBN-10:1604331860, ISBN-13:978-1604331868).

In 2010, Ms Harrison released The Jackson Pollock Box, a kit which, in addition to an introductory text, included paint brushes, drip bottles and canvases so people could do their own flinging and compare the result against a Pollock.  After that, they may agree with collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) that Pollock was “...the greatest painter since Picasso” or remain unrepentant ultracrepidarians.  Of course, many who thought their own eye for art quite well-trained didn't agree with Ms Guggenheim.  In 1945, just after the war, Duff Cooper (1890–1954), then serving as Britain's ambassador to France, came across Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) leaving an exhibition of paintings by English children aged 5-10 and in his diary noted the great cubist saying he "had been much impressed".  "No wonder" added the ambassador, "the pictures are just as good as his".

Dresses & drips: Three photographs by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), shot for a three-page feature in Vogue (March 1951) titled American Fashion: The New Soft Look which juxtaposed Pollock’s paintings hung in New York’s Betty Parsons Gallery with the season’s haute couture by Irene (1872-1951) & Henri Bendel (1868-1936).

Beaton choose the combinations of fashion and painting; pairing Lavender Mist (1950, left) with a short black ball gown of silk paper taffeta with large pink bow at one shoulder and an asymmetrical hooped skirt best illustrates the value of his trained eye.  Critics and social commentators have always liked these three pages, relishing the opportunity to comment on the interplay of so many of the clashing forces of modernity: the avant-garde and fashion, production and consumption, abstraction and representation, painting and photography, autonomy and decoration, masculinity and femininity, art and commerce.  Historians of art note it too because it was the abstract expressionism of the 1940s which was both uniquely an American movement and the one which in the post-war years saw the New York supplant Paris as the centre of Western art.  There have been interesting discussions about when last it could be said Western art had a "centre".

Blue Poles, upside down.

Although the suggestion might offend the trained and discerning eyes of art critics, it’s doubtful that for ultracrepidarians the experience of viewing Blue Poles would much be different were it to be hung upside down.  Fortunately, the world does have a goodly stock of art critics who can explain that while Pollock did more than once say his works should be interpreted “subjectively”, their intended orientation is a part of the whole and an inversion would change the visual dynamics and gravitational illusions upon which the abstraction effects depend would be changed.  It would still be a painting but, in a sense, not the one the artist painted.  Because the drip technique involved “flinging and poring paint” onto a canvas spread across a studio’s floor, there was not exactly a randomness in where the paint landed but physics did mean gravity exerted some pull (in flight and on the ground), lending layers and rivulets what must be a specific downward orientation.  Thus, were the work to be hung inverted, what was in the creative process a downward flow would be seen as “flowing uphill” as it were.  The compositional elements which lent the work its name were course the quasi-vertical “poles” placed at slight angles and its these which are the superstructure which “anchor” the rest of the drips and, being intrinsically “directional”, they too have a “right way up”.  There is in the assessment of art the “eye of the beholder” but although it may be something they leave unstated, most critics will be of the “some eyes are more equal than others” school.

Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1 as it (presumably correctly) sat in the artist's studio in 1944 (left) and as it was since 1945 exhibited (upside-down) in New York and Düsseldorf (right).  Spot the difference.

So although ultracrepidarians may not “get it” (even after digesting the critics’ explanations) and wouldn’t be able to tell whether or not it was hung correctly, that’s because they’re philistines.  In the world of abstract art however, even the critics can be fooled: in 2022, it was revealed a work in Piet Mondrian’s (1872-1944) 1941 New York City 1 series had for 77 years been hanging upside down.  First in exhibited in 1945 in New York’s MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), the piece was created with multi-colored adhesive paper tape and, in an incorrect orientation, it has since 1980 hung in the Düsseldorf Museum as part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s collection.  The decades-long, trans-Atlantic mistake came to light during a press conference held to announce the Kunstsammlung’s new Mondrian exhibition and the conclusion was the error may have been caused by something as simple as the packing-crate being overturned or misleading instructions being given to the staff.  1941 New York City 1 will remain upside because of the condition of the adhesive strips.  “The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread” a curator was quoted as saying, adding that if it were now to be turned-over, “…gravity would pull it into another direction.  And it’s now part of the work’s story.”  Mondrian was one of the more significant theorists of abstract art and its withdrawal from nature and natural subjects.  “Denaturalization” he proclaimed to be a milestone in human progress, adding: “The power of neo-plastic painting lies in having shown the necessity of this denaturalization in painterly terms... to denaturalize is to abstract... to abstract is to deepen.”  Now even ultracrepidarians can understand.

