Day 9

I know I fell behind for a hot minute, but I'm back today with two things.

The first is about something I'm reading, but lives on my blog with Norm, about one of the forefathers to some of our favorite authors.

The second is about my triumphant return to biking.

This is a different kind of situation, what with trying to fill up the OG blog with posts that are links to other posts. Something new, anyway.

I've got some other stuff happening as well, but this might remain interesting (to me, maybe).

A Closer Look at the Heart Symbol

So we all know the now-universal symbol of love, the "heart symbol":

The funny thing about this heart symbol is that, uh, does it really look like a heart? Like an anatomical human heart? It doesn't really, does it?

I guess it could, but for some reason it got adopted for this particular purpose. It's an image of love. No, the image of love.

Have you ever thought of the origins of the symbol?

The furthest back it seems to have appeared was on coins struck by the Roman Empire:

Holy shit! The Romans? Did they see this as a symbol of love?

Why would they put this image on a coin? Have I ever asked this many questions in a post before? 

Well, to the Romans, this was a very important thing. This is the seedpod for the silphium plant. And the silphium plant's seedpods did a wonderful thing for the Romans: they made an extremely effective contraceptive. The things looked like what we called a "heart shape", and they represented a highly effective contraceptive.

It was so important to the Romans that they put the image on their money. Also, it was so important that they actually fucked it to extinction. Literally.

But, the Romans were also a visual folk, and they likely, with their love of art and such, wouldn't have oriented this image like we do, as an un-curved inverted triangle. To them, how awesome, a contraceptive that looked just like a particular body part associated with the need for contraception:

Is it clear enough yet? To the Romans, the silphium seedpod looked just like a scrotum.

Our "heart shape" is really just a scrotal sack. Maybe knowing that helps with how we see the shape now:

Days 4 and 5, and Today:6

I've just returned from a quick whirlwind sojourn with Tony up the coast to see some of his family, and while I did leave my laptop at home, this is the kind of enterprise you can do without your own personal gear (unless you need to post photos). I did stumble a little with my ambitions, and I'll freely acknowledge it. But, I do have some more posts coming.

The A's! The Korean Friendship Bell! Life in the Mission!

Day 3 of Experiment Posts About, eh, Other Posts

Here's a link to one of my favorite blogs I keep, my so-called Library Blog. If any of my fair readers haven't seen that blog yet, the purpose and method--I write about how books came to my possession and what they do for me--are only just a little narcissistic, and the execution is usually more entertaining than it sounds.

That particular post is about Ernest Shackleton.

Day 2

I know the hour is late, but my Maltese Brother is running behind schedule, and I have some fun thoughts I'm going to dump for Day Two.

The first is a sports post about the baseball playoffs. The last sports got a few words from a reader, which is nice. And I was bitching, for sure.

The second is a post about some flags I like, but I swear it's more interesting than that makes it sound. It's about the colors of navy and gold, and stars and suns, and Inti, the Mesoamerican sun-god.

Have fun with those.

Changing Gears Again...Trying Something New

Back in January I started an experiment where I wanted to create only long-form artsy posts on this, the Caliboyinbrooklyn blog. And for a short time it was cool. But, I found I still had a bunch of ideas for things to write, tiny things and random things, and with the new direction for my "main" blog, I started a new blog, the Observatory, as a place to collect those things.

By February I was using both blogs in a similar fashion, and my little January experiment was over.

Now it's October, and I'm going to start another experiment. This month I'd like to expose more readers to more posts of my various blogs, and I'm going to try to post every single day this month, and here, on the original Caliboyinbrooklyn site, I plan on listing a link to the new post.

And this, being my dad's birthday (which creates its own series of posts), is also the first of the month, seems like a great day to start.

So here I go.

Here's a link to a a sports post about how the Lakers are screwing people who like to be disconnected.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today mark's my dad's birthday, and it's a cool one. I hope you have a great day and many more decades worth of these days.

Love you, dad, Happy Birthday!

Groomsmen at Dan's Wedding

Dad, me, Norm