I decided to try out whittling this summer because I am an adult so no-one can tell me to stop playing with knives recently bought a hair stick from a ren faire and found using it much kinder on my fine hair than a regular hairtie.
I made it from an apple tree that grows in front of my great-grandmothers house where I spend my summers. I like the idea of being able to wear my favourite places as self-made items, so maybe I'll make more of these in the future.
Tomorrow I will try to stain it a little darker with tea and iron. I don't necessarily want people to think i'm walking around with a chicken bone in my hair.
The tea worked ok as a woodstain, but I didn't like the color on the iron-infused vinegar treated sample. I think i'm going to oil & roast the wood in an oven tomorrow for a final color & finish!
My goodness what a difference oiling and toasting does! I did a very minimal oiling with walnut oil and roasted 30 mins in 180ish degrees celcius oven. Now it matches the color of my hair much better and smells lovely!
important reminder that most people you follow online are significantly lamer than you think they are including me. and if you feel insecure comparing yourself to someone online: DON'T. theyre probably also lame and weird. most people on the internet are
"Punishment works!!!" We're drowning in three to four generations of people so pants-shittingly terrified of ever being wrong that half of everyone has constructed a worldview wherein they never even consider the possibility that they could be wrong and the other half behaves like one wrong move will make anything or anyone explode violently into a million irreperable pieces. I don't think it works guys
I know this might be a bold take but maybe teaching everyone from a young age that ever making a mistake will be met with unimaginable pain and misery doesn't actually encourage learning or correct behavior. If anything it creates a sense of terror so powerful it completely suffocates curiosity and exploration, thus leading to people knowing absolutely nothing but whatever is brought directly to them, which is a big problem in a world where information is so tightly controlled that a very small number of very powerful people basically have complete power over what people see and hear on a day-to-day basis when not actively seeking new and rigorously verified information from diverse and trustworthy sources.
if any of this sounds like you, start by looking up the definition of words you've heard and are pretty sure you know what they mean, but haven't actually double-checked for yourself. Just like, whenever it occurs to you. Great first step
This post goes out to the "we need to bring back bullying" crowd. Just because you aren't hitting someone physically doesn't mean you aren't being punitive. Maybe it isn't actually healthy to believe it's necessary to harass and humiliate anyone who makes you upset or uncomfortable. That sounds like a you problem actually.
Anyways, breaking the cycle of abuse starts with you and how you treat yourself. You have to give yourself grace and room for error or you'll never be able to cultivate a healthier mindset than your trauma left you with. It's not easy, but you have to trust yourself that whatever seems kinder than however you usually treat yourself is probably a good enough start.
Medieval Reliquary in the Shape of a Three-Legged Fish, from Germany, c.900-1350 CE: this artifact was created as a vessel for the relics of Mary Magdalene
This strange-looking vessel is usually described as a "fish with legs," but some sources refer to it as a "flea-like insect" instead.
The body dates back to the 10th century CE, but the legs were added a few centuries later, likely during the 14th century. The vessel itself was carved from rock crystal (i.e. quartz) while the head, legs, and frame are all made from gilded silver.
As this book describes:
Around 1400, a grotesque animal was created whose rock crystal body, with a simple head and three stilt-like legs, encloses relics of Mary Magdalene in a drilled cylinder.
Apparently, a rock crystal container dating to the 10th century — according to Gerard Lemmens, “an oriental perfume bottle in the shape of a fish," or, according to Henk van Os, specifically one of the coveted Fatimid flacons — was reworked. It appears that the fins of the flacon were ground down slightly on the sides to allow the two twisted metal cords of the holder to fit more closely along the back and belly.
This reliquary was originally commissioned for the nuns of St. Vitus Church, located in Emmerich am Rhein, Germany, where it was meant to serve as a display case for the alleged relics of Mary Magdalene. It was later moved to the nearby Church of St. Martin, which is where it's currently housed.
The vessel contains a piece of parchment that may be wrapped around a human bone (or bone fragment), but the exact nature of that relic remains unclear.
