From my book ‘Lost Words…’ there is the 19th century English word ’causerie’. Coming from the French for ‘talk’ or ‘chat’ – and often used in the context of a short quirky newspaper column – the closest English equivalent is an ‘opinion piece’. This is the perfect title for today’s post.
Recent ’causeries’ have generated explorations, comments and elaborations from our readers. First, with respect to the Queen’s birthday present ideas, Sylvia Walsh has sent me an article on the Queen’s brooches, ‘From Granny chips to diamond bouquets’. Well worth a look at: https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/gallery/queen-elizabeth-brooches
Courtesy: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
(note, the Queen is wearing the ‘Jardine Star’
Jill Dwyer has shared an article from Vox – ‘Artists helped lift America out of the Great Depression. Could that happen again?’ – which looks at how Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired artists, from diverse disciplines, to create works of art around America. Many of the WPA artists — like Dorothea Lange, Jackson Pollock, Walker Evans, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, and thousands of others — produced iconic work that captures the American experience at the time. The article can be found at: https://www.vox.com/culture/21294431/new-deal-wpa-federal-art-project-coronavirus
In response to the post ‘Choreomania’, Julia Armour sent the following information about heretical sects: ‘Re: “behaviour of heretical sects seeking divine intervention” Elizabeth of the Palatinate (1618-80), in her role as Calvinist abbess of a convent in Herford (Germany) in 1670, gave sanctuary to Labadists, followers of a former Jesuit priest turned Protestant pastor Jean de Labadie (1610-74). His converts among well born women included Anna Maria van Schulman (1607-78) an artist & scholar who wrote “The Learned Maid or Whether a Maid may be a Scholar” (English translation 1659) concerning the rights of women to higher education. The Labadists in Herford were not welcomed by the citizens as their form of mystical revelations from God was rumoured to involve frantic dancing & kissing one another.
Further information can be found in Nancy Goldstone’s “Daughter’s of the Winter Queen: Four Remarkable Sisters” Jeffery, Renee “Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia: The Philosopher Princess” (2018)’
And, Antonietta Martin, in her quest to find the ‘Big Cocktail Glass’ (because the ‘Big Country’ loves big things) has located a contender in Las Vegas.
Thank you all!