L'alchimiste

'L'Alchimiste' Original painting by David Teniers (before 1690). This version engraved by Jacques-Louis Pérée, 1769.

Alchemy Laboratories

also:
Alchemy Index
History of Alchemy
Newton the Alchemist
The Alchemy Web Site
Gallery of alchemical images
The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry

Paracelsus

Presumed portrait of Paracelsus, attributed to the school of Quentin Matsys

Paracelsus gained a reputation for being arrogant, and soon garnered the anger of other physicians in Europe. He held the chair of medicine at the University of Basel for less than a year; while there his colleagues became angered by allegations that he had publicly burned traditional medical books....

He then wandered Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, in the pursuit of hidden knowledge....

stray bullets

Study: Large Earthquake Could Strike New York City The new study revealed a significant previously unknown active seismic zone running at least 25 miles from Stamford, Conn., to the Hudson Valley town of Peekskill, N.Y., where it passes less than a mile north of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Several small quakes are clustered along its length. It is "probably capable of producing at least a magnitude-6 quake," the researchers said in a statement.

Could Robot Aliens Exist? The existence of a race of sentient alien robots might be not just possible, but inevitable. In fact, we might be living in a "postbiological universe" right now, in which intelligent extraterrestrials somewhere have exchanged organic brains for artificial ones.

What conductors are doing when they wave their hands around -- and what we get out of it Waving the hands, as conductors frequently do, seemed largely for show. The conductor appeared to me to be more dancing along with the music than actually leading the musicians in any meaningful way. It wasn't until I married an amateur musician that I actually learned that the conductor could have an important influence on the way an orchestra sounds.

also:
Interview: Brian Eno (via)
20 best: ambient records ever made (via)
Thought Control In Economics (via)
The Enigmatic Notebook Drawings of Nicolas Flamel (via)

viddy:
Buckminster Fuller on "Death"
Olivier Messiaen talks about birds
Robert Rauschenberg - Erased De Kooning
Tom Jones with Janis Joplin (via)
Jedi Knights - May the Funk Be With You