November 22, 2011
The Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian creation myth (named after its opening words). It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), and published by George Smith in 1876. The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of text. Most of Tablet V has never been recovered, but aside from this lacuna, the text is almost complete. A duplicate copy of Tablet V has been found in Sultantepe, ancient Huzirina, located near the modern town of Şanlıurfa in Turkey.
This epic is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview, centered on the supremacy of Marduk and the creation of humankind for the service of the gods. Its primary original purpose, however, is not an exposition of theology but the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods. Continue reading →
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November 22, 2011
Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire heroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designer Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing’s black-and-white horror comics magazine ‘Vampirella’ #1 (1969). Writer-editor Archie Goodwin later developed the character from horror-story hostess, in which capacity she remained through issue #8 (1970), to a horror-drama leading character. As comics historian Richard J. Arndt describes, ‘Forrest Ackerman created, or at least had a strong hand in creating, Vampirella and he clearly had a major influence in shaping the lighthearted bad-girl story style of this issue as well.’ Vampirella was originally presented as an inhabitant of the planet Drakulon, a world where people lived on blood and where blood flowed in rivers. Draculon orbits twin suns that were causing droughts across the planet, marking certain doom for Vampirella and her race. The race of which Vampirella was born, the Vampiri, were able to transform themselves into bats at will, sprout wings when required, and drink blood.
The story begins with the inhabitants of Drakulon dying slowly due to the drying up of its blood. The last few lie dying when a spaceship from Earth crashes on the planet. Vampirella, sent to investigate, is attacked; retaliating, she discovers that the astronauts have blood in their veins. In order for her race to survive, she manages to pilot the ship back to Earth where her adventures begin. Vampirella becomes a ‘good’ vampire, and devotes her energy to ridding our world of the homegrown ‘evil’ kind.
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November 22, 2011
‘Space Jazz: The soundtrack of the book Battlefield Earth’ is a music album and soundtrack companion to the novel ‘Battlefield Earth’ by L. Ron Hubbard, released in 1982. Hubbard composed the music for the album. A 1983 press release put out by the Church of Spiritual Technology subsidiary company Author Services Inc. marketed the concept album as ‘the only original sound track ever produced for a book before it becomes a movie.’
The album includes performances by Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Nicky Hopkins and Gayle Moran. The album included music from the Fairlight CMI synthesizer; it was one of the first professional uses of this device. A demonstration of the ‘computer space jazz’ soundtrack was one of the festival displays at the 1982 US Festival rock concert in California.
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November 22, 2011
Terry Richardson (b. 1965) is an American fashion photographer. Richardson was born in New York City, the son of Bob Richardson, a fashion photographer who struggled with schizophrenia and drug abuse. Richardson was raised in Hollywood. He was shy as a teenager and at some times deemed ‘completely lacking in social skills.’ He played bass guitar in the punk rock band The Invisible Government for 5 years. Richardson began photography when the band broke up and his mother introduced him to Tony Kent, a photographer who hired him as an assistant.
Richardson’s photographs often contain graphic sexual subject matter. Richardson has shot advertisements for fashion designers and editorial photographs. His alleged attitude towards models has been criticized by Danish model and filmmaker Rie Rasmussen and others, who have accused Richardson of exploiting and sexually abusing the models he photographs.
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November 22, 2011
Glamorama is a novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1998. Unlike Ellis’ previous novels, Glamorama is set in and satirizes the 1990s, specifically celebrity culture and consumerism. Ellis wanted to write a Stephen King-style ghost story novel (which would eventually become ‘Lunar Park’); finding it difficult at the time, he began work on the other novel which he had in mind, a Robert Ludlum-style thriller, with the intention of using one of his own vapid characters who lack insight as the narrator. The novel is a satire of modern celebrity culture, featuring models-turned-terrorists.
A character remarks, ‘basically, everyone was a sociopath…and all the girls’ hair was chignoned.’ (A chignon is an arrangement of long hair in a roll or knot at the back of the head). The novel plays upon the conspiracy thriller conceit of someone ‘behind all the awful events,’ to dramatize the revelation of a world of random horror. The lack of resolution contributes to Ellis’ artistic effect. The obsession with beauty is reflected in consistent namedropping; this satirizes Victor’s obsession with looks, and perhaps is indicative of the author’s own attraction to glamor.
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November 22, 2011
Emek (b. 1970) is a popular graphic designer and concert poster designer since the early 1990s. He is widely credited with helping to revive the rock poster scene. He is the brother of artist and author Gan Golan. His style, known for its attention to detail and layers of meaning, infuses socio-political commentary into pop culture imagery.