Eye of the beholder: Portrait of Lindsay Lohan in the style of Claude Monet (1840–1926) at craiyon.com and available at US$26 on an organic cotton T-shirt made in a factory powered by renewable energy.

Whether the arguments about what deserves to be called “art” began among prehistoric “artists” and their critics in caves long ago isn’t known but it’s certainly a dispute with a long history.  In the sense it’s a subjective judgment the matter was doubtless often resolved by a potential buyer declining to purchase but during the twentieth century it became a contested topic and there were celebrated exhibits and squabbles which for decades played out before, in the post modern age, the final answer appeared to be something was art if variously (1) the creator said it was or (2) an art critic said it was or (3) it was in an art gallery or (4) the price tag was sufficiently impressive.

So what constitutes “art” is a construct of time, place & context which evolves, shaped by historical, cultural, social, economic, political & personal influences, factors which in recent years have had to be cognizant of the rise of cultural equivalency, the recognition that Western concepts such as the distinction between “high” (or “fine”) art and “folk” (or “popular”) art can’t be applied to work from other traditions where cultural objects are not classified by a graduated hierarchy.  In other words, everybody’s definition is equally valid.  That doesn’t mean there are no longer gatekeepers because the curators in institutions such as museums, galleries & academies all discriminate and thus play a significant role in deciding what gets exhibited, studied & promoted, even though few would now dare to suggest what is art and what is not: that would be cultural imperialism.

Eye of the prompt 1.0: An AI (artificial intelligence) generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one using an interpretation which overlaid "curated drips" over "flung paint".  This could be rendered using Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box but would demand some talent.

In the twentieth century, it seemed to depend on artistic intent, something which transcended a traditional measure such as aesthetic value but as the graphic art in advertising and that with a political purpose such as agitprop became bigger, brighter and more intrusive, such forms also came to be regarded as art or at least worth of being studied or exhibited on the same basis, in the same spaces as oil on canvas portraits & landscapes.  Once though, an unfamiliar object in such places could shock as French painter & sculptor Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) managed in 1917 when he submitted a porcelain urinal as his piece for an exhibition in New York, his rationale being “…everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice.”  Even then it wasn’t a wholly original approach but the art establishment has never quite recovered and from that urinal to Dadaism, to soup cans to unmade beds, it became accepted that “anything goes” and people should be left to make of it what they will.  Probably the last remaining reliable guide to what really is "art" remains the price tag.

Eye of the prompt 1.1: An AI (artificial intelligence) generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one closer to Pollock’s “action painting” technique.

His drip period wholly non-representational, Pollock didn’t produce recognizable portraiture so applying the technique for this purpose demands guesswork.  As AI illustrates, it can be done but, in blending two incompatible modes, whether it looks much like what Pollock would have produced had he accepted a “paint Lindsay Lohan” commission, is wholly speculative.  What is more likely is that even if some sort of hybrid, a portrait by Pollock would have been an abstraction altogether more chaotic and owing little to the structure on which such works usually depend in that there probably would have been no central focal point, fewer hints of symmetry and a use of shading producing a face not lineal in its composition.  That’s what his sense of “continuous motion” dictated: no single form becoming privileged over the rest.  So, this too is not for the literalists schooled in the tradition of photo-realism but as a work it’s also an example of how most armed with Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box could with "drip & fling" produce this but not necessarily would produce this, chaos on canvas needing talent too.

