The ancient water tunnel is thought to have been built by Emperor Montezuma I in the 15th century. Inscriptions, carvings and paintings inside, as well as the tunnel itself, are thought to be linked to the Empire’s god of water and fertility, Tlaloc.
Announcing the discovery, the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) revealed they had found the densely decorated tunnel in the city of Ecatepec de Morelos within the central state of Mexico.
Several carvings out of rock were found inside, as well as chunks of statue thought to have unbounded archaeological value.
According to local media, researchers found 11 carved images on the wall of the tunnel, which measured 27.5ft long, as well as the remains of a wooden gate.
Lena Waithe, left, and Melina Matsoukas at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles.(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
For “Queen & Slim,” screenwriter Lena Waithe’s meditation on race relations and police brutality, director Melina Matsoukas drew visual inspiration from sources as diverse as Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 dramedy “Y Tu Mamá También” and Spike Lee’s 1989 classic “Do the Right Thing.” But the biggest influence came straight from YouTube.
“One of the key references for me has been real life, authentic struggles in the black community,” said Matsoukas, who makes her feature debut with the movie, in theaters on Thanksgiving. “I watched a lot of YouTube videos of black people being pulled over by the police or encountering law enforcement and it not necessarily ending well. Unfortunately, there are so many of those videos, but they were a major influence in how I wanted to approach shooting the opening scene.”
Starring Daniel Kaluuya and newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith, our protagonists (known simply as Slim and Queen until the end) are forced on the run within the first 10 minutes of the movie. “A Million Little Pieces” author James Frey pitched the idea for the opening to Waithe at a party.
“He was like, ‘Yo, I have this idea for a movie that I can’t write,’” she remembered. “And I was like ‘What’s that?’”
Frey described a scenario in which a black couple driving home from a first date are pulled over by a cop and forced to kill him in self-defense. “I was like, ‘You’re right, you shouldn’t write that,’” said Waithe. “But then we exchanged information. I think he thought he was never going to hear from or see me again, but it just stayed with me.”
50 years after internet conception, dark side stirs fear
by Glenn CHAPMAN
The internet has grown to connect billions of users around the world, as seen in this Facebook map from 2010, but has also allowed malicious actors to operate on a wide scale (AFP Photo/HO)
San Francisco (AFP) – On October 29, 1969, professor Leonard Kleinrock and a team at the University of California at Los Angeles got a computer to “talk” to a machine in what is now known as Silicon Valley.
The event gave birth to a network that later became known as the internet — hailed at first as a boon to equality and enlightenment, but with a dark side that has emerged as well.
As UCLA marks the anniversary, Kleinrock is opening a new lab devoted to all things related to the internet — particularly mitigating some of its unintended consequences on the internet which is now used by some four billion people worldwide.
“To some point it democratizes everyone,” Kleinrock told AFP.
“But it is also a perfect formula for the dark side, as we have learned.”
Robert Evans, the Paramount executive who produced “Chinatown” and “Urban Cowboy,” and whose life became as melodramatic and jaw-dropping as any of his films, died on Saturday night. He was 89.
Even though Hollywood history is filled with colorful characters, few can match the tale of Evans, whose life would seem far-fetched if it were fiction. With his matinee-idol looks, but little acting talent, Evans was given starring roles in a few movies and then, with no studio experience, was handed the production reins at Paramount in the 1960s. When he left the exec ranks, his first film as a producer was the classic “Chinatown,” and he followed with other hits, like “Marathon Man” and “Urban Cowboy.” Eventually, his distinctive look and speaking style turned him into a cult figure, and he had the distinction of being the only film executive who starred in his own animated TV series.
Garden of Eden in Africa: Humanity’s first home traced to Botswana
A study provides a window into the first 100,000 years of the history of modern humans.
The Paul de Vos oil painting depicts the Garden of Eden
The real Garden Of Eden has been traced to the African nation of Botswana, according to a major study of DNA.
Scientists believe our ancestral homeland is south of the Zambezi River in the country’s north.
The conclusion comes after the study of maternal genetic lineage of anatomically modern humans, finding it was closest to those living in the area, which includes northern Botswana, Namibia to the west and Zimbabwe to the east.
