Slowly but inexorably, the Voynich curve is a-changing: as the meme continues to extend its two-way taproots into mainstream culture during 2011, more artists and novelists are seeing its unreadability and inscrutability as sources of neo-postmodernist inspiration. Simultaneously, discussion of the manuscript is sprawling into many different languages and cultures (such as Romanian, according to Google Trends): yet these forays are typically only for bloggers to plant a brightly coloured flag on top of the Voynich iceberg, rather than exploring the vast volume of cryptographically frozen material beneath.
All of which is to say that hit counts count for little: if you’re looking to dig up interesting stuff on the Voynich Manuscript, Google is now only rarely of any use (and don’t start me on Bing, we’d be here all night). Which is of course a shame, but I thought I ought to point it out anyway.
Regardless, here’s a sporadic unreality check for you, broadcast live and direct from the often-moribund world of Voynichiana: all the VMs news that’s fit to deny. Enjoy!
(1) Klaus Schmeh has been busy (presumably) finishing up his upcoming book on cipher mysteries (and more on that when it arrives). To help prepare the ground for that, he’s done a number of 10-minute talks on the VMs in German, including this one on YouTube from Science Slam Ulm which even included a number of Powerpoint visual jokes, and a more crypto-oriented presentation from Science Slam Bochum. Oh, and also at Science Slam Hamburg, Muenster, Ulm, Koeln, etc. Unmissable stuff, if you happen to be a German-speaking Voynichophile (and you weren’t already in one of the audiences).
(2) “Baroque pop” band Borrowed Beams of Light have released an album called Stellar Hoax, apparently inspired by the Voynich Manuscript. More on that here.
(3) Zbigniew Banasik’s Manchu Voynich theory has been partially revived (if not yet actually resuscitated), with a Reddit post by ‘daruka’.
(4) Sad news: the Voynich Monkeys archive of the main Voynich mailing list has apparently eaten its last banana. Is anyone planning to step forward to produce a new Internet-accessible archive? It’s not as if anything of great consequence has been posted there in the last few years (ducks beneath large plexiglass screen, winking to camera), but its absence is a bit of a shame, all the same. 🙁
(5) Meanwhile, a Japanese Voynich researcher continues to repost interesting emails from the early (and far more productive) days of the Voynich mailing list, not really sure why. For me, it’s an odd feeling to find your own emails randomly popping up on the Web some eight years delayed, rather like the start of Carl Sagan’s Contact. Does anyone happen to know what’s going on in Japan, Voynich-wise?
(6) And finally… no plans for a Voynich Summer 2011 pub meet as yet, sorry! I’m currently holding down three jobs simultaneously, which (mathematically) would seem to leave me roughly -40 free hours each week. Hence the recent low post rate on Cipher Mysteries! Hopefully this will change for the better soon: but in the meantime, a virtual Voynich toast to you all – cheers!