Venetian canal, 1955 by Vittorio Piergiovanni
Dwarf Figurine, 550-850 CE, of Maya-Mexico culture, now locted at The Walters Art Museum
Dwarfs were important members of royal Maya courts. They are portrayed serving food, playing musical instruments, holding sacred objects for the ruler, and as diviners and scribes. Their elevated social roles were steeped in cosmology and religious mythology, especially that of the maize god, who was assisted by a dwarf when the deity set the Three Stones of the cosmic hearth at the beginning of Creation. The Classic Maya viewed dwarfs as the living embodiment of the maize god’s supernatural helpers, who continued their sacred duty in the regal court. Maya peoples today believe that earlier creations were populated by a race of dwarfs who now reside inside the earth, living below the ruins of the ancient cities. The ornate turban worn by this dwarf is typical of the courtly garb of key individuals serving the ruler. This so-called spangled turban headdress is especially connected to gods and humans associated with Creation and scribal duties. A curious feature of this dwarf is what may be a halved cacao pod held in his right hand. His cheeks are covered with what appears to be a thin, woven fabric; this recalls other figurines, many of which are dwarfs, with an unidentifiable material plastered to the lower half of their face. These features suggest the depiction of a formal rite. The graceful rendering of this figure and the exceptional attention to detail reveal the work of a master artist.
(via ushishir)
(Source: wrongism, via laplumeabelle)
To live completely the paradox that things matter absolutely and things absolutely do not matter.
(via uitlandish:)
How Corporations and Local Governments Use the Poor As Piggy Banks | Mother Jones -
Excellent (and depressing) piece by Barbara Ehrenreich. I’ve seen a lot of what she mentions in action.
(By the way, if you haven’t read her book Nickel and Dimed, I recommend it.)
Yes, yes. Nickel and Dimed is a classic.
Five centuries ago, these mummies were bound into bundles, which resulted in contorted poses but made them easier to carry. Modern looters tore off their wrappings, hoping to find gold.
(Source: perhapsmaybeisuppose, via dreaminginthedeepsouth)
![decorativeindulgences:
ca. 1800-1810, [pair of English, gold and silver inlaid flintlock tap action pocket pistols], John Brown
via the Curator’s Eye Collection](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4br7nG0SX1rszr5to1_500.jpg)
ca. 1800-1810, [pair of English, gold and silver inlaid flintlock tap action pocket pistols], John Brown
(via drtuesdaygjohnson)
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Gray Dawn, 2006
(via enx)
.
You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest?
You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest,
and I smile, and am silent,
and even my soul remains quiet:
it lives in the other world
which no one owns.The peach trees blossom,
The water flows.李白 Li Po (701 – 762)
(via journalofanobody)
I have a rich, thick, shiny head of hair in my imagination. When I let it grow long, which I imagine is how I prefer it, the fact that my hair is very fine and thinning became too obvious. When newly washed and dried it blew about my face like a dandelion gone to seed; when dirty, it hung in dank strings. So I’ve shorn it like this. Now my imagination has nearly recovered from the assault.
(via naturalbornworldshakers)
“…[T]he percentage of graduate-degree holders who receive food stamps or some other aid more than doubled between 2007 and 2010. During that three-year period, the number of people with master’s degrees who received food stamps and other aid climbed from 101,682 to 293,029, and the number of people with Ph.D.’s who received assistance rose from 9,776 to 33,655, according to tabulations of microdata done by Austin Nichols, a senior researcher with the Urban Institute.” — From Graduate School to Welfare - Graduate Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via gmd)
(via gmd)
Scott Pommier photography for Moto Guzzi Motorcycle’s 2012 ad campaign, Art Director Luca Eremo
Where Are the Missing 5 Million Workers? In the Underground Economy -
In the past two years, the number of people in the U.S. who are older than 16 (and not in the military or prison) has grown by 5.4 million. The number of people working or looking for work hasn’t grown at all. … Sex work, drugs and crime spring to mind, but the underground or “shadow” economy includes all sorts of off-the-books toil. From baby-sitting, bartering, mending, kitchen-garden farming and selling goods in a yard sale, all sorts of people—from the tamale seller on your corner, to the dancer who teachers yoga—are all contributing to the underground economy along with the “employed” who pay them for their wares.
[video]
‘A new appetite develops within him, the hunger for real awakening, for full consciousness. He realizes that he sees, hears, knows only a tiny fraction of what he could see, hear and know, that he lives in the poorest, shabbiest of the rooms in his inner dwelling, but that he could enter other rooms, beautiful and filled with treasures, the windows of which look out on eternity and infinity….’ - DeRopp, ‘The Master Game’