The Secret Battle Over Mona Lisa’s Prettier ‘Twin’
Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre. But a second, earlier painting is at the heart of a multi-million-dollar battle to prove its authenticity and ownership.
by Barbie Latza Nadeau
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos Public Domain
ROME—When the long-awaited Leonardo da Vinci exhibition celebrating the Italian master’s life opened in the Louvre in Paris this week, two paintings were noticeably missing from the exhibit hall—and they are both of the same woman.
Despite being one of Leonardo’s most famous works, the Louvre decided not to relocate the “Mona Lisa” from her recently renovated viewing room to the exhibit space created to mark the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death. Visitors will instead have to traipse across a hall through the selfie-taking crowds to see her where she normally hangs.
The second painting that Leonardo aficionados will miss is what many believe is an earlier version of the “Mona Lisa,” which shows a much younger—and dare we say—prettier version of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, who commissioned the work in the early 1500s.
The existence of an earlier “Mona Lisa” has dogged art experts for centuries.
What would a Porsche look like in the Star Wars universe? We’re about to find out. PORSCHE AG
This week, Porsche announced its most futuristic design of all time. No, we’re not talking about a new version of its Taycan EV. This is a vehicle so far, far away from everything they’ve designed before that it won’t be measured in something as earthly as miles per hour — it’ll be measured in megalight per hour.
That’s right, the German marque is working on a new vehicle for Star Wars. “Designers at Porsche AG and Lucasfilm Ltd. are collaborating on a fantasy starship design that will be presented at the world premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” according to a press release.
Grace Farms Foundation fundraiser brings stars to Connecticut
By Page Six Team
Jay Fielden / Getty Images for Hearst
“It’s time to open the dance floor — like open sesame,” jazz pianist-turned-“rockjazz” composer and in-demand DJ Elew instructed the crowd at the Grace Farms Foundation’s fourth-anniversary celebration in New Canaan, Conn., on Saturday night.
Attendees enthusiastically obeyed and got down as Elew spun tunes from rap to AC/DC, with saxophonist Marcus G. Miller blowing his horn live on the dance floor.
Among the VIP crowd of 300 at the upscale humanitarian shindig were foundation founder Sharon Prince, event co-chairs Abby Bangser and Amanda Martocchio, former Esquire editor Jay Fielden, author James Frey, jewelry designer Monique Péan, skin-care guru Tata Harper, Blum & Poe partner Matt Bangser, “Chopped”-winning chef Silvia Baldini and British socialite Lexi Bowes-Lyon (cousin of William and Harry).
IN THE BLACK LIVES MATTER–INSPIRED LOVE STORY “QUEEN & SLIM,” NEW STAR JODIE TURNER-SMITH TAKES OUR BREATH AWAY.
When it was announced last year that Lena Waithe and Melina Matsoukas had tapped a relatively unknown Jodie Turner-Smith to star in their film Queen & Slim, playing opposite Daniel Kaluuya, fresh from his Oscar-nominated role in Get Out, the Internet began chattering about the striking British-Jamaican actress. Some remembered Turner-Smith from her star turn as Melantha Jhirl in SyFy’s Nightflyers and her appearance in Zayn Malik’s “Pillowtalk” video. But in Queen & Slim, directed by Matsoukas, written by Waithe from a story by James Frey, the actress is poised to make her mark as a leading lady.
In the flick, there’s a scene in which Turner-Smith glides slowly into frame after her uncle’s girlfriend-—played by Pose’s Indya Moore—takes out her braids so as to be less recognizable to the authorities chasing her. At Turner-Smith’s arrival, the audible gasp from the audience at an early screening dispelled any notion that the actress was someone who would shrink into the background. When the film hits theaters on November 27, viewers won’t be able to take their eyes off her.
Turner-Smith has a powerful presence. A captivating beauty whose sultry energy makes her a scene-stealer, she’s thoughtful when speaking. And while she began her career playing a siren on HBO’s True Blood and popped up in projects like TNT’s The Last Ship, it was only a year ago that she caught our attention in the adaptation of the George R. R. Martin novella Nightflyers.
