utenzi

I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway. My review of it appears here and below: This is a very well written book. It's really two books, a straight forward police procedural married to a more challenging narrative relating to a painting and its origins. Either part alone would be a nice 3-star book, however the two combined with Nevala-Lee's skill make this a 4-star book. And when you add the wonderful ending, it's definitely 5-star. The book begins by setting up the two parts with an art auction at Sotheby's for a recently discovered painting by Marcel Duchamp, Study for Etant donnés, and on the police procedural front a body is discovered under a boardwalk that had apparently been there for years. The painting sells for 11 million, over 3 times the expected price, and that discrepancy fuels an investigation by art mutual fund researcher Maddy Blume that eventually turns tragic. This investigation drags Maddy through peculiar historical organizations and cult...

I saw the following image on Facebook today. Do you get the reference? I did but it took a few seconds. And today I saw a second musical reference that I also got. The words "In every city and every nation from Lake Geneva to the Finland Station" appeared in a book I am reading, The Icon Thief. I immediately recognized the line as being from the song "West End Girls" by The Petshop Boys. Why do I bring this up? Well, now that I'm older and no longer listening to current music---and truthfully I haven't for several decades now---I often don't get musical references anymore. Actually it's rare that I do. So when I got two pop references in one day---it struck me as quite surprising. Of course it helps that both references were to songs popular 30 years ago. In case you're curious, the picture refers to the song "Puttin' on the Ritz" since it has Vladimir Putin's picture superimposed on a Ritz cracker. The song was written and publ...

I bought a dozen roses, a bottle of wine, and some ham yesterday. Since we're both sick (not sure if it's cold or flu) we didn't drink the wine yet but we'll go out to dinner tonight if our health allows. The poor snow-person below doesn't have that option. No heart = no going out. It would be difficult to get more cynical than the person who created these snow folk... but it is an amusing picture with which to illustrate a St. Valentine's Day entry. I wonder how the tradition of romantic love being associated with St Valentine's Day got started. I read the Wiki entry and according to it, there was a gap of over 1,000 years between the martyred saints (c. 197 AD - 267 AD) and the first known reference to Valentine's Day as a romantic time by Chaucer (Parlement of Foules) in 1382. Maybe we'll have that wine tonight but I think a toast made with cough syrup is more likely. :-(

It seems like sometime recently I stepped from my familiar home, if you will, into a parallel universe. In this one Whitney Houston is a fulfilled person, known and beloved by all. This is a wonderful thing. Back in the universe that I spent most of my life she was an incredible talent that had an amazing debut album when she was 22, a pretty good followup album two years later and then just run of the mill stuff after that. Drug use and a poisonous marriage followed. I'm very glad to now be in this gentler universe. I can't wait to see how other people are doing in their lives. I hope everyone is as improved as Ms Houston was. I did notice that all the tributes used songs from her first album though and not from music she created in the next 26 years of her life---so maybe things aren't as different as I might hope.

Universities love to release press releases when scientists get a paper published. Unfortunately they usually have the press release written by their PR folk, typically English Majors! Why is this bad? Mostly because typical English majors stay as far away from science classes as they can. As a result, press releases written by them have tendency to mislead readers. Case in point, today a press release was put out by University of Alberta informing the public that researchers there had shown that "Mobile Animals Could Have Evolved Much Earlier Than Previously Thought." So far, so good... but then the lead paragraph went on to say: A University of Alberta-led research team has discovered that billions of years before life evolved in the oceans, thin layers of microbial matter in shallow water produced enough oxygen to support tiny, mobile life forms. Now forgive me for being picky but how can microbial matter exist billions of years before life evolved? Isn't microbial mat...

Twenty two years ago a group of researchers started studying a small village in South America. You might be asking yourself what's so interesting about this Ecuadorian village. Well, it so happens that there's an unusually large percentage of people with Laron syndrome. A disease which involves mutations to the GHR (growth hormone receptor) gene. These mutations lead to severe GHR and IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor-1) deficiencies. Since insufficient growth hormone results in a failure to grow properly, this is a very height challenged group. This study commenced in 1988, two years before the human genome project got underway. Back then we didn't have DNA microarrays to pinpoint which genes are being up and down regulated. Why am I mentioning this? Hell if I know. In any case, the researchers commenced the project in an attempt to help the people with GHRD. But an interesting thing happened on the way to the forum . These short people don't die of cancer or diabete...

According to the Chinese, today is the first day of the year. And since about a quarter of the Earth's population is living in China (1.3 billion strong!) their opinion has to count for something. Maybe a lot. And it means more each and every year. In any case this is the year of the rabbit. The branch is 卯 Mǎo. Whatever the hell that means. According to Wiki there's no apt English translation. At least I know what a rabbit is. :-) I work with several Chinese people and I received two New Year presents which are pictured here. I've had some types of mochi before and it's okay---the hot shredded radish worries me though. I'll try it---but I suspect it'll not like me. 恭喜发财 : Often mistakenly assumed to be synonymous with "Happy New Year", the usage of this phrase dates back several centuries. The first two words of this phrase have a long historical significance. Legend has it that the congratulatory messages were traded for surviving the ravaging bea...