Can't Take My Eyes Off You

Get ready for an ogling weekend with Stan Taylor and Luke Strand.

 

The well dressed Turk, circa 1865

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These watercolors from the 19th century show clothes that were current fashions in the Ottoman empire. The works, likely a copy from earlier paintings, were given to Tsar Alexander III when he was a young man as part of his education. 

Theses images, and those after the jump, are from Public Domain's post 19th-Century Album of Ottoman Fashion, which has more examples, as well as a discussion of how Ottoman fashions influenced European dress and costumes back in the day. 

16 Tons

 

I used to do a regular series of posts called Monday morning, start of the work week blues. This post is not a return to that, but when I stumbled across the above version of the song popularized by Tennessee Ernie Ford it reminded me of that old series. The song certainly would have fit.

16 Tons was written by Merle Travis, who came from a coal mining family. From Wikipedia: "The line 'You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt' came from a letter written by Travis's brother John. Another line came from their father, a coal miner, who would say: 'I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store.'"

Below are the lyrics to the song. Have a Happy Monday morning worker bees.

Some people say a man is made outta mud

A poor man's made outta muscle and blood

Muscle and blood and skin and bones

A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine

I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine

I loaded 16 tons of number nine coal

And the straw boss said, "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain

Fightin' and trouble are my middle name

I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion

Can't no high toned woman make me walk the line

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

If you see me comin', better step aside

A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died

One fist of iron, the other of steel

If the right one don't get you

Then the left one will

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store 

 

I Will Wait for You

Get ready for a patient weekend with Louis Armstrong.

 

Night ride on a tram in Lisbon

There are a number of YouTube videos about the trams in Lisbon. I like this night ride. However, the videos shot during the give a better idea of of how these trams operate in traffic. It is interesting how the tram lines are worked into the narrow, twisty roads that were laid out in an older Lisbon. Of course, modern cars are a further complication.

  

That empty space

Getsuya Sansui by Hashimoto Gahō

Now’s the time to close the outer door to yearning - Ryu Shiva

In order to forget the world,
I went up to the mountain
But the water is flowing down
Toward the world
Like there is something to toss
As though there is something that must be tossed
I alone am going up the mountain

Like there is something to fill
As though there is an empty place that needs to be filled
The water keeps going down
To the world below

Now is the time to close the outer door to yearning
To close my eyes,
To go inside myself
To gaze at the sparkling water
Undulating in that empty space.

 

Just My Imagination

Get ready for a figmental weekend with Midi Matilda.

 

Printing Kalamkari patterns on fabric

Kalamkari is a method of dying patterns onto fabrics. In its original form the patterns were hand painted on using natural dyes. However, the patterns can also be added, as demonstrated in the above video, by block printing. In the video it was impressive how quickly the stencils were aligned to apply the two different dyes to the pattern.

Utsavpedia's article Kalamkari explains the history and steps needed to create the fabric artwork. If you want to buy some of the fabric, you can search Duckduckgo and find many suppliers. Below are some examples of earlier and more elaborate Kalamkari pieces.

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The nocturnal paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw

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John Atkinson Grimshaw was a Victorian painter who is best known for his atmospheric landscape paintings lit only by moonlight and gas lamps. He was a self-taught artist. Also a photographer he used a camera obscura to project his scenes and get the perspective correct. During his life he was criticized for that, although one of his many admirers was the American Artist James Whistler, who admired Grimshaw's use of color and shadow. 

At the above Grimshaw link there are more examples of his work, including some daylight painting as well as a few rather goofy fairy paintings that were so beloved by the English Victorians. 

John Atkinson Grimshaw

Mama, I'm Coming Home

Get ready for a restorative weekend with John Spicer.

 

Walking in Buenos Aires

The video starts out in the Librería Grand Splendid, an amazing looking bookstore in an old theater. After a brief tour of it, the walker moves to the streets of a business district in downtown Buenos Aires. Some nice old buildings mixed in.

 

The awakening

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The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is ever marveling that civilization, should have offended him with priests and soldiers.... In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this, that he cannot make: that he can befog and destroy but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true.

We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.

― Hilaire Belloc

 

Happy Easter

 

Above is an old-timey Victorian Easter card. I'm not sure what the connection between Easter and gentlemen rabbits dueling while mounted on chickens is, but I'm sure there is a good reason for it all. Or maybe not. Regardless, have a good Easter.

 

Run Through The Jungle

Get ready for a twain meeting weekend with Hartyga.

 

An encounter in the Kuiper belt

Arrokoth is a small object, measuring 22 miles long by 12 miles wide and 6 miles thick, which orbits in the Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was discovered while the New Horizons space craft was already in flight. New Horizons was redirected to pass within ~2200 miles of Arrokoth to photograph and measure it. 

Arrokoth appears to be two small globular objects that collided at a slow speed and eventually fused together. It is the most distant celestial object yet visited by humans. 

    

Kitchen designs from the late 1940s

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In the U.S., at the end of WWII, there was fear that with the winding down of war production the economy might revert to the stagnation of the Great Depression. In fact, with all the returning soldiers and sailors looking for work, there was inflation and a recession in 1946-47. However, the post-war economy soon roared back to life. Part of it was the long pent up desires of the American public, part of it was the effects of the GI Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944) easing the soldiers' transition back into civilian life.

In the post war years, along with a baby boom, came a housing boom thanks to the low cost mortgages provided by the GI Bill. There was also a change in building methods during this period, with much more prefabrication and cookie-cutter design, as any visit to a WWII era suburb will attest. 

These images, from Vintage Everyday's 30 Beautiful American Kitchens From the 1940s, show how kitchens for the new homes were imagined and advertised. There are more at the link.

Something's Gotta Give

Get ready for an inexorable weekend with Pretty Gritty.

  

Local Japanese restaurants

These are videos of small, neighborhood udon/soba (noodle) restaurants in Japan. The captions have been translated into English, turn them on to read them. 

If you ended up in one of these places, ordering would be an adventure. Once, in Taipei, my wife and I landed in a place with the menu in nothing but Chinese (it didn't have the usual pictures). We just randomly pointed at things on the menu. The waiter looked at us like we were nuts, but a wonderful meal was delivered. We figured he just ignored our pointing and served us something sane instead. Hopefully, that's what these places would do if you dined in one.

The videos are from the YouTube channel Japanese Udon Soba. There are many more there. 

Worlds within worlds

Vivian Maier self portrait

Mirror - Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

 

Taxman

Get ready for a pocket picked weekend with Vocaloid Girls/The Strawberry Feel.