The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Word of the Every So Often
abscission: (noun) Abscission is when parts of a plant that are supposed to fall off do so, such as dead leaves. Abscission, though, can be used for anything, such as... The abscission of the old folks was sad, but... I mean... they were really old. What do you expect?
Everyday History
Our story takes place on September 12, 1940, near the village of Montignac, Dordogne, in southwestern France. On that day a young man named Marcel Ravidat was out walking his faithful dog, Robot, when the dog disappeared into a hole made by a recently uprooted tree. Robert, along with three of his friends, went into the hole trying to find Robot. And they did. But they found just a whole lot more – the Lascaux cave paintings.
Lascaux has been dubbed the “Sistine Chapel of Prehistoric Art,” not just because of the amount of paintings found – over 600 wall paintings featuring over 6,000 figures, but because of how good the paintings are, both the condition of the art, and the art itself. The paintings used blurred lines to create the idea of motion. They used the surface of the rocks to make the images seem three dimensional. They used perspective. They even used an air-gun technique, blowing paint through hollowed out reeds. And everything was planned. It just wasn’t random drawings.
The paintings date from roughly 20,000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic period, which was the final phase of the Stone Age, beginning around 50,000 years ago and lasting until roughly 12,000 years ago. During the Upper Paleolithic, humans started looking and acting like humans, they got rid of those pesky Neanderthals, the use of tools advanced, and symbolic art became a thing, such as the art in Lascaux.
Aside from the people who painted them, the art also taught us a lot about what kind of things were running around the countryside back then, although the more dangerous predators, such as lions and bears, are not quite as obvious, hidden in the darker recesses of the cave. As well, the cave might’ve been a system those early hunters used to track their prey, recording where and when a species might occur.
The original Lascaux cave was closed to the public in 1963. Carbon dioxide, humidity, and artificial light were damaging the cave paintings. There’s still a buck to be made though... or, I guess, a franc. “Lascaux IV” in Montignac is a reproduction of the original cave. And it’s not cheap.
Cartoon of the Week
After a lifetime of work, Martin had succeeded
in making a mountain into a molehill.
Stuff
History of the Future: The Last Really Good View
Following using the Grand Canyon as a landfill in 2060, and the collective nuking of Iguazu Falls in South America so the countries concerned would no longer have a reason to fight over it, the writers of Traveler magazine began to ponder just how many places were left on the earth that were truly worth going out of your way to see. After two years of intense scrutinization, they found only one. A hillside overlooking the James River just northeast of the small town of Hurley, Missouri, was determined to be the last picturesque place on the planet on August 11, 2063.
Real estate prices there immediately increased by 200,000%, and it instantly became a magnet for the super-rich, who had finally come to admit that the Moon was downright boring. Those who could afford to be on that hillside just outside Hurley immediately began figuring out how to make money off those who could not.
High rises soon appeared where people were willing to pay 1,000 U.S. adjusted dollars for a one minute (adjusted time) view. Whenever one high-rise would block the view, the one behind it would just make theirs higher.
Finally, in what has become known as the Great Collapse, on October 6, 2076, 100 square miles of high rise condos, hotels, and timeshares, spontaneously collapsed in on themselves and fell into the valley, obliterating everything that was once there to see.
Since so much of the world’s wealth was tied up in what simply became known as “That Place,” the world’s markets suffered a simultaneous collapse. Many of the 2.8 million wrongful death lawsuits are still making their way through the courts as of this writing. And it is estimated that there isn’t a chance in hell that anyone will ever figure out who is really responsible for reimbursing those people who had placed deposits so their grandchildren might someday be able to eventually go there.
The only person to profit off the whole affair was a man named Gweev Flood, who bought the whole place for a song (which he didn’t even have to sing). Gweev has since begun charging people a dollar apiece just so the could see what was once “That Place.” There are plans for condominiums.
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