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Tales from the Island of Serendip
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Started by Flex Mentallo,

8,956 posts in this topic

Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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On 12/27/2019 at 11:13 AM, Flex Mentallo said:

Tales from the Island of Serendip updated thread navigation for the new site (please bookmark)!

Serendipity

Serendipity - Paddyfield School - The Story of Mohan - Sometimes

 

Sting

School bully!

 

El Puente

Muralist Joe Matunis - El Puente de Williamsburg - Return to Paddyfield School - Lucina

 

Bells from the Deep

Werner Herzog - Juliane Koepcke - The lost city of Kitezh - Sadko - St Clemente

Virgil Finlay - Reed Crandall - Graham Ingles - Berni Wrightson - Al Williamson

Flex studies for larger paintings

 

pcalhoun & jimjum

Clark Ashton Smith - Pat's poems - Jimbo's excellent paintings

The Life of Father Hess - Kasauli Art Camp -  Sketches of Bonhooghly - The Death of Mohan Ghosh - Rabindranath Tagore

DavidMerryweather art collection

 

Black Marigolds

In Search of Lost Time - Georges Seurat - Roger Fry - The Trojan Horse - Ananda Coomaraswamy - The Great Stupa at Sanchi - Ajanta caves - Black Marigolds

 

Detective Stories

Johannes Vermeer 1632–1675: A Detective Story - camera obscura - Han Van Meegeren - The Theft of the Mona Lisa - Donato's Captain America and other works - Rainer Maria Rilke - Cornell Woolrich - Cat's space themed paintings - Netsuke - Hart Crane - Cat's 'Creation' - Boba's illustrations - Caravaggio's Nativity - Las Meninas - John Singer Sargent - Flex large painting - Thomas Nashe - Tom O' Bedlam - Georges de La Tour - Flex exhibition - Joseph Wright of Derby - John Martin

 

The Bosnian Conflict

Andrei Tarkovsky - Welcome to Sarajevo - Margaret Moth - Yasna's cat - Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo - Miss Sarajevo - the Serious Road Trip - War Child - the Help album - The Ruin

 

pcalhoun writer and collector

Autobiographical notes - Jade tiki - Ubbo-Sathla by Clark Ashton Smith - Robert Q Sale - Tekkai Sennin - Bakemono - Zuni fetish - Yooshi's ghosts - Kuniyoshi

 

Steven Assael

Paintings - drawings

 

Photos of Nirmal's Village

When Shabana was 11 - Mohammed Yunus - Grameen bank - mosaics of Ravenna, Venice & Florence - Duccio's Maesta - when Tuku was a child - We cry to Thee, O Conqueror of love - Grunewald - Michael Leunig - The Metamorphosis of the Gkmloooms - We shall rise

 

Steven Assael's Bride Paintings

Bride paintings with details - Spirits of the dead keep watch

 

Kolkata

Flex photo essay - Lucina's gold medal

 

The Hero's Journey

The Courts of Chaos - 'The Heroes' by Charles Kingsley - Medusa - Archetypes - Chris Vogler - Galaxy Quest - the Trickster - Prometheus

 

In the Beginning

Altamira - Shanidar - flower burial

 

Interlude

Mir para - Lija and her baby - Lullaby - Her name is Zoa - My relationship with Bonhooghly

 

Before They Pass

Threnody - Jimmy Nelson - The Lost Steps - Witness - Jean Baptiste Debret - Johann Moritz Rugendas - Sebastião Salgado - Serra Pelada

 

Sting and the Rainforest Foundation

Sting in the tail - Raoni’s message - Rolling Stone - World in Action - 30 Most Generous Celebrities list Before they pass away - Yanomami - Christina Haverkamp - The Haximu Massacre - pcalhoun on rip-off charities - Love Story - Darkness in El Dorado - Kenneth Good & Yarima - The Good Project

 

Lost Cities

Mridula & I - Bitter fruit - El Dorado - The Lost City of Z - Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett - Garden Cities of the Xingu - Caral

 

Interlude

I want she don't go back to that hell

 

Heaven's River

Nazca - Maria Reiche “the lady of the desert” - Secrets of the Inca - Wari tomb - the end of all things - Machu Picchu - the Sacred Valley - The condor at Pisac - Ollantaytambo - the "eye of the llama" - The Viracochan image - the pyramid of dawn - Momia Juanita

 

Alternative Histories

Jericho - Çatalhöyük - The Great Mother - Tierra del Fuego - Lilith

 

Flood

Cataclysm - Epic of Gilgamesh - Genesis - mythological diffusion - "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan" by John L. Stephens - Hamlet's Mill - the Sampo - the Phoenicians - the Paraiba Stone - Fusang - Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies - Zheng He - The Bosnian Pyramids - Maya - Xibalba

 

Sunk

Atlantis - Guanahacabibes - Mysterious grid - Bimini Road - Yonaguni - Mu - James Churchward - Out of the Aeons - Lemuria - Kumari Kandam - Ice Age Civilization - Graham Hancock - Lost Continents - Zealandia

 

The Human Condition

E. J. Michael Witzel - Laurasian mythology - humanity's emergence - The Isle of the Dead - What Dreams May Come

 

Was God an Astronaut?

