Want to see Pythagoras smile? Well, you’ve come to the right place:
Comments
Open thread 6/24/2025 — 13 Comments
Pythagoras;
in addition to his famous theorem he also stated that 4 out of 3 people find math difficult.
Yep, he too was capable of telling a joke.
Wow, they had really nice teeth back then.
They must have had great dental plans.
they had stand up comedy in Greece,
one would assume King Tut was darker, because upper Egypt near Nubia,
Cannot assume Tut looked like that – the modern concept of portraiture begins with the Romans. Statues of Tut are obviously idealized types. Same for Babylonian sculpture. Even Greek statues of Alexander are suspect – a bit too idealized.
Only Roman sculpture shows warts-and-all representations that we would consider “portraiture”. For example, Augustus is shown with a small chin and large ears. Nero is coarse featured.
@BenDavid:Augustus is shown with a small chin and large ears. Nero is coarse featured.
Claudius always looks cranky and tired in his statuary.
One of the very few “pictures” of Queen Victoria where she does not look totally pissed off.
President Trump gave me a chuckle when he ripped the Democrat Media this morning, calling CNN “scum” to their faces, and ripping the head of NBC (I think) by name. Bravo!
Cleopatra doesn’t look very Greek at all.
@Lee Also:Cleopatra doesn’t look very Greek at all.
Population genetics of Greeks have changed since Cleopatra’s day; but I don’t think I could say I know what Greeks are “supposed” to look like. At any rate, they didn’t try to make her look black… always amazed by how many people think “Africa” = “black”.
But it is rarely easy to say who an ancient statue is actually intended to represent, or how faithfully they attempted to represent that person. Sometimes they just used signfiers like St Mark’s book or St Peter’s keys. Cleopatra’s strong nose is present on most of her coinage, but the rest of her features I don’t know how consistently they were captured, and busts described as hers may not have been her but a daughter or her mother or a lady-in-waiting or some such. The busts generally accepted to be hers don’t, in my opinion, look all that alike. The Egyptian statues of Cleopatra are pretty generic-looking, you’d have to read the label to know who it was supposed to be.
Elizabeth I’s portraiture is not very reliable as she exerted tight control over how she was represented, and was somewhat unrealistically vain.
For some reason Van Gogh struck me as the most realistic.
You can never get enough “Unchained Melody.”
At least I can’t. I listened to a bunch of reaction videos today and this was best of breed:
She has a great balance of reaction to performance. And because she is a classical pro, when she speaks, she knows whereof.
Sometimes it seems she is giggling like a schoolgirl, seduced by Bobby Hatfield’s romantic vocal, but then she surfaces and hits you with great inside vocal baseball.
_______________________________
Oh wow, wow. Okay, I’m so glad to—
Right after this, when he goes into “hunger”, he actually comes in and out of that British coloring of an R and then a more American coloring of the R.
The same way that he’s been using diphthongs as ways to sort of distinguish between two different notes in that run, he’s using different colorations of an R to distinguish between different notes here.
This is so cool. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone do this within an R.
He could have made a career as a professional countertenor for sure.
What really grabs me is that second between (or just after) statue/portrait/painting and the AI video with real clothes and wrinkles, etc. But after seeing several of these in succession, the smiles and nods seem false. Possibly an influence from the formality of many photos from the 1800’s? Don’t really expect “old” images to end up being all that “human like”.
Re: The Charismatic Voice
Watched another of her reaction videos by a-ha, “Take On Me” unplugged:
______________________________
OK. I’m going to breathe now. That is the definition of breathtaking.
Holy cow. Morten Harket has even more vocal control than I had ever imagined.
Pythagoras;
in addition to his famous theorem he also stated that 4 out of 3 people find math difficult.
Yep, he too was capable of telling a joke.
Wow, they had really nice teeth back then.
They must have had great dental plans.
they had stand up comedy in Greece,
one would assume King Tut was darker, because upper Egypt near Nubia,
Cannot assume Tut looked like that – the modern concept of portraiture begins with the Romans. Statues of Tut are obviously idealized types. Same for Babylonian sculpture. Even Greek statues of Alexander are suspect – a bit too idealized.
Only Roman sculpture shows warts-and-all representations that we would consider “portraiture”. For example, Augustus is shown with a small chin and large ears. Nero is coarse featured.
@BenDavid:Augustus is shown with a small chin and large ears. Nero is coarse featured.
Claudius always looks cranky and tired in his statuary.
One of the very few “pictures” of Queen Victoria where she does not look totally pissed off.
President Trump gave me a chuckle when he ripped the Democrat Media this morning, calling CNN “scum” to their faces, and ripping the head of NBC (I think) by name. Bravo!
Cleopatra doesn’t look very Greek at all.
@Lee Also:Cleopatra doesn’t look very Greek at all.
Population genetics of Greeks have changed since Cleopatra’s day; but I don’t think I could say I know what Greeks are “supposed” to look like. At any rate, they didn’t try to make her look black… always amazed by how many people think “Africa” = “black”.
But it is rarely easy to say who an ancient statue is actually intended to represent, or how faithfully they attempted to represent that person. Sometimes they just used signfiers like St Mark’s book or St Peter’s keys. Cleopatra’s strong nose is present on most of her coinage, but the rest of her features I don’t know how consistently they were captured, and busts described as hers may not have been her but a daughter or her mother or a lady-in-waiting or some such. The busts generally accepted to be hers don’t, in my opinion, look all that alike. The Egyptian statues of Cleopatra are pretty generic-looking, you’d have to read the label to know who it was supposed to be.
Elizabeth I’s portraiture is not very reliable as she exerted tight control over how she was represented, and was somewhat unrealistically vain.
For some reason Van Gogh struck me as the most realistic.
You can never get enough “Unchained Melody.”
At least I can’t. I listened to a bunch of reaction videos today and this was best of breed:
–The Charismatic Voice / Righteous Brothers, “Unchained Melody” REACTION & ANALYSIS by Vocal Coach / Opera Singer”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyXfCq1ix3g
She has a great balance of reaction to performance. And because she is a classical pro, when she speaks, she knows whereof.
Sometimes it seems she is giggling like a schoolgirl, seduced by Bobby Hatfield’s romantic vocal, but then she surfaces and hits you with great inside vocal baseball.
_______________________________
Oh wow, wow. Okay, I’m so glad to—
Right after this, when he goes into “hunger”, he actually comes in and out of that British coloring of an R and then a more American coloring of the R.
The same way that he’s been using diphthongs as ways to sort of distinguish between two different notes in that run, he’s using different colorations of an R to distinguish between different notes here.
This is so cool. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone do this within an R.
Total vocal nerd moment.
https://youtu.be/nyXfCq1ix3g?t=568s
_______________________________
Then she ends with a great compliment:
He could have made a career as a professional countertenor for sure.
What really grabs me is that second between (or just after) statue/portrait/painting and the AI video with real clothes and wrinkles, etc. But after seeing several of these in succession, the smiles and nods seem false. Possibly an influence from the formality of many photos from the 1800’s? Don’t really expect “old” images to end up being all that “human like”.
Re: The Charismatic Voice
Watched another of her reaction videos by a-ha, “Take On Me” unplugged:
______________________________
OK. I’m going to breathe now. That is the definition of breathtaking.
Holy cow. Morten Harket has even more vocal control than I had ever imagined.
–The Charismatic Voice, “You Asked, I Delivered. a-ha Acoustic “Take On Me” Analysis!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O4-SJQqnmM
______________________________
Her vocal analysis is wonderful and truly Harket delivers such an intimate, almost holy, acoustic rendering of “Take On Me.”
Jaw. Dropped.