When you are absorbed in reading fiction, several areas in your brain "light up." And not just the centers for reading and understanding words. Also activated are centers for the sensory and motor activities described in the story. In other words, you are in some way experiencing the story vicariously.
We know this because of recent research into the brain through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. In one study, among the first to show our brains on literature, Michigan State University professor Natalie Phillips examined scans of Stanford University graduate students while they skimmed or perused Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park.
(A brief digression. Skim and peruse are opposites, or antonyms. I have seen the two words conflated in recent usage.)
When the students read the text closely, their brains showed increased blood flow to the regions controlling sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch, depending on the story, or to the specific region of the motor cortex controlling that body movement.
Meet you on the holodeck, anyone?
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
Tea-Garden Time
Lately, between dinnertime and bedtime, I have been feeling as tired as the wrung-out dish rag in the kitchen sink. One evening, I made myself a cup of Assam tea, which, the tea container assured me, was very good with milk. ("And sugar!" I said to myself.) It gave me a little pick-me-up, did not irritate my stomach like Chinese tea does, and did not keep me up all night like coffee would have.
Assam tea is brewed from the leaves of Camellia sinensis var. assamica, the tea bush native to the river-valley lowlands of the small state of Assam in northeastern India. This tea bush is different from its cousin Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, the Chinese tea bush native to the southern highlands of China. And, by the way, these are the only two places in the world where tea bushes grow naturally.
The Chinese discovered tea five thousand years ago. According to the charming legend, emperor and herbalist Shennong had his attendants boil all his water for purity. One day they presented him with a cup of boiled water into which a leaf from the Chinese tea bush had inadvertently fallen. He noticed the restorative property of the drink and . . . end of story! Soon tea became popular throughout China. Chinese tea was introduced to the west by Portuguese priests and merchants in the sixteenth century and was all the rage in Europe by the seventeenth-century.
I am pretty sure that Assam tea was discovered at about the same time as Chinese tea, but it was not introduced to the west until the early 1800s. A Scottish adventurer, Robert Bruce, discovered Camellia sinensis var. assamica in 1823. After his death, about 1830, his brother had the bush verified in Calcutta as being similar to, but a distinct variety of, the Chinese tea bush. By the late 1830s, the East India Company test-marketed Assam tea in London and soon instituted policies encouraging British subjects to lay claim to land in Assam and plant tea-garden estates.
Note the rather deceptive use of the term "tea garden" (to say nothing of "lay claim to land"). We are talking about plantations, which, in order to prosper, depend on an owner-slave or at least a master-serf relationship to keep the cost of production down, no matter whether tea, coffee, sugar, rice, or tobacco is being grown.
Based on plantation custom, the Assam tea gardens are on Tea Garden Time, one hour ahead of the Indian Standard Time (IST) observed throughout the rest of India and Sri Lanka. It is sort of a daylight savings time, so that the workers get as much time in the fields as possible in the sunlight between 9:00 am (IST 8:00 am) and 5:00 pm (IST 4:00 pm).
So while I am sipping my restorative cup, around 8:00 at night "tea-garden time," and resting from my labors--or maybe even inspired to take them up again for pleasure--the plantation workers in Assam are just beginning their field work for the day.
Assam tea is brewed from the leaves of Camellia sinensis var. assamica, the tea bush native to the river-valley lowlands of the small state of Assam in northeastern India. This tea bush is different from its cousin Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, the Chinese tea bush native to the southern highlands of China. And, by the way, these are the only two places in the world where tea bushes grow naturally.
The Chinese discovered tea five thousand years ago. According to the charming legend, emperor and herbalist Shennong had his attendants boil all his water for purity. One day they presented him with a cup of boiled water into which a leaf from the Chinese tea bush had inadvertently fallen. He noticed the restorative property of the drink and . . . end of story! Soon tea became popular throughout China. Chinese tea was introduced to the west by Portuguese priests and merchants in the sixteenth century and was all the rage in Europe by the seventeenth-century.
I am pretty sure that Assam tea was discovered at about the same time as Chinese tea, but it was not introduced to the west until the early 1800s. A Scottish adventurer, Robert Bruce, discovered Camellia sinensis var. assamica in 1823. After his death, about 1830, his brother had the bush verified in Calcutta as being similar to, but a distinct variety of, the Chinese tea bush. By the late 1830s, the East India Company test-marketed Assam tea in London and soon instituted policies encouraging British subjects to lay claim to land in Assam and plant tea-garden estates.
Note the rather deceptive use of the term "tea garden" (to say nothing of "lay claim to land"). We are talking about plantations, which, in order to prosper, depend on an owner-slave or at least a master-serf relationship to keep the cost of production down, no matter whether tea, coffee, sugar, rice, or tobacco is being grown.
