The salvage of the Murmansk

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The Murmansk was a Soviet light cruiser. In 1994 she was sold to India for scrapping. Enroute to India she ran aground off the coast of Norway. It was thought that she would break up in the harsh weather, but she stayed together as she turned into a rusted hulk.

By 2009 enough money was raised to begin salvage work. She was in too bad of shape to be refloated, so it was decided to build a breakwater and drain where she say so she could be disassembled. The salvage was completed in 2013 (via Deserted Places).  

Unheard songs and hearts of stone

From First Miss Soviet Union beauty pageant, 1988

The Fountain - Sara Teasdale

Oh in the deep blue night
The fountain sang alone;
It sang to the drowsy heart
Of a satyr carved in stone.

The fountain sang and sang
But the satyr never stirred--
Only the great white moon
In the empty heaven heard.

The fountain sang and sang
And on the marble rim
The milk-white peacocks slept,
Their dreams were strange and dim.

Bright dew was on the grass,
And on the ilex dew,
The dreamy milk-white birds
Were all a-glisten too.

The fountain sang and sang
The things one cannot tell,
The dreaming peacocks stirred
And the gleaming dew-drops fell.

Fever

Get ready for a pyrexic weekend with The Kabosy Brothers.

Wuhan Virus art

Illustration by Masashi Shimakawa

In my earlier post Plague Art I posted some old artwork from the Black Death and other historical pandemics. I opined that modern Plague Art might be scenes of the frenzied rush on the toilet paper aisle, but I had forgotten facemasks.

The image is by Masashi Shimakawa (I showed other of his work in the earlier post Illustrations of every day Japan by Masashi Shimakawa). I think it really isn't Wuhan Virus art because, as near as I can tell from the Google translation of the IG post it came from, it is actually an illustration from an article(?) called "Slapping the Door". I've repurposed it as plague art none-the-less.

Buying a smoothie in Saigon

The above video starts with its maker Harald Baldr buying a smoothie from a little shop in Saigon. He then goes on a short walk through some back alleys where he discusses real estate prices with his guide Tom and also runs across a number of women making money by cleaning and peeling onions for local restaurants. Below is a video he filmed of a small family owned flip-flop factory.

Plague art

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Whelp, with the Wuhan virus upon us it is time to visit older pandemics via art. These images, and those after the jump, are primarily of the Black Death, but there are a few other plagues tossed in for good measure. Hopefully, if we're lucky, future Wuhan Flu art will only be of rushes on the toilet paper aisle and not stacks of dead bodies.

Life Could Be A Dream

Get ready for fantasy this weekend with Street Corner Renaissance.

Exoplanets lead to an idiotic train of thought

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These are a series of artistic renderings of exoplanets from the image archive of the Hubble Space  Telescope.  As I prepared the images my mind, as it is wont to do, started aimlessly meandering.

Reincarnation. For those who believe in it they've either lived past lives in romantic historical times or, if they're of a more mystical Eastern mindset, they've been cows and what-not in their previous lives. It strikes me that all these new found exoplanets add layers of complexity to all that -- perhaps your previous lives took place, not on Earth, but as a warrior in a conflict in the Magellanic Clouds or as a sea creature somewhere in the belt of Orion.

Me? I'm looking forward to the next planet my essence lands on. I just hope it's not an ice world.

Time is a river

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His princess was dusty. Arpien should have expected that. Anything lying undisturbed for a hundred years would gather dust. He'd crossed the ocean to find the right sword for this venture, but neglected to pack a feather duster. ― Sarah E. Morin

Johnny B. Goode

Get ready for bumpkins this weekend with It Lives, It Breathes.

Supermarket food machines

A while back we looked at fast food from a 7-Eleven in Singapore. Today we return to Singapore to look at some supermarket food machines. The omelet cooking robots are pretty mesmerizing. That said, I did wonder how they kept them sanitized in between uses.

The Boxer at Rest

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The Boxer at Rest is a bronze Hellenistic sculpture dating from somewhere between 330 - 50 B.C. Rather than showing a heroic figure, it shows a battered boxer. His nose is broken, his lip is split and he has cauliflower ears as well as numerous cuts. The statue also has copper inlaid to represent splattered blood.

