Lost in Translation

I am not extraordinarily optimistic that any of 'dem fundamentalist types might stumble on this blog, but...could happen - if so, ye literalistic wordmongers, read on.

I am in the middle of reading Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus", an armchair guide to New Testament textual criticism and the problems of translation. But in the recent 'Lord's Day' New York Times (aka  yesterday's) comes a lovely Op-Ed piece by a flesh and blood living Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Michael Cunningham ("The Hours" and "By Nightfall"). Read this wonderful exerpt and pretend St. Michael is a candid and honest author of one of the 'sacred' books of the New Covenant writing about its writing and hopeful translation. Italics are mine.  Mr. Cunningham's entire Times piece is a delight. Illustration left: Ji Lee/NYTimes

"Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. It’s one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it’s transcendent, it’s brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire.   "But even if the book in question turns out fairly well, it’s never the book that you’d hoped to write. It’s smaller than the book you’d hoped to write. It is an object, a collection of sentences, and it does not remotely resemble a cathedral made of fire.   "It feels, in short, like a rather inept translation of a mythical great work.   "The translator, then, is simply moving the book another step along the translation continuum. The translator is translating a translation."

Religious Knowledge Test by Pew Research

Take the 15 question Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's Religious Knowledge Test , learn who in the US knows what about religion and check out the actual test here.

The Sphinx

An early defender (c. 1850) of 'pop archetypes'- sorry, CG Jung but 'tis our project raison d'être-

"A favorite topic with me was the popular belief in omens - a belief which, at this one epoch of my life, I was almost seriously disposed to defend. On this subject we had long and animated discussions - [my relative] maintaining the utter groundlessness of faith in such matters, - I contending that a popular sentiment arising with absolute spontaneity- that is to say, without apparent traces of suggestion - had in itself the unmistakable elements of truth, and was entitled to as much respect as that intuition which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius." --Edgar Allan Poe "The Sphinx" 1850 - click on link for entire spidery piece.

At left: Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864, Gustave Moreau (French), Oil on canvas (21.134.1), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jeff Colson, "Shrine, 2008"

Jeff Colson's "Shrine" fiberglass, steel, and acrylic 12 ft (H) x 62" (W) x 12" (D) Ace Gallery, Los Angeles from October 23 through December 2010.  Is Jeff's "Shrine" the Zen form/nonform of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe?  Ref: earlier Nuestra Señora post.  From Jeff's gallery's press release-
"At the core of Colson􀀁s work is a witty sense of humor and an awareness that artistic inspiration can be found in many unlikely places. For example, a large sculpture that the artist refers to as a 'hot dog boat,' was in fact based on a vision of the Virgin Mary that he had while driving. The sculpture resembles that of a halo outline, yet does not reflect the artist􀀁s thoughts on religion, but rather it implies, according to Colson, 'a yearning quality that is earthbound and in reality will not fly.' Constructions of yearning, anticipation and the foreshadowing of impending demise dominate Colson􀀁s artworks making the viewer aware that although the pieces appear to be blank slates, they do in fact carry many potential messages."

Hmmm, "hot dog boat" - interesting turn of de lingua, not my words. 

Christian Nation, Not!

One of the most fallacious presuppositions of the not-so Christian "Christian Right" is that they want the United States to RETURN to the Christian principles on which it was founded. As our Fox News host Glen Beck said this past weekend, “Something that is beyond man is happening. . . America today begins to turn back to God.” Beck exhorted the crowd to "recognize your place to the creator. Realize that he is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us." However, a moment of research (thanks to Google "founding fathers deist") into US history will show that this loaded statement is based on false assumptions. The men responsible for building the foundation of the United States had little use for Christianity, and many were strongly opposed to it. They were men of Europe's so-called Age of Enlightenment. Most were Deists, which is to say they thought the Cosmos had a Creator, but that s/he does not concern itself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God but not the vengeful personal savior God(s) of the the Judeo-Christian Bible. In short, they were the same Humanists, the "holy right" now decry. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. When the "framers" wrote the US Constitution, they specified that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."(Article 6, section 3) This provision was radical in its day-- giving equal citizenship to believers and non-believers alike.  They wanted to ensure that no single religion could make the claim of being the official national religion, such as their former ruler, the British Empire. Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention religion, except in exclusionary terms. The words "Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, and God" are never mentioned in the Constitution-- not once. (Not to mention the First Amendment's no establishment clause, ratified in 1791.) Much of the paraphrase above from blogs "Founders Were Not Christians" which continues with a multitude of supporting quotations of the signers of the US Constitution and "The Christian Nation Myth".

