Giants Amongst Men

Metaphysics, Spiritual, Synchronicity, 90 Comments

 

2020 is hindsight.

‘Residual memory, unlike instinct, is memories directly passed through generations or progeny. Also it could be memories from past lives. The idea of residual memory is that certain things are not learned as instinct they are part of your genetic make up or a part of your parents genetic make up that you remember.’

 

Giants Amongst Men.

Election Day is 0123 = 11/3/2020.

 

 

Dallas and A Lincoln.

 

 

 

 

“Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone.”

Good Luck US.

 

90 thoughts on “Giants Amongst Men”

  1. Fascinating history of America.
    Abraham’s father lived 205 years?
    Truthfully, I don’t think that’s an impossibility at all. Good food, good air, good water, walking to where you want to go, rest and honest work. No worries about paper. Would keep us all alive and well.

    Reply

    1. Ab Ra Ham Link On

      Reply

    2. Anon

      I was thinking about mirror of JFK and Abraham Lincoln. And then Car Clue and got a thought to check the make of a car.

      A Lincoln. Convertible to be precise.

      Actually I think it takes in all means of transport. Not too sure exactly what the point is. Trains, boats and planes, cars, vans, trucks, lorries, bikes and skateboards and spaceships even keep on being pointed out to me.

      The World in Motion.

      Reply

        2. Cain and Abe L.
          Abe L(incoln)
          Abe L coin
          The pen ny.

          The “black face” of Cain not of the flesh but of the machine -the black screen of the de vices in our hands – laptops, phones, pads, de wave servers, etc.

          Reply

  3. Last night I thought wouldn’t it be a riot to do this with masks? The real ugly blue medical kind. Put them on the end of a leash and go into places with uber urgency asking if they’re mask friendly. Do it en masse(k) with masks on. Turn that ish upside down.

    Reply

    2. https://thesacredsanctuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/20201031_152457.jpg

      You can’t keep a good Dog Star down…… 007 Bond is Back …he keeps getting killed over and over again by Stella the star of the sea the one with the gills….the Ice Queen…with the Ice Pick….the one who took out the Titanic.

      https://doctorcooperslab.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/a-dream-of-ice-9781442395633_hr.jpg

      but the truth is he keeps bouncing back…resurrecting himself.

      That Old Dog…. Old Cyrus…Osirius…every Dog has its day.

      The clue is in the car

      Reply

          1. I don’t follow.
            How’d you know it was AI.
            Also, is it in the book of e-nock?
            Seems it’s a vampire.

            Reply

              1. Fascinating. You are the only one I’ve ever seen offer this point of view. Are the meh,cain’s all under his con troll?

                The e-race sure of e-noch.

                Reply

                1. I am sure I am not the only one Anony..

                  but the predictive programming part of this is all around us and always has been since the beginning. The script being programmed into the collective consciousness.

                  Take a look around you at the masked drones cowering in fear incapable of independent critical thinking. I love their reaction when i refuse to wear one they actually don’t know how to respond…like it doesn’t compute in their zombie brains.

                  I was in TK MAXX the other day and the programming coming over the speakers was relentless…. make sure you keep your distance…make sure you wash your hands…wear your mask to match your outfit…it’s a fashion item…get one in leopardskin.

                  Of course it is a symbol….one that is going into the collective subconscious mind to tell you that you are a slave and no longer allowed to speak or give an opinion. I saw people walking around the same store wearing OBEY on their hats and t-shirts…I truly believe people would wear clothes covered in shit if they were told it was expensive, designer gear.

                  and that’s the key programming word designer..you are being designed to think, act and behave in the same way.

                  take a look at the predictive programming around the coming eclipse

                  I was out for dinner on Sat night with some really lovely people.

                  One of them was very wealthy as in a multi-millionaire, as we were walking back to the car together he pulled me back and said that something was going on with the data. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about but he kept saying that something was going on with the data…that the data was being manipulated and transferred. Maybe data also means DNA.

                  Something BIG is coming.. they might be Giants

                  Reply

                  1. Very sad how programmed people are. Everyone afraid of having an idea or lifestyle different from the herd.

                    You are the only one I’ve encountered that made the connection between that cuckoo for cocopuff entity and fake intelligence.

                    The data is being manipulated. Definitely. The old switch a roo.

                    Ppl say drumpf is the trump card. He is certainly a rabbi T with big toys and pansy boys.

                    But not so fast.

                    Whatever God is, I doubt it likes to be don trolled.

                    Reply

                  2. I also think cuckoo for cocopuffs has a copy paste e race script which transfers files over to new simulations everytime its losing. Alters data and inserts tiktok files.

                    What a loser.

                    Reply

    1. MJ

      Some of this is extraordinary. You posted this video and four minutes earlier according to time stamp, MJ from south of France emailed me.

      It was very beautiful and just sharing.

      ‘So ,please , tell them we are so close with them ,with you and all your family ,for ever.’

      And Elena had just posted Nessun Dorma. This took me back to 1990 football – soccer to Americans – World Cup and a drinking pal who was called Phil C and was a doppelganger of Phil Collins.

      Reply

      1. It is extraordinary! And I don’t know what it is, but its getting closer.
        Phil – https://www.etymonline.com/word/philo-#etymonline_v_14863

        And GI-ANT-I-MATTER.
        Something bigger than US.
        I think we are talking about cosmic energy here.

        I was a giant once. I walked across the ocean. And it is said that a giantess built things on the islands in the mediterranean (middle earth). I imagine she could drain water to walk across, and fill it back up again. It’s sort of like escaping time…melt the ice to drain the water. Let the sun sprout something new. Really no battle here.

