I could have lived in peace (stayed warm in my bed) but my enemies (job that pays my bills) brought me war (e-mails i have to respond to)
Rating the birds in my backyard by tendency toward violence
Northern Cardinal, 4/10
I'm sometimes worried the male is sexually harassing the female but I'm pretty sure they're just doing some elaborate public pickup roleplay. The rest of us didn't agree to participate in your kink, guys.
American Robin, 1/10
Literally just some dude hanging out. Never bothered anyone but worms. Big fan of the way you just stand there in the middle of the grass like you forgot what you were supposed to be doing.
House Sparrow, 10/10
You're a gang. You're participating in gang violence. There's ten billion of you living in a single wood pile and it's been civil war for three years now. When will the bloodshed end?
Tufted Titmouse, 1/10
A shy baby. A pretty little guy. I saw you on the neighbor's garage roof and time stopped. There were anime sparkles around you. Come back.
European Starling, 9/10
Why is it always you? Listen, I know, I KNOW the sparrows are the problem, and YET. When the fighting starts, it's always you in the middle of it, provoking them and then screaming like you're an innocent bystander defending yourself. I'm onto you.
Carolina Wren, 3/10
This rating is not for physical violence, which you don't engage in, but for your role as an incurable narc. A tattle tale. I know they're fighting again, okay? I see it. Our yard has been a warzone for years, you don't have to make a big announcement every time someone misbehaves.
Eastern Wood-Peewee, 0/10
If this were "birds who think they're better than everyone else," you'd get 10/10.
Red-bellied Woodpecker, 6/10
It's a utility pole. It's not a tree. You're surrounded by trees that are full of bugs. But there you are, on the utility pole. Committing vandalism.
American Crow, unrated
For who am I to cast judgment on the actions of La Famiglia? I assume you are doing what is best for the neighborhood. If I could, though, without criticism, make a single observation. That when large numbers of you gather in the ominous dead cottonwood - no? No, you're right. None of my business.
Great Crested Flycatcher, 5/10
Frankly, I think you could be doing more. I think your name implies a great potential. I think you should massacre the insects. I think your beak should drip with viscera.
Stay tuned for more criminal activity!
Beans.
My partner and I have a running joke with a friend. Every time he goes on holiday we increase the quantity of beans in his flat.
The first time we bought ~30 cans of kidney beans and hid them around the house like some Easter egg hunt thing but with beans.
The Second time we bought ~6kg dried white beans and hid those in various places. Nearly every receptacle that could safely hold beans became the home of beans. My personal favourite was emptying an oat milk carton, very carefully washing and drying it, filling it with beans and then just putting it back among several other cartons.
He went on holiday again a couple of weeks ago. Obviously there is an expectation of bean-based shenanigans. And obviously we have to beat our previous efforts.
Our friend has (had) a mosaic on his wall of the famous Marilyn Monroe Pop-Art by Andy Warhol. He made the mosaic himself. Over the last couple of weeks we have spent hours and hours assembling a frame, drawing up a pattern and gridding out a 70 x 70 frame and gluing an untold amount of beans to it. I have spent over 21 hours gluing beans to a frames.
For the last couple of days I ended up going to bed at 5:00 am because I lost track of time whilst experimenting with which types of glue works best with different beans (I now have *opinions* on this, y’all). The day of our friend’s return we spent the morning and afternoon grouting the piece and wiping it down and wiping it down again and wiping it down again because grout is just like that. In the evening we went to install the mosaic, just a few hours before his return. Here’s a comparison between the original and our clearly superior replication, and the new piece installed in its rightful place.
ALT
ALT
It took him over a day to notice. So for over a day he was wandering round his house knowing there were beans somewhere, but not knowing where.
The Three Graces, Hellenistic, c. 2nd-1st Century BC
Graces (or Charites) are goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They are, from youngest to oldest: Aglaea (“Splendor”), Euphrosyne (“Mirth”) and Thalia (“Good Cheer”).
