Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Something/Someone Old 222old.jpg

I'm pretty sure I've done this one before, but I just found out something new about it. (So does that make this something old or something new? Well, it happened in around 2550 B.C., so I guess that makes it old.)

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The Great Pyramid of Giza is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and notable for being the only one still standing (some, like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, might not actually have existed--we don't know.) It's an amazing feat of engineering, built over the course of 27 years back in the 26th century B.C.

Wikipedia says this:

Initially standing at 146.5 metres (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years. Throughout history the majority of the smooth white limestone casing was removed, which lowered the pyramid's height to the present 138.5 metres (454.4 ft).

454 ft still sounds pretty tall to me. Skyscrapers are much taller, of course, but they lack grandeur. It's strange how clearly architecture conveys the motivations that went into its construction. I'm sure that part of my sense that the pyramids are grand and mysterious while skyscrapers are mundane and boring has to do with being culturally prepared to think that--but there's also the undeniable fact that skyscrapers get replicated quickly and easily, with modern technology helping along, so the accomplishment of building them is far less impressive. And they are essentially big rectangular boxes with many many small boxes inside them, designed primarily to store the greatest number of people possible in an orderly fashion. Like a warehouse of human resources. One might argue that that's still better than constructing a giant tomb for an aristocrat, but somehow, singing the praises of some Great Man (tm) still produces a better and cooler piece of architecture than storing human beings in a series of nested boxes so that you can staff and run corporations and make lots of money.

Anyway, here's the fascinating fact I just discovered:

Slaves did not build the Great Pyramid. This is one of those facts that everybody believes without even thinking about it--like Richard III being a terrible murdering psychopath. I never even asked myself *how* I knew this. Turns out, we know it because a Greek historian told us:

The classical historian Herodotus believed that the Great Pyramid had been built by 100,000 slaves. His image of men, women and children desperately toiling in the harshest of conditions has proved remarkably popular with modern film producers. It is, however, wrong.

Turns out that the people who built the Great Pyramid had better benefits than some of us do:

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Great Pyramid was in fact built by a workforce of 5,000 permanent, salaried employees and up to 20,000 temporary workers. These workers were free men, summoned under the corvée system of national service to put in a three- or four-month shift on the building site before returning home. They were housed in a temporary camp near the pyramid, where they received payment in the form of food, drink, medical attention and, for those who died on duty, burial in the nearby cemetery.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-egypt/facts-ancient-egypt-mu...

Shit, they even got healthcare. And their families didn't have to pay for their funerals (although I'm sure burial was a much cheaper business back then--always assuming you weren't a Pharoah.)

Something New
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I have old-fashioned, lowbrow artistic taste. I still think Michelangelo's David is pretty cool. Hell, I actually love Maxfield Parrish--and he was a representational commercial artist who, an art history acquaintance of mine once said, comes perilously close to painting unicorn pictures. It's hard to get me much farther forward in the development of art than surrealism (which I often love, by the way.)

So much modernist, minimalist, and abstract art leaves me cold--as does a lot of contemporary art generally, which seems to spend a lot of its time being edgy. There's nothing wrong with being edgy, but if you're going to "subvert expectations" it's usually a good idea to have a pressing reason why you should. In my opinion, that makes more compelling art, mainly because I want a work of art to say more to me than "You know, the guy who made me is too cool for school." And the recent penchant, over the past couple of decades, for tacking prefabricated political talking points to the art like you're pinning a tail on a donkey ("You know, the gal who made me is too cool for school--and the assumptions of the patriarchy are stupid!") doesn't much help. I'm all for questioning the patriarchy, but we're living in the 2020s--at this point, simply doing so doesn't make you cool. You have to have some particular question or questions you're asking, and those particulars have to be compelling for me to feel like the art is worth my time.

But I keep looking at new art in the hopes that either my mind or the art will change--or that I will find one of the rare exceptions to the rule.

