Big-fin squid video

A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, a remote control submersible's camera has captured an eerie surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and -- strangest of all -- "elbowed" Magnapinna squid

From National Geographic.

Thanksgiving: more Sam Adams, less Pilgrims?

When was the first Thanksgiving? Most of us think of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621. But if the question is about the first national Thanksgiving holiday, the answer is that the tradition began at a lesser-known moment in 1777 in York, Pa. . .

It was the first of many Thanksgivings ordered up by Samuel Adams. Though the holidays were almost always in November or December, the exact dates varied. (Congress didn't fix Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November until 1941.) . . .

After the Revolution, Adams, who was eventually elected governor of Massachusetts, maintained the practice of declaring these holidays. . .

These statements were greeted with cynicism and derision by some of Adams's younger political opponents, who saw them as archaic. One of them, Christopher Gore, wrote a friend that it would be an occasion for a real day of thanksgiving when Adams finally retired.

Read the rest by Ira Stoll, in the Wall Street Journal.

Yes, but do they get Equity cards?

First there were dancing robots, then house-sitting robots and now a new breed of acting robots is making its big debut on the Japanese stage.

The play, which had its premiere at Osaka University, is one of Japan's first robot-human theatre productions.

From the BBC.

Billboards on Piazza San Marco

The images are appalling: huge banners and billboards plastered on the Doge's Palace, the Piazzetta, and the Bridge of Sighs. What's going on? The Art Newspaper explains how changes in the law are drastically altering the face of Venice:

The law allows the scaffolding on public buildings under restoration to carry advertising so long as the superintendent considers that it does not "detract from the appearance, decorum or public enjoyment of the building". While the existing ads in Venice have aroused local and international protest, Venice superintendent Renata Codello insists that she has been very discriminating.

It might be argued that the deal to sell advertising space is needed to bring in desperately-needed funds for essential maintenance and restoration work. But anyone familiar with Italy knows that when the scaffolding goes up, it has a way of staying up -- often for long after the projected or even actual completion date for the work. At one point when I was spending nearly every summer photographing monuments and artwork in Italy, I gave serious consideration to doing a photo-essay of green-shrouded churches, sculpture, and palazzi, to be title Italia in restauro. It took the Papal Jubilee of 2000 to get the authorities to de-shroud the monuments of Rome, many of which had remained covered even though active restoration work had come to a halt years before. What would it take to uncover Venice, then, now that there is such a powerful financial incentive being added to keeping the scaffolding up?

Drawings discoveries at the New York Historical Society

So much still to be found right on the shelves and storerooms of our libraries and museums:

The first scholarly survey of the drawings collection of the New York Historical Society has brought to light previously unknown or misattributed works by John Singer Sargent, Louis Comfort Tiffany, David Wilkie and others. The 8,500 works, most of which are by American artists, constitute the earliest assembled public drawing collection in the United States, begun in 1816, but they had never been systematically studied until curator Roberta Olson began the task five years ago. Nearly 200 highlights of her study, which was funded in part with a $175,000 grant from the Getty Foundation, are now on view in the exhibition "Drawn by New York" (until 7 January) and documented in a catalogue.

From The Art Newspaper. More on the exhibition at the New York Historical Society's website, which notes that "the exhibition will travel to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York from August 14, 2009 through November 1, 2009, and the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, from November 20, 2009 through February 7, 2010".

They should have asked Obelix

A pagan couple who moved into a suburban estate in Dorset brought with them their own prehistoric stone circle. . .

Neighbours watched in bewilderment as druid John and hereditary witch Suky used a crane and a huge truck to transport the 6ft stones to their new abode.

The article, however, seems to suggest that the stone circle was originally assembled only 100 years ago -- although to many journalists nowadays, that may indeed be "prehistoric". From the Telegraph.

Relic of the Buddha

Chinese archaeologists have claimed that a 1,000-year-old miniature pagoda, unearthed in Nanjing, holds a piece of skull belonging to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. . .

The pagoda was wedged tightly inside an iron case that was discovered at the site of a former temple in the city in August.

The four-storey pagoda, which is almost four feet high and one-and-a-half feet wide, is thought by archaeologists to be one of the 84,000 pagodas commissioned by Ashoka the Great in the second century BC to house the remains of the Buddha.

From the Telegraph. Oddly enough, the evident influence of various Buddhist practices upon early Christianity remains profoundly underappreciated, even among specialists in the period. This article is a reminder that the Christian cult of relics must have come from somewhere -- that "somewhere" most likely being Buddhism.

Skating in London

The fad for ice skating that took hold in London some years back seems not to have faded, if this Telegraph slide show is any indication: London's best ice rinks. How does a twirl in front of Hampton Court grab you? Or in the moat of the Tower? The only offputting thing are the prices -- £10-12 seems to be the norm, and that can be for a session as short as an hour.