Bones with Bling: The Amazing Jewelled Skeletons of Europe, The Fortean Times

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The trend for jewelled skeletons began in the late 16th century. The Roman catacombs, which had been abandoned as burial sites and largely forgotten about, were rediscovered in 1578 by vineyard workers. This coincided with the initial phase of the Counter-Reform­ation; the Council of Trent, called to formulate the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation, had just concluded, and one of the areas of concern was affirming the efficacy and belief in relics against attacks by their detract ors. Since the remains in the catacombs dated from the second to fifth centuries AD, it was possible, with a bit of wishful thinking, for Church leaders to romant icise the bones as belonging to almost any famed early Christian saint or martyr. In the newfound cache they saw a potential tool to bolster their supply of relics and promote their power.

--From "Bones with Bling: The amazing jewelled skeletons of Europe," by Paul Koudounari for The Fortean Times, June 2011

Click here to read this entire article--a nice walk through the art and history of extraordinary European jewel and bone relics--on The Fortean Times website. All images sourced from the article and taken by author Paul Koudounari.

Thanks so much to Suzanne Gerber over at Wurzeltod for alerting me to this wonderful piece!

Images top to bottom:

  • Relics of St Pancratius, Church of St Nicholas, Wil
  • St Clemens, Church of Sts Peter and Paul, Rott-am-Inn, Germany
  • Holy Martyr Theodosius, Waldsassen
  • The remains of St Maximus, Basilica of Waldsassen

New Lot of Amazing, Lavishly Illustrated, Hard-to-Find Books on Victorian Anthropomorphic Taxidermist Walter Potter for Sale!

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For those of you who, like I, are fascinated by the kitten tea parties, bunny schoolhouses, and kitten croquet matches of the undisputed king of Victorian anthropomorphic taxidermy Walter Potter, I have good news! Henceforth, Morbid Anatomy will be distributing the amazing (and very difficult to find!) book Walter Potter and his Museum of Taxidermy written and published by collector and taxidermy scholar Pat Morris.

There are two versions of the book available: the hardcover (see top image)--which sports a handsome stamped canvas cover and an extra signature of 8 full-color pages--and the paperback (see second image down). Both versions are large scale and lavishly illustrated in full-color with scores of nearly impossible-to-find photographs of Potter's unforgettable works, archival photographs of the early museum, and antique and vintage ephemera related to the museum (see bottom two images for examples; click on image to see larger size). The book is also extremely well researched, providing a through biography or Mr Potter, a detailed history of his museum of curious taxidermy, and the stories behind the making of his iconic pieces of anthropomorphic taxidermy.

Books can be purchased on Amazon.com; click here to purchase the hardcover, which goes for $50, and here to purchase the soft cover, which goes for $35. But order quickly: I only have about 8 hardback remaining, and 7 paperback, and these books tend to sell out fast!

And one more thing: I am also distributing the paperback version of Pat Morris' new book A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste; you can find out more about this book by clicking here. if you are interested in purchasing a copy of this book, you can email me at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com.

Dead Cities! Victorian Hair Scrapbooks! Automata Demonstrations! This Week and Beyond at Observatory!

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I am very excited to announce a whole slew of Morbid Anatomy Presents events taking place at Observatory, this week and beyond. Tonight, join Colin Dickey--author of Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius--as he attempts to "conjoin a history of the necropolis with a history of ghost towns and abandoned urban landscapes." This Thursday, join Collector David Freund for a demonstration and discussion of Victorian scrapbooks holding everything "from inventive collages to seaweed compositions to artistically arranged feathers to advertising fragments to human hair to basically anything else that could be glued down." In July, make mummies at one of our popular mummy workshops, take in some “Theatrum Mundi,” investigate postmodern mermaidia, parse the politics of taxidermy, and/or witness antique automatons go through their motions live and in person!

Full list follows; hope very much to see you at one or more of these fantastic events!


Dead Cities / Cities of the Dead: An illustrated lecture by Colin Dickey, author of Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius
Date: TONIGHT: Monday, June 20th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

Tonight, author Colin Dickey will conjoin a history of the necropolis with a history of ghost towns and abandoned urban landscapes. The necropolis has always been a vital feature of the city, from its earliest incarnations to today. The dead body has long been regarded as both sacred and polluting, so what does a community do with thousands of bodies? From medieval chapels literally bursting with the bones of the dead to the sanitized splendor of the modern funeral industry, how we treat the dead reveal much about how we view the living. How we treat dead cities--from California ghost towns to Ukraine's Pripyat, just outside of Chernobyl--begs a different question: what do we abandon, and why? What does all this urban ruin say about our future? Colin Dickey will intertwine these two forms of urban death to see what it all adds up to.

Colin Dickey is the author of Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius, and the co-editor (with Nicole Antebi and Robby Herbst) of Failure! Experiments in Aesthetic and Social Practices. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Cabinet, TriQuarterly, and The Santa Monica Review. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he now lives in Los Angeles. This is a return visit for Colin, who lectured on Cranioklepty earlier this year at Observatory to great acclaim; more on that lecture can be found here.

