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Art News

A couple of interesting stories from the art world today:

– Henry VIII owned at least 55 houses that we know of. They range from modest hunting lodges to gigantic palaces like Hampton Court. But Henry’s grandest property – by far – was Nonsuch Palace (even the name, “none such”, tells you that there was no other property like it anywhere in England). Amazingly, the palace no longer stands; Charles II gave it to his mistress, the Countess of Castlemaine, who had it torn down in 1682 so she could sell the building materials to pay off gambling debts. More amazingly, although the building was considered the greatest house in England, only one known image of it exists:

Nonsuch Palace

This watercolor, painted by Georg Hoefnagel in 1568, is not only one of the first watercolors ever painted in England, historians consider it the only reputable likeness of the palace. And it can be yours! It’s going up for auction next month, where it’s expected to fetch £1.2 million. The palace itself was said to “only” cost around £24,000… although that’s around $165,501,000 when adjusted for inflation and converted to dollars!

– Can you spot Chinese artist Liu Bolin in this picture?

Liu Bolin

What you’re seeing isn’t a camera or photoshop trick. Bolin studies a scene, then carefully paints his own body and has an assistant photograph him. Bolin got the idea for this because he’s often felt like an outsider in Chinese society. His art allows him to “blend in” with whatever’s around. Check out this article for several more amazing shots!

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TSA Follow-Up

My recent post about the TSA hasn’t generated a lot of comments on the site, but it sure has generated a lot of hits, especially from people who posted links on Facebook. I thought I’d take a few minutes today to clarify a few things and give you folks some additional links.

First of all, although most of you agreed that the TSA has crossed the line, it occurred to me that some of you might actually agree with their policies. After all, the old saying goes, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide, right? Well, allow me to introduce you to the concept of Israelification.

Israel has been dealing with terrorists far longer than the US has, and has been far more successful than the US in dealing with airport security. Back in the 1960s, Israel instituted pat-downs and other procedures at their airports similar to what the US has today… and the Israeli public freaked. In the linked article, Israeli security expert Rafi Sela, says:

“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take shit from anybody. When the security agency in Israel started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for – not for hours – but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, ‘We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.”

By simply refusing to put up with the status quo, the Israelis came up with a much more efficient and less intrusive system. And there’s no reason why it can’t work here.

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Quote of the Day

“He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that some sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.”

– Flannery O’Connor
“The Artificial Nigger”

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-11-21

  • Hey look! I'm on FoodNetworkHumor.com: http://tinyurl.com/2dttak6 #
  • Dear God… it's 59-21 with 5:19 left in the 3rd quarter! At least the Steelers kinda showed up last night! #
  • Kid Rock is preventing his music from being sold on iTunes. To whom should I write to ensure this situation does not change? #
  • US airports are now a Constitution-free zone, thanks to the TSA! #
  • Free tacos at Jack in the Box today! Woo-hoo! #
  • OMG! The TSA is considering exempting MUSLIM WOMEN from body scans! Will the madness ever end? http://tinyurl.com/32ddvyu #
  • A £200 overdraft from Lloyd's of London generates £85.95 in fees. That's an APR of 46,450,869%. According to the Daily Mail, anyway. #
  • @AllSpiritsEve I'd still be against it, doofus! #
  • The Beatles are on iTunes? They've been on Bittorrent for years! #
  • How bad is it for the Carolina Panthers? Brian St. Pierre is their starting QB this Sunday. #
  • Reason #2 Your Car Smells: Carburetor mouse nest! Enter the Chevy Cruze #20PinetreeAirFresheners Sweeps @ http://bit.ly/an50kt #
  • Anybody seen Guinness Foreign Extra for purchase here in Charlotte? #
  • Ben Gazzara is not dead. #
  • Reason #2 Your Car Smells: Carburetor mouse nest! Enter the Chevy Cruze #20PinetreeAirFresheners Sweeps @ http://bit.ly/an50kt #
  • Gordon Brown: create an economic crisis, then charge £60k a speech to talk about it.. .PROFIT! #
  • is not looking forward to next Saturday. 🙁 #
  • Berlin is dufte, hauptstadt der DDR #

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Quote of the Day

“Tanner was conserving all his strength for the trip home. He meant to walk as far as he could get and trust to the Almighty to get him the rest of the way. That morning and the morning before, he had allowed his daughter to dress him and he had conserved that much more energy. Now he sat in the chair by the window – his blue shirt buttoned at the collar, his coat on the back of the chair, and his hat on his head – waiting for her to leave. He couldn’t leave until she got out of the way. The window looked out on a brick wall and down into an alley full of New York air, the kind fit for cats and garbage. A few snow flakes drifted past the window but they were too thin and scattered for his failing vision.

The daughter was in the kitchen washing dishes. She dwaddled over everything, talking to herself. When he had first come, he had answered her, but that had not been wanted. She glowered at him as if, old fool that he was, he should still have had sense enough to not answer a woman talking to herself. She questioned herself in one voice and answered herself in another. With the energy he had conserved yesterday letting her dress him, he had written a note and pinned it in his pocket. IF FOUND DEAD SHIP EXPRESS COLLECT TO COLEMAN PARRUM, CORINTH, GEORGIA. Under this he had continued: COLEMAN SELL MY BELONGINGS AND PAY THE FREIGHT ON ME & THE UNDERTAKER. ANYTHING LEFT OVER YOU CAN KEEP. YOURS TRULY T.C. TANNER. P.S. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. DON’T LET THEM TALK YOU INTO COMING UP HERE. ITS NO KIND OF PLACE. It had taken him better part of thirty minutes to write the paper; the script was wavery but decipherable with patience. He controlled one hand by holding the other on top of it. By the time he had got it written, she was back in the apartment from getting her groceries.”

– Flannery O’Connor
“Judgment Day”

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Sexy Saturday

Actually, I’m not really feelin’ “Sexy Saturday”. But I’ve had some of the pictures below on my desktop for a couple of weeks now, and it’s time to post them or get off the pot.

Here’s English actress Indira Varma. You might remember her as Niobe, wife of Lucius Vorenus, on the HBO series Rome. She’s currently got a starring role in the kick-ass Fox series Human Target; if you like action movies even a little bit, you should really check out that show!

Indira Varma

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Exporting Email Addresses from Facebook

Have you ever wanted the email addresses of all your Facebook friends? Sure, you could go to each of their profiles individually and cut and paste their email address into your favorite email app or a spreadsheet… but who wants to go to all that trouble? Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just click a few buttons and do it all at once? You can, and it’s a pretty easy (if unglamorous) process.

To start, you need to sign up for a free email account at gmx.com. GMX offers free email accounts, much like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail accounts. But unlike the “import contacts from Facebook” applets at Yahoo! Mail and other sites, the GMX webapp actually works (see “Notes” section, below).

On the GMX homepage DO NOT click the “Login with Facebook” button at the top of the page. Instead, create an account the old-fashioned way by clicking “Sign Up Now” and filling out the simple form by entering your name, date of birth, country and state, and an alternate email address.

Once that’s done, open a new browser window and login to Facebook if you haven’t done so already. Back in the GMX window, login to your new account, then click “Address Book” in the lower left corner, then click the “Import/Export” button at the top of the page and choose “Import”. A window with icons for Facebook and many email programs will pop up. Choose “Facebook” (duh!) and then click “Allow” or “Yes” for any Facebook security windows that pop up. The GMX applet will scan your profile and allow you to choose which contacts you want to import (I just clicked the “Select All” button). It will then save them all to your GMX account (this might take several minutes, so don’t panic if the page seems “stuck”).

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