Tag: alchemy
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Great Globs of Glowing Urine
Many fields define themselves by specialties. Doctors are not just doctors—they are podiatrists or pediatricians or surgeons. Restaurant workers are baristas or pastry chefs or sommeliers. Writers are novelists or poets or “content providers.” So it is for academics, as well. When I’m wearing that hat, I define myself as an early modernist. But even […]
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Fascination of the Day: The Ripley Scrolls
There’s so much here, I don’t even know where to begin. I won’t be able to write a coherent sort of essay right now about the Ripley Scrolls, as I’m just now wrapping my head around their magnificence. There are 23 copies of the Ripley Scrolls, which get their name from the 15th-century alchemist George […]
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What Would Newton Do? Rep. Paul Broun’s Scientific Asynchrony
The other day my 10-year-old daughter came home incensed: a friend had told her of a congressman’s assertion that evolution and the Big Bang Theory were lies sent by Satan to deceive Americans. She and her friend were spittin’ mad and spent their lunch hour talking about his stupidity (yeah, my daughter has some cool […]
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Vile-Hearted Renaissance Peckerhead of the Month–October
Happy Hallowe’en! During this time of unwitting mimicry of ancient ceremony and conjuration of forgotten powers, it seems only appropriate to venture into the world of Renaissance magic for this month’s “Peckie” (short for “Peckerhead,” of course). *** Adopting an alias. Speaking with angels. Wife-swapping. If October’s “Renaissance Peckerhead of the Month” nominee Edward Kelley […]
Jennifer Sherman Roberts 