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ISON - HELIOS

“Inspired by Drone, Black Metal, Goth & Shoegaze, combined with a deep fascination for the astral planes and the universe.” -ISON

♫ I saw the world ignite I saw the fire in the sky What have we done this time? A kiss of death from the Sun What a lovely way to say our time has come Ablaze in wrath and fury The only father we’ve ever known… Tomorrow it will all be gone A vision of 26000 years All we worship just ends in tears Will we wake up this time? A light unlike we’ve ever seen A death so serene… As we go quietly, quietly into the night…♫

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Pridrangaviti Lighthouse Iceland

Arni Saeberg 📸

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Bridges not Walls 🧱

Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian’s Wall (known in antiquity as the Vallum Hadriani or the Vallum Aelian) is a defensive frontier work in northern Britain which dates from 122 CE. The wall ran from coast to coast at a length of 73 statute miles (120 km). Though the wall is commonly thought to have been built to mark the boundary line between Britain and Scotland, this is not so; no one knows the actual motivation behind its construction but it does not delineate a boundary between two countries.

While the wall did simply mark the northern boundary of the Roman Empire in Britain at the time, theories regarding the purpose of such a massive building project range from limiting immigration, to controlling smuggling, to keeping the indigenous people at bay north of the wall. The wall continued in use until it was abandoned in the early 5th century CE.

Purpose

The military effectiveness of the wall has been questioned by many scholars over the years owing to its length and the positioning of the fortifications along the route. The argument goes that, had the wall actually been built as a defensive barrier, it would have been constructed differently and at another location. Regarding this, Professors Scarre and Fagan write,

Archaeologists and historians have long debated whether Hadrian’s Wall was an effective military barrier…Whatever its military effectiveness, however, it was clearly a powerful symbol of Roman military might. The biographer of Hadrian remarks that the emperor built the wall to separate the Romans from the barbarians. In the same way, the Chinese emperors built the Great Wall to separate China from the barbarous steppe peoples to the north. In both cases, in addition to any military function, the physical barriers served in the eyes of their builders to reinforce the conceptual divide between civilized and noncivilized. They were part of the ideology of empire. (Ancient Civilizations, 313)

This seems to be the best explanation for the underlying motive behind the construction of Hadrian’s Wall. The Romans had been dealing with uprisings in Britain since their conquest of the region. Although Rome’s first contact with Britain was through Julius Caesar’s expeditions there in 55/54 BCE, Rome did not begin any systematic conquest until the year 43 CE under the Emperor Claudius (r. 41-54 CE).

The revolt of Boudicca of the Iceni in 60/61 CE resulted in the massacre of many Roman citizens and the destruction of major cities (among them, Londinium, modern London) and, according to the historian Tacitus (56-117 CE), fully demonstrated the barbaric ways of the Britons to the Roman mind.

Boudicca’s forces were defeated at The Battle of Watling Street by General Gaius Suetonius Paulinus in 61 CE. At the Battle of Mons Graupius, in the region which is now Scotland, the Roman General Gnaeus Julius Agricola won a decisive victory over the Caledonians under Calgacus in 83 CE. Both of these engagements, as well as the uprising in the north in 119 CE (suppressed by the Roman governor and general Quintus Pompeius Falco), substantiated that the Romans were up to the task of managing the indigenous people of Britain.

The suggestion that Hadrian’s Wall, then, was built to hold back or somehow control the people of the north does not seem as likely as that it was constructed as a show of force. Hadrian’s foreign policy was consistently “peace through strength” and the wall would have been an impressive illustration of that principle. In the same way that Julius Caesar built his famous bridge across the Rhine in 55 BCE simply to show that he, and therefore Rome, could go anywhere and do anything, Hadrian perhaps had his wall constructed for precisely the same purpose.

Continue reading…

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Republicans elect charlatans.

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Song Review: Molly Tuttle - “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio”

Molly Tuttle can sing much like Joni Mitchell when the notion strikes. Tuttle, however, continues to play guitar just like Molly Tuttle on her cover of Mitchell’s “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio.”

Tuttle recorded her casual version while sitting cross-legged on a bed, her bluegrass guitar meshing finely with her folk-singer vocals in homage to the composer.

Along with “River,” “Radio” may be Mitchell’s most-covered number, so in that context, Tuttle’s version is not surprising. But having the ability to get close to Mitchell’s original high notes is an accomplishment worth showing off for any singer and Tuttle does so with apparent ease. And Tuttle makes the music her own with her pickin’.

Grade card: Molly Tuttle - “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” - B

5/23/24

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Radek J Husak, (Polish b.1984), St Sebastian, 2021-23, pigment transfer on sandblasted and painted aluminium, collage, carbon and colored pencils. http://hadrian6.tumblr.com

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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK opened on this day in 1980.

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'this extraordinary articulated dragon brooch made of enamel on gold, set with aquamarines, is believed to be the work of etienne tourette, c. 1903' in the jeweled menagerie: the world of animals in gems - suzanne tennenbaum + janet zapata (2001)

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“As long as you chase happiness,

you are not ready to be happy,

even if you owned everything.

As long as you lament a loss,

run after prizes in restless races,

you have not yet known peace.

But when you have moved beyond desire,

become a stranger to your goals and longings

and call no longer on happiness by name,

then your heart rises calmly

above the ebb and flow of action

and peace has reached your soul.”

–Hermann Hesse, "Happiness"

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curious phenomenon, society Planet Earth

Anyways, cutest male drummer - especially in pink, at the kitchen table

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"If we want to save this world from unimaginable destruction we should concentrate on the heart of the individual. We live now in an international anarchy in which a Third World War with nuclear weapons lies before our door. We must make the individual man aware of his conscience so that he understands what it means that only a few will survive the next war.

If we want to improve the world we cannot do it with scientific knowledge.

Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi have done more for humanity than science has done. We must begin with the heart of man—with his conscience—and the values of conscience can only be manifested by selfless service to mankind."

"What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind. What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living."

~ Albert Einstein 

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if i were in charge of star wars i would end the last movie witth yoda reading the story out of a big book and he gives a little chuckle and says "happened, none of that did." and then he gets out of his truck and waddles into walmart