Kilroy, B.C.
This spooky image was made by one man (a man, I assume), about 5’10” tall, using just his right hand to apply pigment…
…upwards of 30,000 years ago, making this thing and all the artwork in Chauvet Cave about twice as old as that in the famous Lascaux caves, discovered in 1940. Actually, it looks to me like there were two pigments, a dark charcoal-y pigment followed by a pale yellow one, giving the drop shadow effect that makes these pop off the wall in such an alarming way. Chauvet was discovered (also by accident) in 1994 and there has been controversy about the dates, but the carbon dating of pigments and bones has been repeated several times from many different spots in the cave.
I actually think the drawings in Chauvet are more sophisticated than Lascaux (though similar in style), and beautiful…and I’m not just saying that because you’re supposed to think ugly, primitive crap is wonderful. I generally hate folk art in all its ugly, primitive crappiness. These drawings are well-observed and rendered in a suprisingly sophisticated way, given that the artist(s) had nothing but dirt and soot to work with.
If you like this kind of thing, you can burn many a happy hour at Don’s Maps, the website of Don Hitchcock. who I assume is an archeologist (a modest fellow with no About Me page). Yes, there are maps, but mostly there are hundreds of pictures of archeological sites and artifacts from around the world.
UPDATE: oh, pooh! Fie! And also piffle! That hands image isn’t a real cave image, it’s a computer reconstruction of how the “bison made of dots of red” wall art was created. Thanks to Crabby Old Bat for swinging the clue bat. The rest of the art is still way cool, though.
July 2, 2012 — 10:16 pm
Comments: 21
Something light and fluffy
Awesome confluence of man and t-shirt, from Anorak‘s picture of the day. If you don’t read Anorak, you should. Our good friend David Burge (AKA Iowahawk) is a contributor.
That’s it. Have a good weekend, folks. Forget about SCOTUS and POTUS and FLOTUS for a couple of days.
Me, I have to go make cupcakes for the church bake sale.
Yes, really.
Ehhhh…fuck off.
June 29, 2012 — 9:31 pm
Comments: 22
Breaking my heart, it’s what SCOTUS is *for*
Or you can regard that object as the warm, throbbing heart of the Republic. Justice Roberts joins the liberal justices to declare Obamacare legal, by renaming the mandate a tax. So even if we get this puppy repealed (a big if), the precedent is there — there’s nothing Congress can’t make you buy. Hope you like broccoli.
You won’t believe me, but I had a bad feeling about this one. And the more our side declared tentative victory, the more the hair on the back of my neck itched.
I wonder if lefty journalists are scrambling to pull all those articles about how 5-4 decisions prove the court has devolved into a stinking hotbed of political hackery.
June 28, 2012 — 2:30 pm
Comments: 49
Yeah, that guy
Y’all know Rick Locke. You know, the Temporary Duty guy.
Dude is writing a sequel, but he absolutely refuses to finish it without more oxygen. (I know, I know…these creative types and their needs.)
Go. Check it out. Say something nice to him. Give him a money. Give him several moneys.
Don’t make me go all Jerry Lewis up in here.
June 27, 2012 — 7:49 am
Comments: 18
Brrrrr…
Oh. Ick. This just gets worse.
First it was Michelle inviting us to sign a Father’s Day card to Barack. Then it was the whole tacky wedding registry thing.
You know, maybe he didn’t sign off on those personally. But the latest Win Dinner With Barack contest includes a creep-inducing YouTube video of Barack and Michelle reminiscing about their first date. Right on the page. Right there. On the page.
The tagline on the video is “Want to join them on their next date night?” Double-dating with the Preezy of the United Steezy.
Oh. Ach. She’s just retweeted the link.
Oh, this is so. Not. What I want from a political figure.
June 26, 2012 — 9:51 pm
Comments: 18
Look! Kitten!
Good lord! Is that the time? I haven’t done a blog post yet.
Hm. How about a kitten picture. Everyone loves kittens.
There. Now, if I can only not do that weird thing where I type out my stream of consciousness into the text box, I might just get away with this.
Hehheh. Friends are trying to get us to take this kitten. Well, a kitten; this one was suggested. He’s a handsome rascal, but no. If I’m going to make Charlotte hate my guts again, I’m not doing it for anything less than that ginger tom I’ve always wanted. Or a savannah. Or a snow leopard, that’s the ticket.
