Why “The Persistence of Memory” Is a Surrealist Masterpiece – Artsy

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La désintégration de la persistance de la mémoire

Although The Persistence of Memory is an early work for Dalí, it was career-defining in its execution of Surrealist ideals. In his impassioned first “Manifesto of Surrealism,” Breton wrote: “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought.” Dalí’s iconic work creates new associations, deconstructs the all-powerful mechanism of time, and brings to canvas the often unnerving and nonsensical feeling of dreaming. Nearly 100 years after its creation, The Persistence of Memory remains a portrait of a great artist’s unbridled vision.

Read it all at Source: Why “The Persistence of Memory” Is a Surrealist Masterpiece – Artsy

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In Africa, A Gigantic Green Wonder Of The World Is Emerging

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“The Great Green Wall” is the project that seeks to save the African region of the Sahel (from the Arab Sahil: “Edge of the Desert”), a strip of sub-Saharan Africa located between the Sahara Desert to the north and the Sudanese savanna in the south and between the Atlantic to the west and the Red Sea to the east. This is the region most affected by global warming.

The project was an idea as early as 1952, when Richard St. Barbe Baker, an English environmental activist, proposed planting a significant number of trees in sub-Saharan Africa to stem desertification in Africa. The idea was reconsidered in 2002 at the N’Djamena summit in Chad on the occasion of the World Day against Desertification and Drought, and presented in 2005 by the Saharawi and Saharan Saharawi Leaders’ Conference in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and adopted.

read the whole thing at Source: In Africa, A Gigantic Green Wonder Of The World Is Emerging

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The Forgotten Treehouse Bars of Bygone Summers in Paris

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read it all at Source: The Forgotten Treehouse Bars of Bygone Summers in Paris

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The Moods of Ernest Hemingway | The New Yorker

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Drawing of Ernest Hemingway

He nodded. Then he nodded a few times at me—a repetition of the sign for attention. “What I want to be when I am old is a wise old man who won’t bore,” he said, then paused while the waiter set a plate of asparagus and an artichoke before him and poured the Tavel. Hemingway tasted the wine and gave the waiter a nod. “I’d like to see all the new fighters, horses, ballets, bike riders, dames, bullfighters, painters, airplanes, sons of bitches, café characters, big international whores, restaurants, years of wine, newsreels, and never have to write a line about any of it,” he said. “I’d like to write lots of letters to my friends and get back letters. Would like to be able to make love good until I was eighty-five, the way Clemenceau could. And what I would like to be is not Bernie Baruch. I wouldn’t sit on park benches, although I might go around the park once in a while to feed the pigeons, and also I wouldn’t have any long beard, so there could be an old man didn’t look like Shaw.” He stopped and ran the back of his hand along his beard, and looked around the room reflectively. “Have never met Mr. Shaw,” he said. “Never been to Niagara Falls, either. Anyway, I would take up harness racing. You aren’t up near the top at that until you’re over seventy-five. Then I could get me a good young ball club, maybe, like Mr. Mack. Only I wouldn’t signal with a program—so as to break the pattern. Haven’t figured out yet what I would signal with. And when that’s over, I’ll make the prettiest corpse since Pretty Boy Floyd. Only suckers worry about saving their souls. Who the hell should care about saving his soul when it is a man’s duty to lose it intelligently, the way you would sell a position you were defending, if you could not hold it, as expensively as possible, trying to make it the most expensive position that was ever sold. It isn’t hard to die.” He opened his mouth and laughed, at first soundlessly and then loudly. “No more worries,” he said. With his fingers, he picked up a long spear of asparagus and looked at it without enthusiasm. “It takes a pretty good man to make any sense when he’s dying,” he said.

Read the long article at Source: The Moods of Ernest Hemingway | The New Yorker

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Understanding EMP, And How To Guard Against It (Best Faraday Cage DIY) –

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It is not a matter of If but When an EMP blast will occur. This is a primer on how to prepare:

1

A Faraday box is the easiest way of protecting most small electrical equipment that can be unplugged from the power source.  A Faraday box is a metal box designed to divert and soak up the EMP. If the object placed in the box is insulated from the inside surface of the box, it will not be affected by the EMP travelling around the outside metal surface of the box. The Faraday box simple and cheap and often provides more protection to electrical components than “hardening” through circuit designs which can’t be (or haven’t been) adequately tested.  Many containers are suitable for make-shift Faraday boxes: cake boxes, ammunition containers, metal filing cabinets and so on.  Despite what you may have read or heard, these boxes do NOT have to be airtight due to the long wave length of EMP; boxes can be made of wire screen or other porous metal and be equally effective.  The Faraday box is a great solution assuming that you aren’t using the equipment when the event occurs.  (not likely)  It is highly advised that you prepare a “back-up plan” Faraday box filled and ready for such an occasion.  Shortwave radio, weather radio, small television, spare telephone and anything else you may need after.  Do remember that the power grid will likely be wiped out so anything you keep will have to run off of a fuel powered generator.  You should be focused on staying informed but not needlessly entertained.

The only two requirements for protection with a Faraday box are:

(1) The electrical equipment inside the box can’t touch the metal container. Insulating with cardboard, rubber, plastic or even wads of paper are acceptable methods.
(2) The metal shielding must be continuous. There can be no large holes or gaps in the shielding.

Get the whole story at Source: Understanding EMP, And How To Guard Against It (Best Faraday Cage DIY) –

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