... until April the 1st - aka Fools' Day.
Are we going to see a French-style-big-fish in two weeks, with Parisian Titi ?
# 67 - REKO Rennie - March 14th/2010
Reko's video of his hopping tour in Europe in 2009, when he won an Australian
Council of the Arts residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris.
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... or : "Su ohi de s'accabadora"*
After a phone call with a friend recalling some conversations with old people
on a topic that has always been a taboo, I just googled two keywords :
Accabadora and mazzoccu.
- The "femina accabadora" or "agabbadora" (Span. v. acabar) is the woman
who completes the task - meaning she "helps" to pass away or, in short, a
"terminator". This character used to be an old woman dressed in black, veiled
face - often the midwife of the village, who was called to end the agony of the
dying when it lasted too long, causing unnecessary suffering.
Her task accomplished, she moved away. Her performance was not paid
with money, but rewarded with flour, salt, lard or other common items.
It was an ancestral form of euthanasia, practiced in cases of extreme necessity.
- The "mazzoccu" or "mazzolu" is a piece of wild olive wood, T-shaped like
a hammer (more info here to translate).
Like all items related to the most secret rites and traditions, this tool was kept
carefully hidden, when people didn't get rid of. However, one of them is still
visible at the Galluras ethnographic museum, in Luras.
A single sharp blow of this instrument on the temporal bone was supposed
to end the agony, though sometimes choking with a hand or a pillow was
enough to stop a weak breath of life. The accabadora's performance was
so fast it appeared to be painless...
The latest reported activities of the Accabadora
would have occurred in Luras (1929) and in
Orgosolo (1952), although someone believes
that the last case would be as more recent as
in 2003.
The Luras case is certainly emblematic : when
a 70 years old man passed away - with some
help from such a black angel, the local police
and prosecutor were unanimous in reporting
the act to a humanitarian context, so the woman wasn't convicted and the
case was filed.
[luoghimisteriosi]
Infos gathered thanks to :
- Contusu.it
- Galluras.it
- A. Satta.pdf
Alberto La Marmora and William Henry Smith were the first to report this primitive
practice of euthanasia in Sardinia in their travel journals, in the early 19th century.
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* [the sentence "su ohi de s'accabadora" means "the last lament of the dying"].
Yes, Armel, パリから若い男、東京でスプラッシュになります !
Irresistibly attracted by the many {and 1 peculiar] splendours of the Land
of the Rising Sun, he has left behind the City of Lights - and even the
Griset spot [already a nest of Nippon creativity], to join the top fashion
designers in Tokyo...
- Above, from the .jp "Madame Figaro"
- Below : from "Openers" web magazine
Leave a comment on Armel's work and encourage him ! 
Armelの作品にコメントを残そうと彼を促す！
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SALON DE L'AGRICULTURE
Short summary, in pictures :
An evening strongly tinged with sadness that emanates from the eyes of animals
- except from the poultry, maybe, in an environment that is, after all, hostile for
them all : people watching them only in a steak-and-roastbeef perspective.
Traditionally, at the Salon de l'Agriculture, people use to linger to taste regional
specialties - wine included, we are in France, right ?
After a four-hour tour and some regional snaks here
and there, my dinner theme revolved around vegetables
only.
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The Cerbalus aravensis has been found by a team of scientists from
the Department of Biology in the University of Haifa-Oranim in the giant
dune of Sands of Samar/southern Arava region of Israel, (Jan 2010).
But the Samar sands' site is desapparing : if once it covered as many
as 2.7 square miles, lately it's reduced to approximately 1 square mile.
Should this trend continues, the Cerbalus aravensis wouldn't survive.
(It's funny how, by enlarging Yael Olek's photo, an elderly person with white hair
and beard appears).
(Pictures Yael Olek and Roy Talbi)
This spider's leg-span can reach up to 14 cm., which makes it the largest
spider of its type in the Middle East. Even though details are still lacking to
enable a full analysis of its biology and of its population in the sands, the
scientists know that this is a nocturnal spider, mostly active in the hottest
months of the year, and that it constructs an underground den which is
closed with a "lifting door" made of sand particles that are glued together
to camouflage the den.
(more...)
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