Uncategorized on Purpose
Today - London and NYC humans in public service /
Ever since Brexit I was determined to get to the bottom of it and have been calling American friends working in the UK as well as in Europe to find out a bit more about it. To me the responsibility for a nation's attitude falls on the individual. If you think there's a person worth a palace with 1000 rooms and there are others not worthy of it on account of being born here and there.. i have a problem with this. Same thing with NYC politics. You can choose to worry about your organs any way you want.. especially in NYC with around 70 bars within a mile radius.. a determined person could practically swim in bodies all day long on a daily basis. It is no big deal. But i don't know why newspapers need to worry about people's organs, i don't know why this person just doesn't get what he wants and the newspapers need to circulate pictures of his child. .. We are given one shot at 100 years to be fully aware in a soup of atoms and molecules. We are clouds of possibilities, we are free to use our clouds any way we want save for harming others.
I am off to Mars.
p.s. actually, always have been a martian .. just going home.
BE A MARTIAN! /
Games of the XXXI Olympiad Memorial Thread on REDDIT, it is the whole Olympics in a nutshell i.e. REDDIT Comments ( in case you missed it ) /
Games of the XXXI Olympiad Memorial Thread self.olympicssubmitted 11 hours ago * by iamthewookieenow
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Before I get into the many, many amazing comments, moments, pictures and general brilliance of the games I want to write a thank you to everyone that took part in these threads. I originally wrote/stole these from other websites shamelessly for /r/unitedkingdom and got about 20 comments. At the lowest these threads had 4000, at the highest nearly 11,000. You've all made my Olympics and this has been one of the nicest experiences of my sporting life (literally nothing will ever beat Ulster Rugby winning anything or this David Healy goal) but this comes very close.
These Games haven't been without their controversy, there's been doping allegations, zika worries, gender questioning, a green pool, poor sportsmanship, blatant cheating in the boxing...but still we had moments where two warring countries had competitors come together to take a selfie, we had a refugee team, we had people crying in joy because they got to see their flag raised high and their anthem played for the first time, the 20th time, the 100th time and we had people setting aside any differences to compete in a massive sporting arena. I hope that's what they'll be remembered as, the great distraction we get from the worlds issues and our own every 4 years to remember that we aren't all that different and that we can all come together for a friendly competition. Unless you sort the medal table like that you sicko! :P
I genuinely think these threads have represented the best of the Olympic spirit, i've seen people from all over the world come together and support random countries in ridiculous sports because an athletes story spoke to them or because they wanted glory to come where it hasn't before and for the most part everyone has been respectful, helpful and kind. It's been amazing and i'm so glad we did this. :) Also if you've been inspired by the Games at all, here's a link to a comprehensive guide to every sport you could imagine! Finally i'd be remiss not to mention the new Olympic Channel!
.. THE REDDIT BITS OPENING CEREMONY MEGATHREAD.
.. Top Five Comments 1) Haha "the last time a German team came to Brazil they did something unspeakable". I love the BBC. /u/iamthewookieenow 2) "We invented the plane! Fuck you wright brothers lol" /u/BiocaHD 3) Lol, the brazilian broadcaster just said that NBC tried to change the order of the countries back to English, but the IOC said no to that. /u/BlondieMenace 4) Lol our Canadian announcer loves pointing out interesting tidbits like "that person holding the flag is a weightlifter who was disqualified at Beijing for doping". /u/CrackingYs 5) Nobody but Brazillians will understand how this feels,our country so maligned,looked down upon being celebrated worldwide.Our diversity,our music.Aquele Abraço played with images of Rio made me cry.This is amazing. /u/Kirbyhiller2 DAY ONE MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Refugee team LETS GO!!!! 18 year old girl won her swimming heat! /u/gandalfswagoff 2) 3) Reddit really dropped the ball not allowing us to gift Reddit silver and bronze to posts/comments. /u/jgstate1 3) The hardest part about watching the biking is i have no idea if these people are ahead or behind other people. /u/gandalfswagoff 4) Good on that swimming ref allowing him to compete after the false start. /u/tldw 5) Fuck the Korean Archers are all real life Elves. /u/TareXmd DAY TWO MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Can NBC please stop asking silver-medaled athletes if they are disappointed. Why do they have to make everything so negative. /u/sassy_severus_snape 2) People on Twitter saying they don't care who won because Mara choked. How the fuck did she choke? She rode for