How to be Lost

Dedicated to finding the weird, ominous, unsettling, or threatening within the everyday and mundane. Winding roads, dark spaces, and things half-seen in the distance are what makes life more interesting.

[charl0ttan]

not to vaguepost but there is a spectre

[blondebrainpowered]

A late 19th century netsuke of a meditating skeleton, made of silver set in stag antler. Meiji period, from Japan.

Now housed at the British Museum.

[pseudospectre]

Found a strange conjoined German homunculus washed up at the lake

[memorycycle]

first thing id do as a skeleton is drink red wine from a goblet and have it spill out everywhere . second thing id do is play my ribs like a xylophone

[infected]

Calamita Cosmica by Gino De Dominicis, an Italian artist.

Photo taken by krisyx76 in Foligno, Italy.

[lilystrations]

"The Eyes Who Lurk"

Despite the larger amount of radio silence the last few months, I've actually made more than twenty new art pieces but a high percentage of them are for a project I should have in my hands within the next few days and I am ITCHING to have it in hand. So anyways, here's some loose unsettling vibes for your evening.

[pseudospectre]

I never do this, tbh I rarely share much of anything personal here, but one of my best friends has found herself in a shitty situation and this is the only site I'm on at all so it's the only place I have to share this for her. And I know we all basically pass the same $20 back and forth here, but if you have anything you're willing to toss at her we'd all be so very grateful.

Donate to Support Katie’s Fight Against Breast Cancer, organized by Zoey Carter

Our wonderful friend Katie, an incredible mom of two toddlers and wife, was re… Zoey Carter needs your support for Support Katie’s Fight Aga

I'm not the organizer, that's a separate friend of ours bc Katie isn't the sort of person to ask for help for herself. She knows about it and both her and her husband are here on Tumblr and will see this too (I won't share their accounts assuming they want to remain private)

If you're not in a position to help, of course that's perfectly fine, but if I can ask that you share this or at least say some.kond of prayer or well-wish for her in whatever way you do that sort of thing, we appreciate that too :) And from the bottom of my heart, thank you for anything.

[mothermara]

remember to bury the dead with a phone, everyone. these days the ferry terminal at the river styx wants you to download a fucking app

[3rdrealm-deactivated20200301]

i think the crux of human misery stems from the fact that our skeleton just wants to sit around and accumulate dust in an ancient barrow (that is the innate imperative of all skeletal remains in-case you didn’t know) but our meat has its own agenda which creates this fundamental conflict of interests

[rainintheevening]

What is prev to you?

the smell of woodsmoke in the dark

sunlight glittering on drifts of snow

opening chords to a classic song after an ad break on the radio

daisies in a mason jar

the curve in the road you always take a bit too fast

blank notebook with a leather cover

a stone church with carvings and spires and stained-glass

a cool pillow and a warm blanket at midnight

playlist that makes sense to no one else

yellow leaf floating down a clear cold river

silver fog over green hills and warm hands in raincoat pockets

a strain of violin music floating through a crowded subway

Voting ended onJul 18

[theehorsepusssy]

[msmongoose]

@ominous-signs

[ominous-signs]

Official ominous sign

[cleverreports]

We report: threads of light are trailing after the sunset, and the dry air is becoming more breathable. It has felt like noon all day, the intensity of the sun, the narrow, sharp shadows. Our expert, remarkably, manages to feel a little cold when a light breeze shakes the wheat.

[blueiscoool]

Miniature Skeleton: A Ghostly 2,000-Year-Old Party Favor From an Ancient Roman Banquet

This spooky skeleton was likely made to remind Roman banqueters that life is short.

This small, bronze skeleton is one of only a dozen known examples of an ancient Roman "larva convivalis" — a "banquet ghost" figurine given out as a party favor 2,000 years ago.

The skeleton originally had jointed arms and legs, but only a portion of its left leg remains today. Its skull features large, round eye sockets and a toothy grin. The bronze figurine measures roughly 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters) tall and is in the collection of the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, California.

