The Thinking Blog ~ Knowledge Grows When Shared!

It is fascinating that so little is known about the "oldest trade in the world" but prostitution has always been rampant and thriving. From the Aztecs time where Cihuacalli (House of Women) became a legalized place for prostitutes to provide sexual services for men; to the Babylonians' time where each woman had to reach, once in their lives, the sanctuary of Militta (Aphrodite or Nana/Anahita), have sex with a foreigner as a sign of hospitality for a symbolic price; and right down to the ancient Rome and Greece where slavery and sex ran alongside one another, prostitution has never ceased to thrive. Even with the abolishment of slavery, initiated by the 1926 Slavery Convention and adopted by the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, prostitution which itself is an indirect form of slavery never get exterminated.


Roman hetaera, relief, around 2nd century—head is missing.


Customer and a prostitute illustrated on an ancient Greek wine cup.


Birth of Venus/Aphrodite, the classical Latin/Greek goddess of love, lust, and beauty.


French prostitutes being taken to the police station.


"The Procuress" by Dirck van Baburen.


Köçek troupe at a fair. Recruited from the ranks of colonized ethnic groups, köçeks were entertainers and sex workers in the Ottoman empire.


A political cartoon from 1787 jesting about the notion of taxation affecting prostitutes.


Ultimately though, the main reason why prostitution remains relevant till today is because sex has always been regarded as a highest form of pleasure for humans and thus explains peoples’ crave for it. Like any other types of transaction for pleasure purposes (eg. Purchasing of games etc), sex will remain an entity that is to be purchased if people continue to view it as something that can be bought and not sacred. It is sobering and lugubrious to know that sex is increasingly becoming something of a transaction as shown by the rise of the prostitution and pornographic industries; an act of bestial nature that desecrate the sanctity of the ultimate physical intimacy between fellow beings. Indeed, such is the scope and depth of its operations that complete eradication remains an idealistic notion.


Prostitutes in the Shimpuro Brothel in Yokohama.


1941 Las Vegas hotel sign.


The red-light district in Amsterdam.


A neighborhood where prostitution and other businesses in the sex industry flourish.


Prostitution Information Centre, in Amsterdam.


Further reading:

- Prostitution in New York City, 1830-1870
- A History of Prostitution, From Antiquity to the Present Day

By Jacob Toh. Submit your thoughts - click here!

Knitta members AKrylik and PolyCotN founded the group as a way to deal with frustration over unfinished projects such as half-knitted sweaters. It started with a doorknob cozy for the front door of PolyCotN's boutique. She loved it and, unexpectedly, so did those who passed by the store. That is when they thought, "Let's do more."

The name of the group and the nicknames of the members were inspired by a desire to "resemble graffiti, but with knitted items." The group mixed crafting terminology with a hip-hop style, then changed the spelling "to represent traditional street art monikers." Current members' names include Purl Nekklas, P-Knitty, The Knotorious N.I.T., MascuKnitity, and Granny SQ.

The crew marks holidays by theming their work, using, for example, pink yarn for their Valentine's Day pieces and sparkly yarn for New Years. When Knitta is not working with a theme, they work on projects, tagging specific targets or specific areas.

This video pretty much sums it all up (except for the last minute and a half, which is about an art car parade?) and you can find more of their work on Knitta flickr page.


via

The resourceful and ingenious series requires numerous shots -- Carl first sketches out a traditional landscape scene before introducing the food. Each scene is then captured in separate layers to prevent the food from wilting. He then uses computer technology to combine them into a single final print.

To give a realistic 3-D feel to the photos, each still life is composed on an 8 foot by 4 foot table. The foreground is only about 2 feet across.

The artist from Tonbridge, Kent creates amazing panoramas, including a broccoli forest, bread mountains, a cheese village, and smoked salmon seas. "I like the way smaller aspects of nature resembled larger ones." says Warner.

The success of the project has motivated Warner to plan for the images to be released in an educational book to encourage kids to eat healthier. He says his 'Foodscapes' were partly inspired by healthy eating campaigns, but they haven't persuaded his own children to take up the 5-a-day pledge. "But at least they don't play with their food as much as I do." said Carl.

Take a close look at this dusk scene and you'll discover it's good enough to eat -- the pebbles and rocks are potatoes and soda bread, while the red sky at night and sea are entirely formed of strips of salmon.

A forest of greens -- the road is paved with cumin, peas hang from broccoli trees and cauliflower clouds adorn the sky with bread for mountains. Broccoli Forest was one Warner's first creations while experimenting with still life shots.

More Mozzarangelo than Michelangelo -- it's amazing to think that this scene first began on a bread and cheese board.

This Italian inspired rural scene includes a lasagna cart, fields of pasta, a pine nut wall, mozzarella clouds, trees of peppers and chilies and a parmesan village.

A winter landscape for carnivores - Parma ham and breadsticks are fashioned into a sled which is pulled across a snow-covered road made from a selection of cold meats.

"We are stepping back, not to see the big picture, but the detail." Warner says of his works.

"It's not just a case of change of context, but a refinement brought on by the loss of a dimension -- compression, distillation, that defines lens-based imagery."

