Categories
Around The Web Audio/Video

Salvador Dalí Explains His Famous Mustache

Salvador Dali Mustache TV game show

Even if you were never curious about Salvador Dalí’s mustache, it’s still interesting to know about it from the man himself. I had no idea this video existed until today. The Name’s The Same is apparently a game show that aired between 1951 – 1955 on ABC.

Via: Open Culture

Categories
Around The Web

Out Of This World Priceless

From Scientific American:

A Buddhist statue brought to Germany from Tibet by a Nazi-backed expedition has been confirmed as having an extraterrestrial origin.

Just taking a guess here, I know very little about sculpture, but this might be a rare piece and difficult to insure/replace.

Categories
In The News

Lost da Vinci Painting Found

We’ve seen stories like this before, yet it’s impressive still:

For years it sat on a farmhouse wall gathering dust.

And when Fiona McLaren redecorated, she didn’t even take the time to cover the apparently worthless painting in a protective sheet, so it got flicked in specks of paint.

However, in an astounding twist it has emerged that the picture is likely to have been the work of master artist Leonardo da Vinci and worth over £100million.

Can you imagine a da Vinci was just in your possession and you didn’t even bother to protect it before painting a room? It’s amazing how artifacts get lost and then rediscovered in time. Sobering to think how many were likely thrown out because their owners didn’t even realize what they had.

Categories
Around The Web

da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari Found?

Leonardo da Vinci's The Battle of Anghiari

Researchers think they may have found the missing Battle of Anghiari painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

As the story goes da Vinci was commissioned to paint a fresco on a wall of the Florence’s city hall. The experimental technique he used failed and he stopped. Others say it was completed, starting part of the mystery. Years later, Giorgio Vasari was ordered to renovate and paint a new fresco, “The Battle of Marciano”. What happened next is subject to debate. Some believe he painted right over da Vinci’s work. Others believe he built a new wall just a few centimeters in front of the old wall to preserve da Vinci’s work. Supporting this theory is research that found at one point “The Battle of Marciano” contained a tiny green flag containing the phrase “Cerca, trova — seek and you shall find”. Perhaps a hint?

They have now went as far as inserting tiny cameras in a few holes in search of the original work. They found there was indeed an airgap as earlier x-rays indicated. They also found materials that da Vinci was known to use in paint.

Of course an existing work would likely need to be destroyed to expose this hidden work, unless new techniques were created to remove the newer wall, extract da Vinci’s work and replace the newer wall.

File this one under “amazing”.

Categories
In The News

What’s Under Your Couch?

Kober’s parents had stored the painting under a couch for 25 years after getting it as a gift from the sister-in-law of Kober’s great-great-grandfather. She had received it from a German baroness more than a century ago.

It’s amazing to think that someone had what is quite possibly a Michelangelo just sitting under their couch for 25 years.

Categories
In The News

So who cleans David’s Balls

This article got me thinking. Who gets stuck with cleaning David’s genitalia? Is it sexual harassment if a women gets the job? Can a man sue if he is asked to do such a task? I know I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a scaffolding cleaning some marble genitalia. Perhaps that’s just me. Something about giant hard marble gonads make me think twice about cleaning. Can you contract an VD (the politically correct term for STD, meaning venereal disease)? Is your employer required to provide adequate protection?