Even more busts of Roman emperors (and others)

Posted on June 17, 2018 by Richard Bowker

For some reason one of my most popular posts was about busts of Roman emperors at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Turns out the place that has even more busts of Roman emperors is Italy — specifically, the Uffizi in Florence. Here are a few.

Here’s Claudius, not looking very happy:

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Here’s Domitian, who was awful:

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Here’s Marcus Aurelius, who wasn’t awful:

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Here’s Caligula. Does he look like he’s insane?

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Here’s Tiberius, who was a perv:

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Here’s Julius Caesar, who wasn’t an emperor, but c’mon, this is a pretty interesting bust. I wouldn’t want to mess with this guy:

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And Cicero, who also wasn’t an emperor:

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I don’t know how lifelike these busts are, of course, but they sure seem lifelike. These are real people, staring out at us across 2000 years of history.

Florence Welch sings Imelda Marcos

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Richard Bowker

The inimitable Craig Shaw Gardner (who really should update his website) tells me that, if I like Florence + the Machine, I should love Florence Welch (that would be “Florence”) singing the title song of David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s disco-based concept album about Imelda Marcos.

WTF? I’m so out of it, I didn’t even know that David Byrne and Fatboy Slim had released a disco-based concept album about Imelda Marcos. How did that escape my attention? Here is Mr. Byrne’s explanation:

The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!

How come no one thought of that before? Anyway, here’s the song:

Florence + the Machine

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Better than Lana Del Rey? Better than Adele? We blog; you decide.

Here she is live singing “Dog Days Are Over”:

And here is the very strange music video:

She sang this on Saturday Night Live a while back, but for some reason she traded in her backup singers for some dancers who didn’t add much to the proceedings.