palimpsest or spine-tingling

As The Guardian reports, x-ray techniques similar to those methods that have revealed artists’ earlier versions of iconic works or teasing out the script from the scorched manuscripts of Pompeii are now as being applied to the bindings of early printed books and discovering fragments of much older texts.
Antiquarians have known that it was common practise after the introduction of the printing-press for book-binders to pulp spare handwritten manuscripts (considered obsolete) in order to strengthen the covers of new editions. Once considered lost to the ages, researchers can know explore and reconstruct what’s within with non-invasive means. Only a small sampling from the University of Leiden has been examined so far with this technology, but with millions of older volumes in libraries across the globe, who can say what might be hidden?

ginsburg precedent

A newly classified species of Praying Mantis, named in honour of the Notorious RBG, the Ilomantis ginsburgæ, represents a significant departure from the usually gender-bias of taxonomists and biologists, which had heretofore almost exclusively (for reasons) isolated unique exemplars by male representation. When told (mansplained) that looking at lady bits had no taxonomical value, one researcher became more determined and found a new specimen within the genus and designated it after the equal rights champion and US Supreme Court judge.

player-piano or à quatre mains

I did enjoy seeing this demonstration called “Andante” by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Tangible Media Group, which aims to reformat performances as interactive, collaborative and engaging for all the senses. Figures gallop and dance over the keyboard with the music and the video of the duet (piano four hands) is really amazing, and I bet such a show could be a tutor for instrument-lessons.

alhambra

Antoni Gaudí, perhaps best known for his exquisite though not slated to be finished until 2026 basilica Sagrada Família in his native Barcelona, also designed a colossal hotel to dominate the skyline of New York City.
Called Hotel Attraction, the renowned architect submitted the blueprints in 1908 but was deemed structurally unsound for construction methods of the time. Originally proposed for a location somewhere in Lower Manhattan when it was known as Little Syria but before the establishment of Radio Row and later, to reverse urban-blight, the World Trade Center, Gaudí’s sketches were among the contenders for rebuilding at Ground Zero—and arguably a far better and purer memorial and testament (since the architect’s ego was not involved in the project) than the ghostly pillars that carried the day.

mid-century māori

Collectors’ Weekly has very circumspect and well-researched article on the graphic artist Marcus King, whose tenure at the country’s board of tourism (the first nation in the world to create a ministry for that express purpose) helped tout remote and exotic New Zealand to the traveling public and celebrated its aboriginal peoples and culture.  Being rather a tough sell, owing to the particular challenges of reaching the island, King and other artists of his time necessarily had to be prolific in promotion. And though a demographic-shift in the availability of global transportation has made visiting New Zealand more attainable, the far-away allure is evinced by the effect that the Ring cycle of Tolkien has had of late as heir to this business of selling a setting. Be sure to check out the full vignette on Collectors’ Weekly to learn more and to browse a gallery of these vintage travel posters.

the un-dead or working-title

A recent entry on the superb Futility Closet informs on the early character-sketch of Count Dracula through Bram Stoker’s preliminary notes outlining the novel. Among the draft attributes that did not make it into the original story but are sometimes woven into later popular mythology—surely a remnant of folklore—are:
the inability to be photographed (shows up as a skeleton) or captured in painting (ends up with the likeness of someone else) and is tripped up whilst crossing thresholds, unable to do this without assistance.  Arithmomania is not among the strengths or weaknesses, but interestingly, Dracula was to have picked his destination, engaging a solicitor through a form of rhapsodomancy, consulting Virgil or various classic poets’ random verses for guidance. Alternately, the Count was to have dabbled in bolomancy—that is, throwing darts at a map. Incidentally, such practise of bibliomancy, usually turning to the Bible, were not condemned by the Church as witchcraft and were perfectly acceptable means of seeking guidance and council, whereas the casting of bones or favomancy (divination through tossed beans) and the like were judged sorcery.

panorama or pictures of the floating world

Via the always extraordinary Nag on the Lake, we are treated to a modern day homage of the iconic series known as Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai with the comprehensive illustrations of Shinji Tsuchimochi of his home town, Tokyo. Though not quite the multi-year endeavour of Hokusai (beginning in 1826 and taking seven years to complete), Tsuchimochi’s project, the Hundred Views, has taken three years and captures the spirit of the genre—which roughly translates to “pictures of the floating world”—with some whimsical details and cultural touchstones.

unreliable narrator or where is my mind?

Æon magazine (which I realise that to my peril, I am not reading as often as I ought) presents a really fascinating proposition on the philosophy of the mind that suggests that perhaps we are not our own privileged witnesses to our own internal narrative and that the inner-workings of our thoughts are as inaccessible to our conscious-thinking as those presented by others around us.
As we mature, we (hopefully) through a capacity for empathy learn to understand expectations and to reasonably interpret the thoughts of another and react according. What if, however, our treasured internal monologue were only just as “superficial” as our limited mindreading abilities turned inward? If empathy works well enough for social beings, why add another speaking-role to cognition? Evidence in support of this position lies in a battery of tests that demonstrate how individuals readily assign volition (preference) to purely unconscious choices—not that we cannot be aware of our motivations, just that a lot of our actions and beliefs might be less transparent than we’d like to think.