'I WILL LOVE YOU WITH ALL THE MADNESS IN MY SOUL...'

There are people who accompany you throughout your life and who make you happier, especially in those difficult moments when you need to disconnect or reconnect. It can be an athlete, whom you follow and enjoy her triumphs; a writer, whom you read and accompany you in the moments of greatest solitude or a musician, whose songs accompany you at all times and mark you forever.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of the most spectacular works that the history of music has ever produced: Born to run by Bruce Springsteen. It is very difficult to choose a single song from this entire masterpiece, although The Grandma's favourite song has always been Thunder Road, a song about resilience and continuing forward despite setbacks and difficulties, but the song that gives the title to this work Born to run, is no less spectacular and, just like with Thunder Road, encourages us to keep going and not give up, because that is what it is always about: not giving up.

Thank you, Bruce. We have always followed you, since that unforgettable concert at the Palau dels Esports in Barcelona in 1981, and we will continue to do so. Thank you for being the soundtrack of our lives, for writing such spectacular songs and for accompanying them with this music that is so unmistakably yours.

More information: Bruce Springsteen & BCN, I'll see you in my dreams

Born to Run is the third studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released on August 25, 1975, through Columbia Records. 

Co-produced by Springsteen with his manager Mike Appel and the producer Jon Landau, its recording took place in New York. Following the commercial failures of his first two albums, the album marked Springsteen's effort to break into the mainstream and create a commercially successful album. Springsteen sought to emulate Phil Spector's Wall of Sound production, leading to prolonged sessions with the E Street Band lasting from January 1974 to July 1975; six months alone were spent working on the title track.

The album incorporates musical styles including rock and roll, pop rock, R&B, and folk rock. Its character-driven lyrics describe individuals who feel trapped and fantasize about escaping to a better life, conjured via romantic lyrical imagery of highways and travel. Springsteen envisioned the songs taking place over one long summer day and night. They are also less tied to the New Jersey area than his previous work. 

The album cover, featuring Springsteen leaning on E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons's shoulder, is considered iconic and has been imitated by various musicians and in other media.

Supported by an expensive promotional campaign, Born to Run became a commercial success, reaching number three on the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart and the top ten in three others. Two singles were released, Born to Run and Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, the first of which became a radio and live favourite. The album's release generated extensive publicity, leading to backlash from critics who expressed skepticism over whether Springsteen's newfound attention was warranted. Following its release, Springsteen became embroiled in legal issues with Appel, leading him to tour the United States and Europe for almost two years. Upon release, Born to Run received highly positive reviews. Critics praised the storytelling and music, although some viewed its production as excessive and heavy-handed.

Born to Run was Springsteen's breakthrough album. Its success has been attributed to capturing the ideals of a generation of American youths during a decade of political turmoil, war, and issues facing the working class. 

Over the following decades, the album has become widely regarded as a masterpiece and one of Springsteen's best records. It has appeared on various lists of the greatest albums of all time and was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2003 by the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. 

Born to Run received an expanded reissue in 2005 to celebrate its 30th anniversary, featuring a concert film and a documentary detailing the album's making.

More information: Bruce Springsteen

And when we live amongst ghosts,
Always trying to reach us,
From that shadow world,
And they're with us every step of the way.

Bruce Springsteen

THE AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC TERRITORY, EXTREME LIFE

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Australian Antarctic Territory, that was create don a day like today in 1936.

The Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT) is a part of East Antarctica claimed by Australia as an external territory. 

It is administered by the Australian Antarctic Division, an agency of the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

The territory's history dates to a claim on Enderby Land made by the United Kingdom in 1841, which was subsequently expanded and eventually transferred to Australia in 1933. It is the largest sector of Antarctica by area claimed by any country. Australia is an original signatory to the Antarctic Treaty of 1959.

Under Article IV, all territorial claims are held in abeyance. Only four other countries accept Australia's claim to sovereignty, being New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France, and Norway, all of which have territorial claims in Antarctica and mutually accept each other's claims.

The AAT consists of all the islands and territory south of 60°S and between 44°38′E and 160°E, except for Adélie Land (136°E to 142°E), which divides the territory into Western AAT (the larger portion) and Eastern AAT. It is bounded by Queen Maud Land in the West and by the Ross Dependency in the East. 

The Australian Antarctic Territory is the largest of any claims to the continent, and covers nearly 5.9 million square kilometres. This makes up about 42% of Antarctica, and would cover about 80% of Mainland Australia. It also corresponds to roughly twice the size of Queen Maud Land, India, Argentina or Kazakhstan.

The territory is mostly inhabited by the staff of research stations.  

The Australian Antarctic Division administers the area primarily by maintaining three year-round stations -Mawson, Davis, and Casey- which support various research projects.

These regions are split into two separate areas geographically, with George V Land and Oates Land lying to the east of the French Territorial claim of Adélie Land, and all other districts lying to its west.

Australia claims an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) from the Australian Antarctic Territory. However, the Australian proclamation of an Antarctic EEZ is contested. The effect of Article IV of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty (which prohibits new territorial claims or the extension of existing claims in the Antarctic) would seem to be that an EEZ cannot be claimed in relation to territory to which that Treaty applies (south of 60° South). The provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) define the exclusive economic zone of a coastal state as up to 370 km from the baseline from which the territorial sea is measured.

Whaling in Australian Antarctic territorial waters is controversial and has received international attention. Anti-whaling protest groups, in particular Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, have been active within the Australian Antarctic territorial waters. Sea Shepherd small boat crews have had multiple encounters with Japanese ships that claim to be on research expeditions while opponents argue this is only a cover for banned commercial whaling. The Australian Whale Sanctuary, in Australian Antarctic territory, is not recognised by the government of Japan.

Anti-whaling legislation passed by the Australian Government applies to Australian territorial waters. However, Australia's claims of sovereignty over the Australian Antarctic Territory -and thus sovereignty over Australian Antarctic territorial waters- are recognised by only the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France and Norway.