Soviet motorhead nostalgia

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These are pictures and those after the jump, are via Vintage Everyday's article 50 Vintage Pics Show Cars of the Soviet Union From Between the 1950s and ’70s. There are many more pictures at the link.

I chose ones that were in color and appeared to be pictures used in advertisements. The themes are familiar, although oddly different all the same: shiny cars, upscale locales, pretty girls and destinations the cars will take you to.

Tainted Love

Get ready for a conflicted weekend with Pomplamoose.

Foreign teachers in the U.S.

Above is a VOA produced video about Charmaine Teodoro, a Philipina who was hired by a rural Colorado school to teach math. It doesn't have any of the Open Boarder crowd tricks to conflate legal and illegal immigrants to push their agenda. Instead it is a look at a young woman who, via a J-1 visa, landed in a small American town and her experiences as she adjusted to her job.

The J-1 visa program is actually a non-immigrant cultural exchange program. Rural school districts have started using it to fill teacher shortages. Applicants to teach in the U.S. must have teaching experience and appropriate degrees as well as a U.S. sponsor. They can teach for up to 5 years.

Martian job opportunities

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Be A Martian! Mars needs YOU! In the future, Mars will need all kinds of explorers, farmers, surveyors, teachers ... but most of all YOU! Join us on the Journey to Mars as we explore with robots and send humans there one day. Download a Mars poster that speaks to you. Be an explorer!

Earlier, in my post NASA's space tourism posters, I showed a series of posters the space agency had created imagining a future of space tourism. For the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex's "Journey to Mars" exhibit they created a series of posters advertising future Martian jobs.

There are more of the posters after the jump. Large versions of them can be downloaded at the above link and printed for display.

On The Road Again

Get ready for a weekend in transit with Canned Heat.

Gone fishing

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I'm going top be out of town for a bit and it is likely I won't be posting much for a week or two. Consider this post to be my postcard from my vacation paradise -- "having a good time, wish you were here, etc., etc.".

Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby

Get ready for a Valentines weekend with Phum Viphurit.

Single screen movie theaters

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In the golden age of Hollywood theater chains were important for distributing films. Most of the theaters were single screen. In keeping with the glamor of Hollywood the theaters often had elaborate facades and interiors. As the industry evolved single screen theaters gradually gave way to multiplexes. Many of the old theaters still exist, some in disrepair, some functioning as art houses, and some now serving entirely different purposes.

These pictures, and those after the jump, are from the Library of Congress digital archive.

Hugh Hefner and Lenny Bruce engage in a blabfest

In the late 1950s and early 1960s Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame tried to break into the weekend late night talk/variety show market. The premise of his show was that you were at a high-end cocktail party. The camera would wander through the party and you might see a famous musician playing the piano, or singers, or encounter celebrities just chit-chatting.

Above is a video of Hugh and Lenny Bruce talking amidst a group of admirers. I had never seen any of Bruce's work before and what was striking is how unfunny he was. Instead he came across as a bit of a doofus with all his hepcat talk and finger snapping.

It really wasn't a bad premise for a show, but a lot of its problems was Hugh Hefner always put a damper on things when he appeared. Even as a young lad he always struck me as a pretentious pipe smoking drip in an expensive suit whenever he was on screen.

All in all the above clip is an interesting look at an artificial fantasy land from a time long past. A reminder that trendiness always devolves into goofiness as the years pass by.

Only You (And You Alone)

Get ready for a focused weekend with Rox Orduño and Fer Ortega.

Steam power without fire

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Above is an illustration and a picture a soda locomotive. They were early steam engines that did not use fire to heat water into steam. Rather, they used a chemical reaction that generated heat when water and caustic soda were combined. They were dangerous, inefficient and had short range  before the soda became too diluted to provide effective propulsion.

They saw limited use in Germany and the U.S. during the 19th century, but fell out of favor quickly.

Below is a modern fireless locomotive. They use a reservoir of compressed air or steam to power the engine. They suffer the same drawback of needed to be frequently recharged. However, they have been used in mining and industrial environments.

