the new emotional blackmailer's handbook

Sunday, February 23, 2014

any old irons ? i'd quite like one of these 2500 year old bronze wine jars for my own dionysiac revels ...

http://inha.revues.org/3976

if you are interested in this spectacular relic, it is well worth downloading the pdf of beryl barr sharrar's essay with its fabulous pictures, via the above link

georgians revealed, at the british library ... loads of stuff, almost too much, but great fun !

http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/georgiansrevealed/index.html?ns_campaign=georgians&ns_mchannel=bl_website&ns_source=carousel&ns_linkname=more_link&ns_fee=0

and whilst we're on the topic of genome archaeology ... here's some recent stuff about the truly ancient origins of native americans, north and south

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2014/clovis-genome-settles-debate-on-indigenous-american-lineage

Saturday, February 22, 2014

there's a fairy at the bottom of my garden ...

art amplifying human knowledge

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/foreign-bodies-common-ground/the-artists/katie-paterson.aspx

http://www.katiepaterson.org/fossil/Katie_Paterson_Fossil_Necklace_Drawing.pdf

and whilst we're thinking of beads, let's note that anne frank's tin of marbles has only just been handed in by a childhood friend who was asked to guard them ..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2551751/Tin-marbles-belonging-Anne-Frank-turn-Amsterdam-70-years-gave-neighbour-safekeeping.html

Monday, February 17, 2014

notes on how to watch television from the other room ...

in mid-week, the loved one likes to catch up with the popular television drama, "call the midwife"

she watches it whilst curled up on the sofa with her laptop and just when i'm creeping off to bed in preparation for an early alarum

i find there is almost always an opportunity before i sleep to pretend to share her fascination by calling out, "is someone in labour ?" in an anxious sort of tone at the appropriate moment

i hope it doesn't annoy her

an unexpected almost-nearly-juxtaposition last week in lyme regis ... flags on the stern of a beached fishing boat beside the harbour, the sticker perhaps only a hundred yards away on marine parade

http://antifalausitz.sytes.net/

Sunday, February 16, 2014

yayoi kusama

http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/yayoi-kusama/survey-selected-works/image/page/35/

http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/_31/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama

Saturday, February 15, 2014

roy hewish aged 85 rampaging in the welsh mountains

alvi and his new torch ( part ii )

the opening paragraph of james stephens' crock of gold ...

IN the centre of the pine wood called Coilla Doraca there lived not long ago two Philosophers. They were wiser than anything else in the world except the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into which the nuts of knowledge fall from the hazel bush on its bank. He, of course, is the most profound of living creatures, but the two Philosophers are next to him in wisdom. Their faces looked as though they were made of parchment, there was ink under their nails, and every difficulty that was submitted to them, even by women, they were able to instantly resolve. The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath asked them the three questions which nobody had ever been able to answer, and they were able to answer them. That was how they obtained the enmity of these two women which is more valuable than the friendship of angels. The Grey Woman and the Thin Woman were so incensed at being answered that they married the two Philosophers in order to be able to pinch them in bed, but the skins of the Philosophers were so thick that they did not know they were being pinched. They repaid the fury of the women with such tender affection that these vicious creatures almost expired of chagrin, and once, in a very ecstasy of exasperation, after having been kissed by their husbands, they uttered the fourteen hundred maledictions which comprised their wisdom, and these were learned by the Philosophers who thus became even wiser than before.