zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — a questiom for Cath Styles and Emily Steiner ]
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It’s my proposal here that look-alikes are in the eyes of the beholder, perhaps more so than other forms of likeness.

Consider:

19th century Firefighters looked like Darth Vader and C3PO. pic.twitter.com/lmkC3bFi08

— History in Moments (@historyinmoment) September 30, 2016

Do they look like Darth Vader and C3PO to you, frankly — or more like each other?

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One really does have to wonder how medieval monastics got hold of copies of Winnie the Pooh:

and:

With a double hat-tip to the immensely followable twitter feed of PiersatPenn

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And what about this?

Racism in the 1930s vs. today pic.twitter.com/TkvGiol3AO

— Nick Srnicek (@n_srnck) September 29, 2016

It probably takes some historical knowledge to appreciate the similarities here — the comparison is not entirely visual.

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Are mathematically or verbally juxtaposable similarities equally subject to human comparative bias?

[ by Charles Cameron — Syria echoes Guernica ]
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This, from JM Berger today, offers a glimpse of Syria that is neither war, nor peace, if I might put it this way, but war longing for peace:

‘All Syrians Are Tired of This Absurd War’: Voices From the Ground During the Cease-Fire https://t.co/H6rifenXHz

— J.M. Berger (@intelwire) September 15, 2016

Irresistibly, it reminds me of this:

5 May 1937
-commissioned the "Guernica" at the Paris World's Fair. pic.twitter.com/ZknE4okL

— Pablo Picasso JAG (@GuernicaArtWork) May 6, 2012

Isn’t that a bull’s head in cloth, hanging right above the shoulder of the leaping boy in the Syrian image — and isn’t that alnmost exactly Picasso’s swooping white head, again in cloth, just to the right of it? The illusion of their similarity is enhanced by the aspect ratio of the Twitter image from Syria, which cuts off a stretch of green in the original photo, just below the image as you see it here..

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But it may be I’m seeing this because the bullfight and tauromachia have been on my mind recently — mythic combats of man pitted agains one of his worthiest opponents. There’s an archaic resonance there that’s inmportant in some way, but the actual killing of the bull, blood in the sand, horrifies me, the animal descending from grandeur to humiliation, its bowed head propped on one horn as it awaits finality — terrible.

And I was accordingly happy to recall the less violent version of the sport, still pitting man’s skill against adversary — in the bull-leaping of Knossos:

Bull-Leaping Fresco from the Great Palace at Knossos,Crete pic.twitter.com/hZNTKqBIFp

— Libertas (@VeraCausa9) May 25, 2016

and its latter-day practice, shown here at the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona:

Recordator JUMPING over charging bull in Pamplona goes back to bull leaping in ancient Crete https://t.co/67U2mkRBOI pic.twitter.com/KKfQFX22iE

— Richard Kellie (@rjkellie) July 10, 2016

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Taurus:

This image comes from the fabulous Constellations of Words site.

[ by Charles Cameron — you could start from this polarity and build out to cover the tensions of the world ]
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This:

Saudi Arabia’s top cleric says Iran’s leaders ‘not Muslims’ https://t.co/rPNjqo9x6g via @WSJ

— El_Grillo (@El_Grillo1) September 6, 2016

is an instance of this:

When Iran's regime criticizes KSA's regime, or KSA's regime criticizes Iran's regime pic.twitter.com/GqRuswXVfq

— Iyad el-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) September 6, 2016

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And if these two don’t suffice, there’s always Charles Mortimer:

And so it’s all explained at last,
There’s nothing more to know.
Chameleons are pink and fast
Because they’re green and slow.

[ by Charles Cameron — interfaith rivalry on the checkered board ]
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Many of you will be familiar with the Christian and Muslim playing chess in this illustration from El Libro de los Juegos or Book of Games of Alfonso X of Castile:

"Book of games" by Alfonso X "The Wise".King of Castile and León. 1238.(El libro de los juegos). pic.twitter.com/iRUgZfqSpm

— art (@art3666) July 16, 2016

— but let’s not forget that Andalusia was also home to learned Jews, including the great Maimonides. In this illustration to the same work, we see a match-up between Muslim and Jew:

A Jew & a Muslim playing chess in al-Andalus.
El Libro de los Juegos, commissioned by Alphonse X of Castile, 13th c pic.twitter.com/dEuwAkAfmS

— Bibliophilia (@Libroantiguo) August 23, 2016

[ by Charles Cameron — a resource, mostly for myself ]
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I’ll use this post to drop in random DoubleQuotes I run across, for storage — so I won’t need to trouble you with every example I find, but they’ll all still here for your consideration should you choose — and for any future writing I may do on the topic.

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From the Rio Olympics, the celebrated women’s basketball match with hijab vs bukini:

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Two options for a child in Syria, enshrined in two “iconic” photos, and presented as a lose-lose choice by Khalid Albaih.

Albaih has a terrific eye for symmetries, as you can see from these two other examples:

Khalid Albaih, Tree of Life

Khalid Albaih, Egypt sentences more than 680 people to death

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Quite different — but also Syria — is this tweet with its paired images of Aleppo —

16th-c. Ottoman miniature by Matrakçi Nasuh depicting the city of Aleppo in Syria w/ historic citadel in center pic.twitter.com/kM2Mtirm25

— Ballandalus (@Ballandalus) August 1, 2016

If I had my druthers I’d move from photo-reality into illuminated-manuscript-world, and from now into back then. Or would I? And are we really in photo-reality anyway, or is that an optical illusion?

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There will be more — I’ll just drop them quietly in, here or in the comments section.