I also need to rewrite an old bad pun:
When is a box not a box? When it’s a jar.
But that’s just part of the problem. The now defunct department store, Eaton’s (Eaton, pour le francophonie, qui est plus discombobulated par une apostrophe et une ess) once had a Christmas ad on TV that started with a voice over saying something about how when the elevator doors opened on to the toy department, or maybe it was coming down on Christmas morning, it reminded him of Pandora’s box opening. And he sounded happy about it.
What reminded me of this idiotic ad campaign was that I just got a Google ad thingy from a jewellery company called Pandora’s, who suggested that if I clicked on their cyber box, it would reveal a charm. 12 charms, for the 12 evils, I mean daze of Christmas.
Now I am a pretty big fan of Christmas, not just because Jesus was born in March, but because it is a fun time for the family, basically. And I like having a tree in the living room. A very bizarre cultural artifact and much to be desired and emulated. It should just grow there, all year round. But I digress, just didn’t want to get accused of bashing Christmas, even though it does drag attention away from the more important birth of Xty, the day before.
But why would anyone want you to associate Christmas with letting loose all the evils of the world, and hope this would make you want to go shopping? Or are they just astonishingly uncurious and just didn’t notice. Did no one vet the ad campaign? Ask the guy who designed it just who this Pandora chick was anyway? And if they had bothered to look, they would have found it was a jar after all and she really should have kept it shut:
Pandora’s box is an artifact in Greek mythology. The “box” was actually a large jar (πιθος pithos) given to Pandora (Πανδώρα) (“all-gifted”), which contained all the evils of the world. When Pandora opened the jar, the entire contents of the jar were released, but for one – hope. Today, opening Pandora’s box means to create evil that cannot be undone.*
It is a colossal blunder, and it has bothered me for years. I mean the ad campaign.
As to Pandora and her jar, well it is a silly story. Why would hope and evil be trapped in a jar anyhow? Why always blame women for unleashing evil on the world? [Are you sure you want to ask that, ed.?] But I am being rhetorical … The connection between Pandora and Eve was actually first explored in remarkable detailed by Jean Cousin the Elder in about 1550:
According to the Louvre write up, where this lovely work hangs:
Eve, guilty of original sin as related in the Book of Genesis, is here equated with Pandora who, in Greek mythology, spread all the evils that have afflicted mankind by curiously opening the box entrusted to her by the gods. When King Henri II entered Paris in 1549, Jean Cousin decorated a triumphal arch with an allegory of the city as ‘The New Pandora dressed as a nymph’.!
Why being the new Pandora would be a good thing I am not sure … and I really don’t want to get into the symbolism of entering the city through an arch decorated as Pandora’s anything.
But whatever use you do make of the myth, let’s at least keep a lid on it having been an excellent idea for Pandora to open her box or leave anything ajar.
.
* http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Pandora_s_box.html
! http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/eva-prima-pandora
A quick google search on the origins of the Christmas tree yields a variety of tales. I personally am quite sure that it goes back to Yggdrasil, Woden, and the rest of the old germanic faith. That works for me.
By the way, I object to the word “mythology”, unless it is extended to all the other claptrap that is currently in vogue around the world, but I digress.
Yes and as to mythology, if the word wasn’t so over-used, everything really is a narrative, and given the nature of most or at least many humans, claptrap sums it up nicely.
And my tolerance for idiocy, especially intentionally misleading idiocy, is at an all time low. However, I have argued my middle child almost around to accepting that he too will lie to his kids about Santa. Some claptrap is more enjoyable.
Claptrap can be fun. Claptrap can be nice. I’m all for any sort of claptrap that brings families closer together.
I object when various axe-grinders turn to using it to steer public policy, or otherwise inflict their will upon the rest of us. In this sense, I am libertarian in the truest sense of the word.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/claptrap
Seems like a good time to send out some snark to that portion of the electorate that has done sufficient mental masturbation to convince themselves that they can be libertarians and bible thumpers at the same time.
This goes with it. Couldn’t do two pics at once.
this is what i want for Xtymas.
And now, for the rest of the story…
http://www.cracked.com/funny-4493-pandora/
OK, yeah, I was surfing.
http://www.cracked.com/article_20694_6-filthy-jokes-you-wont-believe-are-from-bible.html
the box did open
the sin it was committed
the result was Cain
—
The attempt to pollute the seedline of Christ had failed though as Cain’s twin brother Abel actually was the son of both Adam and Eve. (Heteropaternal superfecundation twins)
So then Cain kills Abel, which was foiled by the later birth of Seth, through whom (who?/whom?) Christ was eventually born. (And not on Dec 25th)
[Category: Biblical stuff that you will likely NEVER hear from any flavor of the “Religious” community.]