1948 Cisitalia 202 GT (left; 1947-1952) and 1962 Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974; right), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City.

Urinals tend not to be admired for their aesthetic qualities but there are those who find beauty in stuff as diverse as math equations and battleships.  Certain cars have long been objects which can exert an emotional pull on those with a feeling for such things and if the lines are sufficiently pleasing, many flaws in execution or engineering can be forgivgen.  New York’s MOMA in 1972 acknowledged such creations can be treated as works of art when they added a 1948 Cisitalia 202 GT finished in “Cisitalia Red” (MoMA object number 409.1972) to their collection, the press release noting it was “…the first time that an art museum in the U.S. put a car into its collection.”  Others appeared from time-to-time and while the 1953 Willys-Overland Jeep M-38A1 Utility Truck (MoMA object number 261.2002) perhaps is not conventionally beautiful, its brutish functionalism has a certain simplicity of form and in the exhibition notes MoMA clarified somewhat by describing it as a “rolling sculpture”, presumably in the spirit of a urinal being a “static sculpture”, both to be admired as pieces of design perfectly suited to their intended purpose, something of an art in itself.  Of the 1962 Jaguar E-Type (sometimes informally as XKE or XK-E in the US) open two seater (OTS, better known as a roadster and acquired as MoMA object number 113.996), there was no need to explain because it’s one of the most seductive shapes ever rendered in metal.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) attended the 1961 Geneva International Motor Show (now defunct but, on much the same basis as manufacturers east of Suez buying brand-names such as MG, Jaguar and such, the name has been purchased for use by an event in staged in Qatar) when the E-Type made its stunning debut and part of folklore is he called it “the most beautiful car in the world”.  Whether those words ever passed his lips isn’t certain because the sources vary slightly in detail and il Commendatore apparently never confirmed or denied the sentiment but it’s easy to believe and to this day many agree just looking at the thing can be a visceral experience.  The MoMA car is finished in "Opalescent Dark Blue" with a grey interior and blue soft-top (there are those who would prefer it in BRG (British Racing Green) over tan leather) and although as a piece of design it's not flawless, anyone who can't see the beauty in a Series 1 E-Type OTS is truly an ultracrepidarian.   

Rodomontade

Rodomontade (pronounced rod-uh-mon-teyd, rod-uh-mon-tahd, rod-uh-muhn-tadh or roh-duh-mon-teyd.

(1) Vainglorious boasting or bragging; pretentious, bluster.

(2) To boast; to brag.

1605–1615: From the Middle French rodomontade, the construct being the Italian Rodomonte (name of the boastful Saracen king of Algiers in the Italian Renaissance epic poems Orlando innamorato (1483-1495) and its sequel Orlando furioso (1516–1532)) + the Middle French –ade (the suffix used to form nouns denoting action, or a person performing said action), from the Occitan -ada, from the Latin -ata.  In dialectal Italian the name means literally “one who rolls (away) the mountain” (clipped also to “roll-mountain”).  As a verb in the sense of “boast, brag, talk big” it was in use by the 1680s and as early as the 1590s rodomont was used to mean “a braggart”.  Rodomontade is a noun, verb & adjective, rodomontador is a noun and rodomontaded, rodomontading are verbs; the noun plural is rodomontades.  The adjective rodomontadish has been used but is listed as non-standard.

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

The epic poem Orlando innamorato (known in English also as “Orlando in Love) was written by the Italian Renaissance author Matteo Maria Boiardo (1440-1494 and published between 1483 (the first two books) and 1495 (third book, the three concurrently issued as a complete edition)).  The “sequel” was Orlando furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando) by Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) which appeared first in 1516, the complete work published in 1532.  It was a continuation of Boiardo's unfinished work and in its settings and characters shares some features with the eleventh century chanson de geste (literally “song of heroic deeds”, from the Latin gesta (deeds, actions accomplished)), a medieval narrative (usually in the form of an epic-length poem) which is among the earliest forms of French literature) La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland).  La Chanson de Roland was a chivalric romance and tells the tale of the death of Roland (circa 740-778), the Frankish military leader under Charlemagne (748–814; (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814).

Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

It was never a common word bit now it’s vanishingly rare and appears usually only when referring to certain politicians.  In the nineteenth century the spelling “rhodomontade” was more common, reflecting the pronunciation then often used in English and dictionaries still list “rodomontade” & “rhodomontade” as acceptable spellings while noting the latter is archaic.   As a literary term it can be applied to a style which is inflated, bombastic and generally meretricious in its quest for the exotic.  In the poems, the Saracen king Rodomonte was a brave and honorable warrior but also bombastically boastful.  Of politicians described thus, there’s not of necessity any implication of honor, just the boasting and bluster, often in the most grandiloquent of terms.  The comparative is “more rodomontade”, the superlative “most rodomontade” and, as a modifier, it can be used in the form “rodomontade behaviour” although some suggest this is clumsy.

Donald Trump, mid-rodomontading.

Rodomontade would seem an ideal word to use in the era of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; president elect 2024) but, acquaintance with epic poetry of the Italian Renaissance being hardly mainstream, the utterances once so described will now be better understood as “Trumpisms”.  Mr Trump is certainly given to the rodomontadish and seems willing to concede that while George Washington (1732–1799; first president of the United States, 1789-1797) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; US president 1861-1865) might have been his equals, he’s better than any of his other 43 predecessors.  His boasts have included:

“I am a genius and a very stable genius”.
“I would give myself an A+.”
“I did the biggest deal ever done in the history of our country yesterday in terms of trade — and probably other things too, if you think about it.”
“This is the biggest deal there is, anywhere in the world by far.’’
“I think we've done more than perhaps any president in the first 100 days.”
“My administration has accomplished more than virtually any administration in the history of our country”.
“I am one of the best presidents”.
“My presidency has been a tremendous success despite significant opposition and I have unparalleled achievement.”

Comet

Comet (pronounced kom-it)

(1) In astronomy, a celestial body moving about the sun, usually in a highly eccentric orbit, most thought to consist of a solid frozen nucleus, part of which vaporizes on approaching the heat from Sun (or other star) to form a gaseous, luminous coma (the envelope of dust and gas, the most dramatic part of which is the long, luminous tail which streams away from the sun (under the influence of solar winds).

(2) In astronomy, a celestial phenomenon with the appearance of such a body.

(3) Any of several species of hummingbird found in the Andes.

(4) In slang, as “vomit comet”, a reduced-gravity aircraft which, by flying in a parabolic flight path, briefly emulates a close to weightless environment.  Used to train astronauts or conduct research, the slang derived from the nausea some experience.

(5) In figurative use (often applied retrospectively and with a modifier such as “blazing comet”), someone (or, less commonly, something) who appears suddenly in the public eye, makes a significant impact and then quickly fades from view, their fleeting moment of brilliance a brief but spectacular event.

1150–1200: From the Middle English comete, partly from the Old English comēta and partly from the Anglo-French & Old French comete (which in Modern French persists as comète), all from the Latin comētēs & comēta, from the Ancient Greek κομήτης (komḗtēs) (wearing long hair; ling-haired), the construct being komē-, a variant stem of komân (to let one's hair grow), from κόμη (kómē) (hair) + -tēs (the agent suffix).  The Greek was a shortened form of ἀστὴρ κομήτης (astēr komētēs (longhaired star)), a reference to a comet’s streaming tail.  The descendants in other languages include the Malay komet, the Urdu کومٹ (komeṭ) and the Welsh comed.  Comet, cometlessness, cometography, cometographer, cometology & cometarium are nouns, cometless, cometic, cometical, cometocentric, cometary, cometographical & cometlike (also as comet-like) are adjectives, cometesimal is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is comets.

