London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

The New Look of the Place

As you can see, we’ve adopted a new appearance at andrewcusack.com. Actually, it is not just a change of appearance but a roots-up wholesale change of web architecture — to use the pedantic jargon of the internauts. You are not seeing the andrewcusack.com that you once saw (and which you can actually still see at http://www.andrewcusack.com/blog/), but an entirely new set-up using WordPress instead of Movable Type, and combining the old contents of andrewcusack.com with the newer contents of cusack.norumbega.co.uk. All boring techno-stuff, I assure you.

But wither, you ask, the splendid shield depicting the arms of the Empire State and the scroll beneath proclaiming New York’s proud motto of “Excelsior”? Well, I thought we needed something a bit different, but there’s always a possibility the New York arms might return, or that I get bored with the chap-eating-his-brekkers. I have given thought to assuming (as is the heraldic terminology) arms of my own, and have two or three designs lodged in my archives that I have never come to a decision upon. The traditional arms of the Cusacks can be seen at right, as depicted in the book Archives généalogiques et historiques de la noblesse de France (which a friend found in the Bodleian and kindly scanned for me). In the language of heraldry, the arms can be described as: Shield: Per pale, or and azure, a fess countercharged. Supporters: Two mermen with scimitars. Crest: A mermaid, holding in the dexter hand a sword, in the sinister a sceptre. Motto: “En Dieu est mon espoir” (sometimes “Ave Maria Plena Gratia”).

Part of my reason for never coming around to assuming arms was that for four years I spent most of my time in Scotland where the use of assumed arms is still illegal — as a fellow New Yorker who does business there found, to his chagrin. Still, if I get around to it, I doubt I’d keep you in the dark about it.

Anyhow, I hope you like the new look of the place. Bits and pieces are still under construction, as you can tell. The page of “tags” which you can access from the menubar applies only to the blog posts from when I started blogging at Norumbega to the present. While only some posts are tagged, all posts (or nearly all) are categorized, so once I have the category index up and running that’ll probably be a good way of poking one’s head about. And there is, of course, the handy search function in the right-hand column.

Published at 5:49 pm on Friday 29 August 2008. Categories: General Tags: .
Comments

I was impressed by the long list that followed the entry name of “De Cusack”:

“Seigneurs de Killéen, de Gerards-Town, de Taragh, de Tullahard, de Duleek, de Staffords-Town, de Cussing-Ton, de Lismolen, de Rathgar, de Rathaldron, de Troubley, de Bally-Molgan, etc., en Irlande et en France.“

— Robert Harrington 30 Aug 2008 12:32 am

Yes, sometimes it comes down to the total overhaul — which as you know, I’ve been through twice already with miserere.org. It’s time-consuming, but worth it in the end.

I’m impressed that you are able to have the cusack.norumbega content also post on the andrewcusack.com site. Very nice.

One suggestion: Now that you’re on WordPress, you might consider using a plugin like SRG Clean Archives. It gives you a list of posts by title (sorted by date), rather than the default WordPress listing of months. Here’s how I implemented it at miserere.org: http://www.miserere.org/m/archives. Ask me the next time you see me at Mass, or just e-mail me, and I’ll share with you the code that makes it work.

Finally, it’s sad to hear that Norumbega will be put on-hold. I much enjoyed it.

— Alessandro 30 Aug 2008 3:11 pm

Why Robert Benchley by Gluyas Williams?

— Peter 30 Aug 2008 8:23 pm

Oh is that who that is? I knew it was by Gluyas Williams, but I had no idea it was of Robert Benchley (nor did I know Robert Benchley until I looked him up just now).

Alessandro, I might take your suggestion.

— Andrew Cusack 31 Aug 2008 10:03 pm

Tut tut, Cusack. Were you really unaware of the great Robert Benchley?At least you have a splendid treat in store: his books, almost all of which were illustrated by Williams, are a treasure trove of humour about living in New York City when it was still worth living in.
My grandfather knew both of them (as a frequenter of the Algonquin Round Table), and used to say that Benchley, after P G Wodehouse, was the funniest man he knew.

— Benjamin Tredwell Van Nostrand 6 Sep 2008 10:07 am
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