(Roughly) Daily

In your correspondent’s quest to highlight mash-ups of note*, an interruption of the annual idyll to share the exquisite pleasure of Kanye New Yorker Tweets (c.f. also here):  the actual twittering of the Taylor Swift-interrupting hip hop climber, set to drawings that have graced the pages of The New Yorker.

Consider for example:

Many, many more here.

*Other mash-ups: C.f., e.g., here, here, or here…

As we celebrate the serendipitous results of radical juxtaposition, we might recall that it was on this date in 30 BCE that Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last pharaoh to rule Egypt (and storied lover of Antony) committed suicide.  Historians from Strabo and Plutarch have reported that the Queen did herself in by having an asp bite her.  But earlier this year, the German historian Christoph Schaefer challenged this account, declaring that the queen had actually died from drinking a mixture of poisons. After studying historic texts and consulting with toxicologists, Schaefer concluded that the asp could not have caused the slow and pain-free death reported.  Schaefer and his lead toxicologist Dietrich Mebs insist that Cleopatra used a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium.

Another asterisk for the record books…

The Queen of Egypt