Comets orbit the Sun along an elongated path and when not near the heat, the body consists solely of its nucleus, thought to be almost always a solid core of frozen water, frozen gases, and dust.  When near the sun, the nucleus heats, eventually to boil and thus release the gaseous and luminous coma (the envelope of dust and gas), the most dramatic part of which is the long, luminous tail which streams away from the sun (under the influence of solar winds).  The path of a comet can be in the shape of an ellipse or a hyperbola; if a hyperbolic path, it enters the solar system once and then leaves forever while if it follows an ellipse, it remains in orbit around the sun.  Astronomer divide comets into (1) “short period” (those with orbital periods of less than 200 years and coming from the Kuiper belt) and (2) “long-period” (those with an orbital period greater than 200 years and coming from the Oort cloud).

Before the development of modern techniques, comets were visible only when near the sun so their appearance was sudden and, until early astronomers were able to calculate the paths of those which re-appeared, unexpected.  Superstition stepped in where science didn’t exist and comets were in many cultures regarded as omens or harbingers of doom, famine, ruin, pestilence and the overthrow of kingdoms or empires.  It was the English astronomer, mathematician and physicist Edmond Halley (1656–1742; Astronomer Royal 1720-1742) who in 1682 published the calculations which proved many comets were periodic and thus their appearance could be predicted.  Halley's Comet, named in his honor, remains the only known short-period comet consistently visible from Earth with the naked eye and remains the world’s most famous; it last appeared in 1986 and will next visit our skies in 2061.

Comet wine: Non-vintage Alois Lageder Natsch4 Vigneti Delle Dolomiti.

Halley’s findings put an end to (most) of the superstition surrounding comets but commerce still took advantage of their presence.  A comet with a famously vivid tail appeared in 1811 and in that year, Europe enjoyed a remarkably pleasant autumn (fall) which was most conducive to agriculture and became associated with the abundant and superior yield of the continental vineyards.  For that reason, the vintage was called the “comet wine” and the term became a feature in marketing the product which emerged from any year in which notable comets were seen, a superior quality alleged (and thus a premium price).  Wine buffs say any relationship between the quality of a vintage and the travel of celestial bodies is entirely coincidental.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (2021) by Dr Heather Clark (b 1974).

One of things about the feminist cult which is now the construct of Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) is that her mistreatment at the hands of her husband Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-2008) tends to obscure her work which many quite familiar with the story of her brief life will barely have read and that’s perhaps predictable, certainly for those for whom the lure of tales of tragic woman and brutish men is a siren.  As human tragedies go, her story is compelling: A precocious talent, the death of the father to whom she was devoted when only eight, the suicide attempt while a student and the burning ambition to write and be published.  Almost as soon as she met Ted Hughes she knew he was “my black marauder” and their affair was one of intense physicality as well as a devotion to their art, something which might have endured during their marriage (which produced two children) had Hughes not proved so unfaithful and neglectful.  In 1963, as an abandoned solo mother in a freezing flat during what entered history as London’s coldest winter of the century, she took her own life while her two babies slept nearby, becoming a symbol onto which people would map whatever most suited their purposes: the troubled genius, the visionary writer, a feminist pioneer and, overwhelmingly, a martyr, a victim of a man.  To his dying day, feminists would stalk literary events just to tell Hughes he had “Sylvia’s blood on his hands”.

So the story is well known and in the years since her death there have been a number of biographies, critical studies, collections of letters, academic conferences; given that, it’s seemed by the 2020s unlikely there was much more to say about one whose adult life spanned not even two decades.  For that reason the 1000-odd densely printed pages of Dr Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath was a revelation because, as the author pointed out, her life “has been subsumed by her afterlife” and what was needed was a volume which focused on what she wrote and why that output means she should be set free from the “cultural baggage of the past 50 years” and shown as “one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.”

Sylvia Plath in Paris, 1956.

