A Plan...

I used to have a strong disliking towards Civics/Social Studies classes when I was still in elementary and high school. Though, I must say, it wasn’t the subject matter that I hated but rather the manner by which it was taught and, along with that, the manner by which we, as students, have “programmed” ourselves to “learn” it.

However, for me, this was not limited to Social Studies classes as most of the teachers that I had had the same teaching method. I just mentioned Social Studies here because it’s one of those subjects that had me robotically memorizing an unending list of names and dates (much of which I end up forgetting after the quarterly exams). Next on my list would be Science classes.

I remember when I was taking up Biology in second year high school, I was not able to understand much of anything my teacher talked about for the entire school year. It was only after reading various articles and watching a lot of Discovery channel’s programs when I truly learned what I was supposed to (and should) have learned during that year.

As an addition to non-textbook sources, I believe I’ve learned more from stories I heard from elderly people than I had from all the classes that I have attended in my entire academic life. That is, of course, with the exception of mathematics and other subjects that involved mathematical formulas and calculations. I have yet to meet a person who can present mathematical calculations and formulations in such a way that will make it all seem trivial.

Moving forward…

As I’ve mentioned many times in this blog, I’ve been interested in old things for as long as I can remember and, I strongly believe that this contributes largely to my interest in history. Yes, I love learning about history.

History to me is very much like a can of Pringles, especially if it involves people, places, and things that I’m familiar with. Why Pringles you ask?

Well, once I “pop” I can’t stop.

I’ve been bitten by the history bug again early this week, quite by accident, and I’ve been thinking of taking on a really cool project to “scratch the itch”, so to speak. I’m not going to say YET what it is but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go about it starting tomorrow.

Nobody knows about the details of it yet except for my wife and my friend, Arnel.

It’s only the weather I’m really worrying about now as that is the only thing I can see that has the capability of ruining my plans.

It’s nothing new or revolutionary, really… I know of people who’s done it in the past, and I know of one major broadsheet that did it in 1998 as part of the Philippine independence’s centennial celebration). It’s just that, for me, to be able to experience it first hand seems like a lot of fun.

If everything should go according to plan, I’ll be posting something about it here come Monday (September 29, 2008). However, I’ll be posting the “fruits” of my labor on my other blog.

"The American Past" by Roger Butterfield

This is the book I mentioned in one of my previous posts.


I bought this from National Bookstore’s “Previously Owned Books” (or P.O.B.) in Quezon Avenue a few years ago for less than P200.00 (P150.00 if I remember correctly).

Just a few days after I bought this, someone approached me offering to buy it… that was after he saw it on my table and asked me where I got it and how much I bought it for. He offered to buy it for P1,500.00, I think, but I declined the offer.

In my opinion, it’s a beautiful book… but that goes for only as far as its physical qualities are concerned. And (I just gotta mention this), I love the smell of old books (or any old reading material for that matter).

I have not yet found the time to read it yet, so, I can’t say anything more about it. But I have browsed through it quite a few times and the images are simply amazing!




I tried looking for more information about it and its author, Roger Butterfield, online, but all I was able to find was this article on TIME’s website:

Gift-Wrapped History
Monday, Nov. 03, 1947

THE AMERICAN PAST (476 pp.)—Roger Butterfield—Simon & Schuster ($10).

The American Past is history gift-wrapped for readers who ordinarily find the subject unattractive. A picture story of U.S. politics and personalities from 1775 to 1945, the book is presumably (at $10) a carriage-trade item, but Publishers Simon and Schuster expect it to sell like crêpes suzettes.

The book contains 1,000 admirably selected photographs and cartoons, 125,000 words of text. The text and captions are in a lively, LIFE-like manner (Butterfield is an ex-LIFE editor).

The American Past combines the well-documented events of U.S. history with their human underpinnings: Washington borrowing money to make the trip to New York City for his first inauguration; John Quincy Adams bathing naked in the Potomac ; Wilson nibbling crackers while pecking out his war message to Congress; Jackson, when asked if he had any regrets in his life, admitting that he had two: "He had been unable to shoot Henry Clay, or to hang John C. Calhoun."

The American Past is almost exclusively focused on politics and politicians, sheds only an occasional gleam on the high spots of U.S. social history. But on U.S. politics, it is a first-rate picture book.

The Birth Certificate of Freedom and Democracy

I found yet another interesting auction-related news last night and thought of sharing it you. (No personal views/thoughts here, just the article.)

Early copy of Magna Carta on sale in NYC
By RICHARD PYLE, Associated Press Writer
Fri Dec 7, 4:17 AM ET

NEW YORK - In the year 1215, a group of English barons handed King John a document written on parchment. Put your royal seal on this, they said. John did, and forever changed the relationship between the monarchy and those it governed.

The document was the Magna Carta, a declaration of human rights that would set some of the guiding principles for democracy as it is known today.

While that original edict was initially ignored and John died the next year, its key ideas were included in other variations over the next few decades, most notably the right of Habeas Corpus, which protects citizens against unlawful imprisonment. More than 800 years later, about 17 copies survive, and one of those, signed by King Edward I in 1297, will go up for sale Dec. 18 at Sotheby's.

The document, which Sotheby's vice chairman David Redden calls "the most important document in the world," is expected to fetch a record $20-30 million.

While earlier versions of the royal edict were written and then ignored, Redden said, "the 1297 Magna Carta became the operative version, the one that was entered into English common law and became the law of the land," ultimately effecting democracies around the world.

Today, its impact is felt by perhaps a third of the world's people, he said. This includes all of North America, India, Pakistan, much of Africa, Australia and other areas that made up the British Commonwealth.

"When it's something as enormously important as this, you try to get a handle on it," he said. "It is absolutely correct to say the Magna Carta is the birth certificate of freedom. It states the bedrock principle that no person is above the law — that is the essence of it."

Only two copies of the Magna Carta exist outside Britain, one in Australia and the
one Sotheby's is auctioning off.

An earlier Magna Carta version was loaned by Britain to the United States for its bicentennial celebration in 1976, but suggestions that it be made a permanent gift were rejected.

The 1279 Magna Carta was forced on Edward I by barons unhappy over taxes imposed to pay for his military campaigns in France, Wales and against Scottish rebel
William Wallace. The levies were approved in the king's absence by his 13-year-old son, Prince Edward.

Written in medieval Latin on sheepskin that after 710 years remains intact and legible, the 1297 Magna Carta was owned for five centuries by a British family that put it up for sale in the early 1980s.

From 1988 until a few months ago, it was exhibited in a custom-designed, gold-plated container at the National Archives in Washington, a few feet from its direct descendants, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

"As the only non-American document in there, many would love to see it go back" on display, said Redden, who will wield the hammer. He said the auction will be open to the public, but being a single lot sale, might not take longer than five minutes.

Lost and Found

Things just keep popping up these days. The “Tres Personajes” painting in Manhattan, the fossil of a giant sea scorpion in Germany, the mummified dinosaur in North Dakota, the ancient Roman wooden throne in the site of the ancient city of Herculaneum. Now, a drawing by Michelangelo. Yes, THAT old master.

Vatican finds lost Michelangelo drawing, his last
Thu Dec 6, 12:55 PM ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Thursday it had discovered a lost drawing by Renaissance master Michelangelo of a design for the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

The Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano said the small drawing, done in the spring of 1563 when Michelangelo was 88, was believed to be his last known sketch before he died the next year.

The drawing, a section of the dome, contains some measurements and is thus believed to have been done to give stone cutters guidance after the master deemed work on an earlier batch of stone inadequate.

Michelangelo worked as the architect of the basilica from 1547 until shortly before his death in 1564.

The newspaper said Michelangelo, who destroyed many of his sketches for the basilica, probably drew it on the construction site, giving it directly to workmen with his instructions.

Drawn with blood-colored chalk on paper, it apparently survived because part of the paper had been used again for calculations, perhaps by workmen. It wound up by accident in files concerning the costs of the basilica's construction.

The newspaper said the drawing would be presented to the media on Monday.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella)

Which reminds me… I stumbled upon this article over a year ago about the “discovery” of Da Vinci’s long lost “Battle of Anghiari”… (searching…)

Yup, it’s still on the web. Here it is (from http://www.physorg.com/news4596.html):

Long-Lost Da Vinci Masterpiece Found Behind Palazzo Walls
Published: 16:13 EST, June 17, 2005

It could be a scene from the "Da Vinci Code:" A high-tech art sleuth finds a hollow space behind an Italian palazzo’s murals, and believes he may have discovered a Da Vinci masterpiece not seen since 1563.

In a case of life imitating art, Maurizio Seracini, an internationally recognized expert in high-technology art analysis, has done just that – and, in an odd twist, he does indeed appear, as himself, in Dan Brown’s popular bestseller about secrets hidden in Leonardo’s work – the book’s only non-fictional character.

Image: Detail from a copy of Leonardo da Vinci's long-lost "Battle of Anghiari," based on preliminary sketches and copies of the work during the artist's life. Maurizio Seracini, a noted art conservation and authentication expert, believes the fresco is hidden behind an existing fresco by the artist Giorgio Vasari in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. Credit: The Louvre, Paris.

(In the “Da Vinci Code”, Seracini uses his investigational skills to show that Leonardo’s “Adoration of the Magi” has been painted over by other artists and can no longer be considered a true Da Vinci.)

Seracini, 55, an alumnus of the University of California, San Diego and a native Florentine, thinks he may be close to finding the lost fresco “Battle of Anghiari” behind murals by Giorgio Vasari in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. Using radar, x-rays and other devices, he discovered a narrow cavity behind the Vasari fresco “Battle of
Marciano,” and believes that the latter artist, an admirer of the great Leonardo, intentionally created the space to preserve the master’s work.

“Leonardo’s ‘Battle of Anghiari’ was considered the highest work of art of the Renaissance at that time,” Seracini said. “For over 50 years afterwards, documents spoke of the wonderful horses of Leonardo with the highest admiration.”

If he and other researchers can prove that the Vasari murals conceal a greater treasure, “it may be possible,” Seracini believes, “to remove the Vasari fresco and the wall behind, extract Leonardo’s mural, and finally put the Vasari back in place.”

Seracini, who heads Editech -- a Florence-based company he founded in 1977 focused on the “diagnostics of cultural heritage” -- estimates that he’s worked on some 2,000 paintings, including 31 works by Raphael and three others by Da Vinci. Most of his equipment, he says, has been adapted from medical devices. Infrared,
thermographic, ultraviolet and other kinds of scanners allow him to see images
behind a painting’s visible layers.

Now those high-tech tools have peered behind a mural, into a palazzo’s walls, to find another mural, long thought destroyed or lost to the ages.

Art historians have known that “Battle of Anghiari” existed from early sketches, from the copies made by Da Vinci contemporaries, and from the writings of those who saw it – one of whom described it as “miraculous.”

Seracini received his bachelor’s degree from UCSD’s Revelle College in 1973; he majored in applied mathematics and bioengineering, and spoke at his alma mater in April, as a Bioengineering Distinguished Lecturer, on “The Role of Science in Conservation of Cultural Heritage.” In 1975, he received a degree in electronic engineering from the University of Padua in Italy.

He credits his UCSD teachers – who had him experiment with lasers on fragments of blackened marble from Venice and Florence – with the spark that “ignited a long-lasting desire to blend art and science.”

During his time as a student in San Diego, he also traveled to UCLA to study under Carlo Pedretti, a scholar of Renaissance art and a specialist in Da Vinci.

It was his mentor Pedretti, seeking a non-invasive way to search for Leonardo’s masterpiece, who steered Seracini to the murals in the Palazzo Vecchio.

The long-lost fresco Seracini may have found is also known by its Anglicized title “Battle of Angiers.” Begun in 1505, the painting is considered by many art historians to be Leonardo’s most important – and largest – masterpiece. Vasari, commissioned by the Medici family in 1593 to remodel the palazzo’s hall, might have covered the unfinished work with a wall.

Most art historians believe, says Seracini, that even if the incomplete Da Vinci fresco is behind the wall, it may have deteriorated beyond salvation. Like the doctor he studied to be, he takes a physician’s detached approach to the prospect. “We’ll investigate,” he says, “and see.” It’s the code Da Vinci himself might have followed.

Source: University of California, San Diego

So, has Seracini, or anyone for that matter, proven or confirmed the “discovery” yet?

I Call It Extreme Collecting

I’ve always been fascinated by auctions, particularly those involving antiques, artworks by renowned artists (of any form/medium), and objects that were previously owned by or linked to famous and historic personalities.

Aside from the huge amounts of money that are involved in such auctions, I find most of the stories behind the auctioned items equally, or sometimes more, intriguing. Take the story of ‘Tres Personajes’ for instance.

In 2003, ‘Tres Personajes’, an abstract painting by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, was found by a Manhattan resident in the trash during her morning walk. Although she did not know anything about modern art, she took the painting home because, according to her, she “knew it had power”. True enough, last month, the painting was sold for a little over a million dollars (US) at an auction. Following is the full Associated Press article:

Mexican painting found in NYC trash fetches more than US$1 million
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wed Nov 21, 10:54 AM ET

NEW YORK - A masterpiece by a Mexican artist that was found in the trash by a woman who knew little about modern art has been sold for more than US$1 million.

The painting "Tres Personajes," by Rufino Tamayo, was discovered in 2003 by Elizabeth Gibson, who spotted it on her morning walk on Manhattan's Upper West Side. She said she took it home because "even though I didn't understand it, I knew it had power."

The brightly coloured abstract work was purchased for $1,049,000 by an unidentified private American collector bidding by phone at Sotheby's Latin American Art sale on Tuesday night.

Gibson spent four years trying to find out about the painting, finally discovering on the "Antiques Roadshow" website that it had been featured on the popular PBS program and described as a missing masterpiece stolen in 1989.

Gibson has received a $15,000 reward for turning in "Tres Personajes" and also will get a percentage of the sale price.

Painted in 1970, "Tres Personajes" was purchased by a Houston collector for $55,000 as a gift for his wife at a Sotheby's auction in 1977. Ten years later, as the couple was moving to a new home, it was stolen from storage.

The husband has since died, and the widow, who wished to remain anonymous, has decided to sell it.

Tamayo was born in 1899 and died in 1991. His early work has similarities to that of famed 20th century mural Diego Rivera. His later work features the vivid colours and expressions of his native state of Oaxaca.

Then, there’s the one about Che Guevara’s hair.

Che Guevara hair sold at auction
BBC News - Last Updated: Friday, 26 October
2007, 04:02 GMT 05:02 UK

Strands of hair said to have been taken from the corpse of Ernesto Che Guevara by a former CIA operative have sold for $119,000 (£58,000) at auction.

It sold to the only bidder, who runs a bookshop near Houston, for the reserve price, plus a buyer's premium.

The Dallas sale prompted protests from Che's widow and his supporters.

The sale is not a first for Heritage Auction Galleries, which has sold locks from the heads of Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe.

Bill Butler, 61, placed his bid by telephone for the 3-inch (8cm) strand of Che Guevara's hair.

In the same lot were photographs of the dead revolutionary's body and fingerprints taken after he was shot in Bolivia in 1967.

Mr Butler says he plans to display the hair at his bookshop.

Political icon

Heritage Auction Galleries had tightened security for the sale, because of fears of
protests from socialists unhappy that profits were being made from the revolutionary's death.

Che is considered an icon by left-wing movements, but critics accuse him of brutally executing his opponents.

An Argentine who became a Cuban guerrilla leader, the 39-year-old was tracked down and killed in the Bolivian jungle by a group of CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers on 9 October 1967.

A former CIA agent, Cuban-born Gustavo Villoldo, who oversaw Che's burial, said he removed the lock of hair and took photos and fingerprints as proof that the mission was completed.

It is these items which have now been auctioned.

Auctioneer Tom Slater said that Mr Villoldo was unhappy with the iconic status Che now has.

"He doesn't like the way Che has become a political icon, so he's anxious to get the whole story out," Mr Slater told the AFP news agency.

"He feels that Che was a murderer and a bandit and it was appropriate to hunt him down."

That’s for the “intriguing stories” part. For the “money” part, well, all I can say is if you were surprised at the US$1,000,000 price tag of “Tres Personajes”, your eyes might just pop out of their sockets when you find out about the “bigger” amounts that exchange hands during major auctions. Remember, we’re only talking about “antiques, artworks by renowned artists (of any form/medium), and objects that were previously owned by or linked to famous and historic personalities”, so, auctions that involve company/stock mergers and real properties are excluded here. Auctions of these things, by the way, involve money that amount to several billions of US dollars.

As of January 2007, the biggest (confirmed) amount paid for an artwork at an auction is US$135,000,000 (that’s 135 million) for the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (by Gustav Klimt). 135 million greenbacks for a painting!

But, then again, if you’ve been following auction-related news, you’ve probably already noticed that paintings are among the highest-valued, if not THE highest-valued/priced auctioned items of all.

Old News, New News

What I read today on Inquirer.net’s “Did You Know” column was quite interesting. Not that I know anything about baseball, but I never heard or knew anything about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig (two names which are quite familiar even to non-baseball fans) ever visiting and playing in the Philippines. But since the Philippines was under American occupation that time, it’s not at all impossible for that to happen. And it did happen 73 years ago. Following is the article from Inquirer.net.

Did you know

By Cyril Bonabente
Inquirer
Last updated 10:55pm (Mla time)
12/04/2007

American baseball greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played against Filipinos in December 1934 at the then spanking new Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Malate, Manila.

The three-game goodwill series between the Americans and Filipinos was swept by the US major league all-star team.

The afternoon matches sold tickets at P2 each, a considerable amount back then, for the bleachers section.

It just makes me wonder why baseball didn’t gain as much popularity here as basketball has.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I tried digging for more information today about the upcoming Indiana Jones film (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) which is due to be released on May 22, 2008. But, instead of finding out more about the film, I ended up learning more about crystal skull(s).

From what I understand about the things I've read (meaning, these are my personal conclusions), it seems that much of the crystal skull(s)'s story was made up by a man named Frederick Albert Mitchell-Hedges. It is probably for this same reason that the most famous crystal skull of all is the "Mitchell-Hedges Skull". And that the made-up story behind that one particular skull had been attached to other crystal skulls as far as their "origin" and "use" are concerned.

For the lack of information on the other crystal skulls, I focused my little research on that one skull, the Mitchell-Hedges Skull.

According to F. A. Mitchell-Hedges, the crystal skull is of pre-Columbian origin, particularly Mayan, and is at least 3,500 years old. According to legend, which I'm inclined to believe he also made up, it was used by Mayan high priests when performing "esoteric rites" that involved killing people. In the first edition of his autobiography "Danger My Ally" published in 1954 he wrote: "It is said that when he [the high priest] willed death with the help of the skull, death invariably followed." (words in parenthesis mine)

As for where and how he discovered the skull, he claimed that it was actually his adopted daughter, Anna Le Guillon Mitchell-Hedges, who discovered the skull in 1926. Anna supported this story in a 1968 affidavit (printed in Richard Garvin's "The Crystal Skull") and further claimed that she found the skull buried under a collapsed altar inside a temple in the Mayan city of Lubaantun in Southern Belize (then British Honduras).

However, all of Mitchell-Hedges' claims (including his story about the skull's discovery) are widely disputed as there are no documented evidence that could support any of them.

What does exist is documentary evidence showing that F. A. Mitchell-Hedges had bought a crystal skull (probably THE skull which father and daughter Mitchell-Hedges had repeatedly claimed to have discovered) in 1944 from a London art dealer by the name of Sydney Burney. (Wow! That's like telling your mother that you didn't steal cookie from the cookie jar when you're presently eating a cookie. But, even in that situation you could tell your mother that the cookie you're eating did not come from the cookie jar.) Burney, by the way, was mentioned to be the owner of the skull since 1933 in the July 1936 issue of Man (a British anthropological journal) which is considered to be the earliest published reference to the skull.

As if that was not enough to shatter the Mitchell-Hedges' story, a research carried out in 1996 by the British Museum on several crystal skulls has shown that "the indented lines marking the teeth (for these skulls had no separate jawbone, unlike the Mitchell-Hedges skull) were carved using jeweler's equipment (rotary tools) developed in the 19th century, making a supposed pre-Columbian origin even more dubious" (Wikepedia article on the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull)

"An investigation carried out by the Smithsonian Institution in 1992 on a crystal skull provided by an anonymous source who claimed to have purchased it in Mexico City in 1960 and that it was of Aztec origin concluded that it, too, was made in recent ages and that it originated with Boban. According to the Smithsonian, Boban acquired the crystal skulls he sold from sources in Germany; findings that are in keeping with those of the British Museum." (Wikepedia article on the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull)

Will this "controversy" be included in the movie? I certainly hope so. I'd rather be fooled anew by a new story which takes off from something which I already know something about (even if it's just another fiction) than be told "let's just say that you didn't know anything about this".

By the way, MTV has an article on its website entitled "'Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull': What's The Title Mean?" where Harverd lecturer Marc Zender made a few educated guesses on the possible role of the skull(s) in the upcoming movie. The article also mentions about a rumor that's been going around that aliens will have a part in the movie. To read the whole article, click here.