Adventures @ Duke

Snowflake reprise

Check out this slideshow while listening to Tschaikovsky's Waltz of the Snowflakes

The Biology of Barcelona, part 2

Gaudi reinterpreted Haeckel's style and created his own biomorphic shapes for his grand-scale architecture:





Casa Battlo

And see this site for fantastic images of the Sagrada Familia:

The Biology of Barcelona, part 1

It was said that architect-about-town in turn-of-the-century Barcelona, Antonin Gaudi, took inspiration from the biological forms of sponges and other sea things, in particular those depicted by Ernst Haeckel in his Kunstformen der Natur.




images from Kunsformen der Natur

Antique Embalming Fluid

Whose poop doesn't stink?

"Irenaeus even claims that, if Adam had never sinned, his excrement would have no stench"

There's a reason Michelangelo used scaffolding

MEDICAL ANIMATION - HEAL

I seeee yoooouuuu

The Lady Anatomist

Just started this book--and it's a finalist for the Morey Award for books in art history. So far so good.

Schlafende Ariadne by Michael Triegel, mixed media on canvas, 2010

Who doesn't love ear trumpets?

Reminds me of this:

Academic Paper Title of the Day

Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance

Shout out to Ugly Renaissance Babies

http://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com/


And I have my own addition:

Terrifying Ceramics Day

"Psoriasis"

God knows what this is called. It had better not have some kind of Sylvia Plath poem name.

Ways to show skin on Halloween: Dress like a skeleton?

Apparently adding flesh to skeletons makes them sexy:

Problems with the 1950s: Women douched with Lysol

It was also understood as a form of birth control in some areas, but the lines are blurry since, you know, nobody talked about it. But you can tell the companies are trying to pursue an unhealthy fear of women's own bodies, that apparently have smells so strong as to act as a forcefield against their husbands:







Oh, and Listerine was introduced as a less abrasive alternative...

Everything you ever wanted to browse on the subject...

Unless you're me of course... But it also has a few pictures and links to the finest lady ever to expose her organs to perfect strangers, the Susini Venus at La Specola:

If you're looking for a book linking botany, gynecology, and Edwardian sensibilities, boy do I have the book for you

I am finally reading this book, and it is blowing my mind like a... well all of the metaphors just sound dirty now. I will never look at orchids the same way again. {from the Latin orchis meaning testicle, for those interested}.



In any case, a gorgeous book that is a delight to read, not only for its naughty sense of humor, but also for the writer's colorful vocabulary. Here are a few of my favorite images from the book:

Hands, Hearts, and Eyes

Insanely hip, mesmerizing, and uncannily nostalgic graphics from the zinescape's masters of juxtaposition, Craphound:



And a video:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/947849256/crap-hound-no-5-hands-hearts-and-eyes-3rd-edition

Popular Science Monthly, 1895

"Another important sacerdotal function is the cleansing of milk pails, churns, and other vessels used in the dairy from demonaic infection, which is frequently caused by women touching such vessels during menstruation."

X-Ray Souls - give skeletons to things that never thought they had them!