The borders with Adélie Land were fixed definitively in 1938. In 1947, Britain transferred Heard Island and McDonald Islands to the territory. On 13 February 1954, Mawson Station was established as the first Australian station on the continent proper.

Australia's claim to sovereignty over the Australian Antarctic Territory is recognised by only the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France and Norway. Ships of Japan conduct whaling in Australian Antarctic territorial waters.

In 2016, the Australian Government formulated an Antarctic Strategy and 20 Year Action Plan to improve overland transport capabilities and aviation access to the continent. The plan incorporated a strategy to protect the Antarctic environment and maintain an indefinite ban on mining and oil drilling. The construction of a research and resupply icebreaker vessel was also planned. The 25,000-tonne RSV Nuyina was delivered in 2021 and was immediately employed in support of the Casey Station. It is envisaged that the ship will support scientific research over the next 30 years.

Through Operation Southern Discovery, elements of the Australian Defence Force also provide annual support for the Australian Antarctic Division and the Australian Antarctic Program (AAP) in regional scientific, environmental and economic activities. The Royal Australian Air Force provides air logistical support using C-17 transport aircraft supported by KC-30 tanker aircraft to supply Wilkins airfield in Antarctica.

As of May 2018, the AAT was believed to have a population of around 80 people during winters and 200 during summers.

More information: Australian Antarctic Territory

You learn so much about how far 
you can push yourself and what you can do. 
How an experience like Antarctica helps you, 
it boosts your confidence.

Ben Fogle

ILDEFONS CERDÀ SUNYER, FOUNDER OF MODERN TOWN

After three amazing days in Lyon, The Grandma has returned to Barcelona. One of the good experiences when you arrive in Barcelona by plane is to contemplate the Eixample, one of the symbols of the city, which was designed by Ildefons Cerdà, the Catalan engineer, who died on a day like today in 1876.

Ildefons Cerdà Sunyer (23 December 1815-21 August 1876) was a Catalan urban planner and civil engineer who designed the 19th-century "extension" of Barcelona called the Eixample. Because of his extensive theoretical and practical work, he is considered the founder of modern town planning as a discipline, having coined the word urbanization.

Cerdà was born in Centelles, Catalonia, in 1815. He trained as a civil engineer at the Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, in Madrid. He joined the Corps of Engineers and lived in various cities before settling in Barcelona in 1848 and marrying Clotilde Bosch. After the death of his brothers, Cerdà inherited the family fortune, and left the civil service. He became interested in politics and the study of urban planning.

When the government of the time finally gave in to public pressure and allowed Barcelona's city walls to be torn down, he realized the need to plan the city's expansion so that the new extension would become an efficient and livable place, unlike the congested, epidemic-prone old town within the walls. When he failed to find suitable reference works, he undertook the task of writing one from scratch while designing what he called the Eixample, borrowing a few technological ideas from his contemporaries to create a unique, thoroughly modern integrated concept that was carefully considered rather than whimsically designed.

He continued to create projects and improve existing designs throughout his lifetime, as well as to develop his theories taking on larger planning scopes (at the regional planning level), until the very end. In the process, he lost all his family's inheritance and he died in 1876 a heavily indebted near-pauper, never having been paid for his chief masterpiece, the design of Barcelona's Eixample.

Cerdà was a multi-faceted man who, in pursuit of his vision, gave up a steady job in the civil engineering service, stood for election and became a member of the Cortes; drafted useful ground-breaking legislation, drew up a detailed topographical survey map of Barcelona's surroundings, and wrote a theoretical treatise to support each of his major planning projects.

Cerdà focused on key needs: chiefly, the need for sunlight, natural lighting and ventilation in homes (he was heavily influenced by the sanitarian movement), the need for greenery in people's surroundings, the need for effective waste disposal including good sewerage, and the need for seamless movement of people, goods, energy, and information.

His designs belie a network-oriented approach far ahead of his time. His street layout and grid plan were optimized to accommodate pedestrians, carriages, horse-drawn trams, urban railway lines (as yet unheard-of), gas supply and large-capacity sewers to prevent frequent floods, without neglecting public and private gardens and other key amenities. The latest technical innovations were incorporated in his designs if they could further the cause of better integration, but he also came up with remarkable new concepts of his own, including a logical system of land readjustment that was essential to the success of his project, and produced a thorough statistical analysis of working-class conditions at the time, which he undertook in order to demonstrate the ills of congestion.

Cerdà's plan for Barcelona underwent two major revisions; the second version, is the one still recognizable in the layout of today's Eixample, though the low height of buildings and the gardens within every city block were soon dispensed with by politicians inclined toward property speculation.

In addition, only one of the two planned diagonal streets was realized. Culturally, the Eixample was (and still is) inhabited by the well-to-do, instead of integrating social classes. Many of the architects of his time opposed Cerdà's ideas, even accusing him of promoting socialism; in the end, however, they designed the Modernista façades that brought fame to the district.

Political developments in Spain and Catalonia eventually led to the enshrinement of a revisionist version of how Cerdà secured official approval of his plan. 

Cerdà actually drew up his plan under the commission of the then competent authority with the support of the city council.

A political reversal led to a change in local government, and the new council sought to preempt the previous central government's decision by holding a project competition in 1859, which Cerdà lost; nevertheless, Cerdà's design prevailed, much to the chagrin of the major property owners.

More information: The Guardian

 The industrial revolution has tended 
to produce everywhere great urban masses 
that seem to be increasingly careless of ethical standards.

Irving Babbitt

'LE PETIT PRINCE', THE PURSUIT OF TRUE MEANING IN LIFE

The short trip to Lyon is arriving to its end. Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have said goodbye to their friends -the Little Prince, Antoine, the Fox and the Rose- and they are waiting for their plane in Lyon's International Airport, also known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

 

Claire and The Grandma have an important message:

 

They have been wonderful days where we have seen fascinating places and met lovely people. Thank you to everyone for your help in this search. To those who have hosted us, to those who have transported us up and down, to those who have made a place for us among the most amazing and kind supporters, and to all those who have dedicated a moment of your time to leave us a message or a like.

