What am I working on right ...

... now?

The rebuilding of the website started on 11.03.2022. Until 9.4.2022, I worked on it for several hours every day, including most Saturdays and Sundays. Unfortunately, I became seriously ill in April and then started my new half-time job at the University of Wuppertal on 1.5.2022. It was not until 29 June that I was able to continue the rebuilding work on the blog.

For my blog I am currently researching 

  • the life of the German illustrator Jochen G., who died unhappily in Rostock at the age of 29
  • the month of September 1850 in the life of the Swedish singer Jenny Lind
  • the word ivory and its origin and meaning

I am revising

  • an essay written in 1995 on the design maxim Form follows Function by the American architect and author Louis Henry Sullivan.
  • my website Cronhill.de. In the last three years, the focus of my website has shifted towards the blog at the expense of painting and art. Unfortunately, this is not obvious on the home page. I have therefore decided to move my blog to a subdomain. The new address is blog.cronhill.de. I started working on the new site on 13.03.2022. The CSS has been completely rewritten. It is 20kb smaller, which doesn't seem much. I also reworked the grid that is in the background. Previously the column grid was divided into 16 parts, in the future it will have 20 columns, which allows finer graduated column spacing without having to write custom CSS for it. I also want to continue without cookies in the page, only flexboxgrid.css and featherlite CSS and Javascript will be loaded as helping CSS. The page should remain as fast as possible.

I am developing several new content formats

  • the "Now" format, in which I would like to make the genesis of this blog and its sometimes convoluted content paths clearer
  • the "State of the Art" format, in which I want to map my current knowledge on a topic, and in which I want to make my continuous work on this content visible. With time, and increasing length of my blog posts, I have felt an urgent need for a format that goes beyond the ephemeral quintessence of a blog post. Technically and content-wise, this one is quite a challenge for me. Moreover, the content should remain trilingual.

