“This thesis is an experimental work combining anthropology and photography in the form of a written text and photographic essay. I first discuss the practices of anthropology and photography and their usage as they developed from the 1800s to the present to place my work in context. The body of the thesis examines the rise in interest in the practice of tattooing in the United States and its implications for women. Women’s bodies serve as a site of social control through gendered appearance and idealized beauty standards. Tattooing is visual communication, written on the body, which is linked historically to deviance and remains stigmatized in the West. Tattoos on women, especially the “new” tattooing of the past ten years or so, are a form of resistance to gendered appearance standards and social control.”

Read the thesis by Melissa M. Forbis, Temple University, May 1994

Some people write about the odds of getting hit by a meteorite. But what are the odds of getting killed by one?
Because you are small and the Earth is big, getting knocked on the noggin by a meteorite is a low odds event. But a big meteorite, say one 100 yards across, doesn’t have to directly fall on top of you to shuffle you off this mortal coil. It could land kilometers away and the blast wave (or the heat) could do you in. And a bigger one can land hundreds of kilometers away and still snuff you out, especially if it hits in the ocean and causes a big tsunami to march over the beaches and coastlines.

However, big asteroids coming in and whacking us are much rarer than small ones; if you go out on a clear night you might see a dozen meteors caused by rocks smaller than a grain of sand, but you could wait 100 million years for a dinosaur-buster. You have to account for that as well. This is a calculation worth doing, because a) a lot of people fret about it, and b) it could in fact mean the end of all life on Earth. That might be worth knowing.

Astronomer Alan Harris has made that calculation. Allowing for the number of Earth-crossing asteroids — the kind that can hit us because their orbits around the Sun intersect ours — as well as how much damage they can do (which depends on their size), he calculated that any person’s lifetime odds of being killed by an asteroid impact are about 1 in 700,000.

GOOD TO KNOW:

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Skies-These-Ways-World/dp/0670019976/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220913560&sr=8-8/badastronomy

Jewelry designer and aspiring tattoo artist Jade Jagger practices “the best form of bespoke art” with close friend and tattoo artist Neil Ahern owner of Inkadelic Tattooing.

Some views of the exhibition and some action!

(with, among others, Liam Sparkes getting hand tattooed by Adam sage and Jondix tattooing feet)

Nice little review on the SF-based blog defchoiceparis run by Benjamin Phillips.
By the way a very nice blog for fashion, photography and fashion-related art!

Thanx Ben.

Following almost seamlessly from the last post, which is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long time, here are a few square inches of the Jolie Rouge studio at 364 Caledonian Road, London N1. Home to Lord Montana-Blue and his fellow Gentlemen o’ Fortune. myspace.com/montanaxblue & jolierougetattoo.com

THAT is a great honour!
:)