Perpetual stew: A stew cooked continuously, ad infinitum, beloved by medieval peasants and Wikimedia Contributors of the Year alike. Ingredients come and go, but the pot is never fully emptied. You could get up at four AM, and as long as you've got a crusty roll, you're ready to go. Some of these brothy behemoths have been going for forty-five years, non-stop. No washing up, either.
Wikenigma: This is the opposite of Wikipedia, Wikipedia's Wario, Wariopedia. It's an encyclopedia of things we don't know: the origins of April Fools' Day, how we got the words "Abracadabra" or "bloke", or why items with a price ending in .99 have such an insanely powerful effect on us. This is a proper food-for-thought-spend-all day-down kind of rabbit hole.
Anna Palm de Rosa - A game of L'hombre in Brøndum's Hotel (1885): This week's media comes in the form of Anna Palm's beautiful, smoky vignette of four card players getting into a game of Ombre. I've never heard of Ombre, but after a cursory glance at its Wikipedia entry it sounds like it's similar to Bridge, which I'm shite at. Anyway, I love the feeling that Palm's vignette conjours. Seemingly set in that bit of the night where time is flat and unmoving, the air here is thick, and claustrophobic with smoke. Pale faces are lit by candlelight, labouring to hold back the dark. A glass of sherry sits on the table, holding midnight's promise in its diminutive form. Lovely.
2024-12-11