And how it came about

  • 2019
    • I really wanted a website to show my watercolour paintings.
      • Unfortunately, not all the watercolours are published yet by a long shot.
      • open
    • The font selection for the new website cronhill.de was difficult, and in the context I started to research about the history of Antiqua
    • The result of the research was a blog post 0, which was the actual motivation for the blog. This post has not been published to this day, nor quite finished writing.
    • open
  • Exhibition Watercolours 2019 (01.2020)
    • Commission
      As a result of the exhibition at Wuppertal's open galleries I was commissioned to paint 3 abstract paintings.
      • Research Mark Rothko
        I don't actually paint abstract. A great challenge.
      • Genius 
        Then Genius, the film about the editor Maxwell Perkins, was on TV and I was captivated by the language of this writer.
        • Research Thomas Wolfe
        • I read Thomas Wolfe's first novel "Look Homeward, Angel" from 1929.
        • First Steps with R / Part I (01.2020)
          I started to study the book "Look Homeward, Angel" by Thomas Wolfe with the help of R software. I did not understand dozens of allusions in the book because my educational canon was not sufficient. I began to examine and write down Wolfe's allusions in the book.
        • See new thread Jenny Lind
        • Barnum's freaks 03.2020
          Barnum's Miscarriages should have appeared before the Jenny Lind article.
        • François Rabelais (08.2020)
          Articles about the scholar, monk and writer
        • Vaudeville theater (03.2020)
          Article on the origins of vaudeville theatres and their tradition in France and the USA.
        • Lord Fauntleroy curls (06.2020)
          Where the term for this hairstyle comes from.
        • John Arthur 'Jack' Johnson (08.2020)
          Founder of Club Delux in New York, forerunner of the Cotton Club, first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Last article in the series so far
        • open
      • The thread has not been spun to its end. Neither have I published the painted pictures yet. Nor the text I have written so far on Mark Rothko's life.
      • open
  • Jenny Lind Mania in the USA (02.2020)
    The beginning of my own Jenny Lind Mania. More articles followed, first ...
    • Die Jenny Lind Melone (05.2021)
      @foolforfood gave me the idea for the melon.
    • Start of in-depth Jenny Lind research
      I began to do more in-depth research on Jenny Lind's journey to America. The results led me to contact Cambridge University. In order to better understand the events in New York and Boston in September 1850, I began to read and translate all the newspaper articles of the time. I created a register of people and places of that month. I started drawing my own map of New York.
      • September 1850
        The research will end up in a separate subsite. At the moment, I expect the research and writing to take at least another 2 years. It's not easy to motivate myself to do it all the time. It has taken on the scale of a master's thesis or doctorate.
      • A separate subdomain will be set up - hopefully in the course of the year - for the results of the research.
      • open
    • Jenny Lind and Genin, the Hatter (10.2021)
      The first written result of the in-depth research is this essay on Genin, the Hatter. Genin was a hatter from New York who had his shop right next to Barnum's Museum on Broadway. He was involved in the hoax about the high ticket prices for Jenny Lind.
    • Other articles, blog posts or essays, that might result from the Jenny Lind research:
      - The Irving House Hotel in New York
      - The menu of the Irving House
      - Home apothecaries in the 18th century
      - the first apothecary of New York
  • Premiere of the first episode of Star Trek Picard
    This series is basically responsible for my newly awakened passion for philosophy
    • The Tragic Sense of Life 02.2020
      I could not resist tracking down the book shown in the series
    • Captain Cristóbal Rio's bookshelf (03.2020)
      Elaborate essay on the bookshelf of Cristóbal Rios
    • Read, discuss, write! (08.2020)
      The author Dorothy L. Sayers and her main character Peter Whimsey have been close to my heart for a very, very long time. Francis Bacon's quote is found in the last novel about the aristocratic gentleman, Busman's Honeymoon.
      • In his quotation, Bacon has listed classical educational ideals of antiquity that are consistent with the medieval doctrine of the trivium. But one element is missing from the Trivium and I would like to explore whether Bacon also thought about it: Action.
      • This topic also provides an impetus for a new content format. Because I would like to work longer on a text, but the blog format is not suitable for that.
      • Develop new content format
    • Becoming aware of time 08.2020
      Everyday philosophy is increasingly fun for me.
    • In search of lost (life) time (01.2021)
      Scanning slides is quite exhausting because you then relive the time and mourn the fact that it has passed.
    • Cognitive Dissonance (07.2021)
      Thoughts on cognitive dissonance have been haunting my mind for a long time, and a quick reaction to  @MrEwanMorrison tweet was obvious. It feels like a seed is being planted in my head at the right time. A few loose thoughts from me on Ewan Morrison's article in Psychology Today.
    • Teil I - Das Jack-London-Zitat im neuen Bond - Einführung (03.2021)
      The last Craig Bond was just worth paying tribute to the quote at the end with an essay.
    • Teil II - Alfred Lord Tennysons Zitat in Skyfall (03.2021)
      Part 2
    • Teil III - Lichterloh brennen wie Jack London (03.2021)
      Part 3
    • Christo's last posthumous project, the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile
    • Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (01.2022)
      Contradiction always arouses motivation in me. But this essay also made it clear to me that blog posts have their limits.
      • This contribution was also an impetus in thinking about a new content format.
      • Developing a new content format
  • Februar 09, 2022
    I have a great weakness, I am too easily captured by something, warmed up to something. I am fascinated too quickly. And so it was when the Twitter channel of @GallicaBnF presented the book "Les Malheurs de Sophie" by the Comtesse Sophie de Ségur. It was illustrated by the French illustrator Marie Madeleine Franc-Nohain.
    • Madeleine-Amélie Franc-Nohain (02.2022) 
      An article about the illustrator herself
    • Alphabet en images (02.2022)
      I present the children's book Alphabet en Images.
    • During my research I discovered another beautiful children's book, which was also designed in a very individual style. I am currently researching the artist, who unfortunately passed away in 1929. I have tracked down a surviving relative.
    • open
  • 03. 09., 2022 - Mentor Audit I
    There is a genre term in English-language crime literature called "Had I but known". If I had known what would become of this interesting conversation about editing studies, I would have had it anyway, and to this day I'm glad for the thought-provoking impulse. Because it confirmed something I already secretly knew. Very secretly.
    • Refurbish an old article for the website
      To save time (Learn I: You never save time when you dig up something old but still have to rework it. Learn I: In the process of reworking, so many new ideas come to you that act as a brake on everything you had in mind before), I scanned an old article I had written for the design theory department at the University of Wuppertal. But it couldn't be published as it was, it was outdated.
    • Editionswissenschaften
      In edition studies, literary and historical sources are sifted through and made accessible, which form the basis of research in the humanities. My mentor pointed out to me that it was not in the spirit of edition studies if a text was changed without documentation.
      This contribution was also an impetus in the considerations for a new content format.
    • Develop new content format
  • 03. 11., 2022 - Mentor Audit II
    Feedback came from my family environment that my homepage no longer reflected the depth of my content on the blog. I would need a subdomain for the blog.
    • Self-reflection
      Even if I didn't like it, this input was right.
    • I don't know how you do it, but if I receive critical feedback and have to agree with it, can I still keep the old? No, of course.
    • I need a separate website for the blog. The domain will be blog.cronhill.de.
    • I will develop a new content format and it will be called Sachstandsberichte.
    • I started the website rebuilding project on 11.03.2022. Since then, I have been working on it for several hours every day, and most Saturdays and Sundays I have been working on it.