(2) In video game controllers, a haptic feedback vibration.
(3) In the jargon of cardiologists, a quality of a "heart murmur".
(4) In the slang of physicians (as "stomach rumble"), borborygmus (a rumbling sound made by the movement of gas in the intestines).
(5) In slang, a street fight between or among gangs.
(6) As rumble seat (sometimes called dickie seat), a rear part of a carriage or car containing seating accommodation for servants, or space for baggage; known colloquially as the mother-in-law seat (an now also used by pram manufacturers to describe a clip-on seat suitable for lighter infants).
(7) The action of a tumbling box (used to polish stones).
(8) As rumble strip, in road-building, a pattern of variation in a road's surface designed to alert inattentive drivers to potential danger by causing a tactile vibration and audible rumbling if they veer from their lane.
(9) In slang, to find out about (someone or something); to discover the secret plans of another (mostly UK informal and used mostly in forms such as: "I've rumbled her" or "I've been rumbled").
(10) To make a deep, heavy, somewhat muffled,
continuous sound, as thunder.
(11) To move or travel with such a sound:
1325-1375:
From Middle English verbs rumblen,
romblen & rummelyn,
frequentative form of romen (make a deep, heavy, continuous sound (also "move with a rolling, thundering sound" & "create disorder and confusion")), equivalent to rome + -le.It was cognate with the Dutch rommelen (to rumble), the Low German
rummeln (to rumble), the German rumpeln
(to be noisy) and the Danish rumle
(to rumble) and the Old Norse rymja (to roar or shout), all of
imitative origin.The noun form emerged
in the late fourteenth century, description of the rear of a carriage dates
from 1808, replacing the earlier rumbler
(1801), finally formalized as the rumble seat in 1828, a design extended to
automobiles, the last of which was produced in 1949.The slang noun meaning "gang fight" dates from 1946 and was an element in the 1950s "moral panic" about such things. Rumble is a noun & verb, rumbler is a noun, rumbled is a verb, rumbling is a noun, verb & adjective and rumblingly is an adverb; the noun plural is rumbles.
Opening
cut from studio trailer for Lindsay Lohan's film Freakier Friday (Walt Disney
Pictures, 2025) available on Rumble.
Founded in 2013 as a kind of “anti-YouTube”, as well as being an online
video platform Rumble expanded into cloud services and web hosting. In the vibrant US ecosystem of ideas (and
such), Rumble is interesting in that while also carrying non-controversial content,
it’s noted as one of the native environments of conservative users from libertarians
to the “lunar right”, thus the oft-used descriptor “alt-tech”. Rumble hosts Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US
president 2017-2021 and since 2025) Truth Social media platform which has a user
base slanted towards “alt-this & that” although to some inherently it’s evil
because much of its underlying code is in Java.
The Velvet Underground and Nico
Link
Wray’s (1929-2005) 1958 instrumental recording Rumble
is mentioned as a seminal influence by many who were later influential in some
of the most notable forks of post-war popular music including punk,
heavy-metal, death-metal, glam-rock, art-rock, proto-punk, psychedelic-rock, avant-pop
and the various strains of experimental and the gothic.Wray’s
release of Rumble as a single also
gained a unique distinction in that it remains the only instrumental piece ever
banned from radio in the United States on purely “musical” grounds, the stations
(apparently in some parts “prevailed upon” by the authorities) finding its
power chords just too menacing for youth to resist.It wasn't thought it would “give them ideas”
in the political sense (many things banned for that fear) but because the “threatening”
sound and title was deemed likely to incite juvenile delinquency and gang
violence.“Rumble” was in the 1950s
youth slang for fights between gangs, thus the concern the song might be picked
up as a kind of anthem and exacerbate the problems of gang culture by glorifying
the phenomenon which had already been the centre of a "moral panic". There is a science to
deconstructing the relationship between musical techniques and the feelings
induced in people and the consensus was the use of power chords, distortion,
and feedback (then radically different from mainstream pop tunes) was “raw, dark
and ominous”, even without lyrics; it’s never difficult to sell nihilism to
teenagers.Like many bans, the action heightened
its appeal, cementing its status as an anthem of discontented youth and, on
sale in most record stores, sales were strong.
Lou
Reed (1942-2013) said he spent days listening to Rumble
before joining with John Cale (b 1942) in New York in 1964 to form The Velvet Underground.Their debut album, The Velvet
Underground & Nico, included German-born model Nico (1938-1988) and
was, like their subsequent releases, a critical and commercial failure but
within twenty years, the view had changed, their work now regarded among the
most important and influential of the era, critics noting (with only some exaggeration): "Not many bought the Velvet Underground's records but most of those who did formed a band and headed to a garage."The Velvet Underground’s output built on the proto heavy-metal motifs from
Rumble with experimental performances
and was noted especially for its controversial lyrical content including drug
abuse, prostitution, sado-masochism and sexual deviancy.However, despite this and the often
nihilistic tone, in the decade since Rumble,
the counter-culture had changed not just pop music but also America: The
Velvet Underground was never banned from radio.
Rumble seat in 1937 Packard Twelve Series
1507 2/4-passenger coupé. The most
expensive of Packard's 1937 line-up, the Twelve was powered by a 473 cubic-inch
(7.7 litre) 67o V12 rated at 175 horsepower at 3,200 RPM.It was best year for the Packard Twelve,
sales reaching 1,300 units. The marque's other distinction in the era was the big Packard limousines were the favorite car of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), a fair judge or machinery.
The rumble seat was also known as a dicky (also
as dickie & dickey) seat in the UK while the colloquial “mother-in-law seat”
was at least trans-Atlantic and probably global. It was an upholstered bench seat mounted at
the rear of a coach, carriage or early motorcar and as the car industry evolved
and coachwork became more elaborate, increasingly they folded into the body. The size varied but generally they were
designed to accommodate one or two adults although the photographic evidence
suggests they could be used also to seat half-a-dozen or more children (the seat belt era decades away). Why it was called a dicky seat is unknown (the
word dates from 1801 and most speculation is in some way related to the English
class system) but when fitted on horse-drawn carriages it was always understood
to mean "a boot (box or receptacle covered with leather at either end of a
coach, the use based on the footwear) with a seat above it for servants". On European phaetons, a similar fixture was the
“spider”, a small single seat or bench for the use of a groom or footman, the
name based on the spindly supports which called to mind an arachnid’s legs. The spider name would later be re-purposed on
a similar basis to describe open vehicles and use persists to this day, Italians and others sometimes preferring spyder. They were sometimes also called jump-seats,
the idea being they were used by servants or slaves who were required to “jump
off” at their master’s command and the term “jump seat” was later used for the
folding seats in long-wheelbase limousines although many coach-builders
preferred “occasional seats”.
