Nepenthe

The Art of Grant Snider

In July 1969, as the Apollo 11 missions were launching towards the Moon, the just-released David Bowie single “Space Oddity” was further fueling the space-lust for thousands of Earth-bound humans. From songs like “Starman” and “Life on Mars” to his numerous otherworldly personas – no other pop artist has inspired and drawn upon our exploration of space as much as David Bowie. So, as a fitting tribute following his untimely death last week, Belgian astronomers have named a star constellation after the world’s late, great cosmic muse. The constellation consists of seven stars that form the shape of the lightning bolt from Bowie’s 1973 album “Aladdin Sane,” one of the most iconic images of the starchild. The project was a collaboration between radio station Studio Brussel and Belgium’s MIRA public observatory , called Stardust For Bowie . On this interactive Google Sky map, you can also post messages and tag your favorite Bowie song to ...

By Tim Parks for the NYRB In a recent letter to the editor , Leon Botstein, the head of Bard College, scolds The New York Review for not mentioning translators. As a translator myself, I’m all too familiar with the review that offers a token nod to the translation, announces it good, bad, or indifferent, perhaps offering one small example to justify praise or ignominy. But although not specifically singled out by Botstein, I fear I am one of the culprits. My review of Levi’s Complete Works did not name the translators or discuss their work. The fact is that much space is required to say anything even half-way serious about a translation. For example, the three volumes of Levi’s Complete Works include fourteen books and involved ten translators. There is the further complication that the three best-known books— If This Is a Man, The Truce , and The Periodic Table —had already been translated, the first two by Stuart Woolf, the third by Raymond Rosenthal. If This Is a...

Os três primeiros lobos são os fracos e doentes. São estes que dão ritmo à caminhada para toda a alcateia. Se fosse de outra forma, teriam sido os últimos e seriam mortos. Em caso de ataque, são as primeiras vítimas. Eles criam o caminho na neve para economizar energia dos que estão por trás deles. São seguidos por cinco lobos fortes que formam a vanguarda, no entanto, o centro é a riqueza do bloco: onze lobas. Sucessivamente, os outros cinco lobos fazem a retaguarda. O ÚLTIMO, quase isolado da alcateia, é o LÍDER. Ele deve ver claramente todo o grupo, a fim de controlar, dirigir, coordenar e dar as ordens necessárias. A natureza ensina, e é imensamente sábia.   Aldeias de Portugal no Facebook

A roundup of paper dolls for all of David Bowie's many iterations, by OpenCulture  

   Nepanthes maximum, a carnivorous plant that eats insects (Photo: LadydragonflyCC/Flickr ) Once the idea of a giant, flesh-eating plant enters the imagination, it can be hard to dislodge. Imagine this: you’re in the jungle, and you discover a plant with surprisingly large, tentacle-like leaves. The clearing is full of a heavy, sweet smell. Maybe there’s an animal skeleton under the plant. Did the leaves move? Was that just the wind? You move closer, and the plant seems to yearn towards you…. Or this: in a grey European greenhouse, there’s a strange plant growing. No one has been able to identify it, and it’s yours to study. This could be your shot at botanical immortality; for now, no one needs to know that you’re keeping it alive with hunks of meat... These are tales that get told over and over again–whether they’re about a “man-sucking tree” in east Africa or the Devil’s Snare in Central America, whether the strange plant is in a hothouse in En...