A week before a High Holy Day for our neighbours south of the border, this happened:

So…

Well, here is some of what happened next.

In other words:

This matter came, as all things eventually do, to the attention of Medievalists.

For more on Catherine of Cleves, the Wikipedia is as ever a good start. Yes, it is: it’s not perfect, it’s a start not an end, it is of course but one resource of many; but it is still a free open encyclopaedia, democratically available to all with an internet connection or access to a public library. And allusion to Catherine of Cleves may turn out to be very important.

For this is no ordinary matter of neo-colonialist kleptocratic imperialist cultural appropriation, that special case of old-fashioned ordinary plagiarism.

“An Interior Decorator’s Thanksgiving Tablescape […] think[ing] beyond the conventional cornucopia”: meet its ancient mythological ancestor and its history, deeper philology, and (therefore) true meaning …

 

“An Interior Decorator’s Thanksgiving Tablescape […] think[ing] beyond the conventional cornucopia”: meet and give thanks to its medieval ancestor, a true decorator of truest interiority; truly thinking beyond the conventional cornucopia and what it represents: consumption, consumerism, commercialism, commodification, competition, cupidity, and all seven capital sins …

More in parts two and three, next.