#kaiyves

[1863-project]

You cried about losing a dinosaur toy at least once as a kid.

Somewhere in my parents's neighbor's ivy is a plastic Brachiosaurus that fell in there in the mid-1990s. I wonder sometimes if the ivy is ever removed if I'll be able to find it.

[footnoteinhistory]

This never struck me until the song came up on my shuffle on the bus today, but is Tim McDonald in “The Irish Volunteer” supposed to be a sixty-year-old fighting in the Civil War if his father died in (17)98?

Ahahaha I never caught that! Maybe in that lyric he means “father” as in “forefather”? I feel like I’ve heard a rendition that uses “grandfather” there instead, which obviously would make more sense. Or maybe he’s a very fit 60+ year old who is determined to serve!!

[rudjedet]

Is Herodotus’s description of the Phoenix dying and being reborn on an altar to the sun god reflective of real Egyptian myths about the bennu bird?

No, it’s not. Herodotus says that he was told the “phoenix” only appears once every 50 years on Egypt, when the parent bird dies. The story goes that the young phoenix brings the old bird a lump of myrrh, which it shapes into an egg as big as it can carry. Once the egg is done, it hollows it out and puts the parent bird inside. Then the young bird takes up the egg and flies with it to the temple of the sun god to place it on the altar there. The idea of “consumed by fire and reborn from the ashes” is a further Greek elaboration of this story that also has no basis in the Egyptian sources.

In the Egyptian tradition, the Bennu bird is part of the Heliopolitan cosmogony. According to this creation myth, Re-Atum appeared from the waters of Nun and took the form of the Bennu bird, which is a heron. Bennu’s first call was the first sound, and the beginning of creation. He then created a perch on which to sit, and from where to create the rest of the world. This perch was called the Benben Stone. The priests of the Heliopolitan temple claimed that their temple was built on top of that very rock. As a sacred cult object, the Benben Stone was a pyramid-shaped stone set atop a pillar. 

All in all, there’s very little fire and death-and-rebirth that comes into play in the Heliopolitan cosmogony. 

[emmythespacecowgirl]

Holiday gifts: Kai, hobbies are reading, cycling, and photography, short white girl with short curly brown hair and blue glasses. Ship: Any WWII couple of your choice 25 years later watching the Apollo 8 broadcast.

Hi Kai!! Thanks for popping into my inbox! I hope you enjoy your holiday HCs <3

Ok, so i had a mild anxiety attack bc i wasn’t sure if you meant a ship like “winnix” or “speirton” or if you wanted an individual ship with one of the BoB/Pacific boys, but I interpreted it as being part of an already existing ship?? Please lmk if you were envisioning something different and I’d be more than happy to whip something else up.

I ship you with: Winnix (Dick Winters and Lewis Nixon) from Band of Brothers!

Ok so i have some FEELINGS about this ship!

And I thought your request for the 1968 Christmas Eve Apollo broadcast was such a cool concept!

You balance out Winters and Nix very well.

Your blend of intellect and need for physical action makes you a good glue for them both as you tend to be a mediator between two seemingly different men.

During the war, you were one of the most highly respected Intelligence Officers in the entire ETO; the fact that you did all this while being a young woman was even more impressive.

You became fast friends with Lewis Nixon, another Intelligence Officer while in training.

You spent long nights discussing politics, history, photography, etc.

If anyone ever made a sexist comment towards you, Lew would always make a snarky comeback.

When Lew introduced you to his new friend, Dick Winters of the 101st Airborne, it felt like meeting a kindred spirit.

Needless to say, you three get on like a house on fire :))

Easy Company starts calling you all “The Holy Trinity” because you three always seemed to be together.

You saw each other through the best of times and the worst of times.

When the war finally ends, you, Lew, and Dick make a pact to see each other as often as possible.

You mostly keep that promise as 23 years pass by.

Lew is in between marriages.

Dick owns a small farm in Pennsylvania and regularly sends you fresh produce.