But if she had kept the lid on things… we never would have been able to experience the joy of “Keyne”(cain)sian economics,… and might never have accordingly ‘met up’ in the Silver world blogosphere!!
(“…Hey, it’s only 32 shopping days until Xtymas, and she still hasn’t posted her list yet…”…)
does anyone else here, over think think the simplest of things? w/my man Mr G.
Dylan did not like the main street media either. cool artwork in this video.
yes, guilty of over thinking things. some things cannot be known, and even if a few things can, there may be more than one correct answer.
DN – what has happened to your face?
That painting hangs in the Louvre ?
jmo, but… the light source in the painting is terrible. Look at the whole painting without really focusing on a specific spot for about 30 seconds… try to get a feeling, but also try to sense where the Sun is… (the painting is so bad that it won’t be easy even while zoomed out) then start zooming in and out slowly and panning back and forth, still ‘sensing’ where the Sun is. There will be so many that you will look away. Very hard to look at. And the unnatural torso, proportions, etc.. the body with multiple suns shining on it. I wonder if he painted a real person who maybe kept moving. Maybe that’s why the light source is so jacked up? A slow painter outdoors with the moving sun. That’s as far as I could get with it.
Maybe it’s “famous”/recognized by the “louvre” because of the whole Eve context thing and then ‘the emperor has no clothes’ effect took over from there as often operates in the ‘religious’/art crossover community. Again, all just my .02, but I did look at it several times earlier and then again this evening and am not being critical for the sake of it. The louvre… hmm.
How do you guys see the thing?
Hello friends- sort of a Biblical thingy goin’ on here, which calls to mind g(G)enesis and beginnings. As for lighthouses, they began simply as bonfires on the shore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsterbo_Lighthouse
Maybe in a past life I kept the fire going so EO’s Viking ship could sail safely. Hopefully we shared the plunder. (I could simply just be derelict and wassail too much to light it you know…………..)
A retrospective, three years on.
What a long strange trip it’s been. Back then, silver was all the rage. Miners were going up pretty much every day. Conventional stocks and bonds were “ponzi coupons”, guaranteed to destroy your wealth. New blogs were popping up, telling everyone to prepare accordingly for the end of the world as we know it. Let’s go to the numbers and see how that all worked out, shall we?
You could have invested in “real money”, bought gold or silver, and lost 9% or 28% of your wealth, respectively. Or maybe you really decided to go for the lottery and bought miners. And lost 61% of your money. Hey, way to protect your loved ones guys. Way to “prep”! But look at the bright side. A lot of coins, subscriptions, MRE’s, water filters, ammunition, and advertising space was sold, helping to keep the economy afloat.
Alternatively, you could have gone into the heart of darkness, the ponzi scheme of all ponzi schemes, the bubble of all bubbles, and just bought long term treasury bonds. And you’d be up 17%. How about the stock market? Nobody with any sense would ever put a nickel into that den of thieves, right? Well, if you had, you’d be up 59% right now.
Perhaps you are just a lazy know-nothing sheeple, waiting to be shorn, and you left your 401(k) sitting in a plain vanilla, 60/40 fund. The height of passive, boring, fiduciary prudence. You don’t even look at your statements. Well, you might want to take a peek. You are up 39%.
Cycles come and cycles go. All of this could turn around someday. But when? Timing is everything. The doomsayers have been singing the same song, and been nothing but wrong, for over 40 years. So far. It’s a fact. I should know, because I listened to them for far too long myself. But no more.
Good morning Dude Stacker (I can change how that shows, btw). Great to see you!
It would appear that videos display if you put them on their own line in a comment, and with the magic of time travel, I can edit your post and fix it.
And yes, I think that painting is awful.
EO, I just have to accept all of that. Life is one steep learning curve!
Hey Dude! Didn’t see you there. Welcome aboard.
Get any snow down by you? We’ve got tracking snow for deer season, as they say.
How about you, xty? Being in Canada, I generally assume you always have snow cover, with the possible exception of (part of) walleye season. I bet you can see Santa’s Workshop from your house! 😉
Snow? ‘Bout as much as you could snort off a mirror. But yes cold coming for sure. It’ll be a real challenge to sit in my cold blind when my warm house is only 125 yards away. Will you be a participant, Eric?
Just for grins I just checked the 3 year return on JPM stock. I mean, talk about Satan himself! According to Morningstar, total return, including dividends, would have you up 54%. Balls. 👿
I believe in karma, I believe in karma, I believe in karma….
Uh, no. I gave up deer hunting long ago. The older I get, the less interested I am in killing things. I’m probably getting low on testosterone or something. Plus, it’s frickin cold out there! (which gets worse with age as well).
Hey! The drug industry has a name for that. Their marketing people dreamed up the term “Low T”. And, by some strange coincidence, they have a pill for it too! How convenient!
so many topics to choose from. hmmmn. well it’s not even noon yet here, so i will play it safe. nice to see ya Dude.
and yes, that painting is hideous. i am a big fan of the impressonists. they had better pigments available, but more importantly popular culture was becoming more romantic and less rational.
http://www.artistsandart.org/2010/01/merio-ameglio-1897-1970-italian-artist.html
Le Boulevard Saint Denis Sous la Neige
Merio Ameglio
check out these colors!
http://www.artistsandart.org/2010/07/maurice-empi-french-artist.html
i want one of these for Xtymas also.
Someone will have to help me figure out how to post a picture of mine. I can select it w/ browse button, but then can’t do anything with it. (jpg)
Anywho, it tied in to both EO and DP.
It was an attempt at impressionistic photography. Took a movie clip of Manido Falls in U.P., and while filming, rotated the camera 90 degrees. Then at home, I isolated a single frame that showed the radial distortion and amped up the color saturation. Thought I had invented a new technique.
Imagine my chagrin when, while experimenting with grayscale, I noticed a before overlooked tool called distort radial blur that does the same thing. Talk about Low T- that was instantaneous detumescence.
I’ll be gol durned, it did post, but was cut off on the right. So now the question is- how to edit before posting?
Through trial and (mostly) error, we’ve determined that images need to be resized down to a maximum of around 800 pixels wide before posting.
Are you PC or Mac? On my Mac, I open the image in Preview, go to Tools, Adjust Size, and go from there. I do a Save As, with a different name, so as not to screw up my original. On PC I have no idea.
you can resize images here…
http://bayimg.com/
upload the image, and then hit the settings tab. 640 to 480 works well.
edit: you may also right click on your image icon and select “open with” and choose “Microsoft Office Picture Manager” then hit the “edit pictures” tab at the top.
i looked up detumescense, and then immediately used it in a sentence so that i would remember the word. “Instantaneous Detumescense”. cool. i have a name for my next internet painting. 😳
Think I’ve got it. Photoscape.
or this. (instantaneous detumescence) 😯 😯 😯
Pictures down, it’s nice to be able to cut and paste from my own Photoscape files w/o having to use an image hosting intermediary although I do feel so vulnerable not seeing pic before I hit post.
Now on to try a vid.
This gives a Friday feel to the earlier religion thingy.
from the movie Cool Hand Luke. Luke is informed that his mother has died.
ahhhh… very nice. Maybe even therapeutic.
What a nice street, you just want to step into the painting and follow it on around to where things will just keep feeling better as you go. Light is used to say “there you go” at the bottom/entrance of the painting and your mind can’t resist going around that curve to where you would fully realize just what a wonderful street this is, if it were actually possible to step into the painting and go.
Down around the curve and to the left is the focal point of the painting, it’s just a ‘detail’less little muddle of paint yet crystal clear and conjoined mentally and emotionally as the place you would just “have to go” and love to experience going toward. The tall dude is already feeling it, and will be taking the little one down the street toward that point.
In fact, the tall dude might be Merio, and the little dude might be us.
Ahhhh, Pete & Lou. That’s awesome. And playing one of their “hits” too yet.
A few lost evenings with those guys back in the day, that’s for sure. But wait, when did Pete start playing a 12 string? And when did he get so old? None of US are that old, for sure, ha ha. Lou looks the same as ever, though women dye their hair, so you never really know. Deceivers. I bet that Pandora chick had something to do with it. 😛
Keepin things on a multi-faith basis.
Yeah, what’s Paul Newman and Bill Murray look like these days too. I know I am the elder statesman here and I can relate:
the internet is amazing. what i noticed is the arch. so i had to look it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porte_Saint-Denis
the translated name of the painting is ‘Saint Denis Boulevard under snow’.
and this is kind of interesting too…
“According to Christian tradition, Saint Denis (also called Dionysius, Dennis, or Denys) is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after 250 AD. After his head was chopped off, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles), preaching a sermon the entire way, making him one of many cephalophores in hagiology. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as patron of Paris, France, and as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. The medieval and modern French name “Denis” derives from the ancient name Dionysius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis
i like your interpretation. that is what makes art personal. Hemingway said, ” Then there is the other secret. There isn’t any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”
and yeah, EO, i got into the bourbon already.
thanks dude, for showing me this. nature is my favorite art.
click on some of the galleries. and no, i do not know this person.
http://thattree.net/shop/categories.php
Dude Stacker…i swear i was just thinking about you the other day…makes me wonder if things might be connected? (Woodpecker and i are working on that) so happy to see you.
i have always loved good stories which likely explains my fondness for good lyrics…working on some more up beat stuff..hang on guys(gal) stack of quarters and Xty is outside somewhere.
says Mr. Greene
EO whiskey and dew would be better.