Illustration above: Article 11, of the The Treaty of Tripoli reads "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." This Treaty written by Joel Barlow under the presidency of "founding father" George Washington, was then read aloud and unanimously approved by the Senate on June 10, 1797 under the presidency of "founding father" John Adams. The entire question is summed up by yet another "founding father" Thomas Jefferson who stated, as timely now as it was then, "There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world, fools, and the other half, hypocrites" from Notes on the State of Virginia For more on John Barlow and Article 11, follow the link above   (at bottom of page) to further links to yet more articles/links.

Bumps in the Night

"If all of those saints were suggesting celibacy, whatever happened to when god told Adam and Eve to 'Be fruitful and multiply'. Did he not say that?"

FH- as for gods and multiplication - if we think that typical "sacred" writings are probably the narrow view of some (not all) scribes in the tribe - "fruitful and multiply" is always a big winner and appears in all collections of sacred writing in all cultures / religions - the bigger the tribe, the more women to cook and the more warriors to wipe out the competition.

Conversely, the hermits and ascetics were trying hard to avoid the rather difficult life of mixing with the normal folk, feed/clothe a family, with a wife and paying the "mortgage" - so, with clever slight of hand, they came up with sitting around atop poles (Simon Stylites) or hiding out mid-desert (St. Anthony) writing about "higher" thinking sans society - so celibacy, sainthood, harps and clouds.

Better path? carefully chose your best BS, not to bludgeon anyone with it overnight and review it in the morning. Probably beats sitting on a pillar for 35 years or scaring yourself silly with bumps in the desert night.

Stained glass

Valenti Angelo, San Francisco Illustrator (b.1897- d.1982)

Original issuu post, view here

From Thomas a Kempis, "The Imitation of Christ" (Mt. Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, ca. 1947), by San Francisco illustrator, Valenti Angelo. His life in his own words. Best books: Valenti Angelo: Author, Illustrator, Printer and Con Amore: Valenti Angelo: A Bibliography, 1971-1982

Herman Wirth's Books of Wonders

In our search for the origins of what is now the Greek letter "Phi" ϕ, we earlier discovered "Die Heilige Urschrift der Menschheit" (rough trans: "Sacred Original Writings of Mankind"), a two volume symbolist opus by Herman Wirth, published in 1936, Leipzig. The Dutch symbolist Wirth's research was sponsored by the Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler during this period (1935-1938). Wirth is rather infamous for "advocated the Swastika as 'species-specific sign of salvation'" in 1925. A very difficult set of volumes to find, WorldCat shows about four sets in USA libraries and four in Germany - here is a sampling of the first 15 of 400 illustrated pages of the second volume, "Bilderatlas". Below, Wirth's earlier, 635 page, volume from 1928.

Ruth Cozen Snyder and "Maypoles"

Ruth- Thank you for a lovely and unexpected Mayday morning!  Such a lovely body (pun) of work.  And, as you mentioned, inspired by the maypole motif.  And thank you for the instruction to find the living  Maypole just down the street on Sunset Blvd. (photo below).  Unbelievable!

Here are some links for your granddaughter to show to her that yours is a 13,000 year old oeuvre:
13,000 year old Maypoles- click to enlarge photos - reindeer head on left, read commentary.
Egyptian Maypoles-
TODAY's most famous Maypole- (how be it upsidedown in this image) and its related historical "Phi" symbols - set one, set two (The "Phi" symbol also denotes the Golden Ratio of 1.61803398874989)
Chinese Maypoles-
Schuster's Maypoles-
Advanced Maypoles-
Cowboy Maypoles-
Islamic Maypoles-
Christian Maypoles-
My Maypoles-

