Writing on Flags

Writing on flags is an underrated pastime. The American flag lends itself to sloganizing, owing to its college-ruled design; and the experience can be philosophical and meditative.

My favorite personalized flag is the Spinoza flag. Pictured above is my current version, finished today. It replaces one done a few years ago (pictured below), which became frayed. I found that the gold lettering didn’t show up very well.

The translation is “The purpose of the republic is freedom.” (Spinoza put in a few extra words.)

My wife, a superior artist, produced the following design on canvas:

The inscription comes from the Greek statesman Cleisthenes and is an injunction “Not to Notice the Tribes.”

The missus also is a better forger of Abraham Lincoln’s signature than I am:

Author: Harry Miller

I have traveled and lived in Taiwan, China, and Japan and am now a professor of Asian history and author of Southern Rain, a novel of seventeenth-century China. View all posts by Harry Miller