A Standing Baba, or Khareshwari, is a Hindu who has vowed to stand, not sitting or lying down even to sleep. The vow is a form of Hindu Tapa (or Tapasas), a self-inflicted corporal punishment intended to help bring spiritual enlightenment. After years of this, their legs are swollen and covered in varicose veins.
We use polyurethane to make just about everything—garden hoses, furniture, the entirety of my local 99-cent store. It’s easy to produce, durable, and dirt cheap. What it isn’t is recyclable—there isn’t a single natural process that breaks it down. That is until a newly-discovered Amazonian fungus takes a bite….
—My ~Dreams~ are coming *True*!
Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla!
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.
Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?
Rex tremendæ majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me, fons pietatis.
Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuæ viæ:
ne me perdas illa die.
Quærens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.
Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.
Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.
Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.
Preces meæ non sunt dignæ:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.
Inter oves locum præsta,
et ab hædis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.
Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.
Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.
Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.
Translated by William Josiah Irons
Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets’ warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth,
when from heaven the Judge descendeth,
on whose sentence all dependeth.
Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;
through earth’s sepulchers it ringeth;
all before the throne it bringeth.
Death is struck, and nature quaking,
all creation is awaking,
to its Judge an answer making.
Lo! The book, exactly worded,
wherein all hath been recorded:
thence shall judgment be awarded.
When the Judge his seat attaineth,
and each hidden deed arraigneth,
nothing unavenged remaineth.
What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding,
when the just are mercy needing?
King of Majesty tremendous,
who dost free salvation send us,
Fount of pity, then befriend us!
Think, good Jesus, my salvation
cost thy wondrous Incarnation;
leave me not to reprobation!
Faint and weary, thou hast sought me,
on the cross of suffering bought me.
shall such grace be vainly brought me?
Righteous Judge! For sin’s pollution
grant thy gift of absolution,
ere the day of retribution.
Guilty, now I pour my moaning,
all my shame with anguish owning;
spare, O God, thy suppliant groaning!
Thou the sinful woman savedst;
thou the dying thief forgavest;
and to me a hope vouchsafest.
Worthless are my prayers and sighing,
yet, good Lord, in grace complying,
rescue me from fires undying!
With thy favored sheep O place me;
nor among the goats abase me;
but to thy right hand upraise me.
While the wicked are confounded,
doomed to flames of woe unbounded
call me with thy saints surrounded.
Low I kneel, with heart submission,
see, like ashes, my contrition;
help me in my last condition.
Ah! that day of tears and mourning!
From the dust of earth returning
man for judgment must prepare him;
Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!
Lord, all pitying, Jesus blest,
grant them thine eternal rest. Amen.
Whenever a king of France died, the court painter was summoned to the palace to take a cast of the monarch’s features even before the corpse was opened and embalmed by the court physicians and surgeons. There is nothing surprising in the artist’s action, for we assume that his skilful and was guided by a feeling of reverence. But this modem interpretation of the court intentions with regard to the king’s death mask is misleading.
For it was one of the most important duties of the painctre et de chambre du Roy to make a life-size wicker puppet resembling figure of the dead king, to clothe it first in a shirt of Dutch linen, then in silken garments, and lastly to array it in the ermine-trimmed coronation robe of the French kings. A final touch of lifelike reality was given to the puppet by the addition of wax hands, whilst the king’s head, carefully modeled in wax, gazed forth from the neck of the garments. Casts of the face and hands were taken from the corpse and from these moulds the corresponding parts of the puppet were modeled; and here we may observe that real hair and a real beard were attached to the wax mask, so that the effigies, as it was officially called, can only be compared with a waxwork figure.
This comparison is none too strong. For the face of the effigies was not that of the dead; the eyelids were raised, eyes painted or inserted, the rigidity of the death mask softened, and every effort made to reproduce the expression of the deceased in his lifetime….
THE FLORA NICKERSON IN THE LABRADOR SEA (1982)
David Blackwood
button“The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same...
dang this 1855 book on manners is harsh on the good ol’ American Way Of Sitting
Instruments, weapons and equipment from prehistoric times.
From Spamers illustrierte Weltgeschichte (Spamer’s illustrated history of the world) vol. 1, by O. Kaemmel and R. Sturmhoefel, Leipzig,...
