Concave or convex, or something else entirely? Is it... an.... astronomical device?

Drawing by Virgil Finlay

Painting by James Vaughan - Heroic, Brave, Valiant, Optative

Eisenhower vs. Stevenson: 1952 Election Ads

Emanations 11 coming soon

I am now going over the proof copy.  Should be out in a few weeks. Stay tuned.

Clark Ashton Smith reads his poetry, with John B. Elder's remarks

(More) Highbrow advice from St. Augustine

"Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly, if there be no bold presumption that it is already discovered and possessed." 

  

The earliest known portrait of Augustine in a 6th-century fresco, Lateran, Rome

Monetization of "Best Practices": an allegory of educational programming in an era of on-line degrees in Education Administration for cynical would-be bureaucrats pursuing an easy connection to (and appropriation of) the instructional revenue stream [--funny description, jaded, underscoring an acute problem in need of a principled solution]

Jupiter Rotating (merely adequate description, poor caption, but sufficient for short-attention-interval typical of internet surfers looking for a quick stimulant)

via GIPHY

Union Pacific "Big Boy" (exposition, animated illustration, elucidation, explanation, descriptive clarification, narratological overview, synoptic surview)

Spheres in a red field

Highbrow (sort of) Advice: sign hanging in the crews' mess, USS Nautilus, SSN-571

Lion Annual, 1954

"These fragments I have shored against my ruins" - T. S. Eliot

One wonders

Milton's eye over Sarasota, Florida

Gore Vidal & Roy Cohn - Interview

How is a picture like a description? How is a picture not like a description?

Photo: Tanja Askani

 

How is a picture like an utterance?

Description: Snowy Owl

Further investigations into the description of images and illusions

Is this one image, or many images? Is this one figure, or a conglomerate of figures, or an arrogate of figures, and are they moving?  In the range of possible descriptions, is there a significant distinction to be made between the use of "conglomerate" and "aggregate", or between the use of "image" and "figure"?

How do we approach a description of the distinction among the moving images we perceive and the fact that the moving figures (elements?) are in fact not moving?

(Coming soon:  A grammatical analysis of Noumena and Phenomena.)

Do aesthetic "values" play a role in an analysis of this image? Can one explicate this image? Or is our consideration more appropriately relegated to the activity of description?

怪奇 江戸川乱山 (The Mysterious Edogawa Ranzan, 1937)

一度死んだ男が謎の老人の霊術で蘇り自分を殺した者たちに復讐をする どことなく西洋的な雰囲気の漂う異色の怪奇時代劇 剣戟スター羅門光三郎主演、監督は下村健二

 "A man who once died is brought back to life by the spiritual magic of a mysterious old man and takes revenge on those who killed him. A unique historical drama with a vaguely Western feel. Starring Ramon Kozaburo, directed by Kenji Shimomura."

Highbrow advice from Washington Irving

A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles. 

Washington Irving by John Wesley Jarvis, 1809