Ephemeral

Ephemeral (pronounced ih-fem-er-uhl)

(1) Lasting a very short time; short-lived; transitory.

(2) In biology, a short-lived organism (usually defined as a life-span less then twenty-four hours) as with some flowers, insects, and microscopic life.

(3) In geology, pertaining to a usually dry body of water which fills for brief periods during and after rain.

1560s: From the New Latin ephemerus from the Ancient Greek ἐφήμερος (ephḗmeros), the more common form of ἐφημέριος (ephēmérios) (of, for, or during the day, living or lasting but for a day, short-lived, temporary), the construct being ἐπί (epí) (on) + ἡμέρα (hēméra) (day).  Originally from the medicine of antiquity as a descriptor of diseases and life-spans (lasting but one day), the extended sense of "transitory" is from the 1630s.  The evocative phrase from the Medieval Latin, memento mori, translates as "remember that you will die".  Synonyms are: short-lived, fleeting, transitory, short, temporary, brief, fugitive, transient, volatile, episodic, evanescent, flitting, impermanent and fugacious.  Ephemeral is a noun & adjective, ephemerality is a noun, ephemerally is an adverb and ephemeric is an adjective; the noun plural is ephemerals.  An ephemeron (ephemera the plural) is "a temporary thing"

Ephemeral art

Ephemeral art, as a defined movement, dates from the work of the Fluxus group in the 1960s.  Originally a platform created to disseminate political messages and critiques of materialist capitalism, the genre developed from the merely ephemeral to the concept of auto-destructive art in which objects existed only for the purpose of their own destruction.  It was perhaps the purest and most original art of the high cold war.

Recreation of Gustav Metzger's auto-destructive installation (1960), exhibition Art and the Sixties: This was Tomorrow, Tate Gallery 2004.

John Sharkey (1936-2004) and Gustav Metzger (1926–2017) were most influential in the development of Auto-Destructive Art and best remembered for the Destruction in Art Symposium in 1966 although the first public demonstration of Metzger’s concepts was at the Temple Gallery, London, in June 1960.  Metzger preferred to describe auto-destructive art as “a public art for industrial societies” and for the installation used in 1960, he hid himself behind a pane of glass covered with a white nylon sheet.  As the exhibition began, he used a brush to apply a hydrochloric acid solution to the fabric and as the material dissolved, creating a swirling, glue-like coating on the glass, he slowly became visible through the holes.  The presentation also included waste in plastic bags and models for auto-destructive sculptures. The work was re-created in 2004 by the Tate Gallery for the exhibition Art and the Sixties: This was Tomorrow.

Table (circa 1958), one of Gustav Metzger’s non-ephemeral works.

Metzger’s had first discussed his concept of auto-destructive art in a manifesto issued in November 1959.  In this statement, he emphasized how the most robust, and apparently durable, mechanically-manufactured objects (and those in which he though society was vesting a dangerous faith) ultimately would degrade and eventually disappear, a process which humans might delay but not prevent.  A second volume of his manifesto followed the next March in which he elaborated, explaining that auto-destructive art existed to highlight society’s obsession with destruction and the damaging effects of machinery on human life.  Although he didn’t reference it, there were elements in the manifestos which echoed the warnings of the dangers inherent in an uncritical faith in technology made by Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) in his final address to the court at the end of the Nuremberg trial.  As well as carrying an anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist message, in the context of the early years of the Cold War the anti-nuclear tone of Metzger’s auto-destructive art was blatant.  His views never changed but, after taking the concept to a natural conclusion of public interest, his work assumed more conventional forms although the political agenda remained, addressing the troubles in Northern Ireland, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, terrorism and climate change.

Photographers can emulate ephemerality even without post-production editing by using light to "overwhelm" the focus: This is a three-frame spread of Lindsay Lohan being photographed at the point of photoflash.

Albert Speer and the permanence of the ephemeral

Nuremberg Rally, 1934.

Of all that was designed by Albert Speer (1905-1981; Hitler’s court architect 1934-1942), little was built and less remains.  Although he would later admit the monometalism of the Nazi architectural plans was a mistake, his apologia was always tinged with the regret that in the years to come, all he was likely to be remembered for was his “immaterial lightshow”, used as a dramatic backdrop for the party rallies held at the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg.  Compared with what, had things worked out, he’d have been able to render in steel, concrete, marble and granite, Lichtdom (cathedral of light) was of course ephemeral but it’s undeniably memorable.  Speer created the effect by placing the Luftwaffe’s (the German air force) entire stock (152) of 1500 mm (60 inch) searchlights around the stadium’s perimeter and maximized the exposure of the design by insisting as many events as possible be conducted in darkness, the other advantage being the lighting disguised the paunchiness of the assembled Nazis, many of whom were flabbier than the party’s lean, Nordic ideal, something which anyway was suspect, one joke spread by the famously cynical Berlin natives noting that empirically a better description of the Nazi ideal was "as blonde as Hitler, as fit as Göring, as tall as Goebbels and as sane as Hess".

Nuremberg Rally, 1936.

Few though were unimpressed by Lichdom.  Sir Neville Henderson (1882-1942; UK ambassador to Germany 1937-1939), the UK’s admittedly impressionable ambassador described the ethereal atmosphere as “…both solemn and beautiful… like being in a cathedral of ice.”  History though has preferred “cathedral of light” and brief views are captured in Hans Weidemann’s (1904-1975) Festliches Nürnberg (Festival of Nuremberg; a 1937 propaganda film chronicling the 1936 and 1937 events) which is mercifully shorter than Leni Riefenstahl’s (1902–2003) better-known works although the poor quality of the film stock used can only hint at the majesty achieved but the use of Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868) as a musical accompaniment helps.  Riefenstahl actually claimed she suggested the idea of the searchlights to Speer and a much better record exists in her film Olympia (1938) which documented the 1936 Summer Olympics at which the technique was also used.  Architects had of course for millennia been interested in light but apart from those responsible for the placement of stained glass windows and other specialties, mostly they were concerned with function rather than anything representational.  It was the advances the nineteenth century in the availability and luminosity of artificial light which allowed them to use light as an aesthetic element not limited by the time of day and thus the angle of the sun.

