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These are paintings of people doing laundry. Either washing or hanging the clothes out to dry. It was hard to find images of men doing laundry, which says something, I guess. I did like the image (below) of the pipe smoking guy in his suit and tie at the laundromat as the amused women looked on. I think it was from an ad from the 'men are silly chuckleheads' school of advertising.
It has come to my attention that manly-men eat carburetors for breakfast. To my horror I realized my macho cred was lacking because I didn't have a recipe to prepare a breakfast carburetor. So, YouTube to the rescue.
I found this video. He claims he just cleaning carburetors but come on, he's using a fish frier so who does he think he's fooling? Well, I guess it would fool a non-carburetor for breakfast soy boy, but it ain't fooling me. I assume he barbeques it after parboiling it, but he doesn't show that part. It looks delicious.
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| The Inspiration of Christopher Columbus by Jose Obregon |
This is a reposting of an earlier Columbus Day post
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When talking about Columbus Day, and Christopher Columbus in general, many people try to deride his accomplishments with the rejoinder, which they think is clever, that Columbus didn't discover the Americas because the Amer-Indians had found it long ago. That's all good, well and mundanely obvious, but Columbus' feat was never that he was the first man to step foot on the soil of the Americas.
In fact, Columbus was looking for a trading route to the Spice Islands (the Moluccas of Indonesia). He was to fail at that, the Portuguese pushing down Africa to round the Cape were the winners in that race. However his explorations were ultimately far more important than rounding the Cape because his voyages led to the connection of the two hemispheres. The world changed from an academic's sphere to a physical globe on which the oceans were routes to all its lands.
Consider this short passage from the Bill of Rights' article Henry Hudson and Exploration:
In early July, the Halve Maen reached Newfoundland, where Hudson and his crew encountered a French fishing fleet hauling in cod. The sailors aboard the Dutch ship caught and salted dozens of cod for their journey, and Hudson eventually plied the officers of another French vessel for information about the coast. The Halve Maen also made contact with Native Americans in or near Nova Scotia; Hudson traded knives, kettles, clothing, and beads for beaver skins and other furs. He heard tales of gold and silver, and possibly the Northwest Passage. However, because his men feared the Native Americans had stolen items from the ship, they went ashore and raided the native village. It was an ominous start to Hudson’s relationship with the indigenous people of North America.
Hudson's voyage was in 1609, or just a little over 100 years after Columbus first set out to sail to Asia and already even French fisherman were making the journey. The Old and New Worlds were becoming entangled through commerce, trade and colonization. The process was to be a difficult one -- with errors and cruelty on both sides as well as winners and losers.
Still the World is a richer place because of Columbus' accidental discovery of a wider world as he searched for a quicker trade route to the Spice Islands. That is the legacy of his travels, and it is of such consequence that it is well worth remembering.
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Edited to add: The educated of Columbus's day knew the circumference of the Earth and so Columbus should have known China was too far away to reach sailing west. It's a common belief that he considerably miscalculated the actual size of the Earth and so China was in reach.
However, an idea gaining currency is that Columbus expected to find land to the west. In attempting to work their way down Africa there was a spot where ships had to sail far to the west before heading south and then east to continue down the coast. It is quite possible that some of those ships went west enough to encounter Brazil. The Portuguese cod fishermen Hudson discovered may also have been working the shoals off of Newfoundland even prior to Columbus's journey.
If there was any dockside scuttlebutt about those lands Columbus would have heard it and been aware of the fact that there was land in the west. Regardless, he did think he had landed on islands off the coast of the Asian mainland.
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| What I'm dreaming of |
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| Hurricane, Bahamas by Winslow Homer |
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| Oct 7 hostages |
Surprised to find me in your lair
lucifer?
that look is unbecoming
yes
I am well aware of your wickedness
as are the Gods
they only shake their heads in despair
and send me to do their bidding
unlike yourself
I do not crave to bestow suffering
your death shall be brief
come now
did you really believe that your empire
built on the blood and corpses of the innocent
would come without retribution?
Sin
lucifer
is never overlooked
or eclipsed by power
power you will now relinquish for eternity
say goodbye to your precious hell
and hello to a new one
for your soul shall reside in the company of those you took
a rather fitting punishment don't you think?
is that fear I detect in the eyes of the great lucifer?
your presence is awaited with great anticipation
and I shall give them their prize
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Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942) was an English artist. He primarily painted landscapes and figure studies. His early work was heavily influenced by French impressionism. Later he evolved into a more naturalistic style, although the play of light was still a feature of his paintings. In his later years he became more minimal in his work, at times so simple they almost seemed abstract.
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| Philip Wilson Steer |
Once again, we visit a small factory on the sub-continent, this time one in Pakistan. As I've said before, I like these videos because, while Western industrial videos annoy you with a soundtrack of elevator music and chipper marketing blather, these just show the factories and their processes with no comments.
