"At half past two ate a devil'd kidney"

Our title there first appeared in 1800, but the word "devil" as applied to food was in print as early as 1786. Basically it refers to highly season'd meat (Straight Dope).

When I was a kid I ate a lot of Underwood's devil'd ham, and I always lov'd the logo. The product dates back to 1868, and past logos were a little less jaunty.

Anyway, given I've posted on "Lucifer" brands before, I thought I'd point this out.

Are we being play'd for suckers by the Prince of Darkness?

(Menacing chortle).

Ho ho! Underwood, the devil's minions, also produces Joan of Arc beans. Their website

Joan of Arc was an amazing woman – she lived and died for her beliefs. We think Joan would have been proud of the beans that bear her name.

What would the Front National think?

(Puzzled expression).

Beyond the zodiac

I've been plodding along with a post which has led me across Mithraism more than once, albeit tangentially, and found the image above. It is Leontocephaline (Lion Head to you wrestling fans), a figure perhaps denoting time and seasonal change but who doesn't appear to have been fully explained thus far.

In light of recent posts (Aucamville Project 6 and Jesus was in shape) it is expecially striking: serpent around a kind of pillar, a rod, the caduceus. Here the caduceus is unwingéd but perhaps the man himself bears that function. Plus the two keys evoke the two pillars we have examined as structurally unneccessary elements at the entrance to a sacred space, a liminal point, or gateway to an interior mystery. That they are keys only reinforces the notion of a portal to another space. There are tools, a hammer and tongs, evocative of the BIPM seal, upon which we also find a wing-helmeted mercury carrying a caduceus and other rods or batons. There is also a fir-cone, which has cropped up in our discussions of sacred columns or gateway pillars (Pillars of the Community and Journey to the Center of the Earth).

What it all points to is another question. It seems to be a daunting figure representing a guardian of hidden knowledge, of writing, fertility....all wrapped up in one great phallic investigation, a way the animal is linked to the angelic, the beast with the beauty, the tools metaphors like the working tools of Freemasonry.... Actually, that's probably just my flight of fancy talking. I have no idea what it means, but it's certainly a piece of the ongoing LoS puzzle worth throwing out there.

Not even sleeping

We're not dead, nor sleeping. Some projects are in the hopper, just taking some time. In case you were wondering....

Huh?

Apparently: "A drunk man stabbed 29 pigs in Minnesota, hurting them so badly they had to be slaughtered, according to charges filed against the man by police."

"A veterinarian said the best option was to "euthanize" the pigs, which were worth $7,824.67, according to police testimony."

Euthanize would be the humane euphemism for their fate pre-stabbing: butchered in an abattoir. Slaughtering is the new euthanasia....

Depending on the context one man can get animal cruelty charges, another gets almost 8 grand.

In either case, someone's eatin' bacon.

prior to completion of the building

Dear Laws of Silence:

You may have heard of a catcher in the rye or even pigs in a blanket, but have you ever seen a hydrant in a stocking?

To make matters worse, from a distance, the black plastic wrapped around the lamp posts nearby look like grieving widows. But you can't see them here.

These fields are quickly becoming something else.

Kind regards,

Théophile Prades
Beaupuy, France.