Red Comet is thus far this century’s outstanding biography and a feminist perspective is not required to recognize that when reading her last poems (written in obvious rage but sustaining a controlled tension few have matched) that she was a profoundly disturbed woman.  Most clinicians who have commented seem now to agree her depression of long-standing had descended to something psychotic by the time of her suicide, a progression she seems to have acknowledged, writing to one correspondent that she was composing poetry “on the edge of madness”.  This is though a biography written by a professional literary critic so it does not construct Plath as tale of tragedy and victimhood as one might if telling the story of some troubled celebrity.  Instead, the life is allowed to unfold in a way which shows how it underpins her development as a writer, the events and other glimpses of the person interpolated into the progress of a text through drafts and revisions, each word polished as the poet progresses to what gets sent to the publisher.  Red Comet is not a book for those interested in how much blame Ted Hughes should bear for his wife killing herself and in that matter it’s unlikely to change many opinions but as a study of the art of Sylvia Plath, it’s outstanding.  Unlike many figurative uses of "comet", Plath continues to blaze her trail. 

Pre-production de Havilland Comet (DH 106) with the original, square windows, England, 1949 (left) and Comet 4 (Registration G-APDN) in BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation (1939-1974 which in 1974 was merged with BEA (British European Airways) and others to later become BA (British Airways)) livery, Tokyo (Haneda International (HND / RJTT)), Japan October 1960.

The term hoodoo is often attached to objects thought jinxed.  When the de Havilland Comet (DH 106; the first commercial jet airliner), within a year of its first flight in 1949, began to suffer a number of catastrophic in-flight accidents, newspapers wrote of the “Comet hoodoo”, something encouraged because, in the pre “black-box” era, analysis of aviation incidents was a less exact science than now and for some time the crashes appeared inexplicable.  It was only when extensive testing revealed the reason for the structural failures could be traced to stresses in the airframe induced aspects of the design that the hoodoo was understood to be the operation of physics.  Other manufacturers noted the findings and changed their designs, Boeing's engineers acknowledging the debt they owed to de Havilland because it was the investigation of the Comet's early problems which produced the solutions which helped the Boeing 707 (1957) and its many successors to be the successful workhorses they became.  As a footnote, by the time the Comet 4 was released in 1958 the problems had been solved but commercially, the project was doomed and reputational damage done.  Between 1949-1964, barely more than 100 were sold although many did provide reliable service until 1981 and the airframe proved adaptable, dozens of military variants produced, the most notable being the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, a maritime patrol version which was in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 2011.

It’s because of the lessons learned from the Comet hoodoo that the apertures of airliner windows have rounded edges, the traditional four-cornered openings creating four weak spots prone to failure under stress.  In the early 1950s there was much optimism about the Comet and had it been successful, it could have given the UK’s commercial aviation industry a lead in a sector which rapidly would expand in the post war years.  One who didn’t express much faith in his country’s capacity to succeed in the field was the politician Duff Cooper (1890–1954) who, shortly before taking up his appointment as the UK’s ambassador to France, was flying on an Avro York (a transport and civil adaptation of the Lancaster heavy bomber) and he noted in his diary: “I think the designer of the York has discovered the shape of an armchair in which it is quite impossible to be comfortable, if this is typical of the civil transport plane in which were are to compete against the US, we are already beaten.”  As Lindsay Lohan’s smiles indicate, as least on private jets, the seats are now comfortable.

Not quite an Edsel, not yet a Mercury: The 1960 Comet; it was an era of imaginative (other use different adjectives) styling (and at this time they were still "stylists" and not "designers").

The Mercury Comet, built in four generations between 1960-1969 and another between 1971-1977, had a most unusual beginning.  The Ford Motor Company (“FoMoCo”, Mercury’s parent corporation) had in the mid 1950s studied the five-tier (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac) branding used by General Motors (GM) and decided it too would create a five divisional structure (which by 1955 Chrysler had also matched).  The GM model dated from the 1920s and was called the “ladder” (GM at times had as many as nine rungs) and the idea was each step on the later would take a buyer into a higher price (and at least theoretically more profitable) range of models.  There was a time when this approach made sense but even in the 1950s when Ford embarked on their restructure it was beginning to fragment, the implications of which would become apparent over the decades.  Thus Ford ended up (briefly) with five divisions: Ford, Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln and Continental.  That didn’t last long and Continental was the first to go, followed soon by the still infamous Edsel and the corporation even flirted with the idea of shuttering Lincoln.