Born in 1965, the distinctive photographer's artwork also includes urban landscapes of industrial decay, dormant gas tankers, and an earlier series of photographs "over what we create we have no control," exploring rail yards.

Carl Warner's solo exhibitions include 'Sense' at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne in 1995 and 'A Concrete Pasture' at the University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane in 1998 and Cairns Regional Gallery in 1999.

Warner's work has been included in 'Retro Version' at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space in 1999, the Queensland Art Gallery touring exhibition, 'The Art of Inclusion' in 1999-2000, and 'Minimal' at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney in 2000.

Visit Carl Warner at his website to view more of his unusual and remarkable works, or shoot him an email with your inquiries.

Article by Deborah Petersen from Life in the Fast Lane. Submit your thoughts - click here!

This is the first animated desktop program that we've come across that not only works, but it's stable and doesn't affect the system performance at all (when you put every setting on low and limit FPS to 10). Give it a try - it's really cool!

DIRECT DOWNLOAD (529 kb) - From the Drempels website:

"Drempels makes colorful, swirling, hallucinogenic patterns that resemble a hurricane or tornado. It normally runs in your Windows background or 'desktop', replacing your old still-image wallpaper with gently-animating visuals... and meanwhile, you can use your computer just like you normally would. It uses very little CPU overhead - so little that it even runs smoothly on a 233 MHz system!"

In 1953, when Frida Kahlo had her first solo exhibition in Mexico (the only one held in her native country during her lifetime), a local critic wrote:

"It is impossible to separate the life and work of this extraordinary person. Her paintings are her biography."

Kahlo was noted for her exceptional beauty and unconventional appearance, declining to remove her facial hair (she had a small mustache and unibrow which she exaggerated in self portraits) and donning flamboyantly-styled clothing inspired by traditional Mexican dress. She did not originally plan to become an artist; Her goal in life was to become a doctor. A survivor of polio, she entered a pre-med program in Mexico City.

At the age of 18, she was seriously injured in a bus accident and this changed the course of her life forever. She ended up trapped in a body cast for months and spent over a year in bed recovering from fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, and shoulder and foot injuries. She endured more than 30 operations in her lifetime, and during her convalescence she began to paint.

Despite her life of suffering and pain, Frida Kahlo was a vibrant, loose extroverted character whose everyday speech was filled with profanities. She had been a tomboy in her youth and carried her fervor throughout her life. She was a heavy smoker, drank liquor (especially tequila) in excess, was openly bisexual, sang off-color songs, and told equally ribald jokes to the guests of the wild parties that she hosted.

Interesting? If this much information was not enough, you can read the full biography here. Alternatively, there are over 23 books and 9 films you can choose from - I recommend Frida, a biographic drama based on the artist's life:


..and here is the infamous Tango scene with Salma Hayek and Ashley Judd dancing..


Even one of the many documentary films about her is available online at Google Video [21 minutes]:


Her artwork: Be careful because some of her paintings may not be safe for work [NSFW]. There is Self-Portraits with a short story (if you like to have some explanations alongside) or view a nice collection of selected works on a single page here. If you have become a Frida Kahlo fan by now then you should see the complete list of paintings by year.

Here it is! This is what almost everyone has been talking about lately:




The Olympics 2012 logo breaks every design rule in the book. It is not simple, it is not memorable, it is not beautiful. Not surprisingly, a lot of bloggers are taking about it and most most of them hate it. Some furious protesters have already launched an online petition against it with some 50,000 signatures already.

BBC reports a segment of animated footage promoting the 2012 Olympics has been removed from the organisers' website after fears it could trigger epileptic seizures. Ignore the Lisa Simpson bit in the end and don't watch it if you are susceptible to an epileptic seizure:



When I first saw the logo, I didn’t think much of it. However, after looking at the logos done by BBC News readers, in particular the thumbnail that represents today's post, I thought I should put my humble opinion out there. First, let's have a look at what the users submitted as alternative logos.


Some cheeky ones:




Some nice ones:




VERDICT: Ugly, complicated, and expensive. It will be a great success!

To be frank, I prefer the logo that costs $800,000 (does it really cost that much or is it just hyped?) to silhouettes of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, or five London Eyes interlocked. It might not be nice to look at but that is not my point here. Neither is "it doesn't mean anything" or "there is no message behind it" argument. Maybe "meaning nothing" was the intention.

The point is, the logo itself made a worldwide impact. Call it ugly, outrageous, or madness, and you will find yourself among those who noticed an olympic logo - something no one cared about until now. Just the number of people overreacting to the logo alone, before seeing how it will fit into the London 2012 brand campaign in general, shows that this will be an olympic logo all of us will remember. One that lives beyond and outside of the 2012 Olympic Games themselves.

Honestly, do you remember any of the past Olympic logos at all?


Will you remember them, say, 20 years later?

Like Seth says, "a great logo doesn't mean anything until the brand makes it worth something" and he is absolutely correct. I think the London 2012 Olympic logo is executed well. Maybe it will grow on you too. After all, it does look like fungus.