Shomer Shabbos

featured artist
                    via ArtistADay


            Gale Antokal
                                                                      The Messengers

Gale Antokal’s collection The Messengers, like much of her previous work, is a gracious presentation, at once poetic and ghostly, of everyday subjects. While this presentation amounts to a fairly dramatic, if also hushed, formal innovation, it is always clear that form is not an end in itself, but rather Antokal’s means of gently coaxing mysterious and affecting essences from “ordinary” images that matter to her. Among other things, her works remind us of, and give back, what was lost in the photographs that served as their inspirations — what is always lost when we see with a merely physical eye.

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Body Invaders! Zombie Caterpillars! Killer Wasps!
via National Geographic

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Anthropology in a world of Katy Perry:


California Gurls: An Anthropological Study
by David Henne



California was in unprecedented danger. Within the first several weeks of summer, the Golden Coast was crippled by the highest levels of freaking on record. Worse, the California Gurls responsible had spread throughout the region, compromising the entire state. As anthropologists, there was no choice but to act.

In our field, we are presented with a thesaurus of adjectives to describe our indigenous subjects. And yet, upon our arrival at a beachfront party, we found only two words that could classify these California Gurls: unforgettable and undeniable. (A coupling formerly believed to be impossible by the natural sciences.)

We maneuvered through the Daisy-Duke and bikini-clad masses undetected, careful not to displace a California Gurl's Jeep or stiletto. As soon as we located the pack leader, the only gurl who possessed both a Jeep and stilettos, we directed our attention exclusively to her... 
[read on...]
[...]We implore that no one visit California until this summer of freaking subsides. At current, the area is completely unstable. Furthermore, do not attempt to even observe a party alongside the gurls. For, even as you fall victim to their poison charms, you can feel yourself falling in love. Most of all, do not disrupt the nature of these California Gurls, because they have it on lock.

My God, they have it on lock.

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Is Gravity Just an Illusion?
via Sagan's Brain


Check out this New York Times article on a debate over the nature of gravity. It's pretty wild stuff.


What's this all about, anyway? Why does it matter how we think about gravity? We understand it perfectly well in our everyday experience, whether we're talking about an apple falling from a tree or a spacecraft going to Saturn. Newton's way of thinking about itwas ultimately replaced by Einstein's way of thinking about it, but what difference does it make to us whether we think of gravity as a distortion of spacetime? That doesn't change the way I fall down and scrape my knee.

But scientists are in pursuit of a theory of everything -- one unifying theory that will combine all the known forces (electromagnetic, weak, strong and gravitational) into one super theory. The problem is, our understanding of the very small (quantum mechanics) and the very large (general relativity) are pretty good on their own, but they're a devil to combine. This is where all that weird stuff like string theory and 26 dimensions comes into play. Most of us just glaze over. 


[read on...]


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TMS Presents:
The Celebrity Photo Archive

Cher, Sonny, and Bob Dylan

Michael Kane and Nancy Sinatra

Pablo Picasso

Marilyn Monroe

Kurt Cobain

Salvador Dali

Stanley Kubrick

Star Wars crew

Paul McCartney

Jane Seymour and Freddie Mercury

Alfred Hitchcock & his kids

Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep

Michael and Kirk Douglas

Eric Clapton and his grandmother

Christopher Walken

Bob Marley

Goldie Hawn

Bonnie & Clyde

George Harrison & John Lennon

Many more of these photos can be found by clicking HERE!

That is all.

wildcoyote