Atlas

Atlas (pronounced at-luhs (U) or At-lass (non-U))

(1) A bound collection of maps, named after the Greek god. Since the sixteenth century, pictures of Atlas and his burden have been used as decorations on maps.

(2) A detailed visual conspectus of something of great and multi-faceted complexity, with its elements splayed so as to be presented in as discrete a manner as possible whilst retaining a realistic view of the whole.  Most associated with anatomy, especially of the human body, it’s long been used to describe detailed collections of drawings, diagrams etc of any subject.

(3) In anatomy, the top or first cervical vertebra of the neck, supporting the skull and articulating with the occipital bone and rotating around the dens of the axis.

(4) In stationery, a size of drawing or writing paper, 26 × 33 or 34 inches (660 x 838 or 864 mm); in some markets sold in a 26 x 17 inch (660 x 432 mm) form.

(5) In architecture, a sculptural figure of a man used as a column; also called a telamon (plural telamones or telamons) or atlant, atlante & atlantid (plural atlantes).

(6) A mountain range in north-west Africa.

(7) In classical mythology, a Titan, son of Iapetus and brother of Prometheus and Epimetheus, condemned for eternity to support the sky on his shoulders as punishment for rebelling against Zeus: identified by the ancients with the Atlas Mountains.

(8) A very strong person or who supports a heavy burden; a mainstay.

(9) In rocketry, a liquid-propellant booster rocket, originally developed as the first US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), used with Agena or Centaur upper stages to launch satellites into orbit around the earth and send probes to the moon and planets; also used to launch the Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit.

(9) in military use (US rocketry) & astronautics, the SM-65, an early ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile), re-purposed as the launch platform for orbital vehicles (satellites) and later used with Agena or Centaur upper stages to send probes to the moon and planets; also used to launch the Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit.

(10) In astronomy, a small satellite of Saturn, discovered in 1980.

(11) In astronomy, a crater in the last quadrant of the moon.

(12) In astronomy, a triple star system in the Pleiades open cluster (M45) also known as 27 Tauri.

(13) In psychiatry, as Atlas personality, a term used to describe the personality of someone whose childhood was characterized by excessive responsibilities.

(14) As the ERA Atlas, the original name for the UNIVAC 1101 computer, released in 1950.

(15) In differential geometry & topology, a family of coordinate charts that cover a manifold.

(16) A rich satin fabric (archaic).

1580-1590: From the Latin Atlas, from the name of the Ancient Greek mythological figure Ἄτλας (Átlas) (Bearer (of the Heavens)), from τλῆναι (tlênai) (to suffer; to endure; to bear).  The traditional translation of the Greek name as "The Bearer (of the Heavens)" comes from it construct: a- (the copulative prefix) + the stem of tlenai (to bear), from the primitive Indo-European root tele- (to lift, support, weigh) but some etymologists suggest the Berber adrar (mountain) as a source and argues it’s at least plausible that the Greek name is a "folk-etymological reshaping" of this. Mount Atlas, in (then) Mauritania, featured in the cosmology of Ancient Greece as a support of the heavens.  Atlas had originally been the name of an Arcadian mountain god before being transferred to the mountain chain.  In Arabic script atlas was أَطْلَس‎ and Atlas Mountains جِبَال ٱلْأَطْلَس, Romanized as jibāl al-ʾaṭlas.  The Atlas mountain range lies in north-west Africa and separates the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara.  The noun plural is atlases for the collection of maps and atlantes for the architectural feature.  Atlas is a noun and atlas-like is an adjective; the noun plural is atlases.  When used as a proper noun to refer to the figure of mythology, it's with an initial capital.

The first use of the word atlas (in English translation) in the sense of a "collection of maps in a volume" is thought to have the 1636 edition of the 1595 Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura (Atlas or cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created) by Flemish geographer & cartographer Gerhardus Mercator (1512-1594).  An impression of the Titan Atlas holding the globe was imprinted on the frontispiece and many subsequent atlases followed, creating a tradition which has endured until today. Mercator died prior to publication of the atlas, the first edition of which he had already largely complied and assembled; the final editing was undertaken by his son who would also pursue a career in cartography.

