Posts tagged Grotesque and Honesty

The body has its own unique ways to make the invisible, visible.  The ugly is often easy to spot.  Stress can lead to rashes, tension and illness.  The beautiful is often subtle.  An intangible glow.  A propensity for smiling. Awareness has to do with knowing these things before you see them.  Listening to your body.  Listening to your gut.  Notice the word listen.  We often allow seeing to obscure what we hear.  Seeing is not believing.  Hearing is. ~ü [Image: Artist Unknown]

The body has its own unique ways to make the invisible, visible.  The ugly is often easy to spot.  Stress can lead to rashes, tension and illness.  The beautiful is often subtle.  An intangible glow.  A propensity for smiling.

Awareness has to do with knowing these things before you see them.  Listening to your body.  Listening to your gut.  Notice the word listen.  We often allow seeing to obscure what we hear.  Seeing is not believing.  Hearing is.

~ü

[Image: Artist Unknown]

Inspiration, our most valuable commodity, is invisible and does not reveal its intention immediately.  It must be nurtured.  Unfortunately, I’m afraid that it is too often neglected due to its intangibility. ~ü [Image: Georges Moreau de Tours Heinrich Heine and the Muse of Poetry (1894)]

Inspiration, our most valuable commodity, is invisible and does not reveal its intention immediately.  It must be nurtured.  Unfortunately, I’m afraid that it is too often neglected due to its intangibility.

~ü

[Image: Georges Moreau de Tours Heinrich Heine and the Muse of Poetry (1894)]

23silence

The medium hides the truth. ~ü [Image: Kathy Flicker George Silk (1962)]

The medium hides the truth.

~ü

[Image: Kathy Flicker George Silk (1962)]

life

Embrace the grotesque. ~ü The work of Dutch illustrator Evalien caught my eye last Monday in Rotterdam at the Café de Unie. Evalien Lang was one of the highlights at the bad taste symposium. Evalien acknowledged a major influence by the work of Glen Baxter, notable in Lang’s absurd juxtapositions of images and text. The Dutch caption reads “Niets dat een warm sopje en een scheutje bleek niet oplost.” (English: Nothing that some warm soapy water and a dash of bleach won’t solve”. (via Anneke Koster Illustration: Julie & Evalien)

Embrace the grotesque.

~ü

The work of Dutch illustrator Evalien caught my eye last Monday in Rotterdam at the Café de Unie. Evalien Lang was one of the highlights at the bad taste symposium. Evalien acknowledged a major influence by the work of Glen Baxter, notable in Lang’s absurd juxtapositions of images and text.

The Dutch caption reads “Niets dat een warm sopje en een scheutje bleek niet oplost.” (English: Nothing that some warm soapy water and a dash of bleach won’t solve”.

(via Anneke Koster Illustration: Julie & Evalien)

annekekosterillustration.blogspot.com

Our fears are more numerous than our dangers, and we suffer more in our imagination than in reality. ~ Seneca (via journalofanobody) [Image: Alfred Kubin The Fear (Angst) ~1903]
Our fears are more numerous than our dangers, and we suffer more in our imagination than in reality.

~ Seneca (via journalofanobody)

[Image: Alfred Kubin The Fear (Angst) ~1903]

amare-habeo

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel

tror

Evidence that the world is becoming increasingly complex.  Getting more - always better? ~ü From eight colours in 1903 to the current 120 lineup, the number of Crayola colours has doubled every 28 years. Crayola Colour Chart, 1903-2010 – A Visual History Of Crayons

Evidence that the world is becoming increasingly complex.  Getting more - always better?

~ü

From eight colours in 1903 to the current 120 lineup, the number of Crayola colours has doubled every 28 years.

Crayola Colour Chart, 1903-2010 – A Visual History Of Crayons

datapointed.net

It’s impossible to tell from here but each one of those drops is wholly unique.  They should be revered for that.  Studied and enjoyed.  They are fragile and temporal.  And although they look different than a river, they still embody that power.   ~ü [Donald Boyd, Twenty Four]  

It’s impossible to tell from here but each one of those drops is wholly unique.  They should be revered for that.  Studied and enjoyed.  They are fragile and temporal.  And although they look different than a river, they still embody that power.  

~ü

[Donald Boyd, Twenty Four]

 

elinka

God's Chosen

To people of the Middle Ages, plague spread in seemingly random ways.  This brutal reality motivated a desperate search for solutions.  The invisible world encroached on the visible one and even those who were physically strong fell to the disease.  It would be easy then, to surmise, that the invisible controller, God, would be picking and choosing those select few who would survive.  After all, if there was some reason behind all the terrible madness then it must be something more powerful than the plague itself. 

Although the mystical spread of Black Death was debunked long ago, the same version of God still exists today.  People believe that some higher conscious is killing and torturing the hapless select that somehow deserve it.  The reasoning is also insidiously extended to banal activities such as sports.  Medieval thinking seems harmless until one considers the passivity that it imbues within otherwise empathetic and caring people.  

The invisible exists - it is larger than us - but it exists in ways that we cannot understand.  It we could, it would be on a human scale.

By the way, the tiny little killer from centuries ago has a name: the Y. pestis bacteria. Scroll down for more.

~ü


A very interesting blog post from The History Blog (click on above title for link) concerning the (now-known) microbial origins of the Black Death. Yersinia Pestis, the causative pathogen, is known to infect hosts, such as rats and fleas, and then be transmitted to humans.

The three known types of plagues (i.e. bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic) were responsible for countless deaths in the European continent over a period of 400 years.

The list of symptoms for each type are listed below and are relatively severe and gruesome. Each of them had a mortality rate over 75% with the most severe type, septicemic, killing nearly 100% of those it infected.

Bubonic plague

-Incubation period of 2–6 days, when the bacteria is actively replicating.

-Universally a general lack of energy

-Fever

-Headache and chills occur suddenly at the end of the incubation period

-Swelling of lymph nodes resulting in buboes, the classic sign of bubonic plague. The inguinal nodes are most frequently affected (“boubon” is Greek for “groin.”)

Septicemic plague

-Hypotension

-Hepatosplenomegaly

-Delirium

-Seizures in children

-Shock

-Universally a general lack of energy

-Fever

-Symptoms of bubonic or pneumonic plague are not always present

Pneumonic plague

-Fever

-Chills

-Cough

-Chest pain

-Dyspnea

-Hemoptysis

-Lethargy

-Hypotension

-Shock

-Symptoms of bubonic or septicemic plague are not always present

boatswainsandbacteremia

Fuzzy Space Junk.  The satellites and garbage that orbit the Earth.

Fuzzy Space Junk.  The satellites and garbage that orbit the Earth.

ex-genius