Are You My Mummy?

What a fantastic exhibit I've just seen! In fact, it's the largest exhibition of mummies (both naturally and intentionally preserved) and related artifacts ever assembled. There were ancient mummies and important artifacts from Asia, Oceania, South America, Europe, and ancient Egypt dating as far back as 6,500 years, presented with the latest insights gained from CT scans and other tests. If you find yourself anywhere near one of the cities hosting the Mummies of the World exhibit, don't miss it. It did my historian's heart good.

Here's a preview:




In other news, here are a couple of indie science fiction film recs:

* Lunopolis (2009)
Two documentary filmmakers accidentally uncover the greatest moon secret the world has never known and the powerful organization determined to keep it that way. A very clever premise, well realized!

* Zenith (2010)
More ambitious and less successful than Lunopolis, this is a retro-futuristic steampunk thriller about two men in two time periods whose search for the same grand conspiracy leads them to question their own humanity. It's not as sophisticated as I suspect its creators thought it was, but this is still very much worth a watch for its convincing take on a dystopian future.


Happy birthday to tuesday_darling , and happy early birthday to juliakarr , janellemadigan , janellemadigan , mguibord , and gypsyjr . May you each enjoy a wonderful day and a fantastic year to come!


You darkness, that I come from,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes
a circle of light for everyone,
and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything;
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them!—
powers and people—
and it is possible a great energy
is moving near me.
I have faith in nights.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, "On Darkness"