StumbleUpon | Scarlette's blog posts

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/26300656/

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:29:25 -0700

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/24711061/

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:07:02 -0700

Burning off
impurities.

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/24166168/

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:18:04 -0700

From my recent visit to Poe's house in Philadelphia, where he penned The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-Tale Heart, and began work on The Raven.

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/17357708/

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:24:06 -0800

Dear Sir,

Your Ulysses has presented the world such an upsetting psychological problem, that repeatedly I have been called in as a supposed authority on psychological matters.

Ulysses proved to be an exceedingly hard nut and it has forced my mind not only to most unusual efforts, but also to rather extravagant peregrinations (speaking from the standpoint of a scientist). Your book as a whole has given me no end of trouble and I was brooding over it for about three years until I succeeded to put myself into it. But I must tell you that I'm profoundly grateful to yourself as well as to your gigantic opus, because I learned a great deal from it. I shall probably never be quite sure whether I did enjoy it, because it meant too much grinding of nerves and of grey matter. I also don't know whether you will enjoy what I have written about Ulysses because I couldn't help telling the world how much I was bored, how I grumbled, how I cursed and how I admired. The 40 pages of non stop run at the end is a string of veritable psychological peaches. I suppose the devil's grandmother knows so much about the real psychology of a woman, I didn't.

Well, I just try to recommend my little essay to you, as an amusing attempt of a perfect stranger that went astray in the labyrinth of your Ulysses and happened to get out of it again by sheer good luck. At all events you may gather from my article what Ulysses has done to a supposedly balanced psychologist.

With the expression of my deepest appreciation, I remain, dear Sir,

Yours faithfully,
C.G. Jung

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/11854519/

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:43:31 -0700

I consider Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon an indispensable work of English literature. Widely celebrated yet sadly misunderstood, this undeniably anti-authoritarian work contains not one shred of McCarthyism.

Passages:

"As if a tuning-fork had been struck, there would be answering vibrations, and once this had started a state would be produced which the mystics called "ecstasy" and saints "contemplation"; the greatest and soberest of modern psychologists had recognized this state as a fact and called it the "oceanic sense". And, indeed, one's personality dissolved as a grain of salt in the sea; but at the same time the infinite sea seemed to be contained in the grain of salt. The grain could no longer be localized in time and space. It was a state in which thought lost its direction and started to circle, like the compass needle at the magnetic pole; until finally it cut loose from its axis and travelled freely in space, like a bunch of light in the night; and until it seemed that all thoughts and all sensations, even pain and joy itself, were only the spectrum lines of the same ray of light, disintegrating in the prisma of consciousness."

"Perhaps later, much later, the new movement would arise--with new flags, a new spirit knowing of both: of economic fatality and the "oceanic sense". Perhaps the members of the new party will wear monks' cowls, and preach that only purity of means can justify the ends. Perhaps they will teach that the tenet is wrong which says that a man is the quotient of one million divided by one million, and will introduce a new kind of arithmetic based on multiplication: on the joining of a million individuals to form a new entity which, no longer an amorphous mass, will develop a consciousness and an individuality of its own, with an "oceanic feeling" increased a millionfold, in unlimited yet self-contained space."

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/11198035/

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:01:41 -0700

I'd like to thank everyone who asked about the excavation. The team met with much success and an excellent body of data was collected, but due to persistent looting in the region, I would risk the alienation of colleagues by commenting further. You are more than welcome, however, to read an article--and hopefully not an embarrassingly bad article--about the dig, which should appear in the next issue of American Archaeology.

In other news, I hope to be published by the end of the year. Also, I no longer reside in Texas.

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/10227312/

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:24:40 -0700

Friends,

I'll be in New Mexico excavating a Mogollon Mimbres site over the next few months. As I'll be living out of a tent (a tiny tent, I might add) I will have very little in the way of 'net access. Please, pardon my absence.

The Mimbres people are known primarily for their painted pots (which today are among the most sought-after pottery in the world).

At left is a drawing of a typical Mimbres burial. The Mimbre�os tended to bury their dead beneath the floorspace of occupied homes. The bodies were often inhumed in a flexed position with a pot (often "killed," with a hole deliberately punched through the center) placed over the head.

See you in July!

http://Scarlette.stumbleupon.com/review/5555631/

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:42:40 -0700

The Coyolxauhqui Stone has always been one of my favourite examples of Mesoamerican art. A priceless artefact telling one of the key stories of Aztec mythology, it rests at the bottom of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan--in present day Mexico City.

If you look closely, you'll note that the subject (Coyolxauhqui herself) has been decapitated, her every limb severed and her entrails wrapped about her torso. I love this monolith--not for its depiction of extreme violence, but for the way in which it presents the viewer with such rich detail. There is something elegant about the subject's proportions.

The monument tells the story of Coyolxauhqui, the moon goddess in Aztec mythology. It was likely the intention of the artist(s) that the stone resemble the full moon. When her mother, Coatlicue (the earth goddess), was impregnated by a floating ball of feathers, Coyolxauhqui rallied her four-hundred sisters and brothers to attack their mother for allowing herself to be dishonourably violated. Her half-brother, Huitzilopochtli (the sun god), sprang from the womb a fully armed adult and proceeded to ward off the attack. He then hacked off Coyolxauhqui's every limb and rolled her remains down a hill (which is presumably why the stone is found at the bottom of the temple).