I love these books of handmade paper. They are just for me, to mess about, play, get ideas out of my head, get me in the mood, whatever. This is my second book, the one I got for winter solstice. On my mind, Wakinyan Rising, probably because it’s very windy and cold.
© C. Ford.
On a small island off Canada’s west coast, a group of people is rebuilding ancient clam gardens.
For thousands of years, indigenous people all along the Pacific Northwest coast have cultivated clams by manipulating beaches to encourage the growth of more and bigger shellfish. These clam gardens supply a reliable and abundant source of nutritious food year round.
Russell Island is part of Canada’s national park system and one of two clam garden restoration sites. Parks Canada, together with the W̱SÁNEĆ and Hul’q’umi’num Nations have undertaken the five-year restoration project. Building a garden looks simple on the surface, but it takes ingenuity, a deep understanding of beach ecology, and patience—building is only possible during super-low tides, giving volunteers a short window of opportunity.
Raw Meat, Cabbage, Moldy Bread, and other things that have inspired Japanese fashion label CUNE.
Don’t call it fashion. At least that’s what Hironori Yasuda will tell you if you ask him about his label CUNE, which he started in 1994. If anything, they’re “barely clothes,” he says.
Yasuda isn’t swayed by trends. He makes what he wants, and each season he picks a seemingly arbitrary theme, one that typically has no place in the world of fashion, and designs his entire collection around it. He doesn’t think about who would wear his clothes, or how they would wear them. In fact, he even says “you don’t have to buy them.” But with two stores in Tokyo, one in Fukuoka and a thriving online shop, people seem to like his bizarre creations.
You really need to click over and see all the stuff, it’s amazing. I love the red cabbage dress, and I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Same with the meat jacket pictured above.
It’s all at Spoon & Tamago.
Warning: blood, gore and human nastiness on display.
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I was reading an article about some street art in Brussels, and how a lot of people are shocked, disgusted and upset by it. These two works:
Some people are quite distressed and outraged, and many protest on the basis of children seeing these works. Thing is, there’s history bound here, as these are takes on paintings by Jan de Baen and Caravaggio, or at least attributed to those august painters. If people don’t want children to be upset by Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac, they shouldn’t be teaching them anything about christianity, either.
As for The corpses of the brothers De Witt, there’s not only a great deal of history bound therein, but also the depth of ugliness in human nature. The modern take on it is actually less brutal than the original, which, when viewed in person or at full size, shows terrible detail. Limbs sliced, toes and fingers cut off, noses cut off, genitals cut off, gutted, and hung upside down. It’s not a nice painting, but doing that to the De Witt brothers wasn’t nice, either.
During 1672, which the Dutch refer to as the Rampjaar (“Year of Disaster”), France and England attacked the Republic in the Franco-Dutch War. De Witt was severely wounded by a knife-wielding assassin on 21 June. He resigned as Grand Pensionary on 4 August, but this was not enough for his enemies. His brother Cornelis (De Ruyter’s deputy-in-the-field at the Raid on the Medway), particularly hated by the Orangists, was arrested on trumped up charges of treason. He was tortured (as was usual under the Roman-Dutch system of law, that required a confession before a conviction was possible) but refused to confess. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to exile. When his brother went over to the jail (which was only a few steps from his house) to help him get started on his journey, both were attacked by members of The Hague’s civic militia in a clearly orchestrated assassination. The brothers were shot and then left to the mob. Their naked, mutilated bodies were strung up on the nearby public gibbet, while the Orangist mob partook of their roasted livers in a cannibalistic frenzy. Throughout it all, a remarkable discipline was maintained by the mob, according to contemporary observers, making one doubt the spontaneity of the event.[18]
I can’t say I’d be happy to see such a sight writ large on a building, but I can’t say it would bother me, either. Mostly, I’d be intrigued and interested. Overall, I’d be in favour of it staying, because it never pays to forget that we’re much more ape than angel. It’s not as though we have stopped being barbaric apes, we haven’t. What has changed is art. The old patron system of art is long gone, as are the specific schools held by various masters. The church no longer dictates what is to be depicted, and current events are no longer primarily chronicled by art, as we now have much better means to do that sort of thing. That said, most people remain completely unaware of just how much history is chronicled by paintings. Most people have also successfully distanced themselves from the atrocities we continue to commit, not all that different to what was done to the De Witt Brothers. We tell ourselves that we don’t do that sort of thing, those people do. Being reminded of our long lasting bad habits is not a bad thing. If these make people uncomfortable, good. If they make people think, all the better. It never pays to ignore history, or pretend it isn’t important, and if it takes a sort of resurrection of old pieces to drive that home, it works for me.
The article about the Brussels works is here.