Rumble seat in 1949 Triumph 2000 Roadster. The unusual (and doubtless welcome) split-screen was a post-war innovation, the idea recalling the twin-screen phaetons of the inter-war years. Had they been aware of the things, many passengers in the back seats of convertibles (at highway speeds it was a bad hair day) would have longed for the return of the dual-cowl phaetons.
The US use of “rumble seat” comes from the horse
& buggy age so obviously predates any rumble from an engine’s exhaust
system and it’s thought the idea of the rumble was literally the noise and
vibration experienced by those compelled to sit above a live axle with 40 inch (1 metre-odd) steel rims on wooden-spoked wheels, sometimes with no suspension system. When such an
arrangement was pulled along rough, rutted roads by several galloping horses,
even a short journey could be a jarring experience. The rumble seat actually didn’t appear on
many early cars because the engines lacked power so weight had to be restricted, seating typically limited to one or two; they again became a thing only as machines grew larger and bodywork was fitted. Those in a rumble seat were exposed to the
elements which could be most pleasant but not always and they enjoyed only the slightest
protection afforded by the regular passenger compartment’s top & windscreen. Ford actually offered the option of a folding
top with side curtains for the rumble seats on the Model A (1927-1931) but few
were purchased, a similar fate suffered by those produced by third party
suppliers. US production of cars with
rumble seats ended in 1939 and the last made in England was the Triumph 1800/2000
Roadster (1946-1949) but pram manufacturers have of late adopted the name to describe a seat which can be clipped onto the frame. Their distinction between a toddler seat and a rumble seat is that the former comes with the stroller and is slightly bigger, rated to hold 50 lbs (23 KG), while the former can hold up to 35 (16).
1935 MG NA
Magnette Allingham 2/4-Seater by Whittingham & Mitchel. Sometimes described by auction houses as a DHC (drophead coupé), this body style (despite what would come to be called 2+2 seating) really is a true roadster. The scalloped shape of the front seats' squabs appeared also in the early (3.8 litre version; 1961-1964) Jaguar E-Types (1961-1974) but attractive as they were, few complained when they were replaced by a more prosaic but also more accommodating design.
Although most rumble (or
dickie) seats were mounted in an aperture separated from the passenger
compartment, in smaller vehicles the additional seat often was integrated but
became usable (by people) only when the hinged cover was raised; otherwise, the
rear-seat cushion was a “parcel shelf”.The
MG N-Type Magnette (1934-1936) used a 1271 cm3 (78 cubic inch)
straight-six and while the combination of that many cylinders and a small
displacement sounds curious, the configuration was something of an English
tradition and a product of (1) a taxation system based on cylinder bore and (2)
the attractive economies of scale and production line rationalization of “adding
two cylinders” to existing four-cylinder units to achieve greater, smoother
power with the additional benefit of retaining the same tax-rate.Even after the taxation system was changed,
some small-capacity sixes were developed as out-growths of fours.Despite the additional length of the engine block,
many N-type Magnettes were among the few front-engined cars to include a “frunk”
(a front trunk (boot)), a small storage compartment which sat between cowl
(scuttle) and engine.
(1) A large
bin or receptacle; a fixed chest or box.
(2) In
military use, historically a fortification set mostly below the surface of the
ground with overhead protection provided by logs and earth or by concrete and
fitted with above-ground embrasures through which guns may be fired.
(3) A
fortification set mostly below the surface of the ground and used for a variety
of purposes.
(4) In golf,
an obstacle, classically a sand trap but sometimes a mound of dirt,
constituting a hazard.
(5) In
nautical use, to provide fuel for a vessel.
(6) In
nautical use, to convey bulk cargo (except grain) from a vessel to an adjacent
storehouse.
(7) In
golf, to hit a ball into a bunker.
(8) To
equip with or as if with bunkers.
(9) In
military use, to place personnel or materiel in a bunker or bunkers (sometimes
as “bunker down”).
1755–1760:
From the Scottish bonkar (box, chest
(also “seat” (in the sense of “bench”) of obscure origin but etymologists
conclude the use related to furniture hints at a relationship with banker (bench).Alternatively, it may be from a Scandinavian
source such as the Old Swedish bunke (boards
used to protect the cargo of a ship). The
meaning “receptacle for coal aboard a ship” was in use by at least 1839
(coal-burning steamships coming into general use in the 1820s).The use to describe the obstacles on golf
courses is documented from 1824 (probably from the extended sense “earthen seat”
which dates from 1805) but perhaps surprisingly, the familiar sense from
military use (dug-out fortification) seems not to have appeared before World
War I (1914-1918) although the structures so described had for millennia existed.“Bunkermate” was army slang for the
individual with whom one shares a bunker while the now obsolete “bunkerman”
(“bunkermen” the plural”) referred to someone (often the man in charge) who
worked at an industrial coal storage bunker.Bunker & bunkerage is a noun, bunkering is a noun & verb,
bunkered is a verb and bunkerish, bunkeresque, bunkerless & bunkerlike are adjectives;
the noun plural is bunkers.
Just as
ships called “coalers” were used to transport coal to and from shore-based
“coal stations”, it was “oilers” which took oil to storage tanks or out to sea
to refuel ships (a common naval procedure) and these STS (ship-to-ship)
transfers were called “bunkering” as the black stuff was pumped,
bunker-to-bunker.That the coal used by
steamships was stored on-board in compartments called “coal bunkers” led
ultimately to another derived term: “bunker oil”.When in the late nineteenth century ships
began the transition from being fuelled by coal to burning oil, the receptacles
of course became “oil bunkers” (among sailors nearly always clipped to
“bunker”) and as refining processes evolved, the fuel specifically produced for
oceangoing ships came to be called “bunker oil”.
