This weekend, instead of combing our usual haunts, we visited the India International Trade Fair currently underway in New Delhi. In our infinite wisdom, we decided to take the Metro rail instead of driving down to Pragati Maidan (Advancement Arena!!). But Saturday was a bad day for Delhi Metro. Trains were running late. The one we took from Dwarka Sector 9 was jam packed by the time we reached Dwarka Mor. “Minding the Gap” was impossible as we stood on each other’s toes, breathed into one another’s ears and cursed. Train attendants rushed from door to door pushing people in and closing the automatic doors. Pictures of my previous near death experiences in local trains of Mumbai flashed across my mind. By comparison, this was mere massage of tired limbs. This attempt of Delhi Metro to bring Indians together irrespective of cast, creed, gender and nationality was laudable. I had no business deploring it. Excruciating circumstances precipitate philosophic resignation. This was enlightenment! Braced against the crushing weight and odour of humanity, I wondered if it was all an illusion, a spell of “samsara”. But the hair getting into my eyes and the elbows ramming my ribs were too concrete to be a mirage. Relief came when many passengers got off at Karol Bagh. We were already late by an hour and half. As a parting shot, the disembodied voice of Metro hoped “we had an enjoyable journey” and looked forward to “seeing us soon”. This bit of sardonic wit was not lost on the passengers.

We had already purchased trade fair tickets at the Metro Station, and passed though security check quickly. Ravenous, we headed straight for the food court. “Bharath Ka Khana” welcomed us with open arms. The food court was littered with people occupying every available inch and digging blissfully into idlis, vadas, puttu, mutton chaps and many interesting yet unidentifiable forms of grub.

Watching mad maws on overdrive only amplified our appetite. The cataclysmic force of craving scattered us in different directions. I landed up at the Nagaland counter and ordered rice with pork and bamboo shoots (Rs.100.00 only). Meanwhile others explored Odisha (Orissa), Bihar, Bengal and Tamil Nadu counters. When we gathered for barter I had a plate of rice with 3 handsome chunks of pork in a near bland gravy and a paste of fish and chilies. Others had come up with Vada/ Ghughuni (Urad Dal vada and Chole)from Orissa, Litti – Chokha (Atta balls stuffed with Sattu [barley] and garlicky potato) from Bihar, Idli – Chutney from Tamil Nadu and fried fish (fillet of unknown fish coated with flour and deep fried) from Bengal. These were rapidly decimated and replaced with Vada-Pav (Maharashtra street food specialty). To drown it all we had tea (Rs. 5.00) from the Tea Board counter. Being used to milky tea, I didn’t like it much, though it was probably more authentic.

More philosophy! To live we all need food. For some, food symbolizes luxury and has ceased to be a necessity. Coffee table magazines and news paper supplements catering to the hyper-gastronomic anxieties of such elite flourish in metro cities like Delhi. Even though I do not belong to that elect category, the gourmet fare that they nibble at has frequently attracted the desperate foodie in me. For others, food is incidental. I do not belong to this category either. Food, to me, goes beyond the survival value and enters the realm of sensory delight, good conversation and companionship. Good food begs good company. A solitary eater, according to me, is a miserable creature. I couldn’t resist that digression. Sorry!

Satiated, we took bearings and headed for the international pavilion. Crowded! There were exhibits from Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and surprisingly Papua New Guinea. Credit cards were not accepted. We ended up buying an onyx candle stand from Karachi, Pakistan and a papyrus scroll of Isis from Egypt. The guy manning the Egyptian counter was peremptory, intent only on money and hissed Anubis, Isis, Osiris, “Balance” replying to customer queries. Entertaining…

The most interesting counter of the Trade Fair belonged to NMBA, National Mission on Bamboo Applications. Apart from promoting bamboo as food, they have innovated various light weight and durable bamboo based wood substitutes and composites, construction and structural applications. A two storey house with steel frame and walls, roof, ceiling, columns, railing, doors and windows made entirely of treated bamboo was displayed at the exhibit. The treated bamboo was termite resistant and fire proof. Installation time was a mere 48 hours and it cost only Rs.13 lakhs. There were bamboo frame exercise bicycles coupled with a dynamo which generated and stored electricity sufficient to light an entire room. Specialty mud kilns for producing high grade carbon from bamboo for use in Tandoors and activated carbon for water treatment facilities were also on display. NBMA also promotes gasification of bamboo which can be an environment friendly source of renewable heat energy and electricity.

There were pavilions from all states of India. We could only visit those of Jharkhand and Kerala besides Techmart India where industrial machinery were on display. The Trade Fair was a wonderful fusion of business and pleasure. It provided a forum for small scale industries from all states to interact with other industries and the larger public.

 My only regret was not being able to visit pavilions of North Eastern States. I was also not able to sample Haleem chicken and other specialty cuisine from Pakistan. All in all, it was an informative, fun and relaxing jaunt.

Brushing up on my stalker vibe as best as I could, I tried to find past artists that have attended Cooper Union. I’ve been obsessed with this school since who knows when, and its the top art school I want to go to.

Anyway, one of the artists stuck to my mind and I found out that he uses a lot of the same media I use in my pieces. Pen, ink, watercolor, a bit of graphite here and there.

Zach Johnsen.

This is just one of his sketches, and already I’m blown away

Every one of Zach Johnsen’s pieces gives a flurry of hyperactivity to the brain.

One of my favorite pieces by him are these people with ice cream blowing out of their bodies.  It reminds me of James Jean in a way, except in a different form of creativity.

He’s up there with one of my top favorite artists. And not because he went to Cooper Union.

Johnsen’s worked for numerous companies such as Ecko Unlimited,  Osiris, Guiness, and so much more. Some of his amazing sketches are up for sale, and not for too much. I’m planning on getting one. Gonna get that framed.

To see more either click:

Zenvironments

or

Zach Johnsen

shoesi idealiShoesi Osiris au fost purtati insa sunt intr-o conditie ireprosabila si sunt marimea 38;pot fi purtati cu fusta sau pantaloni.Mai multe imagini puteti vedea pe :http://darkvintage.blogspot.com/shoesi ieftini

Pretul lor este de afisat pe http://darkvintage.blogspot.com.

Cat despre tenisi, ei sunt noi nouti cu eticheta  :

TALPA ORTOPEDICA

Si sunt marimea 38 ,fiind speciali datorita comoditatii lor  si a posibilitatii de a imprima orice doriti pe ei.(mai multe imagini pe :http://darkvintage.blogspot.com/)

Pretul lor este afisat pe http://darkvintage.blogspot.com

And after goodness, purity:

Wabet,  ”pure” or “clean” - in the feminine form when spoken, but without the loaf of bread representing the t , because it’s so obvious to those in the know that the scribe, dashing off yet another offering formula, hasn’t bothered to write it down.  But we know it’s there, don’t we?

Advanced office scribes like us will also have deduced that the masculine form is wab, and that the rather curious sumbol above is a triliteral sign conveying the sound of three letters, w a and b. 

We’ve had b before, haven’t we?  If you cast your mind back to the first line of the offering formula, when we were looking at Abydos or Abdju, one of the major cult centres of Osiris, you’ll recall that the letter b in ancient Egyptian is represented by the human foot.  And what do we have as the bottom half of this symbol?  A human foot!  That’ll be the b, then.

But what’s that spout on top, and what’s it spouting?  No, it’s not what you’re thinking.  They could draw what you’re thinking much better than that.  The upper part of the symbol is a little water pot, and it’s pouring forth a libation of purifying water.

You can see the kind of pot in full pouring action in this scene from the sarcophagus of a royal lady:

In this scene, one of the lady’s servants is pouring her a drink.  In temples and in funeral rites, water was used for ritual purification, as in this scene where a priest is pouring water over the coffin of the deceased:

It’s a shame the painting has flaked away just where I want to show you the water spouting out of the pots, but never mind.  And the blue wiggly lines for the water have come out nicely.  So, the symbol for “pure” was the standard ritual purification device of ancient Egyptian religion, the pot pouring out clean water, rendering the person or object it was poured over cleansed and pure.  Wab was also the word for “priest” in ancient Egyptian; literally, “the pure one”.

Here’s an example from a temple relief:

We already know how to draw the foot.  Then just draw a little oval on top for the pot, like an egg lying on its side, but square off the pointy end a bit for the rim.  Then draw a zigzag line for the water, arcing out of the pot in a graceful curve.

