Etiqueta: howtobearetronaut.com

Decay of Hollywood

Chequen esta foto de 1978 del famoso letrero -actualmente todo un ícono de la ciudad de Los Angeles-, que me encontré en mi querido sitio retronaut.com junto con algunos datos curiosos sobre su origen.

Una de esa imágenes que dicen más de lo que muestran…

“The sign, erected in 1923, originally read “HOLLYWOODLAND” to advertise the name of a new housing development. Over the course of more than half a century, the sign, designed to stand for only 18 months, had deteriorated.

In 1978, in large part because of a public campaign by Alice Cooper (who donated the missing O), the Chamber set out to replace it with a more permanent structure”…

http://bit.ly/13AC7Et

1560 automaton

Comparto esta curiosidad: un robot del siglo XVI, fabricado por un famoso relojero de la época y a petición de Rey de España Felipe II. El pequeño muñequito mecánico de 15 pulgadas representa un monje que camina, lanza bendiciones y se da golpes de pecho (entre otros gestos religiosos).
Hasta la fecha funciona perfectamente, como se puede apreciar en este video del Met de Nueva York -que me dí a la tarea de buscar- con la historia completa de su origen y un par de ligas adicionales…

“An automaton of a monk, 15 inches in height. Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies. From time to time, he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. After over 400 years, he remains in good working order. Tradition attributes his manufacture to the mechanician to Emperor Charles V. The story is told that the emperor’s son King Philip II, praying at the bedside of a dying son of his own, promised a miracle for a miracle, if his child be spared. And when the child did indeed recover, Philip kept his bargain by having his mechanician construct a miniature penitent homunculus”…

http://bit.ly/13YFLD8

Georgian eye jewellery

Estas piezas de joyería lucen tan contemporaneas, que me costó trabajo creer que sean de finales del siglo XVIII. Pero sí, la colección está en el Victoria and Albert Museum.

Eye miniatures came into fashion at the end of the 18th century. In France, where eye miniature seems to have originated, the eye as symbol of watchfulness was adopted by the state police for buckles and belts.

In Britain it had a role as a love token, with some eye miniatures glistening with a trompe-l’oeil tear, or a diamond set to imitate a tear. Most eye miniatures are unsigned, due to the minuteness of the background, and often the name of the person whose eye is depicted is unknown…

http://bit.ly/P87PiR
 

Georgian eye jewellery

Diving suit, 1882

All authors agreed up to here to say that the two inventors of this diving suit had been inspired by medieval armors in the rooms of a museum. He/it seems me rather; after a survey deepened of this device that the two Marseillais have in fact drawn meadows of them, in the nature the answers to their questions. As each knows it; all answers are effectively in the nature and notably under the surface of the oceans. As curious as it can appear, observe a lobster and you will find the plans of an incredible submarine machine, army, protected, articulate. It is precisely what one makes the two fréreses. Beyond the incredible complexity of the construction of this diving suit, it is especially his/her/its beauty that touches us today…

http://bit.ly/PmgzNy 

Dante’s Google Circles of Hell

The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three canticas (Ital. pl. cantiche)—Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise)—each consisting of 33 cantos (Ital. pl. canti). An initial canto serves as an introduction to the poem and is generally considered to be part of the first cantica, bringing the total number of cantos to 100. It is generally accepted, however, that the first two cantos serve as a unitary prologue to the entire epic, as well as the opening two cantos of each cantica serving as a prologue to each of the three cantiche. The number three is prominent in the work, represented here by the length of each cantica. The verse scheme used, terza rima, is hendecasyllabic (lines of eleven syllables), with the lines composing tercets according to the rhyme scheme aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ….

The poem is written in the first person, and tells of Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante’s ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom he had met in childhood and admired from afar in the mode of the then-fashionable courtly love tradition which is highlighted in Dante’s earlier work La Vita Nuova.

The structure of the three realms follows a common numerical pattern of 9 plus 1 for a total of 10: 9 circles of the Inferno, followed by Lucifer contained at its bottom; 9 rings of Mount Purgatory, followed by the Garden of Eden crowning its summit; and the 9 celestial bodies of Paradiso, followed by the Empyrean containing the very essence of God. Within the 9, 7 correspond to a specific moral scheme, subdividing itself into three subcategories, while two others of more particularity are added on for a completion of nine. For example, the seven deadly sins of the Catholic Church that are cleansed in Purgatory are joined by special realms for the Late repentant and the excommunicated by the church. The core seven sins within purgatory correspond to a moral scheme of love perverted, subdivided into three groups corresponding to excessive love (Lust, Gluttony, Greed), deficient love (Sloth), and malicious love (Wrath, Envy, Pride)…

http://bit.ly/nGJwzw