Bunker oil is
“dirty stuff”, a highly viscous, heavy fuel oil which is essentially the
residue of crude oil refining; it’s that which remains after the more
refined and volatile products (gasoline (petrol), kerosene, diesel etc) have
been extracted.Until late in the
twentieth century, the orthodox view of economists was its use in big ships was
a good thing because it was a product for which industry had little other use
and, as essentially a by-product, it was relatively cheap.It came in three flavours: (1) Bunker A: Light
fuel oil (similar to a heavy diesel), (2) Bunker B: An oil of intermediate
viscosity used in engines larger than marine diesels but smaller than those
used in the big ships and (3) Bunker C: Heavy fuel oil used in container
ships and such which use VLD (very large displacement), slow running engines with a huge reciprocating
mass.Because of its composition, Bucker
C especially produced much pollution and although much of this happened at sea
(unseen by most but with obvious implications), when ships reached harbor to dock,
all the smoke and soot became obvious.Over the years, the worst of the pollution from the burning of bunker
oil greatly has been reduced (the work underway even before the Greta Thunberg
(b 2003) era), sometimes by the simple expedient of spraying a mist of water
through the smoke.
Floor-plans
of the upper (Vorbunker) and lower (Führerbunker) levels of the structure
now commonly referred to collectively as the Führerbunker.
History’s most
infamous bunker remains the Berlin Führerbunker
in which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer
(leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945)
spent much of the last few months of his life.In the architectural sense there were a number of Führerbunkers built, one at each of the semi-permanent Führerhauptquartiere (Führer Headquarters) created for the German
military campaigns and several others built where required but it’s the one in Berlin
which is remembered as “theFührerbunker”. Before 1944 when the intensification of the air
raids by the RAF (Royal Air Force) and USAAF (US Army Air Force) the term Führerbunker seems rarely to have been
used other than by the architects and others involved in their construction and
it wasn’t a designation like Führerhauptquartiere
which the military and other institutions of state shifted between locations
(rather as “Air Force One” is attached not to a specific airframe but whatever
aircraft in which the US president is travelling).In subsequent historical writing, the term Führerbunker tends often to be applied
to the whole, two-level complex in Berlin and although it was only the lower
layer which officially was designated as that, for most purposes the
distinction is not significant.In military
documents, after January, 1945 the Führerbunker
was referred to as Führerhauptquartiere.
Führerbunker tourist information board, Berlin, Germany.
Only an
information board at the intersection of den
Ministergärten and Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, erected by the German Goverment
in 2006 prior to that year's FIFA (Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of
Association Football)) World Cup now marks the place on Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse
77 where once the Führerbunker was located.The Soviet occupation forces razed the new Reich Chancellery and
demolished all the bunker's above-ground structures but the subsequent GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German
Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) abandoned attempts
completely to destroy what lay beneath.Until after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) the site remained
unused and neglected, “re-discovered” only during excavations by
property developers, the government insisting on the destruction on whatever
was uncovered and, sensitive still to the spectre of “Neo-Nazi shrines”, for years the bunker’s location was never divulged, even as unremarkable buildings
(an unfortunate aspect of post-unification Berlin) began to appear on the
site.Most of what would have covered
the Führerbunker’s footprint is now a
supermarket car park.
The first
part of the complex to be built was the Vorbunker
(upper bunker or forward bunker), an underground facility of reinforced concrete
intended only as a temporary air-raid shelter for Hitler and his entourage in
the old Reich Chancellery.Substantially
completed during 1936-1937, it was until 1943 listed in documents as the Luftschutzbunker der Reichskanzlei (Reich
Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter), the Vorbunker
label applied only in 1944 when the lower level (the Führerbunker proper) was appended.In mid January, 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker and, as the military
situation deteriorated, his appearances above ground became less frequent until
by late March he rarely saw the sky,Finally, on 30 April, he committed suicide.
Bunker
Busters
Northrop Grumman publicity shot of B2-Spirit from below, showing the twin bomb-bay doors through which the GBU-57 are released.
Awful as they are, there's an undeniable beauty in the engineering of some weapons and it's unfortunate humankind never collectively has resolved exclusively to devote such ingenuity to stuff other than us blowing up each other. That’s not
a new sentiment, being one philosophers and others have for millennia expressed
in various ways although since the advent of nuclear weapons, concerns understandably
become heightened.Like every form of
military technology ever deployed, once the “genie is out of the bottle” the
problem is there to be managed and at the dawn of the atomic age, delivering a
lecture in 1936, the British chemist and physicist Francis Aston (1877–1945) (who
created the mass spectrograph, winning the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
his use of it to discover and identify the isotopes in many non-radioactive
elements and for his enunciation of the whole number rule) observed:
“There are those about us who say that such
research should be stopped by law, alleging that man's destructive powers are
already large enough. So, no doubt, the
more elderly and ape-like of our ancestors objected to the innovation of cooked
food and pointed out the great dangers attending the use of the newly
discovered agency, fire. Personally, I
think there is no doubt that sub-atomic energy is available all around us and
that one day man will release and control its almost infinite power. We cannot prevent him from doing so and can
only hope that he will not use it exclusively in blowing up his next door
neighbor.”
The use in
June 2025 by the USAF (US Air Force) of fourteen of its Boeing GBU-57 (Guided Bomb
Unit-57) Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) bombs against underground targets in
Iran (twelve on the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant and two on the Natanz nuclear
facility) meant “Bunker Buster” hit the headlines.Carried by the Northrop B-2 Spirit heavy
bomber (built between 1989-2000), the GBU-57 is a 14,000 kg (30,000 lb) bomb with
a casing designed to withstand the stress of penetrating through layers of
reinforced concrete or thick rock.“Bunker buster” bombs have been around for a while, the ancestors of
today’s devices first built for the German military early in World War II (1939-1945)
and the principle remains unchanged to this day: up-scaled armor-piercing
shells.The initial purpose was to
produce a weapon with a casing strong enough to withstand the forces imposed
when impacting reinforced concrete structures, the idea simple in that what was
needed was a delivery system which could “bust through” whatever protective
layers surrounded a target, allowing the explosive charge to do damage where
needed rtaher than wastefully being expended on an outer skin.The German weapons proved effective but inevitably triggered an “arms
race” in that as the war progressed, the concrete layers became thicker, walls over
2 metres (6.6 feet) and ceilings of 5 (16) being constructed by 1943.Technological development continued and the
idea extended to rocket propelled bombs optimized both for armor-piercing and
aerodynamic efficiency, velocity a significant “mass multiplier” which made the
weapons still more effective.
USAF test-flight footage of Northrop B2-Spirit dropping two GBU-57 "Bunker Buster" bombs.
Concurrent
with this, the British developed the first true “bunker busters”, building on
the idea of the naval torpedo, one aspect of which was in exploding a short distance
from its target, it was highly damaging because it was able to take advantage
of one of the properties of water (quite strange stuff according to those who
study it) which is it doesn’t compress.