The adjective (resembling or pertaining to Atlas) was atlantean which from 1852 extended to “pertaining to Atlantis".  The mythical island (even sometimes a continent) become widely known in Europe only after circa 1600 after translations of Plato’s Timaeus and Critias (both written circa 360 BC) became available.  Even then, like some previous medieval scholars who knew the texts, many thought regarding Plato as a historian as dubious and considered Atlantis entirely an invention, a device used to illustrate a political cautionary tale.  Still, given a long history of earthquakes and sea-level rise since the last peak of the ice-age (in which we’re still living), it’s not impossible there are buried settlements which would, by the standards of the time, have been thought large.  The Greek Atlantis (literally "daughter of Atlas”), is a noun use of the feminine adjective from Atlas (stem Atlant).

A brace of Atlantes at the tomb of Louis Phélypeaux (1598–1681), seigneur de La Vrillière, marquis de Châteauneuf and Tanlay (1678), comte de Saint-Florentin, church of Saint Martial of Châteauneuf-sur-Loire.

In European architectural sculpture, an atlas (also known as an atlant, atlante & atlantid (plural atlantes)), was a (usually decorative) support sculpted in the form of a man and either part of or attached to a column, a pier or a pilaster.  The Roman term was telamon (plural telamones or telamons), from a later mythological hero, Telamon, one of the Argonauts, the father of Ajax.  Pre-dating the alantes in Classical architecture was the caryatid, an exclusively female form where the sculpture of a woman stands with each pillar or column.  Usually in an Ionic context, they were traditionally represented in association with the goddesses worshiped in the temples to which they were attached and rarely were they full-length forms, usually crafted as a conventional structural member below the waist, assuming the female lines above.  One difference between the male and female renderings was the atlantes often bore expressions of strain or had limbs bent by the effort of sustaining their heavy load.  The caryatids were almost always purely decorative and carved to show a nonchalant effortlessness.

Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque (1943), oil on canvas by Sir Winston Churchill (1974-1965).

In January 1943, Winston Churchill (1874-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) and Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945; US president 1933-1945) met at Casablanca to discuss Allied political and military strategy.  One of the critical meetings of the war and one which tends to be neglected compared with the later tripartite conferences (which included Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; leader of the USSR 1924-1953) at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, it’s remembered for a statement which emerged almost casually at the end of the ten day session: that Germany, Italy and Japan must surrender unconditionally.  The phrase "unconditional surrender" came from the president and surprised many (including Churchill) and it proved a gift for the ever-active Nazi propaganda machine. 

Churchill prevailed on the president to stay another day before returning to Washington DC, insisting one couldn’t come all the way to Morocco without visiting Marrakech and seeing the sun set over the Atlas Mountains.  They stayed at the Villa Taylor on 24 January and the next day, after the American delegation had departed, the prime-minister painted his view of the Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque, framed by the Atlas Mountains.  He’d visited Marrakech during the 1930s and completed several paintings but this was the only one he would paint during the war.  It was sent it to Roosevelt, as a present for his birthday on 30 January.  Churchill was a keen amateur painter, even having published Painting as a Pastime (1922) but never rated his own skills highly, often when speaking with other amateurs cheerfully admitting their work was better but he did think the 1943 effort was “a cut above anything I have ever done so far”.  He would have been surprised to learn that on 1 March 2021, Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque sold at auction at Christie’s in London for Stg£8,285,000 (US$11,194,000).

The Farnese Atlas (left) which historians concluded was a Roman copy (circa 150 AD) in marble of (second century BC) work typical of the style of the Hellenistic period.  It depicts Atlas holding the world on his shoulders and is the oldest known representation of the celestial spheres and classical constellations, Napoli, Museo archeologico nazionale (National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy).  Lindsay Lohan (right) reprises the look in an aqua swimsuit, Mykonos, Greece, July 2017.

