notes from an alumnus written on illuminated aluminum
Rachel Osby registered at Shelby Center, Room 301.
David kingsbury(?) opened UAH alumni lunch-&-learn lecture.
Dr. Lillian Joyce.
UAH dept of art and history moved into Wilson Hall.
Available degrees:
- BA in Art (studio art or art history)
- BFA in graphic design, painting and drawing, photography, printmaking and sculpture.
POMPEII
Archaeology. Bay of Naples — former Roman navy/shipping center, home of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius.
Vesuvius volcano report issued like weather reports because of active volcanic activity. 217 BCE last known eruption. 5 Feb 62 CE — major earthquake before devastating eruption in 79 CE. Many eruptions since.
The Pompeii ruins are getting worse due to tourist funding reallocation by the government.
Negative spaces that were once bodies in the volcanic ash were filled with plaster to show what the bodies looked like as they fell, before they deteriorated.
Dr. J worked out of one the large four level houses built on the city wall overlooking the Bay of Naples.
Popular art on Pompeian walls: Abandonment of Ariadne by Theseus, picked up by Dionysus.
All the Pompeian houses had relatively plain exterior walls – luxury was displayed on the inside, created by artisans specialising in plaster, mosaic, painting, sculpting, etc.
Pompeii covered with both informal and professional “graffiti” artwork — 98 percent were commissioned for political campaigns. Ex: “vote my candidate for aidae.”
Around 10000 people lived in Pompeii — about 2800 political campaign paintings on walls in town.
Women wore wigs to emulate fashionable hairstyles on statues.
Many fresco portraits in Pompeii were cut out and displayed in Naples museum.
Running water in rich people’s houses and public fountains for everyone else.
“Cave canem” – beware the dog. Warning at doorway entrances where dogs were chained to keep people out because rarely were locked doors used. Dogs, like people, suffocated of poisonous gas exposure before buried in ash.
In homes, there was a public receiving area for men to get visitors and be attended by women and slaves.
Pretty garden scenes painted and created in mosaics on walls.
[Advert: the Department of Art and Art History and the Archaeological Institute of America, North Alabama Society’s lecture The Mosaics of Zeugma on the Euphrates, January 28, 7:30 p.m., Wilson Hall Theatre (first floor 001); presented by Dr. Katherine Dunbabin, Professor Emerita, from McMaster University. The lecture is free and open to the public.]
Alexander the Great was popular subject for mosaic tilework.
Nouveau riche land speculators came in, such as former slaves, and built elaborate palaces in Pompeii, collecting objects such as marble/stone water basins like some nouveau riche collect cars or velvet Elvis paintings.
Houses were rooms for entertaining and hosting business get-togethers — invitation only to visit gardens in back of house.
The kitchen was not a public gathering place — used by slaves only.
No bathroom per se, either. Public latrines and baths usually.
Bath house water temp was regulated, heated from below. Some bath houses had libraries and shops.
Two theaters, one with a fixed roof and one with a retractable roof (seated 3100-3500)
Amphitheater offered gladiator fights and wild animal hunts. Had retractable roof / awnings (seated 15000).
Romans had fast food eateries on street corners. Dozens of them in Pompeii.
Standing room only.
UAH sponsors Dr. J’s summer research.
Frescos are falling apart with time – exposure, polishing by guards, etc.
Sent from my iPad
How many…?
How many times have I confused the Firefox, redbox and facebook app icons despite their distinct image differences?
My brain sees sounds more than it sees colours, and has fun with alliteration and synonyms, I guess…
Moving Mass Media Debut [drum roll please!!!]
Here is the Aquatic Leaping Bubble Boy in his first video.
Be kind. He hasn’t even learned how to walk yet!
Just wait until he tells you a story by showing you the action on otherworldly shores.
Animated Boy Wonder
When we were kids, were we able to ice skate the first time we stepped onto the rink?
Well, the Aquatic Leaping Bubble Boy gets to experience ice skating for the first time he was animated from a 2D drawing to a “2.5-dimensional” experiment using CrazyTalk Animator Pro (the trial version):
= = = = =
Recent thanks to Debra at KCDC; Chrystyna and Austin at Publix; Kizzie and Katy at Steak ‘n’ Shake; the cheerful people at Madison County License Department
Tossing the United States of Europe under a bus
With the U.S. and Chinese leadership transitions completed for the current cycle, there’s a sudden rush to judgment about the state of the world.
This crazy Spaceship Earth…
Self-anointed leaders meet in Davos for dinner and a schmooze.
One political leader threatens nuclear attacks while another threatens to widen the moat mockingly called the English Channel as if it was a selectable station on the tellie.
Union membership reaches lows not seen in many a lifetime.
The number of employable Chinese citizens seems to shrink.
Official U.S. employment rate numbers seem to increase.
Of the seven-plus billion of us, which ones are actively climbing the socioeconomic status symbol mountain?
Opinions bounce down the road like tumbleweeds.
One planet, one species, one timeline.