What that meant was it was often the “shock wave” of the water rather
than the blast itself which could breach a hull, the same principle used for
the famous “bouncing bombs” used for the RAF’s “Dambuster” (Operation Chastise, 17 May 1943) raids on German
dams. Because of the way water behaved,
it wasn’t necessary to score the “direct hit” which had been the ideal in the
early days of aerial warfare.
RAF Bomber
Command archive photograph of Avro Lancaster (built between 1941-1946) in
flight with Grand Slam mounted (left) and a comparison of the Tallboy &
Grand Slam (right), illustrating how the latter was in most respects a
scaled-up version of the former. To
carry the big Grand Slams, 32 “B1 Special” Lancasters were in 1945 built with up-rated
Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engines, the removal of the bomb doors (the Grand Slam
carried externally, its dimensions exceeding internal capacity), deleted front
and mid-upper gun turrets, no radar equipment and a strengthened undercarriage.Such was the concern with weight (especially
for take-off) that just about anything non-essential was removed from the B1
Specials, even three of the four fire axes and its crew door ladder.In the US, Boeing went through a similar exercise
to produce the run of “Silverplate” B-29 Superfortresses able to carry the first
A-bombs used in August, 1945.
Best known
of the British devices were the so called “earthquake bombs”, the Tallboy (12,000
lb; 5.4 ton) & Grand Slam (22,000 lb, 10 ton) which, despite the impressive
bulk, were classified by the War Office as “medium capacity”. The terms “Medium Capacity” (MC) & “High
Capacity” referenced not the gross weight or physical dimensions but ratio of
explosive filler to the total weight of the construction (ie how much was explosive
compared to the casing and ancillary components). Because both had thick casings to ensure penetration
deep into hardened targets (bunkers and other structures encased in rock or reinforced
concrete) before exploding, the internal dimensions accordingly were reduced
compared with the ratio typical of contemporary ordinance.A High Capacity (HC) bomb (a typical “general-purpose” bomb) had a thinner casing and a much higher proportion of explosive (sometimes
over 70% of total weight). These were
intended for area bombing (known also as “carpet bombing”) and caused wide
blast damage whereas the Tallboy & Grand Slam were penetrative with casings
optimized for aerodynamic efficiency, their supersonic travel working as a mass-multiplier. The Tallboy’s
5,200 lb (2.3 ton) explosive load was some 43% of its gross weight while the
Grand Slam’s 9,100 lb (4 ton) absorbed 41%; this may be compared with the “big”
4000 lb (1.8 ton) HC “Blockbuster” which allocated 75% of the gross weight to
its 3000 LB (1.4 ton) charge.Like many
things in engineering (not just in military matters) the ratio represented a
trade-off, the MC design prioritizing penetrative power and structural
destruction over blast radius.The
novelty of the Tallboy & Grand Slam was that as earthquake bombs, their destructive potential was able to be unleashed not necessarily by achieving a
direct hit on a target but by entering the ground nearby, the explosion (1)
creating an underground cavity (a camouflet) and (2) transmitting a shock-wave
through the target’s foundations, leading to the structure collapsing into the
newly created lacuna.
The
etymology of camouflet has an interesting history in both French and military
mining.Originally it meant “a whiff of
smoke in the face (from a fire or pipe) and in figurative use it was a
reference to a snub or slight insult (something unpleasant delivered directly
to someone) and although the origin is murky and it may have been related to
the earlier French verb camoufler (to
disguise; to mask) which evolved also into “camouflage”.In the specialized military jargon of siege
warfare or mining (sapping), over the seventeen and nineteenth centuries “camouflet”
referred to “an underground explosion that does not break the surface, but
collapses enemy tunnels or fortifications by creating a subterranean void or
shockwave”.The use of this tactic is
best remembered from the Western Front in World War I,
some of the huge craters now tourist attractions.
Under
watchful eyes: Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (b 1939; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989) delivering a speech, sitting in
front of the official portrait of the republic’s ever-unsmiling founder, Grand
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of
Iran, 1979-1989).Ayatollah Khamenei
seemed in 1989 an improbable choice as Supreme Leader because others were
better credentialed but though cautious and uncharismatic, he has proved a great
survivor in a troubled region.
Since aerial
bombing began to be used as a strategic weapon, of great interest has been the
debate over the BDA (battle damage assessment) and this issue emerged almost as
soon as the bunker buster attack on Iran was announced, focused on the extent
to which the MOPs had damaged the targets, the deepest of which were concealed deep
inside a mountain.BDA is a constantly
evolving science and while satellites have made analysis of surface damage
highly refined, it’s more difficult to understand what has happened deep
underground.Indeed, it wasn’t until the
USSBS (United States Strategic Bombing Survey) teams toured Germany and Japan
in 1945-1946, conducting interviews, economic analysis and site surveys that a
useful (and substantially accurate) understanding emerged of the effectiveness of
bombing although what technological advances have allowed for those with the
resources is the so-called “panacea targets” (ie critical infrastructure
and such once dismissed by planners because the required precision was for many
reasons rarely attainable) can now accurately be targeted, the USAF able to
drop a bomb within a few feet of the aiming point.As the phrase is used by the military, the Fordow
Uranium Enrichment Plant is as classic “panacea target” but whether even a technically
successful strike will achieve the desired political outcome remains to be
seen.
Mr Trump,
in a moment of exasperation, posted on Truth Social of Iran & Israel: “We basically have
two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know
what the fuck they're doing."Actually, both know exactly WTF they're doing; it's just Mr Trump (and
many others) would prefer they didn't do it.
Donald Trump (b 1946; US president
2017-2021 and since 2025) claimed “total obliteration” of the targets while Grand
Ayatollah Khamenei admitted only there had been “some damage” and which is closer to the truth
should one day be revealed.Even modelling
of the effects has probably been inconclusive because the deeper one goes
underground, the greater the number of variables in the natural structure and
the nature of the internal built environment will also influence blast
behaviour.All experts seem to agree much
damage will have been done but what can’t yet be determined is what has been
suffered by the facilities which sit as deep as 80 m (260 feet) inside the
mountain although, as the name implies, “bunker busters” are designed for buried
targets and it’s not always required for blast directly to reach target.Because the shock-wave can travel through earth
& rock, the effect is something like that of an earthquake and if the structure
sufficiently is affected, it may be the area can be rendered geologically too
unstable again to be used for its original purpose.
