Friday 28 September 2007


Viewing Japanese Prints: Ukiyo-e.





Revolution by Design: Soviet Propaganda Posters.





The Hours of the Women of Leisure.


'This exhibition examines the variety of garments that were appropriate to wear in different surroundings and times of day in the nineteenth century by women who followed fashion and lived a life of leisure...'




The London Tube Map Archive.


London Underground maps from 1908 onwards. Interestingly the earliest Tube maps were drawn to scale.




American Ruins.


'This is a gallery of houses, barns, automobiles and businesses that have become the ruins on the landscape of America. '




The 37 Nats of Burma.


Illustrate Burmese cosmology.
"The nats of Burma make up a structured system of animistic spirits, predating the advent of Theravāda Buddhism but coexisting with it and with other systems of divination and prediction such as astronomy and alchemy."




At Home at Tea Time : Tea Gowns 1870-1920.


'As a new form of genteel undress, tea gowns exhibited early and consistently abundant signs of historicism. By 1873, gowns labeled "robes d'interieurs" appeared with stylistic details that would become characteristic of tea gowns...'




Tupperware!


'In the 1950s, American women discovered they could earn thousands -- even millions -- of dollars from bowls that burped. "Tupperware ladies" fanned out across the nation's living rooms, selling efficiency and convenience to their friends and neighbors through home parties. Bowl by bowl, they built an empire that now spans the globe...'




Peruvian Antiquities.


'In the 1830s and 1840s, Peruvian museum curator Mariano Eduardo de Rivero and Swiss naturalist Dr Johann Jakob von Tschudi undertook a survey of all known relics, ruins, records, bones, artefacts and artworks relating to the pre-Columbian civilisations of Peru.'

'The resultant 1851 book, 'Antigüedades Peruanas', was a thorough and critical archaeological, ethnographic and anthropological review for its time, although their conclusions about, for instance, racial groupings have been superseded.'



Eye Candy.


Flying Masai.



Still.



Skyscrapers.



Sun in the Night.



Saguaro Moon.



Hole in the Sun.





Weekly Puzzle.


'When Sid Bloggs was murdered, in a rather compromising position, the detective suspected Sid's wife Nora. Nora however, steadfastly maintained that on the evening of the murder she was in a restaurant with a male friend.
The detective had found an entry in Nora's diary for that evening which apparently confirmed her alibi as follows :
TIPS THE BRUSHED CHEFS. However, the detective realised that the message was coded, and that each letter could be moved either one place forwards or one place backwards in the alphabet to reveal a startling confession. What was the hidden confession?'



Querying the Hive Mind.


'What things should I learn how to fix?'



'What is your favorite boardgame?'



'Can you find me obscure things to do in London to help me win my girlfriend back?'



'I'm trying to put together a list of senses other than the big human five...'

Friday 21 September 2007


Madhubani Painting.


'Hindu women who live in villages near the market town of Madhubani in northern India maintain old traditions and teach them to their daughters. Painting is one of the traditional skills that is passed down from generation to generation in the families of some of the women. They paint figures from nature and myth on household and village walls to mark the seasonal festivals of the religious year, for special events of the life-cycle, and when marriages are being arranged they prepare intricately designed wedding proposals...'




Southwell Union Workhouse 1834-1871.


'You can now search and download documents from Southwell Union Workhouse, the best-preserved workhouse in England. These records are a fantastic resource for researchers. We are fortunate to be able to provide free access to the images because this is a joint project by The National Archives in partnership with the National Trust, with the aid of volunteers in Nottinghamshire. '



American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology.

From 1936 to 1938, many of the last surviving American slaves were interviewed as part of the Works Progress Administration. 'Their narratives remain a peerless resource for understanding the lives of America's four million slaves. '




Built to Last: Ten Enduring Landmarks of Baltimore's Central Business District.




A Guide to the Historic Covered Bridges of Georgia.



The Andean Chronicle.

'The >1000 page 'Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno' {New Chronicle and Good Government) by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala was written down between about 1612 and 1616. This extraordinary document is part historical chronicle, part legal brief, part illustrated portrait of colonial destruction and part naive plea to the Spanish throne.'
'Guaman Poma was a full-blooded native from southern Peru with noble ancestry which he used as a basis to engage in unsuccessful litigation to wrest back control of lands awarded to his forbears. By contrast, he worked for the colonial administration, was an enthusiastic religious convert, wore spanish clothes, and was virtually fluent in spanish.'




The Berlin Airlift.


'On June 24, 1948, one of the first major crises of the Cold War occurred when the Soviet Union blocked railroad and street access to West Berlin. For nearly a year two million civilians and twenty thousand allied soldiers in the city's western sector were fed and fueled entirely from the air. Former German soldiers built airfields and repaired engines for the enemies they had been shooting out of the sky just three years before. British and American pilots, so recently delivering death, were now angels of mercy, supplying coal and flour, coffee and chocolate to the beleaguered city...'




Auschwitz Through the Lens of the SS.


'In January 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a donation of a photograph album. The inscription "Auschwitz 21.6.1944" on its first page signaled the uniqueness of the album—there are very few wartime photographs of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, which included Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center. Though his name does not appear anywhere in the album, the dates of the photographs and various decorations including adjutant cords on the uniform of the album's owner, indicate that the album almost certainly belonged to and was created by SS-Obersturmführer Karl Höcker, the adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz, SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer. Höcker was stationed at Auschwitz from May 1944 until the evacuation of the camp in January 1945...'




Zen Eccentrics.


Zen art.
'Soga Shohaku, whose work initially resembled Muromachi-period (1336-1573) ink painting, ultimately devised wild, almost surreal depictions of ghosts, demons, and bizarre Zen-like images ... '





Heroes and Martyrs of the French Resistance: Last Letters.


Collection of last letters of executed members of French Resistance group.




Paris, May 1968 Archive.





The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.





Yorkshire Dales Market Towns.


'At the centre of our regions' commercial, cultural and social heritage for centuries; Yorkshire Dales market towns continue to inspire visitors and provide a focal point for community life as they have down the years.'




Great Wishford, Wiltshire.


'As people in the village of Great Wishford prepare for the Oak Apple day celebrations, a new book aims to reveal the history of this south Wiltshire community.'




Wiltshire's Underground City.


'Burlington: The 35 acre, secret subterranean Cold War City that lies 100 feet beneath Corsham.'




Digital Malham.


'On these pages you will find information on the areas of outstanding natural beauty which surround the Yorkshire Dales village of Malham.
We encourage you to take some time out and discover some of the geological treasures that lie within. '




Phuoc Hue: Vietnamese Buddhist Temple in Sydney.


Photo-essay.




Weekly Puzzle.


'A man lives on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the lift down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the lift, and, if there is someone else in the elevator he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his apartment. Why?'



Eye Candy.


Amsterdam.



Harajuku Girls are the New Geisha.



Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur.



Whirlpool Galaxy and NGC 5195.



4000 Kilometers Above Saturn's Iapetus.


1960 Iranian Ad for TV Sets.



Soul Candy.

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter.



Querying the Hive Mind.


'I'm looking for books with quirky storylines or quirky characters doing strange things.'



'What is a Buddhist to do about bullies?



'What is a food processor good for?'



Advice on online dating services.

Tuesday 18 September 2007


London Transport Museum Poster Collection.


Tube and bus advertising.




Massive Collection of NYC Photos.





Taoism and the Arts of China.





India: The Path of Devotion.


'To understand the many fascinating aspects of Indian culture and life, one must understand the role of devotion in India. Devotion is perhaps the only thing that binds the people of India, superceding such barriers as languages, caste of birth, religious beliefs, and racial diversity. '




Stone Pages: Web Guide to Megalithic Europe.


'Over the last 14 years we have personally visited and photographed all 529 archæological sites you will find in these pages (117 in the six national sections and 412 in our Tours section), creating the first Web guide to European megaliths and other prehistoric sites, online since February 1996'.



The Old North Trail (1910).
'Walter McClintock went to Montana with a US Forestry Service expedition in 1896. He spent the next four years living on the land with the Blackfeet, one of the most northern of the Great Plains tribes. He was adopted into the tribe by the Chief Mad Dog, and got a chance to learn their traditions firsthand. The book presents Blackfeet folklore and religious traditions in context. The narrative of his gradual adoption into Blackfeet society is a classic Western tale, but it is also a classic of 19th century ethnography.'




The Nine Nations of North America.


