“In the 1920s O G S Crawford invented aerial archaeology, one of many services this eccentric Marxist misanthrope performed for the study of antiquity.”
- Jonathan Meades: Link

Bloody Old Britain: O G S Crawford and the Archaeology of Modern Life

By Kitty Hauser

Granta Books, 286pp

Amazon: Link

“Future archaeologists will perhaps excavate the ruined factories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the radiation effects of Atom bombs have died away.”
- O. G. S. Crawford, from Archaeology in the Field (1953)

O. G. S. Crawford @ Wikipedia: Link.

~ Karl Jones

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Rome: It’s beautiful and it’s not. Kinda like everything else in life.

“La prossima fermata è Roma Termini.”

I moved to Italy to live at the end of September last year. I lived in Brescia (a medium-sized city in Northern Italy) until March 1, when I moved to Siena.

(I am once again back in Brescia, but that’s a story I’m going to save for another day.)

I picked up some vocabulary during those first five months in Italy, but it wasn’t until I started attending an Italian class for immigrants in Siena that I really started learning the language.

Now, finally!, I understand much of what is being said either to me or around me. The language no longer sounds foreign or like pretty sounds flowing forth from people’s mouths. Although I’m more motivated to learn the language–because it finally seems like an achievable goal to converse fluently–the glossy veneer of the nonsensical musical sounds has dulled. I don’t know, there’s something about understanding when somebody complains about the weather (or conversely, the ease in which I can complain about it) that makes any language sound less romantic.

Shiny glossy veneers are so overrated. Don’t you think? I mean, a veneer is just a thin expensive sheet of wood (or metal) with layers upon layers of unusually toxic clear varnish. If it wasn’t for the common cheap material beneath (like pine or regular mild steel), the veneer would have nothing to attach itself to.

And I’ve always preferred the look of a dull, used or aged finish anyway…and now that I’ve exhausted my analogy I’m finished with this post.

But one more thing before I go to bed on this hot summer night: it is nice to know that you can simply listen to the conductor to know when your next stop is and not have the nervous wondering of whether you’ve missed it or have yet to arrive.

Arrivederci a dopo.

~Janelle Renée

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Natural Touch is a Non Governmental Organisation based in Calabar the Eastern part of Nigeria.The inspiration come from a point of observation of handicapped people and Children roaming the streets of some citites in Nigeria mostly in Calabar begging for alms.
Most of them at the end of the day retired to uncompleted buildings to pass the night,It was a very gory site when a reported case of ritual dehumanising killing of two of such people in a street close to my residence.These two were killed and some part of them remove for rituals activities or some other things not quite known to us.

So touched by such inhuman treament to people because of their inability to defend themselves or provide proper accomodation for themselves,and even a source of livelihood was traumatic,hence,my decision to get the NGO (NATURAL TOUCH) started,with the aim to provide food and shelter for the hanicapped.Make sure there is a future for them and security of life for them.

Upon our inception,we had limited our intention to mostly the young ones and average aged.Although we could not provide accomodation for them but we  provide the basic needs which is food for them atleast once a day.

It is our aim to increase the feeding arrangement to twice a day and also build a home for them.It is our aim to accomodate at least 2000-5000 handicapped people of difiers ages in the home,and Animals too.
With support from other Organisations/Individauls that are touched just as we are.We will establish a school or a handicraft centre for them to study and become independent of their own in future.
Suffice to say here that most of them roam the street with torn cloths and look unkept,We also provide clothing where necessary and affordable to them.
Based on our inability to sustain the financial burden,we are looking forward to Groups or Individuals with similar passion as we have towards uplifting the living standard of these hadicapped and also thinking of ensuring their future.

We are planning of building a home for them in Calabar to accomodate the handicapped and also recruit personnels to take care of their cooking and tranining.
We look forward to support  from passionate groups and individuals.
Thanks,
Dennis

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Technology for human needs:

• The Outquisition
• Engineers Without Borders
• MIT International Design Summit
• Free/Open Appropriate Technology
• Transition Towns
• Technology for Humanity

(...)
Read the rest of Technology for Humanity (735 words)

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Rosetta Project

The Disk surface shown here, meant to be a guide to the contents, is etched with a central image of the earth and a message written in eight major world languages: “Languages of the World: This is an archive of over 1,000 human languages assembled in the year 02002 C.E. Magnify 1,000 times to find over 15,000 pages of language documentation.” The text begins at eye-readable scale and spirals down to nano-scale. This tapered ring of languages is intended to maximize the number of people that will be able to read something immediately upon picking up the Disk, as well as implying the directions for using it—‘get a magnifier and there is more.’

On the reverse side of the disk from the globe graphic are 15,000 microetched pages of language documentation. Since each page is a physical rather than digital image, there is no platform or format dependency. Reading the Disk requires only optical magnification. Each page is .019 inches, or half a millimeter, across. This is about equal in width to 5 human hairs, and can be read with a 500X microscope (individual pages are clearly visible with 100X magnification).

- rosettaproject.org.

“We hatched a plan to produce a 3-inch non-corroding disk which contained at least 1,000 translations of Genesis and other linguistic information about each language.”

How could a society think in terms of centuries unless there was a reliable way to transmit and store its knowledge over centuries? This puzzle was the focus of a conference hosted by Long Now in 1998, dedicated to technical solutions for Managing Digital Continuity. At this meeting Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive suggested a new technology developed by Los Alamos labs, and commercialized by the Norsam company, as a solution for long term digital storage. Norsam promised to micro-etch 350,000 pages of information onto a 3-inch nickel disk with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years.

Might it be possible to etch an entire library onto a set of disks? It might be worth trying. All we needed was a finite data set that a society might want to have backed up.

During a Long Now field trip to a southwest archaeological site, the idea of a modern Rosetta Stone came up — a backup of human languages that future generations might cherish. At a winter retreat in 1999, Long Now board member Doug Carlston suggested that for the parallel common text of this modern Rosetta Stone we should use the book of Genesis, since it was most likely already translated into all languages already. We hatched a plan to produce a 3-inch non-corroding disk which contained at least 1,000 translations of Genesis and other linguistic information about each language.

Following the archiving principle of LOCKS (Lots of Copies Keep ‘em Safe) we would replicate the disk promiscuously and distribute them around the world with built in magnifiers. This project in long term thinking would do two things: it would showcase this new long-term storage technology, and it would give the world a minimal backup of human languages.

This business side of the disk is pure nickel. Picking it up you would not be aware there were 13,500 pages of linguistic gold hiding on it. The nickel is deposited on an etched silicon disk. In effect the Rosetta disk is a nickel cast of a micro-etch silicon mold. When the disk is held at the right angle the grid array of the pages form a slight diffraction rainbow. You need a 750-power optical microscope to read the pages.

… The Rosetta disk is not digital. The pages are analog “human-readable” scans of scripts, text, and diagrams. Among the 13,500 scanned pages are 1,500 different language versions of Genesis 1-3, a universal list of the words common for each language, pronunciation guides and so on. Some of the key indexing meta-data for each language section (such as the standard linguistic code number for that language) are displayed in a machine-readable font (OCRb) so that a smart microscope could guide you through this analog trove.

- Kevin Kelly @ kk.org: Link.

Via Slashdot.

The Long Now Foundation:

The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

~ Karl Jones

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This link has an article about a mummy that was found in Peru. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080827/sc_afp/peruarchaeologymummy_080827094305 Neal Robbins

A gorgeous tribute to Jesus and Christ Consciousness created by  K. KRISHNA DAS. Another masterful, sweet work of art.  Enjoy!

~Bonnee Klein Gilligan

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These links have photos of Pende masks from Africa. http://www.africadirect.com/productsdesc.php?ID=9956 http://www.africadirect.com/productsdesc.php?ID=35634

by: James Schwartz

To my birthday boy on his twenty eighth

On August thirty first two thousand eight

I present to you my poetic faith

A man of your own ideals: gay or str8.

To my longtime muse I present a toast:

May your year be of wine, roses and song

May your year be another year to boast

Of after hour adventures all day long.

