Constellations of Words : Explore the Etymology and Symbolism of the Constellations
posted by sidr on Feb 25, 2009 - 6 comments

Andrew Stantion, director of Wall-E, briefly talks about a sequel, why the female robot has a gun and the separation of animated and live action films.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jan 23, 2009 - 62 comments

The picture of a boat approaching a wooded island held a strange sway over the early twentieth century imagination. Strindberg closes The Ghost Sonata with the image; Rachmaninoff brought forth a symphonic poem from it; Freud, Lenin, and Clemenceau all owned prints, while Hitler hung one of the original five paintings on his wall. The work's creator, a Swiss Symbolist painter named Arnold Böcklin, never cared to give it a name. It was an art dealer who first called it Die Toteninsel — "The Isle of the Dead."
posted by Iridic on Oct 31, 2008 - 27 comments

Oh, mighty warrior 'twill be quite a task...Greg Allen reminds us what the mid-century phrase "kill the rabbit" is really all about.
posted by ericbop on Mar 18, 2008 - 14 comments

Guess Who? Noma Bar depicts famous faces using symbols of what they are known for as facial features. More samples here (scroll down), and on the publisher's site. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 12, 2007 - 28 comments

An Unfortunate View From the Sky. The U.S. Navy has decided to spend as much as $600,000 for landscaping and architectural modifications to obscure the fact that one its building complexes looks like a swastika from the air.
posted by brain_drain on Sep 26, 2007 - 70 comments

The stupa (aka the chorten or the pagoda) is Buddhism's universal piece of symbolic architecture. Borobodur in Java is probably the most famous, while Burma's Shwedagon Pagoda is the largest, and the Kyaik-htiyo Pagoda on the Golden Rock may be the most precarious. They're common across the Himalayas, and sometimes hidden in caves.
posted by homunculus on Apr 26, 2007 - 19 comments

"Almost half the children committed one or more of these mistakes. They attempted with apparent seriousness to perform the same actions with the miniature items that they had with the large ones. Some sat down on the little chair: they walked up to it, turned around, bent their knees and lowered themselves onto it. Some simply perched on top, others sat down so hard that the chair skittered out from under them. Some children sat on the miniature slide and tried to ride down it, usually falling off in the process; others attempted to climb the steps, causing the slide to tip over. (With the chair and slide made of sturdy plastic and only about five inches tall, the toddlers faced no danger of hurting themselves.)"
posted by Tlogmer on Aug 18, 2005 - 34 comments

Republican to Evangelical to English via Babylonfish. What Bush said about Supreme Court nominee Bob Roberts John Roberts:

"In my meetings with Judge Roberts, I have been deeply impressed. He's a man of extraordinary accomplishment and ability. He has a good heart. He has the qualities Americans expect in a judge: experience, wisdom, fairness, and civility. He has profound respect for the rule of law and for the liberties guaranteed to every citizen. He will strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench....He's also a man of character who loves his country and his family."

What it meant to conservative fundamentalist Christians (in comments):
posted by rzklkng on Jul 20, 2005 - 72 comments

Rainbows, pots of gold, and leprechauns are images that come to mind on St. Paddy’s Day. They are beautiful to behold, but how much do you really know about rainbows? Did you know that there are double, triple, and supernumerary rainbows, that no two people ever see the same rainbow, and that rainbows consist of more than just the ROYGBIV colors? Rainbows permeate mythology, prophecy, spirituality, symbolism, mentality, and sexuality. Rainbows are a job for one, a link to the past for some, and a hope for the future for others.
posted by debralee on Mar 17, 2005 - 24 comments

Oldest Jewelry Discovered In African Cave At least 75,000 years old, the find suggests that early humans had a complex sense of symbolism.
posted by mcgraw on Apr 16, 2004 - 8 comments

The Swastika, Swastika links, and a complete index.
posted by hama7 on Nov 17, 2002 - 64 comments

Warchalking Collaboratively creating a hobo-language for free wireless networking. Here is the first draft of a warchalking symbol card. [via Boing Boing]
posted by srboisvert on Jun 24, 2002 - 26 comments

Criticism Over WTC Statue Race Issues -- I'm sure many of you are familiar with a recent photo featuring three firefighters raising an American flag over the WTC rubble. Now a company has been commissioned to make a statue of the photo at FDNY Brooklyn Headquarters. In the statue though, the three white men who were originally depicted in the photo have been transformed into one white man, one black man, and one Hispanic man. There has been criticism over whether it is going to far to make these changes in order to be politically correct. Others are saying the statue should be more of a symbolic representation of all ethnicities that sacrificed themselves during this tragedy. What do you think?
posted by yevge on Jan 12, 2002 - 36 comments

How the biohazard symbol came to be (from NYTimes Magazine)...
posted by Miyagi on Nov 18, 2001 - 12 comments

The perfect structure ‘Responding to his own call for “the perfect structure,” Matta-Clark wrote elliptically, “erase all the buildings for a clear horizon.” To illustrate this “perfect structure,” he sketched twinned skyscrapers... on a horizon line complete with the half-disc of the sun. But the perfect structure – or structures – was not so much the skyscrapers as the condition of their erasure, indicated by the two blunt Xs that violently mark the images of the buildings.’
posted by joeclark on Sep 15, 2001 - 6 comments

A Subliminal Nazi Swastika has been found in a few different toys. In the first toy, the swastika is pretty blatantly obvious. In the second one, however, the swastika was made to be more transparent and less noticeable. And for those of you that don't know about the history of the swastika, when inverted (counterclockwise) it's actually an ancient symbol for good luck. But when shown clockwise (like these toys are) it is a symbol of hate. You can learn all about it here.
posted by kingmissile on Sep 5, 2001 - 22 comments

If you've seen Sixth Sense, check this out. There's an analysis of the symbolism used all throughout the film. Lots of it makes sense, but I didn't notice too much of it during the movie.
posted by mathowie on Aug 25, 1999 - 0 comments