Mouth Thing / Vleeptron may not be 100% reliable for the next few days / the Myanmar Junta blows dead rats / Aung San Suu Kyi on trial

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Description of image at bottom of post.

To all my friends
in the Solar System
and Galaxy Dwingeloo-2

Tomorrow I will submit to a dental procedure both ghastly and monumental. At the end of it, I have been promised a Smile which will not frighten small children. But for the next few days I will be in Great Pain and Misery, and will be gulping down lots of pillz.

I don't know how this will affect VleeptronZ, Agence-Vleeptron Presse (A-VP), or Vleeptron's political and Sentient Rights NGOs, like moNGO.

I recommend that if I do post anything, don't follow its advice. If it's a recipe, don't cook it and eat it. If it's a human, don't propose marriage to it, and for god's sake don't cook it and eat it. If it's a book, I guess you can read it, but not if it's the Necronomicon.

I meant to post this image with another post, but I didn't post the post, so here's the image. I'm not running an image of what's about to go on inside my mouth.

Please think about sending an e-mail to the Myanmar Junta and tell them to Straighten Up and Fly Right. They've put Aung San Suu Kyi on trial again, and are threatening to throw her in prison for the next five years. What the Myanmar Junta does to the people of Myanmar, and their aspirations for a decent government, blows dead rats.

You might also want to start thinking of little things people can do to undercut and bring down the Myanmar Junta, economic things, boycotts, purchasing choices. And if you're in Thailand, don't take the day trip to the Myanmar border to buy cheap crap. Don't spend five cents in Myanmar, and don't do anything that will end up enriching or strenghtening the Junta. Sap the crap out of them.

Watch particularly for the provenance of any tropical wood products -- flooring, furniture. The Junta's desperation for Western currency has had them destroying the hardwood old growth rain forest bigtime. Tell your Big Box you don't want to buy the wood if there's a chance it may have originated in Myanmar. Start making retail companies have to make phone calls to their suppliers and pester them with questions about where the wood came from.

When the Junta flees and democracy is restored, they'll probably call it Burma again. And Yangon may go back to being Rangoon.

You can trust this advice, I'm not all hopped up on dope yet.

+*+*+*+

Les Très Riches Heures
du Duc de Berry

Anatomical Man

Folio 14v

This symbolic picture, of a type found in calendars of the late fifteenth century and known as an "anatomical man" ("astrological man" would be a better appellation), exists in no other illuminated manuscript.

An extension of the calendar, to which it was added in the form of an inset page, the present example is a remarkable exception explained by Charles V's passionate interest in astrology, shared by his brothers and satisfied by his astrologer, Thomas Pisani, father of the celebrated Christine de Pisan.

The miniature claims to show the influence of the zodiacal stars on the human hody. According to the comments inscribed in the corners, humanity can he divided into several different categories.

First, temperaments are based on one of the four traditional humors: sanguinous or full-blooded, phlegmatic or lymphatic, choleric or bilious, and melancholic or acrimonious. Man may he further categorized according to his degree of heat or dryness, according to the proportions of masculinity or femininity of his character, and finally, what is more obscure, in relationship to the cardinal points.
Combinations of these categories result in four main groupings of the signs of the zodiac: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are hot and dry, choleric, masculine, and oriental; Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn are cold and dry, melancholic, feminine, and occidental; Gemini, Aquarius, and Libra are hot and wet, masculine, sanguinous, and meridional; Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces are cold and wet, phlegmatic, feminine, and nordic. Such categories and connections were held dear in the Middle Ages.

Two figures standing back to back illustrate these categories. The frontal figure is slenderer and obviously represents the feminine character, the figure seen from the back and only in part is more vigorous, representing the masculine character. One is blonde, the other dark in contrast. The Limbourgs succeeded in making a graceful image of these figures.

Fernand de Mely has noted that the female figure seems to he inspired from an ancient group of the Three Graces, now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. The signs of the zodiac are shown on the figure at the points where they influence the human hody: Aries the ram is at the head, Taurus the bull at the neck, and so on to Pisces at the feet.

In an almond-shaped hand around both figures the signs of the zodiac are repeated, a little differently from those in the calendar months but not without grace. Above, just under the inscriptions in the upper corners, are painted the arms of the Duc de Berry, while in the lower corners are the mysterious initials, VE, inexplicably adopted by him.