Batman & Jesus, Bird Brain, 19th Century Trunks - Monday Cup Of Links #98

More Yokohama-e

Happy Monday!

How did your long weekend go? I got a lot of sun, and a little too much candy. I think I saw a jackrabbit when I was out hiking, but I could be wrong.

Onto our links!

Batman & Jesus

It’s Easter weekend. I realized I don’t know very much about Easter other than the Amar Chitra Katha version, and I feel like I want to know more about the historicity to talk to my child about it meaningfully. I found this interesting documentary that explores the historicity of Jesus and how the character evolved and was canonized, by using the example of Batman. Here is the trailer:

I watched a bit of it and it seems very 2010s reddit atheism vibes. That makes it feel dated, but it’s amazing how successful and pervasive that vibe was. And… I don’t mind the elevated questioning and ridiculing. It’s an accessible way of getting used to the historicity of Jesus.

Link to full movie.

Trunks and Travel in the 19th Century

I found this interesting article about luggage in the 19th century, for ship travel. There is a lot of info about how to pick a trunk, how to pack a trunk, and how to navigate customs.

I’ve written about this topic before, where I try to use all this information to figure out how an Indian traveling from Bombay to London might experience ship travel.

So you're on a 1900s Steamship...

Bird Brain vs Mammal Brain

Scientists were trying to see if bird brains worked the same way as mammal brains. They found that yes, the circuits do work the same way. BUT they found that the building blocks were completely different!

So rather than a common ancestor of birds and mammals having developed intelligence which were then passed down to both, it turns out that both evolved a functionally similar system in parallel.

I’d have taken for granted that all brains have the same building blocks. But the more you know, the less you know you know.

My Writing From Last Week

We’re still reading Vikram Sampath’s book about Tipu Sultan. After weeks of understanding Mysore’s history and the Carnatic Wars, we finally are introduced to our titular character, though he’s still a baby. His father, Hyder Ali, though, is close to usurping power in Mysore, and has indulged in large-scale corruption including getting his soldiers to fake injury so he can steal half of their injury pay. It is awful that it is so relatable today.

Tipu Sultan #7 - The Sneaky, Corrupt Rise Of Hyder Ali, and the Birth of Tipu Sultan

I’m also reading CHAOS - Charles Manson, The CIA, and The Secret History Of The Sixties by Tom O’Neill. On Friday, I wrote about a chapter I read where the author retraces the investigations into the Manson murders, and finds that the victims were connected to a bunch of drug dealers through Mama Cass of the band The Mamas And The Papas (You know, of the song California Dreamin’)…. and then, the drug dealers are actually CIA agents. One of the CIA Agents managed rock bands in the UK, and his daughter was into the bigwigs enough that she hosted a divorce party when Pattie Boyd divorced Eric Clapton.

And Michael Caine, of all people, remembers being introduced to Charles Manson by Mama Cass at a party, so this has multiple sources corroborating this.

I know, it all sounds completely insane, but I assure you it is completely not.

Charles Manson #3 - The Mamas And The Papas, Drug Deals and CIA men

Artifact: Acrobats From Central India in Yokohama

Last week, I brought up a genre of Japanese blockprints called Yokohama-e, which involves Japanese art about foreigners, especially in the port city of Yokohama. One of the exponents of this genre is Utagawa Yoshitora.

This piece is titled “Acrobats From Central India In Yokohama” which is exciting - an Indian circus troupe traveling to Yokohama in the late 1800s?

But… they weren’t Indian. It was just a marketing trick.

From here:

In March of 1864 the multi-talented and colorful American gymnast and acrobat Richard Risley Carlisle (1814-1874) arrived in Japan with his traveling circus of ten acrobats and eight horses. The former postmaster (in New Jersey) and bounty hunter (in the town he founded, New Carlisle, Indiana), used the stage name of Professor Risley, and his signature talent (still known as the 'Risley act') was juggling objects, and children (initially his two sons, John and Henry), with his feet while lying on his back. Carlisle was prohibited from touring his show in Japan and was restricted to only performing in Yokohama, sharply limiting his potential audience. Catering to the foreign clientele, he billed the troupe as performing acrobatic tricks from Central India, which presumably sounded suitably exotic to the expatriate residents of Yokohama. When interest in the circus waned and the show closed, Carlisle stayed on in Japan to establish a dairy business, becoming the first seller of milk and ice in Japan. A few years later he formed a new show that he successfully toured through America and around the world as the 'Imperial Japanese Troupe.'