'Snow at Funabori' (1932) by Kawase Hasui (Japanese, 1883–1957).

Published by Doi Sadakazu.

Woodblock print.

Image and text information courtesy MFA Boston.

but have you ever even heard of the fynbos biome ?!!?!?!?!

a biome so unique in south africa that it's earned an entirely new biome classification for itself. so many plants are endemic to this area, and ofc it's under threat of extinction.

It's a wonderful place! I had the privilege of visiting the fynbos last year and it was as amazing as these photos show and more!

wood whittled przhevalsky horse

process

ID: wood carving of a light brown horse that is so, so round. Bode embodied. Its head is down so that it follows the curvature of the body. The reblog shows a wood block next to a piece of paper with the “blueprints,” plus what the horse looked like pre-sanding and pre-painting.

Wait are we called mammals after mammary glands? Are mammals named after tits???

ARE WE THE BOOBS CLASS?

OH

We are. And we also named our galaxy after boob juice. Twice.

"milky way" is obviously milk, but the hidden part is that "galaxy" comes from the Greek γάλα (gála), meaning "milk".

It's the tit-goo path tit-goo-thing. We are very, very breast focused as a species.

Eukaryote (good-kernels) as opposed to prokaryotes(before-kernels). We are the Domain of Fortunate Cellular Nuclei.

Animalia (of the anima.) we are in the Kingdom of the Breathing, or the Air-Souled.

Of the Phylum (tribe or clan) Chordata (having a string). We are the Clan of the String, referencing the spinal cord.

Class Mammalia, of course. the division of the titties.

Order Primate, which is a bit stuck-up, but I suppose the people doing the naming get to pick. Primate is of course primary, or First/Highest. Interestingly, this is in the sense of it being a job; a primate is a bishop of Christianity. This is reflected in the medieval Scala Naturae, where “primate” is an office held by the “natural” or divinely appointed top being in each tier of existence. Seraphim are the primate angels; humans are the primate people; lions are the primate animals; oak trees are the primate plants; and diamonds are the primate minerals. Translating the intent here, we are the Order of Ordained Authority, which we share with other natural bosses such as lemurs.

Depending how you want to do this, we are also suborder Haplorhini, the dry-nosed. This is separated from wet-nosed apes.

After this we land in the repetition of Homina-homina-homina-homina where there are several classes that drill down ever further, all of them rooted in “hominid.” Everyone knows homo is “man, human” but the root of why it’s “man” is because it is first “earth”. Human means “earthling”, and is rooted in “not-divine.” We are the family, subfamily, tribe and genus of earthlings.

By the time you get to species we are very lonely indeed, with only one species in our genus. This is actually a terrifically lonely place, and in this we are “sapiens.” This doesn’t mean just “wise” but “being wise,” which is more of a duty than a descriptor.

When you put it in context: Domain of Fortunate Nuclei, Kingdom of the Air-Souled, Clan of the String, Class of Milky Boobs, Order of the Bosses, Family of Earthlings, Tribe of Earthlings, People of Earth, Earthlings, Thinking Earthlings.

The point of taxonomy does seem to be making oneself a box that excludes all others in order to feel properly lonely and alone in it; one’s place in the world defined until one is alone. however, zooming out a bit, it does make for some stirring company.

The Moor. Sheffield, January 2015.

Gold finger ring, Europe, 16th century

If you are on a Windows 11 computer, pause everything you are doing for one minute and:

"But Mx. November, it says right there Microsoft doesn't collect the typing insights data!"

I mean, yeah, it says that..... for *now.*

It also only specifies that Microsoft themselves don't collect it, and they wouldn't have made this something that I was automatically, secretly opted in for without my knowledge if they didn't have something to be gained by me not knowing it exists!

I only found this because a cat walked on the keyboard and turned on Filter Keys and while trying to figure out why my keyboard was just making chirping noises instead of typing, I happened to click on "typing insights" by accident.

