Notes

Short content: a microblog of status updates or short notes
Curious that I’ve seen ramify as a verb within commonplace book settings, but not seen it in regard to zettelkasten or digital gardens in the context of Obsidian, Roam Research, Notion, et al.

I half expected to see Petrus Ramus‘s name in the etymology of the word. If nothing else, it’s a fitting word. Perhaps it was a bit of nominative determinism?

other forms: ramify; ramifies; ramified; ramifying

Yes, somehow this is the sort of Wikipedia entry I find myself editing at 10 on a Monday night:

A Catholicized version of the Theatrum entitled the Magnum theatrum vitae humanae (1631) by Lawrence Beyerlinck was one of the largest printed commonplace books of the early modern era. These two works “may fairly be described as the early modern ancestors of the great dictionnaire raisonné of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie of Diderot.”[9]

9. Havens, Earle (2001). Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century (first ed.). Yale University. p. 52.

With a lovely flower drawn into this illuminated printed leaf from the Floretus cum commento, a twelfth-century florilegium (literally “books of flowers”) attributed to Bernard de Clairvaux [Cologne, 1499], could this make Clairvaux the patron saint of digital gardens?

Illuminated printed leaf from the Floretus cum commento featuring a flower drawn into the open space of a twelfth-century florilegium attributed to Bernard de Clairvaux.

Writer Jean Paul (1763-1825) on the importance of his Zettelkasten, kept in the form of a commonplace book:

“In the event of a fire, the black-bound excerpts are to be saved first.”
—Jean Paul instructions to his wife before setting off on a trip in 1812 (as quoted in translation from Exhibition opening on March 4th: »Zettelkästen. Maschinen der Phantasie«)

Featured image: Heinrich Pfenninger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Evie (taunting me to tuck her in before she gets to 15): …, 9-Mississippi, 10-Mississippi, 11-Mississippi, …

Me: We don’t Mississippi in this house! Maybe we should Tennessee since that’s where Grandma and Grandpa live?

Evie: I’ve Mississippi’ed since I was three.

Me: Maybe since we’re Welsh we should Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch? You know: 1-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, 2-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, …

Together: 3-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch…

Evie (interrupting): Wait, what number are we on now???

Just saw my first news report since the start of the pandemic and introduction of vaccines where a reporter specified in voice over of video of people sitting within a foot or two of each other that everyone was fully vaccinated.

Helps make it feel like we’ve turned some sort of corner.

Of course the segment was about the coming plague of locusts…

My only issue with the scintillating conference is that I now have 100 open browser tabs full of awesome articles, resources, and materials that I’m going to have to read through and process. Worse, I’ve only touched on 1/4 of the content at the conference and it’s going to take a few months to watch and think about the balance.