via ResearchBuzz Firehose: Eve Kahn for Atlas Obscura
Researchers in the field have uncovered related messages ranging from “Lasius is a pervert” to “Good luck in your resurrection.”
![Greek dedicatory inscription of Samuel, son of Saphara. Painted onto ceiling tile from the Duraâ€Europos synagogue, which requests “may he be remembered [who] founded these things thus.â€](https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/56066/image.jpg)
Greek dedicatory inscription of Samuel, son of Saphara. Painted onto ceiling tile from the Dura‐Europos synagogue, which requests “may he be remembered [who] founded these things thus.” PUBLIC DOMAIN/YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
“You will come to an evil end if you rob this grave” and “My beloved was here” ranked among the most popular messages for graffiti writers in ancient Jewish communities.
Starting some 3,000 years ago, Jews scratched walls at homes and public spaces with prayers, warnings, blessings on deceased relatives, and store advertisements. They even used graffiti to mark rows of theater seats that were reserved for Jewish groups. In the margins of the texts, they sketched outlines of ships, people, menorahs, and synagogue columns.
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The life and art of Heinrich Heine
via Arts & Letters Daily: Joseph Epstein in Commentary
Friendship, Love, the Philosopher’s Stone,
These three things are ranked alone;
These I sought from sun to sun,
And I found—not even one.
— Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine was one of those writers, rare at any time, welcome always, who found it impossible to be dull. In everything he wrote, he captivated, sometimes infuriated, often dazzled. Heine, who was born in 1797 and died in 1856, wrote poetry, plays, criticism, essays, fiction, travel books, and journalism. All of it was marked by passion and wit, not a standard combination. “I hate ambiguous words,” he noted, “hypocritical flowers, cowardly fig-leaves, from the depth of my soul.” He thought himself, not incorrectly, in the line of Aristophanes, Cervantes, Molière. Matthew Arnold called Heine “the most important German successor and continuator of Goethe in Goethe’s most important line of activity…as ‘a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity.’”Continue reading
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via the Big Think blog by Frank Jacobs
London is an unlikely destination for hill-climbing. The local topography is mostly flat, with some soft undulations. The city’s tallest building – the Shard, at 306 m (1,000 ft) or 310 m (1,020 ft) if you include the tip – easily beats the highest natural point, Westerham Heights in the south-eastern borough of Bromley (245 m, 804 ft).
But if you’re in London anyway and you’ve seen all of the usual sights, why not seek out the highest points in each of its 32 boroughs? Yes, many are ridiculously low and obscure. Nevertheless, ‘hill bagging’ is a thing even in London, as an alternative and mildly ironic (and thus perhaps very British) form of urban exploration. Alternatively, there's the London Peaks Relay, a 240-km (150-mile) race in which a team of runners visit the highest point in every London borough within 24 hours.
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via Boing Boing by Rusty Blazenhoff
Today I learned the Splendid Toadfish, a creature found only in the Caribbean Sea, produces a sound like a phone on vibrate.
National Geographic writes:
This grumpy-looking splendid toadfish has a special skill. That’s not the sound of a phone vibrating… the toadfish is “singing.” A similar species, the Bocon toadfish, produces its song with muscles surrounding its swim bladder. Researchers have discovered that the fish sing in unique patterns of ‘boops’ and grunts (Bocon toadfish sounds recorded separately from this video).
Videographer Bob Mazur thought he was hearing sounds coming from SCUBA gear, until he spotted this noisy fish hiding under the coral. Some toadfish sounds are used to attract females to nesting sites, and others are used as warning signals–probably the case in this instance. During this dive in Cozumel, several fish could be heard singing over each other. What a splendid toadfish surprise.
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via Interesting Literature
On one of Mansfield’s great stories of desire and disappointment
Katherine Mansfield’s ‘Bliss’ is one of her first great short stories – the genre she excelled at (she never wrote a novel, and her poetry failed to make a mark on the literary world). ‘Bliss’ was first published in 1918, and is shot through with homoerotic longing and the animalistic nature of sexual desire. However, because Mansfield was writing in 1918, these things can only be hinted at through symbolism and suggestion, as this analysis will attempt to show.
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via the Guardian by Zoe Williams
From passive-aggressive notes on ambulance windscreens to bilious political discourse, it feels as though society is suddenly consumed by fury. What is to blame for this outpouring of aggression?
‘Unprocessed anger pollutes the social sphere. Every outburst legitimises the next.’ Illustration: Ben Boothman at Agency Rush
A neighbour objected to a young couple from Newcastle being naked in their own home. “We are sick of seeing big bums, big boobs and little willy,” was the core message of the note, crescendoing to: “We will report you both for indecent exposure.” It is such a small thing, banal, without consequence. It connects to no wider narrative and conveys nothing but the bubbling discomfort of human beings living near each other. Yet when Karin Stone (one of the nakeds) posted the note on Facebook, 15,000 people pored over it. An Australian radio show interviewed her. I have got to be honest, I am heavily emotionally invested in the story myself and I do not regret a second of the time I have spent reading about it.
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via About History by Alcibiades
The Battle of Breitenfeld is one of the major battles of the Thirty Years’ War, during which the Swedes inflicted a crushing defeat on the Catholic League under the command of the Count of Tilly. This was the first major victory of the Protestants in their war with the Catholics.
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via the Big Think blog by Philip Perry
Model of a Greek trireme. Credit: Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany.
It’s a myth that you get a new body every 7-10 years. The reason is, different cells last different lengths of time. Colon cells last only about four days, skin cells two to three weeks, and neurons a lifetime. In that, the body you are in now is not the same as it was last week, last month, or last year, although it feels the same. So are you truly the same person?
It may predate him, but the ancient Greek historian Plutarch was the first to write this intriguing thought exercise down. It’s called the Theseus Paradox or the ship of Theseus. A hero of Greek mythology and the supposed founder of Athens, Theseus is said to have won a number of naval battles and defeated several monsters, including the Minotaur. Plutarch’s recording of the memorial set up to honor this epic founder has had great thinkers scratching their heads for millennia since.
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via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Ocado robots zip around simultaneously filling orders without bumping into each other in this fascinating look at a modern warehouse.
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via Interesting Literature
What are the most heavenly poems in all of literature?
Who deserves a place in heaven? And what is heaven like? Contemplating the former question and imagining an answer to the latter has occupied many a poet’s mind down the ages. Here are ten of the very best poems about heaven…
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