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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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For most of you this is old news, for those that haven't discovered it, a guide to all the worlds more eccentric and curious travel destinations and roadside attractions.
Link: Atlas Obscura
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
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An interesting assortment of articles and resources on the relationships between Mathematics and Art.
A few hours could be well invested here.
Link: http://plus.maths.org/issue54/package/index.html & Link: http://nrich.maths.org/public/
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Retablos are simply a synonym for Ex-Voto, but as I've derived so much enjoyment from the first set I linked to I thought I'd link to some more on eBay.
(Keywords on eBay are very important, so having a variety of synonyms for the item you're looking for can be useful in acquiring a bargain...)
eBay search Retablo (click here).
One my son would appreciate, a woman giving thanks to a Saint for ridding her house of giant spiders....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I'm a big fan of magic realism. Any of the novels of Márquez, the South American novels of de Bernières, the short stories of Borges.
And so trawling eBay in my search for religious kitsch and related treasures you can imagine my delight in discovering these:
They're ex-voto, or the fulfillment of a promise to certain saints for services rendered. Now you go to eBay and do a search for ex voto, or just click here. Some of them offer translations, but it's more fun to speculate. For example, above, the beloved Saint has obviously saved the poor family from a gang of voracious squirrels.
Above we have thanks given for saving a girl from a rain of frogs.
Or thanks for assisting my jailbreak. Why not? God's for everyone, not just the damned law abiding or self righteous...
Thank you for saving me from the giant octopus. Or for introducing me to my new lover....
Try thank you for helping me to save my cats from these rather fearsome dogs. Personally, I'd want saving from the flying ghoul carrying her head and spewing blood from the bloody stump, but apparently that's the saint and she's a good guy....
I don't speak Spanish, but I'm guessing she's thanking the Saint for bringing the devil to her bed. It's looking like there will be some spicy action there tonight...
I need a life like that, where the exceptional is commonplace, where it rains frogs and there are plagues of killer squirrels, where giant Octopus regularly seize and terrorize swimmers, where the Saints will bring you your demon lover....
This is only the smallest of samples, there are new listings all the time, no end of inspiration, a thousand possible novels in a few short pages...scroll through and see if you can guess what they're giving thanks for....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
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And a bit of a wag. His career is made I think...