Antiques

A Cambodian composer has revealed the sound of an ancient harp which has gone unheard for more than eight centuries. The pin harp is shown being played by maidens in the stone reliefs on the walls of the Angkor Wat temple complex. It lends its name to pinpeat orchestras, which perform ceremonial music of the royal courts and temples in Cambodia. Archaeology lecturer Preap Chanmara says unlike the other orchestra instruments - cymbals, xylophones, flutes and drums - the pin harp has been lost. “We know that there are many music instruments on the sculptures - some even dating back to the time before Angkor Era: the 7th century to the 13th century,” he said. “There were many temples and sculptures back then, so there were also many different kinds of music instruments. “Some are still being used today, whereas some others were lost.” Audio: Cambodian researchers, musicians revive ancient harp (ABC News) Composer Him Sophy says the puzzle of Cambodia’s missing harp had always haunted him. “I [want] enthusiastically to know what and why it disappeared,” he said. “[On] the other side, as a composer, I love harp very much - all of my compositions I use harp, even for my symphony.” Using the carvings and other harps as a blueprint, Him Sophy joined a French researcher and musician Keo Sonan Kavei in recreating the small boat-like instrument using animal hide and silk string. Keo Sonan Kavei says making the harp left him with “two types of happiness”. “I was worried as to whether or not it could be played,” he said. “Secondly, I was worried as to whether or not somebody before me has made it before. The only person to play the harp so far has been Keo Sonan Kavei’s 13-year-old daughter, Sereyroth. “When she started to learn it, I could see that she was talented,” he said. “There are five generations of musicians in my family - when it was my turn, I had to rediscover something that was once lost and update it so that the world can see Cambodia’s ancient music instruments. “We’re just putting it back out in the world.” With arts, music and dance almost destroyed during the Khmer Rouge regime, the effort to revive Cambodia’s traditional music has been embraced by international arts bodies, culminating in the festival Season of Cambodia this month in New York. Him Sophy says while no one knows how exactly to play the pin harp or what it should sound like, its value lies in what it represents - and the future compositions it will inspire. “Now we not only revive music during the Khmer Rouge, we revive since the Angkor period,” he said. “For 300 years that [empire] controlled the whole of South-East Asia and now we are building our culture also, that is the pride of Cambodia and the pride of the world. “That is the value of what we are creating.”

Up for bid on eBay is the very first SongShare--serial number 0001--which wil be hand signed by Crystal Bowersox. The seller says, "In February of this year, Crystal Bowersox made history by becoming the 3rd artist to ever list SongShares on the New York Rock Exchange. Now, one fan has the opportunity to own a very special piece of that history. Also included is the original hand drawn artwork and lyrics for 'Dead Weight' by Crystal Bowersox...this is the ORIGINAL artwork and lyrics hand drawn by Crystal Bowersox herself!" The seller continues, "As with every other Crystal Bowersox 'Dead Weight' SongShare, share number C006-P1-0001 also includes an unreleased acoustic track of the song 'Dead Weight' as well as a one time royalty check for $1.

A lovely guest photograph by Anne Riepma, who is not only a follower of Dull Tool Dim Bulb...she is a friend."Say what you will about Instagram, but it has gotten me looking at things in a new way and I'm having lots of fun with it. I guess I'm making my own little digital footprint! I'm into decay, abandonment and rust."Sent from my iPhone Untitled (Reed's Motel) courtesy Anne Riepma

An antique Buddha idol and a well with terracotta steps have been found by villagers while digging a pond at Badaanko village in Kendrapa district, an official said today. “The 30-cm Buddha idol and the 30-feet deep well believed to be of medieval period were located while villagers were working under MGNREGA programme in the area early this week,” Kendrapara Sub-Collector Pratap Mishra said. “The Buddha idol is considerably old and its discovery has re-established that Buddhism flourished in large areas of Kendrapara under Bhaumakar dynasty,” historian Harischandra Prusti said. The place from where the idol was found is not far away from the famous Lalitgiri-Ratnagiri-Udaygiri Buddhist heritage sites protected by Archaeological Survey Of India (ASI).

