A Trinity House, mahagony sewing box, 19th century
Depicting a small sloop and a large ship-of-war flying multiple pennants and flags sailing off a hilly coastline populated by buildings, one of which is possibly a lighthouse.
These boxes were made circa 1850- 1880 by the lighthouse and lightship keepers while they were on station. They were marketed directly to the sailing captains and ship owners they aided.
“It’s funny,” I told Flewin. “We have an old Nintendo Game Boy floating around the house, and Tetris is the only game we own. My wife will sometimes dig it out to play on airplanes and long car rides. She’s weirdly good at it. She can get 500 or 600 lines, no problem.”
What Flewin said next I will never forget.
“Oh, my!”
/end id]
TL;DR on the article
The husband was writing an article on classic video game records, was surprised to find out that holding the Tetris record is a bit of a big deal, and mentions how good his wife is at it.
The guy he’s talking to mentions that the record is 327, way lower than his wifes usual scores of 500-600.
They travel to a tournament, and she goes to do her attempt. Just after she beats 327, and is climbing higher, a judge brings up to the husband that the specific version she’s playing actually has a different record of 545.
She overhears that she needs to beat 500-something, and keeps going, setting the record at 841.
Painter, architect, collector, and influential author Giorgio Vasari died on this day in 1574 in Florence. A successful painter and architect in the service of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’Medici, Vasari is best known today for hisLives of the Artists, a collection of biographies from Cimabue through his autobiography. Published in two editions (1550/1568), the text has had a profound impact on the development of connoisseurship, art history, and Italian Renaissance studies.
Reference: Julian Kliemann and Antonio Manno. “Vasari.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. <http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T088022pg1>
St. Luke Painting the Virgin, after 1565, fresco, Santissima Annunziata, Florence
Self-Portrait, between 1550 and 1567. Florence: Uffizi.
Last Judgment, 1572-9, Florence: Duomo.
Cosimo I de’ Medici among the Artists of his Court (1563), fresco ceiling painting by Giorgio Vasari, Sala dei Cinquecento, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY
Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on canvas, 318 x 276 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid. Source
Another classic work that is referenced frequently in iconographical studies is Las Meninas, or The Maids of Honour, by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. The scene shows courtly figures at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid during the reign of Philip IV, whose daughter, the young Princess Margarita Teresa, takes a central role in the composition. She is surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, a chaperone, a bodyguard, two dwarfs, a dog, and Velázquez himself, who stands behind a canvas to the far left of the painting. What’s strange about this is that the artist is positioned in order to paint the space inhabited by the viewer, though several clues found in the background of Las Meninas help uncover the precise identity of the sitters. A large mirror at the back of the room presents the image of a male and female couple generally understood to be Philip IV and his second wife, Mariana of Austria. Their positioning indicates that they are standing in the same space as the viewer, and so many scholars have proposed that Velázquez is most likely painting a dual portrait of the King and Queen, whilst the Princess and her gathering watch.
Furthermore, the male figure next to the mirror, who is either leaving or entering the space via a staircase, is identified as Don José Nieto Velázquez, the Queen’s attendant, keeper of royal tapestries, and possible relative of the artist. In his essay ‘Las Meninas and the Mirror of the Prince’, Joel Snyder argues that José is included to signal the end of the royal sitting, as one of his duties involved escorting the Queen in and out of rooms. I’ve always thought that perhaps the Princess is being prepared to follow her parents in Velázquez’s painting schedule, in either an individual portrait or as an addition to the portrait of the King and Queen. She had sat for the artist before, and probably posed for the execution of Las Meninas itself, so I like to think that this is a practical suggestion.
Whatever the case, Las Meninas is a complex composition by anyone’s standards. Though a number of observations are considered now to be solid fact, scholars have yet to agree on much of painting’s physical organisation and the stories behind the canvas worked on by Velázquez within the scene. The explanation provided here is certainly not an overall consensus, but it’s about as close as you’ll get. Las Meninas is one of my favourite paintings for this reason, and it’s a great place to start if you are new to the field of art history.
Today In History- Imperal Wedding of Charles V & Isabella Of Aviz.
The negotiations to carry out the marriage of Isabella with Charles, lasted approximately eight years, despite the sympathies that the young princess aroused in the Castilian Cortes, since the notables of the kingdom saw in her a worthy successor to her maternal grandmother, Isabella the Catholic; not to mention that a double marriage between princes of both kingdoms could lead to the union of both crowns.
