The Off Topic Topic

[Valmy]

Italy was a mistake.

Never thought the Brits would be in favor of maintaining the Papal States.

[mongers]

This is quite neat, a comparison of 'pyramids' down the ages:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Comparison_of_pyramids_SMIL.svg

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZQYlx3caxk

Nathan Chasing Horse has been arrested on charges of running a cult and sexually abusing underage Native American girls.  He played one of the Indian kids in Dancing With Wolves.

[Syt]

Kind of sad to see such a decline in such a short and youd think enlightened period.

Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is why nothing gets built in Britain anymore.

[The Larch]

Those trees to the left of the pyramid is where Keats and Shelley chose to be buried. You can see why.

Yeah, that's where Rome's non-catholic cemetery is located (commonly called Protestant Cemetery or Englishmen's Cemetery). A very overlooked corner of the city, and a really beautiful one.

[Josquius]

I've done dry January. 

Mostly unintentionally. I'm not really into these challenge months. At the beginning of the month I felt ill anyway and just didn't want to drink. I wanted a beer a week ago but fought the impulse as felt I might as well go the whole way.

[Sheilbh]

I have not - but my birthdays in January so I'll never do it

Limbering up for vegan Lent (vent?) though...

[crazy canuck]

People really need to think about what they link here.

Now we all have to keep watching it

[The Larch]

People really need to think about what they link here.

Now we all have to keep watching it

Not a fan of late XIXth century funerary sculptures? 

[Tamas]

Why would an angel would be sad about someone dying?

[Syt]

People really need to think about what they link here.

Now we all have to keep watching it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_Grief

Angel of Grief or the Weeping Angel is an 1894 sculpture by William Wetmore Story for the grave of his wife Emelyn Story at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.[1] Its full title bestowed by the creator was The Angel of Grief Weeping Over the Dismantled Altar of Life.[2]

This was Story's last major work prior to his death, dying a year after his wife. The statue's creation was documented in an 1896 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine: according to this account, his wife's death so devastated Story that he lost interest in sculpture, but was inspired to create the monument by his children, who recommended it as a means of memorializing the woman.[3] Unlike the typical angelic grave art, "this dramatic life-size winged figure speaks more of the pain of those left behind" by appearing "collapsed, weeping and draped over the tomb".[4]

The term is now used to describe multiple grave stones throughout the world erected in the style of the Story stone.[1] A feature in The Guardian called the design "one of the most copied images in the world".[4] Story himself wrote that "It represents the angel of Grief, in utter abandonment, throwing herself with drooping wings and hidden face over a funeral altar. It represents what I feel. It represents Prostration. Yet to do it helps me."[5]

Prominent replicas of the Angel of Grief sculpture include the Henry Lathrop monument, located in the Stanford University Arboretum. Lathrop was the brother of Jane Stanford, the co-founder of the university. The original replica was built in 1901, but was severely damaged in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, leading to its replacement in 1908. After years of neglect, the 1908 replacement was fully restored in 2001.[6][7][8] Another example is the Cassard angel, erected around 1908 in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.[9]

The image has also been used in popular culture, such as in an album covers for The Tea Party's The Edges of Twilight (1995), Evanescence's EP (1998) and Nightwish's Once (2004) and in the 2012 film The Woman in Black.

Not seeing the issue, but I might be missing something

[mongers]

People really need to think about what they link here.

Now we all have to keep watching it
.

Not seeing the issue, but I might be missing something

Syt, I think he's alluding to a Doctor Who series, where the creepy angels were the enemy and you had to keep watching them, otherwise when you turned away, the statues moved on you to attack. Well something like that.

[Syt]

Oooooh. I know the weeping angels, just didn't make the connection.

[Jacob]

Well thanks for that Syt, didn't know the background for the weeping angel grave stones even if I did suspect CC was making a Dr. Who reference.

[crazy canuck]

You all need to turn in your geek cards, except Mongers, massive fail