Speer had plenty of time to reflect on the past while serving the twenty years in Berlin’s Spandau prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity, a sentence he was lucky to receive.  His interest in light persisted and with unrestricted access to the FRG’s (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) technical libraries, he assembled close to a thousand pages of notes for a planned book on the history of the window in European buildings, musing on variables such as the cost and availability of glass at different times in different places, the shifting cost of the labor of glaziers & carpenters and market interventions such as England’s notorious “window tax” which resulted in some strange looking structures.  Ever drawn to the mathematics he’d in his youth intended to study until forced to follow his father into architecture, he pondered the calculations which might produce the changes in “what value a square meter of light had at different periods” and what this might reveal beyond the actual buildings.

It was a shame the book was never written.  He recalled also the effects he applied to the German pavilion he built for the Paris World’s Fair in 1937, bathing it at night with “…skilfully arranged spotlights.  The result was to make the architecture of the building emerge sharply outlined against the night, and at the same time to make it unreal... a combination of architecture and light.”  It was at the Paris event the German and Soviet pavilions sat directly opposed, something of a harbinger and deliberately so.  He was nostalgic too about the Lichtdom, thinking it recalled “a fabulous setting, like one of the imaginary crystal palaces of the Middle Ages” although wryly he would note history would remember his contributions to his profession only for the ephemeral, the “…idea that the most successful architectural creation of my life is a chimera, an immaterial phenomenon.”  Surprisingly, for someone who planned the great city of Germania (the planned re-building of Berlin) with its monumental structures, the news that all that remained in the city of his designs were a handful of lampposts (which stand to this day) seemed something almost amusing.  In all his post-war writings, although there’s much rejection as “a failure” of the plan of Germania and the rest of the “neo-Classical on a grand scale” which characterized Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) vision of representational architecture, it’s not hard to detect twinges of regret for the unbuilt and sometimes he admitted it.  As he was contemplating a return to the drawing board upon his impending release, he noted: “Although I have had enough of monumental architecture and turn my mind deliberately to utilitarian buildings, it sometimes comes hard for me to bid goodbye to my dreams of having a place in the history of architecture. How will I feel when I am asked to design a gymnasium, a relay station, or a department store after I planned the biggest domed hall in the world?  Hitler once said to my wife: ‘I am assigning tasks to your husband such as have not been given for four thousand years. He will erect buildings for eternity!’  And now gyms!”  As things transpired, not even a gym was built and he instead wrote his history in text.  Of that piece of curated architecture, some were fooled and some not.

Literal

Literal (pronounced lit-er-uhl)

(1) In accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical.

(2) Following the words of the original exactly.

(3) True to fact; not exaggerated; actual or factual; being actually such, without exaggeration or inaccuracy.

(4) Of, persons, tending to construe words in the strict sense or in an unimaginative way; matter-of-fact; prosaic.

(5) Of or relating to the letters of the alphabet (obsolete except for historic, technical or academic use); of or pertaining to the nature of letters.

(6) In language translation, as "literal translation", the precise meaning of a word or phrase as opposed to the actual meaning conveyed when used in another language. 

(7) A typographical error, especially involving a single letter (in technical use only).

(8) In English (and other common law jurisdictions) law, one of the rules of statutory construction and interpretation (also called the plain meaning rule).

(9) In computer science, a notation for representing a fixed value in source code.

(10) In mathematics, containing or using coefficients and constants represented by letters.

1350-1400: From the Middle English from the Late Latin literalis & litteralis (of or belonging to letters or writing) from the Classical Latin litera & littera (letter, alphabetic sign; literature, books).  The meaning "taking words in their natural meaning" (originally in reference to Scripture and opposed to mystical or allegorical), is from the Old French literal (again borrowed from the Latin literalis & litteralis).  In English, the original late fourteenth meaning was "taking words in their natural meaning" and was used in reference to the understanding of text in Scripture, distinguishing certain passages from those held to be mystical or allegorical.  The meaning "of or pertaining to the letters of the alphabet " emerged in English only in the late fifteenth century although that was the meaning of the root from antiquity, a fork of that sense being " verbally exact, according to the letter of verbal expression, attested from the 1590s and it evolved in conjunction with “the primary sense of a word or passage”.  The phrase “literal-minded” which can be loaded with negative, neutral or positive connotations, is noted from 1791.  Literal is a noun & adjective, literalize is a verb, literalistic is an adjective, literalist, literalization & literalism are nouns and literally is an adverb; the noun plural is literals.

The meaning "concerned with letters and learning, learned, scholarly" was known since the mid-fifteenth century but survives now only literary criticism and the small number of universities still using “letters” in the description of degree programmes.  The Bachelor of Letters (BLitt or LittB) was derived from the Latin Baccalaureus Litterarum or Litterarum Baccalaureus and historically was a second undergraduate degree (as opposed to a Masters or other post-graduate course) which students pursued to study a specialized field or some aspect of something of particular interest.  Once common, these degrees are now rare in the English-speaking world.  It was between 1895-1977 offered by the University of Oxford and was undertaken by many Rhodes Scholars, sometimes as an adjunct course, but has now been replaced by the MLitt (Master of Letters) which has a minimal coursework component.  When the BLitt was still on the books, Oxford would sometimes confer it as a sort of consolation prize, offering DPhil candidates whose submission had proved inadequate the option of taking a BLitt if the prospect of re-writing their thesis held no appeal.  Among the dons supervising the candidates, the verb "to BLitt" emerged, the classic form being: “he was BLitt-ed you know".

Oxford BLitt in light-blue hood, circa 1907, prior to the reallocation of the shades of blue during the 1920s.