Within minutes of the bombing having been announced, legal academics were being interviewed (though not by Fox News) to explain why the attacks were unlawful under international law and in a sign of the times, the White House didn't bother to discuss fine legal points like the distinction between "preventive & pre-emptive strikes", preferring (like Fox News) to focus on the damage done. However, whatever
the murkiness surrounding the BDA, many analysts have concluded that even if
before the attacks the Iranian authorities had not approved the creation of a
nuclear weapon, this attack will have persuaded them one is essential for “regime
survival”, thus the interest in both Tel Aviv and (despite denials) Washington
DC in “regime change”.The consensus
seems to be Grand Ayatollah Khamenei had, prior to the strike, not ordered the creation
of a nuclear weapon but that all energies were directed towards completing the preliminary steps, thus the enriching of uranium to ten times the level
required for use in power generation; the ayatollah liked to keep his options
open.So, the fear of some is the attacks,
even if they have (by weeks, months or years) delayed the Islamic Republic’s
work on nuclear development, may prove counter-productive in that they convince
the ayatollah to concur with the reasoning of every state which since 1945 has
adopted an independent nuclear deterrent (IND).That reasoning was not complex and hasn’t changed since first a prehistoric
man picked up a stout stick to wave as a pre-lingual message to potential adversaries,
warning them there would be consequences for aggression.Although a theocracy, those who command power
in the Islamic Republic are part of an opaque political institution and in the
struggle which has for sometime been conducted in anticipation of the death of
the aged (and reportedly ailing) Supreme Leader, the matter of “an Iranian IND” is one of the central
dynamics. Many will be following what unfolds in Tehran and the observers will not be only in Tel Aviv and Washington DC because in the region and beyond, few things focus the mind like the thought of ayatollahs with A-Bombs.
Of the word "bust"
The Great Bust: The Depression of
the Thirties (1962)
by Jack Lang (left), highly qualified porn star Busty Buffy (b 1996, who has
never been accused of misleading advertising, centre) and The people's champion, Mr Lang, bust of Jack Lang, painted cast
plaster by an unknown artist, circa 1927, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra,
Australia (right).Remembered for a few things, Jack
Lang (1876–1975; premier of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW)
1925-1927 & 1930-1932) remains best known for having in 1932 been the first
head of government in the British Empire to have been sacked by the Crown
since William IV (1765–1837; King of the UK 1830-1837) in 1834 dismissed Lord
Melbourne (1779–1848; prime minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841).
Those
learning English must think it at least careless things can both be (1) “razed
to the ground” (totally to destroy something (typically a structure), usually
by demolition or incineration) and (2) “raised to the sky” (physically lifted upwards).The etymologies of “raze” and “raise” differ
but they’re pronounced the same so it’s fortunate the spellings vary but in
other troublesome examples of unrelated meanings, spelling and pronunciation
can align, as in “bust”.When used in
ways most directly related to human anatomy: (1) “a sculptural portrayal of a
person's head and shoulders” & (2) “the circumference of a woman's chest
around her breasts” there is an etymological link but these uses wholly are unconnected
with bust’s other senses.
Bust of
Lindsay Lohan in white marble by Stable Diffusion.Sculptures of just the neck and head came also to be called “busts”, the
emphasis on the technique rather than the original definition.
Bust in the sense
of “a sculpture of upper torso and head” dates from the 1690s and was from the
sixteenth century French buste, from
the Italian busto (upper body;
torso), from the Latin bustum (funeral
monument, tomb (although the original sense was “funeral pyre, place where
corpses are burned”)) and it may have emerged (as a shortened form) from ambustum, neuter of ambustus (burned around), past participle of amburere (burn around, scorch), the construct being ambi- (around) + urere (to burn),The
alternative etymology traces a link to the Old Latin boro, the early form of the Classical Latin uro (to burn) and it’s though the development in Italian was
influenced by the Etruscan custom of keeping the ashes of the dead in an urn
shaped like the person when alive.Thus
the use, common by the 1720s of bust (a clipping from the French buste) being “a carving of the “trunk of
the human body from the chest up”.From
this came the meaning “dimension of the bosom; the measurement around a woman's
body at the level of her breasts” and that evolved on the basis of a comparison
with the sculptures, the base of which was described as the “bust-line”, the
term still used in dress-making (and for other comparative purposes as one of
the three “vital statistics” by which women are judged (bust, waist, hips),
each circumference having an “ideal range”).It’s not known when “bust” and “bust-line” came into oral use among
dress-makers and related professions but it’s documented since the 1880s.Derived forms (sometimes hyphenated) include
busty (tending to bustiness, thus Busty Buffy's choice of stage-name), overbust
& underbust (technical terms in women's fashion referencing specific
measurements) and bustier (a tight-fitting women's top which covers (most or
all of) the bust.
Benito
Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) standing
beside his “portrait bust” (1926).
The
bust was carved by Swiss sculptor Ernest Durig (1894–1962) who gained posthumous
notoriety when his career as a forger was revealed with the publication of his
drawings which he’d represented as being from the hand of the French sculptor Auguste
Rodin (1840-1917) under whom he claimed to have studied.Mussolini appears here in one of the
subsequently much caricatured poses which were a part of his personality cult. More than one of the Duce's counterparts in other nations was known to have made fun of some of the more outré poses and affectations, the outstretched chin, right hand braced against the hip and straddle-legged stance among the popular motifs.
“Portrait bust” in marble (circa 1895) of (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire (the "Second Reich") 1871-1890) by the German Sculptor Reinhold Begas (1831-1911).
In
sculpture, what had been known as the “portrait statue” came after the 1690s to
be known as the “portrait bust” although both terms meant “sculpture of upper
torso and head” and these proved a popular choice for military figures because
the aspect enabled the inclusion of bling such as epaulettes, medals and other
decorations and being depictions of the human figure, busts came to be vested
with special significance by the superstitious.In early 1939, during construction of the new Reich Chancellery in
Berlin, workmen dropped one of the busts of Otto von Bismarck by Reinhold Begas, breaking it at the neck.For decades, the bust had sat in the old
Chancellery and the building’s project manager, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi
court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production
1942-1945), knowing Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of
government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) believed the Reich Eagle
toppling from the post-office building right at the beginning of World War I had been a harbinger of doom for the nation, kept the accident
secret, hurriedly issuing a commission to the German sculptor Arno Breker
(1900–1991) who carved an exact copy.To
give the fake the necessary patina, it was soaked for a time in strong, black
tea, the porous quality of marble enabling the fluid to induce some accelerated
aging.Interestingly, in his (sometimes
reliable) memoir (Erinnerungen
(Memories or Reminiscences) and published in English as Inside the Third Reich (1969)), even the technocratic Speer
admitted of the accident: “I felt this as an evil omen”.
