Maria and fireworks, was: Brit-Speak: Food and bonfires

[alshainofthenorth]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Rebecca K Hubbard" 
<hubbarrk at r...> wrote:
> As for word origins:
> 
> Mary the Jewess was a first century alchemist, published even 
(gasp!).
> Apparently female Alchemists weren't all that uncommon.
> 
> Maria Prophetissa was also known as Miriam, Mary the Jewess or 
simply Maria:

> Mary the Jewess was an accomplished practical alchemist and the 
inventor of a series of technical devices still in use today, such as 
the hot ash box for steady heat, the dung box for prolonged heat and 
the double boiler, still called the "bain-marie" in French. None of 
her writings have survived, but she is quoted with the utmost respect 
by Zosimus and the other early compilers of alchemical texts. 
(Zosimus considered her to be Miriam, the sister of Moses. He was of 
course, as always, going for the most ancient tradition.)
> 
Maria approached alchemy as a fusion of the rational, the mystical and
> the practical, and she is remembered for the practical. She 
introduced several types of apparatus, including a three-armed still, 
the hot ash box for steady heat, the dung box for prolonged heat and 
the double boiler.

> Hope this answers your question; I know I learned something!
> 
> ~Yb

You know, now that you're saying it, this sounds faintly familiar! 
I'll need to hunt down some references, then work Maria and her 
inventions into a fanfic about Snape.  

Re fireworks: Why is it that people in every culture have problems 
with them? The Western world clearly hasn't had fireworks long enough 
that natural selection has been able to weed out the most stupid 
individuals.
 
Where I come from, they're traditional for the last Saturday in 
August*, and sure enough, a lot of people arrive at the ER with eye 
and hand injuries. With all these crackers and rockets around, kids 
are bound to get ideas too. Some young hooligans still think it's 
funny to play pranks by blowing up letterboxes (the kind of letterbox 
that is a separate metal construction by the road, not a slit in the 
door), by placing lit fireworks in them. I'm sure I don't need to 
draw a picture for what will happen to you when the prank goes south 
and the firework explodes in your hand. Don't try it at home.   

Terry Pratchett knew was he was talking about in Interesting Times 
(quoting the footnote): "Sensible people go off to a roped-off 
enclosure where they can watch a heavily protected man, in the middle 
distance, light (with the aid of a very long pole) something that 
goes 'fsst'. And then they can shout 'Hooray'." 

* Why would you celebrate something like the last weekend of August, 
you ask? Well, there's a rather odd little tradition on a 200 km 
coastal strip of the Baltic Sea. In the old days when men worked, 
women stayed at home, and the school summer holiday was a full three 
months long, every family who could afford a summer cottage sent 
wives and kids to the country or the seaside as soon as the schools 
closed. Husbands and fathers stayed in town during the workdays until 
their holiday started. The last weekend of August was usually the 
last to be spent at the summer cottage, and in the interwar years it 
became a tradition to say farewell to the summer with a "Venetian 
evening" (my vote would go to 'celebrate the impending return to 
civilisation', but I'm abnormal when it comes to the Scandinavian 
summer cottage tradition <g>) with bonfires, lanterns and fireworks. 
Fireworks at New Year's Eve is a much younger tradition (no one in 
their right mind wants to look at fireworks when it's freezing 
outside.)

I found you a picture too:  
http://www.kahlsved.com/ojasjon_s/veneziansk_afton_vid_vattungen/venez
iansk_afton_vid_vattungen.html
and in case that breaks: http://tinyurl.com/6g2s6

The summer cottage tradition has to be the most characteristic thing 
of the middle class in Scandinavian countries -- it's probably 
because urbanisation was so late, but we have this little chip inside 
our brains that says summertime is best spent living close to the 
nature, which means you have a tiny cottage, preferably on your own 
little island in the archipelago, and spend your days doing hard 
physical work, catching your own fish and harvesting your own 
potatoes, getting bitten by midges and cooking food in primitive 
conditions. (Running water is for sissies. Only acceptable amenities 
is an outdoor privy.) Tove Jansson's The Summer Book and Astrid 
Lindgren's Seacrow Island are classics, but somehow I felt that kind 
of life was nicer when you read about it in books and the closest 
library wasn't miles away.

I'm rambling, aren't I? Well, stopping now.

Alshain