tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-09-10:621408PergamondPergamondPergamond2010-12-08T03:34:19Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2010-09-10:621408:54546Green eggs, ham and twig fish2010-12-08T00:49:13Z2010-12-08T03:34:19Zartisticpublic0<img border="0" src="http://a.yfrog.com/img11/4197/i8c0.jpg" style="margin: 10pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px;" alt="" /> After a careful examination of cities, I have concluded that those closest to achieving the Buddhist state of nirvana are old factory buildings. These red bricked structures with their tall chimneys and wrought iron window decorations tend to be reincarnated as art galleries and sushi bars which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_the_City">Sex in the City</a> assures us is a step towards paradise. <br /><br />In Toronto, one such area is Liberty Village which was undoubtedly once thick with soot, but now is thick with gym goers mooching down from their loft conversions to pose by a running machine. It is also the location of a photography exhibition of a friend of mine, <a href="http://www.kenyanphotography.com">Ken Yan</a>.<br /><br />In keeping with the area, we began the day with brunch at an airy, pine attired restaurant with floor to ceiling windows. Attractive arrangements of greens were served with the dish of your choice which in my case was .... <br /><br />Green eggs and ham.<br /><br />It rocked, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Eggs_and_Ham">Dr Seuss</a> style. (In case of alarm, I should probably mention the 'green' part of the scrambled eggs was spinach.) <br /><br />The art gallery was in a boutique-sized shop down from a dance studio and opposite a yoga class. One wall was dedicated to 18 prints by Ken and the other had a massive wide angled photo of .... <br /><br />.... So the problem with high resolution HUGE images is you spend all your time staring into the windows of taxi cabs and forget to look at the complete view. Yeah, I've no idea.<br /><br />Ken's photos (she adds hastily) I did remember. One that particularly stood out was a picture of sunflowers in a similar design to van Gogh's famous painting. While produced with a camera rather than oils, Ken printed the photo on canvas to give it a painted feel. The result appeared to be a hybrid between a photo and a painting, leaving you unsure exactly which you were looking at. <br /><br />Another photo I was admiring showed light reflected in a serene lake from which a few thin branches protruded in an arc. Ken told me a couple he had previously been showing it to had been indifferent until he had explained the title. My eyes slid down to the small square of card underneath the frame: "Twig fish". I was no artist and concluded this probably meant something deep. Maybe a commentary on the loneliness of the plant in the water, cut off from the lake shore. Or perhaps it was a reflection on the stick's sparse bark, a vision of scarcity in today's material world. I turned my head on one side. <br /><br />Then again, maybe it was because the twigs combined with their reflection looked like a fish.<br /><br />I nodded, tried to pretend I'd seen that straight away and made a mental note to not give up the day job for one as art critic.<br /><br />When we left, it was starting to snow. It would have been so much more impressive if the UK hadn't got landed with twice as much. Perhaps if factories are on the doorstep to heaven, the UK is moving in the opposite direction.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=pergamond&ditemid=54546" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-09-10:621408:53360Can unicorns go extinct?2010-11-25T03:20:31Z2010-11-25T03:38:33Zdorkypublic0<div align="center"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_sb_INfI4DyE/TO3Vr6KwldI/AAAAAAAAAKU/MabkuUCPiVo/mythical.png" style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" /><br /> </div>The answer is apparently 'yes'. <br /><br />Before I became lost in a <a href="http://pergamond.dreamwidth.org/52600.html" target="_blank">whale's stomach</a>, I was exploring the second special exhibit at the Ontario Science Museum on mythical creatures. (Any objections to the location of such a display should have been made when I described the <a href="http://pergamond.dreamwidth.org/45532.html" target="_blank">Harry Potter</a> themed production at said same science-focussed location). The question raised --whether a creature that only existed in people's imaginations could die-- was answered with the example of the Nasca killer whale. Heard of it? Well no, that's pretty much the point. Once though, it appeared to have been a legendary monster. <br /><br />The Nazca lived in south Peru from around 1 - 700 AD. Many archaeological finds from that period depict a killer whale holding a human head. All stories centred around such a beast, however, have been lost. Indeed, from what is known about the people from that time, it is not possible to even ascertain if the creature was good or evil. Personally, I would have thought that holding a severed head intimated one of those two options, but apparently head collecting was the thing to do at the time and he might just have been trying to fit in. <br /><br />Not only can these creatures die, but they are also victims of evolution. Unicorns, for instance, used to have the body of a goat with a short coloured horn and griffins did not always have wings. Likewise, there is the Canadian Inuit legend of Sedna (a human, not a planetoid) which describes how a girl rather rashly decides to marry a bird, unsurprisingly regrets it, and is rescued by her father. In a feathered fury, the jilted bird conjures up a storm and the father decides to cut his losses and throw Sedna overboard. Unwilling to comply, Sedna clings to the boat, forcing her father to cut off first her fingers and then the knuckles. The first of these become the whales of the ocean and the second the seals. Continuing