If There Is Much In The Window There Should Be More In The Room

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Found: The Sister Cleopatra Killed







http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1162130/Found-Skeleton-younger-sister-Cleopatra-murdered.html


New exciting proof that Cleopatra was of African descent and killed her sister!

Really?


Forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of the queen’s younger sister, murdered over 2,000 years ago.

ARCHEOLOGISTS and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen.


The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified.

The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra’s true ethnicity. Scholars have long debated whether she was Greek or Macedonian like her ancestor the original Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who was made ruler of Egypt by Alexander the Great, or whether she was north African.

Evidence obtained by studying the dimensions of Arsinöe’s skull shows she had some of the characteristics of white Europeans, ancient Egyptians and black Africans, indicating that Cleopatra was probably of mixed race, too. They were daughters of Ptolemy XII by different wives......


Wednesday, January 20, 2010

In Ducks, War of the Sexes Plays Out in the Evolution of Genitalia






http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/science/01duck.html



The anatomy of ducks is especially bizarre considering that 97 percent of all bird species have no phallus at all. Most male birds just deliver their sperm through an opening. Dr. Brennan is investigating how this sexual wonder of the world came to be.

Part of the answer, she has discovered, has gone overlooked for decades. Male ducks may have such extreme genitals because the females do too. The birds are locked in an evolutionary struggle for reproductive success......


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Dinu Lipatti




 



Dinu Lipatti - His last recital, 16 septembre 1950, Besançon

JS Bach Partita No.1 In B Flat Major, Bwv825
0:00 : I. Prelude
2:20 : allemande
4:52 : courante
7:44 : sarabande
12:22 : menuetto 1&2
15:13 : gigue

WA Mozart Piano Sonata No.8 In A Minor, K.310
17:52 : allegro maestoso
23:35 : Andante cantabile con espressione
29:34 : presto

Franz Schubert
32:33 : Impromptu No.3 In G Flat Major, D.899-3
37:34 : Impromptu No.2 In E Flat Major, D.899-2

Frédéric Chopin 13 Valses
41:27 : Waltze No.5 In A Flat Major, Op.42 -Grande Valse
45:15 : No.6 In D Flat Major, Op.64-1 -Petit Chien
46:50 : A Flat Major, Op.69-1 -L`adieu
50:01 : Waltze No.7 In C Shrp Minor, Op.64-2
51:54 : Waltze No.11 In G Flat Major, Op.70-1
53:17 : Waltze No.10 In B Minor, Op.69-2
56:15 : Waltze No.14 In E Minor, Op.Posth
58:25 : Waltze No.3 In A Minor, Op.34-2 -Valse Brillante
Waltze No.4 In F Major, Op.34-3 -Valse Brillante-
Waltze No.12 In F Minor, Op.70-2
Waltze No.13 In D Flat Major, Op.70-3
Waltze No.8 In A Flat Major, Op.64-3
Waltze No.1 In E Flat Major, Op.18 -Grande Valse

An "impromptu" is an instrumental composition supposedly written "in promptu" (improvised), first coined by Jan Vaclac Vorisek in his Impromptus, Op. 7 of 1822.

There is, however, nothing improvisatory in Schubert's 2 sets of impromptus (D899 and D935). Each is a structured short keyboard piece, that could have been titled Marche (D899/1), Variationen (D935/3), Minuetto (D935/2), or whatever.

Yet perhaps, Schubert chose the title "Impromptus" to hint at the impetuosity and freedom with which a pianist may risk playing these pieces with.



The Impromptu in G flat major D899 No.3 was written in the style of a Lied ohne Worte ("Song Without Words"), and indeed Lipatti plays the languid melody in his own simple elegant voice, contrasting it with a busy sextuplet accompaniment in the middle register, like a white lily floating gracefully above gently rippling waters, his steady bass chords resonating the depths of the lake.

The mud gets stirred up and the lake turns into a swirl of dark foreboding as the minor key creeps in first with sextuplets and then with trills in the bass, but calm returns with a reprise of the melody and Lipatti lets it float to the final gentle chord.









Monday, January 18, 2010

Tower of Faces




http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1138417



The "Tower of Faces" is a three-floor-high segment of the permanent exhibition at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum devoted to the Jewish community of the Lithuanian town of Eisiskes, which was massacred by units of the German Einsatzgruppe and their Lithuanian auxiliaries in two days of mass shootings on September 25 and 26, 1941.........

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Ever So Clear



A million stars foreseeable,
One chance would
Have you glance at it
To know how it moves you
A lifetime of perception
A century of maybes
But
You know it can be
Only inches away.
The heart does not fear the stars,
The moon fails to hide
And everything,
Every image becomes
Ever so clear....

Plant Study - Marrow Showing General Growth
Collar
circular embroidery
applique panel
rag picture
embroidered fragment
'Equus' poster
8 immortals ivory tree trunk
027Black Bodyscapes
A Gnat challenges a Lyon
A nobleman listening to music
A princess standing beneath a sapling
A yogi seated on a tiger skin
Abstract with bottle and mask
Acrobats I
Acrobats II
Acrobats IIa
Akademicheskii risunok’ by Briullov, Karl Pavlovich, (1799-1852)
amulet of the ibis of Thoth
Angela Meaden
Another Empire State
armorial plate bearing the arms of Wood of Islington, Middlesex
asking for trouble
astronomical clock
Bakst, Leon [Rozenberg, Lev Samoilovich], (1866-1924), ’ Vestnik. Kostium. (’Ippolit’) ’
Beyond Skin - CD Sleeve
Black Bodyscapes
Black Bodyscapes006
Black Bodyscapes017
Black Bodyscapes021
Black Bodyscapes038
blackbodyscape054
blue and white porcelain brushpot
blue-green scarab
Bruck, Maya
Bruck, Maya
cat, butterfly and peony snuff bottle
ceiling hanging, shamiana
celadon lantern
Channels Echoes Empty Chairs
Chanting Heads
Chanting Heads065
Cizhou ware ceramic pillow, in the form of a small boy


Couroumon
dancer Unni Krishnan