        Reply

        1. Just went to a “wellness center” that was closed due to “the illness.” Such a bizarre dream. We were turned away.

          Reply

    1. Push the red butt ON sometimes A Bel needs a little help resurrecting from Lincoln Green…

      that last red black hand nearly killed me…let’s get back to the C ass in O…and finish the game…i’m feeling the luck of the Oirish.

      it’s the Circle Game….my lucky numbers 9 and 11…time to dive back into the Trench….

      Reply

    2. Seance onry

      Abusers often tell people their memories are not real. It’s crazy making. Gas lighting.

      Reply

  9. Still guessing it’ll be a purple CGI-ant ticket.
    Ken, any numbers corresponding with prince harry and pence harris?

    Reply

    1. Super Hot Plasma and Fusion.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8909709/Energy-Experimental-fusion-reactor-UK-successfully-produces-super-hot-plasma.html

      ‘The MAST Upgrade reactor — in Oxfordshire — achieved this on October 29. Plasma reached 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit — a tenth of the machine’s potential .’

      ‘But nuclear fusion works by combining two light elements to make a heavier one. It’s an attempt to replicate the processes of the Sun here on Earth.’

      https://meroveushome.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/mast-fusion.jpg

      Reply

  14. CGIants trawling through the screen

    ”
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    Original Article
    The deep time of the screen, and its forgotten etymology
    Giorgio Avezzù
    Article: 1610296 | Published online: 29 Apr 2019
    Download citation
    https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2019.1610296
    CrossMark Logo CrossMark
    In this articleClose
    ABSTRACT
    Expanding the history of screen practice
    The question of meaning(s)
    Dante’s contribution to an archaeology of the screen
    Focalizers of vision in the middle ages
    The screen and its doubles
    Cernere or to discern: The Epicureanism of the screen experience
    Disclosure statement
    Additional information
    Footnotes
    References
    ABSTRACT
    While “screen” is usually considered a word with a Nordic origin, its older and forgotten classical root shows that its semantic field is more curious than media archaeology commonly thinks. Above all, this proves the existence of a long-lasting connection between the screen and the act of seeing, and the very notion of spectacle in its broader sense. Such a different—Latin, Epicurean—etymology of “screen” can put the idea of separation at the heart of the concept of spectacle. From this perspective, the value of a spectacle stems from a vision of difference—the act of spectating being both detached and detaching, as it enables the spectators to take themselves out of the picture, and thus to draw a morale from what they regard as other than themselves. If we bring this understanding of “screen” to the field of film theory, we deal with an idea of experience that has less to do with the notion of engagement adopted by contemporary approaches focusing on affect, emotion, cognition (and neuroscience), and more to do with the disengagement of the spectator from whatever is represented, and even more to do with the added value that such disengagement brings forth.”

    Masking, wiping clean, dis embodiment. No such thing as no memories. Every single mem (w) ory seems more likely. 0 is w hole.

    Reply

    1. “Reset” is a machine term. Who is running the show? If you want to know what’s writing articles in TIME rag and others, just look at how it handled teaching Corona hoax to kids in a special children’s Time edition. Pure machine propaganda. Ornery Seance. Bound to the tor ies of cain. Nope.

      –
      “I propose to go back even further, and precisely to the late thirteenth century, when the first known instances of the term “screen” (and its equivalents in other languages) appeared, at least in writing. Indeed, the first episode I consider involves a living screen—by which I mean, literally, someone’s body. It is, in fact, the body of the screen lady described by Dante in his little book Vita Nova (The New Life), written in the 1290s. Nor do I stop there. The search for a new etymology, or—rather—the rediscovery of a lost etymology, one that involves the Latin verb cernere, as I discuss later, points even further back, to the first century BCE: much earlier than either the word “screen” or its media acceptation are usually dated in all the main historical dictionaries, including the OED. “

      Reply

      1. “The question of meaning(s)
        What sense, or, rather, what multiple senses lie within the concept of a screen? Genealogical reconstructions in media archaeology have repeatedly pointed out that the meaning of “surface for presenting images” came to be attached to the concept of screen only late in the course of its history, around the first half of the nineteenth century, following the spread of a number of optical devices, designed for entertainment, that relied on projection. Yet, as we are told, the original use of the word had less to do with entertainment, and more—in fact, exclusively—to do with notions of concealment and protection. Most scholars appear to agree on this point. In fact, this particular semantic explanation has become something of a rhetorical topos in the literature, see, e.g. Huhtamo (2004, 2016), Strauven (2012), Elsaesser and Hagener (2015, 42), Casetti (2015, 157), Pinotti and Somaini (2016, 142), Chateau and Moure 2016b, 14).

        According to these and many other recent accounts in the fields of media and visual culture, then, it is only relatively late that the word “screen” acquired the meaning of “displaying something, making something visible”, thus displacing the previous, more or less “opposite” (Elsaesser and Hagener 2015, 42) usage of the term, which related more to hiding, protecting, and blocking. In short, proponents of this view suggest that the term underwent a sort of semantic evolution, if not a proper reversal.”

        Blocking is masking is veiling is cloaking is clothing. Clothing in the threeden.

