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Dr Mage Veteran user Southern California 332 Posts |
You can get access his website via Google and choose to translate to English. It does a fairly sloppy job of it, but it can hold us over until Sweetcarl finishes.
What is the color of magic?
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David de Leon Elite user Sweden 418 Posts |
James, thanks for bringing that to my attention! Whether or not it is in fact a spell, for once, I much prefer the non-magical interpretation. For me, the image of someone handing someone else a chicken bone with ”kiss me” written on it is romantic, sexy, humorous and, therefore, very human.
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Bill Fienning Special user 635 Posts |
Much of Christian Chelman's French is very difficult for a computer to translate into English. We have tried it, just for laughs.
The automatic translators work best on very simple sentence structure, most common meanings of words, and no obscure terms. Chelman uses none of these. Bill Fienning
Bill Fienning
"It's More than Tricks" |
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Reg Rozee Special user Vancouver, Canada 592 Posts |
Hmmm, religious relics... "I have here for sale the very skull of John the Baptist! And for those on a budget, the skull of John the Baptist as a child..."
I like to add things that I have brought home from interesting or bizarre places, like the Vlad dirt kingsnqueens/Many Fingers mentioned. I have a Persian lion that I brought home from the ruins of Babylon, an Aladin-type lamp I got in Kuwait, a Mayan scroll on bark paper I got at the ruins of Coba, a piece of a gemstone-quality meteorite that fell in the Baltics (I believe it is the only one ever found, and it kind of looks like kryptonite), some pieces of marble from ancient Greek ruins, a brass amulet inscribed with the names of the Norse gods, soapstone I carved myself from the Canadian high arctic, and so on. I think having things I actually brought back myself adds an air of authenticity to the stories I tell that I couldn't achieve otherwise. -bigwolf {*}
Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. -Phillip K. Dick
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -Chico Marx |
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sweetcarl Regular user Brussels, Belgium 120 Posts |
Quote:
On 2003-01-23 18:09, Caleb Strange wrote: It's a helluva job, but someone's got to do it! Since I'm doing it in my spare time, I envisage it taking about a year to complete the job. However, if anyone has any questions about any particular page, just send me a message and I'll help you out! I haven't tried the automatic translator with this site, but I know from experience that computer translation - as Bill rightly points out - is only good on simple sentences using common words and their the most common meanings. While Chelman's prose is anything but simple or common, it is actually well structured and clearly thought through - and so is a pleasure to translate. Anyway, I'll make sure to let you all know as the project nears completion. |
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Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
The runic chicken bone reminds me of a story. In the 1930's, in southern Ireland, a small boy found a small bone, jutting out of the ground. One side had an inscription, which he showed to his schoolmaster, who sent it to the university. Scholars of many languages became excited. One found that the inscription was in Hebrew, warning of invaders to come. Another was equally certain it was in Norse, and told of a battle against wildmen after a ship wreck.
The mystery was solved when an undergraduate looked at the stone, with the sun shining on it at angle. Then the inscription was clear. In English it said, 'June 1788. Am very drunk again this day.' Like David, I find these 'trivial' domestic relics very moving. They remind me that we humans share largely the same concerns, regardless of place or time. And that like these neglected people, we too will lie beneath the ground and be utterly forgotten. These little things were held by hands not a little like our own. Maybe we should make room for them. Regards, Caleb Strange.
-- QCiC --
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Reg Rozee Special user Vancouver, Canada 592 Posts |
Something I keep hearing bits about but admit I know very little - what about a replica of one of those mysterious crystal skulls? Anyone know any background on these things?
-bigwolf {*}
Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. -Phillip K. Dick
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -Chico Marx |
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Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
Bigwolf, there are two of these wonderful skulls, but their origins are shady to say the least. The first is kept in the British Museum, and has the vague label 'possibly of Aztec origin'. The Museum bought it from Tiffany's for £120 in 1898. Where it was before that is anyone's guess. Some believe it to have been part of the booty amassed in Mexico by a mysterious soldier of fortune in the 19th century.