Lilith - Adam's first wife

So briefly, most recall the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, little knowing the true story of Adam's first wife, Lilith. Apparently, in a dispute over which, Adam or Lilith, should be sexually "on top", Lilith leapt into the air (with instant wings) and flew off to the Red Sea. God, making his usual rounds that evening learned the entire odd story from His new creations and dispatched two angels to sweet talk Lilith into coming back to the Garden. Unable to dissuade her, our two clever ambassadors threatened to kill her first 100 children each day to which Lilith retorted that she would birth 1000 children every day. Our two angels return to the Almighty, related the situation and the Allknowing One, after a couple more attempts (three's a charm), sorts a more compliant Eve for Adam. Not being around for the Apple / Snake shakedown, Lilith is immortal and still with us today - though needing, with feet like those, some extra daily help with gathering semen to make those 1000 babies.  She and her female offspring (ie the succubi) spend the nights causing and harvesting wet dreams 'round the world. Beats Santa Claus or maybe they. . . So, I got to be making this up? not! Robert Graves and Raphael Patai's excellent account and the wonderful and long lived Lilith website of Alan Humm - thank you again, Alan.

From the British Museum- "Queen of the Night" in old Babylon, 1800-1750 BC (southern Iraq)
 This large plaque is made of baked straw-tempered clay, modelled in high relief. The figure of the curvaceous naked woman was originally painted red. She wears the horned headdress characteristic of a Mesopotamian deity and holds a rod and ring of justice, symbols of her divinity. Her long multi-coloured wings hang downwards, indicating that she is a goddess of the Underworld. Her legs end in the talons of a bird of prey, similar to those of the two owls that flank her. The background was originally painted black, suggesting that she was associated with the night. She stands on the backs of two lions, and a scale pattern indicates mountains. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of sexual love and war, or Ishtar's sister and rival, the goddess Ereshkigal who ruled over the Underworld, or the demoness Lilitu, known in the Bible as Lilith. The plaque probably stood in a shrine. The same goddess appears on small, crude, mould-made plaques from Babylonia from about 1850 to 1750 BC. Thermoluminescence tests confirm that the 'Queen of the Night' relief was made between 1765 and 45 BC.

The relief may have come to England as early as 1924, and was brought to the British Museum in 1933 for scientific testing. It has been known since its publication in 1936 in the Illustrated London News as the Burney Relief, after its owner at that time. Until 2003 it has been in private hands. The Director and Trustees of the British Museum decided to make this spectacular terracotta plaque the principal acquisition for the British Museum's 250th anniversary.

Photo above: The plaque as it looks now compared to a reconstruction image created by Mark Timson of the British Museum's New Media Unit, with the guidance of Dominique Collon, curator in the Department of the Ancient Near East.

Best books: Siegmund Hurwitz "Lilith, the first Eve" and Raphael Patai "Hebrew Goddess".

Visible Vagina NYC thru March 20, 2010

Rather rough group showing on an otherwise excellent subject. Split between (no pun) two galleries in NYC, The Visible Vagina from January 28 (Imbolc) to March 20 (equinox) 2010 at David Nolan 527 West 29th St (showing Gladys Nilsson's Stream 2009, left) and Francis Naumann 24 West 57th St, Ste 305 (includes Carol Cole's Back in the Womb, right).  The Nolan Gallery's web is worth the visit, skip the Naumann site  (what happened!?).

From the press release - "As the title of the exhibition suggests, the show is designed to make visible a portion of the female anatomy that is generally considered taboo―too private and intimate for public display. If shown at all, this part of a woman's body is usually presented in an abject fashion, generally within the context of pornography, intended, in almost all cases, for the exclusive pleasure of men. The goal of this exhibition is to remove these prurient connotations, implicit even in works of art, ever since the pudendum was prudishly covered by a fig leaf. This gesture of false modesty, it should be noted, was devised and enforced entirely by men (not only in the case of classical sculpture, but also in the Bible, in which, immediately after their disobedience in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve cover their genitalia with fig leaves). Indeed, until recently, men made virtually all depictions of the frontal nude female figure, but as this exhibition will demonstrate, that has changed dramatically in recent years."

Wiki Wonkas

Enjoy!