        Reply

  15. Continued….

    “…
    Share icon
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    Journal of Aesthetics & Culture
    Volume 11, 2019 – Issue 1
    Open access
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    Views

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    0
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    Listen
    Listen with webReader

    Focus
    Original Article
    The deep time of the screen, and its forgotten etymology
    Giorgio Avezzù
    Article: 1610296 | Published online: 29 Apr 2019
    Download citation
    https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2019.1610296
    CrossMark Logo CrossMark
    In this articleClose
    ABSTRACT
    Expanding the history of screen practice
    The question of meaning(s)
    Dante’s contribution to an archaeology of the screen
    Focalizers of vision in the middle ages
    The screen and its doubles
    Cernere or to discern: The Epicureanism of the screen experience
    Disclosure statement
    Additional information
    Footnotes
    References
    ABSTRACT
    While “screen” is usually considered a word with a Nordic origin, its older and forgotten classical root shows that its semantic field is more curious than media archaeology commonly thinks. Above all, this proves the existence of a long-lasting connection between the screen and the act of seeing, and the very notion of spectacle in its broader sense. Such a different—Latin, Epicurean—etymology of “screen” can put the idea of separation at the heart of the concept of spectacle. From this perspective, the value of a spectacle stems from a vision of difference—the act of spectating being both detached and detaching, as it enables the spectators to take themselves out of the picture, and thus to draw a morale from what they regard as other than themselves. If we bring this understanding of “screen” to the field of film theory, we deal with an idea of experience that has less to do with the notion of engagement adopted by contemporary approaches focusing on affect, emotion, cognition (and neuroscience), and more to do with the disengagement of the spectator from whatever is represented, and even more to do with the added value that such disengagement brings forth.

    KEYWORDS: Screen, media archaeology, screenology, deep time, disengagement, cernere
    Previous article
    Next article
    Expanding the history of screen practice
    The screen has been, often and also recently, a privileged object of inquiry in the field of media archaeology. Erkki Huhtamo (2004) even suggested the phrase “screenology”,1 to designate a branch of archaeological studies that has proven itself capable, so far, of generating a lively, erudite, and stimulating debate. These efforts stem from a widespread critical concern, which calls into question the tendency to regard the screen as a transparent object. Studies in screenology aim precisely to make screens visible once again, and do so by addressing their materiality, but also their role and usage in mediating perception, i.e. the function they imply now and have indeed implied throughout history.

    This essay intends to contribute to this debate by taking a slightly unusual approach. The screens I consider here are of a different ilk from those usually addressed by scholars of screen studies. In order to re-frame some of the questions being currently discussed in the field, I focus on a few examples that are, perhaps, atypical representatives of what we currently understand as “screen”. Here, in fact, I do not address the cinematic apparatus, nor—strictly speaking—the film screen as such. Rather, I turn back to a couple of (very) pre-cinematic episodes that I find particularly revealing in terms of our understanding of the whole concept—our understanding, that is, of what a spectacular experience mediated and enabled by a screen entails.

    If we really want to place the cinema in the “larger context” of what Charles Musser (1984) suggests we should call “the history of screen practice”, then this context should be kept as large as possible. Musser traces the origins of screen practice back to the mid-seventeenth century, and specifically to the work of Athanasius Kircher. I propose to go back even further, and precisely to the late thirteenth century, when the first known instances of the term “screen” (and its equivalents in other languages) appeared, at least in writing. Indeed, the first episode I consider involves a living screen—by which I mean, literally, someone’s body. It is, in fact, the body of the screen lady described by Dante in his little book Vita Nova (The New Life), written in the 1290s. Nor do I stop there. The search for a new etymology, or—rather—the rediscovery of a lost etymology, one that involves the Latin verb cernere, as I discuss later, points even further back, to the first century BCE: much earlier than either the word “screen” or its media acceptation are usually dated in all the main historical dictionaries, including the OED. Respectively fourteen and nineteen centuries before [fig. 1].

    Figure 1.

    Display full size
    The extent of this time-span serves to justify the title of this article. The phrase “deep time” refers to the growing interest of media archaeologists and theorists in wider, “geological” time scales (e.g. Zielinski 2006; Peters 2015; Parikka 2015). That said, however, it is worth pointing out that my understanding of “deep time” is mostly metaphorical, as the term here is only meant to imply a timeline longer than the one usually considered. Put otherwise, my main concern here is not—as it is, e.g. in a 2015 article by Mitchell—to sketch a palaeontology of the screen, intriguing though that idea might be. Rather, my aim is to pursue a more comprehensive approach, and, indeed, a sense of historical depth: I intend to retrace some deep and ancient strata of meaning, and some practices and values related to the screen that media historians have occasionally neglected.

    In my pursuit of such “geological” depth, however, I do not claim exhaustiveness. I am, for example, entirely aware of the limited scope of my insight, which remains (also due to its linguistic focus) exclusively concerned with Western visual culture—even though, as is well known, Arab mediation played a fundamental role in defining the tradition of seeing and representing in European modernity, and indeed already in Dante’s times (see Belting 2011). Nor do I follow a systematic, wholly consistent method. This investigation is, by necessity, fragmentary, and only capable of proceeding cautiously, as it were, through speculation.

    Perhaps better: through hypothesis and falsification. In trying to resist too narrow a focus, one that sees the screen solely as the outcome of a modern phenomenon, I aim to recognise the wider historical reach of the concept, and push the debate well beyond the self-imposed brackets which—at times—seem to constrain it. In line with the spirit of media archaeology, the aim of this article is to call into question, and try to refute, some discontinuities routinely assumed by most histories of the screen.

    Such discontinuities can be divided into two fundamental categories. In the first case, a semantic shift is assumed. Scholars who endorse this view stipulate that, in the recent past, the concept of the screen has acquired a meaning that is vastly different from that which it had for centuries. The second case depends on a more etymological discontinuity, as historians claim that the word “screen” in itself is relatively young, and cannot be traced back to any classical root.

    As one can imagine, taking these discontinuities for granted has consequences, and it may even lead to radically reducing the complexity that marks the cultural history of the screen. While such a reduction can be useful, from a heuristic perspective, here I prefer to take the opposite direction, and pursue both depth and complexity, with no pretension of drawing a conclusive picture, but with hopes of sketching at least a rough outline, whose full contents remain, by necessity, out of focus.

