ANTONI GAUDÍ I CORNET, HYPERBOLOID & 'TRENCADÍS'

Today, The Grandma talks about Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan architect considered one of the greatest of all time, who was born on a day like today in 1852.

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (25 June 1852-10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, sui generis style. Most are located in Barcelona, including his main work, the church of the Sagrada Família.

Gaudí's work was influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature, and religion.

He considered every detail of his creations and integrated into his architecture such crafts as ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He also introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadís which used waste ceramic pieces.

Under the influence of neo-Gothic art and Oriental techniques, Gaudí became part of the Modernist movement which was reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work transcended mainstream Modernisme, culminating in an organic style inspired by natural forms.

Gaudí rarely drew detailed plans of his works, instead preferring to create them as three-dimensional scale models and moulding the details as he conceived them.

Gaudí's work enjoys global popularity and continuing admiration and study by architects. His masterpiece, the still-incomplete Sagrada Família, is the most-visited monument in Catalonia. Between 1984 and 2005, seven of his works were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Gaudí's Roman Catholic faith intensified during his life and religious images appear in many of his works. This earned him the nickname God's Architect and led to calls for his beatification.

More information: Antoni Gaudí

Antoni Gaudí was born on 25 June 1852 in Riudoms or Reus, to the coppersmith Francesc Gaudí i Serra (1813–1906) and Antònia Cornet i Bertran (1819–1876). He was the youngest of five children, of whom three survived to adulthood: Rosa (1844–1879), Francesc (1851–1876) and Antoni.

Gaudí's family originated in the Auvergne region in southern France. One of his ancestors, Joan Gaudí, a hawker, moved to Catalonia in the 17th century; possible origins of Gaudí's family name include Gaudy or Gaudin.

Gaudí's first projects were the lampposts he designed for the Plaça Reial in Barcelona, the unfinished Girossi newsstands, and the Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense building. He gained wider recognition for his first important commission, the Casa Vicens, and subsequently received more significant proposals.

At the Paris World's Fair of 1878 Gaudí displayed a showcase he had produced for the glove manufacturer Comella. Its functional and aesthetic modernista design impressed Catalan industrialist Eusebi Güell, who then commissioned some of Gaudí's most outstanding work: the Güell wine cellars, the Güell pavilions, the Palau Güell, the Park Güell and the crypt of the church of the Colònia Güell.

Gaudí also became a friend of the marquis of Comillas, the father-in-law of Count Güell, for whom he designed El Capricho in Comillas.

In 1883 Gaudí was put in charge of the recently initiated project to build a Barcelona church called Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. Gaudí completely changed the initial design and imbued it with his own distinctive style. From 1915 until his death he devoted himself entirely to this project. 

Given the number of commissions he began receiving, he had to rely on his team to work on multiple projects simultaneously. His team consisted of professionals from all fields of construction.

Several of the architects who worked under him became prominent in the field later on, such as Josep Maria Jujol, Joan Rubió, Cèsar Martinell, Francesc Folguera and Josep Francesc Ràfols.

In 1885, Gaudí moved to rural Sant Feliu de Codines to escape the cholera epidemic that was ravaging Barcelona. He lived in Francesc Ullar's house, for whom he designed a dinner table as a sign of his gratitude.

The 1888 World Fair was one of the era's major events in Barcelona and represented a key point in the history of the Modernisme movement. Leading architects displayed their best works, including Gaudí, who showcased the building he had designed for the Compañía Trasatlántica. Consequently, he received a commission to restructure the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council, but this project was ultimately not carried out.

In the early 1890s Gaudí received two commissions from outside of Catalonia, namely the Episcopal Palace, Astorga, and the Casa Botines in León. These works contributed to Gaudí's growing renown across Spain.

In 1891, he travelled to Málaga and Tangiers to examine the site for a project for the Franciscan Catholic Missions that the 2nd marquis of Comillas had requested him to design.

In 1899 Gaudí joined the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc, a Catholic artistic society founded in 1893 by the bishop Josep Torras i Bages and the brothers Josep and Joan Llimona. He also joined the Lliga Espiritual de la Mare de Déu de Montserrat, another Catholic Catalan organisation. The conservative and religious character of his political thought was closely linked to his defence of the cultural identity of the Catalan people.

At the beginning of the century, Gaudí was working on numerous projects simultaneously. They reflected his shift to a more personal style inspired by nature.

In 1900, he received an award for the best building of the year from the Barcelona City Council for his Casa Calvet. During the first decade of the century Gaudí dedicated himself to projects like the Casa Figueras, better known as Bellesguard, the Park Güell, an unsuccessful urbanisation project, and the restoration of the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, for which he visited Majorca several times.

More information: Antoni Gaudí Works

Between 1904 and 1910 he constructed the Casa Batlló and the Casa Milà, two of his most emblematic works.

