The Green Child is the only completed novel by the English anarchist poet and critic Herbert Read. Written in 1934 and first published by Heinemann in 1935, the story is based on the 12th-century legend of two green children (illustration pictured) who mysteriously appeared in the English village of Woolpit, speaking an apparently unknown language. Read described the story in his English Prose Style, published in 1931, as "the norm to which all types of fantasy should conform". Each of the novel's three parts ends with the apparent death of the story's protagonist, President Olivero, dictator of the fictional South American Republic of Roncador. In each case Olivero's death is an allegory for his translation to a "more profound level of existence", reflecting the book's overall theme of a search for the meaning of life. Read's interest in psychoanalytic theory is evident throughout the novel, which is constructed as a "philosophic myth ... in the tradition of Plato". The story contains many autobiographical elements, and the character of Olivero owes much to Read's experiences as an officer in the British Army during the First World War. The novel was positively received, although some commentators have considered it to be "inscrutable", and one has suggested that it has been so differently and vaguely interpreted by those who have given it serious study that it may lack the form and content to justify the praise it has received. (more...)
... that during the 1976 Çaldıran-Muradiye earthquake 95% of the traditional houses in Çaldıran were destroyed due to their low resistance to lateral loads, causing most of the casualties?
... that the writer of The X-Files episode "Per Manum" has described it as being about "the way you perceive connections between people"?
Twenty-six U.S. states have an official state reptile. Oklahoma was the first to name an official reptile, the collared lizard, in 1969, and nominations have gathered pace since the 1980s; however, state reptiles are yet to catch up in popularity with state birds, flowers, trees, or mammals. Because they are cold-blooded, reptiles are more common in warmer climates: 19 of the 26 state reptiles represent southern states. Of these 26, turtles comprise more than half, with the painted turtle the most frequently chosen. Several state reptiles are threatened species. Although there is no national reptile, the timber rattlesnake (now West Virginia's state reptile) was an element in Revolutionary War flags and is still used in the U.S. Navy Jack. (more...)
A 1937 anti-BolshevikNazi propaganda poster. A man with a skeleton face stands over bloody corpses, wielding a whip. His hat and clothing are Bolshevik in style. Before World War II, Nazi propaganda strategy, officially promulgated by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, stressed several themes. Their goals were to create external enemies (countries that allegedly inflicted the Treaty of Versailles on Germany) and internal enemies. Translated caption: "Bolshevism without a mask – large anti-Bolshevik exhibition of the NSDAPGauleitung Berlin from November 6, 1937 to December 19, 1937 in the Reichstag building".
Poster: Herbert Agricola; Restoration: Jujutacular
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