'Forget about the United States of America, forget about Canada and about Mexico. North America might be divided into these three states, but the northern half of the American continent is actually made up of nine nations. Those weren’t on any map until 1981, when Joel Garreau published ‘The Nine Nations of North America’...'




Advertising Trade Cards.


Vintage advertising.




Armenian Manuscript.


Medieval manuscript.




Paper Gods.





Weekly Puzzle.


MOSCOW=1100. LONDON = 550. TEL AVIV = 61. PARIS = 1. BERLIN = ?



Querying the Hive Mind.


'Help me stop meeting more acquaintances and start meeting more close friends'



'What is the single best thing you have done to help control your depression?'



'What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) for laypeople?'



'Looking for books about or by female travelers/adventurers/volunteers abroad.'




Eye Candy.

Her.

V-Dub.

Spirograph.

Preppy Sarnie Hell.

Hindu Child.


Fruit Sellers, Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.


To Fly Free in Space.

Iapetus in Black and White.

Tuesday 11 September 2007

French Drawings: The Essence of Line.
'Welcome to this database of nineteenth-centuryFrench drawings. From revealing preparatorysketches to exquisite finished watercolors,more than 900 works by artists such as EugéneDelacroix, Honoré Daumier, Paul Cézanne, andEdgar Degas illuminate the range of Frenchart over the course of a century of innovation.'

Aztec Codices.
'Mesoamerican manuscripts, or codices, describedwars, victories, famine, pestilence, religiousevents, and other elements of ancient Mesoamericanculture. The codices often consisted of one longextension or band of paper called amatl, producedfrom the bark of a type of fig tree. Glyphs, orpictorial representations, were used for the text. '

Formosa Streets.
Taiwanese street scenes.

36 Days' Journey in Nippon.
Photographs.

Post Office in Paradise: Missionary Stamps ofHawaii.
'Hawaii's first stamps are known as the MissionaryIssue. Four stamps of three values - 2¢, 5¢ and13¢ - comprise the issue, all printed locally byletterpress at the Government Printing Office.Missionaries are assigned Hawaii Nos. 1-4 by ScottCatalogue. The first three stamps in the issuewere announced for sale on October 1, 1851, atthe Honolulu and Lahaina post offices...'

The George Raper Collection.
Midshipman George Raper was a sailor on the First Fleetthat colonised Australia for the British. This exhibitis about notebooks he kept during the voyage.

1/ Anastasia, Brenda and Cornelia toss a fair coin 15, 16, and 17 times respectively. Which one isleast likely to have tossed more heads than tails?
2/ The same, except the coins are tossed 18, 19 and 20times?

Estonian Illustrators.
'The National Library of Estonia have a largecollection of book scans, prints and originalsketches by illustrators from the last ~70 years. '

Panoramic View of Milwaukee.
Photograph from between 1890 and 1900.

Chilean Gaucho.

Karen Padaung Girl Portrait.

Murerplan Zurich.
1576 city map of Zurich.

Jupiter Unpeeled.

The United Countries of Baseball.
'This map, indicating all teams in theNational and American sub-leagues of MajorLeague Baseball, translates some of the Americanobsession with baseball into a representation ofthe supposed ‘countries’ of baseball. As with manyother team sports, the fan base of baseball teamsis to a large extent regional. Unless you’re of acontrary nature, you support the local team -barring of course that you move, and continueto support your home team as a kind of sentimentallink with your place of origin...'

The Passenger Pigeon.
'The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) orWild Pigeon was a species of pigeon that wasonce the most common bird in North America.It is estimated that there were as many as fivebillion passenger pigeons in the United Statesat the time Europeans colonized North America.They lived in enormous flocks, and during migration,one could see flocks of them a mile (1.6 km)wide and 300 miles (500 km) long, taking severaldays to pass and probably containing two billionbirds...'

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collection.
'Known mainly for its infamous collapse in 1940,the Tacoma Narrows Bridge continues to hold aplace in engineering and Pacific Northwest history.This collection contains images and text drawn fromthe University of Washington Special CollectionsDivision and the Museum of History and Industry.They document the creation of the Tacoma NarrowsBridge, its collapse and subsequent studies involvingits aerodynamics, and finally the construction of asecond bridge spanning the Narrows...'

Tuesday 4 September 2007

This is for updates to Plep while I am in New York.