sands of time

This wholly natural occurrence seems rather incredulous (especially if we were to encounter such a formation on Mars) but this “scratch circle” (Scharrkreise) happens when in windy wintertime a dry reed of dune grass is allowed to sweep out a perfect circle unimpeded, pivoting around its bent stalk.

tincture

Harvard University’s school of art conservation and restoration has amassed a formidable infirmary, medicine cabinet after medicine cabinet used to doctor and resuscitate faded works of art, in the form of a vast and unique collection of ancient and artisanal pigments from around the world. The public can visit this workshop and marvel and the chemistry of colour—an indispensable resource for revitalising damaged masterpieces with their true hues—and learn more about each sample’s provenance, like toxic green and the particular yellow derived from cows fed on an exclusive diet of mango leaves.

la mort et les statues

Correspondent Messy Nessy Chic documents, in a very well researched and composed article, the sad and little regarded fate of the avante garde statuary that peopled the avenues of Paris during the Third Republic.
With preservation of the many artful bronzes being the exception and not the rule, most were dismantled and melted down for scrap, lest the style or personages represented offend—or outright threaten—the occupying regime. The caretaker Vichy government of France was accused of giving into too many demands as it was, and of course the concessions that wartime France one did not solely hinge on removing controversial public art and did manage to avoid graver insult. The fact that this demolition was recorded and can be revisited presently, the figures still serve to represent all victims of war as all monuments and memorials do. Though of a vastly different character, these scenes parallel the time we visited the Citadel of Spandau to find a heap of displaced statues.

gestalting or pinky and the brain

Via the always engaging The Browser comes a fascinating investigation into the ethics of genetic experimentation and hybridisation. Such husbandry is just about marrying up the right DNA—which does present technical hurdles though brute technology is quick to obtain and accommodate pathways that are penitentially advantageous to humans as organ farms, a repository of spare-parts, but from some fronts bodes caution, lest these chimera achieve an animal-singularity.
Personally, I couldn’t say that there was some enduring uniqueness to modes of human consciousness that make us special or so horrifyingly privileged. Some ethically-minded individuals are expressing concern that a human mind trapped in a laboratory rat’s body (reading gestating as gestalting) would elicit outrage. I’d dare to submit that an unadulterated rat probably is thinking along those very lines without some imagined vital spark. What do you think? Perhaps humans ought to be spliced with some humanity.

offworld or freemasonry

The always fascinating BLDGBlog reports that a group of researchers have discovered how to create construction materials for future colonists on Mars using native building blocks in an environment apparently devoid of water. Heating sulphur to the point of liquefaction, it is mixed with soil to produce Martian concrete. The resulting bricks are relatively easy, light but sturdy, to use and are infinitely recyclable—in addition to being far less of a logistics investment in bringing supplies from home. Earthling settlers, given the weaker gravity of the planet, might be free to create impossibly ambitious cathedrals to exploration and discovery.

6x6

octarine: there’s a robust movement to name Element 117 after fantasy author Terry Pratchett, not to the exclusion of honouring Lemmy Kilmister with a heavy metal homage

★: for the artist’s 69th birthday, a review and analysis of David Bowie’s 25th album

putting on the ritz: a fascinating exploration of the luxury hotels, secret vertical villages of 1920s New York

dialogue ballons: beluga whales communicate with bubbles

montage: gorgeous, expansive architectural collages, via the Everlasting Blort

amanuensis: New York Public Libraries release thousands of archival images and seek a resident remixer

shell-schocked

Not to dwell on the negative, especially as it was my resolution to be better at detecting my own biases and be less susceptible to outside ones (nor would it be fun to have Groundhog Day fall on New Year’s Eve—as it would get to be pretty torturous quickly as a time time-loop or even as a theme-restaurant), I am given to understand that a few Silvester venues, close to refugee shelters and within shelters in general, were moved—New Year’s was not cancelled anywhere in Germany exactly as some outlets are reporting, because of fears that the celebratory fireworks might incite incidents of post-traumatic stress disorder in populations having just fled war-zones.
I don’t know what to think about this either—but it kind of strikes me as the logic used during the witch-trials: if she floats, she must be guilty of witchcraft but if she sinks and drowns she’s innocent and now in God’s bosom. It seems like a strange sort of assessment that fortunately never materialised—that legitimate emigrants would find the pyrotechnics to be pure psychological torment and those along for the ride maybe not so much. “Build a bridge out of her.” There are talks of toning down the drunken Faschings parades but I am unsure about the veracity of that, too. One ought not pin resolutions on the easiest goals but I am unsure if I can sustain these challenges.