Moth Tyta luctuosa on the platform and during takeoff. Gotta love those engines blasting!
©Nightjar, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Moth Tyta luctuosa on the platform and during takeoff. Gotta love those engines blasting!
©Nightjar, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I do not think I could make this a regular feature, but possibly an irregular one – some random snippets from the Slavophone world whenever I notice something interesting – be it art, traditions, languages, politics. Let me know if you would be interested.
I instantly fell in love this song (and some others from this band). It is so cheery and silly. And I love violin.
And yes, the text is silly, although my Russian is not so good so I could understand it all instantly. But I was able to parse some and with help of online translators translate the first half for you. Unfortunately I cannot translate all, because translating it into English was not only much more time consuming than I expected it to be – but above all I started hiting on phrases that are probably Russian idioms whose meaning I do not know. Being able to understand the gist of something and translating it into another language is not the same thing I am afraid.
I ain’t no poet in addition to my rusty Russian, so take the translation with a grain of salt. The Skobari (скобари) is an ethnic group in Russia and I could not find any proper anglicized word for them. And you probably won’t be able to sing along the translation with the original.
Who goes there, who goes there
have a look at who goes there
riding on a crippled mare
that sems to be our Skobari.
Skobari are a jolly nation
going home from a fare
one bare naked, one bare footed
and one with an injured head.
Play me such one
Skobar funny
so my tummy doesn’t hurt
tummy mine, the sinner’s one.
Play me such one
thats good for dancing
but not for every
snot nose prancing.
Smashhing up, smashing up
I feel like smashing up.
And truth be told you
I feel like brawling too.
Who’s that lad
prancing knees
hasn’t got hands on
aspen sticks.
Pennies for a party one
daddy collects his loot.
Mom whispers in his ear:
“Don’t you get drunk you silly fool!”
I was born hopeless
with no respect too –
should the heads roll
I’ll tie the rope.
I am breaking, back is arching,
I’m not really feeling well,
give ne just one half a litre
and I no doctor is needed.
We saw the grave of the one
who called us drunkards.
We did drink for our own money
nobody was serving us.
…….
More perfect shots from Nightjar, this time Hummingbird Hawk Moth Macroglossum stellatarum.
©Nightjar, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
It reminded me of a fun anecdote – during my studies at uni, one of my half-classmates mentioned one evening in the pub that he has observed a beautiful hummingbird in his garden. Pedantic killjoy as I am, I have pointed out that there are no hummingbirds in Europe, so what he has in fact observed was in this moth.
It was mildly embarrassing moment, because he was his half-classmateship was the biology half (me studying Biology-Chemistry, him studying Biology-IT). But there was no real reason for him to be embarassed. Nobody has perfect knowledge about everything and their similarity to hummingbirds in flight is really uncanny.
I have seen these beautiful moths occasionaly in my garden, but never when I had camera in hand.
There will be more spiders from you! In the meantime, I think this green spider looked lovely when it waved at me from our plum. The way it was running around on that leaf it looked like some sort of dance routine.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Shake it to the left…
Shake it to the right…
Oh, didn’t see ya there. Hi!
Walter Sorrels musings on The Handmade Dilemma.
Amazing how expressive a few cuts in the wood and an occasional hole can be.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Our amazing breathing sacs, evolved from an invagination of our gut. Had that invagination been dorsal rather than ventral, we might be spared that awkward crossing of tubes that makes eating and breathing at the same time so dangerous task.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Id did not go too much into detail here, but I did outline the branching of bronchi and bronchial tubes somewhat. Which is an interesting issue in and of itself.
The tubes do not simply split willy-nilly, the branching is really intricate and is optimised so that at every fork the air pressure stays the same, thus guaranteeing that all tubes contribute to the air exchange and there are no (ideally) pockets of stationary air. This is no easy task for engineering, piping is difficult to make and ventilation systems in buildings often need additional ventilators added to the pipes at various places to compensate for pressure drop at some junctions.
In our lungs this is partly achieved by the fact that there are no right angles anywhere and partly by the fact that the forks are arranged in such a way as to reach all the alveoli with the shortest possible amount of piping. In modern engineering such tasks beyond certain level are allegedly sbest solved by evolutionary algorithms, because there are too many variables involved for simply designing them right of the bat.
I dug out more spider pics, because, why not?
I have made these pictures last year, but I never got round to send them. These were one of the first macro shots I have made, when I still did not know what I am supposed to do (I still do not, but slightly less so).
This spider is slightly translucent and very small – that mesh is just a few mm across, it is the texturing on a sheet of extruded polystyrene that I have used to make thermally isolating covers for my sewage treatment facility.
I love the copper colour of the abdomen contrasting with the translucent green of the thorax and the legs. It looks like made from glass or gemstones and precious metal. Actually it could be a nice inspiration for a jewelery, if it were not a spider. But maybe there is a market for spider shaped jewelry?
I just could not get a good shot at its face. It was running around constantly and in all possible directions, not staying still for a moment. But I noticed that under certain angles its eyes seem to reflect light like cat’s and I managed to catch that on a few shots. Then I have let it scuttle away, taking care to put it in a place where I will not squish it.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I was moving old woodpiles closer to the house for winter and sorting some old planks for sawing, when suddenly I found this huge orb weaver on one piece of rotten wood. I put it carefully in a place where I could take pictures and it was kind enough to stay in place long enough for me to fetch my camera, and my PC today obliged to getting its act together for long enough for me to correct the pictures for posting (my homemade macro lens has, unfortunately, strong chromatic aberration).
In Czech, local orb weavers are called “křižák” (pl. “křižáci”) which means “crusader”. The name derives from the markings on their back which often have the spots arranged in somewhat vaguely cross-like pattern, especially from some angles. I will be most interested in their names in other languages.
I am not exactly arachnophobic, but I do not particularly enjoy unexpected encounters with such a big spider either and my first reaction is to flee. I found out that having a first thought “I must take pictures to share on the blog” helps with that.
We were told at school that no local spider can bite through human skin, but one of my friends was bitten by one on the neck and he disagrees. I was also bitten by one local spider in the thin skin on the back of the hand (I do not know the species), so I disagree with that wisdom too and I am careful with them. Not for fear of poison, but allergic reaction or skin infection are not fun either.
For last picture I cropped all the excess around the beast to show her (probably) in all her magnificent and terrible (and hairy) beauty.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
No spiders were harmed in making of this blog post. The specimen in question was released in safe location where I could not squish her with firewood. If she stayed there is another matter of course.
One of the good things about my neighbourhood is that I almost never have to pick up stuff at the post office. Only usually I know that I ordered something, but this time, I was quite surprised when my neighbour rang the bell. Surprise quickly turned into delight when I saw who sent it. Marcus, who has previously sent me some very nice fridge magnets I asked for sent me a surprise parcel.
First, upon opening, it smelled like Christmas, because there was some incense. Did you make that yourself as well, Marcus?
Then I unwrapped a badge (I assume) that is meant to cover the tank lid, but I added it to my office door below the Unicorn sign:
The sign above says “eat my stardust you bores”.
©Giliell
Kid #1 is wondering about the hole in the rat’s belly.
Next there were two gorgeous bracelets. Marcus clearly experimented some more with the resin and the seashells.
The first one is all blue and a soft material:
Yes, that’s also the kitchen floor and my feet. ©Giliell
The second one is clear and blue and has gold speckles and I absolutely love it (I love the other one as well, just for the record).
I had to smooth the edges a little, I guess at what was the top while pouring the resin. This one is solid material.
©Giliell
And there was another fridge magnet, but I decided I needed a necklace to go with the bracelets so I glued an eyelet to the back and added a leather cord.
Not actually the shirt I would wear it with, but I was too lazy to change. I’m looking forward to wearing it to a solid black shirt.
©Giliell
Thank you so much for this wonderful surprise, Marcus. I already wore the first bracelet at work the next day and got many compliments from the kids.
Earlier this summer Marcus Ranum and Kestrel gifted Caine with a very special knife. Marcus custom made the blade and then sent it on to Kestrel who hand wove a beautiful braided leather handle for it. It was a gift that Caine treasured. Today Kestrel is sharing with us the story of how the handle was created. I’ll let Kestrel take it from here:
Marcus made Caine a knife as a gift, but first he sent it to me so I could cover the handle. I chose to use black and red kangaroo leather. Kangaroo leather is incredibly strong and durable, and I knew that Caine would like that color combo.
©Kestrel, all rights reserved
Today, when reading my portion of stomach turning politics on RAW STORY I noticed that one of the film ads looks suspiciously like it is talking about Queen, but Freddie Mercury was shot way too up close and the picture quality was way too good for seventies. So I looked closer. And I googled. And I found out that two of the living members – Brian May and Roger Taylor – are producing a movie about the band that is due to be released in November this year.
Now I wish I was living somewhere near a functioning cinema that would screen the stuff. My sister absolutely adored Queen when I was a kid, but I did not notice them much at that time. However later in life I found out that some of their melodies actually got embedded in my brain and to this very day Bohemian Rhapsody, Under Pressure or Radio Ga Ga are amongst my most favourite songs and Spread Your Wings is sure to bring tears to my eyes. All the more that since then I learned English and therefore can understand the lyrics, which makes it all the more powerful.
I do not listen to music much, because when I have the time (like when driving) I find it often distracting, and I rarely have time to just sit and enjoy it. But multiple Queen songs rank definitively near the very top of my personal “Top Ten”.
Maybe I should paint a picture again. I used to listen to music when painting. I miss that greatly.
I got mugged in the Memory Lane.
Ian LaSpina, AKA Knyght Errant speaks about what is and is not proper to do when one’s goal is to make a historically accurate object.