ancient sports memorabilia

There's been a fair amount of press about this Roman figurine found by archeologists in Israel. The announcement (h/t Rogueclassicism) says that is was probably used as a weight for a scale and that it originally came from Asia Minor (present-day Turkey):

We can assume that this marble weight belonged to a family of merchants who originally came from somewhere in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Being a precious object the weight was passed down from generation to generation in the family until sometime in the fourth-fifth century CE when an unidentified merchant was so unfortunate as to stay in the public building (a hostel??) which is currently being uncovered in the Givati car park in the City of David. A very severe tremor that struck the building resulted in its complete destruction. While exposing the building the marble image was discovered amongst its ruins which constitute silent testimony of the drama that occurred in this impressive structure prior to its collapse.

One thing that caught my eye was the possibility that this represented a boxer:

The stylistic motifs that are manifested in the image, such as its short hair style, the prominent lobes and curves of the ears, as well as the almond-shaped eyes suggest that the object most likely portrays an athlete, probably a boxer. Boxing was one of the most popular fields of heavy athletics in Roman culture and more than once Roman authors mention the demand by the Roman public in general, and the elite in particular, for boxing matches. Besides the prestige and the substantial amounts of money the victors of boxing competitions won, they were also afforded the support of the emperor himself, as in the famous case of Melancomas who was Titus’ favorite boxer.

So, we are possibly looking at the Mohammed Ali or the Lebron James of the second century. Knowing that, when I look at the figurine it seems oddly familiar...

Texas is a scary place

Nazi zombies in Austin.

Edgar Allen Poe

Last week, our dear Edgar Allen Poe turned 200. I apologize for being one week late, but how better can this be celebrated than by a YouTube of Christopher Walken reading "The Raven":

forever twelve years old

What the hell, it's Friday...







From a Times article on British place names. Some other beauties:

Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.

Others evoke images that may conflict with residents’ efforts to appear dignified when, for example, applying for jobs.

These include Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent.

Titty Ho. Awesome.

UPDATE: For extra Friday weirdness, the new hip-hop theme song for the Utah Jazz. (h/t The Cowhide Globe).

obama action figure

And why not?






































From DiD via Wonkette.

brief comment on yesterday's event

"This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

--President Obama's inaugural address.


So much has been written about yesterday's inauguration -- the emotion surrounding it, its historic nature -- and I don't have a great deal to add. I just wanted to mention that less than 42 years ago, in my lifetime, my own wedding would have been illegal in sixteen states. President Obama's achievement, which he would be the first to recognize as our common national achievement, is glorious.

The president has some daunting tasks ahead of him. Also, racism in this country is far from dead and it's time for us to address other injustices in our marriage laws. Still, I am happy to drink in this moment.


"From the dream to history," L'Unita.

PS: There's a great article in the Times about the diversity of Barack and Michelle Obama's family.

manhattan snowfall

Days like these the light becomes muted and the colors only whisper. Tree branches and cornices are outlined in white and you see how harmonious the edges of things are here. Briefly, the city feigns an air of something like serenity and softness and for an hour you forgive it its unforgiving winters.

contest

The prize.

This blog post is actually an entry for a contest -- Lisa Falzon, a Maltese/Irish (very cool combination) artist whose blog I have been enjoying has a sweepstakes with her "Valentine Joyride" piece as a prize. I recommend stopping by her blog and checking out her work. It's whimsical without being naive, surreal but not clumsily so. She is the most generous of magicians, explaining often how she gets her fascinating effects. Stop by and enjoy.

things go from bad to worse

Seventeenth-century representation of Jerusalem.

Things are not getting any better in Israel and Palestine. Almost a thousand Palestinians have been killed and Israel is expanding their offensive. At the same time, it seems that the Israeli Elections Committee has banned Israeli Arab parties. Josh Marshall gives some context here, but it is still disturbing.

Meanwhile it seems that almost all the discussion and reporting on the issue is one-sided and simplistic. Let me state my position: I am pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, anti-Hamas and against current Israeli policy. I oppose what the Israeli government is doing now in the same way I opposed my own government's war against Iraq: not only is it immoral, heartless, and cynical, but actually increases the long-term security problems for Israel, much like our invasion of Iraq has weakened our own security situation.

I'd like to point out some voices for sanity amidst all the screaming. William posted the reflections of our friend David Kersh, and David also put them up on his own blog. J Street defines itself as "the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement." Richard Silverstein blogs at Tikun Olam, which is "a Mishnaic term meaning 'repair [or mend] the world'.'' Check out these resources. Let's deepen the conversation a bit.