almost four hours and gave it her all. /u/conceite 3) Can we just stop the olympics now and award the winners to the country winning the medal tally? /u/cockroachclitoris 4) BREAKING NEWS Russia have been completely banned from the Paralympic Games. /u/iamthewookieenow 5) Rugby Sevens is so much fun. Wish it has a bigger exposure, more people should watch it. /u/bdzz DAY THREE MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Let me just say thanks to everyone on this sub for being such a great group to share this viewing experience with over the past couple of days and the upcoming days. From answering honest questions about athletes and the nuisances of different events to providing interesting, sincere, humorous, insightful, and witty commentary, you all have enhanced this Olympics for me and for countless others. Again, thank you for this. /u/therealdynamoscotch 2) Awwwww yeeeee. Day three of hating myself as I watch people ten years younger than me accomplish more than I could in a lifetime. /u/rocknrolljedi 3) I feel like horses get punished for being smart. There's this tiny obstacle and acres of space to conveniently ride around it and when the horse tries to be helpful to the rider 'don't worry, we don't have to go over there, I know another way' they get penalty points for it. /u/gluecksritter90 4) I don't think anyone can deny that so far sevens has been an excellent addition to the Olympics. /u/tipfoster 5) BBC commentator just called her Effidoper, I'm crying. /u/nothematic DAY FOUR MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Imagine being Boomer Phelps at the dinner table in 15 years hearing dad's stories about working harder because you got a C+ in math. /u/espinmind 2) "The diving pool has turned green and no one knows why." Well, that's reassuring. /u/nikkissippi121 3) Everyone's focused on Phelps and I am here more amazed that a random Japanese guy is within 0.04s of Phelps himself. /u/harrason 4) Aly Raisman is my favorite on our team, in addition to her tremendous skill on every apparatus she actually looks like a grown-ass woman out there. At age 22 she's already over the hill in gymnastic years but I would love to see her continue competing. /u/youthdecay 5) Alright Phelps we have tolerated you for this long ... take of you skin suit and return to the planet from which you came. /u/amatteroftrust DAY FIVE MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) What a day for the British. The shit weather has unlocked our potential. /u/marauding_forward 2) Hello people. I miss you all. So whats happening today? Today I need to support our rower, Dattu. He got one incredible story. /u/nachihapter 4) I know Sun Yang is a bit of an asshole, but I just read this in his wiki, "He wanted to be a singer in his childhood and his favorite singer is Avril Lavigne." I'm not sure I can hate him now. Why you gotta go and make things so complicated, Sun??! /u/emmac02 5) "The lights are on, the pools green, I don't know what's going on" Lol BBC commentary is the best. /u/pearroc DAY SIX MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) LOL CBC. "Ryan Lochte wins it! Phelps might not even medal!!!! ... My mistake. I had the lanes mixed up. Phelps with gold." /u/rosemarysbaby 2) Just wanted to say, I'm super stoked to have found this community. It's awesome to share the joy of sport with those literally all around the world. /u/southbaker 3) Some say the Americans are still rowing. /u/fuzzedlogic 4) Genuine love and respect between Raisman and Biles. So wonderful to see young girls not pitted against each other. Pure class. /u/cashfortrash 5) Phelps swimming three events today and I'm sitting here eating a box of oreos. /u/parsnippity DAY SEVEN MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Fuck yes that 20k walk bout to be liiiiit son /u/fair_enough_ 2) So, a day late. But watching Fiji hold each other and pray, sing, cry together after their gold win. That was really beautiful. /u/cressidaa 3) Yo, my fellow Singapore peeps in this thread. How's it feel to wait for our National Anthem to be played for the first time ever in the Olympics? I am saying it right here, it's not even here yet and I already feel fucking fantastic. /u/harrason 4) ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ RELEASE THE LEDECKY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ /u/americanidiom 5) Hahaha that's a hilarious error, the organisers thought this Latvian hep lady's seasons best hurdles time was the distance she threw in shot put, so they put her in the wrong heat -_-; /u/geosaurusrex DAY EIGHT MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Reporter: "Michael, seeing your family cheering for you, doesn't it make you want to continue?" Phelps: "No, it makes me want to be with them more" This made me realize that now he'll finally have time to be something else: Father and husband. /u/MMMLG 2) "Fuck your world record" GB(NI!!!) Cyclists /u/nothematic 3) Shoutout to the ethiopian steeplechase runner who has lost a shoe /u/nickp1991 4) Realistic chance of 4+ golds today. Excited. /u/nothematic 5) I'm totally on-board with Bill Murray's suggestion that every event should have someone out of