Tag: kaleboel

Castells, for real

A mad, mad Japanese video, and a human ladder at the Muslim siege of Aleppo in 637.

Roman double testudo, from Potter <em>Archaeologia graeca</em>. I'm told that the optimal shagging angle for turtles is 30º, so this counts as deviant.

Counting the corrupt

A numerate, corrupt mayor, some innumerate anti-corruption campaigners, and de Tocqueville.

100% of Spanish graduates interviewed (sample size: 1) said this <a href='http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rechentisch.png'>abacus</a> was in fact architect's plans for a bowling alley.

How to make your street organ twitch and stammer like a well-tuned poxy cove

With an example, sampled from a French street organist, MIDI-fied and manipulated, and finally re-WAVd.With an example, sampled from a French street organist, MIDI-fied and manipulated, and finally re-WAVd.[:fr]With an example, sampled from a French street organist, MIDI-fied and manipulated, and finally re-WAVd.[:nl]With an example, sampled from a French street organist, MIDI-fied and manipulated, and finally re-WAVd.With an example, sampled from a French street organist, MIDI-fied and manipulated, and finally re-WAVd.

Run like a gypsy

With Imanol Arias as El Lute, retired generaliser George Borrow, and walking and running style as social differentiators.

The Turks' gypsy hangman on the point of giving the Greek hero a new walking style in a scene from a Greek shadow puppet play (<a href='http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=3291073&partid=1&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&titleSubject=on&physicalAttribute=on&numpages=10&images=on&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=6'>British Museum</a>). An Ottoman custom? A Barcelona cop tells me that his Algerian colleagues stamp on the ankles of bagsnatchers, making them easier to identify and capture next time.

Collserola bike accident anecdotes

Here, by Alexis Rosell. I’ve never fallen off up there, although the back-pedal brakes on my subsequently stolen one-speed bike once caught fire coming down.
Cruikshank print of the Regent and Lady Hertford falling off a velocipede (1819, <a href='http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=1503538&partid=1&searchText=velocipede+accident&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&titleSubject=on&physicalAttribute=on&numpages=10&images=on&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=1'>British Museum).

The end of boredom and the last adult

Capitalism gave people time to be bored and then net-borne infantilism came along and cured them. Lots of problems with that–ennui, the lack of a particular signifier doesn’t mean the signified didn’t exist, the decline starting before the web takes off, etc etc–but it’s a nice idea. Does anyone still go to bars because they…
Boredom against time, 1800 to 2008, <a href=on Google Ngram Viewer" title="Boredom against time, 1800 to 2008, on Google Ngram Viewer" />

Free English-language Iberian climate atlas

Authored by the Spanish and Portuguese state meteorology services, an 80-page PDF with a good range of temperature and precipitation data for the Iberian peninsular from 1971 to 2000 is downloadable here. This is a most welcome initiative at a time when national budgets are under severe pressure and Spain is additionally beset by regionalism…