Poem

In a blind sprint, I run
Gaining slowly, haltingly
My steps fluctuating
I fall behind, then rush ahead
Outrunning the gazelle but lagging
Behind the sloth.

Halfway completed, I
Roll the boulder up the mountain’s face.
Muscles straining, I bypass a pebble.
It doesn’t progress.
Yet it doesn’t fail.
It chides me for my weakness,
My incompetence.

Galloping through a desert,
The offensive heat feels cold,
The water-flask venomously empty.
My skin is lathered with sweat
Yet my pony is dry.

The glint of steel vibrates off
Of my general’s badge.
Thousands of soldiers march to meet the enemy,
Yet they carry no rifles.
An old crone urges me to advance,
But my army marches motionless,
Staggers under her oppressive weight,
Crushed by someone else’s dreams.

Theme of Melville's "Bartleby"

This is in response to Herman Melville's short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener", a tale of a man with a shadowy past that, when interrogated, only responds "I would prefer not to."
I think that Bartleby, in his passive and apathetic lifestyle, represents mainstream humanity and the working force of men. He faces all comings without strong emotions and without expressing a desire to act in order to change unpleasant circumstances. I think that Melville views the mass of society as unambitious wage slaves, the sheep before the shepherd. The theme of walls in Melville’s story represents both the social and mental blocks that imprison these working class people in their caste in society. Bartleby is unresponsive and inactive because he is a prisoner in this caste, by both his and the public’s vices. The way that Bartleby repeatedly and voluntarily turns to face the walls (both in his office and his cell) shows that he takes comfort and solace in these restrictions, though they are not beneficial to him. It is also entirely plausible that he might lack the confidence or courage to challenge his predicament.
The lawyer and Bartleby both share one thing in common – they were both dismissed from previous jobs due to changes in politics. This connection between the successful lawyer and Bartleby shows the lawyer that he himself is also in the same position as his employee – bound in his state as a small-time, mediocre lawyer. Though he could be as great as Mr. Astor, he stays comfortably in his lesser role. Melville’s tale is a cynical interpretation of modern industrialized society.
(p.s. if you even think of copying from this, you better cite me properly. If you plagiarize, may Minos sentence you to an eternity in the tenth pouch of the eigth circle of Dante's underworld (the rightful end for Falsifiers) to suffer from horrible plagues and diseases.)

The Fashionably Correct Mona Lisa

Did you know that when Leonardo DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa, he deliberately left out her eyebrows?

It was the fashion in Renaissance Italy for women to shave off their eyebrows. Women would also heavily paint their skin white, usually with bread flour. Sometimes blue veins were drawn on the neck and chest to make the skin seem fairer and transparent. In the late 16th century women would take belladonna, or deadly nightshade, which would dilate the pupils to make them seem more luminous.
For more information, click here

What came first, the fork or spoon?

That is a difficult question, and dependent on region. We'll talk about Europe.
Spoons are an ancient instrument used even in prehistoric times entirely as a dining implement.
Elaborately decorated and bejeweled forks were presented to dukes, etc. in Europe even earlier than then as tokens of gratitude and as items of wealth and prestige.
Forks as a table instrument were introduced in Europe by a Byzantine princess in the eleventh century.Early forks were also not used in the same fashion as spoons for eating but for choosing pieces of food and for shaking off excess sauce. Then one would pick the food off of the fork with their fingers and eat it. Forks were also straight, usually with two tines, and did not resemble spoons in the slightest. The curved, "scooping" fork we use today evolved in France in seventeenth century. So, evidently, forks did not evolve from spoons but from a separate entity, perhaps weaponry, and mutated into an eating utensil entirely its own.

So I guess I now have an Amex blog!
Better start writing my reconstruction bit so I can have something to post, eh?