Isabella, who in these years had resided in Almeirim’s palace, after the celebration of marriage by proxy, on November 1, 1525, remained in the said palace, in the company of her brother and his wife, until January 30, 1526, At that time, the Pope granted the dispensation so that Carlos and Isabel could officially get married, since both were first cousins. The future empress arrived at the Portuguese border on February 7 of that same year, and there she was received by the archbishop of Toledo, Alonso of Fonseca, and by the dukes of Medina Sidonia and Calabria, among others.
By arrangement of the Emperor the wedding took place in Seville, so Isabel left for the aforementioned city accompanied by a large entourage and visited Badajoz, Talavera la Real, Almendralejo, Llerena, Guadalcanal and Cantillana, where he received remarkable signs of admiration of the inhabitants of these localities His entry into Seville, on March 3, 1526, was carefully planned by Charles who wanted his future wife to receive the affection of his new subjects. Installed in the Reales Alcázares, Isabella waited patiently for the arrival of the Emperor, who made his triumphal entry into the city seven days later.
The wedding took place at dawn on March 11, since according to the chroniclers of the time, love arose among them at first sight. Thus the Emperor, eager to consummate the marriage, ordered that an altar be installed in the rooms occupied by his future wife to carry out the celebration of the betrothal, which, given the precipitation, were witnessed by a small number of nobles . The death of Isabel of Austria, sister of Carlos V, caused that the celebration celebrations by the marriage of the empress were delayed until the month of April, although for that reason they were not less lavish.
On May 13, Isabella and her husband left Seville and set off for Granada, the city they arrived on July 4. The newlyweds stayed six months installed in the palace of the Alhambra, where they conceived their first child, the future Philip II. It was during these months that Charles informed his wife of the affairs of the kingdom, since he had decided that it would take care of the government of Castile in his long absences.
I am a Gen Xer, and I’ve been having some conversations about photography and selfies lately, and I want to share a little bit, because I think younger queer people don’t quite understand what things used to be like.
I have no snapshots of the era of my life in which I was smootching girls behind the tilt-a-whirl at a shitty traveling carnival in a dusty empty lot. In fact, I have no pictures of any of my friends from that era aside from yearbook pictures of the friends who were in my school. I was a little goth teenager and many of my friends were also punk queers. We could not take pictures of each other.
Why? Because pictures were taken on film. And film needed to go somewhere to be developed. And if there were pictures of people “being gay” then sometimes your whole roll would disappear at the photo processor. Or your 36 exposure roll would return only 32 pictures to you. Because the processor would censor it. And aside from that, you had to be cautious about whether a photograph would somehow be seen by parents, who could kick your friend out of their house. Just because someone was holding hands in the background of a photo.
Snapshots were for kids who did sports and wholesome activities.
A little later, I had a friend who took photography and had access to the school photo lab (the art teacher didn’t care as long as no one was developing nudity), and there were some photographers who hung out with the skater kids. But prior to that, there was a whole era of my life, people who were super important to me for a time, that I just don’t have pictures of. At all. Because it wasn’t safe.
I found myself recently explaining this to a younger coworker and another colleague in the meeting, a gay man about my age, was nodding along. This was an important facet of life if you were a queer teen in the 80s. You didn’t have pictures of your people until you knew someone with use of a darkroom.
I own a darkroom.
I remember this.
I lost my best friend / first girlfriend when her parents found evidence.
When people do terrible things, there is a tendency to reach for explanations like - they were mad, or they were a complete aberration to normal people. Anything which creates a clear distance between the perpetrators and everyone else. But the truth is that more often than not, it is “everyday people” who commit acts like this - and that is the case with the Nazi regime.
This book looks at what it calls the “mental universe” of the Nazi regime - the beliefs that both informed what they did and why people were drawn to them. It puts them within a historical context, which makes them more understandable.
It’s a long read, and not a comfortable one, but recommended.
This is a visual history of the materials published on nuclear war in the UK - from leaflets which were circulated to homes in the UK, to training materials for specific groups which were never meant for wide circulation. It’s a great choice of images and information, and is a nice readable size (passes the “comfortable to read in bed” test).
My favourite image in the book is this one - sorry about poor image quality, but I had to share:
Well, will your pet survive a nuclear war? Will they?
