TOM CLARK: Negative Capability (duck or rabbit?... the pleasure of not knowing) / More than 80% is emptiness... is it a picture? / Shelley: Ozymandias: King of Kings Stuck in the Mud

Death spirit [Ndolo, Kinshasa]: photo by Kim SOLA, 21 December 2016

[Untitled]: photo by Soumyendra Saha, 13 February 2017

Hong Kong, 5+5+5+5. More than 80% is emptiness... is it a picture?: photo by Edas Wong, 19 March 2015

[Untitled, Songkhla, Thailand]: photo by Sakulchai Sikitikul, 8 June 2016

[Mirza Ghalib Municipal Market, Null Bazar, Mumbai]: photo by Karl Grenet, 21 November 2014

Dong Xuan Market: photo by Chu Việt Hà, 14 November 2015

[Untitled, Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 4 August 2015

[Untitled, Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 30 July 2014

[Untitled]: photo by noppadol maitreechit, 12 August 2015

[Untitled, Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 2 March 2017

Negative Capability: How much uncertainty can you tolerate?

"What creates the intense pleasure of not knowing?" Negative Capability, from The Deep Keats Scrolls.: Tom Clark, 1987-2017

Bangkok, Thailand 2014 | by Hearhun Hun Shiun

Bangkok, Thailand: photo by Hearhun Hun Shiun, 2 January 2015

Bangkok, Thailand 2015 | by Hearhun Hun Shiun

Bangkok, Thailand: photo by Hearhun Hun Shiun, 28 January 2015

San Francisco, USA 2015 | by Hearhun Hun Shiun

San Francisco, USA: photo by Hearhun Hun Shiun, 25 August 2015

Bangkok, Thailand: photo by Hearhun Hun Shiun, 3 May 2014

Untitled | by Street photographer - http://www.gabibest.com/

After Party: photo by Gabi Ben avraham, 24 March 2016

Tel Aviv 2014 | by Street photographer - http://www.gabibest.com/

Tel Aviv 2014: photo by Gabi Ben avraham, 14 August 2014

King of Kings Stuck in the Mud

Venice 2017: photo by Gavin Bragdon, 26 February 2017

Peter Heinegg: I Am the Blowhard on TV

As the Trump reign rolls on (to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "I am the monarch of the sea")

I am the Blowhard on TV,
the Ruler of the G.O.P.,

whose praise Sean Spicer loudly chants,

and so do Conway, Bannon, plus the other sycophants.

Refrain: Three cheers for Conway, Bannon, and the other sycophants.

All my Twitter posts are lies,

which should come as no surprise --

You see these fires in my pants?

Well, so do Conway, Bannon, plus the other sycophants.

Refrain: Three cheers for Conway, Bannon, and the other sycophants.

All my speeches are b.s,

My appointments are a mess.

Bah! Fox will celebrate my rants,

and so will Conway, Bannon, plus the other sycophants.

Refrain: And so will Conway, Bannon (he's the asshole with cannon): sycophants!

st-126: photo by Ilan Ben yehuda, 21 February 2017

Head and upper body of pink/grey granite monumental statue of Ramses II (one of a pair placed before the door of the Ramesseum) wearing nemes head-cloth and circlet of uraei (about half now lost), the sculptor has exploited the bichrome nature of the stone to emphasise the division between body and face; the dorsal pillar is inscribed with vertical registers of hieroglyphs - giving the name and titles of the king and part of a dedication to Amun-Ra; in 1817 it was noted that there were traces of colour upon the statue and it may have, therefore, been painted red in antiquity.

The Younger Memnon. Head and upper body of pink/grey granite monumental statue of Ramses II (one of a pair placed before the door of the Ramesseum) wearing nemes head-cloth and circlet of uraei (about half now lost), the sculptor has exploited the bichrome nature of the stone to emphasise the division between body and face; the dorsal pillar is inscribed with vertical registers of hieroglyphs - giving the name and titles of the king and part of a dedication to Amun-Ra; in 1817 it was noted that there were traces of colour upon the statue and it may have, therefore, been painted red in antiquity. (British Museum)

Percy Bysshe Shelley: Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said -- 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing else remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.' --

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), written late December 1817, first published in The Examiner, 11 January 1818

Egyptian workers clear mud away from the buried colossal statue: photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP, 9 March 2017

A quartzite colossus possibly of Ramses II and limestone bust of Seti II have been discovered at the ancient Heliopolis archaeological site in the Matariya area of Cairo.: photo by Anadolu Agency, 9 March 2017

A mechanical digger is employed to clear mud away and allow access to the statue: photo by Khaled Elfiqi/EPA, 9 March 2017

Look on my works, ye mighty … Ozymandias statue found in mud: Archaeologists believe eight-metre statue found in Cairo slum is of Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt in 13th century BC: Reuters in Cairo, 9 March 2017

Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found an eight-metre (26ft) statue submerged in groundwater in a Cairo slum that they say probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.

The discovery – hailed by Egypt’s antiquities ministry on Thursday as one of the most important ever – was made near the ruins of Ramses II’s temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis, located in the eastern part of modern-day Cairo.

“Last Tuesday they called me to announce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite,” the antiquities minister, Khaled al-Anani, said at the site of the discovery.

The pharaoh, also known as Ramses the Great or Ozymandias, was the third of the 19th dynasty of Egypt and ruled for 66 years, from 1279BC to 1213BC.

He led several military expeditions and expanded the Egyptian empire to stretch from Syria in the east to Nubia (northern Sudan) in the south. His successors called him the Great Ancestor.

