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“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.”

~Amos Bronson Alcott

qep’a’ wa’maH vaghDIch
KLI’s 15th Annual Great Meeting

The Klingon Language Institute’s 2008 _qep’a'_ “major meeting” (or “conference”) is scheduled for July 23-27 in Essington, Pennsylvania. Join us for five days of immersion, inspiration, and instruction in the Warrior’s Tongue! Focus is of course on the Klingon language, but some attendees take pride in dressing the part as well.

For more information, see the announcement on the KLI’s web site.

Go, Met!

This is extremely cool, a great concept. It places these modern heroes in digs worthy of their truly mythic status.

Check out the Met’s new Superhero Exhibition.

May 7, 2008–September 1, 2008

This exhibition explores the symbolic and metaphorical associations between fashion and the superhero. Featuring movie costumes, avant-garde haute couture, and high-performance sportswear, this exhibition reveals how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body. Objects are organized thematically around particular superheroes, whose movie costumes and superpowers are catalysts for the discussion of key concepts of superheroism and their expression in fashion. Accompanied by a catalogue.

Met Museum unveils superhero exhibit

Today we got to take an advanced look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit: “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.” The show has three types of costumes on display. First, there are original superhero costumes that were worn by actors in the major superhero movies — Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man, Catwoman (from Batman Returns, not Catwoman), and Mystique are in the gallery below.

The “real” superhero costumes are juxtaposerd with fantastical outfits put together by today’s hot designers, including Versace, Armani, Docle & Gabbana, and John Galliano. Finally, the curators included some contemporary sportswear that has clearly been influenced by superhero costume designs — think Speedo’s controversial new Fastskin LZR suit and Spyder’s ski race suits. The backdrops behind all the costumes were designed by Nathan Crowley, production designer for the new Christian Bale Batman films. All in all, a good time.

For those of you jetting through New York over the next few months, the exhibit opens on Wednesday, May 7 and runs through September 1. Or just check out our gallery below.

For more details, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Special Exhibitions, “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” site, or the Met Store with Super Merch.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck that which is planted.”

~ Bible - Ecclesiastes 3:1

I love linguistics and obsess over languages, ancient to Klingon. Also had the pleasure of learning Latin in high school, so this type of tonguey news fascinates me.

The Vatican is waging a one man war against modernism, as if that were a surprise. But one of the cool things to emerge from the same old same oldism of it all is the resurrection of the dead. The dead tongue of Latin that is. Even better, the modern day translation of this tale come via the Internet. The Vatican is putting out dual language texts and running webpages in Latin now, attempting to spark a Romantic revival. Good luck, Pope! (Aspice, officio fungeris sine spe honoris amplioris)

Vatican gives Latin online boost

The Roman Catholic Church, for centuries a bastion of Latin usage, has given the ancient tongue a 21st Century boost by launching a website in Latin.

The Vatican website now has a section - Sancta Sedes (Holy See) - with Latin papal texts and religious works.

Pope Benedict XVI is an advocate of Latin, allowing Mass in the language.

But when a papal decree was issued only in Latin by mistake last June, there was confusion until the Vatican press office put out an Italian version.

“It caused a bit of panic for my colleagues who had no schooling in Latin,” said the BBC’s Rome correspondent David Willey, “until the official translation finally emerged.”

The Vatican website already has sections in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Ancient traditions

For centuries church documents were all written in Latin, the mass was said only in Latin.

Without a knowledge of the language you would not go far if you were an ambitious priest.

But Latin has fallen out of favour in recent years as the subject has been dropped from school curricula in many countries and normal Vatican business is conducted in Italian, or increasingly in English.

But Pope Benedict wants the Catholic Church to keep its ancient traditions.

After his election to the papacy three years ago, he addressed the Church’s cardinals in Latin.

He has encouraged the use of the language in seminaries where new priests are trained.

Last year he lifted restrictions on celebrating the Latin Tridentine Mass.

The Latin Mass had been largely abandoned in the 1960s, as part of reforms to make Catholicism more relevant to its worldwide congregation.

But Father Reginald Foster, an American priest who is the Pope’s official Latinist, praises the virtues and the clarity of the Latin language.

“You have to say something and move on,” he says.

“It’s not like French and some of these philosophical languages where you can write a whole page and say nothing - in Latin you can’t do that!”

Fr Foster has a weekly programme on Vatican Radio called The Latin Lover, in which he explains the historical and contemporary uses of the language.

Acta est fabula, plaudite!

So, bring out your dead!

Yes, it is true.

In Headlines I Couldn’t Make Up we discover, “Great tits cope well with warming.”

At least one of Britain’s birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.

Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise.

By the way, you can purchase large hanging globes for your tits. They are perfectly round and balanced, even as they dangle. Get a fun pair of tit balls and enjoy the view.

Seriously. What better way to show off your tits to your neighbors?

Please read John Hawks interesting (basically internal) monologue questioning, “Did humans face extinction 70,000 years ago?”

John McCain tells America, “No, You Can’t.”

Can never get enough of “Political Sex Scandals.”

I do not seek. I find.

~ Pablo Picasso