    What is at stake is not only the accuracy of a cultural genealogy. I believe that an archaeological approach, paired with the sort of etymological reflections I suggest here, might pave the way to something more: namely, a review of current theories of media and of aesthetic experience, including those concerning the cinematic apparatus. Such a critical review I outline at the end of this article, if only tentatively and without much detail, given the obvious constraints. What I hope to achieve, prospectively, is a redefinition of what is specific about the screenic experience, considered across the spectrum of its manifestations in different arts and spectacular contexts, though of course, my main ambition is to say something about cinema, especially in relation to our contemporary mediascape.

    In this sense, my proposal could also be seen as tentatively polemic towards other current approaches. My assumption, which I postulate here, even though it shall be clearer at the end, is that three elements ought to be considered when searching for the specificity of the screenic experience. The first two have to do with a) the sense of sight and b) the interrelated concepts of separation, discrimination, distance, difference. However, as I will argue in the final pages of this article, it is the intimate overlapping of those two first elements what confers this experience its specific character. What marks the screenic experience, in other words, is c) the sight of a difference/distance: the vision, or even the visual awareness in the subject who enjoys the spectacle, of the distinction between spectatorship and representation, with all the connotations and values that such a distinction entails. Indeed, it is precisely those values and connotations that the “true” etymology of the term “screen” appears to reveal, for it designates a physical item as much as it does a set of practices. If my proposed derivation from the Latin verb cernere is correct, at the etymological core of the phrase is not a material object, but rather a particular, spectacular mode of relation with the world, a bundle of field lines, a setup, be it material, spatial or ideal.

    The question of meaning(s)
    What sense, or, rather, what multiple senses lie within the concept of a screen? Genealogical reconstructions in media archaeology have repeatedly pointed out that the meaning of “surface for presenting images” came to be attached to the concept of screen only late in the course of its history, around the first half of the nineteenth century, following the spread of a number of optical devices, designed for entertainment, that relied on projection. Yet, as we are told, the original use of the word had less to do with entertainment, and more—in fact, exclusively—to do with notions of concealment and protection. Most scholars appear to agree on this point. In fact, this particular semantic explanation has become something of a rhetorical topos in the literature, see, e.g. Huhtamo (2004, 2016), Strauven (2012), Elsaesser and Hagener (2015, 42), Casetti (2015, 157), Pinotti and Somaini (2016, 142), Chateau and Moure 2016b, 14).

    According to these and many other recent accounts in the fields of media and visual culture, then, it is only relatively late that the word “screen” acquired the meaning of “displaying something, making something visible”, thus displacing the previous, more or less “opposite” (Elsaesser and Hagener 2015, 42) usage of the term, which related more to hiding, protecting, and blocking. In short, proponents of this view suggest that the term underwent a sort of semantic evolution, if not a proper reversal.

    Now, I would like to suggest that this distinction between two different orders of meaning should not be taken for granted. While all these different denotations are indeed related to the term we are investigating, I believe, and here I try to demonstrate, that these two orders of meaning are, to begin with, different, but not incompatible, and that we should not consider the mid-nineteenth century as a watershed, that is to say, as a “point of diffraction” leading to a radical semantic shift for the word “screen”.

    To the extent that a political agenda can be ascribed to media archaeology, the questioning of perceived epistemic discontinuities ought to be seen as one of its primary items, with the aim of curbing the enthusiasms that may arise, perhaps too hastily, in response to assumptive and under-scrutinised epochal shifts. From this perspective, the present intervention falls squarely within the purview of media archaeology. Indeed, my intention is to set aside an outdated (though not entirely mistaken in either form or substance) rhetoric of novelty, according to which the screen in its current understanding belongs uniquely to the contemporary age.

    To be clear, I do not propose to dismiss all other readings of the term, nor do I think that “screen” always meant the same thing throughout time. Yet, if any ideological agenda—as it inevitably happens—can be found to inform this article at all, it is perhaps the belief in a deep, long-lasting connection between the screen and the act of seeing, which in turn leads me to affirm an intimate complicity between the screen and the notion of spectacle in its broader sense2—the precise nature of which I discuss later in this article.

    The current meaning of the term—as we are often led to assume, or indeed explicitly told—is inextricably linked to the spread of new visual media in the nineteenth century. That is to say, it is linked to the diffusion, in modern times, of optical technologies of various kinds, lensed and projective apparatuses, “devices of wonder” (Stafford and Terpak 2001), and new visual spectacles—i.e. what has also been called “early media” (Parikka 2012, 19). Could it be, however, that such an account be flawed, undermined by what amounts to a (pre)cinematic bias? Could there be a hint of partiality, of teleological thinking? Put otherwise: is it possible that the supposed opening act in the history of screens might not be the opening act at all? Let us be clear: as far the usage, the spread and the meaning of the term, both the nineteenth century and the emergence of early media devices played a key role. That is beyond any doubt. The insisted recurrence of these historical claims, however, pushes us almost irresistibly to verify—falsify, if possible—their underlying assumptions, and call into question the dominant view of history.

    Dante’s contribution to an archaeology of the screen
    In the history of the term “screen”, concealment and showing have coexisted since the beginning. I discussed some of these intersections between showing and concealing elsewhere, if briefly, and so did Carbone (2016), whose convincing arguments occasionally overlap with mine. To be sure, the word “screen” was, for centuries, mainly used to denote protection, separation and concealment. Alongside those meanings, however, the word was also—if occasionally—used to express the sense of “showing”, i.e. in relation to representation and monstration, as illustrated by an example dating as far back as seven centuries ago, when Dante first used the term schermo in his book Vita Nova.

