The stink of mortality
Today Deron took me to the dump, where he and I heaved out a Jeepful of my late mother’s detritus as a thousand gulls swirled about us.
I’m going back
to Texas tomorrow, y’all. For a week, anyways.
Big party on Dutton Drive. The last waltz. The final hurrah.
“Hey, my mom’s not at home. You wanna come over?”
Forced Entry
February 19, 2010. Dutton Drive. Dallas, Texas.
Would-be thieves had broken into my late mother’s house eight or so months ago, but the kind and vigilant next-door neighbor took it on himself to padlock the door.
Baby
February 24, 2010. Dutton Drive. Dallas, Texas.
Sometimes you find things exactly when and where you expect to find them. When I entered my late mother’s house, I expected to find this old baby doll of hers in a drawer in a closet in what used to be my bedroom. And there it lay.
In the Boom Boom Room
In order to pierce the crust of Dallas, Texas subcultures, it helps to know someone who grew up here.
this unique 18-minute genre has its own requirements
From a Wired article on how to ace a TED Talk:
“I’m surprised to see that half the people here know my career in some detail and the other half don’t know who I am,” he says.
Science is fine, but not when it messes with our illusions.
If she had included solar power and African child warriors, it would have been so perfect a TED talk that there would have been no need for others.
Wolfram wraps his talk by saying that when it comes to trying to boil down the universe to a simple algorithm, “it’s almost embarrassing not to at least try.”
“Just because someone has an ego,” he says, citing a writer whose name I can’t read from my scribbled notes, “doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
Trailer for El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky. 1970)
The strangest movie I’d recommend?
Allen Klein presents an ABKCO Film.
Neanderthal Teeth
Three Neanderthal teeth, as well as knives and animal bones, have been found in a cave in Poland, leading to speculation that the site may be a Neanderthal burial ground.
“No one ceremoniously buries one human tooth,” said Schwartz, who was not involved in the research, but reviewed an early version of the paper.
a lost civilization of the Amazon?
The article adds: “This hitherto unknown people constructed earthworks of precise geometric plan connected by straight orthogonal roads. The ‘geoglyph culture’ stretches over a region more than 250km across, and exploits both the floodplains and the uplands … we have so far seen no more than a tenth of it.”
Daily Detritrus
Assorted fishwrap from New York and Chicago, a "Walking Liberty" half dollar (1935), a pencil sharpener and two writing implements, and a plastic tumbler less than half full of flat bottled water.
the hidden valleys of Mustang
The Buddhist idea of Shambhala, or spiritual paradise, may have a literal origin.
“Shambhala is also believed by many scholars to have a geographical parallel that may exist in several or many Himalayan valleys,” Coburn said.
“These hidden valleys were created at times of strife and when Buddhist practice and principals were threatened,” Coburn said. “The valleys contained so-called hidden treasure texts.”
Elaine Brook, author of Search for Shambhala, said the hidden valleys of Mustang indeed “have some of the characteristics of the mythical land of Shambhala.”
In danger of being crushed by a dwarf
Who’s up for a complete panoramic shot of Stonehenge? Anyone?
we built this city
A pre-Columbian pyramid in Bolivia may lose its World Heritage status because its walls are being reconstructed with adobe rather than original stone.
They decided to go free-hand with the (new) design … There are no studies showing that the walls really looked like this.
The Motel Xenia
Open Hours, 0730 – 1600. Hotel Xenia, Amnisos (Αμνίσος, Κρήτη) Crete. Phil Bebbington.
Everything merges. Growth and decay.
Phil’s Xenia series is a stunner.
Bluehenge
The stones have disappeared but the path of holes remains.
nero’s rotating dining room
Archeologists have uncovered what is believed to be Nero’s fabled rotating dining room.
The hall is said to have had a revolving wooden floor which allowed guests to survey a ceiling painted with stars and equipped with panels from which flower petals and perfume would shower onto the tables below.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the recently departed head of the British School at Rome, an archeological institute, said: “People have been trying to find the rotating dining room for a long time. We don’t have much idea about it except for what Suetonius tells us. It could have had a revolving floor, or possibly a revolving ceiling. “If they really have discovered it, that would be exciting.”
Kiuic
Remarkably preserved Mayan ruins in the Yucatan show almost immediate abandonment.
“The people just walked away and left everything in place,” says archaeologist George Bey of Millsaps College in Jackson Miss., co-director of the Labna-Kiuic Regional Archaeological Project. “Until now, we had little evidence from the actual moment of abandonment, it’s a frozen moment in time.”
the most perfectly preserved woman in the world
A Chinese nobleman’s wife buried 2,100 years ago is the most perfectly preserved human in the world.
Lady Dai was a Chinese nobleman’s wife in her mid-50s when she died of a heart attack. She was overweight, had diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, liver disease, gallstones and her arteries were almost totally clogged.
Her family wrapped her in 22 dresses of silk and hemp, bound her with nine silk ribbons and covered her face with a mask. All the clothes filled the coffin and it was perfectly sealed, keeping air out. There were inner and outer tombs, like nesting boxes.
Cool!
Nearly 20 gallons of an unknown liquid were found inside the coffin. A thick layer of white pastelike soil was put on the floor and the tomb was nearly 50 feet below the surface. She was surrounded by massive amounts of food, wine, lacquered dinnerware and drinking vessels, 46 bolts of silk, more clothes, books, makeup and other symbols of wealth.
Gross!
old-time crime scene
“This is an abnormal burial,” said archaeologist Will Bowden of the University of Nottingham. “The body, which is probably male, was placed in a shallow pit on its side, as opposed to being laid out properly. This is not the care Romans normally accorded to their dead. It could be that the person was murdered or executed, although this is still a matter of speculation.”
Where’s Sheila’s caution tape?
Easter Island red hat mystery
Did you know the statues on Easter Island had red hats? Me either. And the picture in the article shows them unadorned. But, apparently, the mystery of the origins of the Easter Island red hats has been solved.
Dr. Sue Hamilton, of University College, London, said: “The hat quarry is inside the crater of an ancient volcano and on its outer lip. A third of the crater has been quarried away by hat production.”
Cooper and Sheila
Forgive me for taking the low road.
Sun Ra Meets Napoleon
Over the winter of 2004-2005, the Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation sponsored an exhibition titled “Sun Ra Meets Napoleon: Fragments of the Alter-Future”. In conjunction with the exhibition, a 1990 recording of Sun Ra in conversation with jazz critic Francis Davis was released.
Read more
Overheard during the investigation of the burglary of Menkaure’s tomb
Guard 1: Pepi just can’t seem to keep his hands on the reins.
Guard 2: I’ll say. This never would’ve happened when Khufu was God-on-Earth.
We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
Sending this message was important to us.
(via @johndiesattheen)
3,000-year-old Michael Jackson Statue
