WARLORDS OF ANCIENT MEXICO

Here's what I'm reading now, or rather will read when I finish Mike Barrier's book about Dell comics. I know nothing about the Aztecs but the illustrations in the book are so beautiful and the stories so enticing that I can't help but jump the gun and write about the subject anyway. 

You can't write about the Aztecs without mentioning human sacrifice (above). I'll return to that in a minute.

Just thumbing through the book has convinced me that my old understanding of Aztec architecture was flawed. The shapes of the structures were more varied than I expected.

The Mayan and Aztec cities were sometimes burned to the ground, indicating to me that there were more wooden and stucco structures than modern illustrators have indicated. You see lots of surviving stone building shapes (above) that only make sense if wood were part of the design.

Mayans and Aztecs made beautiful stone walls (above), probably the most beautiful ever seen, but you have to wonder if stone walls of that type were as common as we think. Wooden walls would have been easier to make and embellish. My guess is that elaborate wooden variants of the stone walls were all all over the place in old Aztec cities. They just didn't survive the Spanish conquest.

Amazingly the early Aztecs and Mayans were believers in relatively limited war. The nobles of each side would fight in a public place and the winners determined which side won the war.

BTW, the illustration above is a cheat, inspired by the later Aztecs who fought differently and massacred large numbers of captives. Amazingly we know the name of the man who convinced everyone to do that.

There he is (above). His name was Prince Tlacaelel, a warrior priest and mystic and...my guess...psychopath. The Prince convinced everyone that the god Huitzilopitchli would grant unlimited military success to the Aztecs provided they practiced ever-growing human sacrifices.

Let me digress to marvel at the beautiful clothes worn by well-off Aztecs. Fashion must have been a big deal in that culture. And look at the furniture in the background! It's like something out of "Dr. Caligari."

I wonder if fashion played an indirect part in the Aztec conquests. Aztecs were pretty good at undermining the confidence of their enemies with their sophisticated art and architecture. The Mayans pre-emptively defeated the Toltecs partly by encouraging Toltec tourism to their magnificent and intimidating cities.

BTW: I'll digress for a moment to marvel at the fact that the Aztecs enthusiasm for architecture never made its way into their drawn art. I'm not aware that any culture in the West thought landscapes were worth an artist's time. Maybe the Chinese and Japanese valued it but I'm not aware that anyone else in the ancient world did.

Anyway, thanks to Prince Tlacaelel an enormous number of prisoners of war were sacrificed over the years, so many that when Cortez and the Spanish arrived to plunder, a lot of the local tribes sided with the Spanish against their own ethnicity. The final battle was incomparably brutal, with genocidal atrocities being committed by Cortez's vengeful Indian allies.

If there were lots of beautifully carved wooden structures maybe they wouldn't have survived the conquest. Both the Spanish and their vengeful allies would have had reasons to destroy them. But this is conjecture. A counter argument might be that Mexico didn't have much hard wood.

A MAP OF PRE - COLONIAL AFRICA

I don't know about you but I'm fascinated by historical maps. The best ones are seldom reproduced in poster size so if you want a spiffy one on your wall you have to pay collectors' prices for originals. If I could afford it, near the top of my list would be this one (above) showing Livingstone's route across Africa in the pre-colonial 1860s and 1870s.

It's hard to imagine now, but most of the sub-Saharan African nations we're familiar with today didn't exist then. Africa was "Darkest Africa." Few outsiders had a clear idea of what was in there. Livingstone's trek across the central plateau illuminated for the first time a wide swathe of the territories on either side of his route.

 His trip (above) was no bowl of cherries.

 This picture (above) may be from Stanley's account of finding Livingstone; I'm not sure.

Poor Livingstone was even attacked by a lion.

One of Livingstone's goals was to end slavery in Africa, and he succeeded in at least putting a crimp in it. During the colonial period the British arrested arab african slave sellers like the ones above. Unfortunately Livingstone's geographic findings opened the door to colonialism.

 You can see (above) why Africa has so many problems today. Modern national borders haven't much to do with the old ethnic boundaries.

The modern system system attempts to unite wildly disparate people into the same state. Those are Watusi above, a giant people.