1963 Mercury Comet S-22 Convertible.

The original plan had been for the Comet to be the “small Edsel” but by the time the release date drew close, the decision had been taken to terminate the Edsel brand so the Q&D (quick & dirty) solution was to sell the car through the Lincoln-Mercury dealer network, an expedient which lasted for the 1960 & 1961 model years before the Comet was integrated into the Mercury range and badged appropriately.  The early Comets were built on the Falcon platform (“compact” in contemporary US terms) but when the 1966 range was released, the cars became “intermediates” (ie the size between the “compact” and “full-size” platforms).  The Comet name was withdrawn from use after 1969 but was in 1971 revived for Mercury’s companion to the Maverick, Ford’s replacement for the compact Falcon which slotted above the Pinto which was smaller, requiring the industry to coin the class-designation “sub compact”.  Cheap to produce and essentially a “consumer disposable”, the Maverick and Comet proved so popular they continued in production for a season even after their nominal replacements were in showrooms.

1967 Mercury Comet Cyclone "R Code", one of 60 built that year with the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) FE side-oiler V8 and one of the 19 with a four-speed manual transmission.

The Mercury Comet has never attracted great interest from collectors because few were built with the more robust or exotic drive-trains found more frequently in both the competition from GM & Chrysler and the companion versions from Ford.  The mid-range performance package for the general market was the Comet Cyclone, introduced in 1964 to replace the Comet’s earlier S-22 option; neither were big sellers but they were not expensive to produce and remained profitable parts of the Mercury range.  In 1968, during the peak of the muscle car era, Mercury sought to promote the line, dropping the Comet name and promoting the machines as the “Cyclone”, now with quite potent engines although the emphasis clearly was drag racing rather than turning corners; the high performance package was now called the “Cyclone Spoiler”.  For the NASCAR circuits however, there was in 1969 the Cyclone Spoiler II, one of the so-called “aero cars”, the better known of which were the much more spectacular, be-winged Dodge Daytona (1969) and Plymouth Superbird (1970).  Chrysler’s cars looked radical to achieve what they did but the modifications which created the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II and Ford Torino Talladega were so subtle as to be barely noticeable, the most effective being the increased slope on the lengthened nose, the flush grill and some changes which had the effect of lowering both the centre of gravity and the body.  The Ford and Mercury might have been a less spectacular sight than the Dodge or Plymouth but on the tracks the seeming slight tweaks did the job and both were among the fastest and most successful of their brief era.

1969 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II (slab-sided but slippery, left), 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler (sleek but less aerodynamic than its predecessor, centre) and the aborted 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II (handicapped out of contention by NASCAR, right).   

In 1970, just how aerodynamic was the 1969 Cyclone Spoiler was proved when the racing teams tried the new model which, although it looked sleek, was not as aerodynamically efficient and noticeably slower.  That might seem something of an own goal but Ford were blindsided by NASCAR’s decision to render the low-volume “aero cars” uncompetitive by restricting them to the use of 305 cubic inch (5.0 litre) engines while the conventional bodies were permitted to use the full 430 (7.0).  Thus the aerodynamic modifications planned for the 1970 Torino and Cyclone never entered production.  Of the two prototype Cyclone Spoiler IIs built, one survives revealing a nose which was in its own way as radical as those earlier seen on the Plymouth and Dodge.  In the collector market, the aero cars are much sought but the Cyclones are the least valued which may seem strange because they were on the circuits among the most successful of the era.  Market analysts attribute this to (1) the Cyclone Spoiler II (and Torino Talladega) being visually much less eye-catching than the wild-looking pair from Chrysler and (2) the Cyclone Spoiler II being sold only with a modest 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) engine whereas the Fords ran 428s (7.0) and the Chryslers 440 (7.2) & 426 (6.9) units, the latter a version of the engine actually used in the race cars.

The highly qualified Kate Upton (b 1992) was in 2014 featured in a Sports Illustrated session filmed in a "vomit comet" (a modified Boeing 727 with a padded interior).