As a result of Gaudí's increasing fame, in 1902 the painter Joan Llimona chose Gaudí's features to represent Saint Philip Neri in the paintings for the aisle of the Sant Felip Neri church in Barcelona. Together with Joan Santaló, son of his friend the physician Pere Santaló, he unsuccessfully founded a wrought iron manufacturing company the same year.

After moving to Barcelona, Gaudí frequently changed his address: as a student he lived in residences, generally in the area of the Gothic Quarter; when he started his career he moved around several rented flats in the Eixample area.

Finally, in 1906, he settled in a house in the Güell Park that he owned and which had been constructed by his assistant Francesc Berenguer as a showcase property for the estate. It has since been transformed into the Gaudí Museum. There he lived with his fatherand his niece Rosa Egea Gaudí. He lived in the house until 1925, several months before his death, when he began residing inside the workshop of the Sagrada Família.

The decade from 1910 was a hard one for Gaudí. During this decade, the architect experienced the deaths of his niece Rosa in 1912 and his main collaborator Francesc Berenguer in 1914; a severe economic crisis which paralysed work on the Sagrada Família in 1915; the 1916 death of his friend Josep Torras i Bages, bishop of Vic; the 1917 disruption of work at the Colònia Güell; and the 1918 death of his friend and patron Eusebi Güell. Perhaps because of these tragedies he devoted himself entirely to the Sagrada Família from 1915, taking refuge in his work.

Gaudí devoted his life entirely to his profession. Those who were close to him described him as pleasant to talk to and faithful to friends. Among these, his patrons Eusebi Güell and the bishop of Vic, Josep Torras i Bages, stand out, as well as the writers Joan Maragall and Jacint Verdaguer, the physician Pere Santaló and some of his most faithful collaborators, such as Francesc Berenguer and Llorenç Matamala.

Gaudí was always in favour of Catalan culture but was reluctant to become politically active to campaign for its autonomy.

In 1920 he was beaten by police in a riot during the Floral Games celebrations.

On 11 September 1924, National Day of Catalonia, he was beaten at a demonstration against the banning of the Catalan language by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.

Gaudí was arrested by the Civil Guard, resulting in a short stay in prison, from which he was freed after paying 50 pesetas bail.

On 7 June 1926, Gaudí was taking his daily walk to the Sant Felip Neri church for his habitual prayer and confession. While walking along the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes between Girona and Bailén streets, he was struck by a passing number 30 tram and lost consciousness. Assumed to be a beggar, the unconscious Gaudí did not receive immediate aid. Eventually some passers-by transported him in a taxi to the Santa Creu Hospital, where he received rudimentary care.

By the time that the chaplain of the Sagrada Família, Mosén Gil Parés, recognised him on the following day, Gaudí's condition had deteriorated too severely to benefit from additional treatment.

Gaudí died on 10 June 1926 at the age of 73 and was buried two days later. A large crowd gathered to bid farewell to him in the chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the crypt of the Sagrada Família.

More information: Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família-A Monument to Nature

Gaudí is usually considered the great master of Catalan Modernism, but his works go beyond any one style or classification. They are imaginative works that find their main inspiration in geometry and nature forms.

Gaudí studied organic and anarchic geometric forms of nature thoroughly, searching for a way to give expression to these forms in architecture.

Some of his greatest inspirations came from visits to the mountain of Montserrat, the caves of Mallorca, the saltpetre caves in Collbató, the crag of Fra Guerau in the Prades Mountains behind Reus, the Pareis mountain in the north of Mallorca and Sant Miquel del Fai in Bigues i Riells.

This study of nature translated into his use of ruled geometrical forms such as the hyperbolic paraboloid, the hyperboloid, the helicoid and the cone, which reflect the forms Gaudí found in nature.

Ruled surfaces are forms generated by a straight line known as the generatrix, as it moves over one or several lines known as directrices. Gaudí found abundant examples of them in nature, for instance in rushes, reeds and bones; he used to say that there is no better structure than the trunk of a tree or a human skeleton. These forms are at the same time functional and aesthetic, and Gaudí discovered how to adapt the language of nature to the structural forms of architecture. He used to equate the helicoid form to movement and the hyperboloid to light.

Trencadís, also known as pique assiette, broken tile mosaics, bits and pieces, memoryware, and shardware, is a type of mosaic made from cemented-together tile shards and broken chinaware used by Gaudí in his works.

Several of Gaudí's works have been granted World Heritage status by UNESCO: in 1984 the Park Güell, the Palau Güell and the Casa Milà; and in 2005 the Nativity façade, the crypt and the apse of the Sagrada Família, the Casa Vicens and the Casa Batlló in Barcelona, together with the crypt of the Colònia Güell in Santa Coloma de Cervelló.

More information: Art & Mathematics in Antoni Gaudí's Architecture

 

 Paraboloids, hyperboloids and helicoids,
constantly varying the incidence of the light,
are rich in matrices themselves,
which make ornamentation and even modelling unnecessary.

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet

SAINT JOHN, THE PATRON OF THE EUROPEAN CULTURES

Today, The Grandma has been reading about John the Baptist, the prophet who foretold the coming of the Messiah in the person of Jesus, and patron of some European cultures like Catalan one.

 

The Nativity of John the Baptist is a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of John the Baptist, a prophet who foretold the coming of the Messiah in the person of Jesus, whom he later baptised.

Christians have long interpreted the life of John the Baptist as a preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ, and the circumstances of his birth, as recorded in the New Testament, are miraculous. 

John's pivotal place in the gospel is seen in the emphasis Luke gives to the announcement of his birth and the event itself, both set in prominent parallel to the same occurrences in the life of Jesus. The Nativity of John the Baptist on June 24 comes three months after the celebration on March 25 of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel told Mary that her cousin Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy, and six months before the Christmas celebration of the birth of Jesus.

The purpose of these festivals is not to celebrate the exact dates of these events, but simply to commemorate them in an interlinking way. The Nativity of John the Baptist anticipates the feast of Christmas.

More information: Loyola Press

The Nativity of John the Baptist is one of the oldest festivals of the Christian church, being listed by the Council of Agde in 506 as one of that region's principal festivals, where it was a day of rest and, like Christmas, was celebrated with three Masses: a vigil, at dawn, and at midday.

It is one of the patronal feasts of the Order of Malta. All over Europe Saint John's fires are lighted on mountains and hilltops on the eve of his feast. As the first day of summer, Saint John's Day is considered in ancient folklore one of the great charmed festivals of the year. Hidden treasures are said to lie open in lonely places, waiting for the lucky finder.

 

Divining rods should be cut on this day. Herbs are given unusual powers of healing, which they retain if they are plucked during the night of the feast. 

Festivals of Midsummer's Eve or St. John's Eve among Christians have roots in ancient celebrations related to the summer solstice. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southward again. 

In later years, witches were also thought to be on their way to meetings with other powerful beings. In the 7th century, Saint Eligius warned against midsummer activities and encouraged new converts to avoid them in favor of the celebration of St. John the Baptist's birth.

The Bonfires of Saint John is a traditional and popular festival celebrated around the world during Midsummer, which takes place on the evening of 23 June, St. John's Eve. The bonfires are particularly popular in Catalan-speaking areas from Salses to Guardamar, and for this reason it's regarded 24 June as the Catalan nation day, even though Catalonia's patron saint is actually St. George.

 

More information: Saint John's Eve

When you do something, 

you should burn yourself up completely, 

like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. 

Shunryu Suzuki

'LA FLAMA DEL CANIGÓ', FIRE THAT JOINS CATALAN LANDS

June 23. The Grandma is going to participate in one of her favourite traditions, La Flama del Canigó.

 

Every year, she participates in this traditional event, carrying the flame some kilometres. It is her way to collaborate in this tradition that evokes the common roots of the Catalan Countries.

Due to the current situation, The Grandma has taken all the possible precautions, but she has reached her goal. Today, she wants to talk about this tradition linked to the summer solstice and Sant Joan, the patron of the Catalan Countries.

La Flama del Canigó is a Catalan tradition linked to the summer solstice that takes place in various places in the Catalan Countries every year, between 22 and 23 June.

It begins with the renovation of the fire at the top of the Canigó and culminates with the lighting of the bonfires on the night of Sant Joan after the flame, carried by volunteers, spread throughout the country.

It is related to other summer solstice fire festivals in the Pyrenees, such as the Isil, Alins, Durro, Vilaller, Barruera, Pont de Suert and Andorra faults or the Haro burn of the Val d'Aran, where the fire coming down from the mountain is also the protagonist of the night. But beyond this festival, the Canigó Flame has a symbolism linked to the persistence and vitality of Catalan culture.

More information: Omnium

In 1955, Francesc Pujada, a villager from Arles de Tec (Vallespir, Northern Catalonia), driven by his enthusiasm for the Canigó massif and inspired by the epic poem by Jacint Verdaguer (Canigó, 1886) took the initiative, together with Esteve Albert and Josep Deloncle, to light the fires of the Night of Sant Joan at the top of this mountain and, from there, to spread the flame throughout all the regions of the Catalan Countries.

Thus began the tradition of the Canigó Flame, which connected with the millennial celebration of the summer solstice linked to fire and its collective significance.

The new tradition gained strength in a short time, so that, according to Òmnium Cultural, today it is practically impossible to find a single bonfire in Northern Catalonia that is not lit with the Canigó Flame.

La Flama del Canigó

In 1966 the fire crossed the border between the French and Spanish states for the first time and reached Vic. Despite the Franco dictatorship, the tradition spread throughout the Principality of Catalonia, often underground, as a symbol of the survival of Catalan culture.

Gradually the network spread, and the fire that descends from the Canigó also reached the Valencian Country and Balearic Islands.

There are currently dozens of organizations that celebrate the festival by spreading the flame that is lit on the beautiful top of the Canigó and is preserved in the Castellet de Perpinyà. Barcelona receives the flame in Plaça de Sant Jaume with the cobla, the eagle and the giants of the city, and from there it goes to the neighbourhoods.

