Buzz from the beehive

The comedy of Lady Mary Wroth, written 400 years ago, was finally performed in public

2018-09-21T08:23:00.002-07:00

It took 400 years, but the play “Love’s Victory” by Lady Mary Wroth is finally performed. It is one of the oldest comedies in existence that was written by a woman. The comedy in five acts deals with love and betrayal.

Lady Mary Wroth is a member of a famous literary family. Her father, Robert Sidney, was a poet as well as a statesman. Mary was highly educated and the first woman to get literary recognition for her novel “The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania” written in 1621. She was also a recognized poet.

Mary wrote “Love’s victory” in 1617 and it was intended to be read or performed in closed circles. At that time, it was unimaginable that any play written by a woman, even if she was an aristocrat, would be performed played female characters. This only changed under King Charles II.

There were two performance of the comedy that took place in Penshurst Place, an estate n Kent owned by Lady Mary’s descendants. Penshurt use to be a hunting lodge of King Henry VIII. The fact that her play was finally performed, is due to the efforts of Alison Findlay, a professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. Findlay had been specializing in literary works of Shakespeare’s female contemporaries for the last 25 years. For a long time, the play was considered to have been lost.

In The Mood for a Topnotch Wine? Bid on the “Oldest Wine in the World” Dating Back To 1774

2018-05-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

If you enjoy vintage wines and have money to burn, you might want to head to Paris. Three of the oldest bottles of wine known to man are being put up for auction. The three bottles contain a so-called “vin jaune” (yellow wine) that originated in the Jura in the east of France. Wine from this region is known as the “wine for kings and the king of wines”. The bottles are expected to fetch thousands of Euro, so bring your checkbook! To put it in perspective: In 2011 and 2012, two bottles from the same stock were sold for Euro 57,000 and 38,000 respectively.

These 1774 bottles are estimated at Euro 20,000 each, but are expected to fetch at least double that amount. The bottles have a content of 87 cl and were in the possession of the descendants of Pierre Vercel, a renowned vintner from the 17^th century. The three bottles are the last ones of its kind that the family possesses.

If you wonder about the quality, no worries there. Back in 1994 a bottle of the same ‘batch’ was opened, tasted and rated by a group of scientist, wine experts and viticulturists. The wine was rated as being “excellent”. The wine was described as having a “gold and amber color with accents of nuts, herbs, curry, cinnamon, vanilla and dried fruit.” It scored 9.4 out of 10.

Fun fact: Louis Pasteur owed his admission in 1881 to the prestigious Académie Française to a bottle of 1774 vin jaune. According to legend, Pasteur a friend of Vercel’s grandchildren.

Apart from the three 1774 wine bottles, another 99 bottles (no joke!) from the cellars of Vercel’s descendants are up for auction. The auction will take place on May 26 in Lons-le-Saunier, a city in the east of France.

Image courtesy of AFP

Donkey Business - When Vitus the Donkey Met An Orange DeLorean Car

2017-10-23T10:24:00.001-07:00

Image courtesy of ©Markus Zahn, picture-alliance/dpa

Vitus the Donkey nibbled on an orange DeLorean causing damage that accumulated to Euro 5,800.

Since the value of the car is Euro 310,000, the owner was Not Amused and wanted to be compensated for the damage. Not unreasonable, since the donkey took a bite through the fence of his firmly locked pasture.

The owner of the DeLorean, Markus Zahn (owner of Weinhaus Zahn), first asked the owner of the nibbling donkey to reimburse him for the damage. Please note: he only asked for the reimbursement of the material damage, not for any additional damages. The owner of the donkey refused, so (to the surprise of Mr. Zahn), it ended up in court. The Vitus owner’s defense: Mr. Zahn was stupid to park his expensive car that close to the fence. In other words: his fault.

The District Court of Gießen ruled that Vitus, the nibbling donkey, did indeed bite the car twice in September 2016 through the fence, resulting in damages of Euro 5,800 Euro. Since the fence was obviously not equipped to contain the appetite of Vitus the Donkey, his owner is therefore liable. Hence, the owner has to pay, even if Vitus might have taken the orange luxury car for a juicy carrot…

For the animal lovers among the readers: Vitus is currently owned by a lovely lady who takes the nibbling obsession of Vitus with humor. “Yes, he nibbles on everything, as you can see on the fences here.”