I found a couple of them today. I decided to look at recent sculpture art, and found these artists:

Tara Donovan is, I guess, not that new--she's only a year younger than me, and started exhibiting her work in the 90s. But hey, it's newer than David. Donovan creates biological and organic shapes by assembling multitudinous examples of one commonplace medium: nylon fiber, electrical cable, toothpicks, 3 X 5 cards, and countless others. This one is made out of mylar:

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And this one was made by stacking thousands of index cards:

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This one is made out of styrofoam cups:

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Here is another one, lit up:

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Donovan says: “It is not like I’m trying to simulate nature. It’s more of a mimicking of the way of nature, the way things actually grow.”

Something Borrowed
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Just recently, I obtained this book from my mother, who is continually removing stuff from her house:

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Some people collect postage stamps -- the small pieces of paper you place on letters or postcards before mailing them. Other people collect works of art, antiques or musical instruments. But a man in the American state of Maryland collects…secrets. For the past 10 years, people from throughout the world have been sending Frank Warren postcards and other objects with secrets written on them. He now has a million secrets.

Mr. Warren lives in Germantown, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. Ten years ago, he created an art project he calls “PostSecret.”

“I invited strangers from all around the world to write down their deepest confession on a postcard, something they’d never told anyone else before, but something that was true. And I asked them to mail it to my home anonymously.”

He has published six books full of the secrets people have shared with him. One secret in each book is his.

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/the-man-who-collects-secrets/27664...

Something Blue
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I'd never heard of Toronzo Cannon. Good Chicago blues. Very good.

How are you all doing today?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I've got a dentist appointment this morning, so I won't be around as much until early afternoon. Please talk amongst yourselves! I hope you are all having as good a day as possible.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

I hope you are all having as good a day as possible.

That is fabulously universal, equally applicable to somebody laying on a secluded beach watching the birds and marine life and somebody standing upon the gallows.

Heroditus, as inventor of the historian's art, at least tells it like it is, having a disclaimer along the lines of "I'm not certain of all the stuff I record here, it's what I was told and/or learned in my travels and I'm writing it down so that the story will be preserved".

It is easy to see any non-Egyptian or the era explaining those structures with a quick and easy, "simple, dude, slaves, shitloads of slaves."

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@enhydra lutris

None of us is perfect, and, as you point out, he admits it.

A million miles ahead of most of the self-styled purveyors of fact roaming around now.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Granma's picture

@enhydra lutris worked on the pyramids for several weeks at a time. It is interesting to know they were volunteers, not drafted into that labor and were so well treated.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@Granma

Everything old is new again, eventually. Smile

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Good luck with the tooth wizards.

In the something new department
seems researchers have figured out how to make
Xenobots self replicating using frog cells and AI.

While Bongard insisted that the benefits of the supposedly breakthrough technology outweigh the risks, several reports have raised ethical concerns surrounding Xenobot technology. It has even been suggested that they could be turned into a military bioweapon and assassination tool.

https://www.rt.com/usa/541695-first-living-robots-replicate/

In some of the futuristic sci-fi novels they are generally called nanobots.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@QMS

In my opinion, this is a pretty bad idea, and it's hard to believe that someone could develop such a thing in the world as we find it (heh) and have good intentions. Yeah, I'm sure it has medical applications, possibly very good ones, which, if they pan out, will be available to anybody who can afford them. Beyond that, it will probably be weaponized--they even weaponized microwave. Hell, there are people out there who want to turn meadows into surveillance devices.

So while it's more defensible than some kinds of research, it still doesn't pass muster.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@QMS

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4 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Tough outer hide and all that.
Taken with a grain of salt
It doesn't hurt my morale at all. Wink

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to use them for mind control since the 70s.

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On to Biden since 1973

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@doh1304

I was thinking more: attacking people's internal organs, causing disease and death.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
when you can destroy people's minds and reduce them to docile things with no ability to even want to resist. Think of it - a world of worker bees. (hint: such a world would need only one person to give all the orders. Would that person allow an heir to have free will? Humans, extinct in one generation.)

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On to Biden since 1973

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

I hope nobody minds my sharing it here:

https://listverse.com/2021/11/20/top-10-eeriest-government-simulations/

I would be especially interested in reactions to/opinions of #8, which I actually wound up watching the whole way through: "Nothingburger", or "dy-no-mite", or simply "past its sell-by date"? I can't tell.

#1, meanwhile, seems like a GREAT reason to STOP LETTING THE INTERNET METASTASIZE ALL OVER OUR LIVES; could this possibly be an alignment of NatSec-State and 99%/Constitutional interests???