In Terres de l'Ebre and the Priorat, every year a different village welcomes it, and people from the neighbouring counties gather there, who go in a caravan of cars, with the heir and heiress of the major festival of each locality. Alacant has kept alive the tradition of the fires of Sant Joan in the Valencian Country. Other cities also have their tradition, such as Tarragona in the Serrallo.

Every June 22, a group of hikers from the Cercle de Joves de Perpinyà catch the fire that has been lit in the kitchen of the Casa Pairal Museum, in Castellet de Perpinyà, since 1965, and climb to the top of the Canigó, 2,784 metres, where they light a new bonfire, after reading a manifesto.

More information: Generalitat de Catalunya

At dawn on June 23, they begin the descent with the renewed Flame. Together with the group of hikers of the Cercle Jove many other people gather at the top to catch the flame and thus begin the journey to different parts of the Catalan Countries doing relays on foot, by bike, by car and even in lute in the Ebre to make it possible for the Flame to spread through towns and cities and arrive in time to light the bonfires on the night of Sant Joan.

Every year, the Canigó Flame is received by the Parliament of Catalonia in an institutional event, as well as by town councils, county councils and cultural, social and sports organizations in more than 350 municipalities in the Catalan Countries.

In this way, and thanks to hundreds of volunteers, the fire coming from the mountain illuminates the popular festivals that take place around the fire. It is estimated that about 3,000 bonfires were lit that night with the fire coming from the top of the Canigó.

To make this ritual possible, on the weekend before Sant Joan, hundreds of people from all over the Catalan Countries and, especially, from Northern Catalonia, are in the Cortalets refuge, in the Cadí valley, at the foot of the Canigó. They arrive on Saturday night and stay at the shelter or camp with tents nearby.

The next morning they perform the first ritual of the Focs de Sant Joan: go up to the top of the Canigó and leave the small bundles of firewood that each one has brought from their city, town, village or orchard. The branches and twigs are tied with a ribbon that bears the name of the place where they come from, and some have drawings and writings with wishes to burn at the bonfire of Sant Joan. All these bundles of firewood are left stacked around the iron cross at the top of the mountain until the night the bonfire is lit.

More information: Ajuntament de Barcelona

 

 

 Ja les podeu fer ben altes
les fogueres aquest any
cal que brillin lluny i es vegin
els focs d'aquest Sant Joan.
Cal que es vegin de València,
de Ponent i de Llevant...

I en fareu també en la Serra
perquè els vegin més enllà...
i el crit d'una sola llengua
s'alci dels llocs més distants
omplint els aires encesos
d'un clamor de Llibertat!

Joan Maragall

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & BCN, I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS

Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have been enjoying, again, the greatest of all artists, Bruce Springsteen, The Boss, who has offered with The E Street Band another unforgettable concert in the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc-Lluís Companys in Barcelona.

 

I'll See You in My Dreams is a 2020 song by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The song was released as a single in March 2021. The song was dedicated to Michael Gudinski with the music video released on March 3, the day after Gudinski died. The song is the closing track on the 2020 album Letter to You, and along with the opening track One Minute You're Here, it is one of the two songs about mortality and death that bookend the album.

The song was first performed in a solo-acoustic arrangement on November 18, 2020, at Springsteen's Stone Hill Farm in Colts Neck, New Jersey for a virtual broadcast of the annual Stand Up for Heroes event, along with another song from the same album, House of a Thousand Guitars and the 2007 song Long Walk Home.

Later, it was one of the two songs from the album, the other one being Ghosts, performed by Springsteen and The E Street Band on the December 12, 2020 episode of Saturday Night Live.

On June 26, 2021, the song was added to the Springsteen on Broadway setlist, replacing Born to Run as the closing track, once again performed by Springsteen acoustically on guitar.

On September 11, 2021, Springsteen performed the acoustic version of I'll See You in My Dreams at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in tribute to the victims of the September 11 attacks, during the 9/11 20th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony.

As of 2023 and 2024, on the ongoing 2023 and 2024 Tours, Springsteen has closed all but one show with the acoustic version of I'll See You in My Dreams.

Music Musings & Such gave the song 9.7/10 points, describing Springsteen's voice in the song as contemplative and spirited and saying there is clearly a lot of meaning and personal relevance behind the words; the song has a definite energy and verve that portrays a sense of reconciliation and optimism.

Ultimate Classic Rock describes the album as ending as contemplatively as it begins, with the hopeful song declaring death is not the end, and like the opening One Minute You're Here, it serves as a melancholy bookend to Springsteen's most reflective work.

NJ.com ranks the song 7th on the album, describing it as a vibrant and telling finale to a record that could easily function as a fond farewell for the full-band outfit if they choose to never record another LP as ambitious as this one.

Rolling Stone, comparing the song to opener One Minute You're Here, says it is more of an upbeat and folky number that finds Springsteen echoing Dylan, declaring death is not the end.