Louvre exhibit acclaims Da Vinci, 500 years after his death
By CLAIRE PARKER
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Leonardo da Vinci during a visit at the Louvre museum Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019 in Paris. A unique group of artworks is displayed at the Louvre museum in addition to its collection of paintings and drawings by the Italian master. The exhibition opens to the public on Oct.24, 2019. (AP Photo/Rafael Yaghobzadeh)
PARIS (AP) — Much about Leonardo Da Vinci remains an enigma: the smile of the “Mona Lisa”; why the world’s most famous painter left so many works unfinished; and more recently, who bought the contentious “Salvator Mundi.”
A new exhibit at the Louvre, however, opening Thursday and marking the 500th anniversary of the Italian master’s death, tries to sketch out as complete a picture of the artist and thinker as possible.
Drawing from the Louvre’s permanent collection and institutions around the world, the exhibit brings together some 160 works. They include Da Vinci masterpieces, dozens of studies and scientific sketches, and pieces by other artists in Da Vinci’s orbit. Visitors can also experience a virtual reality portion of the exhibit that delves into the story behind the “Mona Lisa.”
What happens if your mind lives for ever on the internet?
by Michael Graziano
FacebookTwitterPinterest The Lawnmower Man (1992) stars Pierce Brosnan as an unethical scientist who traps the consciousness of his gardener (Jeff Fahey) inside a computer. Photograph: Allstar/New Lin/Sportsphoto Ltd
Imagine that a person’s brain could be scanned in great detail and recreated in a computer simulation. The person’s mind and memories, emotions and personality would be duplicated. In effect, a new and equally valid version of that person would now exist, in a potentially immortal, digital form. This futuristic possibility is called mind uploading. The science of the brain and of consciousness increasingly suggests that mind uploading is possible – there are no laws of physics to prevent it. The technology is likely to be far in our future; it may be centuries before the details are fully worked out – and yet given how much interest and effort is already directed towards that goal, mind uploading seems inevitable. Of course we can’t be certain how it might affect our culture but as the technology of simulation and artificial neural networks shapes up, we can guess what that mind uploading future might be like.
Suppose one day you go into an uploading clinic to have your brain scanned. Let’s be generous and pretend the technology works perfectly. It’s been tested and debugged. It captures all your synapses in sufficient detail to recreate your unique mind. It gives that mind a standard-issue, virtual body that’s reasonably comfortable, with your face and voice attached, in a virtual environment like a high-quality video game. Let’s pretend all of this has come true.
I was naked. So was Laura,” begins one dream of the more than 20,000 collected in G. William Domhoff’s DreamBank. “I was re-stringing an unvarnished electric bass, so I guess it was naked, too. At one point I put a screw in to secure a string, but then realized I wasn’t holding the bass but Laura…” The dream is one of many “naked” entries in the database, and Domhoff says dreams about being naked or exposed in public in ways that betray a fear of embarrassment are widely reported. But why?
Domhoff, a distinguished professor emeritus specializing in psychology at the University of California-Santa Cruz, has spent years collecting self-reported dreams in journals and laboratory settings, meticulously tagging and cataloguing each one. An outdoor setting, for example, is marked with an OU, a familiar character with a K, and physical activity with a P. Individual dreams can then be described with their own idiosyncratic combination of labeled elements. Domhoff calls this coding system “quantitative content analysis.” He’s concluded that at least some dreams have universal elements related to common human preoccupations and concerns.
The psychoanalysts have a vested interest in destroying my argument.
Some “typical” dreams long studied for their figurative meaning—such as dreams where you fly under your own power, or where your teeth fall out—don’t occur nearly as often as people think (flying dreams, for example, make up only about one-half of 1 percent of all dreams). But many people dream about being naked, or about physical journeys that might stand in for fraught everyday dilemmas, such as being thwarted in a quest for success. “We are walking down hall after hall,” one of the dreams in Domhoff’s database reads. “We are looking for a restaurant. We climb laboriously up ladders and get to a top floor to find out the restaurant is closed. I am upset and afraid of going back down.”
We may have already discovered the essence of life on Mars 40 years ago, according to a former NASA scientist.