František Kupka, Museo Picasso Málaga, 15 February - 25 April 2010

NEW: Kupka moves from Museo Miro to Museo Picasso Málaga. The exhibition will show for the [second!] time in Spain a selection of around 80 paintings and drawings by the Czech artist, all from the Centre Georges Pompidou, and documents from the collection of Pierre Brullé, a leading expert on Kupka, who was considered the first painter to explore the concept of abstract act. The splendid collection of works from the Centre Georges Pompidou, mostly donated by the artist's widow in 1963, shows very clearly the development of Kupka's art from his early Symbolist paintings to his final years. František Kupka (1871-1957) began his artistic career at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he learned an academic style. Later on, in Vienna, he began to take an interest in Symbolism and allegorical art. After moving to Paris in 1896, Kupka worked as a press and advertising illustrator while at the same time making contact with the early avant-garde movements such as Fauvism and Cubism, though maintaining his independence and his own personal language. His interest in Futurist writings meant that around 1910 his work started to become increasingly abstract, with the idea of reflecting movement and studying the effects of colour and the relationship between music and painting. This led to the publication of the book La Création dans les arts plastiques in 1913. Despite his links to the "isms" of the period, Kupka always felt himself to be a lone experimenter. In 1931, together with Auguste Herbin, Jean Hélion and other artists he founded the Abstraction-Création group, which defended abstract art against the Surrealist movement led by André Breton.


The František Kupka exhibition at the Foundation seeks to highlight the artist's particular contributions, such as the combination of Austrian fin-de-siècle motifs with the early avant-garde exploration of form and the depiction of movement, which very soon led him to abstraction. This sensibility means that Kupka's work occupies a leading place in the history of modern European art.  Major exhibitions of Kupka's art have been held in the main museums in France the United States and Japan, but he has never had a retrospective in Barcelona. It is in order to redress this unjustified omission that the Foundation is now presenting this show that will enable us to appreciate and understand the stylistic evolution and working methods of this key painter in the development of early abstract art.

Notes: Links to the entire Kupka collection of Centre Pompidou as photo above right, enter there, "kupka", into box at left. Early exhibition on the La Fundació Joan Miró site page . The second largest collection of František Kupka is located in his native country, the beautiful Museum Kampa, Prague, however images of his work on this site seem to be lacking.

". . .with bells on!"

EROS - From Hesiod's Theogony to Late Antiquity This major archeological exhibition will focus on Eros, the archaic deity of reproduction, and on the historical progression of the concept ―from the first references made in Hesiod’s texts dating from the 6th century B.C. up until the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. The exhibition includes 270 artifacts from 45 archaeological museums and institutions from Greece, Cyprus, Italy and the Louvre in France. It is important to note that over 100 of the items on display will be available for public view for the first time. The exhibition provides insight into the archeology and history of more than 10 centuries in the ancient world, making it an exhibition of true historic, scientific, cultural and artistic value. Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens GR  December 10th 2009 to April 6th, 2010.

The Codex Sinaiticus Project

Online since July 2009. The Codex Sinaiticus Project is an international collaboration to reunite the entire manuscript in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time. Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars, conservators and curators, the Project gives everyone the opportunity to connect directly with this famous manuscript. [Find out more about the Codex Sinaiticus Project.]

I was asked by Océ UK to submit lighting designs for this project (alas, designs not accepted). Good to see the project reach fruition (but the lighting?!).

Enter Year X, Millennium 3

In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
That was where the trouble started.
Before, there was chaos,
Which is what the wise man still seeks.
He divided light from darkness, dry land from sea,
But we got sea and darkness anyway.
Silly blundering old bugger,
Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone. 
  - Northrop Frye  
Excerpts from Frye's annotated library.

Perspective

Menstrual Envy 101

I have argued earlier regarding the ankh-like cravat as "power symbol".  And while we have not yet taken up this subject directly, recent news provided a splendid visual lecture on male menstrual envy - with the notable exception of Germany's Guido, what's up with yellow?