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Lookout's picture

Braved trade day and saw buddies and bought lemons and avocados.

Warmed to almost 40 now and headed to 65 today. 70's later this week...and dry. I like the term weather weirding - we had a wet summer (almost unheard of) and now dry going into winter? Very odd.

Well regardless of your weather, have a good day!

Thanks for the OT.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Granma's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @# edited, was in wrong thread

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Granma

Sorry, everybody.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout

I hope to emulate it someday soon. Smile

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3 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Dawn's Meta's picture

She is so pretty, and beautiful.

We have weather this last Summer like LO had: cool and very wet. Our Petite Rivière was bank-full several times. Then we had a dry Fall. Now it's a mix, but weather stalled over Great Britain until this last week. Three weeks and not a breath, while temperatures dropped to freezing at night.

We've had a little snow but all around us it snowed quite a bit on most local hills. The mountains are doing well. The Alps are open for skiing.

We have some new wood for our stoves and the house is heating right up inspite of the cold rock walls. Once the heat sink soaks up the heat it radiates into the house interior.

I had forgotten the joy of using a wood stove to cook on. Oh boy, I'm digging deep for old cooking memories. On the hot area, boiling to start soup is quick. Yum.

Have a good one.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

snoopydawg's picture

Part of the newly passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a mandate that requires DUI monitoring devices to be built into all new cars beginning in 2026.

It isn't known exactly what kind of technology would be placed inside new cars. One under consideration is an infrared sensor that would detect blood alcohol levels in the skin. If the number is too high, the car won't move.

There is one concern that Nigbur mentioned, and that's who will have access to the information the car compiles.

"Let's say we stopped a car with probable cause, we arrest the driver for probable DUI, we run through the standard (field sobriety tests), and later on down the road in court, would we be able, maybe through a warrant, maybe through some other process or processes, to access that information?"

Cops can already access cameras and other info that is available and often without warrants. Cars and phones are always tracking our locations and no I don’t think this is something that should be installed in cars. Besides there are already devices for people who have been charged for DUI and gotten punished for it. This bypasses the legal system.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg
Aren't there medical conditions that cause alcohol to be emitted in the breath? Suppose you are far from home and your car refuses to start because it mistakenly assumes you are drunk?

Bad tech

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

snoopydawg's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

I think it’s if your sugar level is too high that would happen. Or maybe it’s too low. That’s a 40 year old memory I’m trying to access. But diabetes for one is. They can also act drunk and many people have been arrested or beaten because they are altered if their levels are not right.

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8 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg

So the AI inside the car gets to determine whether I should be pulled over and maybe arrested. Great.

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7 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg

The car plain doesn't move. (But they can arrest you anyway? If the thing doesn't move, then what's with all the warrants and data digging? Being arrested for intentions without actions now, are we?)

And as Voice says, what about false positives? Could cause serious problems.

up
7 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg

who knows how to work on old cars, and keep 'em till they won't run anymore.

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7 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

It’s 20 years old and in mint condition with less than 40 k miles on it. The old mechanics son has inherited the business so I’m set. I doubt they will be ready to go in 4 years because of the chip shortages and all it should take is people boycotting the newer ones. If they’re smart they will.

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6 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

I agree with Dawn’s Meta about the image of the old lady you use. I also feel she is beautiful and I have always loved the headpiece.

Hope you trip to the dentist turns out for the best. I am hoping some day in the near future I will feel safe enough to travel back to Costa Rica to see the dentist I have been using since 2010. She and her husband and children have become close friends to me and she is a very competent dentist using modern equipment.

I also think that art is a personal experience and right now am enjoying Recycled and Arroyo Art. There is an event where people bring “art” they have made from recycled objects that is both fascinating and creative. Arroyo art is using objects found the in Arroyos here in Santa Fe and surrounding. I have one piece that is a weathered piece of wood with two pieces of rusted metal shapes and one of the many beautiful multicolored rocks that is so common here.

Have a wonderful day to all and now must tackle the fine art of paying bills! Will do my best to remain hopeful about events in our lives.