Finally -please remember all this when the office plant contractors come round and water the aspidistras.  And stop stubbing out illicit cigarettes in the rubber plants, and using the weeping fig as a receptacle for your coffee dregs, or the office party plonk.  They’ve been ritually purified.  Have some respect.

“This spectacular image of our home planet was captured by the OSIRIS instrument on ESA’s Rosetta comet chaser today (November 12) at 12:28 GMT from about 633,000 km as the spacecraft approached Earth for the third and final swingby.”

[via]

Khet nebet.  Every thing.  Or, rather, thing every.  Let’s look at thing, first.

Khet, thing. As you’ve been sitting there, starving, for two and a half months, your attention will have been fixed instantly on the loaf of bread which, as usual, represents the letter t.  I wonder whether you’d fancy eating the object depicted above it, the symbol which to the Egyptians represented the second of their collection of four letters h?  Some people have been known to eat it.

The identification is not aboslutely certain, but it’s quite possible that it’s the symbol for a human placenta.  Some of you may be making the very sound of the second letter h as you contemplate the idea of eating it, especially if what you are eating at the moment is attempting to reguritate itself and / or fly across the room.  Some of you may be made of tougher stuff.

I did briefly toy with the idea of putting a photograph of a human placenta on this blog – and there are plenty of them in cyberspace , including one in which bread was also a feature – but I decided that, if you really want to do a comparison with the hieroglyph, you can easily find them.  They are a bit off-putting for the unwary Egyptophile.  We’ll make do with a couple of pictures of the original hieroglyph instead:

They don’t help much with the identification, do they?  And they don’t look very appetizing.  I don’t know whether the Egyptians ate their placentas or not, but I did find a shampoo which listed placenta as an ingredient in Canada, of all places.  Who’d have thought it?  Anyway, in this context, it’s not for eating, it’s for saying the second letter h.  Kh.  And it’s easy to draw:  just a circle and some cross-hatching.

Nebet means every or all.  The signs need no introduction to you.  We had the basket sign, neb, before, as the word for “Lord” in the titulary of Osiris.  Neb aslo means “every” or “all”, and it appears here as nebet because it is in its feminine form, agreeing with khet.  The “t” endings of words are often feminine.

There.  For two and a half months you’ve been feeling abandoned. Now you’re the tomb owner who has everything.

flyby of Earth

This spectacular image of our home planet was captured by Europe’s Rosetta probe as it made its third and final flyby of Earth, before heading towards a comet. The outline of Antarctica is visible under the clouds in the illuminated crescent. Pack ice in front of the coastline caused the very bright spots on the image.

It was taken by the-board camera OSIRIS yesterday, from a distance of 393,000miles. The picture combines three images taken with orange, green and blue filters and has a resolution of 7.5miles/pixel.

Rosetta made its closest approach to Earth at 7.45am (GMT) today at an altitude of 1,540miles – which is inside the orbits of geostationary telecoms satellites. However, European Space Agency (ESA) scientists said Rosetta would be extremely difficult to spot from the ground and only large telescope could pick up the faint fast-moving object.

The fly-by will give Rosetta the gravitational boost it needs to speed towards Jupiter, via the asteroid Lutetia in July 2010. The probe will hibernate for the coldest part of its epic journey from mid 2011 to spring 2014.

If all goes well it will respond to a ‘wake-up call’ and chase down the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in May 2014. The successful swingby was confirmed at 8.05am (GMT) when mission controllers re-established contact with Rosetta via ESA’s station in Spain.

The comet chaser has now flown 2,800million miles of its 4,400million mile journey, passing Earth three times and Mars once. Some of Rosetta’s instruments have been on since early November, performing imaging and atmospheric observations of Earth, as well as looking for water on the Moon.

The 10ft by 6.5ft craft is packed with scientific instruments to study the ball of ice, rock and dust. Rosetta will firstly orbit the 2.5mile comet and make a detailed map of its surface. It will then release a washing-machine-sized lander called Philae, which will anchor onto the comet as it sweeps into the inner Solar System.

As the speeding comet heads towards the Sun, the radiation will cause the ices on the comet to turn straight from a solid into a gas. Material will be ejected at supersonic speeds in the form of a tail. The Rosetta orbiter and Philae lander will record the process and send data back to Earth.