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 sonnet Ozymandias – which contained the line “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” – was written soon after the British Museum acquired a large fragment of a statue of Ramses II from the 13th century BC.

“We found the bust of the statue and the lower part of the head and now we removed the head and we found the crown and the right ear and a fragment of the right eye,” Anani said of the new discovery.

On Thursday, archaeologists, officials, local residents and news media looked on as a massive forklift pulled the statue’s head out of the water.

The joint Egyptian-German expedition also found the upper part of a life-sized limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II, Ramses II’s grandson, measuring 80cm in length.

The sun temple in Heliopolis was founded by Ramses II, lending weight to the likelihood the statue is of him, archaeologists say.

It was one of the largest temples in Egypt, almost double the size of Luxor’s Karnak, but was destroyed in Greco-Roman times.

Many of its obelisks were moved to Alexandria or to Europe and stones from the site were looted and used for building as Cairo developed.

Experts will now attempt to extract the remaining pieces of both statues before restoring them. If they are successful and the colossus is proven to depict Ramses II, it will be moved to the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum, set to open in Giza in 2018.

The discovery was made in the working-class area of Matariya, among unfinished buildings and mud roads.

Dietrich Raue, head of the expedition’s German team, said ancient Egyptians believed Heliopolis was the place where the sun god lives, meaning it was off-limits for any royal residences.

“The sun god created the world in Heliopolis, in Matariya,” he said.

“That’s what I always tell the people here when they ask if there is anything important. According to the pharaonic belief, the world was created in Matariya.

“That means everything had to be built here. Statues, temples, obelisks, everything. But … the king never lived in Matariya, because it was the sun god living here.”

The find could be a boon for Egypt’s tourism industry, which has suffered many setbacks since the uprising that toppled Hiosni Mubarak in 2011 but remains a vital source of foreign currency.

The number of tourists visiting Egypt slumped to 9.8 million in 2011 from more than 14.7 million in 2010.

A bomb attack that brought down a Russian plane carrying 24 people from a Red Sea resort in October 2015 further hit arrivals, which dropped to 1.2 million in the first quarter of 2016 from 2.2 million a year earlier.

Egyptian workers look at the site of a new discovery by a team of German-Egyptian archaeologists in Cairo's Matariya District on Thursday: photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP, 9 March 2017

British Museum with Cory and Mary, 6 Sep 2007 - 125 | by Nic's events

Colossal bust of Ramesses II, British Museum: photo by Nic McPhee, 6 September 2007

British Museum with Cory and Mary, 6 Sep 2007 - 122 | by Nic's events

Colossal bust of Ramesses II, British Museum: photo by Nic McPhee, 6 September 2007

An Egyptian passenger sits on the locomotive of a train as it leaves Cairo train station in Egypt, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015.

An Egyptian passenger sits on the locomotive part of a train as it leaves Cairo train station in Egypt, Wednesday: photo by Amr Nabil/AP, 14 October 2015

Eagle with Blackbird Toupee

San Francisco, USA: photo by Hearhun Hun Shiun, 15 September 2015

Triplets [Bangkok]: photo by TAVEPONG PRATOOMWONG, 3 January 2017

2017_0108_20285600 | by Arth Figueroa Jumagdao Photos

[Untitled, Manila]: photo by Arth Figueroa Jumagdao, 8 January 2017

The wedding [Sydney]: photo by David Challoner, 17 January 2015

The wedding [Sydney]: photo by David Challoner, 17 January 2015

The wedding [Sydney]: photo by David Challoner, 17 January 2015

Strange Fruit [Explored #51] | by Alex Hughes-Games

Strange Fruit [Bristol]: photo by Alex Hughes-Games, 14 March 2014

[Untitled]: photo by Sasikumar Ramachandran, 6 December 2016

CHINA - A delegate pulls the curtain to go to the plenary session of the National People's Congress in Beijing. @fgeffardAFP #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 8 March 2017

JERUSALEM - An ultra-Orthodox Jewish girl wearing a bride outfit walks in the street during a school Purim celebration. Photo @menahemkahana: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 8 March 2017

. | by Violet Kashi (Street Photography)

[Purim, Bnei Brak]: photo by Violet Kashi, 3 March 2015

duck or rabbit?

IRAQ - Iraqi government forces advance in Badush, some 15 kilometres northwest of Mosul during #MosulOffensive Photo @mo_sawaf #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 9 March 2017

GAZA CITY - Palestinian girls walk holding hands at sunset on the beach in Gaza City. Photo @mohmdabed #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 9 March 2017

CHINA - Security guards take a break as a man sleeps during National People's Congress at Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo @NAsfouri: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 9 March 2017

CHINA - A man walks in front of a shop in Beijing. Photo @freddufour_afp #DailyLife: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 9 March 2017

MEXICO - The celebration of San Juan de Dios festivity in Tultepec. Photo @rschemidt #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 9 March 2017

INDIA - A homeless Indian man and his puppy are reflected in a mirror as he shaves himself on a street in Chennai. Photo @ArunsankarKrish #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 9 March 2017

A large cloud of smoke rises during fighting between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants as civilians walk toward Iraqi security forces after fleeing their homes on the western side of Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, March 9, 2017: photo by Khalid Mohammed/AP, 9 March 2017

Hospitality staff walk across a crosswalk during a plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday, March 9, 2017. China's top leadership as well as thousands of delegates from around the country are gathered at the Chinese capital for the annual legislature meetings.: photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP, 9 March 2017

Two Pairs