SILLY STUFF AND LITTLE WITCHES

I draw fanart of Little witch academia. Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StargazingOri

[macabrevampire]

i think avoiding everything is going to save me for real this time

[akindplace]

do you guys remember when we googled something and we would get results that were actually related to the things we searched

[magicalastronomies]

usamericans, when they're watching the game and see that their team is starting to lose, they change the channel, they leave the bar, they exit the stadium. in droves. it's a level of patheticism and detachment that not even the biggest most traitorous coward in the rest of the world reaches. once you're aware of this quirk of their culture you can't stop seeing it in everything they do

[goldkirk]

“Readers didn’t just become more efficient. They also became more attentive. To read a long book silently required an ability to concentrate intently over a long period of time, to ‘lose oneself’ in the pages of a book, as we now say. Developing such mental discipline was not easy. The natural state of the human brain, like that of the brains of most of our relatives in the animal kingdom, is one of distractedness. Our predisposition is to shift our gaze, and hence our attention, from one object to another, to be aware of as much of what’s going on around us as possible….For most of history, the normal path of human thought was anything but linear.

To read a book was to practice an unnatural process of thought, one that demanded sustained unbroken attention to a single, static object. It required readers to place themselves at what T.S. Elio, in Four Quartets, would call ‘the still point of the turning world.’ They had to train their brains to ignore everything else going on around them, to resist the urge to let their focus skip from one sensory cue to another. They had to forge or strengthen the neural links needed to counter their instinctive distractedness, applying greater ‘top-down control’ over their attention…What was so remarkable about book reading was that the deep concentration was combined with highly active and efficient deciphering of text and interpretation of meaning. The reading of a sequence of printed pages was valuable not just for the knowledge readers acquired from the author’s words but for the way those words set off intellectual vibrations within their own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the prolonged, undistracted reading of a book, people made their own associations, drew their own inferences and analogies, fostered their own ideas. They thought deeply as they read deeply.

…Reading a book was a meditative act, but it didn’t involve a clearing of the mind. It involved a filling, or a replenishing, of the mind. Readers disengaged their attention from the outward flow of passing stimuli in order to engage it more deeply with an inward flow of words, ideas, and emotions. That was—and is—the essence of the unique mental process of deep reading.”

- from The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr

[gryffon]

[othersystems]

[urbanpineapplefarmer]

It is really important to me that all of you learn about Al Bean, astronaut on Apollo 12 and the fourth man to walk on the moon, who after 20 years in the US Navy and 18 years with NASA during which he spent 69 days in space and more than 10 hours doing EVAs on the moon , retired to become a painter.

He is my favorite astronaut for any number of reasons, but he’s also one of my favorite visual artists.

Like, look at this stuff????

It’s all so expressive and textured and colorful! He literally painted his own experience on the moon! And that's just really fucking cool to me!

Just look at this! This is one of my absolute favorite emotions of all time. Is Anyone Out There? is like the ultimate reaction image. Any time I have an existential crisis, this is how I picture myself.

And then there's this one:

The Fantasy

For all of the six Apollo missions to land on the moon, there was no spare time. Every second of their time on the surface was budgeted to perfection: sleeping, eating, putting on the suits, entering and exiting the LEM, rock collection, setting up longterm experiments to transmit data back to Earth, everything. These timetables usually got screwed over by something, but for the most part the astronauts stuck to them.

The crew of Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Al Bean, and Dick Gordon) had other plans. Conrad and Bean had snuck a small camera with a timer into the LEM to take a couple pictures together on the moon throughout the mission. They had hidden the key for the timer in one of the rock collection bags, with the idea being to grab the key soon after landing, take some fun photos here and there, and then sneak the camera back to Earth to develop them. They had practiced where they would hide the key and how to get it out from under the collected rocks back on Earth dozens of times.

But when they got to the moon, the key was nowhere to be found. Al Bean spent precious time digging through the collection bags before he called it off. The camera had been pushing their luck anyways, he couldn't afford to spend anymore time not on the mission objectives. Conrad and Bean continued the mission as per the NASA plan while Dick Gordon orbited overhead.

Fast forward to the very end of the mission. Bean and Conrad are doing last checks of the LEM before they enter for the last time and depart from the moon. As Bean is stowing one of the collection bags, the camera key falls out. The unofficially planned photo time has come and gone, and he tosses the key over his shoulder to rest forever on the surface of the moon.

This painting, The Fantasy, is that moment. There have never been three people on the moon at the same time, there was never an unofficial photo shoot on the moon, this picture could never have happened.