Thanks to your invaluable help in finding our beloved northern star (Impressive, Spectacular, Enchanting) who we had been looking for and who we finally found in this beautiful city.

As our Little Prince told us: 'For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. The stars are lit so that everyone can one day find their own'.

 

We have found our northern star and we can assure she shines strongly. She is fine, happy and full of energy, and we know she will be one of the brightest stars on our firmament, because she already is.

 

Ancient cultures thought that the northern star gives hope and stability, and that it serves as a beacon of hope during difficult times. It  reminds us that constancy exists even in chaos. It is a symbol of higher wisdom and purpose in dark times.

 

We trust in our northern star, and we will return to see her as times as we could.

 

Download The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900-31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator.

Born in Lyon to an aristocratic family, Saint-Exupéry trained as a commercial pilot in the early 1920s, working airmail routes across Europe, Africa, and South America. Between 1926 and 1939, four of his literary works were published: the short story The Aviator, novels Southern Mail and Night Flight, and the memoir Wind, Sand and Stars. 

Saint-Exupéry joined the French Air Force for World War II and flew reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised by the Air Force, Saint-Exupéry lived in exile in the United States between 1941 and 1943 and helped persuade it to enter the war. During this time, his works Flight to Arras and The Little Prince were published.

Saint-Exupéry returned to combat by joining the Free French Air Force in 1943, despite being past the maximum age for a war pilot and in declining health.

On 31 July 1944, during a reconnaissance mission over Corsica, Saint-Exupéry's plane disappeared: it is presumed to have crashed. Debris from the wreckage was discovered near Marseille in 2000, but the cause of the crash remains unknown.

More information: The National WWII Museum-New Orleans 

Le Petit Prince, The Little Prince in English, is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published posthumously in France following liberation; Saint-Exupéry's works had been banned by the Vichy Regime. 

The story follows a young prince who visits various planets, including Earth, and addresses themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Despite its style as a children's book, The Little Prince makes observations about life, adults, and human nature.

The Little Prince became Saint-Exupéry's most successful work, selling an estimated 140 million copies worldwide, which makes it one of the best-selling in history. The book has been translated into over 505 different languages and dialects worldwide, being the second most translated work ever published, trailing only the Bible. The Little Prince has been adapted to numerous art forms and media, including audio recordings, radio plays, live stage, film, cinema television, ballet, and opera.

The story of The Little Prince is recalled in a sombre, measured tone by the pilot-narrator, in memory of his small friend, a memorial to the prince -not just to the prince, but also to the time the prince and the narrator had together. The Little Prince was created when Saint-Exupéry was an ex-patriate and distraught about what was going on in his country and in the world. According to one analysis, the story of the Little Prince features a lot of fantastical, unrealistic elements.... You can't ride a flock of birds to another planet... The fantasy of the Little Prince works because the logic of the story is based on the imagination of children, rather than the strict realism of adults.

An exquisite literary perfectionist, akin to the 19th century French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, Saint-Exupéry produced draft pages covered with fine lines of handwriting, much of it painstakingly crossed out, with one word left standing where there were a hundred words, one sentence substitut[ing] for a page... He worked long hours with great concentration. 

According to the author himself, it was extremely difficult to start his creative writing processes. The French author frequently wrote at night, usually starting at about 11 p.m. accompanied by a tray of strong black coffee. 

A native speaker of French, Saint-Exupéry was never able to achieve anything more than haltingly poor English. Adèle Breaux, his young Northport English tutor to whom he later dedicated a writing (For Miss Adèle Breaux, who so gently guided me in the mysteries of the English language), related her experiences with her famous student as Saint-Exupéry in America, 1942–1943: A Memoir, published in 1971.

Saint-Exupéry's prodigious writings and studies of literature sometimes gripped him, and on occasion he continued his readings of literary works until moments before take-off on solitary military reconnaissance flights, as he was adept at both reading and writing while flying. 

Saint-Exupéry frequently flew with a lined carnet (notebook) during his long, solo flights, and some of his philosophical writings were created during such periods when he could reflect on the world below him, becoming 'enmeshed in a search for ideals which he translated into fable and parable'.

In April 2017, The Little Prince became the world's most translated non-religious book, with translations into 300 languages. This number had risen to 600 by November 2024.

More information: Medium

Pour les uns qui voyagent, les étoiles sont des guides. 

Pour d’autres elles ne sont rien que de petites lumières.

Les étoiles sont éclairées pour que 

chacun puisse un jour retrouver la sienne.

 

 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

...AND AS LONG AS SHE'S THERE, WE'LL SING TOGETHER...

Un soir, sur le bord du chemin
Il y avait une étoile, je l'ai ramassée
Elle m'a souri au creux des mains
Comme si c'était normal
Je crois qu'elle m'attendait

Je l'ai prise avec moi
J'entends souvent sa voix

Tant que je peux, je t'éclaire
Ouvre les yeux
Il y a tant de choses à faire
Puisque tout est éphémère
On peut faire mieux
Pas le moment de se taire

La vie c'est gratuit, ça va sans dire
Tu devrais te resservir
Tant qu'on éclaire, on espère

L'étoile a si bien éclairé les pensées ténébreuses
Qui me ralentissaient
L'étoile a si bien expliqué que chaque minute est précieuse
Pas de temps pour les regrets

Et tant qu'elle sera là
Nous chanterons à vive voix

Tant que je peux, je t'éclaire
Ouvre les yeux
Il y a tant de choses à faire
Puisque tout est éphémère
On peut faire mieux
Pas le moment de se taire

La vie c'est gratuit, ça va sans dire
Tu devrais te resservir
Tant qu'on éclaire, on espère

Si à mon tour, je t'éclaire
Ouvre les yeux
Être ton étoile, je sais faire
Nous créerons cette lumière
C'est contagieux
Tant qu'on éclaire, on espère

Tant que je peux, je t'éclaire
Ouvre les yeux
Il y a tant de choses à faire
Puisque tout est éphémère
On peut faire mieux
Pas le moment de se taire

