January 5, 2011
They Live is a 1988 film directed by John Carpenter, who also wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Frank Armitage. The film is based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story ‘Eight O’Clock in the Morning.’ Part science fiction horror and part dark comedy, the film echoed contemporary fears of a declining economy, within a culture of greed and conspicuous consumption common among Americans in the 1980s.
In They Live, the ruling class within the moneyed elite are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a signal on top of the TV broadcast that is concealing their appearance and subliminal messages in mass media. The story revolves around a nameless man referred to as Nada (Roddy Piper), a quiet drifter who finds an unusual pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the aliens and their subliminal messages.
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January 5, 2011
Heiligenschein [hahy-li-guhn-shahyn] (German for ‘aureola,’ literally ‘Holy shine’) is an optical phenomenon which creates a bright spot around the shadow of the viewer’s head. It is created when the surface on which the shadow falls has special optical characteristics. Dewy grass is known to exhibit these characteristics, and creates a heiligenschein. Nearly spherical dew droplets act as lenses to focus the light on the surface beneath them. Some of this light ‘backscatters’ in the direction of the sunlight as it passes back through the dew droplet. This makes the antisolar point appear the brightest.
The opposition effect creates a similar halo effect, a bright spot of light around the viewer’s head when the viewer is looking in the opposite direction of the sun, but is instead caused by shadows being hidden by the objects casting them. When viewing the Heiligenschein, there are no colored rings around the shadow of the observer, as in the case of a glory. In the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee, this was the word which eliminated crowd and national favorite Rajiv Tarigopula and elicited the audience to give him a standing ovation for receiving 4th place for the second consecutive year in a show of immense respect.
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January 5, 2011
Déjà vu (‘already seen’) is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Émile Boirac (1851–1917). The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of eeriness or strangeness.
It is difficult to evoke the déjà vu experience in laboratory settings, therefore making it a subject of few empirical studies. Certain researchers claim to have found ways to recreate this sensation using hypnosis. Déjà vu is is thought to be an anomaly of memory. In particular, it may result from an overlap between the neurological systems responsible for short-term memory and those responsible for long-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the past). The events would be stored into memory before the conscious part of the brain even receives the information and processes it.
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January 5, 2011
Osteopathy [os-tee-op-uh-thee] or osteopathic medicine is an approach to healthcare that emphasizes the role of the musculoskeletal system in health and disease. The first school of Osteopathy was founded in 1892 by Andrew Taylor Still, an Army surgeon in the American Civil War. In the United States an American-trained D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) is legally and professionally equivalent to an M.D. in all 50 states, since their medical education and training is mostly identical.
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January 5, 2011
Tower Optical is a small, Connecticut-based company which has manufactured a binocular tower viewer used at major tourist sites in the United States and Canada since 1932. The company’s large, silver-colored devices are used at Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge and other locations. Only about 35 of the viewers are manufactured each year, but several thousand are maintained by the company. Tower Optical has various arrangements with owners of the sites where the devices are located. Where the viewers are free, they are leased; at other locations, revenue is shared between the company and the site owner.
Each machine can hold up to 2,000 quarters, and earns somewhere between $1,200 and $10,000 per year. The company was founded by Towers S. Hamilton in 1933 in his Norwalk machine shop. His son, Towers W. Hamilton, later became the owner. His wife, Gladys (Kip) Hamilton, worked with him in the business for many years and on his death in 1989, she took over the company. She died in 2006, and at some point she passed the business on to her daughter, Bonnie Rising, who still owned the company as of 2010, when she had six employees, including her son, Gregory, and her husband, Douglas.
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January 4, 2011
Ganguro (‘Black Face’) is an alternative fashion trend of blonde or orange hair and tanned skin among young Japanese women that appeared in the early 1990s and peaked in popularity around the year 2000. The Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo were the centers of the trend. Ganguro falls into the larger subculture of ‘gyaru’ (from English ‘gal’), a slang term used for various groups of young women, usually referring to overly childish or rebellious girls.