Your future writ in the palm of my hand

Your dreams and mine intertwine in my ink

Your past a confusion I understand

Our reality served with a chilled drink.

Ever in gaiety, Jazz Age rages

Literary love can stun the ages.

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Enmerkar was a legendary Sumerian king. Samuel Noah Kramer tells about him in this excerpt from The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character: In 1952 I

Malcolm Lawrence Editor-In-Chief Babel: The multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas. http://en.towerofbabel.com/blog ...

This link has photos of a Shona elephant statuette that is made of verdite. There is also an essay on the website.

"earth album is a simpler, slicker Flickr mash-up that allows you to explore some of the most stunning photos in the world courtesy of Google maps and Flickr.

- That's interesting; my sign of the zodiac is Libra. I guess that would also be his sign. Neal ... thanks for ... com ... whose ... a busy one

Samuel Noah Kramer discuss the An and Eanna temples in his book The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. This excerpt says: Farther to the north

These links have photos of artifacts from Uruk (Erech). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bull_Warka_Louvre_AO8218.jpg A bull sculpture from the Jemdet Nasr

This link has an article on a study about Monkeys getting joy out of giving. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080826/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_monkeys_giving Neal Robbins

By Rossitza Ohridska-Olson
From Saturday till September 10th, the Bulgarian and foreign artists will gather for the 24th issue of Apollonia Art Festival. The most charming part of it are the jazz concerts and the surroundings of the ancient city of Sozopol (Apollonia – the city of Apollo, the patron of arts). During the communist times this festival was a fresh breath of democratic art since it  “allowed” participation from “enemy” countries, such as France, Germany and the USA.
Now is becoming bigger and bigger. There are artists even from Burkina Faso, and of course Bulgaria, Russia, USA with a 12 days program divided between classical and modern music, literature, theater, movies and visual arts.
For those who want to visit it, the program is here. If you need travel arrangement, please write me and I will find you an agency to take care of your request.

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Finding myself in Rome, Paris, Florence, Venice, New York….
by David Arthur-Simons

Part Five

From the Capitoline Hill, it became clear that the Colosseum ….

David Arthur-Simons

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Amazonian Shaman. Pastel  9″ x 12″.

Spiritual, esoteric. A highly respected teacher, holy man, psychic, singer and healer. Penetrating, revealing. Original was commissioned. 

Giclee prints are available at Spirit Art Gallery.

~Bonnee Klein Gilligan

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Cindy and Malcs, Many thanks for those kind words. I've been taking care of a few family and health issues, and haven't had too much time to enjoy the list as

I'm hooked. Rudy ... -- Regards, Rudy Carrera http://clcx.org/ http://rudycarrera.com/ http://myspace.com/racarrera

Thanks kindly, Neal. The day was wonderful. R- ... -- Regards, Rudy Carrera http://clcx.org/ http://rudycarrera.com/ http://myspace.com/racarrera

“By and large … comics are long-lived.”
- Dick Cavett

From the blog of Dick Cavett, some thoughts on the profession of comedy:

“Few comedians kill themselves. (Maybe because audiences so readily do it for them.) Young Freddie Prinze comes to mind. At least two in recent years have indulged themselves to death (in different ways) — John Candy and Chris Farley — but I think the legendary funny folk outlive the general population as a rule. And I guess you could say Lenny Bruce — whose alleged genius largely escaped me — did himself in. And of course John Belushi, for whom I had great affection. But by and large (will anyone ever explain that phrase?) comics are long-lived. (See Hope, Burns, et al.) Quite a few hundreders.

- Dick Cavett:  Link.

~ Karl Jones

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Earth and Sky
Gennadiy Vasilyevich Pavlov
Link

• From 16-21 September 2008, St Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture will host an international calligraphy exhibition.
• Press release.
• Participants’ gallery page (there is more to see around the site)
• via Gil Claudio’s trilingual La Grafía blog.

Via BibiOdyssey.

~ Karl Jones

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Finding myself in Rome, Paris, Florence, Venice, New York….
by David Arthur-Simons

Part Four

…. and the blind Christian triumvirate predicting the weather outside the Colosseum ….