February 2008 Archives
Knight, Death and the Devil (1513)Duerer, Albrecht: “Engravings on metal by Albrecht Duerer”
This is one of three engravings in a series called Meisterstiche. The others are Melancholia I and Saint Jerome in His Study.The engraving is dated 1513, two hundred years after the dissolution of the Knights Templar in 1313.
The S before the date may be an allusion to the Greek sigma, of numeric value 200, but others say it is Samekh, one of the 22 paths on the Qabbalistic tree of life. Seems to me that a lot of engravings are signed S. for Scuplt., after the Latin for engraving, and that’s a lot simpler of an explanation.
We see a skull in the bottom left corner; the night in full armour (shining armor?) carries a lance; behind him is a pig-snouted horned devil and he is passing Death on his pale horse, who is carrying an hourglass. Under the knight’s horse runs a long-haired retriever, a hunting dog.
Dürer called this picture Reuter, which is, Rider.
Ever wonder what the quest for Immortality will be like? According to this video game it will involve spells, hyrda, and an old man. Swap spells for science and it's not a totally unrealistic picture.
No this isn't the cover of Slayer's latest. It's postcards from a recent trip to Rome. All from the Crypt of the Capuchin Monks.We think it's safe to say these were "outsider" monks. Although their materials suggest (through tone) that decorating your holy place with bones is just kind of what everyone did before Ikea. If only they could have come across some Trappist monks...
Though I must admit, that bone clock (extended) has a certain charm to it.
More after the jump. Enjoy!
What does growing older look like?
A video from New York artist Jonathan Keller gives you a glimpse. Every day for more than eight years he has taken a photo of himself. The result is a striking time-lapse video depicting a man in his 20s turning into a man in his 30s.
You may want to consider turning the sound down before you play unless you have a thing for Aphex Twin done poorly.
There exists a place on our planet where 100-year-olds live in their own homes and tend their own gardens. It's a place where breast cancer is so rare that screening mammography is not needed and where the three leading killers in our culture - heart disease, stroke and cancer -- occur with the lowest frequency in the world. Where people maintain a healthy weight -- without dieting --throughout life (the average Body Mass Index o the senior citizens is 21!). Where women live to be 86 years old - on average - and when they do pass on, the cause of death is generally classified as "old age" since autopsies reveal no discernible cause.
This place is the Japanese island-state of Okinawa, home to the healthiest people on Earth. A 25-year research project, the Okinawan Centenarian Study, found that there are more than 400 people aged 100 or older in a population of 1.3 million. Here in the United States there are only 65-130 centenarians in a comparably sized sample, most of whom can no longer live alone -- unlike their robust Okinawan brethren.
How have the Okinawans managed to do all this? Simple: their lifestyle habits are supremely healthful. First, they eat a plant-based diet high in unrefined carbohydrates, which gives them protection against heart disease (Okinawans have 80 percent fewer heart attacks than Americans do), cancer (they have 80 percent less breast cancer and half the amount of ovarian cancer), stroke and weight gain. In addition to eating healthfully, Okinawans feel exercise is a way of life. They take up martial arts and traditional dance when young and continue to perform them throughout their lives; most also garden and walk Another habit that contributes to their vitality is stress-reducing spirituality: Okinawans have a deep respect for nature and believe they have an obligation to help others. These relationships with nature and neighbors are powerful: Research shows that they help extend life and lower disease risk.
Read more here: Kiai!
The international team of researchers, coordinated by Professor Greg Towers, UCL Infection and Immunity, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, have identified a combination of genes in a species of monkey that protects against retroviruses -- a particularly opportunistic family of viruses that can integrate into the host's genome and replicate as part of the cell's DNA.
of death and it's relation to things, beautifully weird things.
See below his platinum, diamond-covered skull. The most expensive piece of
contemporary art ever made at £50 million pounds—that went on to be sold for a
meager £100 million pounds.
Damien, listen man, if you're reading this, we should talk. We've got some ideas for what you could do with that money, plus, you owe us for the pizza and the R.Kelly tickets.
Read more about his most recent exhibition at the White Cube in London, exploring the fundamental themes of human existence – life, death, truth, love, immortality and art itself here:
http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/beyond_belief/my_v/
By tweaking our DNA, we could soon survive for hundreds of years – if we want to. Steve Connor reports on a breakthrough that has the science world divided.
The Independent (Wednesday, 23 January 2008)
A genetically engineered organism that lives 10 times longer than normal has been created by scientists in California. It is the greatest extension of longevity yet achieved by researchers investigating the scientific nature of ageing.
If this work could ever be translated into humans, it would mean that we might one day see people living for 800 years. But is this ever going to be a realistic possibility?
Valter Longo is one of the small but influential group of specialists in this area who believes that an 800-year life isn't just possible, it is inevitable. It was his work at the University of Southern California that led to the creation of a strain of yeast fungus that can live for 10 weeks or more, instead of dying at its usual maximum age of just one week.
As if the name of this project wasn't heavy enough, Alan Ginsberg had to go back in time and generate more awesomeness around the Fuck Death Foundation.According to Larry Keenan (photograph above):
After meeting Ginsberg for the first time, I was not in Allen's Fell St. apartment long before he rolled up the rug, sat down, and chanted mantras for around an hour. During that time Peter Orlovsky, Michael McClure, Bruce Conner and I joined in. Then the chant changed to "fuck death" probably by McClure. The irony for me was that while we were doing the new chant, my dad the friendly mortician was supporting me. He was putting me through art school and paid for my photo supplies. With this photograph, I wanted the viewer to have the feeling of what it was like to sit down and join in the chanting with the Beats.
Take a cue from one of the best chanters America produced and include Fuck Death into your daily mantra!
"Anthomedusae" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, pubilshed 1904. And pictured below, Jelly yesterday outside Wild Orka nightclub.
How exactly does this relate to the FDF? Well, it doesn't. But come on, Lynch and Blondie? We had to post. We're filing this one under Keeping It Live.
Dylan ThomasHe wrote some heavy shit on death.
His work reminds us to live our lives with urgency.
He died at 39 from drinking too much, too often, so
his life tells us something else.
Read or listen to a poem of his below.
donotgo.wav
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California-Berkeley say that the telltale signatures left by a new class of particles could distinguish between possible shapes of the extra spatial dimensions predicted by string theory.
String theory, which describes the fundamental particles of the universe as tiny vibrating strings of energy, suggests the existence of six or seven unseen spatial dimensions in addition to the time and three space dimensions that we normally see.