Sources & More Info:
De Gruyter: Dingkulturen (I have a digital copy of this book, so if you want any additional information or excerpts from the text, feel free to message me)
Wikimedia Commons: Fish Reliquary from St. Vitus in Emmerich am Rhein
Schnütgen Museum: Exhibitions: Magic Rock Crystal
Medieval Art on Instagram: Highlights from the Rock Crystal Exhibition at Schnütgen Museum
The recent hot VS cold polls have made me realise that a lot of people have no idea how to cool down.
As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:
WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!
Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.
In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.
Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.
Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.
Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.
Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.
If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.
Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.
Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.
Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.
Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.
If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.
Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.
Also keep in mind that the skinnier you are, the faster these will work. More fat means more insulation, means more heat, so you may need to be more patient with some of these or use them in combination.
One Museum A Month - June: Naturalienkabinett Waldenburg
Boy, do I have a treat for you this month.
During the 18th and 19th century, with the rise of science as a discipline, it became somewhat chic to amass collections of natural specimens: taxidermies, insects, minrals, etc. This was called a Naturalienkabinett. Related, but different, was the Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities): collections of man-made things. Things that displayed craftsmanship, souveniers from travels, interesting or bizarre apparatuses and generally whatever caught the collector's fancy. Naturalienkabinette often became museums of natural history later, while Wunderkammern eventually became specialized collections (or the glass cabinet in your grandma's living room).
Waldenburg, a small town near Chemnitz, Saxony, hosts one of the last still mostly intact historical collections of that kind in Europe. Visiting it is like travelling through time. The collection was started by the Linck family in the 18th century, later changed hands, grew, and was put in its current home in the late 1840s. Where it has sat mostly unchanged ever since.
The museum just reopened after extensive renovations, and there were some gentle adjustments. Context was added, and some more controversial things were removed from their original display cases to be presented in a more sensitive manner. I visited this museum as a young child, when the presentation was even closer to the way it was originally in the 19th century. It's not the sole explanation for why I am Like That, but - well. I think it will come as no surprise to those who know me, that it was a very formative experience for 10y/o me :D
Before we go on, I have to give you a serious content warning. A lot of dry and wet* specimens, both animal and human. There's also some things from a colonial context. Click read more at your own digression.
*that means dead things in jars
Look at that staircase, I want those tiles in my house
This is what about the first thing we see upon entry.
Despite its name, this is not purely a Naturalienkabinett; it houses a fair bit of odd knick-knacks and souvenirs, too. The original purpose of such a collection was to showcase how sophisticated, well-educated, and worldly the curators were.
Model of a steam engine and a wood case that holds a tiny 3D landscape.
My grandma, too, collected miniatures like this.
They have an egyptian mummy, and behind it a big case just full of tourist kitsch and souvenirs. Statuettes. Shoes. A "bird mummy". I'm sure more than half of this stuff is still on sale in tourist destinations around the world, without much change. In another room, there were figurines made from seashells that I have definitely seen in coastal tourist towns.
On the other side, there was half a coconut shell. Not even the whole thing.
I haven't been to a museum of natural history in a while, so I was once again surprised to find just how educationally valuable well-made taxidermies are. True, these are all centuries old, and as a result, faded and somewhat dirty, but they really allow one to get a sense of the living animal in a way pictures don't. Of course thousands of individuals were poached for these collections (and also, for fashion) and that's a tragedy. Still, there is historical and scientific value to these, imo, and I can't help but be fascinated (and also, selfishly grateful).
The display cases are all original
Lots, and I mean lots of birds. I expect they keep better than other kinds of animals.
I loved how indiscriminate the collection was. There were lots of very beautiful, charismatic, or exotic animals like this Abyssinian Roller (also, of course, lots of birds of paradise. And an amazing baboon that I am now realizing I did not take a picture of. Shame.)...
... but also very common animals like this tufted tit or these perfectly ordinary domestic chickens.
At some point, there's an entire horse.
Some taxidermies were...better than others.
I always thought the american bluejay was about the size of our jays, I didn't know they were this small.