“I’ve been your age, but you haven’t been mine,” said Joe, a friend.
POWER + BELONGING = IDENTITY, reminds a writer of the formula for the young adult lit market.
While this planet changes dynamically, our next-door planet statically waits for occupancy rates to increase.
This storyline waits for no one.
We have bid adieu to the constant concerns and praises of a species in flux so that the future can look back at us and tell us where we’ve been long before we’ll be.
As a friend realised, it’s the ornery character trait we inherit from our ancestors that gives us the grit and determination to push adversity out of the way on the way to our preconceived notion of destiny, arbitrary geographical political borders barely relevant.
What’s rattling your windows?
Now I know why my house keeps shaking — the power of F-1 (no, not that F1), the one with real explosive power under your feet!
Tribute to a former neighbour
The neighbour down the hill from my parents’ property, Mr. Greer, stood between me and my junior high school.
He was the kind of neighbour we want — solid, upstanding citizens who care for and tend their house and grounds.
Except when you’re a kid who wants to take a shortcut to get home from school.
Mr. Greer mowed his lawn twice a week and kept twigs/sticks to a minimum, desiring little in the way of rambunctious boys trotting through his manicured grass.
I mowed all the lawns around his — the lady next-door who was elderly and enjoyed fixing cold glasses of tea/lemonade for me after I mowed; the busy father of three infants who was willing to pay the local lawnboy for basic mowing but expected grass raking and bush trimming for free; my parents who insisted that a low payment for mowing our lawn was an incentive to find other work to pay for my hobbies.
I never knew Mr. Greer personally, except with the shouts of “Hey, didn’t I ask you not to walk down my driveway?,” “Next time you mow along my property line, be sure you get the grass clippings you shot over into my yard,” or “While you’re raking the leaves of the tree in your yard, you can rake the ones that fell on my property, too, if you don’t mind.”
He was just that guy we kids talked about or made up stories to fill in blanks of a mysterious personality.
The older he got, the less he talked to my parents when they were working in the vegetable garden while he was picking up magnolia tree seedpods a few feet from them.
Good fences make good neighbours — so does the silence of respecting each other’s privacy when suburban backyards abut but do not hide meditative moments alone with our thoughts and our therapeutic yardwork.
This morning, my mother informed me that Mr. Greer had died.
She pointed out a few interesting biographical details of his obituary worth mentioning here:
[Mr. Greer] was raised in Dayton, TN. He was a young child when the Scopes Monkey Trial took place in Dayton. Part of the trial was held outside and he could vividly remember the big wooden stand outside the courthouse window.
During the Depression, Howard moved with his mom, dad and sister to Kingsport where his dad ran a lunch counter in downtown Kingsport.
In the Fall of 1941, Howard went to work in the Tenite Division of Eastman Kodak. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, young men in Kingsport were required to sign up for the draft and Howard received his draft notice in the mail August 1, 1942. After basic training, he discovered he would be a US Army Air Corp instructor on a teletype machine – a machine two months previously he barely knew existed. After the war ended, Howard used the GI Bill and took Eastman’s apprenticeship program in Industrial Instruments. He later worked for Dr. Bill Kennedy in the Research Division and completed his career with many years service in the Engineering Division.
He is survived by his wife of nearly 70 years…
Mr. Greer, thanks for being a great neighbour to my parents all these years. May others proudly follow in your footsteps!
Cole Slaw with Kale, Cabbage and a game of Cribbage on top of Baggage, Part Four For Fore
As secret leader of the universe, one finds oneself in charge of everything which, in itself, is interesting and attractive but not always exciting.
One may also find oneself referred to in monotheistic terms or multitheistic terms but these are just as useless to use for labels as atheistic to describe people who positively hold no theist beliefs at all.
When one knows everything, the word “surprise” has no meaning, either.
Thus, when your scientists and engineers decided to crashland the Beagle 2 onto the surface of Mars, one knew the result to follow.
One needs no supercomputer to calculate the permutations.
One can clearly see the solar-powered nanobots hidden onboard would quickly spread from the landing site and prepare or “seed” the surface for future followers.
One realises the consequences of releasing live microorganisms, too, but one does not speculate.
One observes the expected.
One concludes and reports.
That is all that is necessary for the omniscient.
One avoids the word omnipotence.
One is.
That is all.
Scott McCloud, eat your heart out
As I return to the quiet suburban woodlands to gaze at my navel orange slowly shrinking on the sunny windowsill, I practice my doodling, animating the sketches on the fly.
My first creation, after reading through the IDRAWCOMICS reference guide:
THE AQUATIC LEAPING BUBBLE BOY!!!
Hatched in our subbasement laboratory, the Aquatic Leaping Bubble Boy is allowed to see the light of day.
Meanwhile, after consulting with my trusty sidekick, Guinevere, who has moved on to the Martian colonies in order to let more of our creations enjoy the open air and low gravity for which they were genetically modified and bred, I will see what the next sidekick has in store for our Creative Futures Department.
treetrunkdings 