The Acropolis gets a lift

For when the world travels again, there is good news for accessible travel in Greece: the Acropolis has a new lift! 

A big step up from the rattly construction cage that my sister and I fanangled our way into back in 2009 (her walking stick came in handy for negotiations!).

This is a real glass-walled elevator. Atop the crop there are accessible pathways to allow wheelchair users to move around. I say kudos to the Greek government for making this happen, especially during COVID times. Until travellers return, I am glad that Athenians are able to enjoy more of their precious sacred site, pleasantly sans-tourists. 

Read more in Ekathimerini. 

Zoolook evocations

There are so many people in my life that I always thought would be close friends forever, that I have lost contact with. I used to think that this meant that I was lousy at maintaining relationships, but at the moment I am seeing my life full of these moments of great connection, each so powerful in their own way, all touched me in some way. As I meditate as I am listening to Zoolook, they are coming to mind, each for awhile, before my attention turns to the next who my thoughts evoke. At this moment, I am reflecting on how these people make me understand the me I was at that time. I see them in my mind's eye as still essentially being the same people now, but older... but that's ridiculous; each could be something quite different today. Probably are. I am completely different, so why not them? It's interesting to consider that they probably think of me the same way too.

Keith Haring meets Doc Marten

 If you love Keith Haring’s art, and like to sport Doc Martens, this is for you.

The famed footwear brand has partnered with Keith Haring’s estate to create a line of Keith Haring Doc Martens. 

Read more on Art News.

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Operation Night Watch

I was listening to a podcast not long ago and learned many interesting things about Rembrandt's Night Watch. So much has come to light about his technique, and the many instances he changed his mind and painted over spots. All this is thanks to modern day technology.

That's only half the story.

When I started to draft this post, I turned to Wikipedia.

What really caught my attention was the image size choices, as I generally select the largest size for use in my blog. Here's what I saw: 287 × 240 pixels | 573 × 480 pixels | 917 × 768 pixels | 1,222 × 1,024 pixels | 57,813 × 48,438 pixels. "Wow," I thought, then I wondered why.

Here's the story:

On May 13, 2020, the Rijksmuseum published a 44.8 gigapixel image of The Night Watch, made from 528 different still photographs (24 rows of 22 pictures stitched together digitally with the aid of neural networks). Created primarily for conservator scientists, by making it public the Rijksmuseum has opened the virtual door for anyone to see the master's brushstrokes.

Never before has such a large painting been photographed at such high resolution, and it is still a work in progress. In total the robot will take more than 8400 photos at an extremely high resolution of 5 microme-tres, or five thousandths of a millimetre.

Operation Night Watch - Rijksmuseum