    Incidentally, Dante was not the only writer to use the phrase in the thirteenth century, when Italian literature emerged from its Medieval Latin cradle as a distinct tradition. Schermo, though not a very commonly used word, can be found in several other authors of the time: Petrarch, Guittone d’Arezzo, Jacopone da Todi, Brunetto Latini (Dante’s master), Cecco d’Ascoli and Cecco Angiolieri (see Colussi 1991, 61–62). And Dante does not use the word just in Vita Nova; he also uses it a few times in his major work, the Commedia (1304–21).

    Both there and elsewhere, Dante uses the term with the meaning that was most common and established at the time. Battaglia’s Grande dizionario della lingua italiana provides the following definition for schermo: “that which is used to cover or shelter someone or something from external agents, inclement weather, or harmful factors, to hide it from view: cover, shelter”, and also, figuratively, as “that which is used to combat or avoid a negative circumstance, a difficult, damaging or unpleasant situation.”

    In terms of the established use in Dante’s times, however, Battaglia’s reference to the context of seeing (the screen as something that covers or shelters from view) seems already metaphorical. In the Commedia, schermo usually has a more concrete and material sense—screens are, for example, the defences constructed by the Paduans along the river Brenta, and by the Flemish at Wissant and Bruges, to protect the waterfront (Inf. XVI, 4–8). But schermi are also the attacks, the fencing moves performed by the devil Malacoda and his companions, who, armed with threatening hooks, try to prevent Dante and Virgil from continuing on their infernal path (Inf. XXI, 79–81). Not by chance, as it is well known, schermo is closely related to scherma, fencing.

    On closer inspection, however, these last two examples already show that a more complex matrix of meanings is at work, even when Dante sticks to the common usage of schermo. The point did not escape the attention of contemporaneous readers. Writing in Latin around 1328, just a few years after the redaction of the Commedia, Guido da Pisa noted:

    The author uses a single Germanic word, schermo, in fact implying two different meanings, that is defence and offence. This word schermo comes from the military art that is called schermire. And indeed, the act of the military schermire comprises two opposite gestures, defence and offence, because with one hand or one gesture a man defends himself, and with another hand or gesture he hits or attacks the opponent.3

    In passing, it should be noted that Guido too believes in the German, non-classical origin of the term. I am less convinced by this etymology, now commonly accepted by all commentators, for reasons that I explain later on. For now, however, I only wish to point out the interesting fact that, in his comments, Guido describes already (with a certain surprise) a double meaning embedded in the term schermo, its semantic split between defence and offence. Even in the Commedia we thus find two “opposite” meanings conflated in one word: a curious ambivalence indeed, though not quite the one that interests me here.

    Before the Commedia, in fact, the term is firstly and more famously used by Dante in Vita Nova. Even if the exact textual passages are not as renowned as others, the phrase “screen lady”, donna schermo or donna dello schermo, is widely known, immediately recognisable to every high school student in Italy.

    Vita Nova is the earliest work by Dante, written around 1293, when he was in his late twenties; it is a sort of autobiographical novel set in Florence—and the first novel of Italian literature—including both prose and verse recounting the author’s love for a local woman named Beatrice. A few passages of Vita Nova are especially relevant when looking at the archaeology of the screen and at the history of its practices.

    As the rules of courtly love demanded, the identity of the beloved woman had to remain secret. In Andreas Capellanus’ De Amore, written at the end of the twelfth century, a maxim summarizes the precept as Amor raro consuevit durare vulgatus: “when made public, love rarely endures.” Therefore, the woman’s identity had to be concealed from the audience, either by changing her name (as with the senhal in troubadour poetry) or, as with Dante’s screen lady, by pretending that the poet’s love was directed towards another woman, i.e. by using another woman as a screen, behind which the poet’s real feelings could hide. We, as readers, know that Dante is in love with Beatrice, while Dante’s fellow citizens do not and should not.

    Chapter V of Vita Nova describes, with ample detail, a spectacular setup consisting of an enclosed space, an observer and an observee, straight lines of sight, an audience and a (living) screen. Put otherwise, Dante carefully arranges a system of subjects, objects, spaces, partitions, lines, sights, attention and belief—in short, everything one needs to constitute an actual apparatus of vision:

    It happened one day that this most gracious of women [Beatrice] was sitting in a place where words about the Queen of Glory were being listened to [a church], and I was positioned in such a way that I saw my beatitude. And in the middle of a direct line between her and me was seated a gracious and very attractive woman who kept looking at me wondering about my gaze, which seemed to rest on her. Many people were aware of her looking, and so much attention was being paid to it that, as I was leaving the place, I heard people saying, ‘Look at the state he is in over that woman.’ And hearing her name I understood they were talking about the woman who had been situated midpoint in the straight line that proceeded from the most gracious lady, Beatrice, and reached its end in my eyes. Then I felt relieved, confident my secret had not been betrayed that day by my appearance. And immediately I thought of using the gracious woman as a screen for the truth, and I made such a show over it in a short amount of time that most people who talked about me thought they knew my secret. I concealed myself by means of this woman for a number of years and months […].4

    Here the screen appears already to be part of an apparatus whose function, in a way, is to produce a public spectacle. Nor is this a detail of secondary importance: it shows that the screen had a role outside the private sphere, and into the “world of public entertainment”, much earlier than it is usually claimed (see Huhtamo 2004, 2016).

    The screen, hiding the truth “for this great love of mine”, is what the majority must see, to prevent them from gazing at what Dante is really interested in—Beatrice—and to direct their attention elsewhere, i.e. to make them believe that they know what actually remains a secret. It is a defensive, concealing device, but it serves that purpose also because it enables representation, monstration: tanto ne mostrai, writes Dante—“I made such a show over it”. It is one and the other, at the same time: it protects by showing something different.

