Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-12-17/Featured content

• 
  Montfort Castle, a ruined castle in modern Israel dating from the Crusades.
• 
  The interior of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn during a service in Lithuania

One

• Justin Timberlake discography (nominated by Tomíca and Status) Tomíca and Status bring SexyBack, SexyBack... to a featured list. Starting his musical career in boy band NSYNC (whose works are covered in a separate list), when the band went on hiatus, his solo album Justified proved immensely successful, and launched him on a path to megastardom, eclipsing his former bandmates.

• 
  A slug, B slug, Sea slug.
  N is for Nembrotha kubaryana.
• 
  Fatata te Miti by Paul Gauguin

Eleven

• Human subject research in a wind tunnel (created by National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics for the United States Navy, nominated by Chris Woodrich) "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!" King Lear may not have been quite referring to this experiment, but may as well have: An experiment to test the effect of wind on a human, by the time the wind gets to the top speed of the test, the poor fellow's cheeks are flapping back, and he doesn't look very comfortable.
• Demetrius
  , who are both oblivious to the dark side of their love, totally unaware of what may have come of the events in the forest. We leave this fairy tale here. Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend [next issue].
• rock pigeon
  (Columba livia) is found throughout the world thanks to escaped domestic pigeons (there's good eatin' on them). As such, there are very few readers who don't know of them to some extent. However, feral pigeons are the birds of the goddess Venus, because they mate for life. Their courtship rituals are rather like a dance, the male on the ground or rooftops puffs up the feathers on the neck to appear larger and impress the girls and attract their attention. He approaches the female at a rapid walking pace while emitting cru cru cru ... often bowing and turning. The female invariably walks or flies a short distance away and the male takes up the chase, and will continue the bowing and making full- or half-pirouettes in front of her. This photograph is by prolific Tanzanian photographer Muhammad Mahdi Karim, who regularly has amazing photographs here.
• Teutonic Knights who fortified the property and turned it into a magnificent fortress. The knights set their headquarters, archive, and treasury at the new property in 1229. Five years later, however, after most of the Crusader strongholds had fallen, even the Montfort Castle was surrendered. The Teutonic Knights then made Venice
  their headquarters.
• Kebyar duduk performer (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) The choreography was created by I Mario. The Kebyar duduk was first performed in 1925. This dance is nearly entirely performed in seated or half-seated positions by a single male dancer. He wears a long piece of golden-red fabric in a traditional design, decorated with a gold-painted pattern called prada. Even his accessories and headgear are golden and shimmering; giving him an "extra exotic traditional effect". The dance utilized then-recent innovations in Balinese gamelan music, such as music in faster tempos than previously used. The drummer, who communicates the tempo and style to the other musicians, almost competes for control of the music with the dancer, who communicates with stylized gestures in the then-prevailing rhythm, by the end of the set. Tzing-boom!
• The Herald
  nominates / Something good for on our plates. (We should probably breifly add that yule log or bûche de Noël is a traditional Christmas dessert, a type of sweet roulade, eaten especially in France, Quebec, and former French colonies. Traditional bûche de Noël is made from a basic yellow sponge cake, frosted, rolled to form a cylinder, filled with butter cream and frosted again on the outside. Yule log is traditionally frosted and filled with chocolate buttercream; however, many variations of the traditional recipe exist.)
• Lantana Airport in Palm Beach
  .
• Fatata te Miti (created by Paul Gauguin, nominated by Chris Woodrich) Fatata te Miti (By the Sea) is a painting by Paul Gauguin from 1892. It depicts two young Tahitian women diving naked in the sea, seen from behind, removing their pareos and descending into the waves, with a fisherman in the background, fishing with a spear. The women plunge into the sea naked, uninhibited by Western standards which were later forced upon them. In 1891 Paul Gauguin was tired of the Western way of life, and looking for a society more unspoiled and natural than that of the European society of his time, Gauguin traveled to Tahiti for the first time. Paul Gauguin first visit resulted in a book written by him about his experiences, written as a travel journal, a most fascinating book about this exotic world, entitled Noa Noa. The word Noa Noa means in Tahitian scented or fragrant and describes the scent of the Tahitian women, as Gauguin perceived them, in his own words: A mingled perfume, half animal, half vegetable emanated from them; the perfume of their blood and of the gardenias—tiaré—which they wore in their hair.
• Chapel of the Gate of Dawn (created and nominated by David Iliff) The Chapel of the Gate of Dawn is a major site of pilgrimage in Vilnius. The Northern Renaissance painting, from c. 1630 on the altar is the Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn. The artwork soon became known as miraculous and inspired a following. A dedicated chapel, the Chapel of the Gate of Dawn was built in 1671 by the Discalced Carmelites. At the same time the painting was covered with expensive and elaborate silver and gold garments leaving only the face and hands visible. In the following centuries, the Chapel of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn became an important part of religious life in Vilnius, and was copied in Lithuania, Poland, and diaspora communities worldwide. However this particular Lady is not to play with. She got even with some evil Swedish soldiers in 1702, when Vilnius was captured by the Swedish army during the Great Northern War. The naughty Swedes made ​​fun of the painting, forbade songs and prayers and one soldier even fired his weapon at the painting (the bullet hole is still there). The legend tells that at dawn, the heavy iron gate of the Gate of Dawn fell and crushed and killed four Swedish soldiers. We are much thankful that our photographer David Iliff is back safe to bring us such glorious pictures.
• pin cushion that is grazing in his underwater world of corals
  . It is found in the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean and Pacific at depths between 3 and 50 m. The edge of the foot and the head is bright red-orange.
• Caesio teres (created by Nick Hobgood, nominated by Hafspajen) We will go / Down below / Revels rare / We will share... wrong Gilbert and Sullivan? Eh, never mind, then. Anyway! Caesio teres, also known as the "beautiful fusilier", is a gorgeous blue and yellow fish found in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean that forms schools of glistening, neon fish, as photographed here. To honour the fish, since we are into poetry—we quote below the famous poem by Christian Morgenstern, called "The Night Song of the Fish". No, it is not a joke, it is a poem for real.