And pray for peace.

UPDATE: Are the Israelis using chemical weapons against the civilian population? From the New York Times:

Palestinians interviewed in Gaza on Monday cited another reason for their flight: Israel soldiers, they said, are firing rounds of a noxious substance that burns skin and makes it hard to breathe.

A resident of southwest Gaza City on Monday showed a reporter a piece of metal casing with the identifying number M825A1, which Marc Garlasco, a military analyst with Human Rights Watch, identified as white phosphorus, typically used for signaling, smoke screens and destroying enemy equipment.

In recent years, experts and rights advocates have argued over whether its use to intentionally harm people violates international conventions.

Major Dallal would not say whether Israel was using white phosphorus, but said, “The munitions we use are consistent with international law.”

Still, white phosphorus can cause injury, and a growing number of Gazans report being hurt by it, including in Beit Lahiya, Khan Yunis, and in eastern and southwestern Gaza City. When exposed to air, it ignites, experts say, and if packed into an artillery shell, it can rain down flaming chemicals that cling to anything they touch.

Luay Suboh, 10, from Beit Lahiya, lost his eyesight and some skin on his face Saturday when, his mother said, a fiery substance clung to him as he darted home from a shelter where his family was staying to pick up clothes.

The substance smelled like burned trash, said Ms. Jaawanah, the mother who fled her home in Zeitoun, who had experienced it too. She had no affection for Hamas, but her sufferings were changing that. “Do you think I’m against them firing rockets now?” she asked, referring to Hamas. “No. I was against it before. Not anymore.”

Pulpy New Year!

My new year's resolution: Read more pulp!

A lovely youtube, featuring hundreds of classic Weird Tales covers (h/t: Weekend Stubble):



Weird Tales is one of those things I've known about, but never really investigated. According to the entry in Fons veritatis, it has quite the history. Not only was it a publisher of H.P. Lovecraft, but it was also the first to publish Tennessee Williams! It apparently still exists in a new incarnation, complete with a web page, and with Ann VanderMeer as fiction editor (I enjoyed the steampunk anthology she edited along with her husband Jeff). Great fun!

UPDATE: The same site has videos. This one is a beauty:




UPDATE 2: Ted at The Late Adopter has sent another great pulpy link. Speaking of pulp, sitemeter tells me my post on The Lustful Turk has been popular with visitors from all over the world.

who's the artist?

Who do think is the artist? It looked like William Blake to me, but I've never seen Latin in Blake's work.

This is the question I asked myself as I looked at these images on the wonderful blog BiblioOdyssey. Apparently they from a book of drawings called De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines (Images from the Ages of the World) by the sixteenth-century Portuguese artist who at one point studied with Michelangelo. You can read more about him on the original blog (whose author and commentators also saw similarities with Blake, as well as with illustrations from alchemical books), for the moment I will leave you with a few groovy images.






















The blog commentators also commented on the proto-surrealism of the praying mantus on the frontspiece.






















Rock the apocalypse.
























I repeat: groovy.

two pictures

Giovanni Paolo Pannini, "Picture gallery with views of ancient Rome" (1758).

I love paintings like this. Firstly because I love paintings of architecture. I like buildings and cities and public spaces, and I like how the lines of buildings compliment or contrast with the lines of perspective and the frame of the painting. Secondly because I love paintings within paintings. I love this impossible imaginary gallery with its majestic baroque vaults and its jumble of artworks representing the classical architecture which was the original model for that baroque. The galley has an unlikely opening at the back that reveals some king of monumental gate. To the left of the gate we see a painting of the arch of Constantine (another gate) and to the right the pantheon, its columns almost parallel to those of the gate. Which is more real? The sky outside matches the sky of the paintings. The style of the paintings is the same as that of the framing painting itself, and we almost get the sense that this hall is filled with mirrors or windows set at odd angles. To the right we have Trajan's column with its barely distinguishable frieze representing his imperial triumphs -- art within art within art. Of course, we would be seeing this in the Louvre, so we find ourselves in a gallery surrounded by paintings as we look at this one. Maybe we are in a painting as well?

I love the bravado of it. Why paint one just one painting when you can paint a gallery? A Borgesian labyrinth of paintings and play between styles and lines in which the dizzy spectator loses track of where he or she is, whether in Rome or in the imaginary gallery or in the real one.

When I was a child, one of the bathrooms in my house had a large mirror that had two wing-mirrors that could be folded out. I used to fold them into a triangle, leaving only enough space to stick my head in so that I could see an infinite forest of Liams, fading in distant green images of the weakening light spectrum. I know what Pannini was after -- holding infinity in the palm of his hand.
