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Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

wendy davis's picture

23,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Discovered in America, discovery.com, September 27, 2021

Ancient human footprints found in New Mexico suggest people may have arrived in the Americas 10,000 years before scientists had previously thought.

This week, scientists reported ancient human footprints found preserved in White Sands National Park in New Mexico.

These 23,000-year-old fossilized footprints contradict current beliefs about when humans first trekked through the Americas. For decades, many scientists believed humans spread across the American continents only at the end of the Ice Age, but these new footprints imply humans came to America during the Ice Age — at a time when massive glaciers would’ve covered much of their path.

“I think this is probably the biggest discovery about the peopling of America in a hundred years,” Ciprian Ardelean, an archaeologist at Autonomous University of Zacatecas in Mexico, said to the New York Times.

Previously, archaeologists pointed to the oldest known tools, called Clovis — spear tips, needles, and scrapers — as markers for when humans crossed the continents. Clovis tools date back 13,000 years, which lines up with the melting of the glaciers, after the Ice Age. The hypothesis was that Siberian hunters made their way into Alaska during the Ice Age until the ice melted, opening up paths for them to migrate Southward.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@wendy davis

something of an ideology for a very long time now, fighting a rear guard action by continuously pushing the "first Clovis find" further back and challenging every alleged "pre-Clovis" discovery, of which there have been many, including, IIRC, some in coastal Peru that are close to the alleged White Sands find in alleged age. Too many reputations were built on the Clovis foundation for the Clovis-first school to give up easily.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Dawn's Meta's picture

look at Dkos. But today I did. And there is lot or are a lot of names I recall.

But the first thing I want to bring over is the memorial for Floja Roja. She has just recently died. Many moving and lovely tributes and first hand irl friends.

I had a hard time not going back, but after awhile the herd mentality was too daunting to continue. I miss the most: the environmental and eco diaries and the people who write them. They are still there. All of them. A particularly good essay on climate weirding by citisven is also out there.

I wish it were't so but there are so many hard core true believers, I can't go there and haven't for so long. But I do miss the community of eco and kitteh lovers. I have a quilt from Sara and Ann.

It makes me so sad.

ETA: I am beyond grateful to have found this place to visit, write, share and discuss what is going on. There are so few places to feel safe these days: either on the internet or in real life. Thank you all for all your efforts to keep things civil and diverse.

And finally, loved Wendy's news about the 23,000 year old footprints. That is exiting stuff. There is an amazing amount of daily life that can be surmised from reading the footprints. For such old history, that is really something.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

mimi's picture

@Dawn's Meta
from Sarah and Ann I sleep under it daily. I had forgotten about citisven, but I remember the plumber and knucklehead and Meteor Blades.

Divide and conquer, the worst activity out there.Unite and lose is the way to go.

Yeah I always loved the old lady. Great hair and great eyes and lots and lots of humanity.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Dawn's Meta

It’s usually pakalo who I read but I still read daily of the few interesting topics. It’s easy to skip the ones I wouldn’t like.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Granma's picture

I've always loved the Impressionists. Many of them are not especially well known, but that period and immediately after has variety, at least in my mind. There were many more than just Van Gogh, Renoir, and Monet. There are other great groups of art too, of course. It seems a shame that most of these artists were not necessarily appreciated or compensated in their own lifetimes.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Granma

or send some of their names to me, and I will incorporate them into OTs.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Granma

appreciation comes later, after the genius is gone.
Funny that ..

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zed2's picture

keep electronics, in particular because planned obsolescence is a very real thing. We need a right to repair because otherwise they will force the old cars and computers and operating systems off the roads. They really want to sell everyone an all new $5000 computer and $50,000 car for no good reason. With the number of people commuting declining there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to do that. For Example, Apple is really bad. Don't ever take a Macbook to them for repair unless its brand new and under a service contract. They are notorious for taking them when they are quite repairable and telling people that repair costs so much its more sense to buy a new one. Gullible people fall for it and lots of working computers get shredded and thrown into landfills.

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zed2's picture

Anything to get to sell people new cars when they don't need them.
They last too long now. They hate that.

Anybody else remember when they wanted people to buy a new car every year?
When I was a kid.

I once knew a lot of ad industry people. Some of the stories they tell are just incredible.

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