La vie c'est gratuit, ça va sans dire
Tu devrais te resservir
Tant qu'on éclaire, on espère

One night on the roadside
There was a star
I picked her up
She smiled at me in the palm of hands
As if it was normal
I think she was waiting for me

I took with me
I often hear her voice

I light you up as much as I can
Open your eyes
There are so many things to do we can do better
No time to just be quiet

Life is free, that goes without saying

You should serve yourself up another helping (of life)
As long as we light things up, we have hope

The star so skillfully lit up the dark thoughts
That had slowed me down
The star explained so throughly that every minute is precious
No time for regrets

And as long she's there
We'll sing together

I light you up as much as I can
Open your eyes
There are so many things to do
We can do better
No time to just be quiet
Life is free, that goes without saying
You should serve yourself up another helping (of life)

And if I light you up
Open your eyes
I know how to be your star
We'll create this light
It's contagious
As long as we light up, we hope

I light you up as much as I can
Open your eyes
There are so many things to do we can do better
No time to just be quiet
Life is free, that goes without saying
You should serve yourself up another helping (of life)

 

 Life is free, that goes without saying

You should serve yourself up another helping (of life)
As long as we light things up, we have hope.

 

Céline Dion 

FROM LUGDUNUM TO LIYON, THE CAPITAL OF THE GAULS

Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have arrived to Lyon, where they are going to spend three intense days accompanied by The Little Prince and Antoine, two old friends who will guide them to find and see a spectacular northern star who is shining very intensely in this part of France.

Liyon in Franco-Provençal, Lyon in French, is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, 391 km southeast of Paris, 278 km north of Marseille, and 113 km southwest of Geneva, Switzerland.

The City of Lyon is the third-largest city in France. Lyon and 58 suburban municipalities have formed since 2015 the Metropolis of Lyon, a directly elected metropolitan authority now in charge of most urban issues.

Lyon is the prefecture of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and seat of the Departmental Council of Rhône (whose jurisdiction, however, no longer extends over the Metropolis of Lyon since 2015).

The capital of the Gauls during the Roman Empire, Lyon is the seat of an archbishopric whose holder bears the title of Primate of the Gauls. 

Lyon became a major economic hub during the Renaissance. The city is recognised for its cuisine and gastronomy, as well as historical and architectural landmarks; as such, the districts of Old Lyon, the Fourvière hill, the Presqu'île and the slopes of the Croix-Rousse are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. 

Lyon was historically an important area for the production and weaving of silk. 

yon played a significant role in the history of cinema since Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinematograph there. The city is also known for its light festival, the Fête des lumières, which begins every 8 December and lasts for four days, earning Lyon the title of Capital of Lights.

Economically, Lyon is a major centre for banking, chemical, pharmaceutical and biotech industries. The city contains a significant software industry with a particular focus on video games; in recent years it has fostered a growing local start-up sector. The home of renowned universities and higher education schools, Lyon is the second-largest student city in France, with a university population of nearly 200,000 students within the Metropolis of Lyon.

Lyon hosts the international headquarters of Interpol, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, as well as Euronews. According to the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute.

The name of the city has taken the forms Lugdon, Luon, and since the 13th century, Lyon. The Gallic Lugdun or Lugdunon that was Latinized in Roman as Lugdunum is composed of two words. The first may be the name of the Celtic god Lug (in charge of order and law), or the derived word lugon, meaning crow (the crow being the messenger of Lug), but might also be another word lug, meaning light. The second is dunos (fortress, hill). The name thus may designate the hill of Fourvière, on which the ancient city of Lyon is founded, but could mean hill of the god Lug, hill of the crows or shining hill.

Alternatively Julius Pokorny associates the first part of the word with the Indo-European radical *lūg (dark, black, swamp), the basis of the toponyms Ludza in Latvia, Lusatia in Germany (from Sorbian Łužica), and several places in the Czech Republic named Lužice; it could then also be compared to Luze in Franche-Comté and various hydronyms such as Louge.

Further down, in the current Saint-Vincent district, was the Gallic village of Condate, probably a simple hamlet of sailors or fishermen living on the banks of the Saône. Condate is a Gallic word meaning confluence, from which the Confluence district gets its name.

In Roman times the city was called Caput Galliae, meaning capital of the Gauls. As an homage to this title, the Archbishop of Lyon is still called the Primate of Gaul.

During the revolutionary period, Lyon was renamed Commune-Affranchie (Emancipated Commune) on 12 October 1793 by a decree of the Convention Nationale. It resumed its name in 1794, after the end of the Terror.

Lyon is called Liyon in Franco-Provençal.

The historic site of Lyon was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998. In its designation, UNESCO cited the exceptional testimony to the continuity of urban settlement over more than two millennia on a site of great commercial and strategic significance. The specific regions comprising the historic site include the Roman district and Fourvière, the Renaissance district (Vieux Lyon), the silk district (slopes of Croix-Rousse), and the Presqu'île, which features architecture from the 12th century to modern times.

More information: Lugdunum-Musée et Théâtres Romains

What saves a man is to take a step. 

Then another step. 

It is always the same step, 

but you have to take it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

PLUS LOIN QUE LA NUIT ET LE JOUR (VOYAGE, VOYAGE)

Au-dessus des vieux volcans
Glissent des ailes sous le tapis du vent
Voyage, voyage
Éternellement
De nuages en marécages
De vent d'Espagne en pluie d'Équateur
Voyage, voyage
Vol dans les hauteurs
Au-dessus des capitales
Des idées fatales
Regarde l'océan

Voyage, voyage
Plus loin que la nuit et le jour (voyage, voyage)
Voyage (voyage)
Dans l'espace inouï de l'amour
Voyage, voyage
Sur l'eau sacrée d'un fleuve indien (voyage, voyage)
Voyage (voyage)
Et jamais ne reviens

Sur le Gange ou l'Amazone
Chez les Blacks, chez les Sikhs, chez les Jaunes
Voyage, voyage
Dans tout le royaume
Sur les dunes du Sahara
Des Îles Fidji au Fujiyama
Voyage, voyage
Ne t'arrête pas
Au-dessus des barbelés
Des cœurs bombardés
Regarde l'océan

Voyage, voyage
Plus loin que la nuit et le jour (voyage, voyage)
Voyage (voyage)
Dans l'espace inouï de l'amour
Voyage, voyage
Sur l'eau sacrée d'un fleuve indien (voyage, voyage)
Voyage (voyage)
Et jamais ne reviens

Au-dessus des capitales
Des idées fatales
Regarde l'océan

Voyage, voyage
Plus loin que la nuit et le jour (voyage, voyage)
Voyage (voyage)
Dans l'espace inouï de l'amour
Voyage, voyage
Sur l'eau sacrée d'un fleuve indien (voyage, voyage)
Voyage (voyage)
Et jamais ne reviens
Voyage, voyage
Plus loin que la nuit et le jour (voyage, voyage)

Au-dessus des capitales
Des idées fatales
Regarde l'océan

Desireless 

ASAPH HALL DISCOVERS PHOBOS, ONE OF MARS'S MOONS

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of Joseph de Ca'th Lon, one of her best friends. Joseph loves Astronomy, and they have been talking about Asaph Hall, the American astronomer who discovered Phobos, on a day like today in 1877.

Asaph Hall III (October 15, 1829-November 22, 1907) was an American astronomer who is best known for having discovered the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, in 1877. 

 

He determined the orbits of satellites of other planets and of double stars, the rotation of Saturn, and the mass of Mars.

 

Hall was born in Goshen, Connecticut, the son of Asaph Hall II (1800-42), a clockmaker, and Hannah Palmer (1804-80). His paternal grandfather Asaph Hall I (June 11, 1735-March 29, 1800) was a Revolutionary War officer and Connecticut state legislator. His father died when he was 13, leaving the family in financial difficulty, so Hall left school at 16 to become an apprentice to a carpenter. He later enrolled at the New-York Central College in McGrawville, New York, where he studied mathematics. There he took classes from an instructor of geometry and German, Angeline Stickney. In 1856 they married.

In 1856, Hall took a job at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and turned out to be an expert computer of orbits. Hall became assistant astronomer at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. in 1862, and within a year of his arrival he was made professor.

On June 5, 1872 Hall published an article entitled On an experimental determination of π in the journal Messenger of Mathematics. In this article, Hall reported the results of an experiment in random sampling that Hall had persuaded his friend, Captain O.C. Fox, to perform when Fox was recuperating from a wound received at the Second Battle of Bull Run. 

 

The experiment involved repetitively throwing at random a fine steel wire onto a plane wooden surface ruled with equidistant parallel lines. An approximation of π was then computed as 2 m l / a n, where m is the number of trials, l is the length of the steel wire, a is the distance between parallel lines, and n is the number of intersections. This paper, an experiment on Buffon's needle problem, is a very early documented use of random sampling (which Nicholas Metropolis would name the Monte Carlo method during the Manhattan Project of World War II) in scientific inquiry.

In 1875, Hall was given responsibility for the USNO 26-inch (66-cm) telescope, the largest refracting telescope in the world at the time. It was with this telescope that he discovered Phobos and Deimos in August 1877. Hall also noticed a white spot on Saturn which he used as a marker to ascertain the planet's rotational period.

In 1884, Hall showed that the position of the elliptical orbit of Saturn's moon, Hyperion, was retrograding by about 20° per year. Hall also investigated stellar parallaxes and the positions of the stars in the Pleiades star cluster.

Hall was responsible for apprenticing Henry S. Pritchett at the Naval Observatory in 1875.

Asaph Hall discovered Deimos on August 12, 1877 at about 07:48 UTC and Phobos on August 18, 1877, at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., at about 09:14 GMT (contemporary sources, using the pre-1925 astronomical convention that began the day at noon, give the time of discovery as 11 August 14:40 and 17 August 16:06 Washington mean time respectively).

 

Hall retired from the Navy in 1891. He became a lecturer in celestial mechanics at Harvard University in 1896, and continued to teach there until 1901.

 

Hall was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1878. He won the Lalande Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1878, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1879, the Arago Medal in 1893, and was made a Chevalier in the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur (French Legion of Honor) in 1896.

In 1885, he was President of the Philosophical Society of Washington. Hall crater on the Moon as well as Hall crater on the Martian moon Phobos are named in his honor. 

 

More information: NASA

One lesson astronomy tells us is that 
we're a tiny mote in a hostile void, 
and help is too far away.

 

Sandra Faber

BARCELONA-CAMBRILS, 2017 #17AVOLEMLAVERITAT

S'enduien veus d'infants
el sol que jo mirava.
Tota la llum d'estiu
se'm feia enyor de somni.

El rellotge, al blanc mur,
diu com se'n va la tarda.
S'encalma un vent suau
pels camins del capvespre.

Potser demà vindran
encara lentes hores
de claror per als ulls
d'aquest esguard tan àvid.

Però ara és la nit.
I he quedat solitari
a la casa dels morts
que només jo recordo.

Cançó de Capvespre, Salvador Espriu 

J'AI TROUVÉ MON ÉTOILE ET JE L'AI SUIVIE UN INSTANT...

