7/24/10
Work of Art
“A crime,” he said slowly, “is like any other work of art. Don’t look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark — I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the skull are all oddities in a sort of tangled wreath round one plain tragic figure of a man in black.
The Queer Feet
“Futuristic Air Travel”
Cover illustration for All Story magazine
Gouache and watercolour, circa 1900-1910
via (OvO) via trialsanderrors
7/23/10
Teorias do temperamento
«A teoria de Hipócrates
Hipócrates, filósofo grego, foi o primeiro a formular uma teoria do temperamento, baseando-a na teoria dos quatro elementos de Empédocles. Segundo ele há quatro tipos de temperamento, conforme domine no corpo do indivíduo um dos quatros fluidos corporais (humores): sanguíneo (sangue), fleumático (linfa ou fleuma), colérico (bílis) e melancólico (astrabílis ou bílis negra). Cada um deles possui uma determinada característica:
* Sanguíneo: expansivo, otimista, mas irritável e impulsivo;
* Fleumático: sonhador, pacífico e dócil, preso aos hábitos e distante das paixões;
* Colérico: ambicioso e dominador, tem propensão a reações abruptas e explosivas;
* Melancólico: nervoso e excitável, tendendo ao pessimismo, ao rancor e à solidão.
Essa teoria entrou na idade média através de Galeno e influenciou todo o pensamento ocidental.»
French logic
“I fancy you’re ill,” exclaimed Dr. Simon sharply; “but I’ll ask the next question if you like. How did Brayne get out of the garden?”
“He didn’t get out of the garden,” said the priest, still looking out of the window.
“Didn’t get out of the garden?” exploded Simon.
“Not completely,” said Father Brown.
Simon shook his fists in a frenzy of French logic. “A man gets out of a garden, or he doesn’t,” he cried.
“Not always,” said Father Brown.
The Secret Garden
Vita coetanea
«Thomas Le Myésier, a disciple of Llull’s who was physician to the French court, produced an illustrated version of the Vita coetanea containing twelve magnificent miniatures preserved in a codex called the Breviculum, now at the Badische Landesbibliothek at Karlsruhe (Germany).»
7/22/10
No
Aylmer was leaning forward, and looking at him with a strange intensity that was almost like that of a mesmerist.
‘You do believe it,’ he said. ‘You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe. The unbelievers believe. Don’t you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?’
‘No,’ said Father Brown.
The Dagger with Wings
7/21/10
7/19/10
7/18/10
7/16/10
Discount Travel
When 5-year-old May Pierstorff asked to visit her grandmother, her parents had no money to buy a rail ticket.
So they mailed her.
On Feb. 19, 1914, May’s parents presented her at the post office in Grangeville, Idaho, and proposed mailing her parcel post to Lewiston, some 75 miles away. The postmaster found that the “package” was just under the 50-pound weight limit, so he winked at their plan, classed May as a baby chick, and attached 53 cents in stamps to her coat. May passed the entire trip in the train’s mail compartment–and was duly delivered to her grandparents in Lewiston by mail clerk Leonard Mochel.
7/15/10
7/14/10
7/12/10
7/11/10
The Invisible Ghost
Martin Arnold - Deanimated: The Invisible Ghost (2002)
«Deanimated: The Invisible Ghost, is based on the 1941 horror film The Invisible Ghost with the lead actors Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young, and John McGuire. In Deanimated the actors are gradually eliminated and thus the narrative loses its coherence. What remains are backgrounds, erratic camera movements that seem to move without focus throughout the room, capturing ghostly changes in light and shadows. In this project, Arnold asks fundamental philosophical questions about human existence and presence in absence. Although the actors are missing, they leave behind traces (such as smashing bullets together, dust stirring up …) and are experienced precisely in their absence as a ghostly, unreal present.»
