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| Shichi-Go-San, via Calligraphy in the View |
Shichi-Go-San is a traditional rite of passage and festival day in Far east.
For three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys, held annually on November 15.
Shichi-Go-San is said to have originated in the Heian Period (794-1185) amongst court nobles, who would celebrate the passage of their children into middle childhood.
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| Hello Kitty Shinkansen, Calligraphy in the View |
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| Alfred Dedreux, Pug Dog in an Armchair, 1857 |
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| The Shocking Behavior of a Speedy Star, NASA on the Commons |
Roguish runaway stars can have a big impact on their surroundings as they plunge through the Milky Way galaxy. Their high-speed encounters shock the galaxy, creating arcs, as seen in this newly released image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
In this case, the speedster star is known as Kappa Cassiopeiae, or HD 2905 to astronomers. It is a massive, hot supergiant. But what really makes the star stand out in this image is the surrounding, streaky red glow of material in its path. Such structures are called bow shocks, and they can often be seen in front of the fastest, most massive stars in the galaxy.
Bow shocks form where the magnetic fields and wind of particles flowing off a star collide with the diffuse, and usually invisible, gas and dust that fill the space between stars. How these shocks light up tells astronomers about the conditions around the star and in space. Slow-moving stars like our sun have bow shocks that are nearly invisible at all wavelengths of light, but fast stars like Kappa Cassiopeiae create shocks that can be seen by Spitzer’s infrared detectors.
Incredibly, this shock is created about 4 light-years ahead of Kappa Cassiopeiae, showing what a sizable impact this star has on its surroundings. (This is about the same distance that we are from Proxima Centauri, the nearest star beyond the sun.)
The Kappa Cassiopeiae bow shock shows up as a vividly red color. The faint green features in this image result from carbon molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, in dust clouds along the line of sight that are illuminated by starlight.
Delicate red filaments run through this infrared nebula, crossing the bow shock. Some astronomers have suggested these filaments may be tracing out features of the magnetic field that runs throughout our galaxy. Since magnetic fields are completely invisible themselves, we rely on chance encounters like this to reveal a little of their structure as they interact with the surrounding dust and gas.
Kappa Cassiopeiae is visible to the naked eye in the Cassiopeia constellation (but its bow shock only shows up in infrared light.)
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| Anders Zorn, White Lilies via Wikipedia |
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| Portrait of Mlle Brissac (1863). William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905) via Books and Art |
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| Milly Finch, James McNeill Whistler, c.1884 |
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| Vicente López y Portaña, Portrait of Francisco de Goya, 1826 via Wikipedia |
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| Ivan N. Kramskoi, Portrait of Empress Maria Feodorovna, 1880s |
According to Robert K. Massie, author of Nicholas and Alexandra:I am sharing this because I love the look on the Empress's face. I want to be friends with her.
Russia loved this small, gay woman who became their Empress, and Marie gloried in the life of the Russian court. She delighted in parties and balls…..Seated at dinner, she was an intelligent, witty conversationalist and, with her dark eyes flashing, her husky voice filled with warmth and humor, she dominated as much by charm as by rank.
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| Arnold Böcklin, Isle of the Dead: "Basel" version, 1880 |
All versions of Isle of the Dead depict a desolate and rocky islet seen across an expanse of dark water. A small rowboat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore. An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the bow, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white. Just behind the figure is a white, festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress trees—associated by long-standing tradition with cemeteries and mourning—which is closely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. Furthering the funerary theme are what appear to be sepulchral portals and windows penetrating the rock faces.
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| John Atkinson Grimshaw, A Lane |
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| St. James Church Or Goose Creek Church And Cemetery, 1872 Engraving |
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| Decorated House, Weatherby, Pennsylvania |
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| Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), Bust of Louis XIV of France |
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