Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Born this day.

Peter Paul Rubens, Two Satyrs, 1619

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." ~ George Orwell

Rawlsian philosopher Michael Sandel on the BBC speaking about free markets and democracy.

John Rawls

Michael Sandel's famous Harvard University course on Justice. Recommended.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Seven Deadly Sins, ~1557

John Lee Hooker, It Serves me Right to Suffer

An Alan Lomax recording.

Dušan Džamonja, Monument to the Revolution, 1967

"Robots I believe will collect my work. But you don't need to be a robot to enjoy it." ~ George Widener

George Widener, Sunday's Crash, 2005

Igor Stravinsky as drawn by Pablo Picasso, 1920

Monday | 17 June 2013 | 10:35 AM

Born this day.

One of my favourite pieces of classical music, and not just because it caused a riot when played for the first time.

Homage to the master

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." ~ William Gibson, opening sentence of Neuromancer, published in 1984

"The sky was the colour of a dead laptop display, silver-gray and full of rain." ~ Charles Stross, opening sentence of The Bloodline Feud, originally published in 2004

Dangerous Visions

Written for Johnny by Glenn Danzig

Bad luck wind been blowin' at my back
I was born to bring trouble to wherever I'm at
Got the number 13 tattooed on my neck
When the ink starts to itch
Then the black will turn to red

I was born in the soul of misery
Never had me a name
They just gave me the number when I was young

Gonna find me a preacherman confessin' all I've done
Or you can catch me with the devil playing 21
Bad luck wind been blowin' at my back
I pray you don't look at me
I pray I don't look back

I was born in the soul of misery
Never had me a name
They just gave me the number when I was young

Got a long line of hearthache
I carry it well
The list of lives I've broken
Reach from here to hell
Bad luck wind been blowin' at my back
I was born to bring trouble to wherever I'm at

I was born in the soul of misery
Never had me a name
They just gave me the number when I was young

I was born in the soul of misery
Never had me a name
They just gave me the number when I was young
They just gave me the number when I was young

Ivory Carving from ~1640

"Roussimoff has been unofficially crowned "The Greatest Drunk on Earth" for once consuming 119 12-US-fluid-ounce (350 ml) beers (over 41 litres) in 6 hours. On an episode of WWE's Legends of Wrestling, Mike Graham said André once drank 156, 16-US-fluid-ounce (470 ml) beers in one sitting, which was confirmed by Dusty Rhodes. Such feats can be attributed to his large size, which meant it took higher amounts of alcohol to inebriate him. In her autobiography, The Fabulous Moolah writes that André drank 127 beers in a Reading, Pennsylvania hotel bar and later passed out in the lobby. The staff could not move him and had to leave him there until he awakened."

André the Giant holding a 12-US-fluid-ounce can.