Oxford's colorful academic gowns are a footnote in the history of fashion although influences either way are difficult to detect.  The regulations of 1895 required the new BLitt and the BSc (Bachelor of Science) were to wear the same dress as the existing B.C.L (Bachelor of Civil Law) and the BM (Bachelor of Medicine) and if there was a difference between the blues used for the BCL and the BM in 1895, the implicit "respectively" (actually then its Latin equivalent) would seem to suggest the BLitt was to use the same color hood as the BCL and the BSc to use the shade of the BM and that's certainly how it appears on many contemporary depictions.  Although in the surviving record the hues of blue would in the following decades vary somewhat (and the colors were formerly re-allocated during the 1920s, the BLitt moving to a more vivid rendition of light-blue), the BLitt, BSc and BCL hoods tended always to be brighter and the BM darker.  Whether it was artistic license or an aesthetic nudge, one painter in 1927 mixed something much lighter for the BLitt, a shade more neutral and hinting at a French grey but no other artist seems to have followed.  By 1957, the BLitt and BSc gowns had returned to the colors of the 1895 decree while the BCL and BM were now in mid-blue and that remained unchanged until 1977 when the BLitt and BSc were superseded by masters’ degrees, the new MSc and MLitt given a blue hood lined with the grey of the DLitt & DSc.

Oxford BM in mid-blue hood, circa 1905.

Quite how much the work of the artist can be regarding as an accurate record of a color as it appeared is of course dubious, influenced as it is the painter’s eye, ambient light and the angle at which it was observed.  Even the descriptions used by the artists in their notes suggest there was either some variation over the years (and that would not be unexpected given the differences in the dying processes between manufacturers) or the terms for colors meant different things to different painters: The Oxford BMus hood was noted as blue (1882 & 1934), mauve (1920), lilac (1923, 1924, 1927, 1935 & 1957), dark lilac (1948) and dark purple (1926).  With improvements in photographic reproduction and the greater standardization in the industrial processes used in dying, the post-war photographic record is more reliable and lilac seems a good description for the BM and “light blue” for the BLitt.

Over the moon: Lindsay Lohan (right) with mother Dina (left) and sister Aliana (centre) at a lunch to celebrate he pregnancy, New York, April 2023.

In March, her mother had been quoted as saying: “I’m literally over the moon. I’m so happy, I can’t stop smiling”.  The now seemingly endemic misuse of literal is not new, Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) noting errors in general use from as early as the 1820s and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has cited literary examples from the seventeenth century.  Interestingly, it appears objections emerged only in the early twentieth century which does suggest an additional meaning may have existed or at least been evolving before the grammar Nazis imposed their censorious ways.  The use is now so endemic in English and rarely causes confusion so the pedants really should give up their carping and some illustrious names have sinned:

“The land literally flowed with milk and honey.” (Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), Little Women (1868-1869)).

“…literally rolling in wealth…” (Mark Twain (1835-1910), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)).  In fairness this can be done because Disney had Scrooge McDuck (created 1947) do just that in his "money bin" but that wouldn't have been what Twain had in mind).  

“…Gatsby literally glowed.” (F Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940), The Great Gatsby (1925)).  Women (often when pregnant) actually are said "to glow" in the sense of their happiness being such that it seems "to radiate" from them and this may be what he wanted to convey but it's most unusual to use it of men.  It's anyway usually held to be a figurative radiation, not something literal.  

The literal rule in statutory interpretation in the UK & Commonwealth

Statute law is that set in place by a body vested with appropriate authority (typically a legislature) and maintained in written form.  In providing rulings involving these laws, courts in the common-law world (although in the US the evolution has been a little different) have developed a number of principles of statutory interpretation, the most fundamental of which is “the literal rule” (sometimes called the “plain meaning rule”).  It’s the basis of all court decisions involving statues, the judge looking just to the words written down, relying on their literal meaning without any attempt to impute or interpret meaning.  The process should ensure laws are made exclusively by legislators alone; those elected for the purpose, the basis of the constitutional theory being that it’s this which grants laws their legitimacy and thus the consent of those upon they’re imposed.  However, an application of the literal rule can result in consequences which are nonsensical, immoral or unjust but the theory is that will induce the legislature to correct whatever error in drafting was the cause; it not being the task of the court to alter a duly passed law; the judiciary must interpret and not attempt to remedy the law.

A judge in 1980 observed the British constitution “…is firmly based upon the separation of powers; parliament makes the laws, the judiciary interpret them.  When Parliament legislates to remedy what the majority of its members at the time perceive to be a defect… the role of the judiciary is confined to ascertaining from the words that parliament has approved as expressing its intention what that intention was, and to giving effect to it. Where the meaning of the statutory words is plain and unambiguous it is not for the judges to invent fancied ambiguities as an excuse for failing to give effect to its plain meaning because they themselves consider that the consequences of doing so would be inexpedient, or even unjust or immoral.”  So a judge should not depart from the literal meaning of words even if the outcome is unjust.  If they do, the will of parliament is contradicted.

However, some things were so absurd even the most black-letter-law judges (of which there were not a few) could see the problem.  What emerged was “the golden rule”, the operation of which a judge in 1857 explained by saying the “…grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to unless that would lead to some absurdity or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified so as to avoid the absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther.”  The golden rule thus operates to avoid an absurdity which an application of the literal rule might produce.

The golden rule was though deliberately limited in scope, able to be used only in examples of absurdity so extreme it would be a greater absurdity not to rectify.  Thus “the mischief rule” which with judges exercised rather more discretion within four principles, first mentioned in 1584 at a time when much new legislation was beginning to emerge to supersede the old common law which had evolved over centuries of customary practice.  Given the novelty of codified national law replacing what previously been administered with differences between regions, the need for some debugging was not unexpected, hence the four principles of the mischief rule: (1) What was the common law before this law?, (2) What was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide and thus necessitate this law?, (3) What remedy for the mischief and defect is in this law”, & (4) The role of the judge is to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief and advance the remedy.  The rule was intended to determine what mischief a statute was intended to correct and interpret the statute justly to avoid any mischief.