You send Lew and Dick photographs that you’ve taken on nature walks and keep them up to date on the latest news about space travel (your new obsession).

The boys are very supportive of your endeavors.

Lew even buys you a telescope one year. Just because he can.

It’s Christmas Eve of 1968 and all you’ve been talking about for days has been the Apollo 8 mission.

Just the fact that you’ll get to see Borman, Anders, and Lovell broadcasting from space on the holiest of nights seems surreal!

Lew, as usual, has invited you and Dick up to New Jersey to his family home for Christmas Eve.

As is tradition, you find yourself on the 3 o’clock train to NJ.

When you arrive at the station, Lew and Dick are there to pick you up in Dick’s old Ford truck.

They both make a big deal over your new blue glasses.

“I think the kids call it ‘groovy’ these days,” you quip back to them.

You and Dick sing Christmas Carols on the way while Lew covers his ears pretending to be dying from the vocals.

That evening finds you three luxuriating in Lew’s well-appointed living room, complete with mini-bar.

You and Lew are already feeling the Christmas cocktails hitting when the TV news channel suddenly tunes into the grainy, black and white ethereal moving image from outer space.

You bolt upright and tell the boys to quieten down, that this is what you’ve been waiting for all day, all month perhaps.

You’re finally seeing the Apollo 8 live broadcast from the moon.

Dick and Lew sense how important this is to you and somehow find themselves on the floor in front of the TV, too.

Suddenly a view of the Earth comes on screen.

Your heart skips a beat when you hear the familiar passage from Genesis being read aloud by the astronauts.

You can hear Dick clearing his throat.

You feel Lew brush against your shoulder as he scoots closer to the TV.

You had never felt more connected to everyone on Earth before

As quickly as the broadcast had come on, it ended.

You turn to look at your friends.

Lew starts chuckling when he sees the tears in the corners of your eyes.

Dick smiles and pulls you in for an embrace.

All you can do is sit up and talk about what this might mean for the future of NASA.

Since the three of you are too hyped up now to go to sleep, you suggest going ahead and opening Christmas presents.

Dick and Lew agree.

With the enthusiasm of kids on Christmas Day, you all light into the gifts under the Christmas tree.

You surprise Dick and Lew with scrapbooks you made by hand.

All the pictures are old ones of the three of you during the war.

Dick is beaming because you know how much he loves photo albums.

Dick surprises you with a bike that he painted and built from scratch.

“For our future biking ventures.” He smiles.

Lew grins as you freak out over the brand new Kodak camera he bought you.

He says that he bought himself one as well and that tomorrow you would be testing them out together.

You go to bed very content that night; happy that you have such close, caring friends; but also happy that you get to live in a time when stepping onto the moon might be just around the corner.

Hope you enjoyed, @kaiyves !! Happy Holidays!

[ahnsael]

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau

[gusgrissom]

☕️ The Vega program is underrated.

Agree! I feel like a lot of uncrewed spacecraft missions generally fly under the radar (no pun intended)

[somejack]

I notice that in your Twister posts you called Dr. Haynes “Patty”. I didn’t think she was given a first name anywhere in the movie or credits and I’d actually done a post of my own discussing making up a first name for her for a fanfic because of that. Where was she called Patty?

The subtitles on Netflix a little while back called her Patty and Haynes interchangeably! Also in an interview with a bunch of the cast the actress (the wonderful Wendle Josepher) said that she played "Patty Haynes" and described the character as a grad student for Beltzer.

She's one of a few characters I decided to bring back in a reboot script that I'm writing, wherein she runs a doppler lab for the University of Oklahoma!

[forthegothicheroine]

In a mash-up of Jurassic Park and The Tempest, who would be Ferdinand to Lex as Miranda?

I haven’t actually seen Jurassic Park (my father had a vhs of it and I spent my whole childhood terrified of just the box art!) but I do like the thought of this mashup.  Mad scientists are kind of our version of learned magicians, so if a geneticist wanted to set up a whole island of monsters to scare the living daylights out of his enemies, that’s a setup that could very easily get out of hand...