Is a roundabout really a crossroads, though?
I would say it is. a crossroads is an intersection, where a traveler can choose any road leading from it, which is functionally identical to a roundabout. As to a venue for negotiating a soul-bound transaction, I would imagine that a roundabout would serve adequately, perhaps even better. Lyrically, the structure might require additional effort, though.
I think the physical cross shape is important in Christian tradition, though.
I found this photo from 2014 which I took with a Galaxy S2, from a train speeding past a SoCal beach, probably around San Onofre.
The train was headed north to L.A., so the lifeguard tower appears to be moving to the left. Because the distortion seems to be happening in both directions, here it looks like top half is scanned from bottom to top and the lower half from top to bottom.
The effect is less pronounced in the top half, particularly where the platform railing is.
Indeed, but can be combined with a circle/halo
Some years ago, I was looking at satellite view near BWI (Baltimore/Washington airport) where a jet approaching the airport was captured by the satellite camera. A zoom-in does not always match a farther-out view, but this one did: when zoomed in, the jet was there, but it was moving fast enough to be “out of register”. The camera recorded the colors in separate passes, so it had red, green and blue offsets front and back. It seems like satellite view gets cleaned up more these days.
I don’t think it is. I think the support beams on the bottom are just tilted. There are two beams leaning inwards to support the hut, and then there’s a third beam leaning outwards to support the stairs. Everything is tilted to the right from the motion, but it’s not noticeable for the support beams because their actual tilt is greater.
I think that burying “unholy” people at a crossroads is a tradition that predated Christianity (of course, what precisely constitutes “unholy” has probably changed with time).
Criminals, especially highwaymen, were often hanged at crossroads as well. The body was left hanging as a warning to others, so a crossroads would get more traffic.
Did you learn that from this video (which has just appeared in
my YT recommendations) … ?
(It’s about crossroad graves !)
Well, that was 13 minutes wasted. The title of the video is “This is on EVERY Map. But It Doesn’t Exist.”. But he says repeatedly that the graves he’s looking for aren’t on all maps, and tries to make that out as being mysterious. In fact, the video consists mostly of saying trivial bits of information, and then stating that that information is somehow mysterious.
Near as I can tell, the sum total content of the video is “A few old maps label this particular spot as ‘Elkham’s Grave’, but we don’t know anything else about it”. Which is, well, not a mystery at all; it’s just one of the very many things we don’t know about the past.
Speaking of crossroads, the word “trivial” derives from a Latin word meaning “crossroad” , literally “place where three roads meet”. The sense was something out in the public, therefore commonplace or insignificant.
It’s slightly more complicated than that. “Tri” was the Latin word for “three” and “viae” was the Latin word for “roads”. A “triviae” was where three roads met. " Triviālis" became the Latin word for “appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar, or triple” In Medieval Latin, the word trivia came to refer to the lower division of the Liberal Arts (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) as opposed to the quadrivia, the upper division of the Liberal Arts (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). This was what was taught at universities. In 1918, it came to mean something like interesting small facts. In 1965, it came to mean what questions were asked about at what are now called trivia contests and on things like the television program Jeopardy!..
Sort of. We’d say two roads. If you’re standing at a crossroads, our sense is that there are two roads: E–W crosses N–S. But if you’re a Roman walking up to the crossroads from the S, there are three: E, N, and W. But it refers to the same + shape.
Romans counted things weird. They used inclusive counting for dates, so they would say that March 13 was three days, not two, before the Ides of March (March 15).
The Romans did not consider that one road going east to west crossing another going north to south was a “triviae”. For them, a “triviae” was a place where three roads met. A “groma” was a place where one road crossed another road, so from that location you could go in four different directions.
Since we’re in the “interesting fact” thread, I figure this is a good place to note the “meeting of three roads” word also gave this famous landmark its name.
“What is the name of one road meeting?”
- Zen Buddhist koan
Yes it was indeed that video.
In 1967 the group Strawberry Alarm Clock hit #1 with a nonsensical song "Incense and Peppermints.’ However, the lead singer was 16-year-old “Greg Munford,” who was not even a member of the band.
I used to listen to Incense & Peppermints in the " Psychedelic Corner" of my bedroom when I was 12 or so. A friend with an older brother recommened both.