The owner of the DeLorean does not have any hard feelings regarding the donkey, and even petted him despite the fact that Vitus never apologized to him…

Needless to say, Vitus became a media star, in my humble opinion with more reason than the whole Kardashian clan thrown together…

Wishing you and your family Shana Tova

2017-09-20T05:54:00.000-07:00

Google Has a Sense of Humor

2017-02-12T03:52:00.001-08:00

Google has a sense of humor. When Alphabet announced that it would buy back part of its own shares, it looked like a standard announcement.

Companies regularly buy back their own stock when they have a lot of money in their coffers or when they have the feeling that their stock in undervalued.

But what is hilarious in this case is the price of the buy back: USD 7,019,340,976.83.

This number is the sum of 26 (the number of letters in the current alphabet) to the power of the mathematical constant e times one million. It would have been easy (and so boring!) to announce a price of USD 7b, so why not throw in another USD 19m plus to have some fun? Especially when money is not an object!

It is not the first time that Google has some nerdy fun, just look at the name Google itself. It’s a play on the words “googol” which stands for the number 1 with one hundred zeros. It is not the first time that Alphabet had this kind of fun. In 2015, it bought back shares in the amount of USD 5,099,019,513.59. That number is the square root of 26 times one million.

When Google went public, the intention was to raise USD 2,718,281,828 which is 1 billion times the mathematical constant e. Google obviously has a thing for this constant, it also used it when is made its offer of USD 3.14b for Nortel Networks. Unsuccessfully so, the Nortel’s patent portfolio was sold for USD 4.5m.

Stay tuned for the next nerdy announcement!

The War of the Book Fairs

2017-01-25T03:49:00.000-08:00

Promoting your book is already difficult, and the War of the Book Fairs in Italy does not help. If we take a closer look, we notice that Italians just love to bicker about soccer, women, politics and any other controversial subject. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe already noticed during his Italian travels that “it is incomprehensible how anyone gets along with another person, since quarreling seems to be common denominator among all social classes.”

In recent year, the all-powerful Milanese publishers want to make money by creating their own book fair. It would compete with the Salone del Libro in Turin, which after the Frankfurter Buchmesse (The book fair in Frankfurt), it is one of the most prominent book fairs in Europe.

However, during the last few year, Milanese publishers wanted to leverage their success with their own book fair. This in turn triggered the War of the Book Fair Giants. The Italian Minister of Culture acted as the peace maker. He suggested to have the book fair at two cities simultaneously. But cooperation and compromise are not the strong points of Italians, as shown in the 63 governments elected in 69 years…Milan stuck to its guns and the mayor Turin pointed out that Milan organizes the number 1 book fair. The Minister of Culture commented that this is the way wars start, by this kind of rigid attitudes.

So what does this mean in the long run? As a book lover, writer or publisher, visit any well-organized book fair you can. This could mean that you have to buy a ticket to the book fair in Frankfurt, followed by one to Milan as well as Turin. All in all, not too shaby methink.

Wishing you a happy, healthy 2017

2017-01-01T08:26:00.002-08:00

Wishing You a Happy, Healthy and Sweet New Year

2016-09-25T05:03:00.000-07:00

Lucifer - Lost and Created in Translation

2016-04-12T03:59:00.000-07:00

The devil might be in the details, but in case of Lucifer it’s in the translation. Lucifer is supposed to be mentioned in Isaiah 14:12, but good luck trying to find it in the original Hebrew text. As any translator (and historian) can tell you - it is impossible that the Latin word Lucifer found its way into a Hebrew manuscript, way before there even was Latin as a language.

The original Hebrew text refers to a fallen Babylonian king and not to any devil, fallen angel or any other celestial being. Au contraire, it tells the story of a king referred to as Helal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as "Day star, son of the Dawn." It refers to his glittering robes and court, uncannily similar to the image (or brand as we call it today) of the French King Louis XIV aka “The Sun King"). Hence, the biblical text does not contain any reference to Lucifer, aka the fallen angel, aka Satan, aka the devil, aka the Prince of Darkness.

So how did Lucifer end up in Chapter 14 of the King James Bible which is the English translation of the Bible? Simple - the King James I translation did not translate the original Hebrew texts. It depended on St. Jerome (who lived in the fourth century of the CE) as a source. He mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as "Lucifer," which became mainstream. Hence the Lucifer myth was created. The fictional Lucifer is an angel who became arrogant, challenged the Almighty, and thus was cast out of heaven to torture souls in hell.

The name Lucifer is derived from the Latin lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light. (The Dutch still refer to matches as “lucifers”). In Roman mythology, Lucifer (in Greek Phospheros) is the ‘Bearer of Light’ and God of the Evening Star and Morning Star (Venus).

Needless to say, Lucifer became excellent fodder for theologians, fiction writers, poets, comics and even gave birth to a highly amusing FOX TV series. All in all, it shows that you can have fun with the devil aka Lucifer!

The Rich Are At It Again; Cheating on Their Taxes – The Bar Refaeli Story

2015-12-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

There is a long list of celebrities who cheated on their taxes. Considering their net income, it’s quite amusing that they avoid paying taxes since they are not exactly poverty-stricken.

The latest culprit is Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli. The woman dodged serving in the army by entering into a fake marriage, so it should not come as a big surprise that she stiffed her government who uses the funds to protect its citizens with e.g., iron dome.

Bar Refaeli tried to weasel out of the allegations by claiming that she lived abroad. Well, that did not exactly fly – the Israel Tax Authority had the woman arrested for allegedly evading millions of dollars in taxes. She was grilled for 12 hours.

As a supermodel, she received a lot of freebies for which she should have paid income tax on. She didn’t, just enjoying her perks such as luxury apartments and cars without any accountability. The woman also stayed in luxury apartments registered under her mother and brother’s names, and also used Range Rover and Lexus cars free of charge. The Israel Tax Authority notices that she enjoyed unreported income amounted to “dozens of millions of shekels.”

The Refaeli women defended themselves, claiming that the model lived outside of Israel. Needless to say, that did not fly. The Israel Tax Authorities were not amused, showing thatDiCaprio’s ex and her Mummy enjoyed “celebrity discounts” such as free interior decorating, which they never reported.

The homes of both Refaeli women were raided this week. On Thursday, they were arrested and released on bail. They were forced to fork over their passports and can’t leave Israel without permission for 180 days. Quel horreur!

Moral of the story – don’t cheat on your taxes! It’s just not worthwhile. Tax authorities all over the world have long memories, unlimited resources, and the tenacity to hunt you down. Do yourself a favor, just pay your dues – especially if you are an egomaniac celebrity! (Or any member of their money-hungry posse).

(Image courtesy of K Bar from TA, IL at Flickr)

A Medieval Drinking Song

2015-11-29T07:21:00.000-08:00

Reposted from The Medievalists.net

The tradition of singing raucous lyrics in pubs has a long history. There are a few drinking songs from the Middle Ages, including those found in the Carmina Burana, a collections of poems and texts created in Germany during the first half of the thirteenth-century.

The Carmina Burana includes songs dating back to the 11th century, and were collected from various parts of Europe. Many were created by university students, and includes works of mockery, love songs and at least forty songs about gambling and drinking. As one scholar points out this “collection is full of that excitement, that daring, that laughing-at-convention which characterizes independently minded youth.”

Here is one of the medieval drinking songs:

In the boozer
you’re a loser
if the dice you’re shaking.
You’ll get hurt
and lose your shirt,
sit there cold and quaking.
Lady Luck, your gifts are bad,
you trick us, then you make us mad,
make us gamble, make us fight,
and sit out in the cold all night.

‘Brrr!’ The naked loser moans,
when he’s cold and left alone,
shakes and shivers as he groans:
‘I wish I could be
asleep under a tree
With a hot sunshine warming my bones.’

But now let’s roll the dice again
and win some drinking money!
Who thinks about November’s rain
while it’s still warm and sunny?

Source: http://www.medievalists.net/

Image courtesy of: http://www.medievalists.net/

Bookworms rejoice! There is now a short-story vending machine for your convenience - free of charge!

2015-11-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

Grenoble, located in the French Alps, started a great initiative. It installed short story dispensers. It’s simply brilliant in its simplicity. The dispensers are placed in public areas. They are one meter high, don’t have a screen (sorry, device addicts) and cannot be missed due to their vibrant orange and black colors. They offer a selection of short stories that can be one, three, or five minutes long to read. Best of all - it’s free of charge!

The Grenoble municipality launched this initiative for the benefit of its citizens; it wanted to bring back a bit of culture that is jeopardized by e-books, Kindle and the likes. It wanted people to connect with the printed word again.

The green party mayor of Grenoble, Mr. Eric Piolle, approached the founders of publishing company Short Edition to create content. The result? There are currently 600 short stories available. The is convenient; a short story of three minutes in printed on a piece of paper of 8cm by 60cm. Quite handy!

Christophe Sibieude, co-founder and head of local publishing start-up Short Edition explained: “We said to ourselves that we could providing good quality popular literature via vending machines to occupy those little unproductive moments.”

If you are in Grenoble and want to read, go to any of the eight dispensers located at the town hall, the tourist office, libraries and in social centers and try it out!

Happy reading!

(Image: A woman chooses a short story at a short-story distribution terminal in the Mistral district of Grenoble ©Jean-Pierre Clatot / AFP)

Eurovision Song Contest 2015 - A Review

2015-05-25T13:49:00.002-07:00

Yep, it was that time of year again…the Eurovision Song Contest brought to you live from Vienna.

Let’s have a look at how the 27 candidates did.

1. Slovenia
A strange woman in wedding dress wearing a huge headphone (think 1980s) sang about something or other while a ballerina in a glitter outfit did her own thing. Enough said.

2. France
Being French, the singer was dressed in black (think Edith Piaf) and sang in her native tongue - naturellement! Against a background of white doves on steroids, a bunch of drummers joined the fun.

3. Israel
This chubby Justin Timberlake wannabe looked like one of the few performers who was having fun. No Tortured Soul here! The catchy dance number will be a summer hit - mark my words.

4. Estonia
Another Tortured Soul (see France for the first one) showing a lot of cleavage and being leered at by a fellow singer. Creepy…

5. UK
A duo sang a sort of 1920s number surrounded by dancers and lots of special effects. Who has been binge watching Dr. Who?

6. Armenia
The piano was able to drown out the singers. There were also lots of church bells ringing - a tribute to North West’s baptism in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem?

7. Lithuania
Two singing soap stars with two soap star background singers. Lot of owa, owa, owas. Looked like a scene from the Young and the Rest of Us

8. Serbia
An Opera Diva performed with a mask wearing, flag-waving entourage. A left over from the May 1st parade?

9. Norway
Another Tortured Soul - this time a midriff baring chick. Completely forgettable.

10. Sweden
Guy wearing leather pants singing in the digital rain. Multiple stick figures from the For Dummies series moved (danced?) in the background. Singer kept repeating “heroes of our time”, which made it as exciting as Ikea furniture. (Sadly enough, the Boring Swede won)

11. Cyprus
Strumming an acoustic guitar, I got Eric Clapton vibes watching it. At least the singer can play instead of playback.

12. Australia
This entertaining 1980s act included a chick in glitter hot pants. Go Aussies!

13. Belgium
This time, a Justin Bieber wannabe hit the podium. His four background singers in white looked like extras from a SF show.

14. Austria
Another wannabe; this time Kid Rock. I rest my case.

15. Greece
Guess what? Yep, another wannabe! Channeling Celine Dion, the nicest thing I can say about this singer that I loved her earrings.

16. Montenegro
This singer was one of the few singing in his native tongue - kudos! The melody was catchy and the four muses behind him looked good.

17. Germany
Catwoman represented the Teutonic State, singing “Too Hot”. Note to singer: “No, you are not!”

18. Poland
A Las Vegas bride singing next to white piano flanked by 3 background singers. Yawn!

19. Latvia
Firebird in a ridiculous Las Vegas showgirl gown belted out a lot of oh, oh, ohs

20. Romania
This baldie was also singing in his native tongue. Catchy melody, but no idea what it was about.

21. Spain
This time, a Jennifer Lopez wannabe. Singing is Spanish, she also performed a nifty dance number with a hunky guy. Gracias!

22. Hungary
A quintet of classy singers with good voices. The cameraman had a thing for the singer in the red dress.

23. Georgia
Goth Girl looked like she belonged at a KISS concert. She sang about something or other; could be anything from love to ousting Putin.

24. Azerbaijan
Yep, another Tortured Soul! But the two dancers were amazing and obviously trained in classical ballet.

25. Russia
A skinny Anna Nicole Smith lookalike dressed in white (what else?) belted out a nice song. I rooted for her to win, but she ended in second place. Pity!