The mischief rule closes loopholes in the law while allowing them to evolve in what may be a changing environment but does permit an element of the retrospective and depends on the opinion and prejudices of the judge: an obvious infringement on the separation of powers protected by the strict application of literal rule.  So it is a trade-off, the literal rule the basic tool of statutory interpretation which should be deviated from only in those exceptional cases where its application would create an absurdity or something manifestly unjust.  This the golden rule allows while the mischief rule extends judicial discretion, dangerously some have said, permitting the refinement of law at the cost of increasing the role of the judges, a group where views and prejudices do vary.  From all this has evolved the debate about judicial activism.

Stunt

Stunt (pronounced stuhnt)

(1) To stop, slow down, or hinder the growth or development of; dwarf; arrested development.

(2) In botanical pathology, a disease of plants, characterized by a dwarfing or stunting of the plant.

(3) A performance displaying a person's skill or dexterity, as in athletics; feat.

(4) Any remarkable feat performed chiefly to attract attention.

1575-1585: From the dialectal stunt (stubborn, dwarfed), from the Middle English stont & stunt (short, brief), from the Old English stunt (stupid, foolish, simple (as in stuntspræc "foolish talk")), from the Proto-Germanic stuntaz (short, compact, stupid, dull).  It was cognate with the Middle High German stunz (short, blunt, stumpy) from the Proto-Germanic stuntaz (short, truncated), and the Old Norse stuttr (short in stature, dwarfed).  It was related also to the Old English styntan (to make dull, stupefy, become dull, repress).

The origin of the noun use of stunt is obscure although all agree it’s of US origin circa 1878 and some sources suggest it was originally college sports slang though without evidence of youthful coinage.  Links have been suggested to the Middle Low German stunt (a shoulder grip with which you throw someone on their back), a variant of the colloquial stump (dare, challenge) (1871), the German stunde (literally "hour") and the Middle English stunt (foolish; stupid) but no documentary evidence exists.  The noun in this sense certainly caught on, applied particularly to aerobatic display by aircraft and gained a new life when Youtube and its imitators provided a platform.  Stunt historically was a verb, the familiar noun a later form, the earlier noun was stuntedness, the adverb is stuntingly and the adjectives stunty & stunted.

The most physically demanding (and dangerous) part of Lindsay Lohan’s impressive leap into a Triumph TR4 in Irish Wish was undertaken by a body double (the young lady in this case deserving the “stunt-double” title).

Ready to leap: Lindsay Lohan with stunt double Aoife Bailey (b 1999).

Lindsay Lohan's Netflix movie Irish Wish (2024) was said by Irish reviewers to be "a mix of Leap Year meets Just My Luck meets Freaky Friday in which Lohan stars as quiet book editor Maddie Kelly, who embarks on a journey to find love by learning to love herself first."  Like Irish Wish, Leap Year (2010) was filmed in Ireland but unlike 2010, 2024 was a leap year.  IMCDB’s (Internet Movie Cars Database) comprehensive site confirmed the Triumph TR4 was registered in Ireland (ZV5660, VIN:STC65CT17130C) as running the 2.1 litre version (17130C) of the engine.  The Triumph 2.1 is sometimes listed as a 2.2 because, despite an actual displacement of 2138 cm³; in some places the math orthodoxy is ignored and a "round up" rule applied, something done usually in jurisdictions which use displacement-based taxation or registration regimes, the "rounding up" sometimes having the effect of "pushing" a vehicle into a category which attracts a higher rate.  Those buying a TR4 for use in competitions with a 2.0 litre limit could specify the smaller unit from the factory but being based on a tractor engine (!) and thus fitted with wet-cylinder liners, “sleeving” a 2.1 back to 2.0 wasn’t difficult.  The lack of the "IRS" (independent rear suspension) badge on the trunk (boot) lid indicates the use of the live rear axle and that detail was of no significance in the plot although, given the leap scene, a convertible of some sort would have been required.  Although on the road the IRS delivered a smoother ride, those using TR4s in competition usually preferred the live rear-axle because it made the car easier to steer “with the throttle”.

Lindsay Lohan's (left) stunt double in Falling for Christmas (2022) was needed for the skiing scenes, the role taken by Rian Zetzer (b 1996, right), a Salt Lake City-based former competitive mogul skier and sponsored free-skier.

In film & television production, the terms "stunt double" & "body double" are sometimes used interchangeably but by convention they describe different roles.  The classic stunt double is engaged to perform those parts of the script which call upon an actor to do something especially physically demanding which typically requires special skills and may involve some risk; there there has been an injury toll among stunt doubles with deaths are not unknown.  The term body double is usually used of those engaged (1) to appear in scenes in which an actor wishes not to appear (such as those involving nudity) or (2) to permit something to be filmed which would otherwise defy the laws of nature (such as an actor having a conversation with themselves).  Advances in technology mean the laws of nature now are little obstacle to the impossible being depicted but many actors still have "no-nudity" clauses in contracts although the profession is now much concerned the combination of digital editing and artificial intelligence (AI) will soon render even all this obsolete.  Actually, at the technical level, flesh & blood actors might soon be (and technically, partially already are) obsolete but their hope is audiences will continue to demand real people playing the parts.  Time will tell but it's of note the actors, screen-writers and such who are protesting about "machines taking their jobs", have for decades contentedly been paying lower prices for cars, computers and many other products assembled substantially by the robots which displaced the people once employed to do the job.

