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Sir David Young Cameron (1865–1945) was a Scottish artist. While first gaining his reputation as a printmaker, he also drew and painted. He was primarily a landscape artist. His work can sometimes be minimalistic, without a lot of the flourishes and details you see in other works. His simplicity works well to bring the landscapes forward.
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Sir David Young Cameron by Alfred Kingsley Lawrence. |
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| Pinned Down by Enemy Fire by Keith Rocco |
Suddenly, all hell let loose. The beach was under fire from shells, mortars and machine guns, we dived for cover. The sea was covered in blood and vomit and flies began to arrive by the thousands, which created another nightmare. We continued all night and the following day without a break. Slowly, slowly we overcame all the nightmares. There was no lack of humor. A soldier coming ashore asked, 'Is this a private beach? I was promised a private beach. If not, I am not staying.' And we heard, 'My mother told me not to travel by air, she thought it was much safer by sea.' — David Teacher
The above video demonstrates the workings of an assassin's teapot. It has multiple chambers and can be used to covertly pour different liquids, one of which is presumably poison so's you can eliminate your rivals in a civilized manner. He built a transparent model of one to demonstrate its functioning.
I did like his verbal disclaimer, 'Don't try to poison people', added for legal reasons. That got me thinking... I should add some declaimers to this post to assist my regular readers as they go about their daily business. Take heed, following them will lead to a more prosperous and happy life.
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Summer is upon us and so many people's thoughts turn to ice cream. Here are some paintings of ice cream still lifes, ice cream shops, and people eating ice cream. As you enjoy your summer be sure to give yourself some ice cream headaches along the way.
The genesis of this post was muons. They are created when cosmic rays strike particles in the outer atmosphere. They are extremely short lived (~2 microseconds) and so logic would tell you they should not last long enough to travel the distance from their creation to the Earth's surface. However, since they are traveling at near the speed of light the time dilation and length contraction predicted by relativity comes into play and they can make the journey.
So, what's this traveling at the speed of light business and the relativistic effects that so effect the muons? The above video, inspired by Lewis Carroll Epstein's book Relatively Visualized, gives a nice and simple explanation of it. I did like the enthusiasm of the presenter.
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| The Peleliu Invasion by Tom Lea |
Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it.It flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it.— anonymous —
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Gustave Caillebotte was a 19th century French impressionist painter. He came from a wealthy family and so he did not need to paint to support himself. In fact, he retired from painting in his mid-30s to pursue his other interests. Along with his works, one of his major contributions to the impressionist movement was financially supporting a number of other painters including Monet, Degas, Renoir and others.
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| Gustave Caillebotte self-portrait |
This is a walk in Bandung, a provincial capital on the island of Java in Indonesia. The walk is though the downtown commercial area which is clean and well maintained. I think it is a bit of a local tourist destination. At one point you see a lot of people in costumes, mostly ghosts. I'm not sure what that was all about.
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The Western world did not employ the harem system. The Moors and Turks did have harems, and they exerted a significant influence of the imaginations of Europeans. Of course, Europeans could never actually enter a harem, so what they painted was a pure fantasy of licentious oriental opulence. When harems were considered, Western women lived out a 19th Century version of the Hand Maiden's Tale, while the men... well, you know what was on their minds.
India and China also had harems. The Chinese were structured, rather than just grabbing pretty girls off of the streets, Chinese concubines would be the carefully vetted daughters of influential families sent to the crown for social and political purposes.
There are a number of Chinese and Korean dramas set in harems. The dramas, which are entertaining, frequently feature a lowly girl who, although she tries to flunk the concubine selection process, passes it and ends up on the bottom rung of the concubine hierarchy. The harem is populated a bunch of other maids and concubines busily backstabbing each other to climb the social ladder of the palace. She'll have to use her wits and guile to survive. It gets more complicated when, since she's such a fetching vixen, she captures the Emperor's eye and has the Emperess (his wife) and the Empress Dowager (his mother) as well as eunuchs and advisors out to foil her as well.
Cashing in on the 1950s fascination with atomic energy Louis Marx and Company released the Linemar Atomic Reactor. It was actually a steam engine, with its boiler disguised as the reactor dome and a battery powered cooling tower that had moving lights in it. I guess the moving lights simulated the atomic power surging within the plant.
The German company Wilesco with their R200 Nuclear Reactor steam engine (in the above video) was another steam powered nuclear power plant facsimile. It was released in the 1960s and its high price, coupled with a growing stigma attached to nuclear power, led it not being successful in the toy steam engine market.
Finally, above is an actual radioactive toy from the 1950s. It is the Gilbert Radioactive Atomic Energy Lab Kit with Uranium. I'm sure I would have lusted after it in my boyhood and happily irradiated myself conducting experiments and what-not.
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Corn, also called maize, is a grain that is by weight the most produced in the world. It will not propagate naturally, it needs humans to raise it. It has many varieties and is used for both livestock feed and human consumption. These are paintings of corn cobs, corn fields, and corn being eaten.
This video discusses the ouija board the well-known toy, er... I mean mystical device for communicating with spirits. It is an interesting discussion of its evolution from Victorian era spiritual quackery to its current state.
For those interested in receiving ghostly wisdom from a ouija board, but don't have one handy, I found an online ouija board you can use. It doesn't seem the same as having the planchette magically moving under your fingertips, but hey -- snake oil is snake oil so it will do in a pinch.
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Jim Beckner is a contemporary American artist based out of Colorado. His major subject is cityscapes. As he says he is less interested in the drawing aspects of painting -- form and outline -- and is instead more interested in the color and movement of his subject matter, hence his rich palette and heavy brushwork.
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A young comrade keeping a sharp eye out for counter-revolutionaries and/or Kulaks |
Yes, it is the most wonderful day of the year -- May Day! I hope you will all have a fine time celebrating the wonders of the proletariat! I'll be spending my time looking for a bread line to stand in, snacking on tree bark, keeping an eye out for hoarders and wreckers, and of course studying my Little Red Book! Granted that last is a bit difficult because it is written in Chinese, and I don't read Chinese, but a little thing like that never stops us Soviet men!
So, enjoy your struggle sessions and have a good May Day comrade! Remember, you'll own nothing and enjoy it!
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| Old faded photograph |
...perhaps it was more like a bread crumb than a proper piece of a
memory,
but every lover of fairytales knew that bread crumb trails were
always worth following.
- Stephanie Garber -
When memories fade, can one ever really return home?
- Floyd Skloot -
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Fortifications are for defense while fences are merely the physical manifestation of human boundaries. They can mark territory, enforce privacy, or -- in the case of American white picket fences -- stand as a symbol of domestic ambition. These are paintings of fences. Some rural, some urban, some dilapidated, some well maintained. Enjoy.
A cheerful English fellow decides to make a 3-course meal with his toaster. I'll admit that such an ambition never crossed my mind. Then again, I appear to be lagging far behind in toaster technology compared to him. I only have a 2-slot countertop toaster, while his, which he seems quite fond of, is considerably more elaborate.
Call me a luddite if you must, but while I guess his meal turns out OK, I think there are far simpler ways to prepare it. Still, without such culinary pioneers how can civilization hope to progress? I imagine the fellow who thought to dry and ground up coffee beans, and then pour hot water over them, was laughed at by his tribe mates. Being a visionary can be a lonely path.
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On this Easter my picture post is a small collection of lilies. They are old naturalist pictures of the flowers from Picture Box Blue where you can find more examples. Enjoy your Easter.
