Southern Cross is the sole wordless novel by Canadian artist Laurence Hyde (1914–1987). Published in 1951, its 118 wood-engraved images describe the effect of atomic testing on Polynesian islanders. Hyde (pictured) made the book to express his anger at the US military's nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll. The story tells of the American military evacuating villagers from a Polynesian island before testing nuclear weapons. A drunken soldier attempts to rape a fisherman's wife during the evacuation, and the fisherman kills him. Their child witnesses the death of its parents and destruction of its environment from the atomic tests. The wordless novel genre had flourished primarily during the 1920s and 1930s, but by the 1940s even the most prolific practitioners had abandoned it. Hyde was familiar with some such works by Lynd Ward, Otto Nückel, and the form's pioneer Frans Masereel. The high-contrast artwork of Southern Cross features dynamic curving lines uncommon in wood engraving and combines abstract imagery with realistic detail.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross_(wordless_novel)
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1637:
Eighty Years' War: Off the coast of Cornwall, a Spanish fleet intercepted an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by 6 warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Lizard_Point
1766:
A mutiny by captive Malagasy began at sea on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present- day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meermin_slave_mutiny
1957:
Kenyan independence leader Dedan Kimathi, who spearheaded the Mau Mau Uprising, was executed by British authorities, who saw him as a terrorist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedan_Kimathi
1977:
NASA's first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, made its first "flight" atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise
2007:
Terrorist bombs exploded on the Samjhauta Express train in Panipat, Haryana, India, killing 68 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Samjhauta_Express_bombings
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
domable: (obsolete, rare) Capable of being tamed; tameable, domesticable. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/domable
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
We all know nations that can be identified by the flight of writers from their shores. These are regimes whose fear of unmonitored writing is justified because truth is trouble. It is trouble for the warmonger, the torturer, the corporate thief, the political hack, the corrupt justice system, and for a comatose public. Unpersecuted, unjailed, unharrassed writers are trouble for the ignorant bully, the sly racist, and the predators feeding off the world’s resources. The alarm, the disquiet, writers raise is instructive because it is open and vulnerable, because if unpoliced it is threatening. Therefore the historical suppression of writers is the earliest harbinger of the steady peeling away of additional rights and liberties that will follow. --Toni Morrison https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison