if the wolves come? yield.

"She spun herself a crown of gold, thrones of bones and citadels. to the deaf stars she screamed: make me queen or i’ll make you bleed." Mona // Twenty

[just--space]

IC 1871: Inside the Soul Nebula : This cosmic close-up looks deep inside the Soul Nebula. The dark and brooding dust clouds outlined by bright ridges of glowing gas are cataloged as IC 1871. About 25 light-years across, the telescopic field of view spans only a small part of the much larger Heart and Soul nebulae. At an estimated distance of 6,500 light-years the star-forming complex lies within the Perseus spiral arm of the Milky Way, seen in planet Earth’s skies toward the constellation Cassiopeia. An example of triggered star formation, the dense star-forming clouds of IC 1871 are themselves sculpted by the intense winds and radiation of the region’s massive young stars. This color image adopts a palette made popular in Hubble images of star-forming regions. via NASA

js

[closedooropenwindow-deactivated]

[principleofplenitude]

Why Swan Lake? It may seem like a random artistic choice, but to anyone who lived in the former USSR, it made perfect sense. For many Russians, the opening strains of Tchaikovsky’s score are as likely to remind them of political upheaval as they are the beauty of classical ballet. When Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, after nearly two decades in power, state-controlled television stations cut into programming not with news of his death or an announcement of who would next lead the country, but with broadcasts of Swan Lake “in its full-length, four-act, three hour expanse,” writes Stanford dance historian Janice Ross in her new book , Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia. The broadcasts were a stalling tactic, meant to block access to the news while the Soviet leadership settled on a succession plan. The same happened following the deaths of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. Swan Lake was so often the backdrop for Soviet political upheaval that seeing it on television became a tip-off that all was not well in Moscow. In August 1991, Ross writes, when a group of communist hard-liners attempted to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev’s government, television programs again were interrupted; for days, the only thing on state TV was a continuous loop of Swan Lake. Sergei Filatov, a member of the Russian legislature, was on vacation at the time. “I turned on the TV and saw the swans dancing,” Filatov told the Moscow Times. “For five minutes, ten, for an hour. Then I realized that something had happened.” He immediately got on a flight to Moscow, where he played an important role defending the city against the attempted takeover. (One of the leaders of the coup, Vasily Starodubtsev, later admitted that the broadcast was a strategic error.)

“This Portentous Composition: Swan Lake’s Place in Soviet Politics” from Hazlitt (via principleofplenitude)

[xxgoldie12xx]

Various planets of Doctor Who (click to enlarge)

[nguanblr]

[nprfreshair]

Photo break:

On June 15, at the break of dawn, artist Cai Guo-Qiang set off a giant white balloon filled with 6,200 cubic meters of helium. As the orb ascended above Huiyu Island Harbour in Quanzhou, China, it carried with it a 500-meter-long ladder coated in quick-burning fuses and gold fireworks. Guo-Qiang then ignited the structure, setting off his awe-inspiring creation called Sky Ladder.

via My Modern Met 

Photo by Lin Yi

[thelastdiadoch]

Sixteenth Century Church Re-Emerges From The Water After Drought

October 19, 2015 | by Tom Hale

“Beautiful photos of the Mexican Temple of Santiago have been circulating online, showing the church reappear from the water like a lost ruin of Atlantis.

The Grijalva river in Chiapas, Mexico has been suffering from a drought over the past year which has caused the water level in Nezahualcoyotl reservoir to decrease by 25 meters (82 feet). The “silver lining” of this drought has been another chance to see this snapshot of history which was thought to be lost to a watery grave.

The church is said to have been built by a group of monks led by Friar Bartolome de la Casas, who arrived in the area with Spanish settlers around the mid-16th century. The church was abandoned between 1773 to 1776 due to massive plagues sweeping the area, according to architect Carlos Navarete, who worked on a report about the structure. Epidemics were common in the Americas from the late 15th century, when explorers, settlers and traders introduced bacteria and viruses to the New World.

When the nearby dam was completed in 1966, the church was flooded and left unseen for almost 40 years. However, an even more severe drought caused the church to pop out of the water in 2002. The water levels were so low that people were even able to walk around the church. Speaking to Associated Press, local fisherman Leonel Mendoza said, “The people celebrated. They came to eat, to hang out, to do business. I sold them fried fish. They did processions around the church.”

Over the past few days, fishermen have been giving people trips out on their boats to let them explore the ruins themselves while they are exposed.”

IFLSCIENCE!

[ineptshieldmaid]

OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME

[exasperated-viewer-on-air]

[weltomyun]

Stockholm

[wittyowl]

 Lea Seydoux by Paolo Roversi for Marie Claire France, July 2013.

[wordsnquotes]

I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it’s not like that. It happens overnight.

Haruki Murakami, Dance, Dance, Dance (via clarkesgriffvn)

[unrar]

A person finds a unique way to carry a copy of the Mona Lisa across the street, James Stanfield.

[lora-mathis]

i don’t want to talk to anyone for at least 3 years lora mathis 

[silk101]

[hyungwonns-deactivated20160817]

pretty space words

aphelion - the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is farthest from the Sun. astral - relating to or resembling the stars. caldera - a large volcanic crater, especially one formed by a major eruption leading to the collapse of the mouth of the volcano. celestial - positioned in or relating to the sky, or outer space as observed in astronomy. constellation - a group of stars forming a recognizable pattern. cosmos - the universe seen as a well-ordered whole. equinox - the time or date at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are of equal length. faculae - bright patches that are visible on the Sun’s surface. lunation - the interval of a complete lunar cycle, between one new Moon and the next. interstellar - occurring or situated between stars. nebula - a cloud of gas and dust in outer space, visible in the night sky either as an indistinct bright patch or as a dark silhouette against other luminous matter. perihelion - the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is closest to the Sun. synodic - relating to or involving the conjunction of stars, planets, or other celestial objects.

[rachmcadams]

This world’s a treasure but it’s been telling us to leave for a while now.

Interstellar (2014) Dir. Christopher Nolan

[soyonscruels]

those who dream only by night: the gothic short stories rec list

have you ever felt like you want to read more fiction in the gothic tradition, but you haven’t the money or the time, or you’re the sort of person who only reads a novel if you’re sure you like the writer? i can help with that! here is a list of short stories, novellas, and one poem, all of which are important in the gothic tradition, the gothic revival, or contemporary gothic fiction, and they are all on the internet! for free! (i enjoy making rec lists, but i particularly enjoy making rec lists where i know that everyone who reads the list can get all of it for free.) so, take a night, make some hot chocolate, and frighten the life out of yourself. you’ll thank me!

manfred by lord byron (1817)

the tell tale heart by edgar allan poe (1843)

carmilla by sheridan le fanu (1872)

lord arthur savile’s crime by oscar wilde (1887)

the yellow wallpaper by charlotte perkins gilman (1892)

lot no. 249 by arthur conan doyle (1892)

the great god pan by arthur machen (1894)

the turn of the screw by henry james (1898)

the monkey’s paw by w.w. jacobs (1902)

sredni vashtar by saki (1911)

casting the runes by m.r. james (1911)

the damned by algernon blackwood (1914)

the tomb by h.p. lovecraft (1922)

the garden party by katherine mansfield (1922)

a rose for emily by william faulkner (1930)

the lottery by shirley jackson (1948)

lamb to the slaughter by roald dahl (1953)

a good man is hard to find by flannery o’connor (1955)

the company of wolves by angela carter (1979)

i, cthulhu by neil gaiman (1986)