They're in the same nation as the Pygmies, who are the world's smallest people. Seeing these pictures reminds me of the old saying: "One law for the ox and the squirrel is tyranny."

I'm also reminded of a book I read a long time ago called "Congo Kitabu" which claimed that the Pygmies were being enslaved by their giant neighbors, and were in danger of becoming extinct. Yikes!

BTW....on another subject....

Here's (above) the last picture of Pluto taken before the expected (and temporary) transmission blackout. That'll only last a short time, then we'll get better pictures from an even closer vantage point.

Gee, I have to say that this side of Pluto is disappointing. It looks like a common dirty snowball. No wonder it was demoted to dwarf planet status. The side facing Charon was a lot more interesting. It had a giant hexagonal crater, which needs to be explained. I've seen a few hexagons in space photos: one covers one of Saturn's poles and a couple more look like shock waves from deep space novas. 

Oh well, maybe trained eyes will deliver more meaning from the picture. 

THE LATEST ASTRONOMY PHOTOS: 7/2015

Above, the side of Pluto facing its largest moon, Charon, as seen by the New Horizons probe two days ahead of rendezvous. The nearest pass will show the other side of the planet and will be in much sharper focus. Unfortunately this is the best picture of this side of Pluto that we'll get on this mission. Nobody knows what the dark areas are and why they're so regularly spaced. 

This is exciting! When I was a kid I had a special affection for Pluto because it seemed like the most mysterious and unknowable place in the Solar System. I never dreamed that I'd be able to see it up close in my lifetime.

Here's a picture of Antares, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. That's Antares in the middle of the blue haze within the orange dust cloud. The star is red but appears here as white, maybe because false color was applied. Anyway, the reason I put this up is for the dense star field that fills the picture. Isn't that incredible?

With all those closely packed stars constantly spewing high energy particles I can't even imagine how radioactive that environment must be. You have to wonder if it'll ever be possible to explore that part of the galaxy.

Have you ever wondered why we don't see giant nebulae in the sky at night? There's at least one pretty big one nearby...how come we don't see it?

The answer is that the cloud is just too thin to be easily seen when it's this close, but cameras can see it. It looms over our cities at night. It's Sharpless 2-308 (above), a.k.a. The Bubble Nebula, and it covers more of the night sky than a full moon.

Here's (above) a familiar picture: The Southern Ring Nebula. But what's that straight line crossing it? Nobody knows.

ANTONI GAUDI: ARCHITECTURAL GENIUS

Everybody here is probably familiar with Gaudi's cathedral in Barcelona, and with his rolling organic shapes covered with tiles. I thought I'd bypass that and concentrate on his less well-known work, like this (above) administrative office in what used to be a stable.

Here's the same room sans furniture and with older, less appealing doors. Whoever restored this did a great job.

Ruskin, the 19th Century art critic, decried what he believed was the decadence of the later medieval cathedral builders who increasingly built for beauty rather than meaning. I was influenced by Ruskin and for years I resisted what I considered Gaudi's beautiful but pointless decoration (above) on religious buildings.

  

Now I love the work. I don't think Ruskin was wrong, but there comes a point where the beauty is so overwhelming that it sweeps aside all objections.

Lots of Gaudi's buildings have verticals that slant in a bit toward the center. That's because he liked to build with stone which could be very heavy and would have required buttresses if built the normal way.

He discovered the precise angle of the slants by building a model of the building consisting of hanging strings pulled taut by packets of lead pellets. He wanted to see how gravity organized the structure.

When the model was finished he photographed the strings and turned the picture upside-down. The upside-down photo let him know how to stabilize the structure. I haven't explained it very well, and that's because I still don't quite understand how the idea works.

During the Spanish Civil War in the 30s anti-clerical forces invaded the cathedral where he kept his models and destroyed them. Gaudi preferred to work from sculptures rather than blueprints so the vandals deprived posterity of what would have been important insights into the man's working methods.

Gaudi was constantly innovating. One day, when visiting his tile manufacturer, he noticed a pile of broken shards which were earmarked for the trash. He took them back to his studio and worked them into Matisse-like wall decorations.

Gaudi loved wrought iron and he used it every chance he could. I like it too. Cliff May liked it and used it. Why has it fallen out of favor?

