World Snooker Championship 2012

Today after 17 days of tournament play, Ronnie O'Sullivan won the 2012 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, Sheffield beating Ali Carter by 18 - 11.

Played on a table measuring 12 feet by 6 feet, Snooker was enormously popular during the 1980's and has since declined and revived in popularity as a spectator sport. It was once a guaranteed certainty that the Snooker World champion would be a British player but the sport now has a growing following in China with many top-ranking players waiting in the wings to win prestigious tournaments such as the World championship.

Ronnie O'Sullivan, known as 'The Rocket' for his swift play, is one of a number of enigmatic and temperamental characters of the green baize table and arguably one of the Sport's greatest players ever. It's his fourth World championship title winning previously in 2001, 2004 and 2008. At the age of 36 Ronnie O'Sullivan has become the oldest player since 1978 to win the World Championship with its prize money of  £250,000. 

Guido Bonati

It's always exciting whenever identifying an esoteric book hitherto undetected in Sir Thomas Browne's library, especially when the opportunity arises to share an image which the physician-philosopher once cast his eye upon. This fantastic medieval illustration of Mercurius with his caduceus and chariot wheels depicting the zodiac signs of Virgo and Gemini is from the astrologer/astronomer Guido Bonati's De Astronomia.[1]. 

According to the Wikipedia entry Guido Bonati of Forli, Italy (d. circa 1300) was the most celebrated astrologer in Europe in his century. His book De Astronomia, written around 1277 was reputedly the most important astrological work produced in Latin in the 13th century. Bonati's mentioned in Dante's Inferno Canto 20 line 118.

There seems to be some ambiguity over how his name is spelled, both Bonati and Bonatti occurring in sources. The entry in the 1711 Sales Catalogue of Browne's library states Bonati, however Dante writes of him as Bonatti. Either way, it's yet more evidence of Browne's predilection towards the reading and study of esoterica as the Wikipedia list of  esoteric books in Browne's library  highlights.

Another illustration from the 1550 Bonati edition owned by Browne. The counterpart of Mercurius in alchemy is Saturnus ruler of Capricorn and Aquarius depicted here upon his chariot wheels. Note how each planetary chariot is towed by quite different creatures. Saturnus holds a scythe symbolic of his links to agriculture and a remnant of  his association to Father Time who appears on New Year's Eve.

[1] 1711 Sales Catalogue page 28 no.10 

Full entry - Guido Bonati de Astronomia Tract x. universum quod ad Indiciariam rationem Nativatum, &c attinet comprehend. 1550 

Wiki-link -  Guido Bonati

Orange Tip

The first warm and dry day in what was the wettest April on record gives the opportunity for butterflies to once more forage and fly. Two Orange Tips (male) spotted in garden this morning. 

Wiki-Link - Orange Tip

Physica Subterranea

Recently on a BBC 4 programme entitled 'Metal: How it works', the presenter Mark Miodownik chronicled a short history of metal. From early man's mining of copper, to the Bronze Age and Iron Age, to the giant furnaces of the Industrial Revolution and the building of ships and planes, metal more than any other substance has been at the heart of civilization. Mark Miodownik succinctly demonstrated how from the village forge to industrialization and the manufacture of steel, to modern-day electrical wiring to computer conductivity, advancements in metallurgy have significantly altered the lives of each generation in homes, industries and cities throughout the centuries.

One early contributor to the history of metallurgy was the German-born Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682). In his relatively short life J.J.Becher was an economic advisor to German and Austrian courts. He was also one of a number of 17th century figures who were Janus-like in their intellectual outlook, being  in equal measure both an early scientist as well as alchemist. Not unlike the Belgian alchemist and scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579-1644) and the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) J.J. Becher had one foot in the world of early modern scientific enquiry and another in the world of ancient esotericism.