The ambitious mission will have taken 10 years once completed. Rosetta is named after the Rosetta Stone, a stone tablet discovered in 1799 by Napoleon’s forces as they invaded Egypt. Just as the Rosetta Stone enabled the hieroglyphs to be deciphered, scientists hope that the Rosetta mission will provide some clues to help them understand more about our Solar System.

A spectacular image of the Earth acquired with the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on ESA’s Rosetta comet chaser. OSIRIS obtains high-resolution images of the comet’s nucleus and the asteroids that Rosetta passes on its voyage to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This image is taken from a distance of 633 000 km on 12 November 2009 at 12:28 GMT.

First view of Earth as Rosetta approaches home. Image Credit: Rosetta, ESA

Three filters (orange, green and blue) were combined to create this image which is part of a sequence of images taken every hour through one full rotation.

The crescent is centred roughly around the South Pole (at the bottom of the image). The outline of Antarctica is visible under the clouds that form the striking south-polar vortex. Pack ice in front of the coastline with its strong spectacular reflection is the cause for the very bright spots on the image.

You can follow Rosetta’s progress at ESA’s Rosetta site

Yesterday, the Rosetta spacecraft, which was commissioned by ESA to study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko captured this view of the Earth as part of its third and final flyby of our home planet with its OSIRIS instrument:

I suspect that more images will come as the spacecraft completes its flyby, but it’s always nice to have new images of our home world and this one is not a disappointment.

Hat tip: Space Gizmo

[Update]

I was looking at older pictures and found this image of a gibbous Earth from Rosetta’s second flyby:

Australia’s clearly visible at the bottom and you can see India, the Himalayas and Tibet at the top though most of the rest of Asia is shrouded in night or clouds.

Not gonna lie to y’all and say i’ve heard of del the funky homosapien. To me it just sounds like some fat,middle aged,prick from peckham has decided to up his street cred and give himself a new nickname and brought out some really “hip” trainers,which are really down with the kids dawg.

I like the overall design of these shoes,not gonna rip on them completely. The shape of the shoe is really nice. Myself and Chucky think that it’s all flawed by the childish design on the sole of the shoe and in Chucky’s words it looks like a cheap skate deck from poundland or somthing.

I’m really hoping that some of the other trainers in this series are nice as for this particular design,fuck it.

Some new Dirt McGirt that will appear on the upcoming project Mesage To The Other Side: Osirus Part 1. This is pretty dope, ODB of all people tellin us to say NO to drugs lol, R.I.P. ODB, we miss you dearly…

“Message to the Other Side – Osiris Part 1” features 21 tracks, is executive produced by Allah and features Wu Tang Clan’s ODB, The RZA, Method Man, Masta Killa, along with affiliates 4th Disciple, Brooklyn Zu, Allah, Free Murder and others. This record has the support of Dirty’s family and the entire Wu-Tang Clan, as a bonus there is a 20 minute DVD excerpt of the soon to be released film “Dirty,” a Rapumentary about ODB.

DOWNLOAD: ODB – Say No

Phallic-Head Plate, 1536 and Cucuteni Phalus representaion, 3000 BC

PHALLUS

The phallus can refer to a penis, or to anything shaped like one. The ancient Egyptians have Osiris, the Greeks have Hermes, ancient Japan have the Mara Kannon Shrine (麻羅観音) in Nagato, ancient Romans have the talismans, ancient Scandinavia the Norse god Freyr, and ancient India have Shiva -phallic structures symbolized wellness and good health in many ancient cultures, Dubai nowadays has more than one, and they should add that to the list of its achievements in the “most” highest of this, and the “most” tallest of that, the “most” hottest of this, and the “most” modern city of the world -it’s also now the “most” cluttered city with phallic symbols that will surely make the Pharaohs and the greek gods blush.

NO MAN NEEDS NOTHING

“I think you are another of these desert-loving English: Doughty, Stanhope, Gordon of Khartoum. No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees, there is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing.” quoting Prince Feisal played by Alec Guinness in 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia, an epic film about a flamboyant and controversial British military figure T.E. Lawrence in Saudi Arabia. A great film by David Lean that reminds me how flamboyant the desert could be if you let the Brits use your city as a blank canvas for their architectural playground.

