Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Site Seeing
-----------oOo-----------
Some snippets
and sites . . .
-----------oOo-----------
Bored Panda:
40 Times People
Found Something Weird In The Woods And Just Had To Share
Photographs of
things found in the woods, well worth a look . . .
The collars of dogs
that have gone to the big kennel in the sky.
Someone has
turned the rocks into a dinosaur head.
Delightful
-----------oOo-----------
Amusing Planet:
Hermits as
Garden Ornaments
Between the 17th
and the 19th centuries, a certain reproachful and voyeuristic trend emerged
among wealthy British landowners. Not content with inanimate garden ornaments
such as gnomes and bird baths, these people hired real, living and breathing
persons, to live as hermits in make-believe hermitages erected on the lavish
grounds of their estates. Most of them were required to make scheduled
appearances on the grounds in appropriate clothing whenever the employer was
entertaining guests. They were known as “garden hermits” or “ornamental
hermits”.
-----------oOo-----------
Colossal
The Tessellated
and Elaborately Detailed Ceilings of Iranian Mosques
Capturing the
intricately tiled ceilings of centuries old mosques, Instagram photographer
Mehrdad Rasoulifar gives his followers both a history lesson and aesthetic
treat. The ceilings are not only covered in rich patterns, but architecturally
structured to appear like complex tessellations or honeycombs. The mosques are
built to include spiraling series of domes and indents, causing the viewer to
get lost in their disorienting beauty.
Smithsonian.com
People Are
Surprisingly Honest About Returning Lost Wallets
If you were to
lose your wallet in public, you might expect to never see it again,
particularly if it contained a wad of cash. But this may be an ungenerous
assumption about human nature, according to an expansive new study that found
people are more likely to try and return lost wallets with money than those
without. In fact, the more money a wallet held, the more likely the subjects
were to seek out its owner, according to a new study published in the journal
Science.
-----------oOo-----------
BTW #1
Smithsonian.com
Unrestoration
Remember the
botched restoration jobs I wrote about not long ago? One of those restoration fails has been undone.
When a botched
restoration attempt of a 500-year-old sculpture of St. George in northern Spain
went viral last summer, commentators couldn't resist weighing in: The
well-meaning paint job, many pointed out, made the wooden statue look more like
Tintin than a legendary dragon slayer.
Thanks to a
roughly $34,000 USD “unrestoration” project, the statue—housed at St. Michael’s
Church in the northern Spanish province of Navarra—has resumed a semblance of
its original, 16th-century appearance. As Palko Karasz reports for The New York
Times, experts from the local government’s culture department stripped the
sculpture of its showy paint layers, assessed damage inflicted by the use of
materials and processes “completely incompatible with the restoration of works
of art,” and largely restored the walnut wood saint to his pre-2018 state.
My own view is
that I liked the first version, before any restoration.
-----------oOo-----------
BTW #2
Another fail
Shopkeeper,
María Luisa Menéndez, was given permission by her clergy in Rañadorio in
northwestern Spain to paint some 15th century wooden statues in her local
church. She told a newspaper “I painted
them the best I could, with the colors that seemed right, and the neighbors
like it.” The work on the statues of Rañadorio looks more like “a vengeance
than a restoration,” said Genaro Alonso, the regional minister for culture and
education in Asturias, according to the newspaper La Voz de Asturias. The Spanish art conservation association
known as ACRE tweeted, “Does nobody care about this continued plunder in our
country?”
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Proverbs
Proverb:
A short, well-known pithy saying, stating a general truth or piece of advice.
- Oxford Dictionary
_____________
Paremiology:
The study of proverbs and of proverb lore.
- Oxford Dictionary
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Meaning:
It is better to have an advantage or opportunity that is certain than having one that is worth more but is not so certain.
Modern day equivalent: A hair on your head is worth two on the brush.
Comments:
It is commonly thought that the proverb dates from the days of falconry, a bird in the hand (the falcon) being worth more than two birds in the bush (the prey).
It’s use, however, dates from days much earlier and even from different cultures.
A near equivalent from the East appears in the 6th century BC Proverbs of Ahiqar: 'a sparrow in thy hand is better than a thousand sparrows flying'.
The earliest English version of the proverb is from the Bible and was translated into English in Wycliffe's version in 1382: “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” – Ecclesiastes 9:4
John Heywood, the 16th century collector of proverbs, recorded in 1546 the proverb "Better one byrde in hande than ten in the wood."
In 1743, the town of Bird in Hand was established in Pennsylvania.
The legend of the naming of Bird-in-Hand concerns the time when the Old Philadelphia Pike was surveyed between Lancaster and Philadelphia. According to legend two road surveyors discussed whether they should stay at their present location or go on to the town of Lancaster. One of them supposedly said, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," which means it is preferable to have a small but certain advantage than the mere potential of a greater one; and so they stayed. By 1734, road surveyors were making McNabb’s hotel their headquarters rather than returning to Lancaster every day. The sign in front of the inn is known to have once "portrayed a man with a bird in his hand and a bush nearby, in which two birds were perched," and was known as the Bird-in-Hand Inn. Variations of this sign appear throughout the town today.
- Wikipedia
A poem:
Here’s to America,
The land of the push,
Where a bird in the hand
Is worth two in the bush.
Here’s to Australia,
My own native land,
Where a push in the bush
Is worth two in the hand.
A final comment:
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Meaning:
An organisation (especially a process or a business) is only as strong or powerful as its weakest person. A group of associates is only as strong as its laziest member.
Comments:
The earliest recorded usage of something similar is Thomas Reid’s 1786 statement in his “Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man”: “In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the rest.”
C. Kingley stated in a letter dated December 1, 1856: “The devil is very busy, and no one knows better than he that nothing is stronger than its weakest part.”
Cornhill Magazine published an article in 1868 that contained this bit of advice: “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link; but if you show how admirably the last few are united … half the world will forget to the security of the … parts which are kept out of sight.”
A good man is hard to find.
Meaning:
Good men are scarce.
Comments:
The Bible, Micah 7:2 (King James Version):
The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
The actual phrase comes from a 1918 song by Eddie Green, A Good Man Is Hard To Find. The song’s lyrics also contain the saying:
A good man is hard to find
You always get the other kind
Just when you think that he is your pal
You look for him and find him fooling 'round some other gal
Then you rave, you even crave
To see him laying in his grave
So, if your man is nice, take my advice and hug him in the morning, kiss him ev'ry night,
Give him plenty lovin', treat him right
For a good man nowadays is hard to find, a good man nowadays is hard to find.
Mae West famously restated the proverb:
Monday, June 24, 2019
Poetry Spot: Alumnus Football
Alumnus Football is a poem written in 1908 by Henry Grantland Rice (1880 – 1954)
Rice was an early 20th-century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio. An interesting anecdote about Rice, one illustrative of his sense of honour, is that before leaving for service in World War I, he entrusted his entire fortune, about $75,000, to a friend. On his return from the war, Rice discovered that his friend had lost all the money in bad investments, and then had committed suicide. Rice accepted the blame for putting "that much temptation" in his friend's way and made monthly contributions to the man's widow throughout his life.
The poem is not as well remembered today as the final two lines but worth reading . . .
Alumnus football
- Grantland Rice
Bill Jones had been the shining star upon his college team.
His tackling was ferocious and his bucking was a dream.
When husky William took the ball beneath his brawny arm
They had two extra men to ring the ambulance alarm.
Bill hit the line and ran the ends like some mad bull amuck.
The other team would shiver when they saw him start to buck.
And when some rival tackler tried to block his dashing pace,
On waking up, he’d ask, “Who drove that truck across my face?”
Bill had the speed-Bill had the weight-Bill never bucked in vain;
From goal to goal he whizzed along while fragments, strewed the plain,
And there had been a standing bet, which no one tried to call,
That he could make his distance through a ten-foot granite wall.
When he wound up his college course each student’s heart was sore.
They wept to think bull-throated Bill would sock the line no more.
Not so with William – in his dreams he saw the Field of Fame,
Where he would buck to glory in the swirl of Life’s big game.
Sweet are the dreams of college life, before our faith is nicked-
The world is but a cherry tree that’s waiting to be picked;
The world is but an open road-until we find, one day,
How far away the goal posts are that called us to the play.
So, with the sheepskin tucked beneath his arm in football style,
Bill put on steam and dashed into the thickest of the pile;
With eyes ablaze he sprinted where the laureled highway led-
When Bill woke up his scalp hung loose and knots adorned his head.
He tried to run the ends of life, but with rib-crushing toss
A rent collector tackled him and threw him for a loss.
And when he switched his course again and dashed into the line
The massive Guard named Failure did a toddle on his spine.
Bill tried to punt out of the rut, but ere he turned the trick
Right Tackle Competition scuttled through and blocked the kick.
And when he tackled at Success in one long, vicious prod
The Fullback Disappointment steered his features in sod.
Bill was no quitter, so he tried a buck in higher gear,
But Left Guard Envy broke it up and stood him on his ear.
Whereat he aimed a forward pass, but in two vicious bounds
Big Center Greed slipped through a hole and rammed him out of bounds.
But one day, when across the Field of Fame the goal seemed dim,
The wise old coach, Experience, came up and spoke to him.
“Oh Boy,” he said, “the main point now before you win your bout
Is keep on bucking Failure till you’ve worn the piker out!”
“And, kid, cut out this fancy stuff – go in there, low and hard;
Just keep your eye upon the ball and plug on, yard by yard,
And more than all, when you are thrown or tumbled with a crack,
Don’t sit there whining-hustle up and keep on coming back;
“Keep coming back with all you’ve got, without an alibi,
If Competition trips you up or lands upon your eye,
Until at last above the din you hear this sentence spilled:
‘We might as well let this bird through before we all get killed.’
“You’ll find the road is long and rough, with soft spots far apart,
Where only those can make the grade who have the Uphill Heart.
And when they stop you with a thud or halt you with a crack,
Let Courage call the signals as you keep on coming back.
“Keep coming back, and though the world may romp across your spine,
Let every game’s end find you still upon the battling line;
For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes – not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
It's art Jim, but not as we know it . . .
Pencil art
Broken CDs art
Pipe art
Pencil art
Keyboard keys art
Bamboo art
Topiary art
Egg art
Straw art
Gabion art
Screw art
Thongs art
Plastic art
Nuts art
Driftwood art
Cigarette art
Jellybean art
Lego art
Thread art
Marble art
Shadow art
Hooks art
Stone art
Boulder art
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)