The Cunning Stunts (1977-1982)

Feminist theatre, although with identifiable roots in the Weimar Republic (Germany: 1918-1933), came to be recognized, theorized, and practiced during the 1970s in the wake of second-wave feminism.  Although it encompassed diverse theatrical work, it’s always been most associated with the overtly political, a movement motivated by the recognition of and resistance to women’s marginalization within social and cultural systems that reinforce male privilege and dominance.  In this it acted out a resistance to mainstream, male-dominated theatre culture and revived long-neglected works and performances by women from the dramatic texts of Hrotsvitha (circa 935–973), plays by Restoration playwrights such as Aphra Behn (1640–1689), Mary Pix (1666–1709) & Susanna Centlivre (circa 1669-1723) and dramas by the Edwardian activists most interested in suffrage, Elizabeth Baker (1876–1962), Cicely Mary Hamilton (1872–1952), Elizabeth Robins (1862–1952), & Katherine Githa Sowerby (1876–1970).

What emerged from the second wave came largely to be defined by three types of feminism: bourgeois/liberal, radical/cultural & socialist/materialist.  Critics treated the three in a hierarchical construct of respectability, bourgeois/liberal feminism treated as politically the weakest given it neither endorsed radical feminism’s desire to overthrow patriarchy in favor of women’s social, cultural and sexual empowerment, nor advocated the radical transformation of society’s economic, political and social structures as socialist/materialist feminism did.  Each dynamic had its aesthetic counterpart: bourgeois/liberal feminism remained attached to conventional realistic forms, but sought a greater role for women within the confines of traditional dramatic writing; radical/cultural feminism, heavily influenced by French theorists, explored a women’s language; socialist/materialist feminism found its aesthetic in the Brechtian legacies of presentational forms, techniques and performance registers.

In this milieu, the debut in London in 1977 of the feminist performance collective Cunning Stunts was unexpected.  Neither overtly nor even identifiably political, they were something of a reaction to feminist theatre itself, the members noting feminist “alternative theatre” had become elitist and they wanted a more accessible and spontaneous performer’s platform rather than a writer’s or director’s theatre, one which not only displayed the absurdity of male behavior but presented women being funny, flouting the prevailing glamorous image of women as entertainers.  The shows were musical, visual, highly energetic and existed mostly to offer fun rather than any political or cultural critique although later productions, such as Opera, said to use their “…versions of archetypal symbols and mythological characters drawn from astrology, matriarchal societies… to express the experiences of living as wimin (sic) in a male strangulated world” did suggest other agendas remained of interest.

Suffering the internal conflicts perhaps endemic to collectives, the Cunning Stunts dissolved in 1982, having seemingly worked their concept dry.  In the UK, much alternative theatre didn’t survive the 1980s, the administration of Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) dismantling many of the often left-wing local authorities which had provided a substantial proportion of the funding.

Squiffy

Squiffy (pronounced skwiff-e)

An informal term describing someone somewhere on the spectrum of drunkenness, now used mostly of mild yet obvious intoxication.

Late 1800s: Based on the surname Asquith and coined because of habit of Herbert Henry Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime-minister 1908-1916) in appearing in the House of Commons, visibly affected by alcohol.  From this he earned (and richly deserved) the sobriquet “Squiffy".  Squiffy, squiffier, squiffiest & squiffed are adjectives, squiffiness & Squiffite are nouns and squiffily is an adverb; historically, the the most common noun plural was Squiffites.  The concocted noun squiffinessness is wholly jocular and sometimes appropriate. 

HH Asquith was brought up in a provincial household in the puritan tradition where alcohol was rarely served but, after a second marriage in which he took a socialite wife and began to move in the circles of London’s glittering society, his fondness grew for fine wines and spirits.  These tastes he took with him when he entered parliament in 1885 and his assumption of the premiership two decades later did little to diminish his thirst.

Henry & Venita.

Nor did it seem to affect his vitality.  In his early sixties he became quite besotted with Venetia Stanley (1887-1948), the twenty-five year old best friend of his daughter and between 1912-1915 he would spend much time in cabinet writing her love letters.  One would have thought a British prime-minister might have much else on his mind in during these years, but “old squiffy” seemed to fit it all in, Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923; UK prime-minister 1922-1923) admitting at the time that Asquith “when drunk could make a better speech than any of us sober”.  Sometimes though, even for him, it proved too much.  After one very long lunch left him more than usually squiffy, he fell asleep in the house, unable to be roused to speak in support of his bill dealing with the Church of Wales, leaving its carriage to the postmaster general Herbert Samuel (1870–1963) and attorney-general Sir Rufus Isaacs (1860–1935).  It prompted Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK prime-minister 1902-1905) to assure the good people of the Welsh Church that all would be well because the matters were in the hands of “…one drunken Christian and two sober Jews.”  The laws of of the nation have since sometimes been in less capable hands. 

Anti-squiffiness device: Lindsay Lohan wearing one of AMS's (Alcohol Monitoring Systems) SCRAMs (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring).

He led the government for eight-odd years, his first cabinet in 1908 probably the most lustrous of the century and his fall from office probably little to do with alcohol, his character simply not suited to lead a government during wartime.  In subsequent years, he retained a following that became a faction of the Liberal Party and which would be a notable factor in British politics; they were called the Squiffites, a formation easier on the tongue than Asquithite.  English has a rich vocabulary of synonyms for drunk including buzzed, inebriated, laced, lit, magoted, muddled, pissed, plastered, potted, sloshed, shit-faced, squiffy, stewed, tanked, tipsy, totaled, wasted, boozed, groggy, juiced, liquored, tight, under the influence & under-the-table; not all are used in every country and some overlap with descriptions of the effects of other drugs but it’s an impressively long list.  One interesting aspect of the use of squiffy is that it tends to be used with a modifier: the practice being to say “a bit squiffy” or “a little bit squiffy” and it seems now more applied to women.

There may on 4 August 2021 have been some sort of equipment malfunction somewhere in the apparatus used to record and broadcast parliamentary questions from the Australian House of Representatives because many viewers concluded the deputy prime-minister was a bit squiffy.  Question time is held at 2pm (just after lunch).  One constituent wrote to the speaker’s office to enquire and received an assurance from a staff member it’s not possible for a member to appear in the house while squiffy.  Her prompt response was helpful.

