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#61949 03/22/02 01:05 PM
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Ahhhhh, my maxim, my motto, indeed, my mantra!

Consider yourself warned.


#61950 03/22/02 01:50 PM
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That's the one. Thank you AnnaS. I've only heard it done at the circle of stones so now I can come back to it again and again. A short story I much admire "Mr. Death and the Red-headed Woman" by Helen Eustis in the anthology "Westward the Women" is a fine story if you can find it, also done at the circle.


#61951 03/22/02 02:21 PM
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I knew this had been posted before! I just didn't look far enough back, the first time, Searching on purple. Thanks, Anna--gobble allowed me to find it. Jo, I loved it then, and I love it now.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?E29C4229

EDIT--Ok, thanks to Keiva's post I found the site to shorten it. Even figured out that the reason the site "didn't like" the original link was that it had a space in it. [amazement e] This should narrow the screen again, though I've never had another board link widen it, since tsuwm told us to delete back to the post #.

EDITof the EDIT AUGH--it didn't narrow the screen! Wail!

#61952 03/22/02 02:28 PM
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Few dyes from plant xources are satisfactory.The royal purple of antiquity was derived from marine Murex snails, and so expensive only royalty could afford it, and it was forbidden to anyone else. Not until Perkin's discovery of dyes from coal tar could average people have pretty colored clothing.
T shirts colored purple from fruit will fade and just look messy. Only valuable plant color I can think of is indigo, first available in 1745.


#61953 03/22/02 02:49 PM
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Never hearduvit.


But this is really good.


k


#61954 03/22/02 05:45 PM
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re: Only valuable plant color I can think of is indigo, first available in 1745.

do you mean commercially available in the america's or in europe? the people of ghana (ashanti) were early (if not the first) people to have extracted indigo blue dye. they have many myths about how it was first found, basicly all involve a woman who begs the gods for cloth the color of the sky, and promises she will give anything.

she is lure into the forest, directed to collect some leaves to make a bed for her son, to lie him on it, and to build a small fire to protect him.

she lies him down, and then is taken all about the forest.. she is gone for hours, and is worried about her son..

finaly she returns, and finds her son is burning.. the blanket she laid him on, caught fire, she runs about, looking for some water, and throws it on him, but its to late. Everything is burnt, only a small scrap of cloth remains.. it smells, and it is warm, still damp from urine and the water she clutches it, an cries.. and as her salt tear touch the cloth, it turn the color of the sky.. and so the gods tell her, thank you for the gift of your first born son... -- now you know the secret.. you must take this plants, crush them, and cook them in urine, heat them, wash them, and then add salt water..

heating (or cooking) urine will give you a mild ammonia, a common solvent for plant dyes, and salt is a common mordant. the leaves, of course are indigo plants.

indigo became a cash crop in US, but i think it was introduced to the western world as europians went to west africa in search of slaves.

There is a name for one shade of purple that was made up.. since it was a shade never found in nature. (i thought it was mauve, but i checked and its not it.) it was a 'brand name' for a color extract from coal tar dyes. anyone remember?


#61955 03/22/02 10:36 PM
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I've only heard it at the circle of stones
Sounds intriguingly occult, Consuelo. Is this 'show and spell' kinda thing for ladies only?


#61956 03/23/02 03:00 PM
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In Bill Bryson's book, The Mother Tongue, he says it is likely that Homo Sapiens had a pretty sophisticated language capability (p. 23), but that the Neanderthals may have been more confined to things like, "I'm hungry. Let's hunt." He goes on:
It may be no more than intriguing coincidence, but the area of Cro-Magnon's cave paintings is also the area containing Europe's oldest and most mysterious ethnic group, the Basques. Their language, called Euskara by its speakers, may be the last surviving remnant of the Neolithic languages spoken in Stone Age Europe and later displaced by Indo-European tongues."



#61957 03/27/02 11:05 AM
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Hi Moss, I hope you are enjoying yourself here. I was refering to something I had mentioned here before, Stone Circle. It is a place in Michigan, just north of the 45th parallel where poets, storytellers and musicians collect to perform around the fire under the summer night skies. I posted a link to the web page. Use "search" and type in Stone Circle. They have only three rules there, 1)You must know your material by heart, 2) Nothing Satanic is permitted, and 3) Nothing erotic until after midnight when all the kiddies are gone or sleeping.


#61958 03/27/02 07:41 PM
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Harking back to earlier in this thread, the poem is called "Warning" and is by Jenny Joseph. Being an inveterate (and therefore probably obnoxious and unwelcome!) corrector, I feel compelled to set the record straight:

It's satin SANDALS, not candles; it's pickle, not pickles; it's beer MATS, not beer nuts!; and finally, it's practise, not practice (see thread on 100 most-often misspelled words - practise is the verb and practice is the noun).

Just can't help being a pedant....but also I LOVE the poem! what more can I say?! [apologetic-e]


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