In plain sight

A beetle hiding among beetles at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History

(via La boite verte) 

She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing literature for the Junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and such-like activities. It paid, she said; it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones. ― George Orwell, 1984

The voters triumph over the pencil pushers

Scene from an earlier Brexit protest

Against a backdrop of the tears of EU bureaucrats Great Britain has finally been able to implement the Brexit it voted for years ago. Screw you obstructionists. Here's wishing congratulations and good luck going forward to our friends across the Atlantic.

Let's Go

Get ready to cavort this weekend with Club des Belugas.

Tarzan through the ages

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These are Tarzan movie posters, in chronological order from oldest to newest. Regardless, no matter what decade, he is a big, goofy guy in a loin cloth hanging around the jungle with pretty girls and his ape buddies. In most of the posters it appears that his jungle had a bevy of wild critters and a handy barber shop as well.

They are from 100 Years of Movie Poster's archive: Tarzan 1918-2016. There are more after the jump, and more at the link.

Bo-Taoshi (and people wonder why women live longer then men)

The above video shows some Bo-Taoshi matches. It is a Japanese sport where the goal is to lower the other team's pole to 30 degrees or less. Each team has 150 players, 75 to attack and 75 to defend. It used  to be common at high school sports festivals, but is now banned by most, only the National Defense Academy of Japan still does it annually.

The parenthetical quote is from Emily Bluntt in the comments to the video. That pretty much sums it up -- it is the type of rough housing that appeals to the male brain. Looks like fun in a painful sort of a way.

Hit the Road Jack (Feeling Good)

Put on your hiking shoes this weekend with Kled Mone.

Pictures from Scott’s 1911/12 Antarctic expedition

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These are pictures, taken by Herbert George Ponting, of Robert Scott's expedition to the South Pole in the early 20th century. The expedition was a failure, Scott was beat to the South Pole by Admundson by over a month and he and his companions died on the way back to their base camps. However, Pointing had not made the run to the pole and survived the expedition.

The pictures, and those after the jump are from Flashbak's The Great White Silence: Herbert Ponting’s Portraits from Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expedition. The are more pictures and details of the expedition at the link.

A cheap lunch in Russia

The above video is of a food court/cafeteria thingy attached to a department store in a small city outside of Moscow. The lady filming it does a nice job explaining the food and what each item costs.

The décor is utilitarian but, as a Floridian, sitting in a heavy winter jacket while eating  seems unpleasant. As for the food selection, my grandparents were Slovakian and Hungarian and I share their notion that the farther north you go in Europe the worse the cuisine gets. Then again, your taste buds may disagree with mine.

Despacito

Get ready for a slow motion weekend with JeA and Juwon Park.

All that there is

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It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive. - C. W. Leadbeater

Making big pieces smaller

An older expat and his Thai family run a small cottage industry where they cut bamboo into smaller sticks that are used as skewers for barbequing bits of meat. I liked the sounds of the family talking, the birds in the background and the rain on the tarp. However, the shot of the ants crawling on his legs and feet gave me the shivers.

Etchings by Martin Lewis

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Martin Lewis was a 20th Century printmaker and artist. Like Edward Hopper, who he briefly taught printmaking techniques, he set many of his works in nighttime New York neighborhoods. The Great Depression ended his commercial career and he spent the later years of his life teaching printmaking in relative obscurity.

These examples of his work, and those after the jump, are from the Messy Nessy post Moonlight Etchings of the Forgotten Artist who Taught Edward Hopper. There are more at that link.

Sober

Get ready to feed your addiction this weekend with Leo Moracchioli.

Fast food from a 7-Eleven in Singapore

A tour of a 7-11 in Singapore that shows us the food and drinks they have available. Needless to say, the choices are quite different then my local Floridian 7-11 with its hotdogs, cheeseburgers, Mexican foods, slurpies and what-not.

I must say, while who knows how good the quality is considering it is convenience store fast food after all, a lot of the stuff looked interesting. The elaborately packaged coconut near the end of the video was the most surprising to me.
   

The Kids Aren't Alright

Get ready for dreams this weekend with Nico Soro and Dorota Sacewicz.