viz.

(Image credit: BBC)

It’s only halfway through the week and we’ve already seen new images of King Richard III and Robert Johnson. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week has in store. These pictures are a big deal. The images help us to reimagine the persona of these figures, and seeing that I thought I’d take a moment in this week’s post to highlight the discoveries. The Tudor kings who came to the English thrown after Richard III perpetrated history that suggested Richard was a grotesque tyrant. Commentators on this week’s discovery are suggesting how traditional renderings, perpetuated by luminaries such as William Shakespeare, might be historically inaccurate. Shakespeare’s Richard III is a complex plotter who we appreciate for his witticisms, but whose disgusting figure personified his vileness. This understanding might be far from the truth, for whatever it’s worth. Richard III did have scoliosis (see the remnants of his spine below), but scholars are revisiting the extent of his supposed vileness. As for Robert Johnson, previously only two images of the guitar player were known to exist, one of them merely being the size of a postage stamp. In this newly authenticated image, we’re treated to another glimpse of someone we hardly know.

(Image credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve always been amazed that our ancestors lost copies of gospels we think existed, Ciceronian tracks we know were read, and Shakespeare plays we know to have been performed. How do such valuable things disappear? Who’s accountable for these losses? Who ever commissioned Vasari paint a fresco over da Vinci’s The Battle of Anghiari in the Palazzo Vecchio’s Salone dei Cinquecento? (No one today would dare destroy the Vasari – a masterwork in its own right – to see if the da Vinci lay underneath; though we’re 95% sure the da Vinci lies under it, I’d say.) In truth, the real history of these lost artifacts is much more complex, and it’s kind of hard to hold anyone accountable for the losses. Different cultures in different times appreciate different treasures from our past. There exists a whole bookshelf’s worth of scholarship about Shakespeare’s only moderate popularity in his own day, explaining perhaps how Love’s Labour’s Won or Cardenio could have fallen through the cracks. Nor should Vasari feel bad for taking a da Vinci battle painting from us. Leonardo was experimenting with a new painting technique after a bad experience with variations of the fresco medium in The Last Supper, and in The Battle of Anghiari we think he used a thick undercoat of something (possibly a wax) to help preserve the finished product. But the medium used in The Battle of Anghiari was even more prone to decomposition than that of The Last Supper, and thus the painting remained damaged and unfinished for over 100 years before Vasari picked up his brush. The drawing above is a 1603 copy by Peter Paul Rubens.

The other day I flew from New York to Houston on a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This was just a few days before the aircraft was deemed unsafe for travel. Now I count myself among the lucky few who’ve had a chance to experience the vehicle. What’s all the hype about? The plane is Seattle-based Boeing’s newest in 20 years, and clearly represents their bid to remain one of the world’s top airline manufactures. (Europe’s Airbus A380 has presumably pressured Boeing to innovate.) Before last week’s grounding of all Dreamliners around the world, Boeing was struggling to meet demand. Before last week’s grounding there were roughly 100 of these planes in the global skies, and roughly five times that amount on order. Carriers include All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, and Air India. The only American airline company that flies them as of this writing is United Airlines. They own six Dreamliners, and I was lucky enough to be flying on their first, which has been in operation since early November. The Dreamliner’s issues had been in the news prior to my flight, but I did not learn about them until I was leisurely reading The New York Times midflight. Problems I read about included cracking windshields, wings leaking fuel, and batteries catching on fire. All this made for one of the more notable flights of my relatively short life.

(Image credit: New York Times)

Throughout the presidential election I was amazed how little either candidate discussed climate change – that is, neither said anything about it and both championed “clean coal,” whatever that is. Hearing the phrase “clean coal” makes me think about what it must be like for a quinquagenarian to eat Wendy’s before going in to get their blood pressure checked, and how on their drive to the doc they might shamelessly try something to mitigate the effects of their lack of restraint. What’s the humane and intelligent response to such tomfoolery? And then to think how much of that “clean coal” is powering the servers that are hosting this blog and all others out there on the interwebs…quit reading now! But of course none of us are going to quit reading or streaming, or eating Wendy’s. Hence why neither candidate thought the subject smart enough to broach, I guess.

(Image credit: Harry Ransom Center)

The other day I was walking through the Harry Ransom Center and noticed some very cool designs for office buildings that Bel Geddes penned in the late 1920s (pictured above). I wasn’t surprised that he had come up with such things, of course – the ongoing Bel Geddes exhibition at the Center, “I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America,” features an exceptional range of content, from baseball stadiums to cruise ships to Worlds Fair exhibits. By I did stop for a second and wonder “Why an office building?” It’s Bel Geddes design for the Toledo Scale Factory Machine Shop. What’s so striking about the design is its focus on aesthetics. This isn’t surprising, of course, given that in most everything Bel Geddes ever designed, function follows form. But this notion is quite contrary to the Modernist architecture of the period, and I couldn’t help but think of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax Building. Aesthetically the structures are similar, but Wright’s focus is on his building’s interior, which he made into a temple of work. The exterior of Wright’s building is completely in the service of its interior. But somehow Wright’s trademark consideration of lighting resulted in a building that looks like Bel Geddes’. Yet they are vastly different structures, despite appearances. Except for cost considerations. When Toledo Scale’s president presented Bel Geddes plans to the company’s board of directors, he warned that the building “would cost lots of money and be extremely different, even weird looking.” Wright’s plans inspired a similar response.

(Image credit: Chicago Tribune)

Did anybody notice how many American flags graced the stage of Mitt Romney’s rally last week on Election Night? Why were they grouped in threes? What was the Romney campaign trying to suggest by dressing the stage in such a way? That Mitt Romney was patriotic and put America before all things? That not only is Mitt Romney patriotic, but he can afford many American flags? That like all-things American, our flags should come in large proportions? Is there anything in Mormon theology that preferences the number three? If three is somehow significant, why give us four sets of three? Maybe we got four sets of three because this way Romney could be positioned in the middle of flags during his speech? Are the three sets of gaps between the tri-flags on Mitt Romney’s Election Night stage significant? If Mitt Romney’s was supposed to stand between one of the gaps, and Paul Ryan was supposed to stand in another, does anybody know who was supposed to stand in the third gap? Does anybody know where one can buy 12 regulation-size American flags? Never mind the flags, does anybody know where one can get the flag poles that have the eagles on top?

(Image credit: Star Tribune)

Hard to know what to write about here. The regular 9 AM postings of this blog necessitate that I write a full day in advance, and I have nothing to say about the election returns, about which I’m sure is only what you wish to be reading on the morning after a general election. Sorry. But it seems like some discussion of Bob Dylan’s election predictions are worth your while, however. Two nights ago in Madison, Wisconsin, Dylan was wrapping up yet another gig on his current tour with Mark Knopfler. He’d just taken an encore break and was coming back on stage for the night’s final number. Before continuing on with the music he said, “We tried to play good tonight since the president was here today.” (Obama had earlier wrapped up a rally in Madison.) Not only this, but Dylan went on to say, “Don’t believe the media. I think it’s going to be a landslide.” Now, the obvious response is: “What does Bob Dylan know about election polls, much less the Electoral College? How could he possibly be calling this thing so early? There’s no way.” Well, I wonder if he might indeed be on to something.

(Image credit: Harry Ransom Center)

The other day I was walking through the ongoing Norman Bel Geddes exhibition over at the Harry Ransom Center, and I spotted a photo of the designer with Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella. You wouldn’t believe my surprise. What in the world were Robinson and Campanella doing with Bel Geddes? Up until that point in the gallery, I’d seen absolutely nothing having to do with baseball. And I didn’t think I would. Bel Geddes aesthetic preoccupation with what on the surface appears to be simply aerodynamics suggests a version of the future that we’re still trying to attain, like Ahab and his whale. Whether our cities will ever look like his remains to be seen. Perhaps I’m missing the point a bit, and maybe much of Bel Geddes’ work represents aesthetic advertisements rather than specific blueprints. But one can’t deny that Bel Geddes’ designs intently seek the immediate, the sleek, and the fashionable. These are all preoccupations inherently at odds with the boredom of baseball.

(Image credit: The New York Times)

I noticed during the other night’s debate that President Obama is wearing a pink bracelet in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is a welcomed embrace of a worthy cause, no doubt. But after Romney’s “binders full of women” in the last debate and both candidates’ rather transparent desire for female votes, I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not President Obama is actually this interested in this particular disease. The alternative would be that his wearing of the bracelet is a cynical gesture designed to cobble up some more votes. Moreover, if this were a cynical gesture on Obama’s part, what might this confirm about the ongoing political conversation in the United States? After a term in which Obama frequently supported women’s health concerns, his wearing of a bracelet is really what it takes to attract female voters? With these questions in mind, I did a little Wikipediaing a was instantly reminded that Obama’s mother died of ovarian and uterine cancer – facts I then recalled from my reading of his two books. I now felt like a jerk for my own cynicism. It was soon clear to me how much my own cynical reasoning was a product of the media-dominated culture in which I live. But what’s the alternative? Wouldn’t seeing the bracelet and not thinking twice be like watching all those negative TV ads and accepting them at face value?

(Image credit: SB Nation)

I can’t help but write about baseball today. My apologies, my apologies. If you don’t feel like reading anymore, by all means, you’re more than welcome to click over and read more pundits’ spin about last night’s debate. What I have to say below deals with the San Francisco Giants, and even if you don’t continue reading, their rabid internet fan base is sure to increase our blog’s trafficking statistics. So do as you will, no offense taken. But I know you’ve already read your fair share about last night’s Presidential debate, and that any more emotional reactions might be dizzying to the point of a certain paralysis, so let us think about baseball for a moment. Was Matt Holliday’s slide into Giant’s second baseman Marco Scutaro during Monday night’s Game 2 of the National League Championship Series a dirty play? There’s no way.