In the tradition of psychedelic posters from the 1960s, Emek still draws his posters by hand. He was shaped by both rock art posters from the 1960s, and punk flyers from the 1980s. Emek’s poster-making career accelerated in the 1990s with alternative rock acts from Europe and North America, including Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age, Tool, and Marilyn Manson. Continue reading →
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November 22, 2011
A motivational poster (or affirmation poster or inspirational poster) is a type of poster commonly designed for use in schools and offices. The intent of motivational posters is to make people achieve more, or to think differently about the things that they may be learning or doing. Motivational posters can have behavioral effects. For example, the University of Glasgow found in one study that their placement of a motivational poster that promotes stair use in front of an escalator and a parallel staircase, in an underground station, doubled the amount of stair use.
This kind of poster has been repeatedly parodied, and parody motivational posters have become an Internet meme. One famous motivational poster features a kitten hanging from a tree branch along with the phrase ‘Hang in There, Baby!’ This has been the target of various reproductions and parodies, such as an appearance on ‘The Simpsons’ episode ‘The Twisted World of Marge Simpson’ where Marge Simpson notices the copyright date (1968) and comments, ‘…determined or not, that cat must be long dead. That’s kind of a downer.’ Despair, Inc. has made a business out of such parody and cynical posters, with ‘demotivational posters’ ranging from a picture of a tree bent over by wind with the caption ‘ADVERSITY: That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.’ to a picture of a sinking ship with the caption ‘MISTAKES: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.’
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November 22, 2011
Beer pong, also known as Beirut [bey-root], is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end. The game typically consists of two two-to-four-player teams and multiple cups set up, in triangle formation, on each side. There are no official rules, and rules may vary widely, though usually there are six or ten plastic cups on each side. Each side then takes turns attempting to shoot ping pong balls into the opponent’s cups. If a ball lands in a cup, then the contents of that cup are consumed, and the cup is either placed aside or reinserted into the triangle. If the cup is reinserted and the other team knocks the cup over, it is removed. If the opposing team throws the ball into an empty cup, they must consume the contents of one of their cups. The first side to eliminate all of the opponent’s cups is the winner.
The order of play varies—both players on one team shoot followed by both players on the other team, or players on opposite teams can alternate back and forth. Beer pong is played at parties, North American colleges and universities, bars, and elsewhere, such as tailgating or other sporting events.
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November 22, 2011
In contemporary psychology, the ‘Big Five’ are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which are used to describe human personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Openness involves active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, and intellectual curiosity.
A great deal of psychometric research has demonstrated that these qualities are statistically correlated. Thus, openness can be viewed as a global personality trait consisting of a set of specific traits, habits, and tendencies that cluster together.
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November 22, 2011
In psychology, novelty seeking (NS) is a personality trait associated with exploratory activity in response to novel stimulation, impulsive decision making, extravagance in approach to reward cues, and quick loss of temper and avoidance of frustration. It is considered one of the temperament dimensions of personality. Like the other temperament dimensions, it has been found to be highly heritable.
High NS has been suggested to be related to high dopaminergic activity (which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior). When novelty seeking is defined as a decision process (i.e in terms of the tradeoff between foregoing a familiar choice option in favor of deciding to explore a novel choice option), dopamine is directly shown to increase novelty seeking behavior. Specifically, blockade of the dopamine transporter, causing a rise in extracelluar dopamine levels, increases the propensity of monkeys to select novel over familiar choice options. Continue reading →
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November 22, 2011
Confabulation [kuhn-fab-yuh-ley-shuhn] is the process in which a memory is remembered falsely. Confabulations are indicative of a complicated and intricate process that can be led astray at any given point during encoding, storage, or recall of a memory. Two distinct types of confabulation are often distinguished. Spontaneous, or primary, confabulations do not occur in response to a cue and seem to be involuntary.
Provoked, or secondary, confabulations occur in response to something external, like a memory test. Another distinction found in confabulations is that between verbal and behavioral. Verbal confabulations are spoken false memories and are more common, while behavioral confabulations occur when an individual acts on their false memories. Confabulated memories of all types most often occur in autobiographical memory. A final characteristic of confabulations is the genuine confidence people have in their false memory, despite evidence contradicting its truthfulness.
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November 22, 2011
Dysexecutive [dis-ig-zek-yuh-tiv] syndrome (DES) consists of a group of symptoms, usually resulting from brain damage, that fall into cognitive, behavioral and emotional categories and tend to occur together. The term was introduced by British psychologist Alan Baddeley to describe a common pattern of dysfunction in executive functions, such as planning, abstract thinking, flexibility and behavioral control.
It is thought to be Baddeley’s theory of working memory and the central executive that are the hypothetical systems impaired in DES. The syndrome was once known as frontal lobe syndrome, however dysexecutive syndrome is preferred because it emphasizes the functional pattern of deficits (the symptoms) over the location of the syndrome in the frontal lobe, which is often not the only area affected.
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