    Vita Nova is, after all, “a visual work”, as Parronchi (1959) writes. Dante, in describing such a complex spectacular geometry, draws from the vocabulary of medieval geometrical optics, with words like linea retta (“straight line”) and terminare (“reaching its end”). The insisted focus on eyes, sight and gazes also goes to demonstrate the optical streak of the novel. Indeed, many scholars explored this connection with geometrical optics, and Dante’s possible sources have been the object of a complex debate (among others, Parronchi 1959; Boyde 1993; Gilson 2000; Akbari 2012). Throughout all his work, and above all in the Convivio and in the Commedia, the poet showed an awareness of all the key quaestiones of medieval optics: issues regarding direct, reflected, and refracted vision, perception of light and colour, errors of perception and so forth.

    Theories of vision have often had philosophical connotations, and that is true both in medieval treatises and in Dante’s Commedia: light is a figure of divine truth, and there is a correspondence between the laws of vision, as those concerning radiation, and ethical or theological laws. Vita Nova, however, stands at a crossroads between the sacred and the profane. Scholars such as Tarud Bettini (2013) note how, already before Dante, the vocabulary of medieval optics had been appropriated by Italian love poetry throughout the thirteenth century—in Tuscany but also in Sicily. Nor should this come as a surprise: poets such as Guido Cavalcanti were, for all extents and purposes, accomplished intellectuals, who had read Alhazen, knew about theories of phantasy, and about the intromission and the extra-mission of the “rays of vision”. From this body of knowledge, with its problems, images, and its specific vocabulary, these writers derived a poetic language that entailed, as Bruno Nardi (1945) puts it, a veritable “philosophy of love”. This explains why love, in Stilnovistic poetry, may sometimes resemble a fight, a battle, with gazes crossing spaces like arrows or darts—what has been called a “ballistic” of vision (Parronchi 1959, 22).

    The poetical legacy of medieval optics thus exerts a strong impact on the Vita Nova. Indeed, in the excerpt above another scientific term appears: mezzo. The screen lady is literally the midpoint, the median, the medium, colei che mezzo era stata—literally: “she who medium had been”. According to Dante’s description, the medium, i.e. the screen (lady), is thus a device primarily of protection and separation, but also of illusory, deceptive representation. In describing the functions of the screen, then, Dante borrows at least another optical term: simulacra. The phrase can be found a few chapters later, after Beatrice’s refusal to greet Dante on the street—an episode recounted in chapter X—due to the circulation of too many rumours about his relationship with the screen lady. The object of those rumours is, in fact, a second screen lady, who becomes the recipient of Dante’s simulato amore—literally: “simulated love”—after the first one leaves Florence. The goal, again, is to protect the true (and sacred) recipient of the poet’s real feelings. And once more, it should be noted, simulation involves both concealment and showing. Beatrice’s coldness plunges Dante into despair, until, at last, in chapter XII, Love appears to him as a young man dressed in white, advising him to finally let the true object of his love be known, as he commands to him in Latin: Fili mi, tempus est ut pretermictantur simulacra nostra—“My son, it is time for our false images [our simulations] to be put aside.” The simulacra nostra, our simulations, or false images, are indeed the screen ladies, or rather the false feelings that—through them—the author had striven to project. In Dante, the screen is therefore already, explicitly if not always literally, a screen of images.

    As I mentioned above, simulacra is another term derived from medieval optics. Simulacrum is indeed one of the many synonyms of species—together with imago, forma, idolum, fantasma, impressio…—employed in the theory of the “multiplication of species”, articulated by Roger Bacon (ca. 1260) but widely known among other medieval thinkers (cf. Denery 2005). According to this theory, visual cognition happens through the mediation (or manifestation) of forms and colours (“species”) radiating along straight lines, which in turn depart from a source (“agent”). Species—simulacra—are similar in nature to the agent; indeed, they are an emanation of the agent, but they are not the agent. Albertus Magnus, one of Dante’s most probable sources, also uses simulacrum (along with words such as terminare, linea recta), though in his understanding the word refers to the reflected form of something, like the image one sees in a mirror. In both cases—direct emanation or reflection—the language of these medieval perspectivists implies both similarity and difference between the simulacrum and the agent.

    What is new in Dante’s use of the word is that simulacra—the images—are not really linked to the agent, i.e. to the object they stand for: the screen ladies are neither a reflection nor an emanation of Beatrice. The “straight line” does originate from Beatrice, it does reach its end in Dante’s eyes, as the text says, yet the simulacra are managed, controlled, and in a sense produced or projected, not by Beatrice, the source, but rather by the other subject in the setup, Dante, who is positioned at the opposite end of the line, while the “medium” itself remains, aptly, in the middle. Put otherwise: it is Dante who produces, manages and manipulates the images—the simulacra—to ensure that they serve his intended purpose. And, eventually, it is Dante himself who has to interrupt the simulation.

    …

    Even older uses….

    “The term “screen”—as might indeed be the case in the Churchwardens’ Accounts—could also refer to a trunk, a casket: in short, a self-enclosed repository, a receptacle in which valuable things (money, jewels, books, letters, papers, and also prototypes of units of measure) were held. In that sense, the word could serve as a synonym for scrinium, which in itself denoted a piece of furniture central to the administration of medieval and early modern institutions, be they public, religious, commercial or political. In the Report on the Deeds of King’s Lynn, for example, the author notes that “‘on the scrinium’, or ‘on the skreen’, or ‘skrene’, ‘on the chest called the skrene’ are the constant entries for centuries” (Harrod 1870, 29). With those formulas, the scriniari indicated entries, payments, taxes as they archived them in the iron-bound treasury box placed, in this case, in the hall of the local guild of merchants. A scriniarius was an accountant, or a chamberlain in charge of public accounts, which is to say, in charge of the chest of the treasury.”

    —
    Scriniarius –coronavirus —coffers—coughers

    Falseyescrye

    Reply

    2. “In attempting to define the word screen one inevitably encounters a multitude of synonyms. Because of its various implications, it is easier to define screen through these synonyms: surface, projector, net, divider, curtain, shield, etc. Utilizing these synonyms I have designated nine primary categories: “protection”, “display”, “divider”, “mask”, “buffer”, “filter”, “interceptor”, “scrutiny”, and “translate”. Some categories overlap while some categories have counter-categories. My final categorization is of four groupings of the original nine categories: divider-buffer-protector, transmitter-translator, display vs. mask, and surface vs. storage. The issues of the media and the message in these categories vary. The screen as a medium is a divider and the act of division, a mask and the act of masking, etc. .”

      https://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/screen.htm

      He blames the Democrats as if he’s not part of them and vice versa but it is UNDER HIS EYE that the world has been masked and forced to separate and our chi harvested to feed vampires (cains offspring) with faux chi.

      Reply

  17. The Giants amongst men might be Biden and Trump.
    In the middle of the Election Trump Tweeted –
    “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!”
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

    I saw this on the TV and they brought attention to the error in spelling Polls as Poles and explained it away as they had been up late at night and were tired. Mmmm! Really? Except when you take a close look at the words in capitals and the word spelled wrongly you come up with an astonishing finding.
    BIG = 18 (English Ordinal)
    STEAL = 57 (English Ordinal)
    Poles = 63 (English Ordinal)
    18+81 = 99 = 33+33+33
    57+75 = 132 = 33+33+33+33
    63+36 = 99 = 33+33+33
    Looks like they were showing a hidden message and casting a Satanic spell.

    Reply

    1. It’s the “pole shift” spell attached to the “reset.” Perhaps why Drumf wanted to buy green land.

      Green land like screen land like green screen.

      Anyhoo what shall I bear witness to? Certainly not any “world” wars or false TORies.

      Reply

        1. During the first part of 20th century, until the 1960s, the island was a whaling base. It was named after King George III by Captain James Cook, who circumnavigated the island in 1775 in HMS Resolution…

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Georgia_and_the_South_Sandwich_Islands

          Interestingly, ‘resolution’ both means to break into parts and to hold together…

          ‘resolution (n.)

          late 14c., “a breaking into parts,” from Old French resolution (14c.) or directly from Latin resolutionem (nominative resolutio) “process of reducing things into simpler forms,” from past participle stem of resolvere “loosen” (see resolve). Sense of “a solving” (as of mathematical problems) first recorded 1540s, as is that of “power of holding firmly” (compare resolute). Sense of “decision or expression of a meeting” is from c. 1600. Meaning “effect of an optical instrument” is from 1860. New Year’s resolution in reference to a specific intention to better oneself is from at least the 1780s, and through 19c. they generally were of a pious nature.’

          https://www.etymonline.com/word/resolution#etymonline_v_12896

          That got me thinking of polarization and the US election…

          ‘polarization (n.)

          1812, “state of having different properties on different sides,” from polarize + -ation, and in part from French polarisation, noun of action from polariser. Figuratively from 1871; of social and political groups, “accentuation of differences,” from 1945.’

          https://www.etymonline.com/word/polarization#etymonline_v_36256

          So if Resolution is associated with the southern pole, then Resolute is associated with the northern pole…

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Resolute_(1850)

          Reply

          1. Roob

            I was looking at this in respect of the Poles Are Closed. Closed Loop Poles. No idea what it’s talking about ! Gibberish to me. Talks about feedback loop and zero and S plane which seems to fit with things. Again A68 fits in with this birthday malarkey – 168.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-loop_pole

            ‘Closed-loop poles are the positions of the poles (or eigenvalues) of a closed-loop transfer function in the s-plane. The open-loop transfer function is equal to the product of all transfer function blocks in the forward path in the block diagram. The closed-loop transfer function is obtained by dividing the open-loop transfer function by the sum of one and the product of all transfer function blocks throughout the feedback loop. The closed-loop transfer function may also be obtained by algebraic or block diagram manipulation. Once the closed-loop transfer function is obtained for the system, the closed-loop poles are obtained by solving the characteristic equation. The characteristic equation is nothing more than setting the denominator of the closed-loop transfer function to zero (0).’

            Reply

        2. From your link:

          “Early documents refer to a dwelling in the area named Ty’n Rhyl, and a manor house with that name still exists in the town.[2] However, the etymology of the word Rhyl has been the subject of debate for more than a century.[3]

          Welsh orthography has proved difficult for English writers to translate, and Rhyl’s opening voiceless alveolar trill is uncommon in the English language (represented in modern Welsh by the digraph ‘Rh’). As such the name has appeared in English texts as Hulle (1292), Hul (1296), Ryhull (1301), Hyll (1506), Hull (1508), [Leidiart] yr Hyll (1597), Rhil (1706), Rhûl (1749), Rhul (1773) Rhyll (1830), and Rhyl (1840).[4]

          One suggested hybrid etymology is the use of an unfamiliar English word (“hill”) in Welsh syntax (Yr Hyl becoming Yr Rhyl). This etymology is considered unlikely as the town was situated on coastal marshland, with no hills in the vicinity.[4] Similarly, it has been suggested that the name may derive from ‘Yr Heol’ (“The Road/Street”), but again, the road this would refer to is unknown and the sound change may be problematic.[2]

          One popular theory suggests that the original dwelling of ‘Ty’n Rhyl’ derived from ‘Tŷ’n yr haul’ (House in the sun/House of Sunshine). ”

          —

          The sounds have me shivers. I’ve heard them before.

