All The News Is Bad

Get ready for a bitter pilled weekend with The Stray Birds.

 

Happy May Day comrades!

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!       

 

The erosion of remembrance

Old faded photograph

And, well, I suppose that's partly why I don't have much faith in the notion of permanence.
Anything can be taken from you, at any moment. Even the past isn't guaranteed.
You can lose that, too, slowly, like water eating away at stone.
- Ava Reid - 

...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 -

 

Fences make good neighbors

Click any image to enlarge

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.

In The Jailhouse Now

Get ready for a calaboosed weekend with Cesar Benzoni.

 

Making a toaster meal

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.

 

Easter Lilies

Click any image to enlarge

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.

I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire

Get ready for a phlogisticated weekend with Hot Club du Nax.

 

Walking in Thimphu

This is an afternoon walk in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. Thimphu is in a river valley, but it is high in the mountains (7,000 - 8,500 feet) making it one of the highest capitals in the world. The mountains in the background combined with the skyscape are quite striking. 

The city itself is very clean and well maintained. The architecture and decorative flourishes are very attractive. For the most part the people do not dress in western style clothes, instead the women wear an ankle length dress called a kira, and the men a gho which is a sort of robe that reaches to just above the knees. 

The city is comparatively very quiet, with little traffic or crowd noise, which gives it a very tranquil feeling. 

 

Santiago Rusiñol

Click any image to enlarge

Santiago Rusiñol (1851-1931) was a Catalan artist, poet, playwright, and journalist active in the modernisme movement. His colors are interesting, sometimes unnaturally bright as he plays with light and shadow.  

Santiago Rusiñol

Surfer Girl

Get ready for a rip tide weekend with Dave Alvin.

 

Nuclear cooling towers

This video discusses hyperboloid shaped nuclear cooling towers and explains how they operate. He builds a clear model of one so you can see how the water and air flows within it to cycle cooled water back to the reactors. He also briefly discusses other methods of cooling nuclear power plants.   

   

Explorers

Click any image to enlarge

It took a long time to flesh out the map of the Earth. For most of human history travelling any distance has been slow, arduous and frequently dangerous. In California Spanish missions were spaced about 30 miles apart because that was a day's travel on horseback. In these days of airplanes, automobiles, and passports that is a hard fact to grasp. Our ancestors had a greatly diminished horizon. 

Of course, there were always people who wandered far to see what was beyond their homeland's borders. The Romans and Chinese knew of each other, the Vikings pushed west to Newfoundland, The Polynesians opened up the South Pacific, the Chinese explored the Indian Ocean, and so forth. 

However, when we think of explorers we tend to think of the Age of Exploration -- that period when Europeans spread out and explored the globe, leading to the colonization of the New World, the seizing India, scrambling for Africa, and imposing Concession areas in China. 

Regardless of the outcome (and cultural admixtures are frequently very disruptive) the original explorers are quite fascinating. To leave one's home on a long and uncertain trip just so see what's there is a special sort of an ambition.     

Runtah (Trash)

Get ready for a strumpet shaming weekend with

3 Pemuda Berbahaya and Sallsa Bintan.

 

Gigantic bugs

The above animated video show insect sizes in comparison to each other. To portray the insects at a human scale, he concocts a scenario where space aliens land, zap the bugs with an embiggening ray, where they then rampage about causing mayhem. I felt sorry for the poor office workers who got stuck in the spider's web. 

Come to think of it, this would make a pretty good plot for a Sci-Fi channel movie of the week. They might even be able to top the CGI of this video. They would need a washed-up actress to play the female lead. Rachel Zegler comes to mind, now that she tanked her career, she probably could come for cheap.

      

The artwork of Firmin Baes

Click any image to enlarge

Firmin Baes (1874-1943) was a Belgian artist who, although he also worked in oils, is primarily known for his pastel on canvas works. He was from a family of artists and began his career painting interior and exterior designs on buildings with his father. He soon moved onto paintings where he had considerable success. It is his work with pastels on canvas that he is most remembered for,

Firmin Baes

Livin' On The Edge

Get ready for a turbid weekend with

Séverine Ol, Bastien Phillips, Stefán J-Yvesson,

Sylvain Bizon, David Talbot, and Vincent Migeira.

 

Ebroin's Miniatures

A fellow named Ebroin runs the YouTube channel Ebroin's Miniatures. He builds dioramas and there are quite a few videos at his channel. The one above is of a small boat tied up to a pier. I must say I like the overly dramatic music used in the soundtrack -- it is rather majestic. 

  

Still life with glass

Click any image to enlarge

Glass is an interesting subject for a painter. Being transparent, its form is primarily revealed by the light reflecting from it, or the distortion of the light passing through it. Add water to the glass and you have two transparent layers reflecting and light distorting areas to add complexion to the composition.

Suspicious Minds

Get ready for an incredulous weekend with Belime.

 

Harvesting and preparing sugarcane

The above video shows a family in Yunnan, China harvesting, processing and cooking with sugar from the sugarcane. It is obviously a staged cooking show, but it is nicely filmed and put together. If you are a diabetic, you may have a rise in your glucose levels just from watching it, but they do whip-up some tasty looking food and treats.

 

Artwork of Hossein Behzad

Detail showing the Persian and Western influences
(click any image to enlarge)

Hossein Behzad (1894-1964) was an Iranian painter who started his career painting in the style of old Persian miniature paintings. He hoped to revive the style and was part of the Neo-Safavid movement. In the 1930s he moved to Paris for some time and studied Western and Eastern painting methods. He was to fold those influences into his work. 

The Neo-Safavids met some skepticism at first because at the time Western collectors were interested in antique miniature Persian paintings, and the Neo-Safavids were often conflated with the fakers who were creating forgeries for the collector market. However, over time their work was accepted as a genuine and distinct art style. 

Hossein Behzad by Morteza Katouzian

For Your Love

Get ready for a transactional weekend with The Apples.

 

Downtown La Paz

This is a video of a walk through downtown La Paz, Bolivia. It starts out on a touristy looking street with shops selling colorful local fabrics, guitars, crafts, and the like. There are also a lot of shops dedicated to hiking. I suppose one of the draws of Bolivia is hiking in the mountains. As my regular readers will guess, my passion for conveyor belt sidewalks will preclude me from taking part in that activity until they install some conveyor belt nature trails.  

He moves through the streets and eventually ends up in a public square. He filmed it during the Christmas season, and so there a lot of elaborate Christmas displays in the square. It is a lively looking place, with some nice old buildings mixed in.

  

Canoes

Click any image to enlarge

Canoes are small open topped vessels propelled by oars that are used in narrow waters. Dugouts, kayaks and the Amerindian's birchbark canoe are all examples of canoes. They were used in transportation, trading and exploration. Much of the upper Midwest, with its plentiful rivers and large lakes, were explored via canoes. Today, they are widely used for recreational purposes.  

Lazy Bones

Get ready for a languorous weekend with Matthieu Boré.

 

A dog walked into a bar...

This is a video about a 4,000-year-old Sumerian joke: a dog walked into a tavern and said, 'I can't see a thing. I'll open this one.' In this day and age, it is not exactly a knee-slapper. However, we don't know the context, or it may have been wordplay. In fact, it may not even had been a joke (it is from a tablet fragment). Still, it is an interesting video.   

 

Starblazer covers

Click any image to enlarge

Starblazer was an English comic book series that published science fiction stories and eventually fantasy stories as well. It was published between 1979 and 1991 for a run of 281 issues. Along with the fiction stories it wrote about astronauts, space missions and planets. At the link you can view all of the covers as well as flip through and read the stories and articles.