"Portrait of a Youth" (Lucrezia Borgia?) by Dosso Dossi.

The second picture, it has been asserted recently, is the only known painting of Lucrezia Borgia, the great femme fatale of the Renaissance. Only one question: hot or not?

I would very much like one, please, thank you

A woolly freakin' mammoth.

Yesterday I read in the Times that some scientists believe they can reconstruct the DNA of a woolly mammoth from hair that has been preserved, and even bring one to life:

There are talks on how to modify the DNA in an elephant’s egg so that after each round of changes it would progressively resemble the DNA in a mammoth egg. The final-stage egg could then be brought to term in an elephant mother, and mammoths might once again roam the Siberian steppes.

That would be a hell of a way to confuse Vladimir Putin. The article laconically added:

The same would be technically possible with Neanderthals, whose full genome is expected to be recovered shortly, but there would be several ethical issues in modifying modern human DNA to that of another human species.

Yeah, you think?

I actually think that there are ethical issues involved in bringing back a species that nature had already decided to retire. Any thoughts on that?

At the same time, having a real live woolly mammoth around would be very cool, and I would like to have one, thank you very much, please.

best bathroom graffiti so far

Ancient Roman latrines, Ephesus.

The best I've see so far, from the Reed College Student Union's Men's Room, mid-1980's:

"Please do not throw cigarette butts in the urinal. It makes them soggy and difficult to light."

is my cat trying to kill me?

Hat-tip Sandalstraps.

new links

...a world of possibilities...

I've added three new links to the sidebar, and all three will provide my dear readers with hours of strangeness and beauty.

Cabinet of Wonders is a site maintained by a writer named Heather McDougal, and it features well-written posts covering all sorts of oddities. It is 17th-century Wunderkammer meets steampunk. Heather describes it well:

What we have here is a Cabinet of Wonders, a place where things of interest are set out, in possibly bizarre, possibly fetishistic presentation, for perusal by the discerning, who understand that presentation, and scientific interest, are all a form of magic.

The other two sites are short on words, but rich in imagery. If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats is a group blog dedicated to... well... pop culture, I guess... Just a lot of strange images, archived under provocative categories.

The Roving Medievalist is the main blog of Jeffrey Smith, Ohio's greatest monarchist, and features lovely photos of usually medieval churches. Scroll down his sidebar and check out some of his numerous other blogs, including one dedicated to Baroque architecture (Frozen Music) and cemeteries (A Morbid Fascination). Enjoy.

spes vicit timorem

Columbia University, 12:45 AM, Nov. 5, 2008.

The Latin phrase above was sent to me last night by my friend and colleague Steve after Obama won the election. "Hope conquers fear."

We voted yesterday around 4:00, since we wanted to wait until Filius imperatricis pulcherrima Africae occidentalis got out of school so he could accompany us to the polls. Then we settled down for a tense night with the TV and the laptop, as I flitted between a half dozen different websites and exchanged instant messages with William. Once Penn went, I started to relax. Ohio came through, and when the polls closed in California, we knew. I was in shock, Imperatrix pulcherrima Africae occidentalis was in tears. About 12:30 we went out for a walk. Crowds flowed up and down Broadway cheering and crying. We stepped on to campus where a group of people were jumping up and down, yelling and hugging. Sponteneous chants broke out. "O-ba-ma," of course, and varients of "Yes, we can" ("Yes, we did;" "yes, we could"), but also "de-mo-cra-cy!" and "U-S-A!" People sang the national anthem and "America the Beautiful."

One black student shouted, "Our first president! Suck it, Harvard!" (Obama graduated from Columbia).

This was a victory for Democrats, for blue Manhattan, for students and for African-Americans, yes, but it was more than that. It was a victory for our country. The McCain campaign made the choice clear -- unable to formulate any real vision for the country, they made it about fear of change and culture war and devisiveness, about race. Pennsylvannia and Ohio were not suppposed to vote for a black man. "Real" Virginia was not supposed to vote for a Democrat. North Carolina was supposed to re-elect their senator because of religious slurs. The United States of America said no, thank you.

My country made me proud last night. Spes vicit timorem.

s & c implores...

VOTE,
DAMNIT!

s & c endorses

Barack Obama for President of the United States.

happy halloween

Since everyone is putting up Halloween videos, here's a spooky song by Jill Tracy, with a video that's sort of Bunel/Dali meets Edward Gorey:



Plus, mourning rings from the Columbia University Archives.