Let Have a Coze
What is a "coze?" It's Regency-speak for a "comfortable chat." A chat requires more than one person so I hope to hear from you some of you who visit this page.
February 2012
February and romance are thought synonymous. But what is romantic? Flowers and candy are traditionally thought of as such. While I agree with the flowers, especially when given for no special reason, I’ve struggled with weight too long to look at a box of chocolates and think romance. Yum, definitely, but with a sigh.
Something romance usually involves is kissing. I became curious about that after reading about Kissing Friday which I’ll talk more about in March. So I did a little googling. Here is some information from one of the websites I visited.
From Third Age: “But what exactly is involved in these liplocks? Philematology, or the science of kissing, examines kissing from a biological perspective and studies, among other things, pheromones and the chemicals released in the brain while kissing.
According to osculologists -- scientists who make their careers studying kissing -- there's an enormous amount of neurotransmitters, evolutionary biology, and instant assessments of potential life-mates. "It can be highly positive or highly negative," says Helen Fisher, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University. "Often the first kiss kills a relationship,"
Nothing really new there or something we didn’t know except perhaps that there is actually a science—philematology-- and people who study it – osculologists ( a word, by the way I can’t find in dictionaries!) But Inspiralled had some facts I didn’t know:
kissing trivia
- The average person will spend an estimated 20,160 minutes kissing in their lifetime.
- 50% of all people kiss have their first kiss before they are age 14.
- Our brains have special neurons that help us find each others lips in the dark
- There are many strange laws regarding kissing that are still on the books. In Indiana, it is illegal for a man with a moustache to "habitually kiss human beings". And in Hartford, CT, it is illegal for a man to kiss his wife on a Sunday.
kissing quotes
- "Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." ~Albert Einstein
- "Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they're already asleep." ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
- "A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous." ~Ingrid Bergman
- "A kiss without a hug is like a flower without the fragrance." ~Proverb
- "Soul meets soul on lovers' lips." ~Percy Bysshe Shelley
The last quote from Shelley (who hails from the regency --b. August 4, 1792 d.July 8, 1822) caught my eye. He was one of the major English Romantic poets and friend of Byron. I wondered which poem it came from and after a deal of searching came upon this web site, Online-Literature I found the quote in Prometheus Unbound. I’m quoting beginning with line 445 because I was taken by it in a romantic sort of way.
The EARTH:
I spin beneath my pyramid of night, _445
Which points into the heavens dreaming delight,
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep,
As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,
Under the shadow of his beauty lying,
Which round his reast a watch of light and warmth doth keep.
THE MOON:
As in the soft and sweet eclipse, _450
When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull;
So when thy shadow falls on me,
Then am I mute and still, by thee
Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful,
Full, oh, too full!
For other Shelley poems visit Poem Hunter
January 2012
Happy New Year! At least it is happy now.
If you've stopped by at the New Yeat you would have found nothing well, new. Right after Christmas my laptop was infected by a trojan virus. I had been a virus virgin up to then and still find it hard to believe how easily it slipped past my virus protection program. The laptop was in the shop for ten days --a lot of computers had the same problem and only today made it home. That will teach me to replace my backup desktop which died in October! I was very thankful to pick up my laptop today and rejoin the modern age. I can't imagine Wellington writing reams of orders by hand(or his secretary). And it did take page after page of instructions to get a seige train on the road to Cuidad Rodrigo or Badajoz. And they didn't just do it once.
Last year I recounted the campaign in Portugal and Spain in 1811 month by month. This year I'm not going to be so technical--unless you request such information. Send questions or suggestions to jvincent@joanvincent.net
In December my sister purchased L"Histoire de Napoleon par la Peinture by Jean Tulard. It is an astounding collection on paintings depicting Napoleon, his marshals, his battles, etc from 1796 to St. Helene. I could wish it wasn't in French but that will force me to brush up my language skills. It's well worth the effort.
May 2012 bring you health and good fortune. JV
2011 Coze Postings
2010 Coze Postings
2009 Coze Postings