"The most experienced astronaut was designated commander, in charge of all aspects of the mission, including flying the lunar module. Prudent thinking suggested that the next-most-experienced crew member be assigned to take care of the command module, since it was our only way back home. Pete had flown two Gemini flights, the second with Dick as his crewmate. This left the least experienced - me - to accompany the commander on the lunar surface.

"I was the rookie. I had not flown at all; yet I got the prize assignment. But not once during the three years of training which preceded our mission did Dick say that it wasn't fair and that he wished he could walk on the moon, too. I do not have his unwavering discipline or strength of character.

"We often fantasized about Dick's joining us on the moon but we never found a way. In my paintings, though, I can have it my way. Now, at last, our best friend has come the last sixty miles." - Al Bean, about The Fantasy.

[futureevilscientist]

There’s also Alexei Leonov, writer and artist and first person to conduct a spacewalk!

This is his art.

[sevensmallgummies]

You can't forget this, the first art made in space.

March 1965, Alexei Leonov made this drawing only moments after narrowly surviving the very first space walk.

[shirozoid]

Since it's the season

[thevaultoftheatomicspaceage]

[shirozoid]

Drew this for my favorite girls from LWA

My wife and I just rewatched it and I'm so weak for them

She also wrote this!! Inspired by the piece I drew

(I love her very much)

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[lookcaitlin]

[alizalayne]

late to maid day with a piece of toast in my mouth

[alizalayne]

horse girl

[alizalayne]

It’s getting away!

[slkflowr]

winter diakko ❄️🩷

[afrotumble]

Nigerian architect Demas Nwoko receives the 2023 Golden Lion for Venice Biennale

Nigerian architect Demas Nwoko receives the 2023 Golden Lion for Venice Biennale

The artist-designer and founder of the 50s art collective Zaria Rebels was recognised by Biennale Architettura 2023 for silently stirring th

[approaching-the-scrungularity-d]

I think I may never be sad ever again. There is a statue entitled "Farewell to Orpheus" on my college campus. It's been there since 1968, created by a Prof. Frederic Littman that use to work at the university. It sits in the middle of a fountain, and the fountain is often full of litter. I have taken it upon myself to clean the litter out when I see it (the skimmers only come by once a week at max). But because of my style of dress, this means that bystanders see a twenty-something on their hands and knees at the edge of the fountain, sleeves rolled up, trying not to splash dirty water on their slacks while their briefcase and suit coat sit nearby. This is fine, usually. But today was Saturday Market, which means the twenty or so people in the area suddenly became hundreds. So, obviously, somebody stopped to ask what I was doing. "This," I gestured at the statue, "is Eurydice. She was the wife of Orpheus, the greatest storyteller in Greece. And this litter is disrespectful." Then, on a whim, I squinted up at them. "Do you know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?" "No," they replied, shifting slightly to sit.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure!"

So I told them. I told them the story as I know it- and I've had a bit of practice. Orpheus, child of a wishing star, favorite of the messenger god, who had a hard-working, wonderful wife, Eurydice; his harp that could lull beasts to passivity, coax song from nymphs, and move mountains before him; and the men who, while he dreamed and composed, came to steal Eurydice away. I told of how she ran, and the water splashed up on my clothes. But I didn't care. I told of how the adder in the field bit her heel, and she died. I told of the Underworld- how Orpheus charmed the riverman, pacified Cerberus with a lullaby, and melted the hearts of the wise judges. I laughed as I remarked how lucky he was that it was winter- for Persephone was moved by his song where Hades was not. She convinced Hades to let Orpheus prove he was worthy of taking Eurydice. I tugged my coat back on, and said how Orpheus had to play and sing all the way out of the Underworld, without ever looking back to see if his beloved wife followed. And I told how, when he stopped for breath, he thought he heard her stumble and fall, and turned to help her up- but it was too late. I told the story four times after that, to four different groups, each larger than the last. And I must have cast a glance at the statue, something that said "I'm sorry, I miss you--" because when I finished my second to last retelling, a young boy piped up, perhaps seven or eight, and asked me a question that has made my day, and potentially my life: "Are you Orpheus?" I told the tale of the grieving bard so well, so convincingly, that in the eyes of a child I was telling not a story, but a memory. And while I laughed in the moment, with everyone else, I wept with gratitude and joy when I came home. This is more than I deserve, and I think I may never be sad again.

Here is the aforementioned statue, by the way.

[teir3s]

science olympiad sucy & lotte!