Ángel “Chaneke” Chan, born in 1998, is a Mexican boxer. In June, 2021 in Valladolid, Mexico, he weighed in at the El Regreso del Gigante II boxing match for a fight against Pablo "Rojo" Peraza in the lightweight division. He had to strip for his weigh-in. A cameraman nearby got a view of him putting his shorts back on, above.
Here's an expanded view of that moment.
Chaneke lost that fight. His overall record is 11 wins and 9 losses.
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Today, in Hawaii where I live, the noon sun will be directly overhead. This phenomenon, which occurs only in the tropics, is known in Hawaii as Lahaina Noon. It is not named after the city of Lahaina in Maui. Rather, "la haina" means "merciless sun" in Hawaiian.
Lahaina Noon happens twice a year in Hawaii, once in May as the sun moves north in the sky, and once in July as the sun moves south again. The exact date when it happens depends on the latitude where you live, and the exact time is not 12:00, which is the standard noontime across the whole time zone, but at "astronomical noon" or solar noon, when the sun reaches the exact highest point in the sky. The time when that happens depends on the longitude where you live. For me, Lahaina Noon will occur on May 18 at 12:16 pm.
At Lahaina Noon, any object that is perfectly vertical, like a telephone pole, casts no shadow at all.
The drawing above, by Hawaiian artist Douglas Simonson, is called Straight Up Noon. I'm not positive that the name refers to Lahaina Noon, but I think it does, because the shadow of his arm looks vertical, as if the sun is directly above. And of course, things in the drawing are "up" in more than one way.
The Roman city of Pompeii, along with the neighboring town of Herculaneum, was destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, burying the city under 20 feet of volcanic ash.
When Pompeii was rediscovered and houses were uncovered, many works of art were found, including the charming mosaic above in the House of the Faun, showing animals of the Nile.
Statues were also found, including this Roman copy of a Greek original depicting the god Pan teaching Daphnis how to play the panpipes.
Another statue shows a youth as a lamp-bearer. Nude statues were perfectly normal in Greek and Roman times and were not considered shocking or shameful.
We expect mosaics and statues to survive through the ages. What is remarkable about Pompeii are the paintings that have survived for 2000 years, mostly frescoes painted on the walls. Above, a painting of Theseus, the Greek mythological hero who killed the Minotaur, in the House of Marcus Gavius Rufus, Pompeii.
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A fresco in the House of the Epigrams showing a satyr and a nymph. Note that the satyr has an erection.
A fresco in the House of the Vettii, showing the god Priapus weighing his huge penis on a scale. Priapus was the god of male fertility. Imagine having this painted on the wall inside your house for everyone to see. That's what the upper-class owners of the House of the Vettii did.
Another fresco of Priapus and his enormous penis, depicted with attributes of the god Mercury.
This fresco from the Casa del Medico (House of the Physician) depicts a scene along the Nile with pygmies, and some of them are fucking.
We end with this sculpture from Herculaneum, the neighboring town also destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Pompeii was buried under volcanic ash, but Herculaneum was buried by a lava flow, so it was more difficult to excavate.
Art was also found there, including this exquisitely crafted statue of the god Pan fucking a goat, found in the Villa of the Papyri. The wealthy owner of the house had a library of hundreds of scrolls.
This statue and the frescoes suggest that our attitude about what is porn is quite different from the ancient Roman attitude. For the Romans, this was not porn – these were artworks that were proudly displayed.
Sunnyside North Beach is a nude beach near Melbourne, Australia.
It's the only official clothing-optional beach in the Melbourne area.
An overall view of the beach. Click on it for a larger view.
and go swimming. The waves are not heavy because the beach is at a protected location on Port Phillip Bay.
Or you can bask in the sun ...
or lie in the shade ...
if you bring your own shade ...
or you can visit with friends. Altogether, a nice place.
In 2022, the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council threatened to get the state government to revoke the beach's clothing-optional status. Michael James, above, led the campaign to save the nude beach. He is a naturist who had discovered the beach 26 years earlier, and he frequently visits the beach.
Michael pointed out that opposition to the nude beach was based on an outdated report that associated the beach with illegal behavior, but that behavior didn't occur on the beach; it happened in the parking lot and on private land nearby. The council voted to keep the status as a nude beach. Victory!
Michael said the loss would not only have affected naturists, but members of the LGBTQ community for whom the beach has become a safe space.
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The Prodigal Son is one of three parables told by Jesus in the Bible's Book of Luke. A man had two sons. The younger son asked for his inheritance upfront. The father gave it to him, and the son went to a far country and wasted his inheritance in riotous living.
Above, The Prodigal Son by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, 1638, shows the son at right surrounded by whores. We see a lot of female flesh in the painting, but there's also a nice naked musician at left.
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The parable continues: after the son had spent all his money, there was a famine. The son was forced to become a swineherd, and he envied the pigs because at least they had something to eat while he was starving.
Above, The Prodigal Son, an inkstand by Urbino c. 1600 shows the son with a pig, but he looks too comfortable to me; he's supposed to be despairing.
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The Prodigal Son by Emile Salome, 1863, above, show the son despairing.
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The Prodigal Son by Rodin, 1905, also shows a despairing son.
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Another view of Rodin's The Prodigal Son.
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The parable continues: the son returns home to his father and says he has sinned. But the father rejoices, gives his son his best robe, and orders a feast with a fatted calf.
Above, The Prodigal Son by Kristian Zahrtmann, 1909.
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This sculpture by George Grey Barnard c. 1904 also shows the return of the Prodigal Son to his father.
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The parable continues: the older son is angry, saying that he had always behaved correctly, but the father never made a celebration for him and his friends like he was now doing for the younger son. The father answers that it is good to celebrate and be glad, because his brother was lost and now is found.
The moral of the story is supposed to be that God's love is boundless, and even if you sin, God will forgive you if you repent.
Above, a more modern work, a photo by Duane Michals, 1982, called Return of the Prodigal Son. Note that, like the artworks, the son is naked.
The Bible does not say that the son was naked. Why, then, do artists show the son naked? Perhaps because the son, having no money for food, would also have no money for clothes, and the fact that the father gave him a robe suggests that he needed one. But it seems more likely to me that the son would have been dressed in rags, not naked.
I think the main reason is that artists like to portray naked people. Note that in Barnard's sculpture, the father is naked, too.