the crowd take part to give you real-life context. /u/thephotoguyupstairs DAY NINE MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) I've been really only focusing on this post and olympic reddit that when I went and browsed the front page and all I forgot how stupid the rest of this place is. I don't think I can go back. /u/MotherLicka 2) do the brits come out the womb on bicycles? /u/cryloren 3) I always feel emotional when people cry when they win, but these Brazilian gymnasts are really making me cry. And they didn't even win gold. /u/edilioescobar 4) Diego Hypolito's medal is especially sweet because in 2008 he qualified first on FX, but fell on his last tumbling pass, losing the gold medal with his fall. He actually also lost a lot of sponsorships after he failed to medal as well. Now he gets silver 8 years later! What a great event final! /u/aunque 5) Congrats to Britain and Max Whitlock! I'm delighted for Mariano and Hypolito but I feel awful for Shirai and Mikulak. Nobody deserves to have their mistakes celebrated like that and you can tell they were rattled. /u/fun_with_forks DAY TEN MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) If someone told me i had to swim to the start line of a 10km swim I think I'd have to slap them. /u/R1wy 2) I heard these horses sometimes come from small towns where horse dancing is illegal and their horse parents dont approve of such antics. /u/mortherlicka 3) I am drinking citrus punch loose leaf tea from a pot at 10:48pm watching Dressage. I have peaked, ladies and gentlemen. /u/yeahnahteambalance 4) I won't respect Dressage until I see a horse Dab /u/yeahnahteambalance 5) China, you may eventually take our second place, BUT YOU WILL NEVER TAKE OUR DANCING HORSES! /u/Blurandski DAY ELEVEN MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) BBC Commentator: 'This is a very talented, very capable horse' Horse proceeds to crash into the next two obstacles, then throws off rider. /u/gluecksritter90 2) Irish boxer: "They're cheating boxers and I don't give a fuck if I'm cursing on TV. They're cheating and they're known to be cheats - amateur boxing stinks from the core to the top". /u/pucker_pot 3) The 10k openwater is astonishing to me. Swimming 10k is long. Very, very long. Now include the openwater. Currents, waves, having to navigate yourself, even though you barely see anything in the sea. Such a hardcore sport. /u/isthisdutch 4) The commentators should get a medal for coming up with things to say about swimming for nearly 2 hours straight. /u/1852sw 5) New boxing rule that was introduced for these Olympics: decisions can no longer be appealed. hahaha /u/pucker_pot DAY TWELVE MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Andre De Grasse and Usain Bolt smiling at each other as they cross the finish line is my new favourite Olympic moment. /u/rosemarysbaby 2) Looking at the front page of reddit makes me wonder if all these people commenting and upvoting stupid shit have actually watched the olympics at all. Nothing but negativity and complete ignorance. I knew there was a reason I try to avoid this place outside of smaller subreddits. /u/MotherLicka 3) I love how Brazil is donating the gymnastics apparati to Ukraine after the games. 4) Two friends going for a jog. While one casually improves the national record. /u/isthisdutch 5) Welcome to Whose Line Is It Anyway? where everything is made up and the points don't matter just like in Olympic boxing. /u/LaternaLux DAY THIRTEEN MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) I reckon they should do an extra week of the olympics just for fun where all the athletes swap events drawn randomly out of a hat. I just want to see Bolt attempting dressage /u/drunkpossum 2) Reddit has been so unbearable when it's come to this Olympics, even though with all things considered it's been a success. If you went by what people on reddit have been spewing, you'd think it was worse than Munich where olympians were killed /u/DuhSpecialWaan 3) I don't know if people know what this is. It is fending, swimming, show jumping and combined pistol shooting with cross country running. That all sounds like a random collection of sports, but the idea behind it is that it simulates a 19th-century (time this sport was invented) cavalry soldier behind enemy lines: he must ride an unfamiliar horse, fight enemies with pistol and sword, swim, and run to return to his own soldiers. /u/nightowlanna 4) After the boxing, it's obvious these Olympics are rigged against the Irish. Making an Irish man run in the midday sun in Rio? Cost him at least 2 seconds, lucky he didn't melt into a puddle half way around. /u/surfacing710 5) Johnathon Brownlee - "Why have you betrayed me, brother?" /u/rachelkarengreep DAY FOURTEEN MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) I propose we replace this 50km walk event with the unlimited. New event called the 'walk of attrition'. To win you've just got to be the last person walking. Just days, weeks, of some poor POW looking people struggling. No spastic action, just sheer spastic will. I'd get invested. /u/cunthead 2) (Hockey) Apparently the best-paid players in the GB(NI) team all pay into a pool