Two objects of beauty I received for Christmas

A glass and Steve Martin´s latest novel. The cover of this book is very beautiful, with a texture similar to canvas.
I ordered the book late November, from Amazon, and I received it on Christmas eve.

Today I came upon these two images

Photo by Brett Costello, of Jessica Watson, aged 16, as she approached the Sydney harbor after completing a 7 months long voyage around the world:
(click images to enlarge)



"The Voyage of Life Old Age", by Cole Thomas, 1842, oil on canvas. Part of the "Voyage of Life" series:

Beetle

click to enlarge.

A (almost) ready made sculpture

With a mat, a small woden bench and a lamb`skull:



Voilá!

(next, I´m going to contact The MOMA NY, Saatchi and Tate Modern.)

Thought of the day Dec, 10, 2010

Why are there no double or triple flush toilets on sale? Huumm?

Thought of the day

It just ocured to me: the fact that the names of all continents outside of Europe start with an A (America, Africa, Asia, Australia) is well fit for lands called "The New World", and might be more than a coincidence. They all start with the first letter of the alfabet and it echoes the Ahh of amazement the european navigators utered when they first saw those places.

Eating meat and fish without killing animals.

Yes, it´s possible. Realy pork, veal, tuna, sardine, etc. in big slices, not any tasteless soya substitute. And complying with the buddhist norm of "Save all sentient beings", avoiding any sufferings to animals.
I had this idea some years ago and I guess I read about it last summer in a magazine or newspaper. I made a drawing: click to enlarge



In this way we would get blocks of diferent meat and fish, even from small fish, like eels and sardine, like those blocs of ham or paté. There would be no suffering, because no animal would be born nor killed, there would be no nerve cells and no nervous sistem to feel pain. Just muscle cells and tissue. The constant flow of water, oxigen and nutrients (vitamins, aminoacids, glicose, etc.) would work like a blood stream for the membrane with stem cells designed to produce muscle.
In this way one could have big slices of sardine or eel for sushi, and not just the small ones one gets from the actual fish.
There is another idea I had some ten years ago, also concerning biotechnology and food. I told this one to my students that went to university, hoping they would develop the idea: have olive trees produce olives in infructescences (clusters of fruits, like for instance, the grapes) instead of isolated small fruits that are so dificult to harvest. You would have to identify, extract and intruduce in the olive trees DNA, the gene that some plants have to make infructescences. Easier said than done, I know.