Rare Views into 1840’s U.S.A.

In this nice video, you can look at photographs taken nearly 200 (!) years ago in the american west. It really rushes you into a simpler, wider but also more dangerous world. I personally like ships very much, and never get tired of looking at old stuff in general. Enjoy!

© Alfred A. Hart

No, the picture above does not come up in the video, I just like it. It’s the 1865 C.P.R.R.’s locomotive “Gov. Stanford”; and trains are just cool, aren’t they?

Stay Alert and Go West !, yours Advocate of Entropy

Past and Future: Tian’anmen

25 years ago the world was seething from change and everywhere some new formation, organisation appeared: commemorating the near end of the cold war and trying to make the world a little better; piece by piece. In some regions of the world those movements didn’t have many friends, because they also protested against the old regimes and gridlocked politics.
Surprisingly in countries like Russia or regions like East Europe these “revolutions” and actions mostly took place in total calm and (nearly) without violence. But not in communist China. No no! Here, on the Tian’anmen (Place of Heavenly Peace) and the whole rest of Beijing, mostly students stood against everything, they thought was wrong. As it happened to be, they didn’t just occupy the place, like today’s “protesters” (cuz seriously: what do you think can be accomplished with sitting in a park for twenty weeks?), but they wanted that Michail Gorbatschow (russian president at that time) would see their mysery and help the thousands of brave studtens and workers who were trying to change something in their homeland, when he would visit Beijing. But China’s bigheads decided otherwise and quelled the “rebellion” with brutal force…

Striking Gold at the Airport

Daily Prompt: Terminal Time

a flight get’s delayed 6 hours and none of my electronical devices is working. How do I pass my time? Hmm …

Run for your Lives! The Snake is loose!

Daily Prompt: Living Art

my favourite art piece (painting, statue or wahtever) comes to life… what happens next?

Bad Saint, go to the Fridge!

On the weekend I learned something fascinating. Most people know that in South America there about a gazillion saints and everyone has it’s own jurisdiction. Whenever you want something from them, you send a little prayer to one of the figurines standing in your living room, just above the TV. And now it get’s interesting!

Saints / © German Art Industries

Signs from the near Future

This tumblr predicts how warning signs, alarms, signals and other visual content might look in the near future. Personally I like the driver-free taxi, because taxi drivers tend to give me the chills, when they try to make conversation. Also I’d like to see how it scares shit out of people, when this yellow driverless bug comes around the corner with the back full of people.

http://signsfromthenearfuture.tumblr.com/

The Trojan Wars

Cei

Wicca was suggested this week, but I think that will require a little more research than I want to devote while finishing off some other writing. I hope you will accept my substitute, the Trojan Wars.

Everyone knows about the Trojan War, either as written by Homer himself or through the reasonable movie facsimile done a few years ago. The romance of Paris and Helen, the foolish bravado of Achilles conflicting with the regal arrogance of Agamemnon, and the terrible situation Priam and Hector are forced into are all good storytelling.

The truth is that if a minion behaved as Achilles does toward Agamemnon, he would have had his throat slit as he slept. If he didn’t, his king would lose his hold over his other minions and himself be killed. The fact is that Odysseus is the real hero of The Iliad and Homer’s sequel The Odyssey. He enlists…

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The Room of No Return

Daily Prompt: Breathing Room

a magical room appears in your flat, but you can only put three items in it, or it disappears again … hm…

Writing 101: Commit to a Writing Practice

Writing 101: Commit to a Writing Practice

15 minutes about the 3 most important songs in my life …

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1. Jean Michel Jarre – Oxygene Part 1-6

This song, more than any other, can remind me of my father. It was this vinyl record I found on the attic when I was 14 years old. After hearing the record once our record player broke down and 3 whole years I nearly forgot it. And it’s magic.
Only on the internet (boy was it slow back then) I stumbled upon the track in the early YouTube. Again enchanted, I traded a crate of best Flensburger Beer for a 25 year old record player that didn’t work. I repaired it (cost me half my nerves) and soon I also found the record itself again and played both sides for hours and hours. I really is pure magic.

2. Edvard Grieg – Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 (The Hall of the Mountain King)

Houston I want my doggy back!

Daily Prompt: “Longing for Gravity”

asks what I would miss the most about our blur planet, when I had to leave for Mars on a no-return mission. Well, except the love of my life, there are several things I’d miss. But the most?