Angkor Wat in Cambodia, built in the 12th century and the largest religious monument in the world. I was left speechless the first time I saw it. This place is huge, and it took me two days to bike the main circuit, plus another day via tuk tuk to see the more distance temples. Here is the main temple, so beautiful! One of the most amazing places I have seen! (pictures not my own) One of my favorite places in Angkor Wat. When I was in this part, there was almost no one else there, and it was so peaceful. If it is okay, I want to add a second, Machu Picchu in Peru. If there is just one place to go in South America, (and it would be a hard choice), I think this is the place!
Van Gogh is my favorite artist. I just think he was a genius. I love the way he saw the world and represented it. When I first saw The Starry Night in person I cried. Picasso has also been rapidly working his way up my list of favorite artists. His Blue Period is one of the greatest contribution to art ever, in my opinion. I stood in front of this painting for a half an hour because I literally couldn't bring myself to step away from it: I think that Irving Penn is hands down one of the greatest photographers of all time: And since I won't feel right leaving this without any writers on the list: e.e cummings. But I have no words.
Bear with me. Consider the book non-spiritually and outside the bias of your personal beliefs. Has anything in the history of human language ever been more influential on the way we think, speak, write, or read? Without it, most modern literature would be gutted of its inspiration, its imagery and its most well-known references. Much of the art listed thus far would not exist. Many of those buildings you talk about would not have been built. It set standards for laws and social principles that govern the behavior of our entire species. Not a day of our lives on Earth go by without us seeing hearing or touching some spectacular thing that is biblical in nature. Conversely, it has been the impetus for immense suffering, brutality and cruelty. It, and the other religious texts from which it evolved and which it subsequently spawned, have been the tools of vicious repression, violence and death. It has been the fuel of tyrants and conquerors, of bigots, madmen and murderers. It is the most powerful symbol of our conflicting abilities to create and destroy in spectacular fashion. It is, quite simply, the most human thing that exists.
I enjoy listening to classical music every now and again. There have been some amazing works left behind by these composers and they are always good to listen to. Some of it is stunning and it makes you wonder how they came up with some of this stuff. Some of my favorites including the obvious ones: Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Brahms, Schubert, Mendelssohn. Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 - Andante: Spoiler Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata - first movement: Spoiler Bach - Oboe Concerto in D minor, 2nd movement: Spoiler Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No. 2: II. Andante: Spoiler Schubert - Ellens dritter Gesang (Ave Maria): Spoiler Mendelssohn - Spring Song: Spoiler
I think the most reasonable response to the first paragraph is that, were it not for the Bible, something else (or a collection of some things else) would have taken its place in that regard. That, and it's a pretty blatant plagiarism of older myths, legends and texts. Me, I don't appreciate art much. I have a hard time reading fiction or poetry, and drawn art has almost zero hold over me. Photography is nice enough, and architecture is at least reasonably impressive. I am a rather well-trained musician, though, even though classical music, on the whole, sounds like an exercise in trying to induce a migraine. Michelangelo's fingers couldn't play the guitar that well.
Maybe, but nothing did take its place. It's like saying if Shah Jahan didn't build the Taj Mahal, someone else would have. There's no way of knowing for sure what might have happened. It also represents the most popular and widespread collection and interpretation of those myths, texts and legends. Don't get me wrong, I reward it next to zero points for conceptual originality, but it is undeniably unique in its impact, positive and negative. As for the plagiarism comment: by that logic, any of the great books in world literature that draw heavily from the Bible are also copycats, but we're less quick to admonish them for their theft because they don't carry nearly as much weight. Literarily speaking, the Book set the bar for everything that has proceeded it.
Reminded me of this: You see that tiny blue dot in the middle of the orange line? That's Earth. Here's how Carl Sagan put it: The photo was taken by Voyager 1, the most distant man-made object from Earth. After 2025 its instruments will stop functioning, but it will still be out there, floating in space beyond the end of our solar system. It makes me feel better to know that no matter how badly we do on this planet, there will still be a tiny human creation somewhere in the universe.
You misunderstand the first point. Maybe it's a bit of an existential thing, but if the Bible never existed, we'd have found other inspiration for art. The Ancient Greeks, for example, had no problem creating stunning architecture and friezes without the Bible. Or, as Richard Dawkins phrases it, we've never heard the "Evolution Oratorio". The difference between derivative works of the Bible and the Bible is that derivative works (i.e. Leviathan, much of Shakespeare) is that part of what makes them brilliant is their extensive references to the Bible, creating textual interplay and metaphor to virtually the only piece of literature that everyone was familiar with at the time. The Bible? Sure, the King James version might be brilliant English, and it is as you say an extremely human work, and although unnecessary but highly influential in Western art and society, Jesus Motherfucking Christ is it boring. EDIT: On that note, I will credit it with being the inspiration for a litany of beautiful curse words.