The other
senses of bust (as a noun, verb & adjective) are diverse (and sometimes
diametric opposites and include: “to break or fail”; “to be caught doing
something unlawful / illicit / disgusting etc”; “to debunk”; “dramatically or
unexpectedly to succeed”; “to go broke”; “to break in” (horses, girlfriends etc):
“to assault”; the downward portion of an economic cycle (ie “boom & bust”);
“the act of effecting an arrest” and “someone (especially in professional sport)
who failed to perform to expectation”.That’s quite a range and that has meant the creation of dozens of
idiomatic forms, the best known of which include: “boom & bust”, “busted
flush”, “dambuster”, “bunker buster”,“busted arse country”, “drug bust”, “cloud bust”, belly-busting, bust
one's ass (or butt), bust a gut, bust a move, bust a nut, bust-down, bust
loose, bust off, bust one's balls, bust-out, sod buster, bust the dust,
myth-busting and trend-busting. In the
sense of “breaking through”, bust was from the Middle English busten, a variant of bursten & bresten (to burst) and may be compared with the Low German basten & barsten (to burst). Bust in
the sense of “break”, “smash”, “fail”, “arrest” etc was a creation of
mid-nineteenth century US English and is of uncertain inspiration but most
etymologists seem to concur it was likely a modification of “burst” effected
with a phonetic alteration but it’s not impossible it came directly as an
imperfect echoic of Germanic speech.The
apparent contradiction of bust meaning both “fail” and “dramatically succeed”
happened because the former was an allusion to “being busted” (ie broken) while
the latter meaning used the notion of “busting through”.
(1) In
classical mythology, one of a race of monsters having the head, trunk, and arms
of a man, and the body and legs of a horse (some modern depictions prefer
the upper body of a woman).The synonym
is hippocentaur.
(2) In
astronomy, the constellation Centaurus (initial capital).
(3) In
astronomy, any of a group of icy bodies with the characteristics of both
asteroids and comets, orbiting the Sun in elliptical paths mostly in the region
between Saturn & Neptune.
(4) In
modern slang, a skillful (male or female) rider of a horse.
(5) In
rocketry, a US-designed and built upper stage (with re-startable
liquid-propellant engine), used with an Atlas or Titan booster to launch
satellites and probes.
(6) In
chess, team comprising a human player and a computer.
(7) By
extension, in AI (artificial intelligence), a human and some form or AI, working
together.
1325–1375:
From the Middle English, from the Old English, from the Latin centaurus, from the Ancient Greek, from Κένταυρος
(Kéntauros), thought to mean “a
member of a savage race from Thessaly” although some etymologists are
sceptical.Historically, Thessaly was
known as Αἰολία (Aiolía (Aeolia in modern use)) and that’s
how it was referred to in the Odyssey (Homer’s
epic poem from the eighth or seventh century BC); the gentlemen in Athens were
very quick to describe as savages or barbarians, those from elsewhere.The half-human, half horse Centaur from Greek
mythology belongs in the class of mixtumque
genus, prolesque biformis (a mixed or blended race, offspring of two forms),
the phrase made famous when it appeared in the Roman poet Virgil’s (Publius
Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) Aeneid (29-19 BC) description of the Minotaur, the
mythical creature with a bull's head and a human body.Centaur & centaurdom are nouns, centaurian
is a noun & adjective and centauresque, centaurial & centauric are
adjectives; the noun plural is centaurs.The most common use of the adjective centauric was a reference to the
mythological creatures (resembling or of the nature of a centaur) but in the
sometimes weird world of spiritualism it was defined as "characterized by
an integration of mind and body for consciousness above the ego-self"
(whatever that means).When the
adjective is used in SF (SciFi or science fiction) it's with an upper case if
referring to the residents or natives of the constellation Centaurus.The case difference matters because there no
reason why in SF half human, half-horse beasts can't be part of the ecosystem in
Centaurus and they would have to be described as Centauric centaurs.In fantasy fiction, a centauress was a female
centaur (a she-centaur) and the term centaurette has also been used; it does
not (as the -ette prefix might be thought to imply) mean a “a small centaur”.Presumably, a centauress, while possessing
the secondary sex characteristics of a human female could, anatomically, in the
hind quarters either colt, stallion, filly or mare so it could be helpful if
authors differentiated centauress & centaurette thus.
Centaurus, copperplate engraving by
Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611–1687) from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia (1687), his atlas of
constellations.In English, the southern
constellation of Centaurus has been so described since the 1550 but was known
by that name to the Romans and known as a centaur to the Greeks. The ninth largest constellation, visible in
the far southern sky in the months around March, since classical times, it has
been confused with Sagittarius.
Centaurus is one of two constellations said
to represent Centaurs and is associated primarily with Chiron (Cheiron), a
wise, immortal being who was King of the Centaurs and said to be a scholar and
prophet skilled in the healing arts.In
some of the myths, from his cave on Mount Pelion, he is said to have raised,
tutored, or counselled several figures prominent in Greek mythology, including
Jason, Heracles and Asclepius.Of Chiron's
association with the constellation, there are several tales.In one legend, Chiron was the first to
identify the constellations and teach them to mortal humans, placing an image
of himself in the sky to help guide Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece. A different story has Chiron was placed in the
sky by Zeus and of this telling there are variants but the most common element
is Chiron being accidentally wounded by a poisoned arrow and giving up his
immortality as a way to escape the never-ending pain.A twist on this has Chiron simply bored with
life and wanting it to be over and this came to the attention of Prometheus,
the Titan undergoing permanent torture for stealing fire from the gods to give
to humans. For Prometheus to be released
from his torture, an immortal had to volunteer to renounce eternal life and go
to Tartarus in his place. Someone (Zeus,
Heracles, or Chiron himself depending on the author) suggested Chiron's offer
be used to release Prometheus and for this Zeus honored Chiron with his place
in the sky.There’s even a tale in which
the constellation represents the Centaur Pholus, honoured thus by Zeus for his
skill in prophecy.