I was as game as anyone. A secret thread runs through the novelist’s work; the critic fails to uncover it; another writer succeeds. Maybe I can succeed, too. Maybe the clues to the meaning of the fictional novelist’s imaginary texts are ingeniously concealed within the actual text of “The Figure in the Carpet.”For example, maybe the novelist’s secret is that he is homosexual. Anyone ever tried that one? Or am I the first to suggest it?A couple of other possibilities: the novelist was lying (or drunk) when he suggested that his books revealed a plain-sight “figure in the carpet” Is only anyone would see it. Perhaps the novelist is kissing up to the critic (and, later, the editor of a literary magazine). Or perhaps he is teasing them, playing a prank.Another possible hidden story: the editor, when he claims to have found the solution to the novelistic puzzle, is actually lying in order to trick a woman into marrying him. He succeeds – she marries him in order to learn the secret. This may sound absurd, but I am having trouble with some recurring fuss over exactly when the characters become engaged to marry, e.g. “I subsequently grew sure that at the time he went to India, at the time of his great news from Bombay, there was no engagement whatever” (598). This must mean something; it must be part of an interpretation of the story, this attention to what looks like a peripheral question.The clue that convinced me that I was getting “The Figure in the Carpet” more or less right was actually an absence, a dog that did not bark, so to speak. It would be possible to make a long list of characteristics of the “figure,” most of them straight from the novelist. But nowhere does the critic who narrates the story give a hint of what might be in the novelist’s texts. Neither description nor scene nor a single line, not even a title. No, there is one title, The Right of Way, but the title is of the novelist’s last book, released after the critic has given up on seeing the figure, after the editor claims to have seen it.A joke, it is all just a joke, even before we get to the absurd over-reactions of the characters who do see the figure. I mean, I myself have seen such figures in the carpets of other writers. It is not such a big deal.James has created a radically uninterpretable story. Thus the necessity of the vagueness and even absence of what should be essential detail; thus the details that are included pointing towards alternative, unresolvable, stories. Vladimir Nabokov, when writing a parable of the difficulties of literary interpretation, has to write an entire 999 line poem to make his case. In the James story, character’s insists that they are reading with a Kinbotean intensity, but it is all concealed from the actual reader – of course it never exists.At three o’clock in the morning, not sleeping, remembering moreover how indispensable he [the novelist] was to Lady Jane, I stole down to the library with a candle. There wasn’t, so far as I could discover, a line of his writing in the house. (583)Now there, that turns out to be a clue.

Nepal’s archaeologists have discovered artifacts dating from the Buddha era from an excavation site at Devdaha of Rupandehi district, which is located at a distance of 20km from Buddha’s birthplace Lumbini in western Nepal. A team of Nepal’s Department of Archeology (DoA) started excavation at the Devdaha area some two years ago after archeological evidences suggested that it was the maternal home of the Buddha. The excavation at Bhawanipur began three weeks back. Walls, bricks, silver and wooden bracelets, clay utensils, butter lamps and stones are among the things discovered. Prakash Darnal, officer at the archeological department, said that findings of relics such as a bust of the Buddha, a well and the ruins of the Siddhartha palace will help prove the area’s relation with the Buddha. “Additional study and excavation are necessary to find which part of the area is the maternal home of Gautam Buddha,” he said. Out of the 14 Buddha-related areas, he said, some parts only of Kanyamai, Bhawanipur and Panditpur were unearthed so far. “We have found remains dating back to 10th, 11th and 12th centuries,” he said. The Buddha was born in 623 BC in the sacred area of Lumbini, testified by the inscription on the Asoka Pillar erected by the Mauryan Emperor Asoka in 249 BC. Though Lumbini proper is protected as the UNESCO World Heritage Site and as one of the holiest places of one of the world’s great religions, areas around the Buddha’s birthplace remain unexplored and unprotected despite high archeological and religious importance. The items discovered form Devhaha are said to have been sent to the department for study. They will later be returned through the Lumbini Development Trust (LDT), an official said. Himal Upreti, archeology officer at the LDT, said consultations on whether the discovered antiques will be displayed in the Lumbini International Museum or kept at Devdaha will be held with the local people. Meanwhile, locals complained that the excavation site is being encroached upon and the discovered items are being stolen due to the failure of the LDT to protect the site. The LDT has only fenced the site with barbed wires. Kathmandu Post/Asia News Network

Rembrandt Peale’s iconic portrait of George Washington realized a new world record for a porthole portrait by the artist when it sold for $662,500- a record for a porthole portrait by the artist-to lead Heritage Auctions’ recent American art events in Dallas. Peale’s portrait of Washington was presented with his equally iconic portrait of Martha [...]