Taught in a spiritual setting, I agree. Churches encourage a worshipful interpretation of the words, and any reading between the lines that might occur is tied to that spirituality. The intentions of the text are holy and pure, there is no manipulation at work, etc. etc. Academically, though, it actually can be interesting. I was lucky enough to have a teacher in my senior year of high school spend the first 5 weeks of the year teaching the Old Testament. The degree of politicking and linguistic maneuvering done by the authors is astounding when taught properly. To witness a text act simultaneously as a measure of comfort for the controlled and as a training manual for controllers was an eye-opener, to say the very least. Taught as literature, you get a very good idea of why and how it became the biggest game in town, and not merely through good fortune. It's the original "How To Win Friends and Influence People".
OK, I'll try: The internal combustion engine. How did you get to work today? How did your mother get to the hospital to give birth to you? Most likely by way of one of these: That's a Ford Boss 429, and there were only a couple thousand ever produced, but you get the idea. For every tree-hugging hippy who protests against them (Al Gore, I'm talking about you), it ain't perfect, but it works. Let's see an electric motor propel a land-bound vehicle from 0-300 MPH in 3.5 seconds. Lets see an solar powered truck pull a 60,000 pound load at 70 mph. Without these, everyone in the developed world will have to undergo a huge lifestyle change.
I'll take that and add the automatic transmission (and, by extension, the subset of CVTs). It's a marvel of modern engineering and you've got to work pretty hard or long to screw one up. For such an intricate thing, they're very robust. They do use points for making it possible for almost any uncoordinated fuckface to get a drivers licence. That doesn't mean all auto drivers are, but if you licence is auto only get the manual test done and separate yourself from the bottom feeders. It's a good skill to have.
What do you guys think of a slight change in focus. Perhaps this requires a new thread though, I'll let the mods judge. Yeah Billy Shakes was a heck of a writer and Michelangelo could chisel like a motherfucker. We know. Let's shed some light for one another to masterpieces of human creation that aren't incredibly well known. I realize that is a rather hard line to toe; many people don't know who Caravaggio is. But let's assume we are all reasonably intelligent and know the basics. Find me something I may never have heard of but the community of people in the know about that area of expertise universally regard the piece as legendary. My submission: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Some of the heavy music nerds may know about this guy. He sang a style of music known as Qawwali. It is really a pretty simple form of music; often there is only one instrument supplemented by rhythmic clapping to provide the background for the singer. A single proper Qawwali will be in the range of 15-45 mins long. Nusrat is the god of qawwali. I've listened to a huge amount of music in the brief time I've been alive and I have to say no single artist has managed to have such a large quantity of ridiculously incredible music. The rare song that literally gets you high, Nusrat has about 100 of them. And every single one only has a brief outline of what to do with the song and Nusrat improvises the rest. So put that in your blunt and smoke it, Lil Wayne. Plus wait until you hear this guy's voice. If any voice could be described as having soul, this is it. Here is a link to a full show: <a class="postlink" href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7991701373280182799#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 280182799#</a> Every song starts out with several minutes of poetry and I realize almost none of you will understand a word he is saying but bear with the first 5-10 mins of each song(actually some songs take a solid 15 mins or so to even really get going) and prepare to have you face rocked.
Why change the focus? If you think that someone insanely obscure left something moving too you, post it, and describe why it is amazing. I thought this was about the heights of humanity no matter who created it.
The Notre Dame Cathedral. It took almost 200 years of continuous effort to build, and has stood for over 650 years. Side view: Spoiler Front: Spoiler Rose window (one of the large circular windows visible in either of the above pictures): Spoiler
SpaceShipOne Spoiler Aside from it being really cool that space tourism is not only going to be a reality in my lifetime, the thing only cost about $25 million to create. NASA can't even review a bid on a contract to make scale models of the Saturn V rocket for $25 million. SpaceShipOne is what happens when you take the bullshit out of engineering. Also have to mention Prior Analytics by Aristotle. It's his book on syllogisms, and 2300 years later his work is still the foundation of deductive reasoning. Not many other theories have held up for so long. It's too bad this stuff isn't required even in college. Really though, deductive reasoning is pretty simple and could be taught in elementary school.
The number 0. I believe it was created by the Mayans and in India independently, then brought to Europe by the Arabs. It might be one of the most revolutionary mathematical developments of all time. Throwing my two cents in about the Bible: I'm going to have agree with Beefy Phil. It's influence (along with the Koran) underlies and permeates an incredible amount of history and still has major influence on our daily lives to this very day - even if you don't believe any of it.
Spoiler Principia Mathematica: It's the foundation of pretty much all of physics. Also, the math in it is the basis of all calculus and science. Spoiler Special Relativity: This is the definition of mind blowing. The fact that both space and time are not absolute, but relative to the observer was unbelievable when I first heard it. This theory is the basis for all of modern physics. (I couldn't find an image relating to the actual theory, so I just threw Einstein up there)
This is the only angle I could get on this mesmerizing hand-carved wooden chandelier pulpit in the "New Church" at Dam square in Amsterdam. Fuck the Mona LIsa and it's crowded-ass room full of Asians. I marvelled this thing from afar for 20 minutes. It's over 35 feet tall and the detail to it is extraordinary. 12 years of labour was put into it by one man.
I posted this a long time ago (I think on the RMMB), and it has always been one of my favorite videos. Dan Dunn combines his talent of painting with great showmanship to create an extremely entertaining show.