The other skull was supposedly discovered by Anna Mitchell-Hodges in 1927, when she was helping her adoptive British adventurer father (F.A. 'Mike' Mitchell-Hodges) with an archaeological dig in the great Mayan city of Lubaatum. He was looking for Atlantis at the time. Anna reportedly found the skull beneath an ancient altar, with its jaw missing. She found the jaw three months later in the same location. According to Anna, her father gave the skull to the local Mayans, who revered it as a god used for healing or the willing of death. When the expedition left the area, the Mayans gave the skull back to the Englishman, as a gift. Unfortunately, few in archaeology believe this romantic tale, and they suggest that Mitchell-Hodges planted the skull for his daughter to find. As it happens, she did find it on her seventeenth birthday. So we're left with another beautiful skull, whose origins are murky. Research suggest both skulls are possibly Aztec. The Aztecs were obsessed with death. Love poems would start: 'Where would we not go to find death? For that desire, our heart bleeds.' (If you want to find out about another grisly Aztec rite, please look up my 'Binding of the Years' routine, at Doug's 'Bizarremagick.com). It is also believed that the skull in the British Museum is a copy of the much more elaborate Mitchell-Hodges one. That's all very vague, bigwolf, I know, but I CAN tell you that cleaners in the British Museum still insist that the skull is covered with a black velvet cloth, before they work near it at night, so unnerving is its unrelenting gaze. And I can leave you with the unsubstantiated, but rather stimulating, words of F.A. Mitchell-Hodges himself: 'The Skull of Doom is made of pure rock crystal and according to scientists must have taken 150 years, generation after generation working all the days of their lives, patiently rubbing down with sand an immense block of rock crystal until the perfect skull emerged...It is at least 3,600 years old and according to legend was used by the high priest of the Maya when performing esoteric rites. It is said that when he willed death with the help of the skull, death inevitably followed. It has been described as the embodiment of all evil.' (from 'Danger My Ally', 1954). Now who are we bizarrists going to side with? The scientist and the 'I don't know', or the rugged explorer finding a beautiful skull of doom in a forgotten Mayan temple? Move over Indiana, I'm coming through! Regards, Caleb Strange.
-- QCiC --
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Reg Rozee Special user Vancouver, Canada 592 Posts |
Now THAT is a relic with a great backstory! Thanks Caleb, informative as always. I was actually visiting Mayan ruins only a few weeks ago so this has special significance for me.
One of the bits I heard about these skulls (years ago now, it seems) was that there were more, possibly 13 in total (of course), and that they had been recovered from ancient ruin sites all around the planet. This was supposed to suggest that there was some kind of global connection between ancient cultures. I'm not sure where I am remembering this from, maybe "Chariot of the Gods" or possibly some piece of fiction based on the skull backstory. As for routines, the story about the skull in the museum covered with the black velvet cloth and its "evil gaze" as well as its creation methodology just set the wheels a spinnin' ! Has anyone ever seen a replica of one of these available? -bigwolf {*}
Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. -Phillip K. Dick
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -Chico Marx |
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ptbeast Special user Oregon 831 Posts |
I don't know specifically about replicas of those skulls, but if you do a search on ebay, you will find dozens of crystal skulls. There should be something that will be suitable for such a story.
Dave |
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Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
Bigwolf, if there are a few of these skulls, then an obvious, but still neat, story line would be having these skulls assembled in some sort of configuration, to make an even more powerful object. Maybe you are a renegade hero type, protecting the world by guarding your skull from the clutches of a maniacal collector. And maybe he turns up in your show, and you have to defeat him once and for all. Corny, I know, but fights can be powerful, climactic theatre. Shakespeare couldn't get enough of them.
Regards, Caleb Strange.
-- QCiC --
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Reg Rozee Special user Vancouver, Canada 592 Posts |
Hmm, I always wanted to find a way to use my kung fu in my magic act! I need to be careful though, I could end up with an episode of "Relic Hunter"! Perhaps a "wizard duel" using the various powers of collected relics, but that might be a little too heavy on the special effects requirements for me. And you wouldn't want as many bodies on stage as the final act of Hamlet, you might trip over someone...
-bigwolf {*}
Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. -Phillip K. Dick
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -Chico Marx |
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The Curator V.I.P. Beware Vampire, I have 3909 Posts |
Next entry in my own Cabinet of Curiosities: Baron Samedi's Hat and Papa Legba's key (to open a passage between the worlds of the living, the dead and the loas).
Baron Samedi's Hat contains a "Pot Tet", a powerful astral zombi. |
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kaytracy Inner circle Central California 1793 Posts |
Well then! as to the skulls, any of the rock and gem shows has them available, in varying sizes, and of several stone types. In addition one can find the carved stone phallus as well, those were popular in Roman/Greek times if I recall....
As to my cabinet, why a hand hammered coffin nail resides therein, alongside my bit of the Tower of London, and a feather from a Raven. I do in fact have an old skull with some odd looking teeth (try inverting the teeth from the plastic model, they get all....pointy!, and if you take the bits from the eye sockets and invert those onto the skull top, one gets demoney looking horn appendages!) I have an old Roman silver coin; I am sure it is one of those thirty pieces given to Judas! Why I should not forget the strip of mummy cloth from the lovely Nefertiri!
Kay and Tory
www.Bizarremagick.com |
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Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
Hmmm. A routine based round Priapus and his salient feature. Let me know what you come up with! Love that thirty pieces of silver idea, too.
Regards, Caleb Strange. In case anybody missed it, in the 'Howie Didits' thread, Ustaad kindly posted this great link: http://www.science.demon.co.uk/handbook/30.htm If you don't want this miraculous blood for your reliquary, then there must be a thousand and one other uses. Vampires flap to mind. The vial of solid blood, the creeepy story, and as the blood liquifies, the vampire returns to life. No one's risen to the Priapus challenge, I observe. Regards, Caleb Strange.
-- QCiC --
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