Based on plantation custom, the Assam tea gardens are on Tea Garden Time, one hour ahead of the Indian Standard Time (IST) observed throughout the rest of India and Sri Lanka. It is sort of a daylight savings time, so that the workers get as much time in the fields as possible in the sunlight between 9:00 am (IST 8:00 am) and 5:00 pm (IST 4:00 pm).
So while I am sipping my restorative cup, around 8:00 at night "tea-garden time," and resting from my labors--or maybe even inspired to take them up again for pleasure--the plantation workers in Assam are just beginning their field work for the day.
1850 engraving of Assam tea production.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Queen Anne's Lace
The lacy flower head of Queen Anne's Lace is called an umbel, from Latin umbella (ae), parasol; the word is a diminutive form of umbra (ae), shadow or shade.
Each umbel has about thirty tiny white flowers in a flattened round, and sometimes the umbel has a purple center flower. The white flower bears two seeds and one fruit each: The flat inner sides of the seeds are stuck together until they are dry enough to separate, and the rounded outer sides are covered in burrs. The purple flower is sterile.
As the flower head dries, its stems close in on themselves like a parasol, eventually to let go of the parent plant and fly away. Seeds drop during flight or after landing, and some are carried even farther away by animals whose feather or fur picks up the burrs. So, nearly a failsafe system for making sure that seeds have a chance to find new ground.
Here's the kicker, though, and I was not ready for this. Nobody knows why some umbels have a central purple flower and some do not, and nobody knows why the purple flower is sterile.
Do you know about eol, Encyclopedia of Life? The purpose of which is to provide information about, and pictures of, every kind of life on the planet, all in one database. Eol is a wonderful resource for projects like this.
The word umbel was known to my old-lady Latin teacher through its use in Martial and Juvenal. Evidently the first use of the word umbel in English is in dispute, but the earliest reference seems to date to 1590.
Each umbel has about thirty tiny white flowers in a flattened round, and sometimes the umbel has a purple center flower. The white flower bears two seeds and one fruit each: The flat inner sides of the seeds are stuck together until they are dry enough to separate, and the rounded outer sides are covered in burrs. The purple flower is sterile.
As the flower head dries, its stems close in on themselves like a parasol, eventually to let go of the parent plant and fly away. Seeds drop during flight or after landing, and some are carried even farther away by animals whose feather or fur picks up the burrs. So, nearly a failsafe system for making sure that seeds have a chance to find new ground.
Here's the kicker, though, and I was not ready for this. Nobody knows why some umbels have a central purple flower and some do not, and nobody knows why the purple flower is sterile.
Do you know about eol, Encyclopedia of Life? The purpose of which is to provide information about, and pictures of, every kind of life on the planet, all in one database. Eol is a wonderful resource for projects like this.
The word umbel was known to my old-lady Latin teacher through its use in Martial and Juvenal. Evidently the first use of the word umbel in English is in dispute, but the earliest reference seems to date to 1590.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
The Waffle Iron
Usually my waffle iron and I are on pretty good terms, an amazing state of affairs given my history with household appliances. Pretty good terms, that is, except for the wake-the-dead siren that sounds when the waffle is done--just in case I've fallen back to sleep while meditatively watching the hot water drip through the coffee in my cone filter into my French workman's glass.
Right now, though, the waffle iron is out of temper and the siren sounds like a drowning finch and the waffles stick something terrible. Breakfast is waffle top or waffle scrapings, or, worse yet, just plain old toast. Cleaning stuck waffle off the waffle iron becomes a task for later in the day, when I am feeling more pulled together. (I am not a lark nor much of an owl, I am a daytime, sunshine person.) And making waffles the next morning becomes an exercise in hope, or maybe I should say folly.
This is life, and I am resigned to that. Some days everybody is out of temper and a little grumbling and jostling are normal. But this morning, I did get a mostly whole waffle out of the waffle iron, or two, actually, and the waffle iron is not in the clean-later pile. Very good news.
The home electric waffle maker became a fixture of the well-appointed kitchen in the 1930s, right alongside the pop-up electric toaster. General Electric introduced the first commercial electric waffle maker in America in 1911; Bisquick, Aunt Jemima, and the rest introduced dry pancake and waffle mix in the 1930s; and the Dorsas brothers introduced frozen waffles, Eggos, in 1953.
Apparently the etymology of waffle is unclear or in dispute. According to the Wikipedia entry, waffle originally comes from a Frankish root, wafla, or honeycomb. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, waffle originally comes from Proto-Germanic wabila, honeycomb or web, with ties to Old High German weban and Old English wefan, to weave. And if the words "Frankish," "Proto-Germanic," and "Old English" don't leave you all aswoon, as they do me, I'm done now.
