November 2010
29 posts
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The Value of a Flower
The 17th century Dutch tulip market provides a fascinating historical example of consumerism and the human application of nature’s simplicities. The emerging era of luxury in Europe was defined by the ability of civilization to conquer the wilds and bring back its beauty to the confinements of private gardens. In order to display ones wealth, a flower collection was needed. Like anything within a...
October 2010
33 posts
What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?
The Stars like Dust
The bristlecone pines are a small group of pine trees that are thought to reach an age far greater than that of any other single living organism known, up to nearly 5,000 years.
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Bowling Alone
The most whimsical yet discomfiting bit of evidence of social disengagement in contemporary America that I have discovered is this: more Americans are bowling today than ever before, but bowling in organized leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so. Between 1980 and 1993 the total number of bowlers in America increased by 10 percent, while league bowling decreased by 40 percent. The rise of...
“One billion seconds ago, it was 1978.”
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Helpless and Venomous
The slow loris is the world’s only poisonous primate. Its venom is stored in an elbow patch: the loris will suck in the poison from the patch, then mix it around in its mouth before delivering a toxic bite. So, when illegal traders catch them and sell them on, they usually remove the hapless creatures’ teeth - with wire cutters. If ever an animal needed to be fast, it is the slow...
“10 percent of all human beings ever born are alive at this very moment.”
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The Basilica of Peace
“Close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man More sinn’d against than sinning.”
Along the shores of West Africa lies the once prosperous nation of Cote D’Ivoire, now plunged into the depths of political struggle and social violence. Formerly a beacon of hope for post-colonial European relations, this French...
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“One of the things that I think is really important to bear in mind is that 70...”
– Peter Cohan, May 31 2010
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The Blackwing 602
The Blackwing 602 is a discontinued model of pencil that has developed a cult following as the best pencil ever made. It was produced by the Eberhard Faber Company until 1998. Initially sold for 50 cents, Blackwings have been seen selling on Ebay for as much as 40 dollars.
It is a very soft pencil with wax addition to the lead, requiring only half of the usual physical effort to produce the...
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Every moment of light and dark is a miracle
Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.
Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his...
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David LaChapelle: American Jesus
The Arch Angel Michael
Thy Kingdom Come
Beatification
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Empire of Illusion: Excerpt on the Modern Diva
“We are chained to the flickering shadows of celebrity culture, the spectacle of the arena and the airwaves, the lies of advertising, the endless personal dramas, many of them completely fictional, that have become the staple of news, celebrity gossip, New Age mysticism and pop psychology.”
From Empire of Illusion
Chris Hedges...
I see in them and myself the same old law
Fair is foul, and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Life is an intricate balance between content and discontent. As we survive only in the smallest of moments, our hope cannot be to attain such perpetual happiness, as the Utopia. Instead we must accept that looming equilibrium, and further realize that this metaphorical scale’s naturally balanced level of condition...
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Operation Irish Freedom
Elizabeth I advised her commanders that the Irish, “that rude and barbarous nation”, be well treated; but she showed no remorse when force and bloodshed were deemed necessary.
Towards the end of the War of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651) the English Parliament sent the New Model Army to Ireland to subdue and take revenge on the catholic population of the country and to prevent...
“The low frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a...”
“Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.”
– From John Donne’s The Good-Morrow
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A Manifest on the Menace of Belief
Look not for the soil of purposeful existence, lest ye become rooted in the earth of expectation.
Instead let us waver above the confinements of belief, as seeds of possibility contained in our most free and early form. Let us not be planted in shallow principles and hollow definitions, for we will grow inevitably to be contained there. No longer should the humble acorn be entrenched in envy of...
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The Fascinating Life of H.H. Holmes
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, was one of the first documented American serial killers in the modern sense of the term. In the 1880’s, while Jack the Ripper was horrifying the world through sensationalist self promotion, this inventive American quietly engineered the model of 20th century malevolence.
A graduate of the University of Michigan’s medical school, Dr. H.H. Holmes moved to Chicago...
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The Tragedy of Northern Calloway
“You couldn’t catch me with a forty-foot rope!”
Calloway, as Same Sound Brown
Northern James Calloway was an American actor who played David on Sesame Street from 1971 through 1989, and also voiced various Muppet characters including Same Sound Brown. On Sesame Street, his character David was studying to be a lawyer, but when Mr. Hooper died, David...
“Pecunia et gloria animum boni viri superabant.”
– SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
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10.10.10.10 and the Mystic Tetrad
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the secret worship of the Pythagoreans.
A prayer of the Pythagoreans shows the importance of the Tetractys, as the prayer was addressed to it.
“Bless us, divine number, thou who generated gods and men! O holy, holy...
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Hopeful Red Stuff Woven
What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill, Scattering it freely forever.
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Wild Chimpanzees are learning how to outwit human...
Across Africa, people often lay snare traps to catch bushmeat, killing or injuring chimps and other wildlife. But a few chimps living in the rainforests of Guinea have learnt to recognise these snare traps laid by human hunters, researchers have found. More astonishing, the chimps actively seek out and intentionally deactivate the traps, setting them off without being harmed.
The discovery...