The Hon Barnaby Joyce MP (b 1967; thrice deputy prime-minister of Australia, 2016-date (the gaps due to "local difficulties")), House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia, 4 August 2021.  For observers of Mr Joyce who may be searching for the right word, when one is obviously affected by squiffiness, one may be said to be squiffed or squiffy; the comparative being squiffier and the superlative squiffiest.

Acnestis

Acnestis (pronounced ak-nees-tis)

(1) In zoology, the area of skin on the part of the back between the shoulder blades and the loins which an animal cannot reach to scratch.

(2) By extension, in humans, much the same thing.

1700s: From the Late Latin acnestis, the from Koine Greek ἄκνηστις (áknēstis) (spine), from κνῆστις (knêstis) (spine, cheese-grater).  There are theories it may have been as construct of ἀ- (a-) + -κναίειν (-knaíein) (grate, scrape, scratch) (only attested in compounds) or from an incorrect segmentation of κατὰ κνῆστιν (katà knêstin) (on the spine) (based on translations of Homer’s Odyssey), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European kneh.  Acnestis is a noun; the noun plural is acnestises.

#Freckles: The acnestis area on Lindsay Lohan’s back.

Based on the earliest known texts in which the word appears, it was defined as: “That part of the spine of the back, which reaches from the metaphrenon, [then used to describe the areas between the shoulder blades] and the loins” and use was limited only to “those quadrupeds unable to reach it to scratch”.  The word has been used figuratively of political problems which are persistent & troubling yet we seem to lack the means to solve; they remain thus intractable: “In what has to be the longest post-election season in living memory, the last five months have felt like an acnestis upon our collective soul; like that little patch of skin on our backs that we just can't reach to scratch ourselves.  It's irritating.  It's annoying.  It's left us reaching and spinning around in circles.”  (A Wish List to Soothe Our Collective Itch, New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 5 August 2008.

It’s a linguistic curiosity that few dictionaries bother to list acnestis yet “back scratchers” seem to have been part of the domestic inventory of humans for about as long as the reliable archaeological record extends.  The conscientious Oxford English Dictionary (OED) includes an entry while noting it is “rare in genuine use” and that’s presumably always been the case even among zoologists.  It’s another of those words which has gained a (sort-of) niche in the internet age as lists of strange, obscure or unusual words have proliferated.  However, if acnestis never became a fashionable word, the ongoing popularity of back-scratchers (whether designed for the purpose or improvised from whatever fell to hand) confirms the condition remains endemic and in one episode of the the television cartoon series The Simpsons, Mr Burns (evil owner of the nuclear power-plant) lamented that because of an act of embezzlement by Homer Simpson (who needed the money for a proprietary baldness cure), he couldn’t afford to buy “the ivory back-scratcher” he desired.

A back-scratcher of nielloed steel and silver with gold inlaid, dating from circa 1601-1625 from the Mughal dynasty who ruled the Mughal Empire (circa 1526-1857).

It’s thought to have been crafted in Bidar, India using a method called “bidri”, a metal-working technique unique to India in which objects were fabricated from an alloy (95% zinc; 5% copper), colored a rich matt black and inlaid with silver.  The name Bidri is from the Deccani city of Bidar where the process is thought to have originated.  The back-scratcher has jeweled mounts while the be-ringed hand and the Makara (from the Sanskrit मकर and Romanized as Makara, a legendary sea-creature in Hindu mythology which, in Hindu astrology, is equivalent to the zodiac sign Capricorn) head unscrews to reveal sharp blades.  During the nineteenth century, it was exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries and at the Archaeological Society and the unusual nature of the design induced lively debates about its function.  There was speculation it may have been a pointer used with holy manuscripts but most have concluded it was a back-scratcher for some rich or eminent person.

It’s now on permanent exhibition at the British Museum and the institution provides curatorial notes: “The object was dis-assembled (each terminal unscrewed to reveal a short flat pointed tool (dragon head terminal) and a longer chamfered blade (hand terminal).  The steel tool and blade were cleaned with acetone.  The object overall was cleaned using cotton wool swabs dipped in Silvo.  Cotton wool swabs dampened in White Spirit and then acetone were used to remove any traces of Silvo and to complete cleaning and degreasing of the surface.  Some areas of firestain remain”.  In the periodic conservation cleaning, the method uses Silvo copper polish, acetone propan-1-one & dimethyl ketone, white spirit composition & petroleum distillate.

Bear solves acnestis issue.

Obsolete & Obsolescent

Obsolete (pronounced ob-suh-leet)

(1) No longer in general use; fallen into disuse; that is no longer practiced or used, out of date, gone out of use, of a discarded type; outmoded.

(2) Of a linguistic form, no longer in use, especially if out of use for at least the past century.

(3) Effaced by wearing down or away (rare).

(4) In biology, imperfectly developed or rudimentary in comparison with the corresponding character in other individuals, as of a different sex or of a related species; of parts or organs, vestigial; rudimentary.

(5) To make obsolete by replacing with something newer or better; to antiquate (rare).

1570–1580: From the Latin obsolētus (grown old; worn out), past participle of obsolēscere (to fall into disuse, be forgotten about, become tarnished), the construct assumed to be ob- (opposite to) (from the Latin ob- (facing), a combining prefix found in verbs of Latin origin) + sol(ēre) (to be used to; to be accustomed to) + -ēscere (–esce) (the inchoative suffix, a form of -ēscō (I become)).  It was used to form verbs from nouns, following the pattern of verbs derived from Latin verbs ending in –ēscō).  Obsoletely is an adverb, obsoleteness is a noun and the verbs (used with object), are obsoleted & obsoleting; Although it does exist, except when it’s essential to covey a technical distinction, the noun obsoleteness is hardly ever used, obsolescence standing as the noun form for both obsolete and obsolescent.  The verb obsolesce (fall into disuse, grow obsolete) dates from 1801 and is as rare now as it was then.