More information: Bruce Springsteen

The road is long and seeming without end
The days go on, I remember you my friend
And though you're gone and my heart's been emptied it seems
I'll see you in my dreams
I got your guitar here by the bed
All your favorite records and all the books that you read
And though my soul feels like it's been split at the seams
I'll see you in my dreams
I'll see you in my dreams
When all our summers have come to an end
I'll see you in my dreams
We'll meet and live and laugh again
I'll see you in my dreams
Yeah, up around the river bend
For death is not the end
And I'll see you in my dreams
I'll see you in my dreams
When all our summers have come to an end
I'll see you in my dreams
We'll meet and live and laugh again
I'll see you in my dreams
Yeah, up around the river bend
For death is not the end
And I'll see you in my dreams
(See) you in my
See you in my dreams
Go
And I'll see you in my dreams

JOHN PAUL YOUNG, THE AUSTRALIAN LOVE IS IN THE AIR

Today, The Grandma has been reading about John Paul Young, the Australian singer who was born on a day like today in 1950.
 

John Inglis Young (born 21 June 1950), known professionally as John Paul Young, is an Australian pop singer who had his 1978 worldwide hit with Love Is in the Air. His career was boosted by regular appearances as a performer and guest host on Countdown, a 1974–1987 TV series for Australia's national broadcaster ABC.

Besides Love Is in the Air, Young had top ten chart success in Germany and the Netherlands with Standing in the Rain and four other top ten hits in South Africa, including No. 1 hits with I Hate the Music in 1976 and Yesterday's Hero in 1975.

On 27 August 2009, Young was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame.

Young was born John Inglis Young in Bridgeton, Glasgow, Scotland to James and Agnes (nee Inglis) Young. Together with his parents, two sisters and a brother, Young emigrated to Australia on board the SS Canberra, arriving in Sydney on Australia Day (26 January) 1962 when he was aged 11.

After finishing school, he started an apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker. Initially performing as John Young, his first involvement in music began in late 1967 when he formed a band, Elm Tree, with schoolmates.

In mid-1971 they entered the New South Wales heats of Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds and got as far as the Sydney finals, but they didn't make it through to the national final, and so never managed to break out of the Sydney suburban dance circuit.

At this point, Young's manager Dal Myles got him a role in the Melbourne production of The Jesus Christ Revolution. The show opened and closed in six weeks.

In February 1975, Young released Yesterday's Hero, a song about the fleeting nature of pop stardom which drew on Vanda & Young's own experiences as former teen idols.

Young's debut studio album, Hero was released in October 1975 and peaked at No. 9 on the Australian Album charts.

Late in 1977, the European markets began playing Standing in the Rain, the B-Side for the song Keep on Smilin'. The song became a top 10 hit in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany selling over 400,000 copies.

Young's next single, Love Is in the Air, became a worldwide hit during 1978, peaking at No. 3 on the Australian charts in May, No. 7 in the US Billboard Hot 100, and No. 5 in the UK singles chart.

More information: New Idea

The associated album, Love Is in the Air was released in October and reached the top 40 on the Australian albums chart. Subsequent singles, The Day That My Heart Caught Fire which peaked in the top 20, and Heaven Sent continued the disco style. Young was crowned King of Pop in October 1978.

Love Is in the Air also won Most Popular Australian Single and Vanda & Young won both Best Australian Record Producer and Best Australian Songwriter at the same awards.

In 1992, an Australian comedy film titled Strictly Ballroom was released. The film and associated soundtrack featured new versions of Love Is in the Air and Standing in the Rain, both of which were released as singles. Love Is in the Air peaked at No. 3 on the Australian Singles Charts and was a top 50 hit in the UK.

In 1994 Young left 105.3 NEWFM in Newcastle and joined 2CH in Sydney, which only lasted six months.

On 4 November 1994, Young became a naturalised Australian citizen and received his papers from then Prime Minister, Paul Keating.

In 2000, he played to his largest audience as a featured performer at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics.

On 27 August 2009, Young was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame alongside Kev Carmody, The Dingoes, Little Pattie and Mental As Anything.

In 2012, Young was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the performing arts as a singer and songwriter, and through support for a range of charitable organisations.

During the 1980s, Young's 1978 hit Love is in the Air was adopted by fans of Scottish Premier League football team Dundee United as an unofficial club anthem. Played since then at many home matches, it was sung in its entirety by an estimated 28,000 fans before and after the 2010 Scottish Cup Final held on 15 May at Hampden Park in Glasgow.

More information: John Paul Young

Love is in the air, everywhere I look around
Love is in the air, every sight and every sound

Love is in the air, in the whisper of the tree
Love is in the air, in the thunder of the sea

Love is in the air, in the rising of the sun
Love is in the air, when the day is nearly done

Love is in the air, everywhere I look around
Love is in the air, every sight and every sound

John Paul Young

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & BCN, THE LAST MAN STANDING

Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have been enjoying the greatest of all artists, Bruce Springsteen, The Boss, who has offered with the E Street Band an unforgettable concert in the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc-Lluís Companys in Barcelona.