June 25, 2012 — 10:41 pm
Comments: 32
Oh, holy god.
It’s real. And somebody signed off on this. A lot of somebodies (though presumably not Obama hisself).
Got a birthday, anniversary, or wedding coming up?
Let your friends know how important this election is to you—register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift. It’s a great way to support the President on your big day. Plus, it’s a gift that we can all appreciate—and goes a lot further than a gravy bowl.
Setting up and sharing your registry page is easy—so get started today.
Because it’s not your big day. It’s his.
Via the delightful — but no relation — Weasel Zippers. Good weekend, folks!
June 22, 2012 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 37
Speaking of Druids
So there’s this guy, who is the reason why cremation is legal in the UK.
William Price (1800–1893). Welsh doctor, Chartist, neo-druid, nutcase.
The Chartists were the first mass labor movement, and when that gig hotted up for Price, he fled to France until things cooled off. There, he spotted a rock in the Louvre with a Greek inscription, which he believed to be an ancient Celtic bard’s address to the moon. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that’s what’s sewn onto his jaunty longjohns there. No word whether he borrowed Joseph Smith’s magic rock for the trip.
So he became a druid. Arch druid. And named his first born Iesu Grist (Jesus Christ in Welsh) just to piss people off.
It worked.
So when the poor baby Jesus Christ Price died as an infant and Price decided to cremate him on a hilltop, there was trouble. Angry pitchfork wielding mob type trouble. An autopsy showed Jesus died of natural causes, so he was just charged with the cremation.
Much to everyone’s embarrassment, it turns out cremation was not actually against any law. Also, Price did a darned good job pleading an anti-burial case.
He walked free. His trial, plus the nascent Cremation Society of Great Britain, led to the Cremation Act of 1902.
Price’s last words were, “bring me a glass of champagne.” He drank it and died. At his request, they cremated him on the same hillside where he had cremated Jesus Christ. Twenty thousand people turned up for the event and they drank the pubs dry.
The end.
June 21, 2012 — 10:29 pm
Comments: 30
Whur’s my shootin’ iron?
These things go over so low, it’s tempting to pour out the front door in a loincloth, shake a spear skywards and go, “ulululu!” at them.
Awesome day in the sunny South today. When this climate is nice, it is the best — warm in the sun, cool in the shade. It’s turning to rain tomorrow for a few days, so we spent the evening sitting out in the garden drinking fizz and burning junk in the chimenea.
Happy Solstice! Okay, it’s tomorrow, but the Druids have started their sundown procession up to Stonehenge, so y’all can sleep safely in your beds tonight.
June 20, 2012 — 11:04 pm
Comments: 22
So…
Greece is going for the popular “tear the bandaid off slowly” gambit. And for “popular” read “psychotic” throughout.
I’m not sure how clearly this is coming across to you over there, but the troubled economies of Europe are insane. I can’t say it more succinctly than that. I am only just realizing how deeply, irredeemably insane.
Greece believes it can say no to cuts and it will stay in the Euro anyway, no matter how many times they’re told otherwise. The new Socialist government of France is limbering up its taxation muscles, ready to drive more prosperity out of France at the worst possible moment.
At the G20 summit, when a Canadian reporter asked European Commission President José Manuel Barroso why North American should bail out Europe, he answered
“We are not coming here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to manage our economy…”
“This crisis was not originated in Europe,” Mr. Barroso said. “This crisis was originated in North America. Many in our financial sector were contaminated by unorthodox practices from some sectors of the financial market.”
Which sounds an awful lot like the popular “fuck you, give me a bunch of money” gambit. And you already know what I mean by popular.
Honestly, you have no idea the deep and irrational belief the peoples of Europe have in the power of the EU — a union that is neither particularly old nor conspicuously successful.
Greece is thumbing its nose at Brussels and the demands of Germans not because they don’t care about the euro project. Quite the reverse. They don’t believe they can be kicked out for their shenanigans any more than California will be kicked out of the USA.
I wish they’d tear the damn thing off and get it over with.
June 19, 2012 — 10:09 pm
Comments: 35