Palladio's Teatro Olimpico

The beautiful 16th century set was designed to be a Utopian Roman city.

Homer's Earth

"The Homeric conception of the world represented as a flat, circular disc of land surrounded by a continuous ocean-stream remained a popular notion in the Greek world even after many philosophers and scientists had accepted the theory of the sphericity of the earth enunciated by the Pythagoreans and subjected to theoretical proof by Aristotle. In this interpretation the world is like a plateau on the top of a mountain; inside this, close to the surface of the earth, lies the House of Hades, the realm of Death, and beneath it Tartarus, the realm of Eternal Darkness. The plateau of the earth is surrounded by Oceanus, the world river, and from its periphery rises the fixed dome of the sky. The sun, the moon, and the stars rise from the waters at the edge of the dome, move in an arc above the earth, and then sink once again into the sea to complete their course beneath the Oceanus. The atmosphere above the mountain of the earth is thick with clouds and mist, but higher up is the clear Æther with its starry ceiling." http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/AncientWebPages/105mono.html

Apoplexy-Working with the Nutmeg-Grater

The drawings of incurable lunatic James Tilly Matthews. I may take up craziness, people seem to find it endearing.

I do rather want an actual nutmeg grater. Not any old nutmeg grater though, A George III silver nutmeg grater.


To the day when I own such an object!

Inventory Art

I followed a link and found this on the website for a gallery in London called
The Approach. I think the creators go by the name of Inventory. I like it and that's all there is to it really.

Type for Change

As well as storming my dissertation, I'm setting myself a few creative tasks over the holiday period, the results of which I will post up here!

I plan to submit to Type for Change, a submissions based thesis addressing typography as an instrument for social change. In fact, I am more likely to do this than the ISTD brief, as the latter isn't something I can knock out in a fortnight!

ISTD Student Assessment Projects

I was thinking that I could tackle one of these briefs before my FMP gets under way. In particular the '10 Things You Should Know About...(Gardening/Science)' interests me. It could be a good way to weave my appetite for knowledge with my area of study. The deadline is in March.

http://www.istd.org.uk/flash_content/index.htm

Map of Language

I have hitherto not seen a map this exciting. It was made in 1741, but I found it just now on this brilliant and erudite blog: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com

Justine Smith

What a great concept. We are made of money.




http://www.justinesmith.net/

GM Solutions

Another Horizons gem, tackling the controversial issue that is genetically modified food. I was duly reminded that we have in fact being modifying what we eat throughout the ages, in the process of selective propagation. At about 18 minutes into the programme, the presenter digs up the original carrot, which is hardly something you would want to put on your plate. When I consider that the carefully bred vegetables we eat would not survive in nature if we did not tend them, it becomes more difficult to define what is 'natural' and what is not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fsxq6

Time and Space

A while back I blogged about Einstein's speculation on the nature of time, and I've just come across this explanatory episode of Horizon. Among other things, it is revelatory thought to me that I see the objects around me as they were in the past, albeit nanoseconds. I suppose one could work out the exact time based on the fact that light takes eight minutes to travel from the sun, which is 150 million kilometres away. Following on from this line on thought, if by photographing space, we are capturing galaxies as they were billions of years ago, is it possible, with a deep enough field, to photograph the very inception of the universe? Best part of the programme? Meeting the 'Director of Time'. Cool.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fyl5z/Horizon_Do_You_Know_What_Time_It_Is/

If time is only really a forth dimension of space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in time as we move about in the other dimensions of space?

You know how, on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four, if they could master the perspective of the thing.

HG Wells, The Time Machine

The presenter of the Horizons episode was Dr. Brian Cox, who is part of the group of scientists who developed the Hadron Collider. Here he is explaining it in simple words for numpties like myself.

Mincemeat

Look what I made look what I made look what I made! My new favourite smell!

Roger Deakin

I will be hinting liberally about these books over the coming month. Britain travelled and described through the eyes and words of a wanderer.





A nice tributary article to the swimmer and writer here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jul/15/scienceandnature.features

Brideshead Left Well Alone

"Who wouldn't want fleetingly to evoke a decadent, glamorous era through their dress?"

In this week's Guardian I came across anarticle on the failures of the columnist to emulate the foppish stylings of Sebastian Flyte.



Maybe as a nation it would serve us well to give up our upper class aspirations, but is a little romance for bygone days so very destructive? Besides, this book seemed to me to be little about glamour and all about religion.

Jazz for Dinner

Some sounds from the London Jazz Festival, including the mighty good Mighty Jeddo...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fr8h4/Jazz_on_3_Highlights_of_BBC_Introducing_at_the_London_Jazz_Festival_2008/

I'm also listening to Mr Scruff...



Note to self regarding career possibilities: Raise orchard of historically common but now rare fruit trees. Hone pie making skills. Open speciality pie shoppe for the people. Get my more creative friends to make it look cool. Host live jazz/ improvisational pie-making sessions. Call it The Medlar Club.