Et si tu crois que j'ai eu peur
C'est faux
Je donne des vacances à mon cœur
Un peu de repos

Et si tu crois que j'ai eu tort
Attends
Respire un peu le souffle d'or
Qui me pousse en avant
Et

Fais comme si j'avais pris la mer
J'ai sorti la grande voile
Et j'ai glissé sous le vent

Fais comme si je quittais la terre
J'ai trouvé mon étoile
Je l'ai suivie un instant

Sous le vent

Et si tu crois que c'est fini
Jamais
C'est juste une pause, un répit
Après les dangers

Et si tu crois que je t'oublie
Écoute
Ouvre ton corps aux vents de la nuit
Et ferme les yeux
Et

Fais comme si j'avais pris la mer
J'ai sorti la grande voile
Et j'ai glissé sous le vent

Fais comme si je quittais la terre
J'ai trouvé mon étoile
Je l'ai suivie un instant

Sous le vent

Et si tu crois que c'est fini
Jamais
C'est juste une pause un répit
Après les dangers

Fais comme si j'avais pris la mer
J'ai sorti la grande voile
Et j'ai glissé sous le vent (j'ai glissé sous le vent)

Fais comme si je quittais la terre
J'ai trouvé mon étoile
Je l'ai suivie un instant (suivi un instant)

Fais comme si j'avais pris la mer
J'ai sorti la grand voile
Et j'ai glissé sous le vent (j'ai glissé sous le vent)

Fait comme si je quittais la terre
J'ai trouvé mon étoile
Je l'ai suivie un instant (suivi un instant)

Sous le vent
Sous le vent

Fais comme si je quittais la terre
J'ai trouvé mon étoile
Je l'ai suivie un instant

Garou & Céline Dion 

1970, PATRICIA PALINKAS IS THE FIRST WOMAN IN ACFL

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Patricia Palinkas, who became the first woman to play professionally in an American football game on a day like today in 1970.

Patricia Palinkas (née Barczi, born 1943) is the first woman to have played American football professionally in a predominantly male league. 

She was a holder for her husband Stephen Palinkas for the Orlando Panthers of the minor league Atlantic Coast Football League. She was the only woman professional American football player until Katie Hnida signed with the Fort Wayne Firehawks in 2010.

Palinkas attended Northern Illinois University, but did not play football there. At the time of Mr. and Mrs. Palinkas's signing with Orlando, the team was in severe financial straits, having lost thousands of dollars running the team on a large budget. The incoming ownership group sought a way to draw fans to the gate without the big-budget talent it had relied upon in the 1960s. The publicity that came with a female football player, and the profits that could be realized by hiring a box-office draw at league minimum salary, was likely a key factor in the duo's signing.

Palinkas's first day of play was August 15, 1970, against the Bridgeport Jets, in front of roughly twelve thousand fans. On her first play, Palinkas was attacked by Jets defenseman Wally Florence, who admittedly (and unsuccessfully) attempted to break her neck as punishment for what he perceived to be making folly with a man's game.

Palinkas went on to appear four more times: three consecutive successful extra-point kicks, and a field goal attempt that was blocked.

After her husband injured his leg (reducing his field goal range from 40 yards to an unacceptable 25 yards) and failed to make the preseason cut, Palinkas (after surviving a threat from ACFL Commissioner Cosmo Iacavazzi to block her contract and prevent her from playing) remained the team's holder for a new kicker, Ron Miller, mainly because she was a draw at the box office; she lost interest in the game soon after the decision and was suspended shortly after the start of the season.

After being placed on the Panthers' taxi squad, Palinkas left the team, in part due to the low pay; she received $25 for each of the two preseason games in which she appeared, and was planning on demanding a greater share than the standard $100 ACFL salary had she played in any regular-season games.

Palinkas was one of several Panthers players who quit the team prior to the end of the season because of salary disputes, and several of her teammates complained of not being paid at all. She held an option to return to the team in 1971 (which transferred to the Roanoke Buckskins after the Panthers suspended operations) but, because of the relocation distance and other problems she experienced during her time playing football, she let it lapse.

Palinkas, after her brief stint in professional football, returned to her home in Tampa, Florida, to start a family and continue her career as a first grade teacher.

More information: Time

  

My name Pat also means 'point after touchdown'.

Patricia Palinkas

CONNIE SMITH, AMERICAN COUNTRY & GOSPEL MUSIC

Today, The Grandma has been listening to some country music interpreted by Connie Smith, the American singer and songwriter, who was born on a day like today in 1941.

Connie Smith (August 14, 1941) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Her contralto vocals have been described by music writers as significant and influential to the women of country music. A similarity has been noted between her vocal style and the stylings of country vocalist Patsy Cline. Other performers have cited Smith as influence on their own singing styles, which has been reflected in interviews over the years.

Discovered in 1963, Smith signed with RCA Victor Records the following year and remained with the label until 1973. Her debut single Once a Day was nominated at the Grammy Awards for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and reached number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in November 1964 and remained at the top position for eight weeks.

In 1991, Trisha Yearwood's debut single went to #1 for two weeks, but Smith still held the record for the most number of weeks at #1 by any female country artist in history. Taylor Swift's We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together broke Smith's 48 year record in 2012. Smith's success continued through 1960s and mid-1970s with 19 more top-10 hits (including Then and Only Then, Ain't Had No Lovin', Cincinnati, Ohio, I Never Once Stopped Loving You, and Ain't Love a Good Thing) on the country songs chart.

In the early 1970s, Smith began to record gospel music more frequently as she became more serious in her Christianity. As she focused more heavily on religion, Smith became known for her outspoken religious demeanor at concerts and music venues. At the same time, she spent more time raising her five children than focusing on music. She eventually went into semi-retirement in 1979 and returned to recording briefly in the mid-1980s with Epic Records. However, it was not until her collaboration with Marty Stuart in the 1990s that she returned permanently. Their musical friendship became romantic, leading to their marriage in 1997, and to Connie Smith, her first studio album in 20 years. Critically acclaimed, Smith began performing again and has recorded two more studio albums.

Smith has been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards, including eight nominations for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. She has also been nominated for one Academy of Country Music award and three Country Music Association awards. Rolling Stone included her on its list of the 100 greatest country music artists and CMT ranked her among the top 10 in its list of the 40 greatest women of country music. She has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry cast since 1965. In 2012, Smith was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Constance June Meador was born to Wilma and Hobart Meador in Elkhart, Indiana.

Smith was influenced by music in her childhood. Her stepfather played mandolin, one brother played fiddle, and another brother played guitar.

In January 1964, Smith ran into Anderson again at a country-music package concert in Canton, Ohio. He invited her to perform with him on Ernest Tubb's Midnite Jamboree program in Nashville, Tennessee. When Smith performed on the program in March 1964, she found out that she would not be performing with Anderson, but instead with Ernest Tubb. Impressed by her performance, Loretta Lynn introduced herself after the show and gave her career advice. After performing on the program, Smith returned to Nashville that May to record demos by Anderson that he planned on pitching to other country artists. Anderson's manager Hubert Long brought the demo recording to the RCA Victor label where producer Chet Atkins heard it. Also impressed by her vocals, Atkins offered Smith a recording contract, and she signed on June 24, 1964.

By 1968, Smith had reached the height of her career. She was making multiple appearances on film and television while attempting to balance touring with family life.

Smith is considered by many critics and historians to be one of country music's more celebrated and respected artists.

In 2011, she was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. Alongside Garth Brooks, Smith was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012.

In March 2021, Smith's legacy was further cemented by the Library of Congress, which added Once a Day to the National Recording Registry.

In April 2021, Smith's husband, Marty Stuart, announced a documentary to be released about her life and career titled Connie: The Cry of the Heart.

More information: Country Thang Daily

 When a song comes to you, 
you can't run around it.

Connie Smith

F.V. EUGÈNE DELACROIX & THE FRENCH ROMANTIC SCHOOL

All good things have and end, and The Grandma and her friends have returned to their homes: Corto Maltese to somewhere along the ocean, Joseph de Ca'th Lon to his beloved Switzerland, and Claire Fontaine and The Grandma to Barcelona.

During the trip from Sant Feliu de Guíxols to Barcelona, The Grandma has been reading about Eugène Delacroix, the French Romantic artist who died on a day like today in 1863.

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798-13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist who was regarded as the leader of the French Romantic school. In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form.

Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. Friend and spiritual heir to Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the forces of the sublime, of nature in often violent action.

However, Delacroix was given to neither sentimentality nor bombast, and his Romanticism was that of an individualist. In the words of Baudelaire, Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible. Together with Ingres, Delacroix is considered one of the last old Masters of painting and is one of the few who was ever photographed.

As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott, and the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Eugène Delacroix was born on 26 April 1798 at Charenton-Saint-Maurice in Seine, near Paris. His mother was Victoire Oeben, the daughter of the cabinetmaker Jean-François Oeben.

Delacroix drew inspiration from many sources over his career, such as the literary works of William Shakespeare and Lord Byron, and the artistry of Michelangelo. But, throughout his life, he felt a constant need for music, saying in 1855 that nothing can be compared with the emotion caused by music; that it expresses incomparable shades of feeling. He also said, while working at Saint-Sulpice, that music put him in a state of exaltation that inspired his painting. It was often from music, whether the most melancholy renditions of Chopin or the pastoral works of Beethoven, that Delacroix was able to draw the most emotion and inspiration. At one point during his life, Delacroix befriended and made portraits of the composer Chopin; in his journal, Delacroix praised him frequently.

At the sale of his work in 1864, 9140 works were attributed to Delacroix, including 853 paintings, 1525 pastels and water colours, 6629 drawings, 109 lithographs, and over 60 sketch books. The number and quality of the drawings, whether done for constructive purposes or to capture a spontaneous movement, underscored his explanation, Colour always occupies me, but drawing preoccupies me.

On 13 August, Delacroix died. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

More information: The Art Story

 Do all the work you can; 
that is the whole philosophy 
of the good way of life.

Eugène Delacroix

DO EMPORDÀ WINES, FROM PHOENICIANS TO NOWADAYS

Today, The Grandma and her friends have enjoyed a wonderful wine route along l'Empordà, one of the most beautiful Catalan counties.

They have tasted some of the most delicious wines and they have enjoyed the amazing environment. 

Empordà is a Catalan DOP (Denominació d'Origen Protegida in Catalan), for wines produced in the northeastern corner of Catalonia, in the province of Girona.

The region generally extends from the town of Figueres northwards to the regions of Banyuls and Côtes du Roussillon. To the south, it extends through Baix Empordà near the Mediterranean Sea. The DOP is crossed by the rivers Muga, Llobregat and Manol which flow eastwards to the sea.

Archaeologists have suggested that vines were first introduced to this region by the Phoenicians in the 5th century BC. The ancient Romans and the Benedictine monks later also contributed. 

The first written documentation dates from 1130 and was a treatise on wine written by Father Pere de Novas in the Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes.

As in Penedès, this area used to produce strong sweet wines which were very popular until the 1930s. The region acquired its DO status in 1972.

Throughout the mid 20th century, the wineries were mostly cooperatives focused on cheap, bulk wine production. In the late 1990s and in to the first decade of the 21st century, the focus shifted a great deal towards smaller, craft wineries, which in turn worked to improve the wine quality of the region overall. Until 2006, it was initially known as DO Empordà-Costa Brava to associate the large tourist beach area with the region.

The DOP is divided into two subzones: the northern Alt Empordà subzone on the slopes of the Alberes Rodes mountains near the French border, and the southern Baix Empordà subzone on the slopes of the Montgrí and Gabarres Massifs.

The soils are generally dark, with a certain lime content, loose, good drainage and poor in organic matter. There is some granite content near the coast as well as up in the mountainous regions near Catalunya Nord.

The climate is Mediterranean, with influences from the moisture bearing winds from the south and cold winds from the north, especially the Tramontana, which can sometimes attain speeds of 120 km/h. The wind is quite crucial to the winemaking process as it greatly reduces the occurrence of mildew as well as pests, thus making organic farming an easier endeavor.

The average annual temperature is 16 °C (max 29 °C, min 1.5 °C) and there is abundant rainfall over the course of the year, between 600 and 700 mm/year, falling mainly in winter and spring.

While historically Empordà was known for producing rosé wines, the majority of their production is red at 60%, white at 19%, and rosé at 17%. The remaining 4% is released as traditional wines including dessert versions of Grenache and Moscatell. A bit more than half of the wines sold in the region are bottled and the remainder are sold as bulk wines. There is a significant amount of Cava produced under the DOP Cava in the approved villages.