Although not always exactly synonymous, in general use, archaic and obsolete are often used interchangeably.  However, dictionaries maintain a distinction: words (and meanings) not in widespread use since English began to assume its recognizably modern form in the mid-1700s, are labeled “obsolete”.  Words and meanings which, while from Modern English, have long fallen from use are labeled “archaic” and those now seen only very infrequently (and then in often in specialized, technical applications), are labeled “rare”.

Obsolescent (promounced ob-suh-les-uhnt)

(1) Becoming obsolete; passing out of use (as a word or meaning).

(2) Becoming outdated or outmoded, as applied to machinery, weapons systems, electronics, legislation etc.

(3) In biology, gradually disappearing or imperfectly developed, as vestigial organs.

1745–1755: From the Latin obsolēscentum, from obsolēscēns, present participle of obsolēscere (to fall into disuse); the third-person plural future active indicative of obsolēscō (degrade, soil, sully, stain, defile).  Obsolescently is an adverb and obsolescence a noun.  Because things that are obsolescent are becoming obsolete, the sometimes heard phrase “becoming obsolescent” is redundant.  The sense "state or process of gradually falling into disuse; becoming obsolete" entered general use in 1809 and although most associated with critiques by certain economists in the 1950s, the phrase “planned obsolescence was coined” was coined in 1932, the 1950s use a revival.

Things that are obsolete are those no longer in general use because (1) they have been replaced, (2) the activity for which they were designed is no longer undertaken.  Thing that are considered obsolescent are things still to some extent in use but are for whatever combination of reasons, are tending towards becoming obsolete.  in fading from general use and soon to become obsolete. For example, the Windows XP operating system (released in 2001) is not obsolete because some still use it, but it is obsolescent because, presumably it will in the years ahead fall from use.

Ex-Royal Air Force (RAF) Hawker Hunter in Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) livery; between 1963-2002 twenty-six Hunters were at different times operated by the AFZ.  Declared obsolete as an interceptor by the RAF in 1963, some Hunters were re-deployed to tactical reconnaissance, ground-attack and close air support roles before being retired from front-line service in 1970.  Some were retained as trainers while many were sold to foreign air forces including India, Pakistan and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe since 1980).

Despite the apparent simplicity of the definition, in use, obsolescent is highly nuanced and much influenced by context.  It’s long been a favorite word in senior military circles; although notorious hoarders, generals and admirals are usually anxious to label equipment as obsolescent if there’s a whiff of hope the money might to forthcoming to replace it with something new.  One often unexplored aspect of the international arms trade is that of used equipment, often declared obsolescent by the military in one state and purchased by that of another, a transaction often useful to both parties.  The threat profile against which a military prepares varies between nations and equipment which genuinely has been rendered obsolescent for one country may be a valuable addition to the matériel of others and go on enjoy an operational life of decades.  Well into the twentieth-first century, WWII & Cold War-era aircraft, warships, tanks and other weapon-systems declared obsolescent and on-sold (and in some cases given as foreign aid or specific military support) by big-budget militaries remain a prominent part of the inventories of many smaller nations.  That’s one context, another hinges on the specific-tasking of materiel; an aircraft declared obsolescent as a bomber could go on long to fulfil a valuable role as in transport or tug.

In software, obsolescence is so vague a concept the conventional definition really isn’t helpful.  Many software users suffer severe cases of versionitis (a syndrome in which they suffer a sometimes visceral reaction to using anything but the latest version of something) so obsolescence to them seems an almost constant curse.  The condition tends gradually to diminish in severity and in many cases the symptoms actually invert: after sufficient ghastly experiences with new versions, versionitis begins instead to manifest as a morbid fear of every upgrading anything.  Around the planet, obsolescent and obsolete software has for decades proliferated and there’s little doubt this will continue, the Y2K bug which prompted much rectification work on the ancient code riddling the world of the main-frames and other places unlikely to be the last great panic (one is said to be next due in 2029).  The manufacturers too have layers to their declaration of the obsolete.  In 2001, Microsoft advised all legacy versions of MS-DOS (the brutish and now forty year old file-loader) were obsolete but, with a change of release number, still offer what's functionally the same MS-DOS for anyone needing a small operating system with minimal demands on memory size & CPU specification, mostly those who use embedded controllers, a real attraction being the ability easily to address just about any compatible hardware, a convenience more modern OSs have long restricted.  DOS does still have attractions for many, the long-ago derided 640 kb actually a generous memory space for many of the internal processes of machines and it's an operating system with no known bugs.  

XTree’s original default color scheme; things were different in the 1980s.

Also, obsolescent, obsolete or not, sometimes the old ways are the best.  In 1985, Underware Sytems (later the now defunct Executive Systems (EIS)) released a product called XTree, the first commercially available software which provided users a visual depiction of the file system, arranged using a root-branch tree metaphor.  Within that display, it was possible to do most file-handling such as copying, moving, re-naming, deleting and so on.  Version 1.0 was issued as a single, 35 kb executable file, supplied usually on a 5.25" floppy diskette and although it didn’t do anything which couldn’t (eventually) be achieved using just DOS, XTree made it easy and fast; reviewers, never the most easily impressed bunch, were effusive in their praise.  Millions agreed and bought the product which went through a number of upgrades until by 1993, XTreeGold 3.0 had grown to a feature-packed three megabytes but, and it was a crucial part of the charm, the user interface didn’t change and anyone migrating from v1 to v3 could carry on as before, using or ignoring the new functions as they choose.