When discussing Bonhams’ most recent sale, auctioneer Suzannah Yip commented, “Netsuke, like diamonds, prove that some of the most desirable things come in small packages.” Well, that certainly seems to be the case here! The sale (on Monday the 13th) featured a collection of 58 tiny netsuke figurines that collectively made a massive £611,213! The collection in question had previously belonged to Adrienne Barbanson (1913–75), author of the ground breaking book on netsuke: ‘Fables in Ivory: Japanese Netsuke and Their Legends’. Long before Edmund de W ... Read this full article on the Miller's Blog.

Now it is time for the reverse, the Wuthering Expectations signature move, when I argue that the stylistic irritations I have been whining about are in fact necessary for the writer’s ingenious artistic purpose. Which is pretty obvious in the case of Henry James, although it has taken me a while to see it.And I am not entirely wrong. In a weaker James story, the indirection and vagueness can cause the text to crumble in my hands as I read it. Some Chekhovian or Flaubertish eggs would help stiffen the batter. My baking metaphor may have some problems. Never mind that.“The Figure in the Carpet” (1896) would be ruined by more detail or closure. It is about vagueness, the meaning and purpose of a lack of definition in fiction.A novelist tells a literary critic, the story’s narrator, that the critic has not understood his novels, as have all critics, as has everyone, “they missed my little point with a perfection exactly as admirable when they patted me on the back as when they kicked me in the shins” (578). The critic, conceited and intrigued, badgers the novelist into revealing a series of clues about his ”exquisite scheme”: it is “the loveliest thing in the world,” as “palpable as the marble of this chimney,” but not at all an “esoteric message”:“My whole lucid effort gives him [the reader] the clue – every page and line and letter. The thing’s as concrete there as a bird in a cage, a bait on a hook, a piece of cheese in a mouse-trap. It’s stuck into every volume as your foot is stuck into your shoe. It governs every line, it chooses every word, it dots every i, it places every comma.” (581)The critics takes this as a challenge but after ransacking the novels gives it up as a waste of time: “The buried treasure was a bad joke, the general intention a monstrous pose” (583). But his friend and editor, a magazine writer takes up the challenge and in a moment of mystical inspiration while on a trip to India solves the mystery: “The figure in the carpet came out.” On his return to England, he visits the novelist who confirms his discovery, and also reveals the secret to his new wife, herself a novelist.The poor sap of a critic never learns what it is, though. In a strange series of events, the magazine writer is killed and the novelist also dies. The wife refuses to divulge the answer (“It’s my life!”), unless she covertly does so in her novel Overmastered. Then she dies, but not before marrying a second critic, now the last chance for our narrator. But it turns out that this poor sap was never told a word about the secret, and ends the story in a state of agitation and dismay.So, just to be clear about how perverse this allegory of reading and interpretation is, there are five characters, all writers. The three who are not literary critics are able to see the marvelous figure in the carpet; the two who are critics are mystified. The story appears to be an irresistible trap for critics. It begs the reader to solve its puzzle. Peculiar details of plot and speech are emphasized in such a way that they must be clues. At the same time, the nature and function of the trap could not be more evident. And the two baffled critics are alive at the end of the story, while the happily enlightened are not.Next I will work through how what I think of as James’s weaknesses are in fact necessary to create the Borgesian effect of “The Figure in the Carpet.”

Up for bid on eBay is this band signed photographsigned photograph of the members of Blondie, including the lead singer Debbie Harry. Blondie, of course, is an American rock band founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American new wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s. [Wikipiedia] To own this autographed photo of Blondie, click the link and place your winning bid.