banana, harness, pass for, orb, cape, arachnophobe, brainchild

The Gallery of Chancellors was the brainchild of the social-democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. So far, it contains the portraits of seven former Federal Chancellors.

Some of the nation’s best-known brands are harnessing their logistical and technological expertises to inoculate their communities from covid-19.


WASHINGTONPOST.COM
Walmart, Starbucks, Amazon and other corporate giants moving to speed up coronavirus vaccine rollout
Some of the nation’s best-known brands are harnessing their lo

'Mr. Peanut'

By ADAM ROSS
Reviewed by SCOTT TUROW

Adam Ross's daring first novel, "Mr. Peanut," is a bleakly convincing portrayal of the eternal contest that often passes for a marriage.

倫敦正在展出的一件金色的斗篷，是完全由蜘蛛絲編製而成的。為了織成這件斗篷，一共有超過一百萬隻馬達加斯加金寶珠蜘蛛（Madagascan Golden Orb Spiders）貢獻了它們的蛛絲。一起去看看。 這件金光閃閃的斗篷，就是神秘的蜘蛛絲斗篷。

Arachnophobe creates cape woven from spider silk

By Bryony Jones, CNN

January 26, 2012 -- Updated 1127 GMT (1927 HKT)

Millions of spiders create silk cape

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Cape and scarf made of spider silk on display at London's V&A Museum
• Dozens of specially-trained handlers spent seven years collecting more than 1.2 million golden orb spiders
• Bright yellow, extremely strong silk was harvested from the spiders, which were later released back into the wild
• Cape is embroidered with spiders, brocade scarf is woven in traditional Malagasy style

London (CNN) -- A golden cape woven from the silk of 1.2 million Golden Orb spiders has gone on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
The richly-embroidered garment -- its bright yellow hue is the natural color of the spider silk -- is the result of a seven-year project on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar.
Using long poles, a team of 80 people worked to collect the spiders from their webs each day and harvest their silk before returning them to the wild.
The project was the brainchild of American fashion designer Nicholas Godley and British art historian and textile expert Simon Peers, who have both lived in Madagascar for many years.
"The idea of using spider silk to create garments goes back 300 years," Godley told CNN. "The last significant attempt to succeed was at the turn of the century, when a French Jesuit priest based in Madagascar, Jacob Paul Camboue, experimented with 'milking' spiders for their silk."
Peers had long been intrigued by the idea, and on a visit to his office, Godley's imagination was sparked when he spotted an unusual-looking tool which Peers explained was for collecting silk from spiders.

The cape has a mystical, ephemeral quality - just like a spider's web - but also a permanence
Nicholas Godley

"The idea never died, we kept revisiting it over the years, and eventually I shut my handbag factory so we could build a proper 'spidery' and experiment with harnessing spiders and harvesting their silk. We found that it worked.
"We were amazed -- you stand there watching it happen and you start to question your sanity. Is this really happening, or have I lost my bananas?
"We had 24 spiders harnessed up, the spindle was going, and silk was coming out. That was our eureka moment. We were over the moon, but it was just the beginning."
Scaling the project up proved a huge challenge -- only female Golden Orb spiders make silk. Hundreds of thousands of them were needed, and their cannibalistic nature meant the creatures had to be separated to prevent them from eating their neighbors.
Godley admits that the properties of spider silk -- and the practicalities and costs involved -- mean that industrial-scale production for use in textiles is unlikely ever to succeed.
"From a fashion perspective, it's impractical," he told CNN. "It's a natural fiber, and it shrinks, so you can't wash or dry clean it, and obviously it is hugely expensive to produce, so how would you begin to price it?"
Instead, they simply wanted to prove that it could be done, and to create two items which could help revive traditional Malagasy weaving techniques and embroidery skills, and to showcase the talents of people working on the island.
The four-meter-long brocade scarf, which was first shown at New York's Natural History Museum in 2009, was created using old Malagasy patterns, but as Godley explained, the inspiration for the cape, which made its debut at London's V&A Museum today, came from the spiders themselves.

A spiderweb is here today and gone tomorrow, but we have found a way to harness that and turn it into something lasting
Nicholas Godley

"After we finished the scarf, we wondered what to make next, and I really liked the idea of a cape, because of the fact that spiders cocoon their prey, wrapping them up, and I was intrigued by the thought of being cocooned in spider silk."
The cape is covered in images of spiders, plants and flowers, which took 6,000 hours to embroider, and those lucky enough to get up close have discovered that it is virtually weightless.
"We do a party trick where we get people to close their eyes and we put the tassels from the cape in one of their hands and ask them to guess which hand it is in. Half of them have no clue, and the other half get it wrong -- only a few guess, but only because of the warmth.
"The cape itself is like an invisibility cloak, you almost wouldn't know you were wearing it, and it has this mystical, ephemeral quality, just like a spider's web, but also a permanence.
"A spiderweb is here today and gone tomorrow, but we have found a way to harness that and turn it into something lasting."
But despite working so closely with them for so many years, Godley admits he is still afraid of spiders.
"I am fascinated by them, but still frightened of them: Spiders are poisonous, and they bite people," he said. "I am slowly trying to overcome it, but it hasn't stopped."




pass for
Be accepted as or believed to be, usually something that is not so. For example, Jean is 23 but could pass for a teenager, or They thought that copy would pass for an original. [Late 1500s]


orb[orb]

• 発音記号[ɔ'ːrb]

[名]

1 ((文))球, 球体；天体

a crystal orb
水晶球

the celestial orbs
天体.

2 ((通例〜s))((詩))眼球, 目.

3 頂に十字架のついた宝珠；王権［統治権］の標章.

4 ((古))円；円形のもの, 輪.

5 《占星術》惑星・恒星の感応力の及ぶと考えられる範囲.

━━[動](他)

1 …を丸くする, 球形にする.

2 ((古))…を取り巻く.

━━(自)

1 軌道を運行する.

2 丸くなる, 球形になる.

［ラテン語orbis（円）］

arachnophobe

(ə-răk'nə-fō'bē-ə, -nō-)
n.
An abnormal fear of spiders.

[ARACHN(ID) + -PHOBIA.]

arachnophobe a·rach'no·phobe' n.
arachnophobic a·rach'no·pho'bic adj.

"We were amazed -- you stand there watching it happen and you start to question your sanity. Is this really happening, or have I lost my bananas?

bananas
(bə-năn'əz)
adj. Slang
Crazy: "That's the horrible thing when you're bananas-nobody can know the awful things that are going on in your head" (Otto Friedrich). "City dwellers . . . are subjected to so much noise it drives them bananas" (New Yorker).

[From banana, worthless or crazy person, from BANANA.]

adjectiveSlang. crazy; deranged: All that chatter is driving me bananas. wildly enthusiastic: The crowd went bananas when the music began.

bananas[ba・nan・as]

• 発音記号[bənǽnəz | -nɑ'ː-]

((米略式))[形]((主に叙述))気が変な；熱狂した

go bananas
頭がおかしくなる；激怒する.

━━[間]ばかな.