The Charites were usually considered the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, though they were also said to be daughters of Dionysus and Aphrodite or of Helios and the naiad Aegle. Homer wrote that they were part of the retinue of Aphrodite. The Charites were also associated with the Greek underworld and the Eleusinian Mysteries. The river Cephissus near Delphi was sacred to them.
top five most fucked up looking birds imaginable. just absolutely thrashed. complete garbage cans with wings
This was a ton of fun and the result of an hour long phone call with @elwingflight, narrowing down the Worst Birds. We’ve tried to skip over the most obvious selections (Ocellated Turkey, Jabirou, Shoebill, all vultures, Marabou Stork, Frogmouths, and Potoos) for some truly underrated garbage creatures. As usual, sources are linked:
4. Capuchinbird
We kept on going back to the pictures of helmeted hornbills because we couldn’t believe how utterly hideous they are.
Tess is very very determined and nothing is going to stop her from doing what she wants.
Escape attempt foiled by own desire to nom
The ancient world was full of textile masterpieces we can only imagine… but most of them have rotted away. So few of them have come down to us in these days that we think of metal and stone as the primary mediums for the oldest artworks. But there were tapestries and fabric work that would have rivaled the finest wrought gold and iron and the first cave paintings.
Can anyone find me that one vintage-looking art piece of a beetle painting in a field? Not a painting of a beetle but the beetle itself is painting on a canvas and easel. I’ve been looking for days!
Is it this one? I couldn’t find any more information about it, apologies! It’s very cute though.
Omg you found it! Thank you so much!! 🪲💕💕
It turns out it is one of a whole series/theme of Whitsun/Pentecost postcards featuring Cockchafers, enjoy!
OH my gosh thank you!!! 🪲♥️♥️♥️
my personal fave
The idea that you can "protect" someone by giving them *less* knowledge is just so trivially fucking stupid on the face of it.
Of course, you can certainly protect yourself by giving other people less information, which is 100% the actual point.
A little excerpt from my new foraging zine that a lot of people seem to be resonating with. My favorite part of any foraging book is always getting to talk about why I find the practice so meaningful 🌸💕
bands in the late 60s were like “due to record company requirements and amphetamines being available OTC in every drug store, we are releasing 2 of the best albums of all time within the space of a year. maybe 3 albums if we really hate each other.”
if you're having one of those nights again
here is a good dog scratching itself. it is from a fragment of a kylix (drinking cup) in the manner of the euergides painter ~500 BCE, and currently lives at the MFA Boston.
it's very similar to another dog on a cup attributed to the euergides painter that is housed in the ashmolean museum:
the most important part of all of this is that there is an open access paper here titled "Seeing the Dog: Naturalistic Canine Representations from Greek Art," which includes this delightful sentence:
"Onomatopoetic Greek words include the following: “βαύ, βαύ (bau bau); βαυβίζω/βαυβύζω (baubizō/baubuzō); and especially βαΰζω (baüzō); “ὑλάω (hulaō) would appear to imitate a howl. Ἠπύω (ēpuō), normally “roar”, seems to indicate loud barking at Aristophanes."
this is what fat thor should’ve been
That's Jack Black. Damn.
This is Extremely Funny, and also, an excellent point about the alternatives to centralized production that exist now, which weren't as readily available or widely popular last time.
Video games, subscribing directly to creators, etc are all way easier now than in 2008.
The studios seem to think they have enough leverage to outlast this strike,but that's absurd in a world where we've been watching them cancel popular, well written shows for only making a huge profit and being wildly popular, instead of making All The Profit Ever and hypnotizing an entire population into slavering obsession.
But they have poor reputations, about to get poorer thanks to social media, and alternative entertainments are more widespread than ever.
I hope WGA gets everything they ask for and more.
Adding this to the "coming back later after I finish my current book" pile. Because I have thoughts.
If animal crossing can carry so many people through the hardest part of quarantine, TOTK doesn’t even have to be good to keep me more entertained than whatever sack of shit they’re gonna pump out without unioned writers.
acting like folks won’t pick up pokemon Go or Jurassic Park Alive again now that the weather is nice.