Image: The Metropolitan Sepulcher, a plan for a London cemetery circa 1820

dollhouse
Home-Made Visual Albums: An Artifact-Based Lecture with Collector David Freund
Date: THIS THURSDAY June 23
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Part of the Out of the Cabinet: Tales of Strange Objects and the People Who Love Them Series, presented by Morbid Anatomy and Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence Evan Michelson

Home-Made Visual Albums were incredibly popular productions between the the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century; these scrap books contained artful arrangements of a wide range of materials, from inventive collages to seaweed compositions to artistically arranged feathers to advertising fragments to human hair to basically anything else that could be glued down. More than simply collections or scrap books, these albums can also be seen as diaries, and project a sense of their absent makers through imaginative content, arresting design, obsession, and, above all, narrative.

Collector and artist David Freund has been collecting--and classifying, into over 40 categories of his own invention-- these enigmatic and fascinating artifacts over the last 30 years. Tonight, join Mr. Freund as be discusses the history and taxonomy of these artifacts and presents a number of exquisite examples from his collection for your delight and perusal.

David Freund earned his MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop after a BA in Theater at UC Davis. Professor Emeritus of Photography at Ramapo College of New Jersey, he chaired its Visual Arts for twenty years. He also taught at Pratt and was a Dayton-Hudson Distinguished Visiting Artist at Carleton College. His NEA photographs showed gas station environments nationwide. Other grants included New York’s CAPS program and NYC’s Institute for Art and Urban Resources. During a Light Works residency Freund curated a regional photo post card exhibition, Penny Publishing. Exhibitions include Light Gallery and Eastman House. Among collections with his work are MOMA, the Corcoran, MFA Houston, and the Bibliotheque Nationale.

Image: Detail from one of David Freund's collection of home-made visual albums from the 19th and early 20th Century

And onward and upward in the weeks to come:

You can find out more about these e
vents on the Observatory website by clicking here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

China’s Hu Jia release: Guarded welcome from Europe – BBC News

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The Guardian
China's Hu Jia release: Guarded welcome from Europe
BBC News
... but worried about his medical health as he suffers from cirrhosis of the liver. The Olympics will be held in a country where there are no elections, no freedom of religion... where torture and discrimination are supported by a sophisticated system ...
Prominent Chinese dissident Hu Jia released from jailMonsters and Critics.com
Activist Hu Jia releasesHindustan Times
Proiminent Chinese activist Hu Jia released from jailDeutsche Welle
New York Times -Reuters AlertNet
all 584 news articles »

Payback’s a bitch

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From Eric Dondero:

We all remember this hit TV commercial from the late 1980s. And some 25 years later, the Russians are getting their revenge.

From Adage.com:

Turns out Wendy in Russia is a little sexier than Wendy in the states.

The Moscow Times reports that a Wendy's in Moscow -- the first stand-alone location in Russia -- featured two girls outside the restaurant dressed as Wendy during the location's opening. Sure, the girls had the signature pigtails and ribbons, but they wore short dresses, striped knee-high socks and stiletto heels -- which, now that we think about it, sounds kind of like a "sexy" Halloween costume.

Wendy's/Arby's Group Chief Operating Officer Andrew Skehan told the Moscow Times that he had not been aware of the of the franchise group's decision to sex up the icon...

Editor's comment - We can only imagine what the models at a new Wendy's franchise in Riyad, Saudi Arabia would look like?

Breitbart's BigPeace.com has the photo of the women.

Revealing Book Uncovers What Lies Inside of a Spiritual Mind – PressReleasesOnline.Net (press release)

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Revealing Book Uncovers What Lies Inside of a Spiritual Mind
PressReleasesOnline.Net (press release)
"Values Of A Spiritual Mind" will take readers on an insightful journey to where wisdom and enlightenment await. WAVERLY, Ohio – Spirituality is essential to discovering the essence of one's being. It is manifested through various practices such as ...

Those Cross-dressing Atheists

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by Clifford F. Thies

No doubt about it, everyone believes that what he believes is correct and what others believe is wrong. And, when it comes to religious beliefs, this means heresy. Latest in the accusations of heresy is that Governor Rick Perry of Texas, an evangelical Christian, is a heretic as his politics “are not the politics of Jesus, but the politics of Ayn Rand.”

Jesus, we are told, taught we should sell our possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, not fight for tax cuts for the rich. And, Jesus taught we should honor and love the children, not cut programs that help poor kids and cut schools that teach all kids.

These accusations reflect the progressive movement’s influence on the church. One of the leaders of the Social Gospel Movement among protestant Christianity, at the turn of the 19th into the 20th Century, Richard T. Ely, said “Christianity is primarily concerned with this world.” He said:

“God works through the State in carrying out his purposes more universally than through any other institution … The Protestant Reformation meant the exaltation of the state … The distinction of ecclesiastical and profane laws can find no place among Christians … The main purpose of the State is the religious purpose. Religious laws are the only laws which ought to be enacted.”