More information: DO Empordà

The grape varieties are:

-Red, recommended: Samsó and Garnatxa Negra / Lledoner Negre

-Red, authorised: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Monastrell, Ull de llebre, Syrah, and Garnatxa Peluda

-White, recommended: Garnatxa Blanca / Lledoner Blanc, Garnatxa Roja (Garnatxa Gris), Macabeu / Viura, and Moscatell d’Alexandria

-White, authorised: Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Malvasia, Moscatell de Gra Petit, Picapoll Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, and Xarel·lo

Some wineries in the Empordà region are grouped under the umbrella of the DOP Empordà wine route to promote wine tourism in the area. This body is coordinated by the Patronat de Turisme de la Costa Brava with the participation of the Consell Regulador de la Denominació d’Origen Empordà.

The DOP Empordà wine route aims to promote wine tourism locally and internationally. The route also brings together other tourist activities from the area linked to the world of wine and grapes. Celler Peralada is an emblematic building and state of the art in leaving a minimum environmental impact during winemaking process in this region.

More information: Catalan Wines

 Wine is constant proof that God loves us 
and loves to see us happy.

Benjamin Franklin

SAILING THE MEDITERRANEAN BY CATBOAT & LATEEN

Today, The Grandma and her friends have enjoyed sailing on a catboat along the Mediterranean coast from Sant Feliu de Guíxols to Cadaqués (Cap de Creus), where they have continued their journey through the Natural Park in a 4x4 vehicle.

Corto Maltese is an experienced sailor and has guided his friends on this journey through the history of llaguts and lateen sailing, typical elements of the Costa Brava.

A catboat is a sailboat with a single sail on a single mast set well forward in the bow of a very beamy and (usually) shallow draft hull. Typically they are gaff rigged, though Bermuda rig is also used. Most are fitted with a centreboard, although some have a keel. The hull can be 3.7 to 12.2 metres long with a beam half as wide as the hull length at the waterline. 

Advantages of this sail plan include the economies derived from a rig with a limited number of component parts. It is quick to hoist sail and get underway. The cat rig sails well to windward, especially in calmer water. As a working boat, the forward mast placement gave ample room in the cockpit for fishing gear. Cruising versions can provide a large usable cabin space in a relatively short hull.

Disadvantages of the rig include the limited deck space around the mast, which can be problematical when raising or lowering sail, or when reefing; halyards are often led back to the cockpit, so partially mitigating this problem. It is usually wise to reef early in a rising wind to avoid an excess of weather helm. The weight of the mast in the bow has to be allowed for in the hull design -if this is got wrong the bow may be buried when sailing downwind. The narrow beam where the mast is stepped makes it difficult to gain any benefit from shrouds, so the mast has to be stronger, and so heavier. Despite the simplicity of the rig, a good level of skill is required to design a balanced catboat, since there are limited options to correct any slight errors.

A lateen, from French latine, meaning Latin, or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The settee can be considered to be an associated type of the same overall category of sail.

The lateen originated in the Mediterranean as early as the 2nd century AD, during Roman times, and became common there by the 5th century. The wider introduction of lateen rig at this time coincided with a reduction in the use of the Mediterranean square rig of the classical era. Since the performance of these two rigs is broadly similar, it is suggested that the change from one to the other was on cost grounds, since lateen rigs used fewer components and had less cordage to be replaced when it wore out.

Arab seafarers adopted the lateen rig at a later date -there is some limited archaeological evidence of lateen rig in the Indian Ocean in the 13th century AD and iconographic evidence from the 16th century. It has been suggested that this Arab use of lateen transferred to Austronesian maritime technology in the Far East, giving rise to the various fore-and-aft rigs used in that region, such as the crab claw sail.

The lateen sail played a prominent part in the shifts in maritime technology that occurred as Mediterranean and Northern European ship-construction traditions merged in the 16th century, with the lateen mizzen being, for a time, universally used in the full-rigged ships of the time -though later supplanted by gaff rig in this role.

The lateen also exists as a subtype: the settee. Instead of being a triangular sail, this has a short vertical luff -having the appearance of a triangular lateen with the front corner cut off. Both types of lateen were likely used from an early date on: a 2nd-century AD gravestone depicts a quadrilateral lateen sail (also known as a settee), while a 4th-century mosaic shows a triangular one, which was to become the standard rig throughout the Middle Ages.

The earliest archaeologically excavated ship that has been reconstructed with a lateen rig is dated to ca. 400 AD (Yassi Ada II), with a further four being attested prior to the Arab advance to the Mediterranean. The Kelenderis ship mosaic (late 5th to early 6th century) and the Kellia ship graffito from the early 7th century complement the picture.

By the 6th century, the lateen sail had largely replaced the square sail throughout the Mediterranean, the latter almost disappearing from Mediterranean iconography until the mid-13th century. It became the standard rig of the Byzantine dromon war galley and was probably also employed by Belisarius' flagship in the 532 AD invasion of the Vandal Kingdom. The fully triangular lateen and the settee continued to coexist in the middle Byzantine period, as evidenced by Christian iconography, as well as a recent find of a graffito in the Yenikapı excavations.

In the 12th to 13th centuries the rigging underwent a change when the hook-shaped masthead made way for an arrangement more akin to a barrel-like crow's nest.

After the Muslim conquests, the Arabs adopted the lateen sail by way of the Coptic populace, which shared the existing Mediterranean maritime tradition and continued to provide the bulk of galley crews for Muslim-led fleets for centuries to come. This is also indicated by the terminology of the lateen among Mediterranean Arabs which is derived from Greco-Roman nomenclature. More detailed research into their early use of the lateen is hampered by a distinct lack of unequivocal depictions of sailing rigs in early Islamic art. A glazed pottery dish from Saracenic Dénia dating to the 11th century is at present the earliest securely identifiable example found in the Mediterranean.

More information: Southern Woodenboat Sailing

 It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing 
that assures the prosperous voyage.

George William Curtis