 

Bruce Springsteen, born September 23, 1949 is an American musician, singer, songwriter and humanitarian. He is best known for his work with his E Street Band. 

Nicknamed The Boss, Springsteen is widely known for his brand of poetic lyrics, American working class and sometimes political sentiments centred on his native New Jersey, his distinctive voice and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running over four hours in length.

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born to Run (1975) and Born in the USA (1984), showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life. 

He has sold more than 64 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award as well as being inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.

Bruce Springsteen draws on many musical influences from the reservoir of traditional American popular music, folk, blues and country. From the beginning, rock and roll has been a dominant influence and Springsteen's musical and lyrical evocations, as well as public tributes, of artists such as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Gary Bonds, and many others helped to rekindle interest in their music. 

Springsteen's other preferred musical style is American folk, evident on his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park and more strongly on Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad. 

Springsteen songs such as This Hard Land demonstrate the lyrical and musical influence of Woody Guthrie.

Often described as cinematic in their scope, Springsteen's lyrics frequently explore highly personal themes such as individual commitment, dissatisfaction and dismay with life in a context of everyday situations. It has been recognized that there was a shift in his lyrical approach starting with the album Darkness on the Edge of Town, in which he focused on the emotional struggles of working class life.

More information: Bruce Springsteen

Rock of ages lift me somehow
Somewhere high and hard and loud
Somewhere deep into the heart of the crowd
I'm the last man standing now.

Bruce Springsteen

INDIGENOUS AND TRIBAL PEOPLES CONVENTION IN 1989

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, that was ratified for the first time by Norway on a day like today in 1990.

 

The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 is an International Labour Organization Convention, also known as ILO Convention 169, or C169. It is the major binding international convention concerning indigenous peoples and tribal peoples, and a forerunner of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This Convention revised Convention C107, the Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957. Some of the nations ratifying the 1989 Convention denounced the 1957 Convention.

The ILO 169 convention is the most important operative international law guaranteeing the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. Its strength, however, is dependent on a high number of ratifications among nations.

The revision to the Convention 107 forbade governments from pursuing approaches deemed integrationist and assimilationist. It asserts the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples to choose to integrate or to maintain their cultural and political independence. Articles 8–10 recognize the cultures, traditions, and special circumstances of indigenous tribal peoples.

In November 2009, a court decision in Chile, considered to be a landmark in indigenous rights concerns, made use of the ILO convention law. The court ruled unanimously in favor of granting a water flow of 9 liters per second to Chusmiza and Usmagama communities. The legal dispute had dragged for 14 years, and centers on community water rights in one of the driest deserts on the planet. The Supreme Court decision on Aymara water rights upholds rulings by both the Pozo Almonte tribunal and the Iquique Court of Appeals, and marks the first judicial application of ILO Convention 169 in Chile.

More information: Woven Teaching

Prior to this decision, some protests had escalated over the failure to respect the Convention 169 in Chile. Mapuche leaders filed an injunction against Michelle Bachelet and minister of the presidency José Antonio Viera Gallo, who is also coordinator of indigenous affairs, with the argument that the government had failed to fully comply with the Convention 169 clause on the right to prior consultation, which must be carried out in good faith and in a form appropriate to the circumstances, with the objective of achieving agreement or consent to the proposed measures, such as logging, agribusiness or mining projects in indigenous territories.

There were already several examples of the successful use of the ILO Convention in Chile, like the case of a Machi woman who brought legal action to protect a plot of land with herbs used for medicinal purposes, which was threatened by the forest industry. Some concerns were however raised at the time over the political framework of the government being brought in line with the convention, and not the other way around.

More information: Gray Group International

If people can't acknowledge
the wisdom of indigenous cultures,
then that's their loss.

Jay Griffiths

1940, THE 'FINEST HOUR' SPEECH BY WINSTON CHURCHILL

Today, The Grandma has been reading about This was their finest hour speech delivered by Winston Churchill on a day like today in 1940.

 

This was their finest hour was a speech delivered by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 18 June 1940, just over a month after he took over as Prime Minister at the head of an all-party coalition government.

It was the third of three speeches which he gave during the period of the Battle of France, after the Blood, toil, tears and sweat speech of 13 May and the We shall fight on the beaches speech of 4 June.

This was their finest hour was made after France had sought an armistice on the evening of 16 June.

In his speech, Churchill justified the low level of support it had been possible to give to France since the Dunkirk evacuation, and reported the successful evacuation of most of the supporting forces. He resisted pressure to purge the coalition of appeasers, or otherwise indulge in recrimination.

He reported messages of support from the Dominions and justified confidence in victory, even if it was not yet clear how that victory could be achieved.

More information: Winston Churchill

Now this is not the end.
It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Winston Churchill

THE FIRST AERIAL CROSSING OF THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral, who completed the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic on a day like today in 1922.

The first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic was made by the Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral in 1922, to mark the centennial of Brazil's independence. 

