Many Coopers

Solving the Debt Crisis

Upside Down Man

Car Show

Lapis Lazuli

In a book I'm reading I saw the words lapis lazuli. What?

Lapis Lazuli? Was she that grad student I spent a snowy weekend with in Pittsburgh. She liked to paint but only sunrises and sunsets. "The only times you are really alive," she had said.

No, not her. Some other Lazuli.

Lapis lazuli is a semiprecious stone valued for its deep blue color. The source of the pigment ultramarine, Lapis lazuli is not a mineral but a rock colored by lazurite.




The name lapis comes from word pencil in Spanish.

In the real world Lapis lazuli has been mined from mines in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan for over 6,000 years. Trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Predynastic Egyptian sites.

In ancient Egypt lapis lazuli was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments such as scarabs.

Persian legend says that the heavens owed their blue color to a massive slab of Lapis upon which the earth rested. Lapis Lazuli was believed to be a sacred stone, buried with the dead to
protect and guide them in the afterlife.

Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, and vases. It was also ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for tempera paint and, more rarely, oil paint.

The stone is said to increase psychic abilities. Lapis is said to be a cure for melancholy and for certain types of fever. Lapis lazuli eliminates negative emotions. It relieves sore throat pain. Who knew.

William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called Lapis Lazuli. An excerpt:

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.

Debt

33

The mysterious '33' has been on the label of Rolling Rock since the Latrobe Brewing Company brewed its first batch in 1939, but what does it actually stand for? Theories about the origin of the cryptic '33', some undoubtedly hatched in bar arguments, range from the year 1933 (the year Prohibition was repealed), how many steps it took to walk from the brewmaster's office to the brewing floor, the number of the racing horse on the label, and even the highest level of Freemasonry (33rd degree).

According to James Tito, the former CEO of Latrobe Brewing, the number '33' may actually be an accident. When the founders of the company came up with the slogan

Rolling Rock - From the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe, we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment as a tribute to your good taste. It comes from the mountain springs to you.

someone wrote '33' at the end to indicate the number of words, but the bottle printer mistakenly incorporated it into the label graphic. They decided to keep the 33 instead of having to scrap and replace the bottles. Even though the slogan had been changed several times in the history of Rolling Rock, the company had made sure to use the same number of words.

A Bee See

Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes