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02/11/19
baskethead
The basket on this lamp is more useful for trash, I think.
I need to replace the whole thing.
Now, buckethead is a found base and a recycled shade support, and...
...some playing around with foil spinners. But today I bought a new spot bulb, and I like the way it shines.
But I haven't got it spinning yet! Not enough heat. Ongoing research...
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02/10/19
eiffel, which is currently a combination mic stand/lighting fixture, proved to be difficult to move on carpet. On a hard surface it's easy enough to roll on the edge of the base, but carpet put up enough resistance as to require a solution.
One wheel is a little tippy, but it works well as a point of leverage for small adjustments. Ongoing research...
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02/02/19
How Deep is the Well?
In New Jersey they have this fragment of a Grecian bust of Harpocrates from around 300 B.C.E. Remarkably enough, the pieces that remain are the vital ones, as Harpocrates was commonly known as the "god" of keeping quiet.
It's the original shush.
But they say that Harpocrates wasn't always like that. The Greeks took 'im from the Egyptians, for whom he was Horus the Child, and the finger to lips gesture was a symbol for a child.
This figurine, from the near east, is a sort of combo of the Greek and Egyptian ideas- looking more like a little kid who always has a finger in his mouth. But Egyptian Horus was a very powerful god when he grew up- he was skinned alive, and chopped into pieces, then resurrected as the sun.
A very useful story!
The Greeks took this gesture as having a different meaning, a more practical meaning, and Harpocrates (which was a corruption of the Egyptian name for Horus) simply morphed into the god of keeping silent, of keeping secrets. But it doesn't end there, does it?
Here's a Roman version from a few centurys later. They appropriated the "shushing" god, and possibly combined it with the child god to create this little monkey- who is making a shush while performing anasyrma, a thing I bet you didn't know there even was a name for!
The prankster aspect of the silent god is evident at this point, and there it might have remained, except that these things have a way of coming back around.
I bet the cop had just said, very sternly, Do you see this badge?
(it's just an accident, of course, that the fancy streetlight is directly behind Harpo)
Groucho Marx once joked that his brother, who never spoke while in character, took his name from the Greek god Harpocrates, but of course we all know it's because Harpo played the harp. Right?
How deep IS that well?
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