b.b. chronicles

Expat, Doctor, Art Historian. Living in England with geeky programmer hubby and a little gremlin of a daughter.

[bbchroniclesuk]

Apparently Skeleton Erotica Used To Be A Thing In The Victorian Age

Sex and skeletons? These vintage samples of weird erotica are proof that the two go hand in hand. Or at least, someone thought they did, back in the Victorian age. Most of these momento mori scenes were shot at the beginning of the 1900s. Moast are simple posed scenes of a nude or nearly-nude ...

[lilmoth95]

“You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste and the demons that won’t let you sleep.

You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.

You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.

You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.

You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.”

― Frida Kahlo

[arsantiquis]

Detail of Medea, by William Wetmore Story.

[profmeowmers]

My bros I have been doing a lot of reading about Wacky WWII Hijinks lately and I want to tell you a story because I love it okay

once upon a time there was a dude in Spain named Juan Pujol Garcia. Pujol was a chicken farmer. Pujol hated him some goddamn fascists.

See Spain had recently ended its civil war, with the fascists taking power. So when WWII broke out in Europe, Spain technically remained neutral but in practice was buddy buddy with the Nazis. Juan Pujol Garcia thought this was pretty bullshit

so soon after war breaks out Pujol travels to his local British embassy and goes “hey I wanna spy on the Nazis for you”

“who the fuck are you?” say the British, and kick him out

but Pujol is not deterred! He still wants to dunk on some fascists, so now he goes to his local German embassy instead. “hey” he says, “I wanna spy on the British for you, I sure do hate them”

“yeah okay” say the Germans “that seems pretty legit”

and just like that Pujol now officially works for the Abwehr, the German intelligence agency. They hand him some spy gear (invisible ink and such) and instruct him to travel to Lisbon, and from there make his way into the UK. So Pujol heads to Lisbon, and a little while later writes to his German handlers telling them he’s made it to England

Pujol had not made it to England. He had, in fact, made it to the Lisbon public library, where he checked out a number of English guide books and set about just wholesale making shit up

this is slightly complicated by the fact that, for example, he completely did not understand British currency and all his expense reports were basically gibberish. He also reported things like bribing Scotsmen, because the people of Glasgow would “do anything for a litre of wine” (an actual quote) because, hey, people in Spain like wine so that’s probably the same right?

Here is where it starts to get really crazy, because the Abwehr loves this. “wow this dude is a great spy” they say, because apparently none of them had ever been the England either. In fact, they are so pumped about this new awesome spy that the British start to get worried

you see, by this time the British had cracked German’s supposedly unbreakable Enigma code and were totally dunking on the Nazis by reading basically all of their ~super top secret~ radio transmissions. And, crucially, they’d become so good at breaking and reading traffic that there were literally no German spies in England. The Germans would set up a spy drop (usually dropping dudes in by parachute in the middle of the night), the British would intercept the message and then just scoop the dudes up as soon as they landed in a move that must have been SUPER embarrassing to the spies

so there are no German spies in the UK because they’re all sitting in a prison run by MI5 (although some are being run under supervision as double agents, feeding Germany bullshit). But suddenly MI5 is picking up all this traffic from the Germans talking about their super great spy- a spy the British do not have in their jail

“oh shit” says MI5, and starts rereading all the transmissions they have to and from this mysterious super spy.

“hey wait” says MI5, upon actually reading the shit the spy was sending. “someone is playing silly buggers, pip pip cheerio”

At this point, Pujol, still in Lisbon, had actually been approaching the British embassy again, repeatedly, but apparently “I am literally an Abwehr agent and would like to offer you my services” wasn’t interesting enough, because he was repeatedly turned away, again. It wasn’t until MI5 started asking around that one of the embassy staff was like “oh yeah we know that guy”

so in 1942 the British finally make contact with Pujol and he officially becomes a spy for MI5. They move him to London and assign him a case officer so he can start making up even better bullshit

and he does. Once actually in London, Pujol reports to the Abwehr that he’d recruited a whole slew of informants- from a bunch of Welsh Aryans to disaffected army officers. He ends up with a network of 20+ sub-spies, all feeding him information from around the UK

none of these people actually exist

Pujol just straight up invented like 20 people, keeping careful track of their fake personalities, names, and activities. With the help of MI5, the information he sends becomes even better- a mix of true but ultimately useless facts and actually important intel timed to arrive in Germany just slightly too late to be of any use. He and his “spy network” become the Abwehr’s most trusted agents