Above, Gaudi's tomb. He died after being hit by a trolley. Medical help was slow in coming because he was a shabby dresser and passer-bys thought he was a bum. Yikes!

CARICATURES OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS

It's the Fourth of July and what could be a more appropriate for a cartoonist's blog than funny caricatures of the American founding fathers? Unfortunately I set out to find caricatures that were both funny and respectful, which I realized too late was a contradiction of terms. Oh, well...I hope my respect and gratitude for these great men will show through none the less.  

The holiday also prompts me to think of the soldiers who gave their lives during the War of Independence. More than the battles I think of the torturous Winter spent at Valley Forge. I can't even imagine what that must have been like.

Those brave soldiers did that so that people like me could could freely elect our own government and could say whatever we like in venues like this blog. A few of those soldiers survived long enough to be photographed in their old age. I'll see if I can find the pictures.

Here's George Washington. He deserves to be at the top of the list rather than the bottom, but I just couldn't find an adequate caricature.

The story about Washington that I most value is the one about his speech to his officers after the war was over. Some among them wondered if he would declare a dictatorship...he certainly had the support of the army if he'd wanted it. Instead, like the Roman general Cincinnatus, he retired from office, handing the army back to the civilians. Geez, what a guy!

Okay, I found some of the photos of Revolutionary War survivors. One of them, Samuel Downing (above), was 102 when the picture was taken. Good Lord! How did he manage to live so long in the era before modern medicine?

A WIZARD OF OZ VARIANT

I just started a file called "Motion" which consists of photos of unusual walks and moves that might look good in animation. I don't have many pictures in there yet, but the ones I do have seem to suggest a story...well, sort of...a motion variant of "Wizard of Oz." I thought I'd put up some of the pictures here and see what comments they provoke. 

Like I said, the story would be a variant of "Wizard of OZ." The depressed woman above might be The Wicked Queen. She does a foot-dragging march when she walks, indicating that she's also obsessed.

Here's the Dorothy character. No? Well, like I said, The file doesn't have many pictures to choose from.

The local OZ police are always on patrol. They're always synchronized.

Synchronous anything seems to work well in small doses. 

Above, the Wicked Queen's chief henchmen. They move like marionettes, even though they're humans and have no strings. 

 Above, the Wicked Queen's Palace Guards. Geez, I like that red jacket. How can I get one like that?

Above, poor Dorothy's lost and distressed. OZ is a place where everybody walks funny, so Dorothy's had to learn to do that too.

She makes friends but they're kinda' ditsy and are inclined to wonder off while mumbling to themselves.



Last but not least (above): The Wizard who eventually gets Dorothy back home to Kansas. He moves and talks like Ed Sullivan.

Well, whadaya think?

BEG FOR A BOILERMAN"S JOB [EXPANDED]

 The book that inspired this post is "Maxims and Instructions for the Boiler Room" by N. Hawkins, copyrighted 1897 to 1903. That's roughly 115 years ago when earthy, gritty, beer-drinking eccentrics dominated the field and were fiercely proud of what they did for a living. The author's enthusiasm is infectious. Spend only an hour or two with the book and you'll want to drop what you're doing and beg for a job on the nearest boiler.

He starts by paying homage to the great boiler men of the past: Evans, Stephenson and Robert Fulton. Stephenson is especially interesting because he was illiterate til he was 18 and some of his inventions were presumed to be stolen because he had such a gruff exterior.

Hawkins begins his book by explaining what goes through his mind when he arrives at the shop, smells the air, and looks around:

That's beautiful, isn' it? Few things are more interesting in print than a man explaining his passion for his work. Imagine what Shakespeare or Eugene O'Neil could have done with raw material like this!

I guess I don't have room to discuss another unusual book I've come across: Wernher Von Braun's "Mars Project." The book was published in 1948 and outlines Von Braun's dream of going to Mars and back with 4 - 6 V2 type rockets lashed together. The trip would take 9 months each way with only a small time spent on the planet's surface.

If you've never heard of this it may be because Von Braun believed an Earth-orbiting space station had to be built first, and he was talked out of that by a young American engineer from the Grumman company.