However, with the release in 1990 of Microsoft’s Windows 3.0, the universe shifted and while it was still an unstable environment, it was obvious things would improve and EIS, now called the XTree Company, devoted huge resources to producing a Windows version of their eponymous product, making the crucial decision that when adopting the Windows-style graphical user interface (GUI), the XTree keyboard shortcuts would be abandoned.  This mean the user interface was something that looked not greatly different to the Windows in-built file manager and bore no resemblance to the even then quirky but marvelously lucid one which had served so well.  XTree for Windows was a critical and financial disaster and in 1993 the company was sold to rival Central Point Software, themselves soon to have their own problems, swallowed a year later by Symantec which, in a series of strategic acquisitions, soon assumed an almost hegemonic control of the market for Windows utilities.  Elements of XTree were interpolated into other Symantec products but as a separate line, it was allowed to die.  In 1998, Symantec officially deleted the product but the announcement was barely noted by the millions of users who continued to use the text-based XTree which ran happily under newer versions of Windows although, being a real-time program and thus living in a small memory space, as disks grew and file counts rose, walls were sometimes hit, some work-arounds possible but kludgy.  The attraction of the unique XTree was however undiminished and an independent developer built ZTree, using the classic interface but coded to run on both IBM’s OS/2 and the later flavors of Windows.  Without the constraints of the old real-time memory architecture, ZTree could handle long file and directory names, megalomaniacs now able to log an unlimited number of disks and files, all while using the same, lightning-fast interface.  The idea spread to UNIX where ytree, XTC, linuXtree and (most notably), UnixTree were made available.

ZTree, for those who can remember how things used to be done.

ZTree remains a brute-force favorite for many techs.  Most don’t often need to do those tasks at which it excels but, when those big-scale needs arise, as a file handler, ZTree still can do what nothing else can.  It’ll also do what’s now small-scale stuff; anyone still running XTree 1.0 under MS-DOS 2.11 on their 8088 could walk to some multi-core 64-bit monster with 64 GB RAM running Windows 11 and happily use ZTree.  ZTree is one of the industry’s longest-running user interfaces.

The Centennial Light, Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department, Livermore, California.  Illuminated almost continuously since 1901, it’s said to be the world's longest-lasting light bulb.  The light bulb business became associated with the idea of planned obsolescence after the revelation of the existence of a cartel of manufacturers which had conspired to more than halve the service life of bulbs in order to stimulate sales.

As early as 1924, executives in US industry had been discussing the idea of integrating planned obsolescence into their systems of production and distribution although it was then referred to with other phrases.  The idea essentially was that in the industrial age, modern mercantile capitalism was so efficient in its ability to produce goods that it would tend to over-produce, beyond the ability to stimulate demand.  The result would be a glut, a collapse in prices and a recession or depression which affected the whole society, a contributing factor to what even then was known as the boom & bust economy.  One approach was that of the planned economy whereby government would regulate production and maintain employment and wages at the levels required to maintain some degree of equilibrium between supply and demand but such socialistic notions were anathematic to industrialists.  Their preference was to reduce the lifespan of goods to the point which matched the productive capacity and product-cycles of industry, thereby ensuring a constant churn.  Then, as now, there were those for and against, the salesmen delighted, the engineers appalled.

The actual phrase seems first to have been used in the pamphlet Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence, published in 1932 by US real estate broker (and confessed Freemason) Bernard London (b circa 1873) but it wasn’t popularized until the 1950s.  Then, it began as a casual description of the techniques used in advertising to stimulate demand and thus without the negative connotations which would attach when it became part of the critique of materialism, consumerism and the consequential environmental destruction.  There had been earlier ideas about the need for a hyper-consumptive culture to service a system designed inherently to increase production and thus create endless economic growth: one post-war industrialist noted the way to “avoid gluts was to create a nation of gluttons” and exporting this model underlies the early US enthusiasm for globalism.  As some of the implications of that became apparent, globalization clearly not the Americanization promised, enthusiasm became more restrained.

Betamax and VHS: from dominant to obsolescent to obsolete; the DVD may follow.

Although the trend began in the United States in the late 1950s, it was in the 1970s that the churn rate in consumer electronics began to accelerate, something accounted for partly by the reducing costs as mass-production in the Far East ramped up but also the increasing rapidity with which technologies came and went.  The classic example of the era was the so-called videotape format war which began in the mid 1970s after the Betamax (usually clipped to Beta) and Video Home System (VHS) formats were introduced with a year of each other.  Both systems were systems by which analog recordings of video and audio content cold be distributed on magnetic tapes which loaded into players with a cassette (the players, regardless of format soon known universally as video cassette recorders (VCR).  The nerds soon pronounced Betamax the superior format because of superior quality of playback and commercial operators agreed with it quickly adopted as the default standard in television studios.  Consumers however came to prefer VHS because, on most of the screens on which most played their tapes, the difference between the two was marginal and the VHS format permitted longer recording times (an important thing in the era) and the hardware was soon available at sometimes half the cost of Betamax units.

It was essentially the same story which unfolded a generation later in the bus and operating systems wars; the early advantages of OS/2 over Windows and Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) over ISA/EISA both real and understood but few were prepared to pay the steep additional cost for advantages which seemed so slight and at the same time brought problems of their own.  Quite when Betamax became obsolescent varied between markets but except for a handful of specialists, by the late 1980s it was obsolete and the flow of new content had almost evaporated.  VHS prevailed but its dominance was short-lived, the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) released in 1997 which within half a decade was the preferred format throughout the Western world although in some other markets, the thriving secondary market suggests even today the use of VCRs is not uncommon.  DVD sales though peaked in 2006 and have since dropped by some 80%, their market-share cannibalized not by the newer Blu-Ray format (which never achieved critical mass) but by the various methods (downloads & streaming) which meant many users were able wholly to abandon removable media.  Despite that, the industry seems still to think the DVD has a niche and it may for some time resist obsolescence because demand still exists for content on a physical object at a level it remains profitable to service.  Opinions differ about the long-term.  History suggests that as the “DVD generation” dies off, the format will fade away as those used to entirely weightless content available any time, in any place won’t want the hassle but, as the unexpected revival of vinyl records as a lucrative niche proved, obsolete technology can have its own charm which is why a small industry now exists to retro-fit manual gearboxes into modern Ferraris, replacing technically superior automatic transmissions.