26. Albania
This poor singer was completely overpowered by the background music. Lots of ayeh, ayeh, ayehs...Boring!

27. Italy
Italy sent 3 Divos singing about amore (what else). Singing and styled like the highly successful Il Divo, I liked it.

Next year, it will be Sweden again to host the event. Good luck with that!

Why I Love Latin

2015-03-14T10:04:00.004-07:00

When I was a kid, learning Latin was a prerequisite to go the Med or Law School. From the age of 12, I had 2 hours of Latin – every school day for 6 years. I loved it since it allowed me to “time travel” to the Roman Empire of Cicero, Pliny, Ovid, Livius, Vergilius, and Julius Caesar.

Roman noblemen loved to write and self-published way before we are doing now on Amazon. If Internet and social media would have been around in the time of the Roman Emperors, we could have laughed at the selfies of Caligula, watch the YouTube videos of Caesar’s murder online, and read the latest gossip about the private lives of the rich and (in)famous on the Ancient Roman equivalent of TMZ.

Although heaps of (juicy) materials have been lost over time, we still have a treasure trove of legal documents, records, poetry, plays, speeches, letters, academic works, a pamphlets, etc. The Romans were the Americans of today – even the political structure is similar as is the innovative spirit.

Latin became the lingua franca of academics throughout the ages. Erasmus and Thomas More wrote each other in Latin; neither mastered the native tongue of the other. During my first year in Law School, one of my professors taught in Latin. We would take notes and later translate. One time, he said a sentence that we all penned down. He repeated the sentence, so we underlined it. When he repeated it again, we double underlined it assuming it was very important. Turned out that he told us that the sun was shining in his eyes and if one of us could please push the button to lower the blinds…(Afterwards he was forced by the Dean to teach in our native tongue – the fact that he called us “discipuli stultissimi” might have something to do with it)

Roman law codes serve as a fundamental of many current law systems due to Napoleon. Terms such as alibi became mainstream. Common law systems also have many Latin legal terms such as: “habeas corpus” and “intestate”. Roman medicine gave birth to current traditional medicine. English still refers to many organs and illnesses by their Latin names.

Nowadays, Latin is out of fashion. That is a pity in many ways. Once you master Latin grammar, getting the structure of other languages is a lot easier since you can “read the blueprint”. Western languages contain a lot of Latin-based words. The reason? When the Romans conquered Europe, they introduced Vulgar Latin as the lingua franca. Furthermore, they introduced new inventions and concepts that did not have a local name such as: solarium, umbrella, senate, spa, aqueduct, testament, sanitation, etc.

However, authors still sneak in Latin – just for the fun of it. An excellent example is J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series. One gem is the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s motto: “Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus” which translates as “a sleeping dragon must never be tickled”.

Latin might not be fashionable anymore, but it is still firmly rooted in many languages and disciplines. Q.E.D.

(Image courtesy of Natalie Durden at keepcalm-o-matic)

ais Thr Wizard of Oz an allegory of the economic struggles during the late 19th century?

2015-02-26T10:04:00.000-08:00

"The Wizard of Oz" is written by L. Frank Baum and originally published in 1900.

According to the author, he came up with Oz due to the index of a filing cabinet. However, oz is also the abbreviation of an ounce of gold.

Hence the theory that the tale represents the economic climate at the end of the 19th century. True or not, it is an interesting history lesson.

The scarecrow supposedly represents the farmers in the western part of the US. Those poor farmers were faced with high mortgages and were in debt to the bankers and Wall Street wheelers and dealers. Due to deflation, those farmers had to pay more and more.

The yellow brick road represents the gold standard. It was aimed at keeping the stability and reliability of currency. The munchkins are supposed to represent east coast residents who strongly believed in it. That’s why Dorothy is urged to "follow the yellow brick road".

The tin man represents industrial workers who also suffered from the rigid gold standard. In 1894 alone, 18% of industrial workers in the US were unemployed.

The cowardly lion refers to William Jennings Bryan. He was a populist leader who thought that adding silver to the gold standard would ease deflation and would solve economic problems.

The Emerald City refers to Washington, D.C. where the money (greenbacks) rule.

Dorothy's slippers were silver in the original version. It’s only later that they turned red for the movie. Being silver, the slippers supposedly save the day by adding silver to the money supply.

