Dinosaurs, in the biblical sense.

I just heard someone on the radio talking about how religious people don't like you to mention dinosaurs around them, because everything that contradicts the Bible offends them. Well alright, but I'd just like to make a note of something fairly basic - dinosaurs do appear in the Bible. In fact they appear on the first page of the Bible. (pause for effect)

I can understand why English speaking people don't know about this, because in most translations it appears as "whales" or "great sea monsters". I had to look in something called "Young's Literal Translation" to find a text close enough to the original. As you can see, it says "the great monsters". The Hebrew text (which has also been interpreted as meaning "whales" in the middle ages) says simply "the great alligators". Well, anyone who has the ability to make the connection between "let there be light" and the big bang, can make the connection between "the great alligators" and dinosaurs. Anyone who doesn't have that ability - I have nothing for ya.

And, of course, it's one of those issues that don't really matter either way.
















Resources: http://bibleresources.bible.com/bible_read.php
and http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/t/t0101.htm

In addition, and without detracting from my point, it now occurs to me that the modern Hebrew word for "alligators" (taninim) was probably adopted from this text, and it probably did mean "monsters" back then. Still. Dinosaurs.

Helen Mirren - 1975 Parkinson interview

Helen Mirren is turning out to be the love of my life. I've certainly been in love with her longer than with anyone else. Anyway, this is a remarkable interview which shows how classy she's always been, and how little she has changed over the years. It's also a very good lesson for us "modern and independent women" on how to keep your dignity in a conversation with someone who insists on keeping it vulgar, how to always be saying something interesting, and still be innocently sexy.
By the way, although she looks like she's in her early twenties, and Michael Parkinson keeps talking to her like she's a hello kitty sex doll, she was actually thirty years old that year.

Felipe Bedoya

I've had three attempts so far to use Facebook. The first one was just to see what the hell - under a false name, and just for a few weeks. The second time I went in there for marketing reasons, to publicize my portfolio. That time I used my real name, and I tried to "befriend" everyone I saw that had some kind of artwork in their profile picture. The I left again, and a couple of months ago I went back with three distinct purposes: one, to keep up with my friend Karen who moved to Canada. Two, to draw attention to my blog (hello new followers!). And three, to find an artist who's name I forgot to save, but who's works, especially the one below, left an enormous impression. When I revived my Facebook account I couldn't find him, and I was pretty depressed about it, but last week I finally saw his familiar icon in the "suggestions" box. So this time I don't intend to lose him - his name is Felipe Bedoya, he's from Columbia, and he seems to be enjoying some well-deserved success, which makes me very happy.
This is his website: http://www.felipebedoya.com/

me vs the world 3

על קו הזינוק - החברים של נטאשה

ממש לא מזמן גיליתי שכולם חושבים שהשיר הזה הוא על סקס. לי היה ברור, מאז הפעם הראשונה ששמעתי אותו, שהוא מדבר על מערכת יחסים. יכול להיות שאני טועה, יכול להיות שמיכה שטרית בעצמו אמר שזה על סקס, אבל אם כן, אני מוכנה להתעלם ולתת לו בכל זאת יותר קרדיט מזה. פשוט כי אם זה על סקס, זה שיר משעמם וגרוע - ומי בכלל רוצה לשמוע שיר על זיון? ואם "המירוץ" הוא מערכת יחסים, הרי שזה שיר די מבריק ושנון ורק הפזמון מעצבן.י

כתבת השבוע 6

זקפה לאומית - יש
קומיסרית מטעם עצמה - יש
הזדמנות לטמא אמנות בפוליטיקה - יש
אמנים שיסכימו לזה מתוך לאומנות - סביר להניח
אמנים שיסכימו מתוך פחד מחרם - אולי
אמנים שיסרבו - יש לקוות, בטח כן
עונשים פרוצדורליים נגד אותם אמנים - אין לי ספק

גבולות 2010

בין האנשים שאומרים "פרס" במקום "איראן" לבין האנשים שאומרים "מומבאי" במקום "בומביי" שוכן טווח השפיות.י

שיהיה לכם לתפרים

מילא משרד הפרסום, זה ידוע שמדובר בחבורה של זומבים חסרי נשמה. אבל לחברה כמו "דלתא" שמתיימרת להיות רגישה לגוף האישה אמור להיות שיקול דעת שימנע ממנה להוציא פרסומת סנאף מבחילה מהסוג הזה.י

עכשיו הרכות המלטפת של תחתוני התחרה חסרי התפרים של דלתא יתקשר לדימוי של קרע פעור באיבר המין - דבר שכבר גרם לאינספור גברים לאבד את החשק לגעת בנשים שלהם אחרי הלידה.י

כתבת השבוע 5

ולא משנה בכלל אם זה אמת או שקר:י

Chan-wook Park's "Thirst"

This is from the director of the revenge trilogy, but it's not as good as "Oldboy" or "Lady Vengeance" (haven't seen "Mr. Vengeance"). However, the best sex scenes I've ever seen in a movie. And by that I mean cinematicaly good, not "sexy".

Anvil

Some people are evil. We know this with our minds, but every once in a while we get to see what we know, and we feel like we've stepped into a Bosch painting, where everyone has reached out for the closest arm or leg and started chewing on it. I got one of those shocks yesterday as I was watching the documentary "Anvil - The Story of Anvil".

If you haven't seen it I'll summarize it quickly, because what I want to talk about is not the main story but a single event within it. The film is about a heavy metal band called Anvil, which apparently started up in the 80-s along with Metallica, The Scorpions, Guns'n'Roses and some others of that group, were one of the best metal bands at that time, but for some reasons (which you can theorize about as you watch the movie) failed to make it big and disappeared into Canadian obscurity. However, instead of breaking up and falling back into writing or playing for other bands, Anvil stayed together and kept working. They've been together for over 25 years and put out about ten more albums, they have a few dozens of devoted fans in Canada where they live, and a few thousands more around the world. The film talks about what their lives look like now, why they failed, and how they're still trying to pull off a last minute comeback.

The part that had me cursing the TV at the top of my lungs happens about half way through, as Lips (the singer and band leader and a very cute guy) gets a chance to work with their old and still very successful producer, and needs to get together enough money for the guys to fly to London and record an album. It would seem that the advantage of being a metal band in your 50-s would be that your fans have become grown-ups with jobs and assets that might be able to help you in your time of need. And indeed we see Lips meeting with one of the die-hard fans that follow the band religiously to every dingy club they play in, who turns out to be the vice president of a telemarketing company. Every normal human being watching expects this guy to loan or even give Lips the money, but no - his idea of helping his idol is to put him to work as a telemarketer. This 50 year old man, who by the way already has one day job, sat in front of the cameras in a room full of teenagers and tried to sell some crappy sunglasses to people over the phone. Can you imagine, even if he turned out to be good at it, how long it would take him to earn enough money for a flight and several weeks stay in London?

This, to me, is an example of true, real, garden variety evil. Because evil is not talking with a scary Darth Vader voice or an evil cackle and plotting a laser beam that would blow up the moon because your mommy didn't love you enough. Evil is when you have power over someone to help them, not help them, or harm and humiliate them, and you choose the worst one of the three. Evil is something that simple, seemingly harmless people do on a tiny scale every single day.

I can't walk into that guy's office today and punch him in the face, all I can do is post his name and photo. Unfortunately he's using a "cool" pseudonym: