Excellent piece by Alvin Lee.
“When there’s no more room in hell the dead will walk the earth”
Printed for the celebration of Baxter Ave’s 200th showing of their Midnight Movie Series. This time, it was Dawn of the Dead!So to celebrate and encourage people to come out dressed up and ready for a good time, the first 50 people to show up in costume get a free zombie art print!
18x24
3 colors - the silver pops!
Signed, numbered & limited to a run of 200 (only 150 online)
Who says North is up?
Upside Down maps (also known as South-Up or Reversed maps) offer a completely different perspective of the world we live in.
Technically speaking, even referring to the earth with words like “up” or “down” or comparing places with words “above” or “below” is flawed, considering that the earth is a spherical body (it’s actually slightly “fatter” at the equator) and flying through 3 dimensional space with no reference of up or down. However, the issue of “up” and “down” does become an issue when viewing the surface of the earth projected onto a flat piece of paper (a map). And the effect of the orientation of a map is more significant than you might realize.
As all maps require orientation for reference, the issue of how to layout the map orientation is as old as maps themselves. As map orientation is completely arbitrary, it is not surprising that they differed throughout time periods and regions.
The convention of North-up is usually attributed to the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy (90-168 AD). Justifications for his north-up approach vary. In the middle ages, East was often placed at top. This is the origin of the term “The Orient” to refer to East Asia. During the age of exploration, European cartographers again followed the north-up convention…perhaps because the North Star was their fixed reference point for navigation, or because they wanted (subconsciously or otherwise) to ensure Europe’s claim at the top of the world.
In modern times, reversed maps are made as a learning device or to illustrate Northern Hemisphere bias. Different from simply turning a north-up map upside down, a reversed map has the text oriented to be read with south up.
The famous “Blue Marble” photograph of the Earth taken from on board Apollo 17 was originally oriented with the south pole at the top, with the island of Madagascar visible just left of center, and the continent of Africa at its right. However, the image was turned upside-down to fit the traditional view.
While the orientation of a map might seem harmless, it can have a significant effect on one’s perception of the world, and the relative importance of the different place in it.
In speech, we often refer to places being “above” or “below” others. Think of how you would say you’re about to travel to the state or country to your north or south (to go “down” to Kentucky from Indiana, or “up” to Canada from the US). Without even mentioning geography, ask any grade school student whether Mexico is “above” or “below” the United States. We’re all familiar with the “land down under”. As we often correlate importance to relative height (think how a citizens of a country will fly their flag higher than all other flags), the north-up convention reinforces the idea that northern bodies are more important than their southern neighbors. Suddenly, traveling “down” to the South might have an inference much deeper than geographic location.
After looking at the map more closely, you may realize that the South-Up orientation may change your perception of the relative status of different places. For example, South America suddenly looks to have more prominence, and Africa and the Middle East completely dwarf Europe. Likewise, tucking Northern Europe, Canada, and Russia away at the bottom of the map, subconsciously takes away their status.
To summarize, unconditionally accepting the north-up map convention without at least appreciating the effect stands at odds with viewing all people and places within the world equally. x x
I just happened to be discussing this with one group of sixth graders today on “How do we know that north is north?” One boy in the back row just looked at me, nodded his head in agreement, and did the hand signal for his mind being blown.
I do the signal regularly, so they’re getting it.
I have a map like this. My favorite is when people ask me why it’s upside down and get to play elitist -“who said north was up?”
this is freaking me out
Awesome
I DEMAND ONE. WHERE CAN I GET IT!!!!
Yelling myths at the internet.
The best way to learn about mythology is by going to college or watching movies like Thor and Troy, right? Wrong. For the past few years, Myths RETOLD has been sharing the world’s oldest stories using a kind of caps-locked slam poetry. Or as the site’s author Cory O’Brien puts it, “Yelling myths at the internet.”
With titles like “Charlemagne is Heteroflexible” and “Daedalus is a Way Bigger Asshole Than You Suspected,” Myths RETOLD takes on everything from Aesop’s Fables to the Zoroastrians. The thing about most ancient myths is that they lend themselves really well to this kind of crude and funny, rap/poetry style. They have timeless themes: murder, incest, dick jokes, and bearded men dressing in drag to marry an ice giant and steal back their magical hammer. (Spoiler alert: That one didn’t make it into the Thor movie.)
For O’Brien, this passion for mythology recently resulted in a book deal. Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology came out earlier this year, featuring an intriguing selection of (awesomely genuine) myths that you’ve probably only heard in their cleaned-up, child-friendly versions. The book’s blurb is in iteself an eye-opener:
- Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed.
- The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies.
- The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace.
Curious about this one-man crusade to educate the world on classic mythology, we contacted Cory O’Brien for a chat… [READ MORE]
Did I mention I’m a huge Greek mythology geek?
Not just you. :)
(Source: hellotailor)
Art Nouveau interiors.




![dduane:
hedwig-dordt:
Yelling myths at the internet.
The best way to learn about mythology is by going to college or watching movies like Thor and Troy, right? Wrong. For the past few years, Myths RETOLD has been sharing the world’s oldest stories using a kind of caps-locked slam poetry. Or as the site’s author Cory O’Brien puts it, “Yelling myths at the internet.”
With titles like “Charlemagne is Heteroflexible” and “Daedalus is a Way Bigger Asshole Than You Suspected,” Myths RETOLD takes on everything from Aesop’s Fables to the Zoroastrians. The thing about most ancient myths is that they lend themselves really well to this kind of crude and funny, rap/poetry style. They have timeless themes: murder, incest, dick jokes, and bearded men dressing in drag to marry an ice giant and steal back their magical hammer. (Spoiler alert: That one didn’t make it into the Thor movie.)
For O’Brien, this passion for mythology recently resulted in a book deal. Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology came out earlier this year, featuring an intriguing selection of (awesomely genuine) myths that you’ve probably only heard in their cleaned-up, child-friendly versions. The book’s blurb is in iteself an eye-opener:
Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed.
The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies.
The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace.
Curious about this one-man crusade to educate the world on classic mythology, we contacted Cory O’Brien for a chat… [READ MORE]
Did I mention I’m a huge Greek mythology geek?
Not just you. :)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/affd79eba48d102578f8d894407acd9f/tumblr_mmqlffUzNZ1qiu5xgo1_400.jpg)