From NYTimes.com: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C) speaks with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen (L) and Britain's foreign secretary David Miliband (R), German Foreign Affairs minister Guido Westerwelle (Back-C) during a family photo during a NATO Foreign ministers meeting at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. (photo: AFP/John Thys)"

псевдоним Юзефа Теодора Конрада Коженёвского

"God is for men and religion is for women." - Joseph Conrad

Swiss Pissing Contests

Surprising in CGJ's own country - photo left: typical Swiss alpine 'Christian' steeple. Photo right - captioned by Reuters (Italics mine): "Walter Wobmann, president of the committee 'Yes for a Ban on Minarets,' gave a thumbs-up in Egerkingen, Switzerland, on Sunday." Not entirely missed by SVP parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger, who is reported as saying, "The minaret is the power symbol of political Islam." Yes, and your thumb, er, steeple, sir?

November 29, 2009
Swiss Voters Projected to Back Minaret Ban
By REUTERS Filed at 9:09 a.m. ET

GENEVA (Reuters) - Swiss voters have approved a right-wing-backed proposal to ban construction of new minarets, initial projections showed on Sunday, a surprise result that could damage Switzerland's economic ties with Muslim states.
If confirmed, the result would be a huge embarrassment for the neutral Swiss government, which had warned that amending the constitution to ban construction of minarets could serve could "serve the interests of extremist circles."
"The initiative would appear to be accepted, there is a positive trend. It's a huge surprise," French-language Swiss television said, 30 minutes after polls closed at midday.
A majority of voters as well as cantons appeared to have approved the initiative, it said, citing exit polls carried out by the Berne-based Institute Gfs.
Both the Swiss government and parliament had rejected the initiative as violating the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and the nation's cherished tradition of tolerance. The United Nations human rights watchdog had also voiced concerns.
A group of politicians from the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), the country's biggest party, and Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures to force the vote on the initiative which opposes the "Islamisation of Switzerland."
Its campaign poster showed the Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets and the portrait of a woman covered with a black chador and veil associated with strict Islam.
"We just want to stop further Islamisation in Switzerland, I mean political Islam. People may practice their religion, that is no problem," Walter Wobmann, who is president of a committee of initiative backers, told Reuters on Sunday.
"We want to stop the further developments -- minarets, (the call to prayer), Sharia law," SVP parliamentarian said at a rally of supporters in the town of Egerkingen near Berne.
"The minarets is the power symbol of political Islam and Sharia law."
The Alpine country of nearly 7 million is home to more than 300,000 Muslims, mainly from Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey.
Four mosques have minarets including those in Geneva and Zurich. The call to prayer is banned in the country.
An opinion poll carried out Nov 9-14 had showed a steady 53 percent opposed the initiative. Some 37 percent were in favor, against 34 percent a month earlier, with 10 percent undecided.
SVP parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger, a driving force in the campaign, says minarets bring the Muslim faith out into the public domain and reflect a demand for political power.
"If it's really just something decorative and secondary to them, why are they clinging so tightly to that symbol? It's a strong symbol for them, it's to show their territorial hold and I think for now, we'd rather not have that in our country," Freysinger told Reuters in Berne earlier this week.
In Geneva, home to U.N. humanitarian agencies, voters appeared overwhelmingly to have rejected the initiative by nearly 60 percent, according to Swiss television.
"I rejected the initiative, it's against Swiss law and against what I believe in. It's against the freedom of religion we have, so I voted against the initiative," one man in Geneva told Reuters Television as he left the polls.
Another Geneva voter, Antonio Spagnolo, said: "I'm shocked by this initiative, by this answer I've given you my position, I'm against this initiative because I think it's intolerance."
Tensions ran high ahead of the referendum as voters grappled with sensitive issues linked to immigration being aired across much of Western Europe.
Geneva's mosque was defaced with spray paint on Thursday, the latest incident after rocks had been thrown at the door.
"Islam in Switzerland and in the Western world brings various questions. But it doesn't call for aggression and that islamophobic propaganda," Youssef Ibram, imam of Geneva's mosque, told Reuters Television last week.
(With additional reporting by Catherine Bosley in Egerkingen and Anne Richardson in Geneva)

Margaret Magnus "Gods of the Word"

