Month: August 2023

bogleech:

aristoteliancomplacency:

Guys.

Y’all.

I…

I just. I just… i have discovered something. And I have laughed too much. I have laughed every time I have tried to explain it to someone. I cannot get through this.

Look. Okay.

There are two things you need to know, here.

First: There’s a style of Greek pottery that was popular during the Hellenic period, for which most of the surviving examples are from southern Italy. We call them ‘fish plates’ because, well, they’re plates, and they’re decorated with fish (and other marine life).

Like this one, currently in the Met:

photo of a fish plate from above. it is a black disk with fish designs in red. There are two bream and a torpedo fish around a central divot in the plate. there are also smaller illustrations of a mussel, a murex, and a articulately impressively executed shrimp.ALT

Or this one, currently in the Cleveland Museum of Art:

another fish plate from above. It had a large octopus, several large bream fish decorated with dots and stripes, as well as tiny details such as shells and even some tiny octopuses. ALT

They’re very cool. We’re not 100% sure what they were for, because most of the surviving ones were found as grave goods, but that’s a different post.

The second thing you need to know is that when we (Classics/archaeology/whatever as a discipline) have a collection of artefacts, like vases, sculptures, paintings, etc. and we do not know the name of the artist, but we’re pretty sure one artist made X, Y and Z artefacts, we come up with a name for that artist. There are a whole bunch of things that could be the source for the name, e.g. where we found most of their work (The Dipylon Master) or the potter with whom they worked (the Amasis Painter), a favourite theme (The Athena Painter), the Museum that ended up with the most famous thing they did (The Berlin Painter) or a notable aspect of their style. Like, say, The Eyebrow Painter.

Guess what kind of pottery the Eyebrow Painter made?

photo of a fish plate depicting two fish and an eel. they all have eyebrows. The fish have arched eyebrows that make them look angry, the eel's eyebrows give it a slightly confused appearance.ALT
a fish plate with a torpedo fish and two other fish. They all have eyebrows that make them look angry. The torpedo fish also has an open mouth, making it look like it is shouting about something.ALT
another fish plate. this one had an eel, a torpedo fish, and another fish. The fish looks angry, but the eel and the torpedo fish both have open mouths full of teeth and appear to be grinning, with eyebrows that make them look like they're gonna cause some trouble. ALT

When you and a friend think about what mischievous capers a fish could be capable of and then you remember who the fish are

We could get movie crunk and walk off into the night together.

ancientstarrydynamo:

I’ve driven past this field full of abandoned vehicles a few times a year for about 15 years. I always wanted to stop and take photos, but I was warned that the man who lives there was not friendly. Well, since time makes fools of us all, the gun-toting landowner is now no longer a problem.

My first pass on movies and TV episodes for spooky project 2023 when I absorb too much horror/spooky stuff that’s new-to-me in October. I also randomize it for the satisfying contrast of randomly jumping around to different points in time.

For movies, bold dates are weekends, bold titles are scheduled in a theater, and bold directors are women-directed movies. I also try and sprinkle in a few movies from each decade and from outside the west if I can find them.

And TV episodes, well, that’s just my usual rotation of animated sitcoms that I enjoy but which I don’t watch at any other time of year.

Next up I need to sort out short stories and comics. I’ve got a big pool of them from researching in past years so it’s just a matter of selecting material from each decade (which stretches further back for literature of course) and the usual extra effort it takes to find stuff that isn’t from white men in the west.