These strainers are used when using loose tea to make the drink. I couldn't find the M Naseem brand on-line, so I have no idea what they cost, but I'm guessing not much. I did find the site Magic Hour that sells some rather expensive tea strainers. I guess they're needed if you are having a fancy tea party.
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Sanzo Wada was a 20th century Japanese artist. He was a painter (I previously featured his painting South Wind as the second image in the series of Sailor paintings), worked on color theory, and was an educator. After the war he eventually also did set and costume design, winning an Academy Award for his work on the film Gates of Hell.
He is best known for his Showa Shokugyo E-zukushi (Sketches of Occupations in the Showa Era), a series of wood block prints which show both modern and traditional occupations. These images are from that series.
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| Sanzo Wada |
This is a small restaurant in Japan that is ran by a single woman. Apparently, they have a lot of small shops like this. It reminded me of my youth; I grew up in an Eastern European immigrant neighborhood and there were a lot of these sort of places. However, instead of using the garage, it would be the first-floor front room of a two-story house. I have fond memories of them.
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The story of the Garden of Eden is a well-known tale and so it has appeared in art. When God created the world, he then created Adam, the first man. He decided Adam needed a companion, so he created all of the animals, but none were suitable companions for Adam. God then yanked a bone out of Adam and created Eve, the first woman, to be his companion.
They moved into the Garden of Eden which was a veritable paradise on Earth. The only rule was that they couldn't eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life. However, one day a snake approached Eve and told her, I guess snakes could talk back then, that if she ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that she would attain God-like wisdom. She then nagged (I assume it was the first historical example of wifey nagging) Adam into munching on the fruit as well.
Well, it turns out that didn't go according to plan because the knowledge they got was the knowledge of misery and death. Plus, their breaking of the rules pissed God off and he booted them out of the Garden and consigned them to a life of toil, hardship and death. Thanks a lot Eve, who knew that listening to a snake instead of the Creator would be a bad decision.
However, I'm a glass half full sort of a fellow and so, aside from the disease and poverty that Eve's snack unleashed, I'll try to highlight the positives from it. For example, in perusing the pictures of the Garden of Eden I noticed that all of the animals, hunter and hunted alike, frolicked about with each other implying that, as well as being paradise on earth, the Garden was also a hellhole of veganism. So, we can thank Eve for steaks, fried chicken and bacon. Bacon alone excuses a lot, right?
Get ready for a jollification weekend with
Betsy Chen, Leon Wong, Eric Shi, and Jing Ding.
This is a tour in Tobago which is an island laying of the northern coast of South America. It starts with breakfast and moves through the day, featuring several local chefs and dishes common to the island.
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This is a collection of paintings of pyramids. They are mostly Egyptian, but some Mesoamerican pyramids are mixed in. Because a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo surrounds pyramids they were harder to collect than I thought. There were an awful lot of images with UFOs hovering about, energy beams shooting out of them, and so forth. I ignored those.
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I was working in Tower 2 for Chuo Trust and Bank in 1993 during the first World Trade Center bombing; my one thought that day was “thank God, Dad is safe”. He worked in Tower 1 until a couple weeks before that bombing and fortunately was on the other side on lower Manhattan. It took me over 3 hours to walk down the stairs.
Fast forward 8 years, and Dad was back at Cantor Fitzgerald in Tower 1. I knew he was dead and had to tell my family. There simply was not enough time for him to get to safety.
I was pregnant with my daughter and my father was over the moon to be a grandfather. Life was good, then it wasn’t. In the few moments after hearing the first plane hit the World Trade Center, I knew my life, my mother’s life, my siblings’ lives and my unborn child’s life had changed. Dad was gone. A 56 year young, father of 4, married to his college sweetheart and future grandfather was annihilated from Earth. Just gone in a few moments. – Kristen
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These are paintings of merchant and military sailors. That is, working sailors rather than pleasure sailors. They are from different eras and nations.
This is a discussion of how hearing works in certain situations. I was particularly interested in how the ear shape and placement assists in the determination of the direction of a sound.
The typical human, being an abnormally lazy creature, will counter intuitively not work on Labor Day. Instead they will take the day off, activate their BBQ grill, and cook various types of cow muscles on it. Hahaha... how stupid can you get? And no, I don't mean ordering the cow muscle to be cooked 'well done' instead of 'medium rare', rather I mean the name of the holiday is LABOR Day after all, and so why in the world would you think that means you take the day off instead of working? - The Robotolizer
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Albert Guillaume was a late 19th century/early 20th century French artist. He was primarily known for his posters, but he painted as well. The topic of his paintings was upper-class society nightlife. He was a caricaturist and many of the details in his paintings are amusing.
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| Albert Guillaume |
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Lupino Lane from Be My King (click image to enlarge) |
Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need.
― Julia Child ―
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It is the summer, and a lot of people want to get out on a boat and get a hook wet. So here are some paintings of fishing boats, both personal and commercial, from hither and yon in both space and time.