Then the insects! The insect cases were probably the most impressive, there were so many of them. Again, big charismatic moths and butterflies, but also entire cases full of flies and mosquitos. One was all bees.
Yes, obviously there was a death's-head hawkmoth, too. No one can resist the call of the most goth of all insects.
Of course there were lots of minerals. Again, somewhat eclectic: specimens with scientific value next to tourist trap kitsch.
And the reptiles! Lots of snakes and lizards in jars. And Fish, too. The formaldehyde obviously doesn't preserve the animal to the same degree as a taxidermy, but it was still very impressive. You can clearly make out markings, and I was fascinated by how well-preserved some of the faces were.
There were just. So many of these.
Lots of fish also. I want to highlight the eel; due to an adverse childhood experience, I find them extremely freaky.
And of course, the thing this museum is really famous for, which is the calves with birth defects. The most well-known two-headed one is now in the new exhibit. But these are still on display here.
"I have a fucked up calf, do you want it?" "Yeah, just put it with the others."
Albino roe
The new exhibit also houses the human specimens. I think there was some debate over whether to exhibit them at all, and I'm very glad they decided to keep them. When I first came here, they were all in a cupboard in a staircase. Now, they are exhibited a bit more respectfully. They are all in very well-lit cases, surrounded by mirrors. This means they are easy to observe in-person but very difficult to photograph. Somewhat frustrating, but also very clever.
Fetal skull with preserved meninges
The arteries are preserved with wax.
And, of course, my favourite, and the main reason I came back here at all. I saw this as a young child, and have never forgotten it.
It's a human fetus, stillborn in 1735, and preserved in formaldehyde.
Due to the extensive malformations of the fetus, the parents gave it to the physician Gottlieb Friderici, who autopsied and wrote a tract about it that's accessible here. It's in Latin and features etchings of the fetus. He then preserved the it, and eventually gave it to the Linck family for their collection.
Friderici meticulously recorded everything wrong with the fetus (which, to summarize it, truly is everything. Not a single organ developed normally). When it comes to the cause for all this, however, he speculates but ultimately admits he does not know. He leaves the case to future generations of doctors, who will surely know more than him.
Fast forward to the early 2000's mid 1990's (got the date wrong, forgive me), when the fetus was rediscovered by the then-director of the children's hospital in nearby Chemnitz, Dietmar Müller. He, too, wanted to know what caused all these deformities and took the fetus to examine it. Eventually, he was able to extract DNA from the umbilical cord and diagnose the problem: The fetus is missing the 17th chromosome. It's the only case of this severity ever recorded worldwide.
And to me, that just so aptly illustrates the scientific spirit. Friderici applied all his knowledge to find out what was wrong, but when it came to the explanation, he had the humility to acknowledge his own limits. It's not like explanations didn't exist. For a very long time, people believed that shocks during pregnancy caused miscarriages and birth defects, a notion that Friderici rejects. He speculates that it might be an imbalance of the humors, but ultimately, he admits he has no idea. It's like he is reaching into the future, across over 250 years, and asking his successors to solve the mystery he can't. And Müller reaches back, and gives him the answer. His faith was not misplaced. We know so much more now.
(You might say: What does it matter? It's not like knowing what a chromosomal defect is cures it. Which is true. We can't cure something like this, and likely never will be able to. But at least we know it's no one's fault. Nothing could have prevented it. It's tragic, and heartbreaking, but the mother didn't cause this when she got scared by a marten in the henhouse, and she could not have prevented it by eating a better diet. There's comfort in that, I think.)
And I have hit picture limit, so I can't show you the rest of the fetus collection. Or the skeletons. Or the herbarium. Or the seashells and corals. Or... Well, you know. The museum isn't big at all, but there is so much to see! Highly recommend for a truly immersive historical experience.
Museum Naturalienkabinett Waldenburg, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 08396 Waldenburg
open: October-March: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00-16:00
April-September: Tuesday-Friday 10:00-16:00, weekends and holidays 10:00-17:00
