Walkies with an odd beast
QUESTION I recently saw footage of an articulated animal-like structure that moves in a remarkable lifelike fashion with the wind. Who created it? This was a strandbeest, one of several mobile artworks by Theo Jansen.
Jansen was born in scheveningen in the Netherlands in 1948 and studied physics at the University of Delft. his early artistic works were landscape paintings spiced up by adding women in underwear. ‘They were vulgar paintings, but they sold,’ he says.
in the seventies, he began to incorporate his knowledge of physics into his art. The project that made him famous was a 1980 UFO hoax in which he flew a 12ft-wide helium-filled PVC UFO over Delft.
he followed this with his remarkable Painting Machine, a light-sensitive contraption that created two-dimensional silhouette spray-painted images of objects and people in front of it.
Jansen’s work with kinetics and PVC led to his strandbeest (‘beach beast’) concept. he was inspired by The Blind Watchmaker, the 1986 popular science bestseller by Richard Dawkins. Over subsequent years, Jansen has created an ever-more complex race of strandbeests made from yellow plastic PVC tubing.
These ‘creatures’ walk without assistance, powered by wind captured by wings. These flap and pump air into old lemonade bottles that, in turn, power many plastic spindly legs. The walking sculptures look alive as they move, each leg articulating in such a way that the body is steady and level.
They have ‘evolved’ over many ‘generations’, so they have become increasingly adept at surviving storms, splashing waves and sand clogging up their joints. The latest generations of strandbeest are even fitted with a ‘gland system’ that evacuates sand from the strandbeest’s joints.
T. L. Watson, Portsmouth.
QUESTION How did cocktails come by their strange name? What is considered the first true cocktail? haD you asked an 18th-century innkeeper for a cocktail, he would have thought you wanted to buy a horse: horses, usually of mixed breeds, which had their tails docked, were known as ‘cocktails’.
Docking was a safety measure to prevent the long tail hair from tangling in the reins and harnesses.
The first use of the term with regards to a drink is considered an american invention, although a possible early British reference was discovered in The Morning Post and Gazetteer of London, dated March 20, 1798. in a satirical piece listing drinks bought by politicians, William Pitt the Younger ‘owed for L’huile de Venus, parfait d’amour and cock-tail (vulgarly called ginger).’
What is implied is uncertain. at the time, gingering was a trader’s technique to fetch higher prices for their horses with cocktails. a well-placed piece of ginger might make the tail stand up and the horse look more sprightly and thus more saleable. so it might have been a reference to dodgy practices rather than to a specific drink.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first recorded use of the word ‘cocktail’ as a beverage in Philadelphia-based farming magazine The Farmer’s Cabinet, on april 28, 1803: ‘Drank a glass of cocktail — excellent for the head... Call’d at the Doct’s. found Burnham — he looked very wise — drank another glass of cocktail.’
The first definition of cocktail known to be an alcoholic beverage appeared in the May 13, 1806, edition of The Balance and Columbian Repository, in hudson, New York, in which an answer was provided to the question: ‘What is a cocktail?’
Editor harry Croswell replied: ‘Cock-tail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, in as much as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. it is said also to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.’
This kind of basic cocktail — a combination of a strong spirit, a bit of sugar and a dash of bitters — is today known as an Old Fashioned.
if we follow the British argument, the drink was mixed just like the breed of horse. alternatively, the cocktail could be so named simply because it ‘cocks your tail’ or perks you up. This would be thanks to the restorative zing of the bitters.
another explanation is that it was a corruption of the French word coquetier — egg-cup, derived from the practice in the 1790s of New Orleans apothecary antoine Peychaud, inventor of Peychaud’s bitters, who served concoctions of brandy, sugar, water, and bitters in double eggcups. This would tie in neatly with the oldest form of cocktail, the sarazac — 5cl of cognac, 1cl of absinthe, two dashes of bitters and one cube of sugar.
Aaron Budny, London SW5.
QUESTION When did marriage start and how did it spread? FURThER to the earlier answer, there is evidence romantic love existed long before the 12th century. in the Jewish Talmud, and corroborated by the Bible, are many accounts of romantic love and marriage more than 2,000 years before Christ.
For instance, would isaac have worked 14 years for his Uncle Laban if he had not loved Rebecca and wanted her hand in marriage? Or what about David and his love for Bathsheba, whom he went on to marry?
W. Rowlands, Coleraine. MOsT Christians believe marriage was the first human institution established by God during creation week. after Eve was formed, God brought her to adam (a ceremony still carried on today, where the father ‘gives’ the bride to the bridegroom) and performed the first marriage ceremony.
afterwards, adam’s declaration established the nature of marriage: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ (Genesis 2, v24).
When he was tempted by the Pharisees on this subject, Jesus based his own teaching on marriage on this account in Genesis, which he obviously regarded as being a historical fact. he said: ‘have ye not read,’ then quoted the above passage, ending by saying: ‘What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.’ (Matthew 19 v 3-6).
Roy Baird, Ballymena, Co. Antrim.