This is… a medieval groovebox. It’s got horse hooves, hurdy gurdies, 2 witches, the illuminated medieval website is unbelievable, the device itself has medieval LED numbers, the promotional video is bizarre. I love this. I wish I was musically talented so I could play this.
Wiki Spy
Neal.Fun’s wiki-spy lets you go into a wikipedia rabbit hole – visually! Enter something like Iznik Tiles and start exploring.
Something that came up in conversation. Early Buddhism did not have depictions of the Buddha, but would show an empty seat, footprints and (I believe) and outline of a person.
Here’s an introduction to some of the fun in studying the bible (authorship, context) in-depth: https://andreafontana.it/en/birth-god-israel-yahweh-el.html In Hebrew, it is very clear that Elohim is plural, while YHWH is singular. To the extent that in the story of Babel, God is concerned about the height of the humans’ tower and goes to alert the other Gods (!)
Yooooo, have you heard of Altın Gün?! It’s a Turkish psychedelic band from the Netherlands.
Last month I heard their music playing at Rooster Coffee House (one of Toronto’s best cafes), and it was so fresh that I’ve been listening to their albums on a loop:
My only previous exposure to Turkish singing has been through the band She Past Away. If a secret little goth heart doth beat under your lace undershirt, then you should be listening to them. It sounds like… if The Cure was a Harkonnen band.
Low-Poly Art
Did you know that you’re allowed to make physical airbrush art that looks like a glitched out Playstation game? I didn’t either!
I wanted to share the art of Sasha Yazov, but found enough similar artists that I got carried away and it became it’s own post for you to check out.
Heikki’s Garden of Flowers made the online rounds in June – it is an exceptional database of typographical art (the moveable-type precursor to ASCII art).
Screenshot of the collected work of just one artist, Albert Schiller
This database is a staggering effort. I am not surprised that it took Heikki 8 years to collect the images he’d made available in that one place. I’ve done something similar, collecting all images related to the Victorian-era Printers International Specimen Exchange, and I’ll tell you that what Heikki’s Garden of Flowers is something really special.
I was particularly impressed by this image from a printer in 1870s Spain that inspired Heikki:
Keep in mind that the above image was composed of hundreds of pieces of lead, all arranged and held together in place under tension with other metal/wooden pieces. Aesthetically outstanding relative to what contemporary (and future!) printers would be doing.
Let’s say that somebody got an all-in-Chinese book about Chinese advertising calendar art from the ~1930s and it’s been on their mind. Here’s a similar book with lots of photos (press the “PDF” button to download).
These posters usually featured attractive ladies, heartwarming domestic scenes, or folktales. Some were really well done:
Trust me, this one exceptional. It has so much dynamism compared to wooden calendar illustrations from that time.
Some of them are delightfully unusual – like ladies playing golf, or this woman out hunting with her dog (remember, this is 1920s-1930s China, not the British countryside!)
Some of the illustrations were hilariously bad:
Oh, darling, what big hands you have!We blame AI art for having messed up hands/arms, but what about the human artists who screw up on this front? What’s going on in the middle there?Ah, the three beauties with identical faces. Very convenient for the artist.
I want to say that calendar advertising is some odd phenomenon from 100 years ago, but then… each year, my family eagerly awaits a pictorial calendar that our local dentists’ office sends out to the neighbourhood. It’s the only bit of advertising they do, and it stands out. Calendar advertising still has a place in modern day marketing!
Cleaners from Venus
Aside from Altin Gun, I’ve been obsessed with the Cleaners From Venus. It is a (mostly) one-man band from the 1980s. Martin Newell seems to be a bit of a cult home-recording and casette publishing hit.
We’ve truly lost the ability to make beautiful computer art like that. All that I – a modern man wunderkind – could manage was Mr. Worm below. (made with HEAVYPAINT):
Baby Limbs
Could I interest you in marble carvings of the limbs of the royal children? The Victorians were truly demented.
