Reznik

Reznik means "butcher" in Czech language, which could hint at his identity as a killer. The name Trevor Reznik is derived from Trent Reznor, the founder and primary creative force behind the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, and the original script had NIN lyrics on the first page.[3] Other NIN tributes include the reversed N on the movie poster and early press articles describing Reznik as experiencing a "downward spiral".
However, the strongest influence is the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In the DVD commentary, Scott Kosar states that he was influenced by Dostoyevsky's The Double: A Petersburg Poem. The character Reznik is shown reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot early in the film. When Reznik is riding the "Route 666" attraction, one of the faux movie marquees reads Crime and Punishment. Reznik's physical appearance draws a distinct parallel to Hans Holbein's Christ in his Tomb; a painting that heavily influenced, and is often mentioned, in the novel. Nicholas, the epileptic boy, may also have been a reference to the novel's protagonist, Prince Myshkin, or even a reference to Dostoyevsky himself, both of whom suffered from epilepsy.
Another character, named Ivan, is a possible reference to the character Ivan Karamazov, who is wracked with guilt, goes insane and has nightmares of the devil in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
Reznik's relationship with the prostitute Stevie is reminiscent of the underground man's relationship with Liza in Notes from Underground. His behavior — paranoia, extreme suppressed guilt and finally turning himself in to the police — is also reminiscent of Rodion Raskolnikov, from Crime and Punishment.

gamma rays

The race was between gamma rays of differing energies and wavelengths spit in a burst from an exploding star when the universe was half its present age. After a journey of 7.3 billion light-years, they all arrived within nine-tenths of a second of one another in a detector on NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, at 8:22 p.m., Eastern time, on May 9.
Astronomers said the gamma-ray race was one of the most stringent tests yet of a bedrock principle of modern physics: Einstein’s proclamation in his 1905 theory of relativity that the speed of light is constant and independent of its color, or energy; its direction; or how you yourself are moving.
“I take it as a confirmation that Einstein is still right,” Peter F. Michelson of Stanford, principal investigator for Fermi’s Large Area Telescope and one of 206 authors of a paper published online Wednesday in the journal Nature, said in an interview.

BigCanoe

You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. - Oscar Wilde
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. - H. L. Mencken

SUPERpowers?

The Islamists who fought also believed that they were responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union. Osama bin Laden, for example, was asserting the credit for "the collapse of the Soviet Union ... goes to God and the mujahideen in Afghanistan ... the US had no mentionable role," but "collapse made the US more haughty and arrogant."[86] As discussed in 'The power of Nightmares' many neoconservatives in the US also believed that through the US aid to the mujahideen the US had caused the collapse of the USSR.

mutant

American military pathologist commanding a reluctant Korean assistant to violate protocol by dumping over 100 bottles of formaldehyde down the drain, which leads to the Han River. A few years later, two men are standing and fishing in Han River when one discovers a mutant amphibian (which is never shown). He releases the palm-sized creature when it bites him. Four more years later, a man commits suicide by jumping off a bridge into Han River, but not before noticing that there's "something dark, underwater."

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. - Buddha

HEMP/related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp

Yonge Street

[pik, evening on Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

Marmalade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mp115afFIA

Yahweh knows human thoughts, and their nonsense. -- (Ps.94:11)

Mystic's

The Mystic's say do not build your house in this world, for this place
is only a bridge to the next and the entrance to this bridge is large,
but the path along it, is as narrow as a razor's edge.

Fall

LOVE is essentially self-communicative: those who do not have it catch it from those who have it.... No amount of rites, rituals, ceremonies, worship, meditation, penance and remembrance can produce love in themselves. None of these is necessarily a sign of love. On the contrary, those who sigh loudly and weep and wail have yet to experience love. Love sets on fire the one who finds it. At the same time it seals his lips so that no smoke comes out ~Meher Baba (1894 - 1969) ~

Toronto

[this pix was taken in the 70ties, Toronto, Ontario, now long gone and cleared, an empty field now]

You have a right to your opinions. I just don't want to hear them.-Anonymous

An Ancient Civilization
The Mayans were an ancient and mysterious civilization that dominated a large part of Central America including the present day countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras for more than three thousand years before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Mayan-speaking native Indian populations still exist in many of these countries.
Fascinated by the stars and the cosmos
During their golden age (250 AD - 900 AD), the Mayans constructed large cities, temples and monuments as impressive as anything seen in ancient Greece or Rome. They were fascinated by the stars and the cosmos which they studied to a high level and in the process created a very complex calendar and mathematical system. Even today, much of this sacred knowledge of the Maya remains a total mystery.

Sayin' SumThang

"Sayin ain't the same as doin' sumThang?"

somewhere

If you're going to lead people,

you have to have somewhere to go.

Turner

sympathy

"If you meet me, have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste; use all your well-learned politesse, or I'll lay your soul to waste."

SerPENT

You want to know why... I did what I did? Because I wanted to... and because... I could.

STOP

Anti-Matter

Juxtapositions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadron

red-A

[good book on type, hit the red-A to take you there!]

Music

Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around._Bill Watterson

Tbird

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Thunderbird

ColOUR

Best entries in The Canonical List of Weird Band Names:
Alcoholocaust
The Ass Baboons of Venus
The Couch Slugs
The Dancing French Liberals of 1848
Dick Duck and the Dorks
Ed’s Redeeming Qualities
Ethyl Meatplow
Hell Camino
Individual Fruit Pie
Lavay Smith and The Red Hot Skillet Lickers
Lawnsmell
Mussolini Headkick
Rash of Stabbings
Stukas Over Bedrock
Technosquid Eats Parliament
A few are designed to look good on a marquee,
like FREE BEER & CHICKEN
and HORNETS ATTACK VICTOR MATURE.

Hadron

On faith, Constantine named this cross the Labarum, and ordered it put on all shields and standards. The cross was composed of the Greek letters 'Chi' (which looks like an English 'X' (and sounds like a 'Ki') and Rho (which looks like an English capital 'P' and sounds like row). These two Greek letters, "ki" "row" stand for "Christ".

In 312 AD, the Emperor Constantine surveyed the barbarian horde across from him at the Milvian Bridge on the outskirts of Rome. Knowing he needed a miracle to defeat this much larger force, he looked up to God and saw an incredible cross of light in the sky.
That night, as he lay in his bed looking for guidance, Christ appeared to him and told him to take a replica of the sign he had seen with him into battle the following morning.

Commercial Art-market

Hughes’s film argues that art is the biggest unregulated market in the world apart from drugs. Contemporary art sales, such as Hirst’s, rake in £10billion a year. Modern art is dottily expensive to buy not, says Hughes, because it’s so good, but because investors believe it will yield quick profits.
“The commercial art market places too much emphasis upon novelty and trendiness,” he says, “because buyers expect that new work will get more valuable in the short-term.”
Of course, a work of art’s net worth – unlike a company’s – can’t be subjected to objective scrutiny. So those artists, such as Hirst, who attract controversy or have a flair for self-promotion are able to inflate the price of their work with some cleverly orchestrated PR. Moreover, collectors who have already invested in these artists would be fools not to play along, as Hughes explains.
“The market is manipulated by collectors who decide to bid up the work of an artist [they’ve already invested in],” he says. “So when artist X comes up on the auction block, the collectors all bid it up, so that they can then multiply the value of their existing holdings in artist X by the value of the inflated sale.”
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. - Aldous Huxley

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”~~~Robert Hughes quotes (Australian art Critic and Author, b.1938)

27 And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.
28 And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.

Bone

[pik is fron the dino-wing, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]
What’s the difference between a psychologist and a magician?
A psychologist pulls habits out of rats.

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.” — Aldous Huxley