Pujol, now codenamed Agent Garbo (for his acting skills), ends up playing a huge role in the run-up to D-Day, where the Allies mounted a huge intelligence campaign to convince Hitler that the planned site of attack was going to be Calais and not Normandy (this was Operation Fortitude and you should absolutely look it up for more Wacky WWII Adventures). Obviously you know how this ended

crazily enough, the Abwehr never figured out that Pujol was a double agent. After the war he received both the Iron Cross Second Class (which require personal authorization from Hitler), and a Member of the Order of the British Empire (from King George VI)

unable to resist being totally fucking ridiculous, Pujol turned down MI5’s post-war offer to continue spying, but this time against the USSR. “no,” he said “just help me fake my own death and then I’m moving to Venezuela”

and that’s exactly what he did. Juan Garcia Pujol died in 1988, at the age of 76

[technoxenoholic]

@ive-officially-lost-my-sanity

[bbchroniclesuk]

Just putting this here in case we need to start lining up ideas for the Trump resistance...

[bbchroniclesuk]

Salgado Exhibition in Bath

Photography exhibition of Sebastião Salgado. The first prestigious exhibition run by PhotoBath. Hosted at BRLSI Bath.

Sebastião Salgado, considered one of the most important documentary photographers and photojournalists working today, has recently completed ‘Genesis’, a profound and ambitious eight-year project of wonderfully crafted, black and white images. PhotoBath, a not-for-profit organisation based in Bath, UK, dedicated to promoting fine art and documentary photography, is working with world-class Gloucestershire-based printers 31 Studio to stage an exhibition of 10 of Salgado’s exquisite ‘platinum’ prints from the Genesis project in the City of Bath at the BRLSI. The intended exhibition date is November 11th to 19th, 2016, and we are planning to run a series of talks alongside the exhibition, as well as a video screening of a short film on Salgado's work entitled "The Salt of the Earth". We are currently looking to raise funds for framing and marketing costs, and have set up a Kickstarter, which can be followed via the link below. Donations can range through various levels of support including the option for exclusive sponsorship of an individual image. Help us seize this unique opportunity to bring such inspirational works of documentary art to a wider international audience. Thank you. The Kickstarter campaign is at: http://tinyurl.com/gr8ukdh To find out more about Photo Bath here: http://www.photobath.co.uk/ or onFacebook here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/PhotoBath/ Photobath channel on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7N72d9D8S4TMnLBRAwVtIA

[bbchroniclesuk]

David Bowie's Art Collection - artnet News

As much as he inspired artists, legendary musician David Bowie was also a painter and an art collector. Take a look at some of the work he lived with.

[quotemadness]

Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.

Chuck Klosterman (via quotemadness)

[outlander-starz]

Terry Dresbach: We dyed a beautiful silk/wool blend this gorgeous saffron color, and the amazing Helen, our talented textile artist, hand painted the ivory silk.

[dandeliar-draws]

ONE OF THESE DAYS IM GONNA RUN CLEAN OUT OF FUCKS TO GIVE AND JSUT BECOME A NUDIST

[bbchroniclesuk]

This made me cry with laughter. 

[lushthemagicdragon]

45 Photographs from WWI of soldiers and civilians.

Full 10 set series here.

Warning: A good amount of these contain dead bodies and the like.  I didn’t use those photos for the preview for a reason.  Amazing photographs, but not easy for some people to stomach to be aware.  

[reapergrellsutcliff]

Fashions of the Future as Imagined in 1893

Illustrations from “Future Dictates of Fashion” by W. Cade Gall that was published in the January 1893 issue of The Strand magazine.

[beast-a-la-mode]

At first I thought this was some “fashion of witches and wizards through the ages” type thing but nah everyone is supposed to dress like this. I wish everyone dressed like this. 

[revereche-deactivated20140508]

nailed it

[jollypeaches]

we’ve disappointed our ancestors :(

[bbchroniclesuk]

I am tired of men thinking they are entitled to my attention because they find me attractive. I am tired of men thinking I owe them something as a thanks for them finding me attractive. I am tired of men reducing me to my attractiveness. I am tired of being on display. I am tired of feeling like I am not allowed to display myself without inviting male attention. I am tired of men infiltrating every space where I exist and demanding my attention and affection. I am tired of being told that I kind of enjoy unwanted sexual attention. I am tired of telling men I do not want them only to have them insist that I should. I am tired of my worth as a woman being tied to beauty. I am tired of being treated better than other women because I am attractive. I am tired of being treated worse than other women because I am attractive. I am tired of being treated worse than other women because I am not attractive enough. I am tired of beauty as capital. I am tired of having to worry that I have an expiration date. I am tired of men who want to help me because it is heroic to help a pretty girl. I am tired of men thinking I am a pretty girl when I am an almost middle-aged woman. I am tired of men thinking I should want them to want me. I am tired of men thinking I have an obligation to engage with them. I am tired of men talking to me. I am tired of men explaining my jokes to me. I am tired of men explaining my points to me. I am tired of men explaining how men work to me. I am tired of men explaining to me that there are some men who do not do every single thing on this list. I am tired of men thinking I should feel bad if I do something that makes them find me unattractive. I am tired of men deciding that they are punishing me by telling me they do not find me attractive. I am tired of men thinking it is an insult to them if I am not attractive to them. I am tired of men thinking they are entitled to being attracted to me. I am tired of men thinking I owe it to them to be attractive. I am tired of men thinking that if I do not want their attention then I should not be attractive. I am tired of men thinking I should always want their attention. I am tired of attention. I am tired of being afraid of that attention ending. I am tired of internalizing all of this. I am tired of wanting to be desireable to some men and having to navigate the minefield of all men feeling they are those few. I am tired of men thinking they absolutely have a right to be those few. I am tired of apologizing. I am tired of apologizing for apologizing. I am tired of hearing from men. I am tired of men telling me they are tired of hearing about how I am tired of hearing from men. I am tired of men.

[archaeologicalnews]

‘Golden’ ending: How one man discovered his war hero grandfather’s long lost grave

Clay Bonnyman Evans was 5,000 miles from home, deep in a pit on the Pacific island of Betio, when he heard the words his family had waited on for so long.

“It’s gold,” announced Kristen Baker. With a brush the archaeologist gently swept the sand off of an unmistakable shape: a human skeleton — with a mouth full of gilded fillings.

“It’s gold.”

Three words to end a 71-year-old wait. Three words to solve a mystery that had vexed Evans’s family for four generations. Three words to give a long lost war hero the happy ending he deserved. 

First Lieutenant Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman, Jr. was finally coming home. Read more.

[bbchroniclesuk]

13, 14, 16, 19 and 21 forever. 

[cinemagorgeous]

Out of Water by artist Saiful Haque.

[msuprovenance]

What is the deadliest book on your shelves?

Of course, every library holds a great deal of sensitive material – works which have unfortunately inspired violence, such as political manifestos, controversial religious texts, and so on.  But what about a book that could actually be physically dangerous to handle?

This is the story of MSU’s toxic book, a work that was produced not out of a desire to cause harm, but out of an altruistic concern for public safety.  

Shadows from the Walls of Death came about due to the work of Robert C. Kedzie, a distinguished Civil War surgeon and professor of chemistry at MSU from 1863 to 1902.  In this seminal study, Kedzie described the deadly effects of the arsenic-based pigment known as Paris Green, a popular coloring agent in 19th century wallpaper.  Literature included with our copy summarizes his findings: 

Kedzie showed through chemical analysis that the Paris Green pigment was poisonous and that it was only weakly bonded to the paper.  As a result, it detached from the wallpaper easily, floating into the air as fine dust particles.  Those who breathed in the poisonous dust suffered from bronchitis, rheumatism, weight loss, severe headaches, and ultimately death.

Kedzie immediately reported his findings to the Michigan Board of Health.  To spread the word about the dangerous pigment, widely used throughout the country, he cut up samples of the arsenical wallpaper and bound them together in books.  Kedzie produced 100 such volumes, which he sent out to state libraries along with his scientific data and conclusions.

Before long, Kedzie’s shocking study had made its mark, and Paris Green was banned from use as a wallpaper pigment.

Most of the 100 copies of Shadows from the Walls of Death were eventually destroyed due to their poisonous content.  MSU Special Collections houses the only complete copy of the wallpaper book known to have survived, and it sits unassumingly on our vault shelves. 

Fortunately, our conservators have worked to lessen the threat of this deadly arsenic-laced volume.  Each wallpaper specimen has been individually encapsulated to protect library staff and patrons.

[bbchroniclesuk]

Goddess from the machine: A look at Ex Machina’s gender politics

This article contains spoilers for Ex Machina and assumes the reader has seen or spoiled the movie for themselves. “A free woman in an unfree society will be a monster.” – Catharine MacKinnon If there’s a trope with AI that I can’t stand, it’s the idea that a sufficiently intelligent, sapient machine will simply want to kill ...