so that all the players earn the same. That's what you call a team. /u/tipfoster 3) Did... Did we just win a standing up gold? /u/blurandski 4) I kinda want to just start dropping Ryan Lochte into random countries and see how many days it takes to create International incidents /u/Dr-Haus 5) Haha french commentators after the 50km race walk where everyone is half dying : "So maybe this will generate some interest and motivation for this particular sport. - Yeah I'm not so sure." /u/henrax DAY FIFTEEN MAEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) Are people feeling like they've missed so much of the Olympics even though they've actually seen quite a bit of it? So many events. /u/phineusforneusfloop 2) The only upside to the olympics ending is that I might actually be able to get to bed at some point before 2am for the first time in two weeks. /u/acedino 3) Gem from the German commentator: 'They are not four men anymore, they are one boat, they have become one racing towards the gold!" /u/gluecksritter90 4) They should have told him he was disqualified before springing it on him in an interview /u/papertowelrod 5) Great that Brazil made it through, the final wouldn't have been the same without them /u/Jay-Em DAY SIXTEEN MEGATHREAD Top Five Comments 1) General mood here in Rio. /u/northernsparrow this is long so i'm not copying it all but it's worth a read 2) I think we can officially say fuck you to /r/apocalympics2016 /u/bentvnerd21 3) To everyone being sad about the Olympics coming to an end: stay tuned for the Paralympics! Those guys and gals are awesome as well and the amount of work they had to put into their training to overcome their obstacles is just mind blowing. If you liked the emotions of the Olympic athletes then you're in for a treat with the Paralympics! /u/fredelsloh 4) THEY PLAYED THE MARIO THEME FUCK OFF NO WAY /u/jvickery13 5) Bach: "I declare the Olympic Games closed" Crowd: "Aaaaaaaaaawwwwww..." /u/leverhelven FUNNY MOMENTS 1) The Mongolian Wrestling Coaches stripping in protest. 2) The Green Pool 3) Bradley Wiggins enjoying his medal ceremony 4) Hatian hurdler has an embarrassing fall after showboating 5) Spanish mountain biker crossing the line for a bronze medal 6) Fu Yuanhui's post-semifinal interview SAD MOMENTS 1) Lutalo Muhammad loosing in the last second of his Gold Medal Taekwondo match. 2) Judoka Islam El Shehaby (EGY) refused to shake the offered hand of his Israeli opponent 3) Renaud Lavillenie in tears on the podium after being booed by the Brazilian crowd 4) The 50km walk race of Yoann Diniz, the world record holder. He fainted during the race due to gastric problems. He later finished the race, 6min after the winner IMMORTAL MOMENTS 1) Opening Ceremony 2) The Triple Triple 3) The Double Double 4) King Phelps 5) Simone Biles and the rest of her team 6) After winning gold, Colombian weightlifter Oscar Albeiro Figueroa Mosquera leaves his shoes on the platform, signalling his retirement from the sport 7) Ten countries won their first gold medals (Bahrain, Fiji, Kuwait (as independant), Cote D Ivoire, Jordan, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Tajikistan, Vietnam) 8) Team GBNI became the first country to increase its medal total after hosting the previous olympics. 9) Wayde van Niekerk (RSA) coming from the outside lane to win the 400m and breaking Michael Johnson's 'unbreakable' world record. 10) Sweden over USA and Brazil in women's football 11) Juan Martin del Potro beating champion after champion to claim Silver in tennis. 12) Andy Murray beating him to become the first man to defend the Olympic singles tennis title. 13) Neymar taking the final penalty kick to win Brazil's first gold medal in football 14) Abbey D’Agostino and Nikki Hamblin helping eachother after a collision in the 5,000 meters 15) Evan Dunfee. He encouraged a fellow competitor who was suffering--breaking his stride/rhythm to do so (apparently this is important to race walkers). Then, during the final stretch of the race he was bumped by another walker and fell to fourth. After the race the bumper was DQd and he was awarded the bronze only to see it taken away when the DQ was overturned. Despite what must have been a rollercoaster of emotions he graciously accepted the decision as the correct one. 16) Heptathletes joining hands and bowing to the crowd after their event was over. 17) Brianne Theisen Eaton, the last woman standing after the heptathlon 18) Kohei Uchimura's high bar routine in the final rotation of the men's Individual All-Around competition in Artistic Gymnastics. He was in second place by 0.9 points and won by 0.1, repeating as Olympic champion. 19) Men's keirin final. 2 very close disqualification calls, in which nobody was DQ'd in the end, and a very close race on the 3rd try! 20) Chen Aisen's perfect final dive in men's 10m platform, achieving a 108.00 score. 21) The Fiji rugby team kneeling to accept their gold medals after standing in a circle and singing hymns and prayers after winning the Rugby 7s. 22) Closing Ceremony and Intro to Tokyo 2020.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Explains Quantum Computing /
Always had much respect for uncertainty. ..