Besides missing the best Pakistani dish I ever had, the sprawling nightlife, and warm Dubai hospitality, having lived there for 2 years, I miss also how quickly Dubai skyline changes every time my eyes blink, it’s a “closet-gay-man’s-Disneyland-filled-with man-made-penis-buildings”. Reaching a record high 512.1m (1,680 ft) 141 storeys, Burj Dubai is the tallest building in the world now and according to EMAAR Chairman Alabbar “A human achievement without equal”, I would like to add to that Mr. Chairman… Dubai is the city of men where homosexuality is illegal and now “the most visible male genitalia in outer space” without equal (size queens!).

Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, 1990, 2003 and present.

Burj Dubai (tallest building in the world)

Al Burj

Palm Trump Hotel in Dubai

Al Rostamini Headquarters

The Lighthouse

P-17

Anara Tower

Floating Houseboat in Dubai Marina and Dubai Opera House

Burj Al Arab and The Palm

In this weeks installment of Newsarama’s “10 Answers and 1 Question w/ DC’s DAN DIDIO” Dan talked quite a bit about some JSA material.

He had this to say about the Red Circle characters:

Also, we saw Magog appearing in The Shield, and we’re probably going to see the Shield meeting up with some of Magog’s other friends, from the JSA. So there’s a chance you’re going to be seeing some of that.

…One last thing is that we made one change on the books and we’re bringing in Matt Sturges on The Web, and he’s really excited about it. And that’s one of the reasons why you’re seeing a stronger interplay between some of the Red Circle characters and the JSA.

Black Canary will be…

Reunited with old friends.

On the Marvel Family:

One of the things that will pick up some of those beats, although not seeing Black Adam exactly, is Osiris returns in Power of Shazam in January. I guess the Black Lantern Osiris is wondering exactly the same question: Where is Black Adam and Isis?

…When that storyline ended, Billy and Mary had lost their powers, Black Adam and Isis had been turned to stone, the Wizard had basically taken all of his toys and gone back to the Rock of Eternity, and somebody mysterious appeared from the shadows, looking to upset things down the line.

We’re going to see Osiris in Power of Shazam, and then there will be hints as to what might be coming down the road throughout the year. But this is a story that hasn’t been played out. And it probably won’t be played out for awhile. There are certain things taking place in the DCU that are setting in motion where this is all heading. But it’s not something that will be played out very quickly.

Dan also said we would probably see another Marvel Family story post-Blackest Night, later in 2010.

Thoughts: Interesting that the Sheild might join the JSA. That would mean thre star-spangled costumes on the team if he joins. I wonder if he has any connections with Citizen Steel. The Marvel Family stuff is very exciting and I hope Black Canary is getting back together with the Birds of Prey!

So I have a siamese-y cat called Osiris. We named him that before we realised it was the God of Death. Cheerful. But it stuck, and it’s such a good name. You can get so many little versions of it like, Ossie, Ossie the Boss etc.

Unfortunately though, I don’t think he actually realises that’s his name. We got him ’second hand’ from the Cat’s Protection League. His original name was Lucky, which we instantly scrapped. Everyone calls their dogs Lucky! It does man however, that he still answers to it.

It’s actually quite a drag having to get a cat like that, it means that you have to retrain it to your standards, especially if it appears that the original owner’s standards were very low.

For instance, Osiris was definately used to being able to sit on the table, or at least on the lap of someone at meal times. It took forever, and a whole lot of pushing away for him to get the idea. But he still gets up on his hindlegs to look over the table top, in the hope that there’s something he can eat.

Even if there was, he couldn’t. He has a ’sensitive siamese stomach’, so he has special food. It was terrible in the beginning, before we knew what was wrong because he was barfing everywhere! And then he eats the grass, which he apparently doesn’t learn about, because he pukes everytime after that as well. Such a pain.

My cat, Osiris

I’d miss him though. For some strange reason, I know that I’ll miss kicing him out of the room, constantly checking to see if my door’s closed and he can’ t push it open. I’ll miss his meowing, constant need for affection, and his motorcyle purring. Isn’t it strange how we can get so aggravated by something, and yet need it?