Revolutionary idea, this book published in 1999 is presently out of print. With Margaret's permission I am slowly PDFing the entire 140 pages from my closest library copy borrowed from Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (who knew). Here, the first thirty pages (above), Margaret Magnus' website link and her description of "Gods of the Word"-

In 1993, as part of a computer project I was working on, I found myself reading an English dictionary and dividing all the words into prefixes, suffixes and roots. I had read studies in linguists which suggested that the initial consonants of a word had a set of meanings, and the remaining rhyming part also had a set of meanings. One 'sense' of 'str-' is linearity: string, strip, stripe, street, etc. And one sense of '-ap' is flat: cap, flap, lap, map, etc. If you put them together, you get a flat line: 'strap'. The idea fascinated me, and since I was marking all these words anyway, I decided to keep an eye out for these classes which have similar meaning and pronunciation both. It turns out that it is possible by means of a series of repeatable experiments to show that certain meanings hang out with certain phonemes and others do not. I have been working on a dictionary which outlines this data for English in much more detail rather formally and scientifically. But I also have many thoughts which I seem to express more openly and cheerfully when I voice them in a separate book. My purpose here is therefore not to prove anything, but to summarise my most important findings in plain English and to philosophise freely and naively on their significance.

Update March 2011:   Margaret has self published through Amazon (link above) at a very nice price - enjoy the "preview" above.

Thank you, Leonard Shlain

Dr. Leonard Shlain, surgeon/author of, among others, the book Alphabet Vs the Goddess, unfortunately passed away in May.  For me, a left-handed, dyslexic, ex-divinity student cum image maker, Alphabet Vs the Goddess proved my most influential book in the last ten years - the title itself sent shivers up my spine when spied thirty yards away in Denver's Tattered Cover bookstore - even before I got to wading through its erudite contents.  It's the sort of book where you immediately buy a half dozen to gift to your last five best friends - missionary to the saints. Dr. Shlain also proved a kind and patient correspondent during my continuing novitiate. I have just learned of his several recorded lectures, here is one - entitled "The Big O" - enjoy the next hour:

William Blake at Morgan NYC: "A New Heaven Is Begun"

from the Morgan Library site- Visionary and nonconformist William Blake (1757–1827) is a singular figure in the history of Western art and literature: a poet, painter, and printmaker. Ambitiously creative, Blake had an abiding interest in theology and philosophy, which, during the age of revolution, inspired thoroughly original and personal investigations into the state of man and his soul. In his lifetime Blake was best known as an engraver; he was later recognized for his innovations across many other disciplines.

See Online Exhibition In the Morgan's first exhibition devoted to Blake in two decades, former director Charles Ryskamp and curators Anna Lou Ashby and Cara Denison have assembled many of Blake's most spectacular watercolors, prints, and illuminated books of poetry to dramatically underscore his genius and enduring influence. William Blake's World: "A New Heaven Is Begun"—the subtitle a quote from Blake referring to the significance of his date of birth—is on view from September 11, 2009, to January 3, 2010.

The show includes more than 100 works and among the many highlights are two major series of watercolors, rarely displayed in their entirety. The twenty-one watercolors for Blake's seminal illustrations for the Book of Job—considered one of his greatest works and revealing his personal engagement with biblical texts—were created about 1805–10. Also on view are twelve drawings illustrating John Milton's poems L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, executed about 1816–20. Both series were undertaken for Blake's principal patron, Thomas Butts. Also see University of North Carolina's Blake Archive

Stonehenge Depicts Female Genitalia (Reuters)

TORONTO, Canada (Reuters) July 8 2003 -- Stonehenge is a massive female fertility symbol, according to Canadian researchers who think they have finally solved the mystery of the ancient monument in southern England. In the arrangement of the stones, the researchers say they have spotted the original design: female genitalia. The theory is laid out in a paper entitled "Stonehenge: a view from medicine" in an issue of Britain's Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. "To the builders of the henge, the most critical events in life were birth and death," Anthony Perks, a retired professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia, wrote in the paper, published earlier this year. He noted there was no evidence of tombs built by the original builders. "Of birth, we could expect little evidence. However, evidence may be there but so large as to be overlooked."  National Geographic image above by Joe McNally/Sygma