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Signagi

 

On our way to Tibilsi, Georgia's Capital, we stopped at Signagi, a fortified town with winding cobblestone streets. 

The town, which stands in a commanding position above the Alazani Valley, was fortified in the 18th century with defensive walls; 23 towers; and 6 gates, against invading tribesmen.  After the Russian invasion, in the early 19th century, it was annexed to Imperial Russia and later became part of the Soviet Union. 

This is a particularly picturesque part of the world.  In soviet times Signagi became a centre for the Georgian wine industry and a popular holiday destination. Today Signagi is known as Georgia's city of love, where many Georgians choose to stay on their wedding night.

Like much of Georgia it was hard hit by the collapse of the Soviet Union and some evidence of the ensuing decay remains. But as we could easily see, much has recovered and in general Signagi appears to be prosperous again (even more so?).

 

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Signagi - Georgia's city of love
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Travel

South Korea & China

March 2016

 

 

South Korea

 

 

I hadn't written up our trip to South Korea (in March 2016) but Google Pictures gratuitously put an album together from my Cloud library so I was motivated to add a few words and put it up on my Website.  Normally I would use selected images to illustrate observations about a place visited.  This is the other way about, with a lot of images that I may not have otherwise chosen.  It requires you to go to the link below if you want to see pictures. You may find some of the images interesting and want to by-pass others quickly. Your choice. In addition to the album, Google generated a short movie in an 8mm style - complete with dust flecks. You can see this by clicking the last frame, at the bottom of the album.

A few days in Seoul were followed by travels around the country, helpfully illustrated in the album by Google generated maps: a picture is worth a thousand words; ending back in Seoul before spending a few days in China on the way home to OZ. 

Read more: South Korea & China

Fiction, Recollections & News

DUNE

 

Last week I went to see ‘DUNE’, the movie.

It’s the second big-screen attempt to make a movie of the book, if you don’t count the first ‘Star Wars’, that borrows shamelessly from Frank Herbert’s Si-Fi classic.

Read more: DUNE

Opinions and Philosophy

Science, Magic and Religion

 

(UCLA History 2D Lectures 1 & 2)

 

Professor Courtenay Raia lectures on science and religion as historical phenomena that have evolved over time; starting in pre-history. She goes on to examine the pre-1700 mind-set when science encompassed elements of magic; how Western cosmologies became 'disenchanted'; and how magical traditions have been transformed into modern mysticisms.

The lectures raise a lot of interesting issues.  For example in Lecture 1, dealing with pre-history, it is convincingly argued that 'The Secret', promoted by Oprah, is not a secret at all, but is the natural primitive human belief position: that it is fundamentally an appeal to magic; the primitive 'default' position. 

But magic is suppressed by both religion and science.  So in our modern secular culture traditional magic has itself been transmogrified, magically transformed, into mysticism.

Read more: Science, Magic and Religion

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