Gilbert V. Levin, who was principal investigator on a NASA experiment that sent Viking landers to Mars in 1976, published an article in the Scientific American journal last Thursday, arguing the experiment’s positive results were proof of life on the red planet.
The experiment, called Labeled Release (LR), was designed to test Martian soil for organic matter. “It seemed we had answered that ultimate question,” Levin wrote in the article.
In the experiment, the Viking probes placed nutrients in Mars soil samples — if life were present, it would consume the food and leave gaseous traces of its metabolism, which radioactive monitors would then detect.
Man walks out of San Francisco art gallery with Salvador Dali painting worth $20K
The suspect can be seen on security footage grabbing the painting, titled “Surrealistic Bullfight: Burning Giraffe,” off the wall and walking out the door.
By Janelle Griffith
“Surrealistic Bullfight: Burning Giraffe” by Salvador Dali.Courtesy of Dennis Rae Fine Art
A suspect who carried a $20,000 Salvador Dali painting out of a San Francisco art gallery while it was open and the director was present is being sought by police.
The painting, titled “Surrealistic Bullfight: Burning Giraffe,” was stolen Sunday from Dennis Rae Fine Art, the gallery’s co-owner David Schach told NBC News on Tuesday. It is worth an estimated $20,000, Schach said.
Security footage showed a man carrying a large frame on Geary Boulevard toward Union Square, Schach said.
Lena Waithe moved to Los Angeles from Chicago in 2006. Photography by Lelanie Foster; styled by and wearing Richfresh; hair by Dominique Evans; makeup by Rebekah Aladdin
Lena Waithe says she moved to Los Angeles from Chicago in 2006 knowing she wanted to conquer it. And with 22 projects in active development with some of the biggest names in the business—including Amazon, BET, Disney, HBO, Netflix, Showtime and Universal—as well as a star-making turn on the Netflix series Master of None, which earned her an Emmy, she’s arguably done just that.
Season 3 of The Chi, a drama Waithe created for Showtime about the South Side of Chicago, is now in production. She did a food tour of L.A. with David Chang for his new Netflix limited series Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, premiering Oct. 23 (the show also features Chrissy Teigen and Kate McKinnon). And next month, she’s bringing her talents to the big screen with the film Queen & Slim, for which she penned the screenplay (it’s based on a story she wrote with author James Frey). The movie, about what happens to a couple on a first date after they get pulled over by the police, stars Jodie Turner-Smith and Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya in the title roles.
The soundtrack to the highly anticipated film “Queen & Slim” will be released by Motown on Nov. 15, it was announced today. The 17-song collection features new tracks from Ms. Lauryn Hill, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Baby, Vince Staples featuring 6lack X Mereba, Tiana Major 9 & EARTHGANG and Coast Contra featuring BJ The Chicago Kid and Syd. Classic songs by Roy Ayers, Bilal and Mike Jones can also be heard.
Starring Daniel Kaluuya, who was nominated for an Academy award for his role in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” and Jodie Turner-Smith (“The Neon Demon”), “Queen & Slim” is a modern re-telling of Bonnie & Clyde that confronts race relations and police brutality in America. Melina Matsoukas (“Master of None,” “Insecure”) makes her feature directorial debut with the film. Lena Waithe, the first black woman to win the Emmy award for outstanding writing for a comedy series, is credited as a writer alongside James Frey, of “A Million Little Pieces” fame.
One brief song-snippet aside, Michael Stipe hasn’t released any music since his band R.E.M. broke up in 2011. That changes today. A few months ago, Stipe performed new solo songs called “Your Capricious Soul” and “Drive To The Ocean” during a surprise opening set for Patti Smith, and he reportedly has at least 16 other tracks ready to go. Today, to coincide with the “International Rebellion” climate justice protests this week, he’s sharing his official debut solo single.
That would be “Your Capricious Soul,” one of the songs he debuted back in May. Although it won’t be on any of the major streaming platforms, at least immediately, it is available for a pay-what-you-want donation (or for free) on Stipe’s website. The download comes with master-quality audio version of the song, its accompanying video by Sam Taylor-Johnson, a lyric sheet, a print-ready poster, a stencil, and an animated flip-book portrait. For the next 365 days, all proceeds from the song will go to Extinction Rebellion.