Happy Monday - self-reliance and the most important page ever written /
Having recently become overly reliant on images and words from long times past, on this glorious Monday occasion I wanted to mention that the most important words and thoughts you will ever read and have are your own. No one else is more important or wiser than what you got inside. That's why we were given this faculty - and this is why the thoughts of "sages and bards" are only second to the bard inside.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
My parents, and everything /
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It probably is very difficult to be my parents and, not only because of it, I wanted to thank them for their unwavering support and for being with me in spirit and hope to see them in New York soon.
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How many do you see here? And I don't mean fingers /
Emergency Supply of Funny Videos /
Emergency supply of funny videos just in case. Sorry, no cats but plenty of Jeeves, The Office, Extras and others. I have discovered Hugh Laurie and Fry as Wooster and Jeeves... the transformations on the face of Hugh Laurie tasting that hangover elixir is priceless. Also, Larry David.
According to the NYT, a vast majority of guns used in 16 recent mass shootings were bought legally and with a federal background check /
How They Got Their Guns
A new data visualization emphasizes that there are six licensed gun dealers for every Starbucks in the U.S. - http://www.citylab.com/crime/2016/01/map-gun-dealers-starbucks/423801/ -
Mapping the Sale of Firearms vs. Frappuccinos
On The Subject of Killing /
Imagine a tiny rock in the middle of nowhere in a vast ocean of pretty much nothing. It wobbles and probably hisses, whatever it takes for it to get more round. This tiny rock becomes a bigger rock and probably wobbles more. It gets hit by other rocks and dances around a little, most likely. It grows and starts to settle. There are big dimples on this rock and these big dimples become big oceans. Now, I don't really know since I haven't been there - but there were tiny things at some point very willing to divide into more tiny things. The nature of the process escapes me and, frankly, the urge too. These tiny things at some point grew little appendages and started exploring and became fish. Fish made more fish, the Universe kept spinning, fish made it to shore and became a lizard. That didn't work out but luckily other things did work out better. So Earth tried to make large forests and put large animals in it. It practically took forever. And one day a monkey stood up and was aware of the world that surrounds it or maybe it took millennia from one monkey to another, can't tell ya for sure.
After billions of years there is man. And we are wonderful. We clawed ourselves out of the mud, we fought out the bad guys and took to the sea and then we took to space. And how far we have come for man used to be chained to the earth like a beast. We have created the Garden of Eden on earth. There are wonderful machines and tools delivering wonders to our homes. we open little jaggy things and water flows, we open chunky boxes and food comes out, we flick switches and light comes on. There are these bright screens we have conjured miracles on with dreams streaming in, hierarchy of angels as Joseph Campbell calls them.
And we are beautiful, for the most part. We command nice bodies with versatile trimmings, we command consciousness with imagination, we command machines with wonderful properties, we command a lot of the earth and the sky, and the oceans, well to some degree but looks like we are getting better at it. We put designs of the mind through ores and out come fantastical creations for the first time in billions of years.
As far as I am concerned we are gods walking this planet.
And then there's the gun store on the corner. It takes a jury of 12 men to convict and sentence to the death in our land.. it takes years of deliberation, lawyers and paperwork and until the end someone fights for the life of this man or woman.
And then there is a gun store on the corner, with ready made weapons engineered to take the lives of dangerous criminals and animals. Anyone could become a judge and jury on tens and hundreds of people, and take a life, in an instant.
Killing has become trivial, merely a shopping experience.
Why did we bother then to create and build a civilized nation our of this large chunk of ground. Why cross the seas, why brave Ellis island and make all the skyscrapers in New York, why make a California out of the desert when we still fear getting shot downtown? I recently drove through Oakland in California with a map of the latest killings and robberies on my phone to make sure to find a parking spot with the least likelihood of getting shot. I just don't like killing, man, and I don't like dying. I have this instinct built in me to make sure I stick around. It is our DNA and common sense built into every living human. It is time to put common sense into how we govern our nation and where we want our nation to stand, on the subject of killing.
Small talk and other small things /
We do not need to communicate novel ideas in order to engage socially. Often we use language to reinforce our current standing in the world and to reaffirm having something in common with others. One of the great things about reddit is that I found out how many idiots just like me are out there which was very reassuring. I am saying that about reddit with affection as I have learned a lot about the world and myself through that little social media folly.
/u/Prince_Jellyfish on the purpose of small talk. (reddit.com): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3ss8oz/people_with_high_social_skills_whats_the_biggest/cx02xgd
[–]Prince_Jellyfish 2689 points 6 months ago*x3: This will get buried, but I'll say it anyway in hopes that someone will find it useful:
Solidarity talk: http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Solidarity-Talk.htm
Fresh off the presses - a great thread on reddit that shuttered my own Tuesday feelings of self-importance. If atoms are 99% 'empty space', how big would the universe be if we compressed every atom down to it's most space efficient arrangement, essentially leaving no space between particles?: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4mvupc/if_atoms_are_99_empty_space_how_big_would_the/
"...We are more like disturbances in the cosmic pool of probability and causation.." literally blew my Tuesday mind, I am gonna try and make it to the weekend without going insane.
How To Count Past Infinity - we came up with Omega.. and it was good /
Thanks to Cedrick Collomb for this large dose of Omega.
Curiosity Looks Back /
televisions, meat, diamonds, couches, brand new lawns, pools of various sizes, lawn chairs, wars for all of the above... yet Curiosity is roaming completely oblivious to all of this. Down the thread on reddit people are getting excited about dirt biking on Mars, just like back home. What a great time to be alive.
Thanks to reddit and https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/4ktoha/curiosity_looks_back/
Curiosity Rover mission page on NASA's website: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html
( funny thing, it turns out i like (reddish) brown, my dad likes brown and from what he told me my grandma also liked brown )
Everything you ever need to know /
I wanted to be an astronaut when I grow up and thanks to the internet I guess I am. From the little comfort of my bed and my mac I watch little people take spacewalks on NASA tv, which should be the only kind of television politicians are allowed to watch. It is apparent there are no divisions out there, no fences, no one else to laugh at us for about at least million light years.
The magnificent sculpture of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) - now at Asia Society in NYC until May 8 /
Thanks to my dear friend Janet for telling me about this show.
Notabe artworks:
Kamakura Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan
More about the show on the Asia Society website: http://asiasociety.org/new-york/exhibitions/kamakura-realism-and-spirituality-sculpture-japan
Kamakura Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan - the Catalog: The Kamakura period (1185–1333) is considered a pinnacle of Japanese artistic expression, often described as a renaissance in Buddhist art. This catalogue is the first in over two decades to examine the exquisite sculpture of this period, artwork characterized by an intense corporeal presence, naturalistic proportions, a sense of movement, realistic drapery, and lifelike facial expressions animated by eyes made of inlaid crystal. Essays by noted scholars explore the sculptures’ arresting exteriors and powerful interiors, examining the technical and stylistic innovations that made them possible, and offering new context for their ritual and devotional uses. They demonstrate that the physical beauty and technical brilliance of Kamakura statues are profoundly associated with their spiritual dimension and devotional functions.
New York Times review:
Spellbinding Treasures From Japan’s Kamakura Period at Asia Society
Ancient Rome in HD /
Ancient Rome is such a powerful symbol, visually and aesthetically, as well as in terms of ideas, its battles and wars, the powerful personalities that blasted their thoughts across the centuries. Remember I spent hours with ancient Roman marble busts from the Vatican, just like with old friends. Here is Caesar's marble bust ( all photographs in this post I took during a Christmas in Rome ), video by Khan Academy :
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The walls of this gallery at the Vatican are lined with marble busts:
Visited the Colosseum in the evening on Christmas day and it was absolutely a solitary and beautiful experience, with a bit of drizzle and without a single living soul in sight.