In ganguro fashion, a deep tan is combined with hair dyed in shades of orange to blonde, or a silver grey known as ‘high bleached.’ Black ink is used as eyeliner and white concealer is used as lipstick and eyeshadow. False eyelashes, plastic facial gems, and pearl powder are often added. Platform shoes and brightly-colored outfits complete the look. Also typical of ganguro fashion are tie-dyed sarongs, miniskirts, stickers on the face, and many bracelets, rings, and necklaces.
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January 4, 2011
Harajuku is the common name for the area around Harajuku Station in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is a fashion capital of the world, renowned for its unique street fashion. Every Sunday, young people dressed in a variety of styles including gothic lolita, visual kei, and decora, as well as cosplayers spend the day in Harajuku socializing. The term ‘Harajuku Girls’ has been used by English-language media to describe teenagers dressed in any fashion style who are in the area of Harajuku.
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January 4, 2011
The Skoptsy [skopt-see] were a secret sect in imperial Russia best known for practicing castration of men and the mastectomy of women in accordance with their teachings against sexual lust. They were persecuted by the imperial government and later by the Soviet Union, but enjoyed substantial growth before fading into obscurity by the mid-twentieth century. The name ‘Skoptsy’ is a plural of ‘skopets,’ an archaic word meaning ‘castrated one’ in the Russian language.
As their title indicates, the main feature of the sect was castration. They believed that after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had the halves of the forbidden fruit grafted onto their bodies forming testicles and breasts. Thus, the removal of these sexual organs restored the Skoptsy to the pristine state before the Original Sin. Men who had underwent the ‘greater seal’ (removal of the penis and testicles) used a cow-horn when urinating.
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January 4, 2011
Aerogel is a material with the lowest density of any known solid. It is derived from a gel in which the liquid component of the material has been replaced with a gas. It has notable effectiveness as a thermal insulator. It is nicknamed ‘frozen smoke’ due to its translucent nature and the way light scatters in the material; however, it feels like expanded polystyrene (styrofoam) to the touch. Aerogel was invented by Samuel Stephens Kistler in 1931, as a result of a bet with Charles Learned over who could replace the liquid in ‘jellies’ with gas without causing shrinkage. Kistler’s first aerogels were produced from silica gels (his later work was based on alumina, chromia and tin oxide).
Despite their name, aerogels are rigid, dry materials and do not resemble a gel in their physical properties. Pressing softly on an aerogel typically does not leave a mark; pressing more firmly will leave a permanent depression; further pressure will cause it to shatter. Due to its hygroscopic nature, aerogel feels dry and acts as a strong desiccant. Persons handling aerogel for extended periods should wear gloves to prevent the appearance of dry brittle spots on their skin.
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January 4, 2011
Derby’s dose was a form of torture used in Jamaica to punish slaves who attempted to escape. The runaway would be beaten, and salt pickle, lime juice, and bird pepper would be rubbed into his or her open wounds. Another slave would defecate into the mouth of the miscreant, who would then be gagged for four to five hours. The punishment was invented by Thomas Thistlewood, a plantation owner, and named for the slave, Derby, who was made to defecate on the victim.
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January 4, 2011
Abu l-Hasan (789–857), nicknamed Ziryab, was a Persian or Kurdish polymath: a poet, musician, courtesan, astronomer, botanist and geographer born in Baghdad and active in Córdoba, Spain. According to some sources, he was a former slave, possibly of East African descent. The name ‘Ziryab’ (Blackbird) was given to him for his dark complexion, eloquence, and melodious voice.
Ziryab introduced musical instruments to Iberia, notably the Persian lute that became the Spanish guitar, as well as passionate songs and dances of Persia and Mesopotamia that later, mixed with Gypsy influence, evolved into the famed Spanish flamenco. He is also credited with inventing and popularizing an early form of toothpaste.
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January 3, 2011
A Nice Cup of Tea is an essay by George Orwell, first published in the Evening Standard newspaper in 1946. It is a straight-faced discussion about the craft of making a cup of tea, including his eleven ‘Golden’ rules. Orwell’s rules cover such matters as the best shape for a teacup, the advisability of using water that is still boiling, and his preference for very strong tea.
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