According to a 1980 study by then-Getty curator Faya Causey Frel, the skeleton was a kind of "memento mori" — a symbol of the brevity of life and the inevitability of death. The spooky skeletons were probably handed out at dinner parties in a nod to Epicureanism, the philosophical system that considered that because death is humans' main fear, we should take pleasure in what life has to offer.

Banqueting and death were often linked in Roman art and literature, according to the Getty.

In the novel "The Satyricon," written in the late first century A.D. by Petronius, a man named Trimalchio was hosting a dinner party. The narrator tells of "a slave brought in a silver skeleton, so contrived that the joints and movable vertebra could be turned in any direction. He threw it down upon the table a time or two, and its mobile articulation caused it to assume grotesque attitudes."

Trimalchio, the host, then exclaims that "this skeleton before us here is as important as we ever were! Let's live then while we may and life is dear."

The Getty example of the banquet ghost lacks scientific accuracy. "It was perhaps more important that the bony specters were lively," Causey Frel wrote.

By Kristina Killgrove.

[pseudospectre]

It's really important to me that everyone knows you can get a replica of this

Roman Miniature Skeleton - Reproduction

Reproduction of a Roman miniature bronze skeleton in the collection of the Getty Villa Museum. Made of bronze, this 1st century Roman articu

[protestantcrona]

OK, so I’ve been to Korb’s once in my life, in Flower Mound. It was the most awkward shit I think I ever experienced. My girlfriend’s weird, tech millionaire uncle lives out there and took us to get low carb snacks… LOL. Unrelated. We went in the doors and they kind of went off down the aisles but I got stuck staring at the kind of, trophy case, announcement board thing they have at the front of the store? They had this raggedy scrap of pink cloth pinned up, and there was a little printed piece of paper with cut out scalloped edges stapled onto a slightly larger, kind of yellowed piece of construction paper… you know how they’ll have posted up on boards like that. The paper explained, in 18pt Comic Sans, that the scrap of cloth was from Jackie’s pink Chanel suit that she was wearing during the Kennedy assassination in Dallas. Accordingly, it was soaked in a very deep brown, crusted blood from the 1960s as well as this horrible, desiccated grey crud all over that I thought had to be Jack’s brains. It was just casually hanging next to the employee of the month and a leaflet advertising the sales that week, and it felt really crass to me, although the paper said it was intended a respectful tribute.  While I was looking a dude in a  orange Korb Torson’s polo and lanyard came up and started making conversation. He was a big white dude with a high and tight, fat but built, exmilitary looking. asking if I was a big Kennedy buff. I do have a casual interest in midcentury history so I was like, yeah a bit, but also uncomfy because I just wasn’t liking the vibes of the whole thing… Dude is talking to me and starts trying to… sell me the cloth? He’s like looking around shifty and being like… I’ll give it to you for half a mil. It’s worth way more than that. I was like sorry haha I don’t have half a million dollars on hand right now and he was like, three hundred grand? I’ll give you credit. I thought it might be a bad joke but he started to turn red, get really intense. Pushy. “You’d have to be fucking stupid to pass this up. This is the real deal. It’s got Jack’s brains on it.” I was getting scared. Then my girlfriend’s family found me and were like, of fucking course Morty was looking at Jack’s brains. Come on let’s go home and play Cyberpunk on uncle Jeff’s PS4. The dude’s bearing totally changed and he powerwalked away and refused to look at me the whole time we were checking out. Shit was so fucking awkward. But yeah I think that was a Flower Mound thing and not a Korb’s thing if I had to guess.

[itscoldinwonderland]

I did not read any of your text. I was initially going to ask how old is this picture, but no I don’t care about that- what are these categories “spicy town” “easterlands”???

[protestantcrona]

I was traumatized in Korb Torson’s but OK.

[rockfact]

hey guys sorry i took a na💀p has anyone seen The Skull do we know where it went

[badassdemonsword-deactivated202]

I hear the sound of a glass bottle gliding smoothly across a frozen lake. I say, "No, it can't be...". I look behind me. What i see is downright Aykroydian.

[matineaux-deactivated20260222]

kind of weird how parts of your soul are left in various locations without any warning… like yes i’m always at the top of that hill, sitting at the bus stop, in the cool light of the Japanese restaurant, standing at the pier etc etc

[hi-im-ryn]