© C. Ford.
Getting stuff ready for all the hurry up and wait I have coming up. Besides, I’ve found if I’m in a waiting room, and start working, all of sudden, people want to do stuff on time. Kinda like magic, the highest annoyance factor always wins.
Mihai Marius Mihu has done a great job of creating Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell in Lego. Mihu did not immerse themselves in The Inferno for this project, limiting themselves to snippets about the circles, wanting their own take on it to dominate, and I think it’s a grand job. Lust is most impressive. I’m just going to post Gluttony here, because the red and black really attracted me, and you can have a wander through the other circles yourself, and also have a care if you curious sproggen trying to peek over your shoulder.
© Mihai Marius Mihu.
© Mihai Marius Mihu.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
There flashed upward a glow and glare.
A portrait of three herons, the one on the right holding an especially characteristic pose.
Text Translation:
[Of the heron] It is called heron, ardea, as if from ardua, meaning ‘high’, because of its capacity to fly high in the sky; it fears rain and flies above the clouds to avoid experiencing the storms they bring. A heron taking wing shows a storm is coming. Many people call the heron Tantalus, after the king who betrayed the secrets of the gods. Rabanus says on this subject: ‘This bird can signify the souls of the elect, who fear the disorder of this world, lest they be caught up by chance in the storms of persecution stirred up by the Devil, and raise their minds, reaching above all worldly things to the tranquility of their home in heaven, where the countenance of God is forever to be seen.
Although the heron seeks its food in water, nevertheless it builds its nest in woodland, in tall trees, as the righteous man, whose sustenance is uncertain and transitory, places his hope in splendid and exalted things. The soul of man sustained by transitory things, rejoices in the eternal. The heron tries with its beak to prevent its nestlings from being seized by other birds. So the righteous man lashes with his tongue those who, to his knowledge, are evilly inclined to deceive the gullible. Some herons are white, some grey, but both colours can be taken in a good sense, if white signifies purity, grey, penitence.
Folio 53v – the goose, continued. [De ardea] ; Of the heron.
Eurasian Jay from Giliell, click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound.
Two aggressive geese in a roundel.
Text Translation:
[Of the goose] The goose marks the watches of the night by its constant cry. No other creature picks up the scent of man as it does. It was because of its noise, that the Gauls were detected when they ascended the Capitol. Rabanus says in this context: ‘The goose can signify men who are prudent and look out for their own safety.’ There are two kinds of geese, domestic and wild. Wild geese fly high, in a an orderly fashion, signifying those who, far away from earthly things, preserve a rule of virtuous conduct. Domestic geese live together in villages, they cackle together all the time and rend each other with their beaks; they signify those who, although they like conventual life, nevertheless find time to gossip and slander.
All wild geese are grey in colour; I have not seen any that were of mixed colour or white. But among domestic geese, there are not only grey but variegated and white ones. Wild geese are the colour of ashes, that is to say, those who keep apart from this world wear the modest garb of penitence. But those who live in towns or villages wear clothes that are more beautiful in colour. The goose, more than any other animal, picks up the scent of a someone happening by, as the discerning man knows of other men by their good or bad reputation, even though they live far away. When, therefore, a goose picks up the scent of a man approaching, it cackles endlessly at night, as when a discerning brother sees in others the negligence that comes with ignorance, it is his duty to call attention to it.
The cackling of geese on the Capitol once helped the Romans, and in our chapter-house daily, when the discerning brother sees evidence of negligence, his warning voice serves to repel the old enemy, the Devil. The cackling of the goose saved the city of Rome from enemy attack; the warning voice of the discerning brother guards the life of his community from disruption by the wicked. Divine providence would not, perhaps, have revealed to us the characteristics of birds, if it had not wanted the knowledge to be of some benefit to us.
Folio 53r – the nightingale, continued. [De ansere]; Of the goose.
Trivium – Until The World Goes Cold. Lyrics at the link.
From Charly: This is the knife I have given to my Mom for Christmas. Scary sharp – I could slice that tomato paper thin. Seems to hold edge well, it was already used since I made it and the edge was not touched up prior to photographing.
Measurements: Overall length ~26 cm, blade ~14 cm lenght, ~2 mm thick, blade grind convex with no secondary bevel.
Materials: handle scales chemically treated Elder wood (Sambucus nigra) coated with PU, blade N690 steel hardened at home in impromptu settings.
I hope to improve the design based on my mothers feedback and make more knives like this one in the future, it was fun. Beautiful! Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved.
From Giliell, click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
A fine example of christian “logic”.
Michele Bachmann is slithering back into the political scene. Maybe. Just say no, people. Michele was on Jim Bakker’s glurge-fest last week, saying she was considering running for Franken’s vacant seat:
Bachmann said that she has “had people contact me and urge me to run for that Senate seat” and that she is asking God if doing so in His will for her.
Bachmann said that she would be willing to run in order to take godly principles into the Senate but is concerned that she will be unfairly attacked by Washington insiders because “the swamp is so toxic.”
Uh huh. None of this is new, and it’s just amazing how you can sit there and opine on the toxicity of that Washington swamp, given that your hero was supposed to have cleaned that all up. Guess that wasn’t one of the miraculous “accomplishments” of the Tiny Tyrant.
“I trust in a big God,” Bachmann said, asserting that she “was supposed to run for president” in 2012 in order to make the the repeal of Obamacare the central issue of the Republican platform. “I feel like I was wildly successful … I didn’t win, but I moved the debate. So I didn’t shed a tear when I left the contest because I felt like, you know, I fulfilled the calling that God gave me.”
A “big god”. Right. I guess everything has to have a ‘big’ appended to it now. I wish this bit of idiocy would die. All I can think about now is Honeycomb Cereal…
- Honeycomb’s big…yeah yeah yeah!
- It’s not small…no no no!
- Honeycomb’s got…a big big bite!
- Big big (taste/crunch) in a big big bite!
That almost works if you use ‘god’ instead of Honeycomb. Oh look, Michele thinks she was single-handedly responsible for the republican upset over healthcare! My my, some people might think that to be a tad arrogant. You didn’t move a thing, Michele. All anyone wanted was for you to shut the fuck up. Pretty sure people still want that.
“So the question is am I being called to do this now?” she added. “I don’t know.”
You don’t know? How is that possible? Your BIG god doesn’t have a BIG answer for you? Lazy slacker god. Or perhaps you aren’t praying enough, Michele. Go away and pray. Please.
Bakker eventually piped in to express his concern about the nasty nature of politics today, saying that “right now, they want to kill the president of the United States and if they could put a contract [out on Donald Trump]—which they probably already have—they would do so.”
Oh FFS, get off this theme already, Jim. It’s dead. Over. Gone. The stupid is too much to bear. You assign every possible evil to this nefarious ‘they’, ‘they’ get away with everything, but y’know, here in gun central, no one can get a contract going. Uh huh. At some point, you need to make an effort to be somewhat coherent, else you’ll even start losing the seriously gullible.
There’s video at RWW.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
“They swarmed upon me in ever-accumulating heaps.”