There is oddly several stories about van Gogh in the news the last week. I would like to summarize my feelings about van Gogh here:
- He was not insane.
- He was not a madman.
- He probably had epilepsy.
- He drank absinthe, which exaggerated his negative traits, as does all alcohol for most alcoholics.
I think the rest is speculation.
But here are some great articles from people who probably know what they’re talking about:
The Illness of Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh death claim unconvincing
The life and death of Vincent van Gogh
In the mid 1500s the Spanish Crown was in trouble. The crown prince had an accident and his life was in danger. King Phillip II then made a strange deal with God: He promised God that if God caused a miracle and healed his son, Phillip would repay God with a miracle of his own.
After the prince miraculously recovered, King Phillip commissioned a clockmaker to build a mechanical monk, and… well, the guys from Radiolab can explain it better than I.
Listen to the story.
Watch the mechanical monk in action.
As it turns out, online Oreo-obsessives have spent as much time decoding the design as they have speculating on the identity of the designer. The circle topped with a two-bar cross in which the word “OREO” resides is a variant of the Nabisco logo, and is either “an early European symbol for quality” (according to Nabisco’s promotional materials) or a Cross of Lorraine, as carried by the Knights Templar into the Crusades. Continuing the Da Vinci Code-theme, the Oreo’s geometric pattern of a dot with four triangles radiating outward is either a schematic drawing of a four-leaf clover or — cue the cliffhanger music from Jaws — the cross pattée, also associated with the Knights Templar, as well as with the German military and today’s Freemasons.
Read about cookie embossing
