The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: dejavroom on September 22, 2009, 01:35:30 pm
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In which we drool at the pretty buildings (partly inspired by B. Isoscele's Samarkand pics).
The Baptistry of St. John in Pisa.
(http://20.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqbqayN1Rt1qzryvmo1_400.jpg)
(I encourage you to check the larger version (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/PisaBaptistry20020323.JPG))
(http://17.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqbqeykqg61qzryvmo1_400.jpg)
(larger version (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/H0012046-P.JPG))
Actually, the whole Piazza dei Miracoli is, well, it's very aptly named... (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/H0012046-P.JPG)
(http://17.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqbqq4fhVQ1qzryvmo1_400.jpg)
(larger version (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/CampodeiMiracoliPisa_edit.jpg))
I promise you this: The day I become a supervillain, the baptistry is the first thing I'm gonna steal.,,
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I was baptized in like a bathtub in a loft behind the rostrum. Had I known this was available...
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I have a series of pictures of the Kalon Minaret in Bukhara but the pictures simply do not do the building justice. It is 50 meters tall - HUGE. So big that Genghis Khan had to look up to see it, and his hat fell off - because he had to subsequently stoop to pick it up, he spared the building (so the story goes). But it is so big it would not fit in one shot, so you see basically a tall shaft that could be 30 feet or 100 feet tall and then a shot of my hand in the tower since that is the only thing I would let near the edge.
I was lead up by a very precocious little 12 year old who spoke perfect flawless English, French, German, Arabic, Persian and Russian, learned entirely from passing tourists.
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I have a series of pictures of the Kalon Minaret in Bukhara but the pictures simply do not do the building justice.
Oh c'mon, don't be a grody mouth...
The interior of the church of San Giovanni Battista, by Mario Botta
the eye-catching pattern is made of granite & marble
(http://16.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqfvpmuJPD1qzryvmo1_400.jpg)
(http://7.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqfvl7c9za1qzryvmo1_400.jpg)
(http://16.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqfvicd5dL1qzryvmo1_400.jpg)
who says you have to be a gothic cathedral to sport your own flying buttress?
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That looks intensely like a level from a video game.
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Or is it that levels from video games look like it?
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(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/bukhara/PICT0001.JPG)
An old Zoroastrian temple in Bukhara. Note the water damage that goes up to about six feet at most - this was buried under a lot of sand. One of the things that Genghis Khan didn't destroy, because when he visited, it was completely covered in sand. Observant Muslims go there to light candles in wall alcoves but they do not know why.
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/bukhara/PICT0005.JPG) It doesn't have a real dome since dome technology didn't exist then. Instead, it's a ghetto dome: a square ring of bricks then an octagon of bricks atop it, then a hexadecagon of bricks atop that, then a .... to approximate a circle at the top.
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/bukhara/PICT0006.JPG)
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/bukhara/PICT0007.JPG)
This thoroughly unremarkable looking piece of wall was one of three things not ravaged by the Mongols in Bukhara. The other is the Kalon minaret, previously mentioned, and the one aforementioned Zoroastrian temples. The reason why it was not destroyed by the Mongols is that, as you can see, it was pretty much destroyed by Alexander the Great.
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/bukhara/PICT0011.JPG)
Top of Kalon Minaret. This is about 150 feet up in the air and I was about to shit bricks.
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/bukhara/PICT0025.JPG)
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/bukhara2/PICT0001.JPG)
This is the Evil Petting Zoo. It is an alcove of a shrine devoted to some imam or other, where people brought an eagle that they had shot trying to fly off with a sheep (!). I don't know why they brought it, but I suppose if you see an eagle flying away with a sheep and you shoot it and it lives, you pretty much take it someplace holy and hope that they can take care of it. Soon, people brought other odd animals, including more eagles, a monitor lizard, some vultures and a cobra (kept in chicken wire).
Please note the eagle isn't actually tied to anything. It just sits there, cool as a cucumber, knowing it can eat your bozack if it wants.
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/samarkand-shahkrisabz-bukhara/more5/PICT0001.JPG)
(http://bobbyisosceles.com/uzbekistan/samarkand-shahkrisabz-bukhara/more5/PICT0010.JPG)
This is the building where Tamerlane is buried. Everything on the wall is gold leaf.
Stalin had his scientists exhume Tamerlane to see if they could learn anything from his corpse. He was indeed lame, and had red hair. The night they exhumed his corpse, Hitler invaded Russia.
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who says you have to be a gothic cathedral to sport your own flying buttress?
I am permanently amused by the phrase "flying buttress".
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Even more than the Evil Petting Zoo, even more than that much gold leaf and the Hilter thing concepts like this:
It doesn't have a real dome since dome technology didn't exist then.
are the things that really blow my mind.
Dome technology makes an interesting little google by the by.
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Yeah, Bobby's post was amazuns. I'm still trying to isolate the source of awesomeness in there, but there's too much of it, the readings are off the chart.
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Dome technology makes an interesting little google by the by.
And in image search it's surprisingly porn-free.
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And in image search it's surprisingly porn-free.
ID LIKE TO PLAY WITH *HER* CUPOLAS AND FLYING BUTTRESSES AMIRITE
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ID LIKE TO PLAY WITH *HER* CUPOLAS AND FLYING BUTTRESSES AMIRITE
it is a fun and interesting thing to be on this message board and get plenty of 6th-grade-giggles, on top of the cool things i learn about from all the points of view of dudes who put their thinkin-irons to good use a lot.
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Why does the qualification "flying" make things so funnier, anyway (one wonders, maybe too loud)? Donkeys, buttresses, fucks, all these seem so funnier when airborne...
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Why does the qualification "flying" make things so funnier, anyway (one wonders, maybe too loud)? Donkeys, buttresses, fucks, all these seem so funnier when airborne...
It is even funnier in german FLIEGENDE KINDERSCHEISSE
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Pigs too...
I think it's because of the absurdity of the flying things not really being things meant to fly. Works as an intensifier.
Surely you'd think that, with the advent of the mile-high club, "flying fuck" wouldn't work anymore, yet it still does.
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Why does the qualification "flying" make things so funnier, anyway (one wonders, maybe too loud)? Donkeys, buttresses, fucks, all these seem so funnier when airborne...
Flying bowl of dicks.
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It works.
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Some of the astronauts are flying bags of antlers, that's for sure.
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Flying bowl of dicks.
It works.
Bowl of flying dicks, not so much.
Because they can just fly right out of the bowl.
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I wonder if any of the astronauts have tried out the turgid sci-fi topic of my youth yet, the Zero G Flying Fuck?
I saw a movie that promised the first zero-G money shot. Does that count for anything?
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You said promised...if they delivered...YES NAME AND DATA.
It was a little difficult to tell. Supposedly they were on a Vomit Comet-type plane for the filming. It was The Uranus Experiment from Private.
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As if I didn't have enough reasons to want to go into space.
Imagine the possibilities.