Bad Luck Stories Can Do A Good Turn

Superstition is justifibiably dismissed as regressive and rooted in unproven beliefs. How can walking under a ladder or having a black cat cross your path bode Ill? Hanging lemons and chillies- or those blue and white turkish talismans- to ward off the evil eye are equally swiped from the ruins of Pompeii 15 years ago because of the bad luck that had apparently beset them ever since, indicates that superstitions can sometimes prove beneficial. Unlike the tomb of Tutankhamen- whose opening in 1923 supposedly activated an ancient curse that led to the deaths of many associated with its excavation- or even the malediction attached to the Kohinoor diamond, there has been no long-standing, well-known hex on Pompeii and most other ancient sites. That ciuld be why shards, fossils, artifacts and other remnants have been filched from historical sites with impunity and continue to be stolen. But the bad luck narrative associated with Pompeii resulted in some 100 conscience- stricken visitors returning their purloined mementos over the years. So those charged with protecting archeological sites elsewhere - including in India— could consider floating a few cautionary rumours as a low cost but effective method to prevent pilferage.

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Make a Stan for Timeless Art

One museum's fossil can be an art collector's installation In December 2019, a real banana duct-taped to a wall, billed as a work called comedian, by the Italian satirical artist Maurizio Cattelan fetched $120,000 at a prestigious art show in Miami. Not long after, another identical work by the same artist was also sold for the same amount.Both buyers were French and they were connoisseurs, not consumers, presumably. Not only did the perishable nature of the art not affect its saleability— a 'performance artist' peeled the banana off the wall and ate it — the work was declared the 'unicorn of the art world'. If that banana symbolised the evenescence of an artistic idea, its timelessness will surely be underlined by the sale of a67 million-year-old composition of bones that is the highlight of Christie's Evening sale of 20the century Art in October in New York. The 'work' has been named Tyrannosaurus Rex(by paleontologists) and Stan (by its finders...

Europe's plague Joke Renaissance

Laughing at the face of coronavirus is getting contagious in that continent With much of Europe abd Britain getting back under lockdown covers with Covid relurking, the cradle of dodgy pandemic jokes is having a renaissance. The chaps who brought the world the Teutonic Bubonic Plague Jokebook— the Black Death supposedly the prime reason for Germans losing their sense of humour — are already guffawing with fear. The strategy this time seems to be any dearth of mirth will be the birth of death. So, as cracks like the corona virus also keeping their versions of pub and restaurant timings —it's rule-abiding Europe for the critters too, you see— go viral, who knows, one may even have a new healthy obsession with Eros and Thanatos, rather than a prolonged taste for organic food and EU Rules of Origin Laws. Remember, this is the continent of the original Coveni, Covidi, Covici( I came down with Covid , I saw Covid, I conqured Covid), not to mention the very name ' Coronavirus...

Work on Grining from Year to Year

That work life is no laughing matter appears to be corroborated by a recent study done by two Standford University academics, who found that cachinnations start becoming less frequent from a median age of 23, or about the time when people get jobs. Whether or not the researchers' prime conclusion– that laughter is " under-leveraged" in offices and can be a gamechanger, professionally , if properly utilized — is solid enough to take Humour Seriously (also the little of their book), it is true that laughter is not exactly a common workplace sound. It is heartening at their survey of the daily laughing habits of 1.4 million people from 166 countries showed that four -year-olds did so up to 300 times a day. But their additional finding that 40 years olds clocked up that same number over 10 weeks is a sobering statistic. Of course, if that cohort also laughed as frequently as four year olds, it would be quite alarming, not to mention distracting, in workplaces. That laughter...

Shakespeare &Sainte

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