‘The Flower’

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

George Herbert (1593–1633) was a priest who composed devotional poems as a hobby. As he approached his early death (age 39), he collected his poems and submitted them for publication.

That collection, The Temple, went through eight editions in the next few decades, which speaks to its popularity in 17th century England. In a tumultuous era, his voice—calm, assured, embracing doubt as a necessary part of devotion—was a beloved one.

“Who would have thought my shriveled heart / Could have recovered greenness?” he asks in “The Flower.” He adds, “It was gone / Quite underground.” The poem, after the jump:
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Deep Underground

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The lightest of rain after the driest of spells leads to the most argillaceous petrichor, which is the kind that humans smell as relief, the thought that things will start growing again.

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A 1964 article in Nature with the euphonious title, “Nature of argillaceous odour,” gave the world the not-as euphonious-sounding word, “petrichor.” In it, two researchers attempted to scientifically describe what it is we smell when we smell the world after a rain shower and to give it a name.

The two authors coined the word, “petrichor,” which I have been mispronouncing in my head since I first encountered it last year, when an article on the Huffington Post started making its social media rounds. It has a long “I,” so say it like this: “petra,” then “eye-core,” which is not how I hear it in my head, with a short “i.”
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Today in History: Oct. 19

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

British forces led by Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the allied American and French forces in Yorktown, Virginia, on this date 235 years ago. This ended the Revolutionary War, but not completely, as skirmishes continued through the next year. Lord Cornwallis’ forces surrendered to General George Washington and the American forces but Lord Cornwallis himself sent his sword to the French forces to declare that his surrender was to the French not the new American army.

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Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, which every American high school graduate hears one portion of (the “Trio” section), was introduced on this date in 1901 by the Liverpool Orchestral Society. Elgar conducted it himself.

Below the jump, a 1931 film of Sir Edward conducting an orchestra at the opening of the Abbey Road Studios, London, on November 12 1931. You hear him greet the players: “Good morning gentlemen. Glad to see you all. Very light programme this morning. Please play this tune as though you’ve never heard it before.”
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