---

The Night Song of the Fish

ˉ
˘ ˘
ˉ ˉ ˉ
˘ ˘ ˘ ˘
ˉ ˉ ˉ
˘ ˘ ˘ ˘
ˉ ˉ ˉ
˘ ˘ ˘ ˘
ˉ ˉ ˉ
˘ ˘ ˘ ˘
ˉ ˉ ˉ
˘ ˘
ˉ

by Christian Morgenstern

.

---

• 
  It's a Yule log. No need to sing about it, me from slightly earlier.

← Previous "Featured content"

Next "Featured content" →

In this issue

17 December 2014 (all comments)

Arbitration report

Featured content

In the media

Traffic report

+ Add a comment

Discuss this story

These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache.

• Weird!
  talk) 11:49, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• it's a "Yule log", not a "Yule log cake"...--ukexpat (talk) 13:48, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @
  here I am 14:15, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

I most certainly have seen that redirect. My quibble was with the addition of the word "cake" which is redundant in this context.--ukexpat (talk) 14:33, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it might be redundant. But it is the name of the nomination - because that nomination was called so. The other places is only mentioned as yule log, now. Hafspajen (talk) 15:27, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Eh... it's not necessary, but it's useful, as there's also a literal Yule log for the fireplace. It's better to write "Yule log cake" than "Yule log (cake)" in text.

It's not necessary, useful or correct - the link is useful to disambiguate, and we pipe so it's correct. I've fixed it. Widefox; talk 00:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The phrasing is hardly unique. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Surprising, correct reads well (a bit like "Swiss roll cake" used once in that article). Feel free to undo it, if you consider it OK . Widefox; talk 16:08, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I see wee laddies dressed in blue, but none who are themsels blue. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:03, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This painting is explicitly said to be the one Pratchett is referring to in the back of the book. He does admit that it might be hard to spot... (because he took artistic license in saying the Nac Mac Feegle were included...) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 04:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• No more childbirth? There's a word missing. I can't edit because I don't know what that word could be.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:28, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Vchimpanzee: If you tell me where, I'll fix it, but I need to know the phrase. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:44, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Adam Cuerden: the first sentence under Francis Poulenc ends "tries to figure out a way to make babies while dealing with."— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:32, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    

What do you think of The Signpost? Share your feedback.

Home

About

Archives

Newsroom

Subscribe

Suggestions