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If you want to feel a little of the wonder that medieval peasants must have felt when they walked into Chartres or Salisbury cathedrals for the first time, get yourself down to the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. The Danish artist Olafur Eliasson has created one of the most mesmerising pieces of large-scale art ever seen on these shores - a sun rising out of a sweet-scented Wagnerian mist that sets the hairs on the back of your neck tingling. |
It's all Greek to me ;-D
Stephen Halliwell GREEK LAUGHTER A study of cultural psychology from Homer to early Christianity In the third century BC, when Roman ambassadors were negotiating with the Greek city of Tarentum, an ill-judged laugh put paid to any hope of peace. Ancient writers disagree about the exact cause of the mirth, but they agree that Greek laughter was the final straw in driving the Romans to war. One account points the finger at the bad Greek of the leading Roman ambassador, Postumius. It was so ungrammatical and strangely accented that the Tarentines could not conceal their amusement. The historian Dio Cassius, by contrast, laid the blame on the Romans’ national dress. “So far from receiving them decently”, he wrote, “the Tarentines laughed at the Roman toga among other things. It was the city garb, which we use in the Forum. And the envoys had put this on, whether to make a suitably dignified impression or out of fear – thinking that it would make the Tarentines respect them. But in fact g...
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