As for the second meaning of waffle, to waver, maybe I will tackle that some day when I am feeling indecisive.
Right now, though, the waffle iron is out of temper and the siren sounds like a drowning finch and the waffles stick something terrible. Breakfast is waffle top or waffle scrapings, or, worse yet, just plain old toast. Cleaning stuck waffle off the waffle iron becomes a task for later in the day, when I am feeling more pulled together. (I am not a lark nor much of an owl, I am a daytime, sunshine person.) And making waffles the next morning becomes an exercise in hope, or maybe I should say folly.
This is life, and I am resigned to that. Some days everybody is out of temper and a little grumbling and jostling are normal. But this morning, I did get a mostly whole waffle out of the waffle iron, or two, actually, and the waffle iron is not in the clean-later pile. Very good news.
The home electric waffle maker became a fixture of the well-appointed kitchen in the 1930s, right alongside the pop-up electric toaster. General Electric introduced the first commercial electric waffle maker in America in 1911; Bisquick, Aunt Jemima, and the rest introduced dry pancake and waffle mix in the 1930s; and the Dorsas brothers introduced frozen waffles, Eggos, in 1953.
Apparently the etymology of waffle is unclear or in dispute. According to the Wikipedia entry, waffle originally comes from a Frankish root, wafla, or honeycomb. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, waffle originally comes from Proto-Germanic wabila, honeycomb or web, with ties to Old High German weban and Old English wefan, to weave. And if the words "Frankish," "Proto-Germanic," and "Old English" don't leave you all aswoon, as they do me, I'm done now.
As for the second meaning of waffle, to waver, maybe I will tackle that some day when I am feeling indecisive.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Monticello Soup
Once I finished writing the Monticello post, I had some "leftovers." So, Monticello soup.
Not only did Thomas Jefferson design (and, after seeing European and classical architecture,) redesign Monticello himself, he built in a few ingenious things to make life easier. A hideaway bed. A revolving clothes horse with 48 arms, sort of like a spiral dry cleaner's rack hung vertically. A revolving book stand for five open books at a time, which folds up into a cube for storage.
And the first dome in America. Although beautiful and stately, the room under the dome proved to be impractical as a ladies' drawing room, its original purpose, and was rarely used. It is about 26 feet in diameter, with eight circular windows and a skylight, and it is difficult to heat in winter or cool in summer.
With his son-in-law the plantation manager, Jefferson invented the mouldboard plow for the hilly ground of Albemarle County. As you plow a furrow, the topsoil lifts up and over the mouldboard, falling in a strip to one side only. The mouldboard plow made faster work of plowing a field on a hill and left ridges deep enough to help drain off snowmelt and heavy winter rain.
Jefferson maintained experimental gardens in an effort to determine which fruit and vegetables were best grown in the Virginia climate. During his time in Paris, he shipped European plants to Monticello and American plants to Paris. And he both collected and distributed seeds from friends and neighbors in America, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and European gardeners as well.
Most of Monticello was in cultivation. Jefferson grew fruit, vegetables, and flowers for the main house and cash crops, tobacco and later wheat, to enable the purchase of other goods. However, the plantation was not successful, in part because of debt inherited from his wife's family, in part due to crop failure, and Jefferson died in debt.
Not only did Thomas Jefferson design (and, after seeing European and classical architecture,) redesign Monticello himself, he built in a few ingenious things to make life easier. A hideaway bed. A revolving clothes horse with 48 arms, sort of like a spiral dry cleaner's rack hung vertically. A revolving book stand for five open books at a time, which folds up into a cube for storage.
And the first dome in America. Although beautiful and stately, the room under the dome proved to be impractical as a ladies' drawing room, its original purpose, and was rarely used. It is about 26 feet in diameter, with eight circular windows and a skylight, and it is difficult to heat in winter or cool in summer.
With his son-in-law the plantation manager, Jefferson invented the mouldboard plow for the hilly ground of Albemarle County. As you plow a furrow, the topsoil lifts up and over the mouldboard, falling in a strip to one side only. The mouldboard plow made faster work of plowing a field on a hill and left ridges deep enough to help drain off snowmelt and heavy winter rain.
Jefferson maintained experimental gardens in an effort to determine which fruit and vegetables were best grown in the Virginia climate. During his time in Paris, he shipped European plants to Monticello and American plants to Paris. And he both collected and distributed seeds from friends and neighbors in America, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and European gardeners as well.
Most of Monticello was in cultivation. Jefferson grew fruit, vegetables, and flowers for the main house and cash crops, tobacco and later wheat, to enable the purchase of other goods. However, the plantation was not successful, in part because of debt inherited from his wife's family, in part due to crop failure, and Jefferson died in debt.
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