The children of your brain

Retro Smokebot
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The Secret of the Machines - Rudyard Kipling

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit—
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!

Would you call a friend from half across the world?
If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,
You shall see and hear your crackling question hurled
Across the arch of heaven while you wait.   
Has he answered? Does he need you at his side?
You can start this very evening if you choose,
And take the Western Ocean in the stride
Of seventy thousand horses and some screws!

The boat-express is waiting your command!
You will find the Mauretania at the quay,
Till her captain turns the lever ’neath his hand,
And the monstrous nine-decked city goes to sea.

Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head
And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?
Do you want to turn a river in its bed,
Or plant a barren wilderness with wheat?
Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down
From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,
To work the mills and tramways in your town,
And irrigate your orchards as it flows?

It is easy! Give us dynamite and drills!
Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down and quake
As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,
And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake.

But remember, please, the Law by which we live,
We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.
If you make a slip in handling us you die!
We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—
Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!
Our touch can alter all created things,
We are everything on earth—except The Gods!

Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
Because, for all our power and weight and size,
We are nothing more than children of your brain!

 

August Macke (1887-1914)

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August Macke (1887-1914) was a German artist who travelled extensively in his brief life. He died young. You can tell he was interested in form and color, with his work becoming increasingly abstract as his art evolved. While classified as an Expressionist, he almost certainly would have drifted further into the Abstract movement had he lived. 

August Macke

Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone

Get ready for a duplicating weekend with Fariz Susetyo.

 

1941 blitzkrieg in the Americas

In 941, during WWII, Ecuador and Peru went to war with each other. It had nothing to do with the conflict between the Axis and the Allies, rather it was born of a long-standing border dispute between the two countries.

The dispute stemmed from the wars of independence period of South America, with Peru and Greater Columbia (which is what Ecuador was to branch off from) as well as Portuguese Brazil being in the mix to the east. Several wars were fought in the 19th century, and by the 1920s an uneasy truce prevailed between Ecuador and Peru.

In the early 20th century Peru's army greatly enlarged and improved, with modern equipment including artillery, tanks, and aircraft. Ecuador relied on diplomacy to fend them off, but with the U.S. being increasingly focused on the wars in Europe and Asia, South American affairs became lower priority and the crisis deepened.

Still the Ecuadorians thought they had a surplus of fighting spirit in their troops over the Peruvians. From Ecuador and Peru, 1941:

With all this [Peru’s significant numerical superiority], I should affirm that Ecuador is superior to Peru in terms of race; the Ecuadorians have a warring nature, while the Peruvians are pacifists. Peruvian officers are good because regular contingents of young men study in military schools abroad. Consequently, the Peruvian General Staff is efficient and well-trained, but the troops are inferior to those of Ecuador.  

That turned out not to be the case and based on that misjudgment Ecuador began reinforcing troops in the disputed territories. This led to heavy skirmishing during July 1941 which led to a full Peruvian invasion of Ecuador. In a South American version of a blitzkrieg, which even included parachuters, it was over quickly. By August the Ecuadorian resistance collapsed.

They signed a truce of sorts, although Peru massively violated it at least twice, and then they settled down with the border dispute still simmering. Two more small wars broke out in 1981 and 1995, but the final peace treaty was signed in 1998.      

   

Ohara Koson prints

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Ohara Koson (1877 – 1945) Was a Japanese artist, mainly doing prints. He subjects were primarily birds and flowers. He was influenced by Western art, but he didn't adopt its use of perspective. Rather, he used Western color palettes and also folded in some impressionistic use of lighting effects. Regardless, his compositions were in the traditional Japanese style.  

Ohara Koson

Timonia

Get ready for a carefree weekend with Otava Yo.

 

21 years

Bored and Drunk by Oliver Perry Rauch
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Today is my blogiversary. Flares into Darkness turns 21 years old. It occurs to me the blog is now old enough to drink, so I assume it will be off on a bender tonight. Hopefully it will have a designated driver, so it doesn't end up on the side of the road making a fool out of itself doing a field sobriety test. And, if that should happen, we can only hope the body cam footage doesn't end up on the internet.

As for Flares, it started out as a group blog, but gradually, one by one, the other posters drifted away. At one time it was largely dormant with me posting very erratically, only once every couple of months. Eventually, for reasons even I can't fathom, I started posting more regularly. It also used to be more focused on politics and current events, but I think other sites do a much better job than I of covering such matters, so I just focus on whatever amuses me: art on Sunday, music on Friday, and whatever catches my eye on Wednesday. 

That's the state of this blog today. I thank my small cadre of regulars that drop by, and I hope that the visitors who wander in are at least momentarily entertained by my nonsense. Have a good one all.