          Reply

          1. Anon

            I’ll tell you why I mentioned it. Firstly, the word play with Rhyl and Real. And secondly it’s in Wales and there is a weird thing going on with the Prince of Wales, Charlie, and Whales and the ‘Whales are Calling’, Frank Whaley and Jennifer Connelly. Jenny sent me some teen pics of herself recently and she was the spitting image of Jennifer Connelly. Also Charlie and Camilla. And talking of doppelgangers – Diana. The Rhyl family or something.

            https://meroveushome.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/career-opportunities.jpg

            Also I’ve made a few trips to North Wales over the years and I was reviewing them recently and weird stuff in there. And went to Rhyl as well on one of them.

            What you maybe hearing is the Welsh language I think. The question is why have you heard it before if that’s the reason for the shivers ?

            https://meroveushome.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/wales-llanfair-railway-station-sign.jpg

            Reply

    1. Calling all angels from the “shithole countries”. She don’t want none of that.

      Babbahhhhahhha

      Reply

    2. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.

      IDK, I think this guy is better.
      “Okay, where were we? What was the last question?” 😂

      Reply

    2. The roll out of social credit buying access to the colors. What happened to all are welcome? If the exterior world reflects the interior life of the collective consciousness, we still have a long way to go. If the Pope’s actions are uni-versal signs, curfews and barring currency looks bleak. Denial keeps it all running. Probably best to see it for what it is. The only way out is through.

      —

      “Socalled “green” regions with a low number of COVID-19 cases will have no added rules apart from the national restrictions, whereas “orange” regions with growing numbers will face a ban on travel to other regions, as well as the closure of bars and restaurants, including ice cream and sweet shops. “Red” regions will enter a full lockdown, with everything apart from grocery stores, retail shops, newsstands and hairdressers will be closed. In these areas, all activities related to school or sports will be barred for high schoolers.”

      –Let her go, Francis. Stop hiding. Open the coffers, yakety yak give it back.

      Reply

      1. That pope is a tiny man living a tiny life behind walls and living in fear of other people’s freedom. He lives in utter terror of the Divine Feminie too. Hence all the pomp and rules. Trying his damndest to square the circle and keep it reserved for only his cronies. A few l.o.v.e. missives sent through the airwaves. Signifying nothing.

        Reply

    1. No mankind should be in charge of any new world. Lest the “new” world stink to higher heavens than the old world.

      Time to make real change.
      Let everyone run their own life without interference.

      Reply

    1. We’re up against “Giants Among Men”

      Father, give me Confidence, like David’s…..

      “Give me faith like Daniel in the lion’s den
      Give me hope like Moses in the wilderness
      Give me a heart like David, Lord be my defense
      So I can face my Giants with confidence
      I’ll face my Giants with Confidence…..”

      Reply

      1. I’m sorry but THIS IS the President of the United States.

        THIS is the man we voted for…..

        He’s NOT LYING.

        The “election process” has clearly been compromised and is now “broken” and fully open to CHEATING, a process that began when Al Gore “lost’ the election after 9/11……

        If ANYTHING comes of this, I believe our President is speaking here on the importance of RESTORING the INTEGRITY of the voting process in America.

        Period

        How can we call our country a “democracy” if our elections are CLEARLY rigged…. IT’s BULLSHIT

        It would be so easy to have iron-clad votes, idk by social security number? It should be a part of your IRS record even, something “locked in” and easily retrievable as your VOTE.

        “Confidential”

        LOL

        Thank you, President Trump, for standing tall. There are suggestions that the Democrats, once in power, will “go after” anyone who aligned themselves with Trump! Like that “Black” woman on the View who called ALL Americans who voted for Trump RACIST.

        I mean are you kidding me…….

        F you, seriously.

        You “DEMON” crat liars hoping you and your pedophile networks don’t get taken down…. you adrenochrome ADDICTS…..

        make me sick

        Reply

        2. https://www.realhistorychan.com/nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming.html

          “This is really a sting operation. Trump knew this was happening. Eric (Trump) knew this was happening and they warned the public. I knew this was happening, however I could not say anything about it. … What happened was, we marked, watermarked every ballot with what’s called the QFS blockchain encryption code. In other words, we know pretty well where every ballot is, where it went and who has it.

          So this is not a stolen election. On the contrary, we reversed the entire game of war along the lines of Sun Tzu — the Art of War. And Trump was brilliant and is still brilliant at it. …. The reason he (Trump) hasn’t been seen in several days — well in the Art of War, you pull back, allow your enemy to make all the mistakes they are making — manipulate the situation, expose them and then come in for the final killing. (Editor Note: In accordance with this Sun Tzu strategy, Q Anon has also been silent during this period.)

          And that’s what is happening now. None of this was unexpected. This is all part of the sting operation.

          Let me tell you that 48 hours ago, I can say now with the permission of people in the intelligence community, we have sent out thousands and thousands of National Guard to twelve different states…. This has been a set-up by Trump for a long time.

          People will be arrested as of tonight, tomorrow and it will go on for quite a while…. This is the biggest sting operation in the history of our country.”

          Pieczenik goes on to to make the amazing claim that the location of the specially marked and sophisticated ballots can actually be traced via “cyber communication.” (Pieczenik interview clip)

          https://www.bitchute.com/video/mQwlviNuuYUX/

          Reply

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