In astronomy, a
centaur is a small, icy celestial body orbiting the Sun in an in elliptical
paths, most tracking between Jupiter and Neptune, the name gained from them typically
having the characteristics of both asteroids and comets, the dual-nature the link
with the half-human, half-horse from mythology.Centaurs are considered transitional objects which may originally have
been Kuiper Belt Objects and often have unstable orbits due to gravitational
interactions with the giant planets.Orbiting mostly between 5.5-30 AU (an “astronomical unit the average
distance between the Earth and Sun (about 150 million km (93 million miles))
from the sun, such is the gravitational effect of the big planets that most
centaurs (which range in diameter between 100-400 km (60-250 miles) are
expected over millennia to be sent into the inner solar system or even ejected
into interstellar space.Astronomers
first became aware of the objects in 1977 with the discovery of Chiron but the
technology of the time didn’t permit the structure fully to be understood and
the body was thus initially classified both as a comet (95P/Chiron) and minor
planet.It was improvements in
observational hardware which demonstrated that while appearing as asteroids,
when closer to the sun the comet-like behavior of developing a coma or tail will
manifest.The largest known centaur is 10199/Chariklo.Listed as a minor planet, it orbits the Sun
between Saturn and Uranus and in 2014 it was announced it possessed two rings
(nicknamed Oiapoque and Chuí after the rivers that define Brazil's borders),
the existence confirmed by observing a stellar occultation.One implication of the rings is that it
likely also has at least one shepherd moon and infrared images indicate the Chariklo
is named after the nymph Chariclo (Χαρικλώ), the wife of Chiron and the
daughter of Apollo.
Front
(left) and rear (right) covers of the album Ride
a Rock Horse (1975) by The Who's
lead singer Roger Daltrey (b 1944).The
artwork was done by his cousin Graham Hughes who produced a number of album
covers during the 1970s.
Things
rarely were consistent in the evolution of the myths from Antiquity and the
mythical centaurs were described variously as being wholly equine from (human)
torso down or with the from parts of the legs also human, the latter a popular
depiction during the Medieval period while in Classical
era, they had four horses' hooves and two human arms. Living on raw flesh and inhabiting mountains
and forests, they were descended either from Centaurus (the son of Apollo &
Stilbe) or of Ixion & Nephele although the Centaurs Chiron and Pholus were
of a different descent lineage: Chiron was the son of Philyra
& Cronus while Pholus was fathered by Silenus and born of an unnamed Nymph;
what distinguished that pair was that unlike the other herds, they were
hospitable and non-violent.The cooking
of food being a marker of civilization, it was recorded that when Heracles was
hunting the Erymanthian boar, he visited Pholus who received him hospitably,
giving him cooked meat whereas Pholus himself ate exclusively raw food. When Heracles asked for wine, Pholus
told him that there was only one jar, which either belonged communally
to the Centaurs or had been a gift from Dionysus who had told them to open it
only if Heracles should be their guest. Telling his host not to be afraid, Pholus broke
the seal but when the Centaurs smelled the wine they galloped from the
mountains, armed with rocks, fir trees and torches to attack the cave. The first two Centaurs to attack were Anchius
and Agrius (killed by Heracles) but Pholus was killed in the aftermath of the fight:
while burying a fallen Centaur he drew one of Heracles' poisoned arrows from a
wound but it fell from his grasp, piercing his leg and almost instantly he
died.Heracles drove off the remaining Centaurs
and pursued them to Cape Malea where they took refuge with Chiron. In the ensuing battle Heracles shot Elatus in
the elbow, but Chiron either dropped one of Heracles' arrows on his foot or was
shot in the knee by Heracles. The wounds
of Heracles' arrows could not be healed and the immortal Chiron begged the gods
to make him mortal.It was Prometheus
agreed to take on his immortality, and Chiron died, leaving most of the Centaurs
to take refuge in Eleusis. Their mother
(Nephele) aided them by summoning a rain storm but that didn’t deter Heracles who
slaughtered a dozen including Daphnis, Argeius, Amphion, Hippotion, Oreius,
Ispoples, Melanchaetes, Thereus, Doupon, Phrixus & Homadus.
Wedding
reception gone bad: Rape of Hippodamia
(The Lapiths and the Centaurs) (1636-1637), oil on canvas by Peter Paul
Rubens (1577-1640), Museo Nacional del
Prado, Madrid, Spain.The painting
was one of a large cycle of mythologies by Rubens for the Torre de la Parada, Philip IV's (1605–1665; King of Spain 1621-1665
and (as Philip III) King of Portugal 1621-1640) newly built hunting lodge on
the outskirts of Madrid.One of Rubens’ oil
sketches for the work is on display at Musees
Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels, Belgium and is of interest
to art students and critics because of the detail differences in the final
composition.
The
Centaurs also fought a legendary battle against the Lapiths (a Thessalian people who originally
inhabited Pindus, Pelion and Ossa; they drove out the native people, the Pelasgians).Pirithous invited the Centaurs (who
regarded themselves as his parents) to his wedding feast and it went well
until, unaccustomed to the effects of wine, the Centaurs
became drunk and one of them tried to rape (in the classical sense of "abduction") Deidamia (Pirithous'
bride and more commonly known as Hippodamia), resulting in a violent brawl which ended with the Lapiths
driving the Centaurs out of Thessaly after killing many. Containing so many wonderful subjects
(Centaurs, a feast, a rape scene, a brawl), the disrupted wedding reception (which came to be known as “the Centauromachy”) for centuries drew artists to the theme.In Antiquity the Centaurs got a bad press because and they appear in
other appear in other legends involving rape, abductions and violence.In many ways the myths can be deconstructed
as violent soap operas with an undercurrent of licentiousness, typified by the
tales of Eurytion attempting to rape Hippolyta or Mnesimache, the daughter of
Dexamenus. In one
version Dexamenus had betrothed his daughter to Azan (an Arcadian) and Eurytion
(again as a guest at the wedding feast) attempted a kidnapping but was
saved by the hero Heracles arrived in time to kill him, returning
bride safely to groom.Most scribes were
member of the Heracles admiration society and there also the story of how Heracles,
on his way to Augias, seduced the girl, promising to marry her upon his
return.While he was away, forcibly she
was betrothed to Eurytion but just as the wedding ceremony was about to begin,
Heracles stormed in, killed the Centaur and had himself declared her husband.
1976
Chrysler Centura GL.Despite the visual
resemblance, the (optional) styled steel wheels were unrelated to those used on
Oldsmobiles between 1966-1987.