Coutinho and Cabral flew in stages from Lisbon, Portugal, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, using three different Fairey III biplanes, and covered a distance of 8,383 kilometres (5,209 mi) between 30 March and 17 June.

Although the North Atlantic had already been traversed in a non-stop flight by John Alcock and Arthur Brown in 1919, Coutinho and Cabral's flight remains notable as a milestone in transatlantic aviation, and for its use of new technologies such as the artificial horizon.

In June 2022, the centenary of the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic, it was announced that Faro Airport will officially change its name to Gago Coutinho Airport, in honour of Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho.

The journey started at the Bom Sucesso Naval Air Station in the Tagus, near the Belém Tower in Lisbon, at 16:30 on 30 March 1922, in the Portuguese Naval Aviation aircraft Lusitânia, a Fairey III-D MkII seaplane specifically outfitted for the journey.

The Lusitânia was equipped with an artificial horizon for aeronautical use, a revolutionary invention at the time; according to the Portuguese Navy Museum, testing the horizon was one of the main reasons for the flight.

More information: Scientific Research

The first part of the journey ended on the same day at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, where the aviators noticed that the plane's fuel consumption was higher than expected. The journey resumed on 5 April, when they departed for São Vicente Island, Cape Verde, traversing 1,370 kilometres. After making repairs on the Lusitânia, they departed São Vicente on 17 April and flew to Praia on Santiago Island, and then to the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, already in Brazilian waters, where they arrived on the same day, after flying 1,700 kilometres over the South Atlantic. They had reached that point by relying solely on the Coutinho's sextant with its artificial horizon.

However, when ditching on the rough seas near the archipelago, the Lusitânia lost one of its floats and sank. The two aviators were saved by the cruiser NRP República, which had been sent by the Portuguese Navy to support the aerial crossing. The aviators were then carried to the Brazilian Fernando de Noronha islands.

Enthusiastic Portuguese and Brazilian public opinion about the flight led the Portuguese government to send another Fairey III seaplane to complete the journey. The new plane, baptized Pátria, arrived at Fernando Noronha on 6 May. After being refitted, the Pátria departed on 11 May with Coutinho and Cabral on board. They flew to the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago to resume the journey at the point where it had been interrupted. However, an engine problem forced them to once again make an emergency ditching in the middle of the ocean, where they drifted for nine hours until being saved by the nearby British cargo ship Paris City, which carried them back to Fernando Noronha.

A third Fairey III -baptized Santa Cruz by the wife of Epitácio Pessoa, the President of Brazil- was sent out, carried by the cruiser NRP Carvalho Araújo. 

On 5 June, the Santa Cruz was put in the waters of Fernando Noronha and Coutinho and Cabral resumed their journey, flying to Recife, then to Salvador da Bahia, then to Vitória and from there to Rio de Janeiro, where they arrived on 17 June 1922, ditching in the Guanabara Bay. The two men were received as heroes by huge crowds, and were greeted by the aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont.

Although their journey had lasted 79 days, the actual flight time was just 62 hours and 26 minutes. The aircraft, the only of the three that survived until today, is now on display at the Maritime Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.

More information: FAI

One of the greatest joys known to man is
to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge.

Robert Staughton Lynd

IBM, THE COMPUTING-TABULATING-RECORDING IN 1911

Today, The Grandma has been reading about IBM, the American multinational technology company that was founded as the Computing Tabulating Recording Company on a day like today in 1911.

International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York and present in over 175 countries.

IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries, having held the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business for 29 consecutive years from 1993 to 2021.

IBM was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems. It was renamed International Business Machines in 1924 and soon became the leading manufacturer of punch-card tabulating systems. 

During the 1960s and 1970s, the IBM mainframe, exemplified by the System/360, was the world's dominant computing platform, with the company producing 80 percent of computers in the U.S. and 70 percent of computers worldwide.

IBM entered the microcomputer market in the 1980s with the IBM Personal Computer, which soon became known as PC, one of IBM's best selling products. Due to a lack of foresight by IBM, the PC was not well protected by intellectual property laws. As a consequence, IBM quickly began losing its market dominance to emerging competitors in the PC market, while at the same time the openness of the PC platform has ensured PC's longevity as the most popular microcomputer standard.

Beginning in the 1990s, the company began downsizing its operations and divesting from commodity production, most notably selling its personal computer division to the Lenovo Group in 2005. IBM has since concentrated on computer services, software, supercomputers, and scientific research. Since 2000, its supercomputers have consistently ranked among the most powerful in the world, and in 2001 it became the first company to generate more than 3,000 patents in one year, beating this record in 2008 with over 4,000 patents. As of 2022, the company held 150,000 patents.

As one of the world's oldest and largest technology companies, IBM has been responsible for several technological innovations, including the automated teller machine (ATM), dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), the floppy disk, the hard disk drive, the magnetic stripe card, the relational database, the SQL programming language, and the UPC barcode. The company has made inroads in advanced computer chips, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and data infrastructure. IBM employees and alumni have won various recognitions for their scientific research and inventions, including six Nobel Prizes and six Turing Awards.

