Clever blog name

[homunculus-argument]

Libraries are sneaky, because once you go in, it's soo easy to get a library card, and once you have one, you can pretty much grab one of everything of all the stuff they have there with no consequence, and take it home. But then once you're home and you've read all the stuff you'll have to go back to the library to return the stuff, and once you're at the library again, you're at the library again, so might as well pop in to see what they got, and then you're hauling half their shit home again, and then you'll need to return to the library to return them, so you're at the library again

And the next thing you know you've read 3000 books, your crops are clear and your skin is watered, an angel descents from the heaven to suck your dick twice a week, and also you've got some books to return so you've got a perfectly valid reason to go pop in to the library. Just a little bit.

[trans-girl-nausicaa]

i love context

give me the edition of the book with five introductions that establish the historical context and the critical and popular reception

show me the photograph the way it looked when it originally appeared in newspapers in 1949

show me the painting with several paragraphs about the artist’s motivation, education, class, race, nationality, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and political affiliation

show me the underlying socioeconomic conditions that contributed to this historical event

[cafeinevitable-deactivated20220]

Over The Waves by Setsuko Matsushima

art quilt

[shitposting-extraordinaire]

QUILT??!?!?!?!?!??

[creative-type]

Back when I was still in high school while visiting my grandparents out of state, my mom took me to a quilt show where there was this one appliqué wall hanging piece that haunts me to this day. It was of a girl who’d gotten her kite stuck in a tree, and had the vibes of an Edward Gorey piece, all black and white  except for the kite, which was red.  And the damn thing was reversible. If a piece of material was black with white spots on one side, the other would be white with black stripes. The dude who made the piece said he had to go to material shops across 4 different states to make the concept work. Understandably, he wasn’t interested in selling at that time, so I snapped a few crappy pictures on my pre-smart phone cellphone.

Except my phone unexpectedly broke shortly thereafter, and I lost those pictures forever. It’s been like 15 years, and I still think of that little wall hanging quilt and feel a little sad that I’ll never see it again.

Anyway, quilts are art and too many people sleep on that artistry without really understanding the work that goes into making them 

[lichenaday]

Punctelia graminicola

I love learning about a member of a familiar genus I have yet to meet! P. graminicola grows on rocks, moss, and occasionally bark or burned wood at low elevations in North America down in South America. This foliose lichen has a wide, adnate to loosely attached thallus of narrow, sublinear lobes that are pale blue-gray to green-gray on the upper surface, and pale tan on the lower surface. As with other members of the genus, it has point-like or pore-like pseudoceyphellae (openings in the outer layer of the thallus to the inner medullary layer). What's really cool is that scientists actually studied the developmental physiology of these structures within the genus, and found that P. graminicola forms these structures by arranging the medullary hyphae in circular groups and pushing from the inner layer out, shoving the algal layer up, eventually bursting through the cortex, leaving a gaping hole into the lichen!

Ok maybe not "gaping" per se--they are really small. Why does it go through all this effort to form these pores? The prevailing theory is gas exchange for the photobiont layer during photosynthesis, but that likely is only part of the story, as not all lichens have pseudoceyphellae but all perform photosynthesis.

images: source | source

info: source | source

[warmleveret-deactivated20170910]

as funny as “those are his hooves you bitch” I’m mad that it overshadows that lil wayne really did have socks on in a jacuzzi 

[nenchaenmoved-blog]

can y'all stop just throwing random words together and expecting us to understand it

[re-bee-key]

you had to be there

[puzzled-on-main]

am i allowed to say kill all trillionaires or is that too specific of a threat

[liniini]

“Crescent Lady” by Warren B. Davis (1865-1928)

[shamebats]

"There's no thought crimes and no thought heroisms" is honestly such a good piece of life advice.

You could be having the most fucked up problematic thoughts 24/7 but if you treat people with kindness, the good you do is the only thing that matters. But if you have only the purest thoughts and all the correct beliefs, it doesn't matter one bit if you spend most of your time being an asshole to people.

[cardassiangoodreads]

#fandom needs this one

[twasjane]

God there really is a Terry Pratchett quote for everything

[discworld-heritage-posts]

Discworld Heritage Post

[crowboy-bebop]

unauthorized fucking thing!!!!!!

(warning: loud chirping throughout)

source: hellgate osprey cam

[curlicuecal]

[aetherograph]

More context:

the first osprey is the father, the one that comes later is the mother.

ospreys are not eagles, they're ospreys

ospreys only eat fish, that's why they don't register this starling as possible food

the starling got home safely

the starling was not trying to eat the eggs, it was mostly curious and you can see it trying to hop under the osprey every time the osprey tries to sit down again--this is because the starling is still a baby and has the instinct to get under an adult for warmth, even though it mostly has its feathers. this scares the osprey because that is a Foreign Creature near its eggs.

at the end of the video you can see the ospreys starting to turn the eggs. birds do this so the yolk and/or embryo don't stick to the shell of the egg, which is bad for the egg's health.

ospreys have eyes adapted to seeing beneath the surface of the water!

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[fivetrench]

*Whimpers*

[onenicebugperday]

This is the jumping spider Neobrettus tibialis photographed in Indonesia by wildsumatra on iNaturalist.

Dorsal view by the same photographer:

And from the side:

[ampervadasz]

[rosslynpaladin]

imagine being on your little dried peapod shell of a boat with your fragile little human self and then

out of the depths below

the Divine

God-Beasts

come right up to YOU

capable of crushing you without even noticing you

and ever so gently

so gently

roll back and forth around the dried leaf you're sitting on

just to maybe examine you and see what you're doing in their world.

[loubatas]

[directactionforhope]

Every time you catch yourself going, "Fuck, are humans just inherently evil and naturally inclined to selfishness and harm???" you HAVE to remember that that's literally a core ideal of Christianity.

So if it feels inescapable and like evidence of it is everywhere, whether at times or always, that might just because you're in a Western country where you're surrounded by Christians who believe that, fundamentally, in their worldview. And also they talk and make art about it all the time and run the vast majority of news outlets. And spent over a thousand years burning any art or texts that disagreed with them. Etc. etc.

If you're gonna come to as drastic and painful a conclusion as that, at least take the time first to make sure you're not working with biased evidence (surrounded by too many people and cultural products that believe original sin is real)

And if it turns out the feeling WAS partly the result of cultural Christianity, then hey, that's great news, because it means there's that much (and it really is SO MUCH) less evidence that humans inherently suck. Which is good, because we don't

[1000-life-hacks]

[archeologist-prophet]

Lovely to see we have spaces where you can gain access to so much literature!

[bitchesgetriches]

The Library Is a Magical Place and You Should Fucking Go There

[thememedaddy]

[chucktaylorupset]

(via hornedchick)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.

[kikibabybunny]

[lastoneout]

I know this is a tiny part of the wider problems born of diet culture, fatphobia, classicism, and racism but like god the idea that "healthy" food must inherently taste bad has completely ruined us as a society.

[lastoneout]

Every time you feel bad for having coffee with cream and sugar or ranch on your salad or putting extra butter and salt on your veggies I want you to imagine the spirit of John Harvey Kellogg in front of you and then I want you to kill him with a real gun and eat your delicious food in peace.