Even if the above is not true, it should be! Anyway, it’s an entertaining history lesson.

(Photo courtesy of Pixmac)

Where The NYC Literati Go To Party

2015-01-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

Authors Michael Chabon, Gay Talese, Zadie Smith and Scott Turow recently partied at the annual New Yorker Festival at the Top of the Standard.

They rubbed shoulders with rockers Sting and Imagine Dragons. For their next masterpiece, they could have gotten inspiration by the visiting the private booth occupied by “Orange Is the New Black” creator Jenji Kohan and her writer husband Christopher Noxon.

Or may be talking to comedians Mindy Kaling and Nick Kroll, actress Molly Ringwald, It girl Tavi Gevinson or David Remnick would keep their creative juices flowing.

In good social media style, DJ Louie tweeted: “I’m DJing the New Yorker Party at the Standard and am doing everything in my power not to ask Malcolm Gladwell to take a selfie with me.”

The party went on until 3:30 a.m. The most interesting statement was made by Mindy Kaling who happily admitted that she likes on-screen love scenes. She said “I love it. I think it’s anthropologically interesting to watch on-screen love scenes how people kiss.” She sent on pointing out that she often “uses tongue.” This might be infringing on the Screen Actors Guild rules.

Sting took the opportunity to inform the masses that he enjoyed working on his musical “The Last Ship.” He also announced: “I want to get back to my other life, and get paid extravagant amounts of money for very little work.” Whatever.

The rich will stay rich, and the famous will keep on struggling for their top spot in the (social) media. (Just ask any of the Kardashians)

Koons Designed the Cover of Grazer’s Book – Clever PR for All Involved

2014-12-13T04:42:00.000-08:00

Jeff Koons designed the jacket for producer Brian Grazer’s upcoming book “A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life.”

Superproducer Brian Grazer has written a book about…curiosity. Pegged as “non-fiction”, publisher Simon & Schuster signed six-figure deal to publish it. The book will examine how curiosity and the endless search for knowledge drive creativity.

Grazer knows a thing or two about creativity. He has for decades conducted weekly “curiosity conversations” with accomplished strangers. Those conversations inspired Grazer to produce movies and TV shows such as “Splash” and “Arrested Development”.

The book, co-written with business journalist Charles Fishman, will be launched on April 7, 2015. For the book cover, Grazer came up with a brilliant (PR) idea – enlisting the services of artist Jeff Koons for the design. A win-win situation – great PR for Grazer and Koons, as well as free pre-publishing hype which will boost (pre)sales.

Why did Grazer turn to Koons? “When we began discussing a design for the jacket of my book, Jeff Koons was the first person I thought of. His pieces have always spoken to me — they are suffused with positivity. My curiosity conversation with him was one of the earliest and most memorable I’ve had, and I remember being especially struck by how generous and genuinely interested he was, in everything. Curiosity is a very natural thing for him – it is the foundation of his work, and his energy as a human being.”

As for the book cover design itself, Grazer stated: “When you look at the simple sketch he came up with, it has so much life and personality, and there is a celebratory quality to it.”

Whether you like the design or not, you have to agree: it’s a great way to get free publicity.

Wishing You All A Good and Sweet New Year - Shana Tova!

2014-09-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

Agloe – A Mapmaker’s Protection Against Copycats

2014-08-24T09:11:00.004-07:00

Making maps is painstaking work. Mapmakers throughout the ages have been victims of copycats passing their painstaking work off as their own. So how can you prove that someone ripped off the map that you made?

Simple: by adding a fake hamlet! In the 1930s, Otto G. Lindberg was the director of the General Drafting Co. Together with his assistant Ernest Alpers, he created a road map of New York State. To prevent copycats from ripping off their map, they added a totally fictitious place that they named "Agloe" on a remote dirt road. The name is in itself quite brilliant: it’s a mix of their initials OGL (Otto G. Lindberg) and EA (Ernest Alpers).

Lo and behold – the “trap” worked. The map company Rand McNally issued its own New York state map featuring "Agloe." Lindberg promptly sued.

But Rand McNally’s legal defense team came up with an interesting defense. The legal eagles pointed out in court that there was a shop called “Agloe General Store” nearby. Ergo, it must have gotten its name from a nearby village.