Generative AI, and especially AI that is used to "personalize" and track your activity across the web and on your computer are never going to be in your best interest, it is always going to serve these companies in whatever way will line their pockets the most, and all it takes is updating their terms of service once, and then all of that data they promised they weren't collecting suddenly all belongs to them.

aaarggghhhh

some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it

late Beethoven string quartets really piss me off sometimes because he absolutely was That Bitch

There are a lot of superstitions around doing housework during Christmas; most of them boil down to "Do not do it, or the Wild Hunt will come get you (guess I'll have to put up my feet and rest. Against my will. What a shame!)"

One of them is that Perchta/Frau Holle will come and get lazy women who did not finish all the fibre on their distaff before Christmas. Of course that means that women needed to keep their distaff empty during Christmas (because how was she to know the fibre is freshly put on? Better be safe).

But today is the 7th January, Christmas is over, the Wild Hunt and Perchta are safely back in their cave atop the Hörselberg, and we can start spinning again.

Hence, Distaff Day.

I pulled this fiery braid of Corrie from my stash. Perfect colours to chase away the winter gloom.

Happy new spinning year! What are your first projects?

I am also spinning Corriedale today! Local Minnesota sheep, a nice purple. I've had a purple braid and a green one tucked away for some time. I don't actually have a distaff. I'd like to try one some time, I think the kind you sit on a crossbar interest me most.

I am so out of practice and the inside of my right hip complained. Well, gotta practice to get back in practice. Also gotta find my wheel oil, it was squeaking so much. I got almost a half ounce spun for now.

I love my wheel, I decorated her myself decades ago. But I recently saw pics of a dual-treadle where the wheel was between the treadles, 90 degrees turned from typical, and I want to try that.

Trying not to do a disservice to the tragedy that happened today but seeing the counter protesters surround the ICE agents and scream "You can't kill us all, nazis!" while fucking daring them to shoot, well this sums it up quite nicely:

She was a queer mother shot in front of her wife while trying to flee. They were on the way to pick up their son from school. Their dog was in the car.

May that agent never know another moments peace for the rest of his disgusting wasted life.

Just for a source, but please if you are in a delicate headspace I would suggest skipping this for now, it's genuinely devastating.

Alyssa Sue Borkowski aka Lyssa Sue aka Neat Cool Fun aka Grunk (American, b. 1998, based Milwaukee, WI, USA) - The Pursuit of Knowledge, 2021, Paintings: Acrylic

The more things change…

It is profoundly depressing that this panel is still socially relevant -_-

The full panel is even better

Fools: Steve would be a Republican! Steve would be a patriot!

Me, someone with a working brain: Steve would be fucking disgusted by the bigotry, hatred, warmongering and cruelty that modern day America is full of

Steve became Captain America to fight against antisemites, homophobes, racists, misogynists and warmongering fascists...he would view America's government and those who support it as EVERYTHING he utterly loathes

I feel so insane about ai. I've had face-to-face conversations with people who use it for therapy, who use it to calculate the safety of pill interactions, who use it for all their emails and grant applications and legal documents and academic papers and finance sheets and for every single question they have about the world, and if you tell them about the ecological costs they just laugh and say "I guess I've used a lot of water." and I've been in multiple gatherings of 10+ people where I'm THE ONLY PERSON who doesn't use chatgpt. it's turning me into a ranting raving pariah, because how don't you people see??? why don't you understand??????? this bullshit didn't exist five years ago, you absolutely do not need it, and it is destroying everything

As @chipbuddy says in the comments, "Also if you wouldn't trust the predictive text on your phone to answer medical questions why would U trust a slightly fancier version"

1927 c. Interior of the Robert Bely Department Store, Paris, France. Pierre Patout was the designer. Imagine a wrought-iron staircase, black fixtures, woodwork and counters, beige painted walls and floors covered in light grey slate and blue rubber, and a glass ceiling. From Art Deco, Avant Garde and Modernism, FB.

"don't assign human morality to non human things" is so true except when it comes to printers. they know what they are, they understand dilemmas and ethics and morality. they choose to be how they are, they choose to be evil, at their very core they are rotten

The Tiger (from the poem by Nael, age 6)🐅

The back with the opened cage!