to demonstrate an unhealthy tenacity, Sedna survives to persuade a dog to chew off her father's hands and feet. He curses them all which causes the earth to open and swallow them both into the underworld. While originally all human, mermaid images introduced by merchants and slaves later became became associated with Sedna. Such travellers' tales explain why legends that originated thousands of miles apart often share common features. Mermaids, apparently, always have a penchant for combs and mirrors. <br /><br />The original origin of each mythical creature could stem from different courses. Largely, it seemed that their creation was the product of four distinct situations:<br /><br />The first of these was that of <b>mistaken identity</b>, especially of decaying remains. One such example was a sea monster that turned out to be the carcass of a 9m basking shark. Likewise, in 1855, the Danish Zoologist, Japetus Steenstrup, proposed that the fabled <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_bishop" target="_blank">sea bishop</a> observed in the 16th century was actually a large squid. Of course, since the Giant Squid can be up to 18m in size and there is an even larger Colossal Squid with eyes as large as a human head, the classification of 'monster' becomes a bit of a mute point. Amusingly, in 1300, Marco Polo described seeing unicorns that were probably Sumatran Rhinos. Suffice to say, he was unimpressed by their beauty. A giraffe was later mistaken for a unicorn when it was presented to the Chinese Emperor in 1414 by the explorer, Cheng Ho. Possibly due to accounts of this tale, the Japanese word for giraffe, Kirin (<span>麒麟)</span>, also means unicorn. <br /><br />The second origin was <b>fear</b>. The open ocean, with its seemingly infinite extent in all directions including down, can seem to hold any number of horrors. In such a place, the arched backs of jumping dolphins could easily appear to be the many tentacles of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken" target="_blank">kraken</a>. Matters were perhaps not helped by Konrad Lykosthenes, who published an encyclopedia in 1557 detailing the monsters awaiting sailors. Similarly, Conrad Gesner's 1563 zoological work included a hippocampus; a sea creature with a horse's head, reinforcing the theory of the time that every animal found on land had a counterpart in the ocean. <br /><br />Many mythical creatures were created to explain <b>mysterious phenomenon</b>. For example, Mexican farm animals were sometimes found dead with open gashes. Such events were blamed on 'Chupacabra'; small blood sucking creatures with glowing red eyes who kill like vampires of the non-sparkly ilk. Modern medicine has since revealed that gas in a carcass can cause it to expand and form splits of seemingly surgical precision. Giant bones from extinct creatures, such as those from dinosaurs and the huge ape <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus" target="_blank">gigantopithecus blacki</a>, were also frequently thought to only be explainable by mythical beasts. Even elephant skulls, understood when alive, could resemble the remains of a Cyclops in death, with the opening in the skull for the trunk the space for its single eye. The fact these creatures are associated with forges, incidentally, came from the ancient Greek blacksmiths, who wore an eye patch to protect their sight from flying sparks. The Greek mythology, meanwhile, explained the natural disasters of earthquakes and volcanoes as originating from the torment of the giant children of the gods Uranus and Gaia, trapped by Zeus after the battle of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantomachy" target="_blank">Gigantomachy</a>. <br /><br />Finally, there were mythical creatures whose existence was through a <b>story with a moral</b>. One such creature is the goblin-like, Japanese tengu, who live in the forests to mock and punish prideful people. Their legend tells of a man walking through a forest and finding a tengu who agrees to teach him the magical art of ninjutsu. Rather than use his new skills for worthwhile causes, the man kills and steals from travellers. In one unfortunate evil act too many, he tries to kill a slow farmer who was in his way. Rather than slay the poor man, his sword breaks, revealing said farmer to be the tengu and himself unable to use his powers again. The Japanese saying "tengu ni neru" (he is turning into a tengu) is commonly used to recall this tale and warn people against arrogance. In 1860, the Japanese government posted official notices to tengu asking them to temporarily vacate a certain mountain during a schedule visit by the shogun. I cannot help but feel this reviled a particularly honest view of the characters of the country's commanders.<br /><br />Sometimes the origin of a creature cannot be even guessed at due to the age of its legend. Griffin illustrations are found that date back to 3300 BC. The Greek myths are known to be at least 2,700 years old, but their material is borrowed from still more ancient tales. <br /><br />A few modern mythical beasts are created through more mundane means. In 1842, the people of New York City were enthralled by the shrivelled corpse of the 'feejee mermaid' . The creature was shown by P. T. Barnum who acquired it from a colleague in Boston. In reality, the little body was made by fusing the torso of a monkey with the tail of a fish. Such fakes were made in the East Indies and sold to British and American sailors in, what one can only suppose, was an early tourist trade. Ideally, one would like to think we are now above such mockery, yet pictures on the internet of mermaids washed up on shore after a tsunami beg to differ. <br /><br />For some, the creation of phoney creatures is not so much trickery as an art form. Bob Slaughter had a distinguished career in palaeontology before moving into the business of making attractive fake fossils of small winged humans and their friends. His <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fossil-Remains-Mythical-Creatures-Slaughter/dp/0965134903" target="_blank">book</a> on this appears to have fooled at least one amazon.com reviewer. There is also the Coney Island artist, Takeshi Yamada, who creates 'gaffs' including a taxidermied rabbit with a fish tail. <br /><br />Aspects from mythical beasts have also wound their way into modern associations. The pokemon character '<a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Aipom_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29" target="_blank">aipom</a>' resemble the ahuizotl; a monkey creature with an unfortunate pastime of pulling people underwater and drowning them. 500 years ago, the same creature was carved into the wall of an Aztec temple as pictographic symbol of the ambitious Aztec leader who took its name. A similar creation with a taste for drowning is the Japanese Kappa. When it's not disguising itself as a child in preparation for watery demises, the kappa apparently likes cucumbers, resulting in the sushi cucumber roll to be known as 'kappamaki'. It is also the origin of the phrase 'even kappas can drown', referring to the fact that even experts can make mistakes, and 'just a kappa fart' which a cruder form of 'a much to do about nothing'. Amusingly, the kappa is very much the product of the culture it was born in. Their strength originates from water in the bowl shaped dent in their head. To defeat the creature, you bow to it, whereupon manners will force it to bow in return, spilling the water and causing it to flee back to the river or pond. <br /><br />Not all questions about mythical creatures were answered by this exhibit. As I stood in front of a model of the flying horse, Pegasus, child of Greek god Poseidon and monster Medusa, a teenager beside me turned to her friend and demanded, "<i>How can two gods make a horse?</i>"<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=pergamond&ditemid=53360" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-09-10:621408:52600Building dolphins2010-11-09T04:23:05Z2010-11-09T04:31:18ZWhale songdorkypublic12Yesterday, I built a dolphin. I made it as round as a ball but gave it a big tail for propulsion. It moved okay, but unfortunately couldn't turn fast enough to avoid hitting the underside of a propeller driven boat and exploding. <br /><br />It was sad. Possibly, no one should employ me as a substitute god quite yet.<br /><br />To console myself, I went to chill out in the heart of a blue whale. Weighing over 150 tons and measuring up to 39 m in length, the adult blue whale is the largest mammal that has ever lived. A 1:1 scale model of its heart is therefore a perfectly comfortable place to sit, at least once I had shoved the kids out through one of the valves. <br /><br />I was at the Ontario Science Centre which had an exhibition running on whales. In pride of place (by necessity of its size) was the skeleton of a sperm whale whose 18m length stretched the length of the hall. It might fall short of its blue whale cousin, but the sperm whale is the largest toothed predator, even if it does use its teeth mainly for filtering and biting other males in fights. Blue whales have baleen plates that resemble giant brushes, rather than teeth, which filter huge quantities of water for krill; a technique known as 'lunge feeding'. Sperm whales and other toothed family members, such as dolphins, feed on individual prey such as giant squid. Because of this, the sperm whale also has the honour of having the largest nose that is actually a massive echolocation device which it uses to hunt squid down to depths of 2000m. By contrast, the human record for a dive is 82m. Rather than a tool for hunting, the noises made by baleen whales are used for communication, such as the humpbacked whales' song. Its low frequency allows the sound to cover huge distances so these solitary beasts can contact one another.<br /><br />After I'd mentally redesigned a whale's insides into an entry for '<a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_rooms">changing rooms</a>', I started to wonder about how such a humongous mammal ended swimming. After all, one could hardly picture an elephant taking this as a personal challenge. I originally presumed that when mammals first left the ocean, a off-shoot stayed behind. These would then become whales, while the land-lovers developed two legs, shoved them under a computer desk and became graduate students wondering why they left the ocean and if it was too late to change their mind. In fact, it turned out I was wrong. The exhibition showed that whales developed from land animals who moved into the sea to take advantage of the food source there. Fossils exist of deeply confused creatures known as 'ambulocetus natans' (literally 'walking whale') that could both walk and swim. They appeared to hear sound through their lower jaw which was transmitted to the soft tissue leading to the ear in an early version of the echolocation mechanics of their descendants. <br /><br />More soberly, another board discussed the problem of beached whales. In New Zealand, they have had to deal with a mass beaching of sperm whales whose huge bulk makes refloating almost impossible. Internal damage from the beaching is highly probable and the mammals rapidly overheat when stranded. When this happens, a fast, humane death is considered preferable and is carried out using a specialised device known as SWED: Sperm Whale Euthanasia Device. This is a single-shot anti-tank rifle, the kind of weapon usually designed to penetrate the armour of tanks. <br /><br />On a more cheerful note, New Zealand is also home to the smallest of the whale family, Hector's dolphin, whose length is just 1.5m. That's just over a 5th of the size of a newborn blue whale, which weights 3 tons at birth. I'm thinking not a crib from Ikea. <br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=pergamond&ditemid=52600" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments