The Ministry of Calligraphy
This administration was re-established during the 2020 lockdown with a mandate to provide a fig leaf for our naked vulnerability to the mutant virus.
The ensล is an ancient symbol of enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and "mu". Here in the land of Blombos cave, site of the earliest offices of the Ministry of Calligraphy (or at least the ink testing department) it is also a symbol of moo - something you say to cows when driving by - and it is a homophone for "en so", which is an Afrikaans phrase used as a boast, as in "And so, that's how it's done!" or as in "en so en so en so" which is like "ensovoorts" / "and so on and on and on". "En so?" can also mean "So what?"
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The Ministry confesses that the administration of the affairs of calligraphy can be messy. Everything is connected, so it can be quite a crow's nest. Sometimes we wish it wasn't! What administration can cope with such entanglement? Yet, it can be beautiful, and with a little administrational flair the best in any calligraphic movement can be teased out, even during a pandemic ... like the Black plague of 1374. Scribes saw their hands rot even as they penned their last lines of calligraphic beauty. (This administration knows this because the Director General once had to do a hand stand-in for a historical documentary set in that time and his hand was made up all diseased. But enough about that.)
The primary mission of the Ministry of Calligraphy is to encourage calligraphers. Let that quill fly, keep writing. Or die!
Since the opportunity to clarify Section 3(c) of our constitution arose in a conversation on Instagram with the esteemed Irish calligrapher, Denis Brown, the Ministry would like to follow up with further evidence of the Ministry's policy in action. Seen here are the director of the boiler room and his secretary being observed by a journalist from Noseweek magazine. To be clear, the Ministry eschews discrimination on the basis of machinisation or automatisation. In terms of Section 3(c) of our constitution, machines and automatons are as acceptable to the Ministry as Irish calligraphers.
The Ministry of Calligraphy recalls with fondness the nine hundred-and-fifty-one-thousandth biennial gathering of calligraphers and virgins.
Pursuant to the announcement made here two hours ago, The Ministry of Calligraphy, is pleased to invite suggestions from the general public, friends and relatives (no favours granted). Complaints are to be dealt with in terms of section 79(c) at a future date to be determined by H.E The Director General.
The Ministry of Calligraphy was established long before people cared to record such trivial events. There are therefore no extant MS to prove the date of inception. However, the philological evidence seen in other extant works on rocks and cave walls allow modern palaeographers to place the date precisely at a few millennia before the close of the stone age*. The Ministry has, over this time undergone various administrations in various parts, occasionally falling into dereliction due to budgetary cuts or technological advances or simply due to kakistocracy and bad taste. Fortunately, neither ink nor blood have run dry and as much as the Ministry loves the word, it has never become utterly inusitate.
The current Administration, based at the Southern tip of Africa, near the site of previous cave-age administrations, was established during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown with a mandate to provide a fig leaf for our naked vulnerability to the mutant virus.
* The Philology Department will publish this evidence at a future date when security classifications expire. History will be rewritten. Needless to say, it will be too late by then but we press on for the sake of future generations. Please consider our infant onesies.
https://www.teepublic.com/user/ministry-of-calligraphy