After the war Churchill was amused to read that but for a misunderstanding, he may never have got to paint in Morocco at all.  The wartime meetings of the leaders were all top-secret but in something of a coup by North African agents of the Abwehr (the German military-intelligence service 1920-1944), the details of the meeting at Casablanca were discovered and Berlin was advised to consider a bombing mission.  Unfortunately for the Abwehr, the decoders translated “Casablanca” literally as “White House” and the idea of any action was dismissed because the Germans had no bomber capable of reaching the US.  Casablanca had originally been named Dar al-Baiḍā (دار البيضاء (House of the White) in the Arabic, later renamed by the Portuguese as Casa Branca before finally being Hispanicized as "Casablanca".

Group photograph of the political leaders with the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee, Casablanca Conference, Morocco, 14-24 January 1943.  It was at this conference the president unexpectedly announced the allied demand for "unconditional surrender" by the Axis powers and historians have since debated the political and military implications, one theory being it was something which mitigated against the possibility of any attempt within Germany to depose Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).

Sitting: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) (left); Sir Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) (right).

Standing, left to right (retirement ranks used): General Brehon B Somervell (1892–1955; head of US Army Service Forces 1942-1946); General of the Air Force Henry H "Hap" Arnold (1886–1950; head of US air forces 1938-1947); Fleet Admiral Ernest J King (1878–1956; US Chief of Naval Operations 1944-1945); General Lord (Hastings "Pug") Ismay (1887–1965; chief of staff to the prime-minister in his capacity as minister of defence 1940-1965); General of the Army George C Marshall (1880–1959; US Army chief of staff 1939-1945); Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (1877–1943; First Sea Lord 1939-1943); Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (1883–1963; Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) 1941-1946); Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord (Charles "Peter") Portal (1893–1971; Chief of the RAF Air Staff 1940-1945); Admiral of the Fleet Lord (Louis) Mountbatten (1900–1979; First Sea Lord 1955-1959).

Centaur

Centaur (pronounced sen-tawr)

(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.

Judy Volker’s annotation of Sea & Sky’s sky-chart of the Centaurus constellation.

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.

Lindsay Lohan AI generated as a centaur by EnjoyLingerie on DeviantArt.

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.

Mercator

Mercator (pronounced mer-key-ter or mer-kah-tawr (Flemish))

(1) An orthomorphic map projection in which meridians appear at right-angles to the equator, and lines of latitude are horizontal lines, the distance between the two increasing as the distance from the equator grows (ie the opposite of physical reality on spherical planet Earth.

(2) Noting, pertaining to, or according to the principles of a Mercator projection, used for maps & charts.

1568: From the Latin mercator, from mercor (trade or deal in goods) from merx from the Proto-Italic merk, possibly from Etruscan, referring to various aspects of economics (and the source of the English merchant).  The map was named after Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), a Flemish geographer and cartographer whose name was Gerhard de Kremer until his adoption of the Latinized form which translates as “merchant” (listed by dictionaries also as “dealer, trader, dealer, speculator etc”).  In 1585 he began work on a book of maps of Europe, a project later completed by his son Rumold Mercator (1541–1599) and published in 1595.  On the book’s cover was a drawing of the titan Atlas (from Greek mythology) carrying the globe on his shoulders and the word atlas has since been applied to any book of maps.  Mercator is a noun; the noun plural is mercators.

A Mercator-projection map (left), one of the many alternative projections (centre) and an overlay (right) with the Mercator–derived land sizes (light blue) relative to true physical geography (dark blue).

The Mercator projection was developed in 1568 by Gerardus Mercator as a navigation tool with (more-or-less) spherical planet Earth depicted on a flat rectangular grid with parallel lines of latitude and longitude.  Its functionality was that, used as nautical charts, it allowed seafarers to follow the appropriate line of latitude or longitude as a navigation guide.  In the West, it soon became a standard for Admiralty maps & charts and such was the volume of production that it the Mercator emerged also as the de facto standard in educational and other civilian uses, cartographers and publishers attracted by the economics of a single basic template for all purpose.  However, the Mercator projection is a most imprecise representation of the relative sizes of land masses because the technique increasingly distorts the size of the shapes as the distance from the Equator increases to the poles at which point the scale becomes infinite.  That’s why the size of a northerly masse (such as Greenland) appears much larger than truly it is, relative to an equatorial area (such as central Africa).

Rendered by Vovsoft as cartoon character: a brunette Lindsay Lohan pointing to the exaggerated size of Greenland when rendered with the Mercator projection.