More information: IBM

IBM is a publicly traded company and one of 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is among the world's largest employers, with over 297,900 employees worldwide in 2022. Despite its relative decline within the technology sector, IBM remains the seventh largest technology company by revenue, and 67th largest overall company by revenue in the United States. It is also consistently ranked among the world's most recognizable, valuable, and admired brands.

IBM originated with several technological innovations developed and commercialized in the late 19th century. Julius E. Pitrap patented the computing scale in 1885; Alexander Dey invented the dial recorder (1888); Herman Hollerith patented the Electric Tabulating Machine (1889); and Willard Bundy invented a time clock to record workers' arrival and departure times on a paper tape (1889).

On June 16, 1911, their four companies were amalgamated in New York State by Charles Ranlett Flint forming a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) based in Endicott, New York. The five companies had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto, Canada.

IBM has a large and diverse portfolio of products and services. As of 2016, these offerings fall into the categories of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, commerce, data and analytics, Internet of things (IoT), IT infrastructure, mobile, digital workplace and cybersecurity.

IBM Cloud includes infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) offered through public, private and hybrid cloud delivery models. For instance, the IBM Bluemix PaaS enables developers to quickly create complex websites on a pay-as-you-go model. IBM SoftLayer is a dedicated server, managed hosting and cloud computing provider, which in 2011 reported hosting more than 81,000 servers for more than 26,000 customers. IBM also provides Cloud Data Encryption Services (ICDES), using cryptographic splitting to secure customer data.

Hardware designed by IBM for these categories include IBM's Power microprocessors, which were designed into many console gaming systems, including Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo's Wii U. IBM Secure Blue is encryption hardware that can be built into microprocessors, and in 2014, the company revealed TrueNorth, a neuromorphic CMOS integrated circuit and announced a $3 billion investment over the following five years to design a neural chip that mimics the human brain, with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses, but that uses just 1 kilowatt of power.

In 2016, the company launched all-flash arrays designed for small and midsized companies, which includes software for data compression, provisioning, and snapshots across various systems.

More information: IBM

 We can learn from IBM's successful history
that you don't have to have the best product
to become number one.
You don't even have to have a good product.

Adam Osborne

CHARLES GOODYEAR & THE PATENT FOR VULCANIZATION

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Charles Goodyear, the American chemist and manufacturing engineer, who received a patent for vulcanization on a day like today in 1844.

Charles Goodyear (December 29, 1800-July 1, 1860) was an American self-taught chemist and manufacturing engineer who developed vulcanized rubber, for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844.

Goodyear is credited with inventing the chemical process to create and manufacture pliable, waterproof, moldable rubber.

Goodyear's discovery of the vulcanization process followed five years of searching for a more stable rubber and stumbling upon the effectiveness of heating after Thomas Hancock. His discovery initiated decades of successful rubber manufacturing in the Lower Naugatuck Valley in Connecticut, as rubber was adopted to multiple applications, including footwear and tires. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company is named after (though not founded by) him.

Charles Goodyear was born on December 29, 1800, in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Amasa Goodyear, and the oldest of six children. His father was a descendant of Stephen Goodyear, successor to Governor Eaton as the head of the company London Merchants, who founded the colony of New Haven in 1638.

Between the years 1831 and 1832, Goodyear heard about gum elastic (natural rubber) and examined every article that appeared in the newspapers relative to this new material.

From 1834 through 1839, Goodyear worked anywhere he could find investors, and often moved locations, mostly within New York, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and Connecticut. 

In 1839, Goodyear was at the Eagle India Rubber Company in Woburn, Massachusetts, where he discovered that combining rubber and sulfur over a hot stove caused the rubber to become rigid, a process which he called vulcanization because of the heat involved. For this Goodyear received US patent number 1090 on February 24 of the same year.

Several years earlier, Goodyear had started a small factory at Springfield, Massachusetts, to which he moved his primary operations in 1842. The factory was run largely by Nelson and his brothers. Charles Goodyear's brother-in-law, Mr. De Forest, a wealthy woolen manufacturer became involved as well. The work of making the invention practical was continued.

In 1844, the process was sufficiently perfected and Goodyear received US patent number 3633, which mentions New York but not Springfield. Also in 1844, Goodyear's brother Henry introduced mechanical mixing of the mixture in place of the use of solvents. Goodyear sold some of these patents to Hiram Hutchinson who founded Hutchinson SA in France in 1853.

Goodyear died on July 1, 1860, while traveling to see his dying daughter. After arriving in New York, he was informed that she had already died. He collapsed and was taken to the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City, where he died at the age of 59.

In 1898, almost four decades after his death, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded and named after Goodyear by Frank Seiberling.

On February 8, 1976, he was among six individuals selected for induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

More information: The Enginner

I am not disposed to complain
that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits.

Charles Goodyear