11.11 at 11
Today we Americans celebrate Veteran’s Day by thanking the living (because of a quirk having to do with us getting to our Civil War before the Europeans got to WWI) while the rest of the world remembers the dead. We’ve done a lot of remembering the dead even in this country lately, so I thought I’d mark both occasions with a little tour of war memorials. This year’s is from Melbourne, a city which, to my knowledge, was not the scene of any major battles or terrorism-related carnage this past century, and insert your own snide comments (which would be completely inappropriate to publish on this day) about our modern ability to put together any sort of memorial, let alone one suitable for the solemnity of the subject):
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A ray of light hits the Stone of Remembrance in the Sanctuary, at 11am on November 11. (photo circa 1940)
Wikipedia – Shrine of Remembrance
The Shrine of Remembrance, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Australia was built as a memorial to the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I and is now a memorial to all Australians who have served in war. It is a site of annual observances of ANZAC Day (25 April) and Remembrance Day (11 November) and is one of the largest war memorials in Australia. …
Once a year, on 11 November at 11 a.m. (Remembrance Day), a ray of sunlight shines through an aperture in the roof to light up the word “Love” in the inscription. Beneath the Sanctuary lies the Crypt, which contains a bronze statue of a father and son and panels listing every unit of the Australian Imperial Force. …
Inside the Shrine is the Sanctuary, a high vaulted space entered by four tall portals of Classical design. A simple entabulature is carried on sixteen tall fluted Ionic columns and supports a frieze with twelve relief panels sculptured by Lyndon Dadswell, depicting the armed services at work and in action during World War I. At the centre of the Sanctuary is the Stone of Remembrance. This is a marble stone sunk below the pavement, so that visitors must bow their heads to read the inscription on it:
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN
Now that is a war memorial ideally suited to sending me into floods of tears. Well done, Melbourne.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Greater love hath no woman than Nordstroms.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:31 am
It was so totally flippant. Please just ignore it.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:42 am
Here’s a good one. It’s to Scots and to Americans of Scottish descent:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/19/61/19611288c8eca5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/196112&usg=_asj79LCIoxDPUXJtSwlU-pooqYo=&h=382&w=640&sz=86&hl=en&start=26&tbnid=Ip3hgqT0FXFzmM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3DThe%2BCall%2BEdinburgh%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20
Golly that’s some address.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Hmm, my blog does funky things to some characters, like putting stuff inside of underscores makes it italics. So usually in long urls like this I just reinsert the underscores which then, stupidly, works (work the first time, stupid blog!) but i can NOT figure out what this url is doing. Can you email it to me and I’ll insert it by hand?
And what was flippant, the comment or me going to Nordstrom? The comment I thought was hilarious.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:49 am
It is my nature to be flippant and I thought the comment about Nordstroms was solidly flippant. I’ve learned to my loss that some people don’t do flippant. Don’t understand it. Find it hurtful. Preemptive reconciliation.