Recently in History Category

Here's another adorned New York sidewalk, this time from 1996, created in memory of homeless Lower East Side fixture Paul "Merlin" Hogan:

A wake and vigil of considerable moment, lasting for the better part of 2 weeks, was held in the neighborhood at Merlin's corner. Some nights the sidewalk and street around the memorial were so densely packed with people that it seemed that everyone in the neighborhood and the surrounding communities was attending, crowded together, all kinds of folks, from all professions and callings, from high and low paying their respects to Merlin.

More photos and reflections at the timeless civic shrine, Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.

HijabSkirt.info is a website dedicated to overcoming "rooted prejudices about women in the hijab as well as women in skirts." Founded by three journalists and supported by the UN, Hijabskirt notes that the split between hijab and skirt is stronger than the Berlin Wall, splitting the planet between East and West, but the site hopes to use communication, education and collaboration to help overcome the divide.

The latest entry on the site provides a fascinating reflection on how Benazir Bhutto embodied this cultural tension. The author: Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's former Minister of Information and a personal friend of the Prime Minister. As Rehman observes, a woman's choice of dress can be a profound moral act:

Whether a woman dons the hijab or miniskirt, that personal choice should be an absolutely free choice. It would be an injustice of monumental proportions if half of humanity is deprived of this right by subjecting them to fears, of being judged upon their appearances.

Unfortunately, both east and west are guilty of this.

How the western media howls when Angela Merkel appeared at the Oslo Opera in a Victorian designer dress or when Michelle Obama decides to dress a bit more casually. How the online Pakistani forums shot a fuse when Benazir was revealed to wear skirts and western clothing of her choice privately. What is common in all of those hyperventilating media reactions, is the self arrogated custodians of culture, religion and morals, who think they have the right to pass judgment on women, who have done nothing but exercised their personal choices.

Benazir Bhutto was my close friend. My beloved Bibi. She used to say that the best hijab is in the eyes of the beholder. . . .

For an inside look at Benazir Bhutto's perspective on the hijab and Western dress, read the whole thing.

(Thanks to Chankia Abitkar for the link!)

Iranians have reportedly starting protesting the Ahmadinejad regime by going to bazaars and not shopping.

However, that doesn't mean the rest of the revolution is noncommercial.

One popular item: t-shirts featuring Neda Agha-Soltan, the Iranian woman whose murder by Iranian security forces, caught on this YouTube video (more about which here), has made her an icon of the protest movement.

Pictured above: a Neda t-shirt sold on Facebook by an Iranian who pledges to give the proceeds to Neda's family if 400 shirts are sold, though judging from the comments not everyone is on board with this enterprise:

The CafePress blog has also noted Neda tee phenomenon, highlighting a link between commerce and political speech:

While the Iranian government prohibits Neda's family and friends from having memorials in her honor and tries to locally silence the voices mourning her, the world is talking. And from our end, a T-shirt is worth 1,000 words.

In other words, let a thousand Neda t-shirts bloom!

And yes, the last one really is a Remembering Neda Dog T-Shirt. The photo proclaims "Made in the USA", and y'know, I don't doubt it.

UPDATE:

Here's a new heated critique of the Facebook tee for commodifying Neda--another new shirt by PrestijFashion:

The documentary series Indie Sex offers a revealing look at how religious groups have shaped American popular entertainment. Among the movies featured: Seminary Girls, a not-safe-for-the-nineteenth-century-workplace classic from Edison Films.

"P.S. to Manny: The Ten Commandments religious medal and chain and my wedding ring--I wish you to present to our children as a token of our undying love."

The 9/11 comment of the day:

Man, it feels so far away but whenever it gets to this day I remember my boss who died in 9/11 and 4 of my coworkers. Even though I was an intern and did not know them very long it's still very sad. Sometimes I think about the small things that's why I also mourn the loss of my gym clothes that I lost in 9/11. I think about them sometimes. One day I'm wearing them for spin class at NYSC and the next they are in the rubble of the biggest tragedy to hit US Soil ever. They were of that futuristic micromesh breathable material too. Goddamn You Taliban and George Bush.

Animal explains:

The dancing custom has pre-Hispanic roots and is steeped in Aztec imagery, but as the role of Christianity expanded, the garb eventually adapted to include Catholic elements and icons. These elaborate costumes you see in these photos came later in the mid 19th century as a way to mock he the Spaniards and later European occupiers while staying anonymous: "The elaborate dress, gloved hands, uptilted beard and arrogant stance makes a mockery of the salon dancing so beloved of the upper classes during the period of the French intervention (1864 - 1867) under the hapless Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian and his Empress Carlotta."

Religion is in many ways a story of our relation to collective identity, which can create something higher than ourselves as well as swarms that destroy. Not surprisingly the locust plays a prominent role in ancient religious texts, more in regard to the latter aspect of the mystery than the former, though now that most of us live a life far removed from swarms of locusts devouring our crops the references might seem somewhat oblique.

Pictured above: cicada jewelry, created and sold by teen entrepreneurs Katheryn Maloney and Brady Cullinan. And from a reference by a BoingBoing commenter, be sure to scroll down this fascinating site for a story about Mayan cockroach jewelry:

There once was, I have been told, a Maya princess who fell in love with a man she would never be permitted to marry. So heartbroken was she that she wept night and day over her forbidden love. A shaman, hearing her cries and learning of her misery, transformed her into a glittering beetle, a piece of living jewelry. Her beloved pinned her to his breast. Thus she spent her life, close to the heart of the one she cherished.

Doesn't sound like much of a relationship to me, but perhaps I'm too cynical. In any event, this legend is perpetuated to the present day in Yucatán by the makech (that's Yucatec Mayan, in Spanish, it's maquech).

These large beetles spend most of their lives as larvae; their transformation into adults marks the end of their existence. Once pupated, they stop eating, breed, and die. Yucatecos decorate them with rhinestones and tether them with little gold chain leashes. Pinned to the purchaser's clothing, they spend what remains of their brief existence wandering aimlessly about, sparkling as they move.

Via Design Sponge, images of a fascinating book from the early twentieth century:

Inside were instructions to have your friends sign a line lengthwise down the page with an inky pen tip, and then quickly fold the page before the ink dried. The result is this oddly occult and figural looking inkblot created from their signature.

The standard history was that oil paining began in fifteenth-century Europe.

So much for that theory.

Above: a newly discovered 7th-century Afghan cave mural pointed with oil by monks, depicting the "Buddha in vermillion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythological creatures."

Truly inspiration, though given the historic significance I would probably have been just have impressed if the painting had been a ghost sign.