7/3/2006: Sand sculptures

[Undertoad]

Axlrosen points to the Boston.com gallery of images of Belgium's Sand Sculptures Festival. It says there that "A team of 40 carvers from around the world spent five weeks building a giant sculpture representing the world of Sheherazade and the giant book of The Thousand and One Nights."



Wikipedia explains Sheherazade, and I edit:

King Shahryar learned that his wife was betraying him. In anger, every day Shahryar would marry a new wife, a virgin; spend the night with her; and at dawn he would send her to be beheaded. He repeated this cycle over and over, and killed 3000 of them.

Against her father's protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King.

Once in the King's chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The King lay awake and listened with awe to Scheherazade's first story and asked for another... but Scheherazade pointed out there wasn't time, as dawn was breaking, and regretfully so, as the next story was even more exciting.

And so the King kept Scheherazade alive as he eagerly anticipated each new story, until, one thousand and one adventurous nights, and three sons later, the King had not only been entertained but wisely educated in morality and kindness by Scheherazade... who became his Queen.

It seems like a good idea for Belgium to spend weeks and weeks and a lot of money to retell this fable... of how to calm an angry Persian leader and simultaneously instruct him in morality and kindness. Of course one hopes to avoid the deaths of 3000 innocents before that kind of peace-bringing communicator volunteers.



Meanwhile in Yarmouth (UK), officials blame hooliganism for vandals ruining part of their £1m sand sculpture project. The story is sad, but the sign there is 100% British, and the shot sums up the state of the state: highly cultured, marvelously polite, and only occasionally ruined by a small minority of violent drunks.

(Apologies, BTW for not posting an image this weekend. I was busy.)