Whatever processes led to Chrysler Australia
adopting the name “Centura” for their local version of the European Chrysler
180 (1970-1982) may still exist in the corporation’s archives but it seems the
details have never been published though it can be assumed it was not an
Anglicized adaptation of the Romanian centură
(belt, girdle). In Latin centum meant "one hundred" and the term centuria referred to (1) a unit of the Roman army, nominally consisting of 100 soldiers (historians suggest in practice the establishments varied between 60-160) and headed by a centurion, (2) in real estate a unit of area, equal to 100 heredia or 200 iugera (circa 125 acres (50 hectares)), (3) a group of citizens eligible to vote, the system apparently one of the reforms introduced by Servius Tullius (king of Rome 578-535 BC) and based on the ownership of land, one of the many systems which, over millennia, have codified a relationship between ownership of property (usually land) with a right to in some way participate in the polity (usually by voting) and (4) figuratively or literally, things in some way related to "100". In modern Romance languages, things of course evolved: the Romanian centura (belt or girdle) was from the French ceinture (belt), from the Latin cinctura (girdle, belt), thus by extension used also to refer to the to beltways (ring roads) around cities. In Spanish & Portuguese, the related cintura (waist; belt) is from the same Latin root cingere (to gird; surround).
The name of the short-lived Chrysler Centura
(1975-1978) may have been an allusion to the Centaurs of myth because, like
them it had a dual nature, combining the platform of a European four-cylinder
with a much more powerful (and heavier) Australian built six.That had been a concept Holden (the
General Motors (GM) outpost) in 1969 introduced when they installed their
six-cylinder engine in a modified Vauxhall Viva and called it the Torana.It proved a great success and Ford Australia
in 1972 responded by fitting it’s even bigger sixes to the Cortina which, being
longer than the Viva, didn’t need the four inch (100 mm) odd stretch of the
wheelbase required for things (tightly) to fit in the Torana.Given the way local journalists would within
a few years decry the inherently unbalanced Cortina six, it is remarkable how
well the press received it upon debut.
1975
Chrysler Centura brochure shot (GL left; XL right).
Had the Centura been
released in 1973 as planned, it might have been a success but the timing was
unfortunate, the decision by the French government of Georges Pompidou
(1911–1974; President of France 1969-1974) to conduct tests of nuclear weapons
in its South Pacific territories causing the trade unions to blacklist French
goods arriving in ports (Australian trade unions in those days running an
independent foreign policy and the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions) a
kind of co-government).As a consequence,
it wasn’t until 1975 the Centura arrived in showrooms and by then the market
had moved on, competition rather more intense.Although the Centura offered class-leading performance (indeed, in a straight line
it could out-run some V8s) by virtue of its optional 4.0 litre (245
cubic inch) straight-six, increasingly buyers were more tempted by the
equipment levels and perceptions (sometimes true) of superior build quality and
economy of operation offered by vehicles with origins in the Far East.As it was, Chrysler in 1976 began local
production of the Japanese Mitsubishi Sigma and it proved a great success, even
without the six cylinder engine once thought such a selling point.Tellingly, although a prototype Centura with
the 5.2 litre (318 cubic inch) V8 was built, the project rapidly was abandoned.Officially, the explanation was the body
structure lacked the rigidity to come with the additional torque, the same
reason Ford never contemplated their V8 Cortina entering production; engineers
familiar with the structures of both platforms agree that was true of the
Cortina but maintain the Centura was robust enough and suspect both companies,
having observed the subdued demand for the V8 Holden Toranas (1974-1978)
decided Holden was welcome to its exclusive presence in the niche sector.Fewer than 20,000 Centuras were built during
its dismal three year run, a fraction of what was projected as its annual
production.
Stormy
Daniels (2019) by
Robert Crumb (b 1943).
It’s not known if than Donald Trump (b 1946; US
president 2017-2021 & since 2025) is a student of Greek mythology (stranger
things have happened) but he did provide us with his unique version of the half
horse, half human beast, labeling pornographic actress & director Stormy
Daniels (Stephanie Gregory Clifford; b 1979) “horse face”.In
May, 2024, the memorable phrase returned to the news as matters came before
court related to “hush money” allegedly paid to Ms Daniels (on behalf the of
the President) in exchange for her maintaining a silence about a certain “intimate
encounter” they had shared, their apparently brief tryst including
her spanking him on the butt with a rolled-up magazine featuring his picture on
the cover.Mr Trump denies not only the
spanking but the very encounter, claiming it never happened.To give a flavor of the proceedings, at one
point counsel asked Ms Daniels: “Am I correct in that you hate President Trump?”
to which she replied: “Yes.”No
ambiguity there and although not discussed in court, her attitude may not
wholly be unrelated to Mr Trump’s rather ungracious description of her as “horse face”.Really, President Trump should have been more
respectful towards a three-time winner of F.A.M.E.'s (Fans of Adult Media and
Entertainment) much coveted annual “Favorite
Breasts” award.
Death
of a Centaur (1912), oil on canvas by Arthur Lemon (1850–1912). For Lemon, the Centaur was what would now be called his "spirit animal" and the work was painted when he was close to death.
Born on the Isle of Mann,
Arthur Lemon spent his childhood in Rome before moving to California to work as
a cowboy; there he became a devotee of what he would call en plain air (by which he meant “an outdoor life”.Later he would return to Europe to study art
and for the rest of his life he would travel between Italy and England where
regularly he staged exhibitions at London's Royal Academy; his work most
associated with scenes of the Italian countryside and the daily lives of the
rural peasantry.Lemon's fine eye for
painting a Centaur was a thing of practice.He became close friends with English artist Henry Scott Tuke
(1858–1929), noted for his prolific output of works in the Impressionist
tradition focused on nude adolescent boys and during the 1880s the pair for a time
lived Florence where they “spent time sketching male nudes in the Italian sunshine.”
The Wooing of Daphnis (exhibited
1881), oil on canvas by Arthur Lemon.
Daphnis possessed the youthful beauty of the kind idealized by Tuke and
the many nymphs who so adored him. A
victim of that beauty, his life ended badly.
The artistic approach of Lemon and Tuke was interesting in that their
nude youths often were shown in a contemporary setting and in that they
differed from the many paintings and sculptures of Ancient Greek gods and mythological
which, historically, enabled an exploration of the male nude without upsetting
public decency; what Lemon and Tuke especially did was eroticise their young
subjects. From his time as a cowboy,
Lemon was well acquainted with the physicality of the horse and knew from his
studies that in Greek art Centaurs often were depicted as highly sexed figures;
being not wholly human, Centaurs could be treated as creatures able to ignore
the strict moral expectations of society and accordingly, formed their own
community. Lemon and Tuke in their own
ways noted this and both took the Centaur as something of a model although
while Lemon devoted much of his energy to painting horses, Tuke’s attention on
the nude male youth was an obsession and today, among sections of the gay
community, he’s a minor cult.