From the Narrow Desert: Zebras

Showing posts with label Zebras. Show all posts

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Neomonotonists

I dreamed that representatives of a secretive organization were going around to elementary schools and interviewing the “gifted and talented” kids, trying to identify individuals of possible interest to their group.

Part of the interview involved playing brief clips of various national anthems and noting in particular how each child reacted to “La Marseillaise.”

Children were also asked about their favorite colors and why they liked them. If a child expressed a preference for black and white, the interviewer was to say, “So you probably like zebras, right? Are you a Neomonotonist?”

The child’s reaction at this point was extremely important. Some would ask what a Neomonotonist was. Others would bluff and say yes or no as if they had understood the question. Neither was the response the interviewers were looking for.

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Dreaming in black and white

On Friday night (June 28) I dreamed all night about the flag of Brittany -- mostly the modern Gwenn ha Du (Sable four bars argent, a canton ermine) but sometimes also the older Kroaz Du (Argent a cross throughout sable).

That was all there was to the dream: no plot, no characters, no role for myself, just one shot after another of these black-and-white Breton flags.

On Saturday (June 29), I started using a new textbook with a student of mine. The first page of the first unit included this illustration:

It's a black-and-white picture of the Greek flag -- literally black and white, even though the Greek flag is blue and white, and the other pictures I've included in the photo show that the illustrations use shades of gray, and that even coffee is portrayed as gray rather than black.

This version of the Greek flag obviously closely resembles the Breton flags I had been dreaming about: five black stripes, four white stripes, and a canton which is the Kroaz Du with the colors swapped.

This morning (June 30), I checked my email and found that a correspondent had sent me a photo of a moth with striking black-and-white markings:

The central black marking resembles both a cross and a heraldic ermine spot, suggesting both of the Breton flags.

Later today, I spotted this on the wall of a restaurant:

In both parts of the design, there are five black stripes, just as on the Gwenn ha Du.

Update: After lunch, I went to a used bookstore and found a book about Ireland (a Celtic nation, like Brittany) shelved next to one with a zebra on the cover.

Update 2: Forgot to include this photo, taken on the street the same day. Of course it had to be five black noodles hanging from the chopstick-flagpole:

Saturday, June 29, 2024

Zinc Zeppelin

Zinc Zeppelin? Okay, I guess, but I prefer a heavier sound.

In "The horrible hairy homeward-hurrying hogs of Hieronymus," zebras are juxtaposed with the Hog Knight and his banner, and I therefore connected them with the zebra-striped flag of Brittany. Conceptually, the Hog -- associated by way of pun with the biblical Ham -- was bearing the black and white banner of Brittany.

Although the pun has the tribe of Ham being bred and mustered in Arabia -- thus accounting for the sandwiches there -- the more conventional understanding is, as Debbie has repeatedly pointed out, that the descendants of Ham are the Black peoples of Africa. In the Z picture, the Zeppelins are labeled with the names of African countries -- Zanzibar, Zambia, Zaire, and Zimbabwe -- and one of them bears a man whose distinctive Nguni shield marks him as a Zulu warrior from southern Africa. So here, too, we have the tribe of Ham bearing aloft the colors of Brittany.

We can see a total of six airships, each with a zebra -- corresponding to the Nautical Newts, six of which are in a boat.The Newts are from Northman Land -- i.e., from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. With the zebras we perhaps have yet another representation of this immigration -- only in metal zeppelins this time:

In other representations, the immigrants from Northman Land have brought sacred writings -- represented as the book Lassie Come Home and the newspaper The Northern Star. Elsewhere, a future scripture has been represented as a "round book" engraved on a metal disc, possibly brass. In the vision recounted in "Étude brute?" there is a holy book called the Cherubim, guarded by two Bulls. In "Lassie Come Home," I discussed how the Cherubim represent the 12 Tribes of Israel and the 12 signs of the zodiac, so the Cherubim (the book) would represent the combined scriptures of the 12 tribes. Near the prow of the Zanzibar zeppelin is this:

That's the zodiac -- the 12 signs depicted together in the form of a disc-shaped diagram engraved on zinc (of which brass is an alloy), and right next to it two zebu bulls. In the vision, I first saw the two Bulls inside an egg-shaped cavern, and then one of them led me into a second cavern where the Cherubim book was. On the Zeppelin, the two zebu bulls are in an oval frame, and one of them is facing the second frame which has the zodiac.