Mixed into the message of a theocratic and socialistic state were the supposedly scientific doctrines of population control, eugenics, natural aristocracy, race and nation. The Social Gospel’ers taught that inferior people were to be segregated, placed in labor colonies, and – above all else – prevented from reproducing.

The Catholics mostly resisted the evil that was brewing within the Protestant community; but, by mid century, even they succumbed, endorsing the Mussolini’s fascist form of socialism. To be sure, this form of socialism was not as corrupt as Hitler’s Nazi form of socialism insofar as it did not engage in race genocide, but it was plenty enough evil.

And, so, after WWII revealed just how evil were the doctrines of the all-powerful state and the denigration of some people as inferior, the decent people who had embraced the Social Gospel pulled back from their more extreme positions. Today, hardly anybody even knows what church leaders such as Richard T. Ely stood for. And, in their haughtiness, contemporary liberal Protestants attack Ayn Rand because she rejected religion along with rejecting the evil that their predecessors had associated with Christianity.

I will now interject a few words from the Bible. Jesus said:

“My kingdom is not of the world.”

Those who say otherwise are following themselves, not Jesus. Jesus said:

“Suffer the children not to come unto me.”

How, then, do we reconcile the education of children with the disestablishment of religion? Jesus performed a miracle for the payment of the Temple tax of merely two days’ wages. What kind of miracle is it today when we pay taxes amounting to more than 40 percent of our income and can live at all decently?

Jesus had this to say about those who taught against the commandments, he said they “shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”

Why is teaching against God’s Law so strongly denounced? It is because Jesus came to save everybody. He is described as a blessing to the nations. And, the angel who proclaimed his birth proclaimed it to all men of good will. But who has undermined God’s will to save everybody: those who mix into the commandments stuff like socialism and racism?

Dr. Thies is of the Messianic Jewish faith. He resides in Virginia.

RV-sized asteroid will buzz the Earth on Monday | Bad Astronomy

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A rock about 10 meters in size will fly past the Earth Monday at 13:30 UTC (09:30 Eastern US time). It’ll be a particularly close shave — passing just 12,400 km (7430 miles) from Earth’s surface; a bit less than the diameter of the Earth itself — but it’ll miss for sure.

We’re in no danger from the asteroid, named 2011 MD, since there’s essentially zero chance it will hit us. Even if it did, it’s too small to impact the surface, and would instead break apart and burn up in the atmosphere. That would be exciting, and make quite a show, but that’s about it.

Here’s a diagram of the asteroid’s trajectory (note that the size of the Earth is not to scale!):

On this scale, the Earth is actually about half the size shown; it was enlarged on the diagram to make it clear. In this smaller diagram here the trajectory is shown from a different angle (edge-on to the Moon’s orbit) with the Earth to scale, and you can see better that 2011 MD will miss ...


Study: Weight Depends on the Quality of Your Diet More than Quantity – Treehugger

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Daily Mail
Study: Weight Depends on the Quality of Your Diet More than Quantity
Treehugger
"For diet, conventional wisdom often recommends 'everything in moderation,' with a focus only on total calories consumed," says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and ...
A soda tax? How about a potato tax?Los Angeles Times
Pound for Pound, Worst Foods for Weight GainABC News
Cut Out Potato Chips to Keep Waistline in CheckChristian Post
Harvard Health Publications (blog) -TheHeart.Org -MedPage Today
all 272 news articles »

UB sets sights on new medical school – Buffalo News

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Artvoice (blog)
UB sets sights on new medical school
Buffalo News
The University at Buffalo is moving full speed ahead with plans to build a new $375 million medical school downtown within the next five years, now that state lawmakers have paved the way with sweeping legislation. ...
SUNY 2020 and other legislation passesWIVB
UB Ready to Expand with SUNY 2020 PassageWGRZ-TV
Passage of NYSUNY 2020 Legislation is a Major Achievement for UB 2020UB News Center

all 8 news articles »

French ship sets sail to join Flotilla 2 – Press TV

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The Guardian
French ship sets sail to join Flotilla 2
Press TV
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed her strong opposition to the second Freedom Flotilla, claiming that it is both a 'provoking act' and 'unnecessary.' "We do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to ...
Flotilla II prepares to sail for GazaAljazeera.net
Complaint against US boat threatens Gaza voyageMa'an News Agency
Questions From a Naive Peace Activist to an Israeli Naval Officertruthout
Herald.ie -Scoop.co.nz
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Emphasizing the importance of holistic side of medicine – Houston Chronicle

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Emphasizing the importance of holistic side of medicine
Houston Chronicle
Here at the University of Texas Medical School — and many others around the country - students are now taught the therapeutic importance of the doctor/patient relationship. Partly, this change has resulted from our ability to demonstrate ...
Doctors' Loss of Moral AgencyAmerican Thinker

all 2 news articles »