The owners of the shop looked at a map distributed by Esso, which owned a plethora of local gas stations. Esso had originally purchased its map featuring Agloe completely legally from Lindberg and Alpers. The store owners assumed that since Esso’s map features Agloe, they might as well name their shop after it. Oh, the irony!

Fast-forward to the 21st century. The all-knowing Google Maps shows Agloe as a destination (including directions!) until recently. Only in 2014 was the Agloe myth exposed and expunged from Google maps.

After 80 years, Agloe has disappeared from the maps. I am pretty sure that AGL and OE up there are laughing their heads off! As for Rand McNally, the company was finally exposed as the map pirate it was.

The Lawsuit Against Kim Kardashian That Has a Bite To It

2014-08-17T01:35:00.000-07:00

Kim Kardashian, despite having a healthy chuck of disposableincome from whatever source, does not always pays her bills. Seems to run in the family – little Sis also skipped on paying her dinner bill of $ 33 atMercerKitchen.

In 2001, KK went to Dr. Craig Gordon to have her silver fillings replaced with porcelain ones. After nasal-voice Kardashian refused to pay her bill, the dentist tried everything to get paid.

In 2002, Dr. Gordon got a default judgment for $1,605.73. Still, Calabasas Kim refused to pay. One decade later, the debt has increased to $3,320.48 due to accumulated interest.

Being quite resourceful, the dentist filed a lien on anything Kim would recover from her divorce from husband #2 or #3 aka Kris Humphries to settle her debt. But that didn’t work either.

The dentist is now sinking his teeth in a new way to recoup payment: he is selling the court judgment he got against the reality showchick for $13,000. That makes absolute sense considering her fame/notoriety level. It’s a brilliant move – anyone who loves/hates KK, will be too happy to fork out the money to be able to cash a check directly from the debtbeat K-clan member.

The War of the Books - Amazon vs Hachette

2014-08-09T04:06:00.005-07:00

Amazon is on the warpath. It sent its Kindle authors the following message:

"It’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. Amazon wants lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read).

A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.

Amazon recognizes that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We (at Amazon) tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle.

We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity.

But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com

The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com"

Do you as a reader or writer agree?

(Image courtesy of Bidness Inc)

Amazing Poem by 18-year-old Nienke Woltmeijer for National Remembrance Day

2014-03-15T02:09:00.000-07:00

She is only 18 years old, but she penned an amazing poem. Every year, the Dutch government organizes a poetry contest. Youngsters between 14 till 19 are invited to write a poem for National Remembrance Day which takes place on May 4.

There were 260 entries in total. The winner of the 2014 competition is Nienke Woltmeijer with her powerful poem about a tree. Chairman of the jury Anne Vegter explained: “The jury was especially impressed with the amazing image that the poem evokes. A tree that has witnessed it all. Nienke also impressed with her presentation.”

Woltmeijer will read her poem in public on the Damrak in Amsterdam on the 4th of May.

Following is Nienke Woltmeijer’s original poem in Dutch with TipTopTranslator's English translation:

“De stille getuige. “The silent witness.

De boom aan de rails. The tree next to the railroad track.

Omringd door prikkeldraad. Surrounded by barbed wire.

Torende boven het wachtershuisje. Towering over the guard station.

Geworteld in grond van ellende.     Rooted in soil of misery.
De boom hoorde de doffe knallen.    The tree heard muted bangs.
Rook de mist van angst.              Smelled the fog of anguish.
Zag een uitzichtloze weg.    Saw the futile road.
Wanhoopte een eindeloze strijd.                    Despaired of an endless struggle.

Troostend het kind met verdriet.    Consoling the sad child.
Omarmend de vrouw in wanhoop. Embracing the woman in despair.
Bemoedigend de man zonder uitzicht. Encouraging the man without a future.
Beschermend hen zonder schuilplaats.          Protecting those without a shelter.

Bladeren fluisteren de herinnering.    Leaves whisper the memory.
Takken vertellen het verhaal.    Branches are telling the story.
De bast verzacht de pijn.    Bark soothes the pain.
De wortels vangen de tranen                          Roots are catching the tears.
De boom vertelt het verhaal van toen.            The tree tells the story of the past.
Het staat gekerfd en wordt nooit vergeten.” It is carved and will never be forgotten”

Woltmeijer: “The old trees at Westerbork or in the garden of the Anne Frank Museum are tangible reminders of the past. Each time I see those trees, I wonder what they have seen over time that we as the younger generation heard about, but never witnessed. That is what I want to communicate.”

