Ginnungagap!

Strange How One's Misapprehensions Come Home To Roost

Conrad first read of this word waaaay back in 1975, long before teh Interwebz were a thing, and so his impression that this was a Hindi word, from their native religious eschatology - a phrase you never expected to hear today - dates from then.

     Having only just looked it up via Google, it's of Norse origin, not Indian, and concerns the creation of The World (Norse civilisation of 2,000 years ago not big on extra-solar planetary detection) from the formless void.  Art!

     Why is this novel's cover up on the blog?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Because it's the final volume in James Blish's "Okie Quadrology", also known as "The Triumph Of Time" over the Pond.

     The novel is elegiac in tone, being the account of how Earth's galactic empire is usurped and ended by another emergent galactic power, the Web Of Hercules.  Our viewpoint is from an independent colony in the Magellanic Clouds, where the Okie city New York New York finally settled for good.  Art!

NYNY in Earth orbit

     Here an aside.  YES ALREADY!  One of the chapters in ACOC is about the 'Jihad of Jorn', and back in those days we callow youths had absolutely no idea what a 'Jihad' was.  Jorn's adherents were armed with 'spindillies', an anti-gravity weapon capable of launching a whole city block into orbit, wh

     ANYWAY the novel ends with a chapter entitled "Ginnungagap", where the universe is doomed to destruction.  DOOMED! I tell you, except it will also 'restart' from this Big Crunch.  Great, hmmm?  Well yes and no, because any physical presence at the singularity where this Crunch happens will affect the newly-hatched universe's reality.  No new presence means reality will repeat itself.

     AHEM, SPOILER WARNING AHEAD

     So! the lead characters all voluntarily enter the singularity and thus affect the nascent universe, themselves being obliterated in the process.

     I did say it was elegiac.  Plus, the stories have been around since 1962, so it's not as if - O go on, I'll Retro a warning.

     Why all this preamble?  Because I watched the final episode of "The Umbrella Academy" last night and the two plots seemed to have at least a nodding acquaintance.  Art!

Abigail and Hargreeves await certain death

     AHEM, SPOILER WARNING AHEAD

     

After all the various running-around of previous episodes, Number Five discovers that the very creation of The Umbrella Academy via 'Marigold' is what caused an irreparable fracture of time and realities.   No matter how many times TUA saves the world, it will continue to suffer terminal catastrophe - over one hundred and forty-five thousand times at last count.  'The Cleanse', which is a giant monster as seen above rather than an effect on the continuum, is how a single timeline will be restored.  Art!

     Conrad did think The Cleanse was a singularly inefficient way to restore timelines by  destroying and gobbling up the world, but then I realised that it seems to grow progressively larger the more it consumes, so we can assume a logarithmic increase in size.  Here it masses perhaps a couple of hundred tons; by the time it finished consuming the entire city it will amass hundreds of thousands of tons, and the rate of consumption will accelerate.
     Also, something about the appearance of this monster stirs a memory somewhere in the depths of my mind.  From a different film?  A comic?  Dunno yet.  Art!

     The end of TUA, as they get absorbed by red slime.  O well, James Blish would have approved.

    We then get a nice graphic of the incredibly convoluted timelines disappearing until only one is left. which none of our seven heroes will ever get to know, and then we get a bucolic shot of a world where TUA had never existed.  Art!

Ignore the screen flaws!  Ignore the screen flaws!

     So, they bravely sacrificed their very existence to reset the universe, hance this blog's title.

     Except - 

     Eight marigolds appear.  One for each member of The Umbrella Academy?  In Memoriam or In Primogenitus?


Choppers!

Yes, time to introduce another haphazardly dangerous wood-chopping machine as bodged up by a chap in his backyard after one beer too many.  Art!

     In fact this one looks to be a commercially-produced wood-splitter (as distinct from a chopper), and the insert there shows that it is treadle-operated, meaning that matey only operates the hydraulically-driven platform when ready.  Taking his foot off the treadle causes the platform to automatically fall to the 'Down' position.  Art!

     There's still nothing to prevent him getting his hand betwixt timber and blade whilst shoving the lumber around.  So only moderately dangerous.


Chop Suey

Yes, more chop in your blog shop!  Art?

Dog Buns this is making me hungry!

     This is described as a 'Chinese-style', rather than simply 'Chinese', dish, of meat, bean sprouts and similar vegetables, served with rice.  Yes.  Pretty obviously.  Chinese native cuisine not big on serving food with potatoes.  Derived from the Chinese "Tsap sui" or "mixed bits".

     When is it lunchtime?


"The War Illustrated Edition 197 5th January 1945"
What next in our montage of military memoirs?  Art!

     This is the literal montage that TWI uses in it's centre pages, with five photographs from the Far East theatre in Burma, where the weather was still swelteringly hot and humid despite these pictures being taken in late December.  The hapless tommies here might well be pining for a bit of seasonal snow.  Art!

     This is an infantry patrol en route to Mohnyin, sticking to the grasses for concealment along the edge of a stream.  Note that they are wearing helmets, not slouch hats, a sure sign this is the front lines where the potential for conflict is high.  Only up to a certain extent as the photographer has his back to any enemies and seems to be standing out in the open.  Art!

      The same patrol now inside Mohnyin, not seeming to be expecting trouble as everyone is still hauling a full pack, no bayonets fixed and their Bren gunner still has his weapon hoisted on his shoulder.  Mohnyin itself has been a bit knocked about.

Further Of Paddington

Even if on the outskirts of the borough.  Conrad bookmarked this next location because it caught his eye as having a miniature island present, which is always a draw as far as I'm concerned.  Art!

     Extra-large so you can appreciate the north-west location of St. Mary Magdalene (Paddington), whatever that is.  The triangular stretch of water is known as "Browning's Pool" thanks to the poet Robert Browning living nearby for five years, whether he swam there or not is harder to discover.  Art!

     "Little Venice" is stretching poetic description to it's elastic limit, frankly.  Nice to see that there is a waterbus service in The Modern Babylon, though.  I wonder if anyone has tried sneaking onto that island to camp out overnight?  Just so they could say they'd done it.

Finally -

The weather outside looks dismal, grey, wet and overcast with the Uniform Grey Layer that means it will rain all day long and the lights will need to be kept on, also all day long.  Thankfully I did my constitutional into Lesser Sodom yesteryon, when it was merely cold and damp.  Looking out the window of my Sekrit Layr, I cannot tell if that's a fine rain a-falling or mist.