In the twentieth century, that distortion attracted criticism on the grounds the projection increased the size of the countries of the European colonial powers while reducing those of the colonized south.  However, neither Gerardus Mercator nor cartographers had social or political axes to grind; the geographical distortion was an unintended consequence of what was designed as a navigational device and it's anyway difficult accurately to depict the surface of a sphere on a two-dimensional rectangular space (the so-called “orange-segment” (these use various interpretations of the eumorphic (preservation of original shape) technique) maps are less prone to compressing or exaggerating relativities but are harder to read for non-experts; ).  Over the centuries, cartographers have created literally dozens of projection systems (some variants of existing types), tied sometimes to specific uses in fields including aviation, military planning and satellite imaging.  Conceptually, a Mercator map is similar to the famous “map” of the London Underground: a thing perfect for navigation and certainly indicative but not to exact scale.  Most modern atlases generally no longer use the Mercator projection (except for historical or artistic illustrations) but it remains popular for wall-maps.

Subduction

Subduction (pronounced sub-duhk-shuhn)

(1) The action of being pushed or drawn beneath another object.

(1) An act or instance of subducting; subtraction or withdrawal; an act of taking away.

(2) In geology, the process by which collision of the earth's crustal plates results in one lithospheric plate being drawn down or overridden by another, localized along the juncture (subduction zone) of two plates, sometimes resulting in tensions and faulting in the earth's crust, with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

(3) In specialized us in applied optics, the act of turning the eye downwards.

(4) In mathematics, a surjection between diffeological spaces such that the target is identified as the push-forward of the source.

1570-1580: From the Latin subductiōn (nominative subductiō) (pulling up, computation).  The original sense was “withdrawal, removal; the action of taking away” (originally of noxious substances from the body), from the Latin subductiōnem (nominative subductiō) (a withdrawal, drawing up, hauling ashore), a noun of action from the past participle stem of subducere (to draw away, take away).  From the 1660s it was used in the sense of “an act of subduing; fact of being subdued” while the now familiar geological sense, referring to the edge of a tectonic plate dipping under a neighboring plate came into use in English only by 1970, following the adoption in French in 1951.  The word is now peculiar to geology, the newness a consequence of plate tectonics becoming well understood only from the mid 1960s.  The verb subduct (used first in the 1570s in the sense of “subtract”) was from subductus, past participle of subducere, and the geological sense is from 1971, a back-formation from the noun subduction.  Subduction is a noun, subduct, subducting & subducted are verbs, subductively is an adverb and subductive is an adjective; the noun plural is subductions.

Subduction is a geological process which happens where the boundaries of tectonic plates converge and one plate moves under another, being forced or, under the force of gravity, sinking into the mantle. Regions where this process occurs are known as subduction zones and rates of subduction are usually small, averaging one to three inches (25-75mm) per year.

Affected plates include both oceanic and continental crusts.   Dutch scientists Douwe van der Meer, Douwe van Hinsbergen, and Wim Spakman of Utrecht University published Atlas of the Underworld in the journal Tectonophysics documenting ninety-four distinct slabs.

Minuteman

Minuteman (pronounced min-it-man)

(1) A member of a group of American militiamen just before and during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) who held themselves in readiness for rapid mobilization for military service (not always used with initial capital).

(2) A US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with three stages, powered by solid-propellant rocket engines.

(3) A variety of small, sometimes secretive paramilitary organizations formed in the US over many years with the aim of opposing variously defined threats (communist invasion; illegal immigration; election of Democratic Party administrations etc).

(4) Name for the Missouri Secessionist Paramilitaries, a pro-secession organization active in St Louis, Missouri, US between January-May 1861.

(5) In slang, a term used by women to describe men whose duration of activity during sex was unconscionably brief. 