Eric Von Daniken - Chariots of the Gods - The Morning of the Magicians - At the Mountains of Madness - Carl Sagan

 

Steven Assael

Druso

 

U.F.O

Kenneth Arnold - flying saucers - Roswell Incident - Maury Island - "men in black" - Project Sign - Project Blue Book - "foo-fighters" -  Alien abduction - the size of the universe - Multiple universes - Stephen Hawking - Fermi's paradox - the Drake equation - The Silence - N-rays - innate releasing mechanism - Carl Jung - The Roper Report - The abduction - The Dark Side of the Moon - gamma-ray bursts - Ordovician extinction - Invader - Budd Hopkins - the abduction of Linda Cortile - John Mack - Aliens in America

 

The Search

My red book - Carl Jung's Red Book - Charles Steffen - Ernst Haeckel - Jeffrey J. Kripal

 

Lost Horizons

You are as the yellow leaf - The Snow Leopard - Lost Horizon - Shambala - Hollow Earth - the Thule Society - The Way of the White Clouds - António Andrade - Tsaparang - Mount Kailash - Bhagavad Gita - The Upanishads - Navratri

 

Interlude

Update from Lucina

 

Festival 

Durga Puja - Ramlila - the hijras - City of Light

Further update from Lucina - Calcutta Botanical Gardens - Indian ComicCon

Puri beach - Juggernaut - Temple of the Sun - Kajuraho - Reprise - pcalhoun 'Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus'

 

Interlude

Lucina's Conference - Market Day - More Photo of Village Life - Ongoing Correspondence - Ganges 'Beauty Spot' -Eid

 

A Christmas Carol

The sheer exuberance of Bengali village life in a hundred photographs

 

Labyrinths

Pan's Labyrinth - Symbolic Pilgrimages - Chartres - The Mystic Rose - A Pilgrim's Progress - The Labyrinth of Buda Castle

King Minos - 'Da-pu-ri-to-jo Po-ti-ni-ja' - the first European civilization - the palace at Knossos - bull dance

Thera - Tsunami - Akrotiri

Mycenaean ascendancy - Pasiphaë - the Minotaur - Theseus and Ariadne - the integration of the shadow - Betrayal - Right of Passage

 

The Holy Grail

The Da Vinci Code - the Ark of the Covenant - Knights Templar - the grail in literature and television - Perceval, le Conte du Graal - Joseph of Arimathea - King Arthur - the grail in movies - Excalibur

Imitatio Christi - Heresy - King of the World - Crusade - "God will know His own" - Simon de Montfort - The Inquisition - "Not a bird sang for a generation" - the Wasteland

Sin, redemption, pain, and healing - Bayreuth - Hans-Jürgen Syberberg - Healing the Wound - Wings

 

Cloudlets Bright Career

Remembering Mridula - Her death and funeral - Keats' poem - Tagore poem

Mary Elizabeth Frye - A family grieves

Lucina's work on crop studies - Meeting a politician - Lucina's new apartment

Tuku and Mono - 'I have murdered my wife' - On a dead child by Robert Seymour Bridges

 

Tectonic Plates

Kevin Bubriski's photos of Nepal - The Earthquake - Everest's worst disaster - 'It's just a matter of time'

Family without Geography - Touched by an Angel by Maya Angelou - My second visit - Family drama - My birthday

My Village - A Neighbour's Wedding

 

Elegy

A trip to the Bay of Bengal - 'The Wanderer' by Eugene Field - Some ruminations on Serendip - Lucina's trip to South Korea - 10th World Bamboo Congress

 

Joseph Farquharson 

A little known Victorian painter - Valerie's letter from V for Vendetta

 

hic sunt dracones

Dinosaurs in comic books - Bones from the Earth - Paelo Art past and present - Mass Extinction Events - The Burgess Shale - Snowball Earth - Dinotopia - On the disappearance of snails - The Coelacanth, Living Fossil - Imaginary 'dinosaurs' - the real reason dinosaurs became extinct (according to Mr Bedrock) - Wonderful Life - Dinosaur Heresies - On dinosaur intelligence - the Anthropocene Era - Anosognosia - Teilhard De Chardin - Julian Jaynes - Wittgenstein - 'Acension' by Pat Calhoun - William Stout

 

Light/Shadow/Phoenix/Mirror

Lucina and Purnabha get married - The golden spice - Who offered this maiden? - Bride Feast - When I first met this skinny kid - 'An Epithalamion' by John Donne - Honeymoon in Darjeeling - The Captain Nirmal Sen Gupta Memorial Institute

 

Out of the Dark

The starfish - 'Fearless', the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandev - Child Trafficking - Anoyara Khatun - The Dowry System - Rajabazaar - Roshni - Let there be Light - 'The Garden of the Prophet' by Kahlil Ghibran - 'Time Enough for Love' by Robert Heinlein - Roshni's new room - Roshni's Web Site is launched - The story of Luke - Independence Day - Progress report - Mission and Vision - http://www.roshniumeedki.org/index.php - Women's Football Team - the Nightingale of India - The Hijab - Women Taxi Drivers - TV station 24hgt - Make Love Not Scars

 

Reporting from Kolkata

Richard Henry Dana - Demonetisation - Wearing a hijab - Arshi and Nikat - Gayatri Mantra

 

The Story so far

A brief retelling of the whole story of my times in India for those who don't want to wade through the last 200 pages!

 

A detailed report on my visit to Roshni, November, 2016

First visit to Roshni's new base - Phil and Rita - Soccer Practice - Children's Day - 'Hijab', a poem - Food Festival - A walk around Rajabazaar - Proposal for a Women's Refuge - Craft fair - Pat Painting - Rajabazaar at night - Nikat and Zeenat - Arshi's family - Sealdah Station - Siliguri to Darjeeling - First sight of Kangchenjunga - Darjeeling - Sittong - Prayer to Durga - Mahishasura - Tribal groups - The Lepcha - Shelpu Bazaar - Namthing Pokari - Buddhist temple - Aahal - KFC - The Luke Holland Memorial Scholarships - Excursion to Nicco Park - The Fisher King - Dinky won an award - Roshni Scholars

 

Tsundoko

My library -  The Natural History of Birds - The Birds of America - John Gould - Edward Lear's Parrots - Sharpe's Birds of Paradise - The Huli Tribe

 

Photographers

Riefenstahl's Africa - James C. Faris - Peoples of The Omo Valley - George Rodger - Joey Lawrence

 

Shogun

An English navigator in Japan - The Battle of Sekigahara - Miyamoto Musashi - The Tokugawa Shogunate - The Boshin War  - The Last Samurai - Great Edo period printmakers - Japonisme - Photographs of Japanese Customs and Manners  - Ogawa Kazumasa - One of the most expensive books ever produced - Japan, Described and Illustrated by the Japanese - Hawksmoor -   Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem - Netsuke -  the Japanese invented a form of comic book -  Utamaro and Hiroshige -  Basho

 

Orientalism

Eqypt, Nubia and The Holy Land by David Roberts - Jean-Léon Gérôme - John Frederick Lewis

 

Chamelion

Veruschka - Blow-Up - Valkyrie - Vogue - Trans-Figurations -to dissolve the self into the world - Liu Bolin - Hiding in the City

 

Objectifying The Other

Before They Pass Away - Nixiwaka Yawanawá

 

More on Roshni's Progress

Sana Tehsin - A sports tournament - Ashrina Zurain - Kaniz Fatima - Seige - 'Now we are very famous.' - 'tell me, where was God?' -  'Now we will rape you.' -  Republic Day - Book Fair in Kolkata -  'I learned if you believe your own self we win all fight' -  Saniya Saba - Siddiqa Warsi -  to Bombay -  Holi, Festival of Colors - Roshni's annual report - Return to Roshni - The future is in their hands

 

Back to India

Purnabha and Lucina's Convocation - Dooars - Sonali - Barriers are broken - Into the Jungle - Here the tea pickers live - Dreaming Food - Conscience - Stations - 'The creature is regenerating itself.” - Mirror - at Bubaneshwar Station - “Sleep is the most innocent creature.” - What torture lurks within a single thought - Araku - the Tribal Museum - “You cannot teach democracy to the tribal people, you have to learn democratic ways from them. They are the most democratic people on earth” - Kuni Sikaka - Asara - Anantagiri - Trafficking tribal women and girls - Rajini was 15 years old - Gross national happiness - Bhutan -  Gangkhar Puensum -  the cave complex at Udayagiri - Puri -  Visakhapatnam

 

Drawing from History: The Forgotten Art of Fortunino Matania

Fortunino Matania - The War to End All Wars - Sergeant York - Wilfred Owen - Seigfried Sassoon - Classical Themes - Pirates of Venus - When Worlds Collide - covers Matania did for Panther Books

 

 

 

 

 

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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1 hour ago, Duffman_Comics said:

MIchael, in the current climate, how are your "folk" traveling in India? The media offerings are horrific.