Pope Francis Oops – An Embarrassing “Lost In Translation” Mistake

2014-03-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

As we all know, Pope Francis is a native Spanish speaker. The Argentinean-born Bishop of Rome is not that fluent in Italian. It showed when he was delivering a blessing in Italian and got a crucial word mixed up.

When blessing his public audience during the weekly Vatican blessing that takes place every Sunday, he wanted to say caso, which means "example" or "case."

Sadly enough, the pope pronounced it as cazzo. This four-letter word is the Italian equivalent of f*ck, c*ck or d*ck.

According to Italian newspaper The Local, the Pope said the following to his audience in St Peter’s Square:
“If each one of us does not amass riches only for oneself, but half for the service of others, in this f*ck [pause], in this case, the providence of God will become visible through this gesture of solidarity.”

According to The Daily Mail, the mistake is a common one among non-native Italian speakers. Francis, whose blessing was aimed at the current crisis in the Ukraine, quickly realized his mistake and corrected himself.

However, the moment will be remembered forever. The error only added to his image as the "people's pope”.

To listen to Il Papa's historic slip of the tongue, watch the video below.

Decoding The Voynich Mystery – Are We Getting Close?

2014-02-24T08:57:00.000-08:00

In September 2012 and April 2013, I wrote about the Voynich mystery.

The Voynich Manuscript was created during the 15th century and is still an intriguing unsolved mystery. It is written in an unknown language that not even military cryptographers were able to decipher. It also contains beautiful illustrations and descriptions of events and flora unknown to man.

It seems that finally at least a small part of the code has been cracked. Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire, claims to have deciphered part of the manuscript using linguistic analysis.

Professor Bax is an expert in mediaeval manuscripts and familiar with Semitic languages such as Arabic. This helped him to analyze text letter by letter. Up till now, he was able to decipher 14 letters and 10 words.

He identified one of those words as the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades. He also found the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury as well as a number of other plants.

Professor Bax explained: “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”

To learn more, watch the following video.

The Controversial Use of the Coffin of Famous Dutch Author Harry Mulisch in a Notary Ad

2014-02-18T04:51:00.000-08:00

Nationale Notaris (National Notary) is an organization of 60 notaries throughout the Netherlands.

The organization wanted an ad campaign for promoting last wills and testaments. It hired ad agency DKTD that came up with the slogan: “Ready to go? Try out the free last will scan of nationalenotaris.nl”

The ad needed a strong visual. DKTD approached photographer Merlin Daleman and asked him for permission to use a photo of a funeral featuring six pallbearers with top hats carrying a coffin at the Zorgvliet cemetery. It was the funeral of Harry Mulish, a famous Dutch author whose works include The Assault. The film version of that novel won a Golden Globe and Academy Award.

Daleman said that he told the ad agency “you know that’s Harry Mulisch, correct?” He assumed that it was a national campaign sponsored by the Dutch government to advise people to take care of their affairs during their lifetime. Once he saw the photo featured in the ad, he wondered. “I didn’t expect that, but since they bought the photo from me, they are entitled to use it once as they please.”

The CEO, Albert van der Wijk, loved the ad and ordered 5,000 posters were printed. There are 1,500 posters distributed in 12 cities. The ad also features prominently on the homepage of the nationalenotaris.nl website.

Family members of the late author were shocked when they saw the poster in Amsterdam. They were not informed by the ad agency.

Danny Tournier, owner of DKTD, claims that he himself was not aware that the photo was of the famous Dutch author’s funeral. "It is quite likely mentioned somewhere in the paperwork, but it did not surface at the crucial moment."

Mr, Van der Wijk also stated that he was not aware that the photo was taken at the funeral of the author who passed away in 2010. “I just thought that it was a beautiful image. I was surprised that the family had not been informed.”

Nationale Notaris contacted the family and wants to see how the organization can adapt the ad campaign if family members so desire. Removing and destroying all the posters would be a major financial setback for the organization.

DKDT also reached out to the family and contacted Frieda Mulisch, the author’s daughter. According to Tournier: "Frieda and I understand each other. She understands that we chose this photo, but that there was somewhere along the line miscommunication.” It will be interesting to see what the Mulisch family will decide