1645: An Americanism predating the Revolutionary War and a compound word, the construct being minute + man.  Minute was from the Middle English minute, minut & minet, from the Old French minute, from the Medieval Latin minūta (one-sixtieth of an hour; note); doublet of menu.  Man was from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-West Germanic mann, from the Proto-Germanic mann (human being, man), probably from the primitive Indo-European mon- (man) (men having the meaning “mind”); a doublet of manu.  The specific sense of “adult male of the human race” (distinguished from a woman or boy) was known in the Old English by circa 1000.   Old English used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late in the thirteenth century, replaced by mann and increasingly man.  Man also was in Old English as an indefinite pronoun (one, people, they) and used generically for "the human race, mankind" by circa 1200.  It was cognate with the West Frisian man, the Dutch man, the German Mann (man), the Norwegian mann (man), the Old Swedish maþer (man), the Swedish man, the Russian муж (muž) (husband, male person), the Avestan manš, the Sanskrit मनु (manu) (human being), the Urdu مانس‎ and Hindi मानस (mānas).   Although often thought a modern adoption, use as a word of familiar address, originally often implying impatience is attested as early as circa 1400, hence probably its use as an interjection of surprise or emphasis since Middle English.  It became especially popular from the early twentieth century.  The ICBM was deployed first in 1962 but the name may have existed as early as 1958.  All uses of minuteman are derived from the idea of civilian-soldiers, the colonial and revolutionary era militiaman who promised to be ready to fight at " one minute's notice"; as military formations, they were mobile, rapid-deployment forces.  Minuteman is a noun; the noun plural is minutemen except when speaking of objects such as missiles in which case it should be minutemans but within the US military "minutemen" seems to be preferred.

Development of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) began in 1958, immediately after the USSR successfully launched Sputnik, the military significance of which was at the time less the satellite than the big 8K71 rocket used to launch it into orbit.  Essentially a modified Soviet ICBM, the 8K71’s success proved the Russians had the ability to deliver their nuclear weapons to the continental US.  At this point, whatever the views of the military, US strategic policy still envisaged the nuclear deterrent as a retaliatory rather than a first-strike weapon but the US missiles were liquid-fueled and thus not able to be launched in less than two hours.  The warheads from a Russian first-strike would explode in the US within thirty minutes.  The Minuteman solved the tactical problems inherent in the early US ICBMs, the big, immensely complex, liquid-fueled Atlas and Titan rockets.  The Minuteman’s missile and launch-site components used stable solid fuels, were (relatively) small and used a (relatively) simple design able (relatively) easily to be mass-produced, thus providing a quick-reacting, (relatively) cheaply produced, highly survivable component for the nuclear arsenal.  In service now for almost sixty years, they’re not scheduled wholly to be replaced until 2027.

By 1962, the Minuteman thus became the centrepiece of US nuclear strategy, part of a long struggle between the army, navy and air force, all of which wanted to assume primary responsibility for the strategic element of the arsenal.  Inevitably, it became also the focus of disputes between the Pentagon, the White House and the Congress over cost which translated into squabbles about how many were needed and depending on how this was calculated could produce a big number because the analysts in the Pentagon based their mat on a first strike destroying (the term used in close to its literal sense) not only the major cities and military installations in the Soviet Union but also those in the PRC (People's Republic of China, under the rule of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) since 1949).  Despite the scale of that ambition, graphs and charts were produced to prove the use nuclear arsenal was the cheapest was to achieve the objectives with the fewest causalities (military & civilian).  The congressional hearings gave the generals the chance to prove they were as adept as the politicians at budgetary low skullduggery.  Surprising many, the top brass were surprisingly willing to compromise on the missile count but that was because  they knew the next generation of Minuteman warheads would be Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) which meant three (later MIRVs on other platforms would have ten) warheads per missile so, even after appearing to accede to requests for restraint, the Pentagon ended up with about the same number of warheads originally requested.  The generals didn't burden the politicians with tiresome details about the engineering of MIRVs.

The Minutemen EP43 revealed Lindsay Lohan's interest in playing Batgirl in the DCEU.  The DCEU (DC Extended Universe) is a US media franchise, an ecosystem described as “a shared universe”, built on the characters in the Warner Brothers “superhero” films which were derived from those in the comic books published by DC Comics.  The DCEU is a multi-media venture which extends to comic books, films, novels, video games and, importantly, merchandize. DC is an initialism for “Detective Comics”, the first editions of which were published in 1937.