It was always going to be horrific in India, wasn't it? Anyone who has visited, particularly the most crowded states like West Bengal, where there are literally people everywhere you go, could predict what would happen. I have no doubt that most cases/deaths in India have gone unrecorded, and that it is the most seriously affected country in the world, regardless of what we are told. [West Bengal is smaller than Minnesota, but has a population comparable to that of the continental United States.]

 

I spoke to Lucina on the telephone just last week. She says that the reason everything has gone from bad to worse is that local state politicians have encouraged supporters to crowd together at political rallies with elections in the offing. and this has exposed the vulnerability of a health system that is overstretched at the best of times.

 

Everyone in my adopted extended family over there has had Covid; thankfully, no-one has so far died. But the worst is almost certainly still to come, and given the worldwide Indian diaspora, it is entirely possible that another wave of infections will spread across the globe with Delhi as the epicentre.

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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In India now.

 

On 27 April, the report was 323,144 new cases, 2,771 deaths, but the number of Covid-protocol funerals from graveyards and crematoriums in small towns and cities suggest a death toll up to 30 times higher than the official count.

 

Virologists predict that the number of cases in India will grow exponentially to more than 500,000 a day. They predict the death of many hundreds of thousands in the coming months, perhaps more.

 

This is what happens when a pandemic hits a country with an almost non-existent public healthcare system. India spends about 1.25% of its gross domestic product on health, far lower than most countries in the world, even the poorest ones. Even that figure is thought to be inflated, because things that are important but do not strictly qualify as healthcare have been slipped into it. So the real figure is estimated to be more like 0.34%. 78% of the healthcare in urban areas and 71% in rural areas is now handled by the private sector. The resources that remain in the public sector are systematically siphoned into the private sector by a nexus of corrupt administrators and medical practitioners, corrupt referrals and insurance rackets.

 

As hospital and intensive care beds have filled far beyond capacity, the instruction from doctors has been for patients to find oxygen for themselves. As a result, demand for oxygen cylinders has soared to unprecedented levels, with some hidden market vendors selling a single oxygen cylinder usually worth 6,000 rupees (£58) for upwards of £700.

 

West Bengal is a small state. The election could have taken place in a single day, and has done so in the past. But since it is new territory for the BJP, [the right wing ruling party] the election schedule was divided into eight phases, spread out over a month, the last on 29 April. Three candidates running in the election have died from the virus.

 

Now, as voting closes, Bengal is poised to become the new corona cauldron, with a new triple mutant strain known as – guess what – the “Bengal strain”. Newspapers report that every second person tested in the state capital, Kolkata, is Covid positive.

 

Meanwhile, religious festivals, such as this month's Kumbh Mela, continue unabated.

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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India’s surging death rate – where people are dying in hospital corridors, on roads and in their homes, while car parks are being turned into cremation grounds – is driving a record shift in the burden of global Covid-19 deaths to poor and lower-middle income countries, according to Observer analysis, in what may be the start of a longer-term shift towards a greater concentration of virus deaths in the global south as wealthier nations begin to vaccinate their way out of the crisis.

“We’re in danger of having a completely divided world where half are vaccinated and half are not vaccinated. This is life and death. If we don’t take this action, and we don’t do it urgently, the disease will spread. It will mutate. And it will come back to rich countries, as well as poor countries.” Gordon Brown

 

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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On a completely different note, some of you might remember that some years ago I posted a long series of posts on the theme of U.F.O.s [pp 96-111].

 

U.F.O.s

 

Of course, as everyone knows, matters have taken a sharp turn in recent months with verification from the Pentagon that something we don't yet understand is going on.

 

Here is a recent article that some might find of interest...

 

How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously

 

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

Carl Sagan

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Flex Mentallo

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Long conversation with Purnabha today. The situation in West Bengal is pretty dire. He and Lucina are now just about recovering from a second bout of Covid, but still symptomatic. The organization he is working with are collaborating with the state government to supply oxygen to extremely poor remote communities. [A canister of oxygen now sells for the equivalent of $500 on the black market.] The general belief is that the Indian Government has underreported Covid cases and the true figure may be 100 times more than reported. There is so little remaining space to cremate people that bodies are being consigned to the rivers, where they are washing up on the banks.

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KirbyJack

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48 minutes ago, Flex Mentallo said:

There is so little remaining space to cremate people that bodies are being consigned to the rivers, where they are washing up on the banks.

 

...or making it all the way to the Sundarbans? I've heard that there are problems there with bodies and tigers.

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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I have bookcases full of fiction, history, science, photography and – especially comic related material, but [ironically given my erstwhile profession] very little about Fine Art. Perhaps because it was over familiar, insofar as I had studied art as a student years ago.

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