Although the frontispiece illustration of J.J. Becher's Physica Subterranea (above) with its depiction of a mysterious sun-beamed head haloed by planetary symbols is suggestive of the esoteric, in fact it is by all accounts a mundane work of scientific metallurgy which simply lists the geographic distribution of various metals throughout Europe. A copy of Physica Subterranea (1669) is listed as once in  Sir Thomas Browne's library. [1]

J. J.Becher was a contemporary of the British scientist Robert Boyle (1627-91) author of The Skeptical Chemist (1661) which is credited as the first book to distinguish between the activities and preoccupations of alchemists and chemists. Incidentally, Robert Boyle greatly respected Browne's own scientific credentials describing him as 'so faithful and candid a naturalist'. It's not beyond probability that Robert Boyle may have even met J.J. Becher as the German alchemist/chemist travelled from Germany to England in 1678 in order to tour mines in Scotland and Cornwall before dying in London in October 1682. 

J.J.Becher found inspiration in the German polymath Athanasius Kircher's book Mundus Subterraneus (1665) which supported the theories of spontaneous generation, metallic transmutation and the belief that metals grow in the earth. He incurred the wrath and threat of prosecution from Leopold I of Austria when his proposal that the sands of the Danube river could be transformed into gold spectacularly failed . Among his more practical proposals were that sugar and air were needed for fermentation and that coal could be distilled to produce tar. However J.J.Becher also adhered to the core alchemical belief advanced by the seminal Renaissance alchemist Paracelsus that all substances were based upon the trinity of salt, sulphur and mercury, stating- 'nitre, common salt and quicklime contain the principles of all things subterranean'. J.J.Becher also believed that - 'False alchemists seek only to make gold; true philosophers desire only knowledge. The former produce mere tincture, sophistries, ineptitudes; the latter enquire after the principle of things'.

Wiki-link -Johann Becher

[1] Source : 1711 Sales Catalogue of Sir Thomas Browne's Library edited by J.S.Finch and published by  E.J.Brill 1986. Listed on  page 25 no.123 

Laura Nyro

I've just discovered that fifteen years since her untimely death, the American singer/songwriter Laura Nyro (1947-1997) has finally been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (April 12th 2012).

Laura Nyro was a precocious artist, recording her first album at the age of nineteen. The trilogy of albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) New York Tendaberry (1969) and Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (1970) form the back-bone of her recording career; all three albums showcase her soulful voice in conjunction with her cross-genre song-writing talents.

It was from reading a glowing review by the English music journalist Charles Shaar Murray in the New Musical Express way back in 1976 that I first discovered Laura Nyro, purchasing her Jazz-oriented album Smile on the recommendation of Murray's enthusiastic review. Smile was recorded after a 4 year hiatus away from the studio, and is arguably a landmark return in Nyro's musical career. Although clocking in at little more than 30 minutes it was a long-playing disc which rarely left my record-player turn-table during the Spring and heat-wave summer of 1976, every track on it being a little gem in song-writing and singing. The album concludes with improvised Japanese koto and flute.

Laura Nyro withdrew from the music world on several occasions and never really got the breaks or the fame she deserved in her short life. I notice that the Wikipedia article now discreetly omits any mention of her struggles with cocaine addiction and subsequent recovery.

Tragically she died of ovarian cancer aged only 49 the same age as her mother who also died of the same disease.

With her highly expressive voice, vigorous piano-playing and unique song-writing talents Laura Nyro's music will continue to find new fans. Her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame although belated, is well deserved. 

Discography

1967 – More Than a New Discovery 

1968 – Eli and the Thirteenth Confession *

1969 – New York Tendaberry *

1970 – Christmas and the Beads of Sweat *

1971 – Gonna Take a Miracle (with Labelle)

1976 – Smile *

1978 – Nested 

1984 – Mother's Spiritual

1993 – Walk the Dog and Light the Light

2001 – Angel in the Dark  (recorded 1994–1995)

* Recommended

Wiki-Link - Laura Nyro