(photo by Chim Pom)
Japanese art collective Chim↑Pom, known for their provocative, politically-charged artwork, has built a tree house along the U.S.-Mexico border. It was built in a private backyard in Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad neighborhood and offers views of the border separating Mexico from the United States
Earlier this month the art collective tweeted out two pictures of the tree house being built. But now, as Carolina Miranda from the LA Times details, it’s been completed and is quite popular among the local kids. Chim↑Pom gained access to a private backyard simply by knocking on the owner’s door and asking for permission. The owner said yes.
The words “U.S.A. Visitor Center” are printed on the the tree house, which was built in response to President Trump’s dedication to build a wall along the border. But it was also built for Chim↑Pom member Ellie, who is currently barred from entering the United States after someone she was traveling with jokingly indicated on a customs form that he was involved in terrorist activities. (Note: Do not joke about terrorism with custom officials. They don’t think it’s funny). “Ellie can’t go into the U.S., so she sees it from here,” says Ryuta Ushiro, the group’s leader.
© C. Ford.
It’s the year of the Rooster. Year of the fire rooster, to be specific, so for me, this year will be more like this:
© C. Ford.
Here’s hoping the astrology follows its usual pattern, and is wrong. Happy New Year, Everyone!
This strange insect found preserved in amber represents a new species, genus, family and order of insects. Credit: George Poinar, courtesy of Oregon State University.
There are about 1 million described species of insects, and millions more still to be discovered, but every species of insect on Earth has been placed in only 31 existing orders. Now there’s one more.
The findings have been published in the journal Cretaceous Research and describe this small, wingless female insect that probably lived in fissures in the bark of trees, looking for mites, worms or fungi to feed on while dinosaurs lumbered nearby. It was tiny, but scary looking.
“This insect has a number of features that just don’t match those of any other insect species that I know,” said George Poinar, Jr., an emeritus professor of entomology in the OSU College of Science and one of the world’s leading experts on plant and animal life forms found preserved in the semi-precious stone amber.
“I had never really seen anything like it. It appears to be unique in the insect world, and after considerable discussion we decided it had to take its place in a new order.”
Perhaps most unusual, Poinar said, was a triangular head with bulging eyes, with the vertex of the right triangle located at the base of the neck. This is different from any other known insect, and would have given this species the ability to see almost 180 degrees by turning its head sideways.
You can read and see more at Phys.org.
Collared Dove, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
John Hurt.
Actor John Hurt, who gave us all so many great and iconic characters, has walked on at age 77. He has long been one of my most favourite actors, his name in a film would be all I needed to see it.
Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK, Hurt was the son of an actress and a vicar, and, after training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), made his film debut in 1966’s A Man for All Seasons. With his pained British voice and poignant stare, the actor would make an indelible impact on cinema, earning his first Academy Award nomination as Max, a heroin addict trapped in a Turkish prison, in Midnight Express, before performing one of film’s most memorable death scenes in Ridley Scott’s Alien. His next two films, as the severely deformed and chastised John Merrick in The Elephant Man (Oscar-nominated for Best Actor) and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, cemented his status as one of the greats, and marks a stellar 4-film run.
Goodbye, Mr. Hurt, and thank you. I’d watch V for Vendetta again, but right now, it hits too close to home.
Via Daily Beast.
CREDIT: Images via Twitter.
There’s a good alt on the rise!
…If anyone should know that it is, as a practical matter, impossible to force a willful individual to stop tweeting, it’s President Donald J. Trump. So perhaps he was least shocked of all to see that, on Tuesday night, a new handle popped up on Twitter: @AltNatParkSer.
By way of introduction, the anonymous founders tweeted: “Hello, we are the Alternative National Park Service Twitter Account activated in time of war and censorship to ensure fact-based education.”
The account is less than a week old. It has issued over 300 tweets — on the Trump White House, on climate change, on the importance of peer-reviewed and factually-accurate science — and racked up 1.24 million followers in the process.
Within days, at least a dozen Twitters claiming to be the rogue employees of the government agencies for which they work appeared, describing themselves as the “unofficial resistance”: @RogueNASA, which already has 628,000 followers; @altUSEPA whose bio reads “Environmental conditions may vary from alternative facts” already has 184,000 followers; @RoguePOTUSStaff, allegedly tweeting from “inside the White House,” has a follower count of nearly 60,000. The National Weather Service, the State Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Education, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services,: all have alternative accounts with thousands of followers a pop.
The tone is tongue-in-cheek, but the messaging is clear: Climate change is real. Facts are facts. The public has the right to know the truth. Science should not be dictated by politics. Attempts to silence official means of communication will only spark alternative means of communication. It’s a fitting act of rebellion under a president so taken with Russia: Resistance to Trump, via samizdat-com.
There’s also something satisfying about seeing the word “alternative” used against Trump and not for him, seeing as it was recently adopted by Kellyanne Conway as a modifier for “facts” (her way of defending White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s blatant falsehoods about, of all things, the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration) and co-opted by neo-Nazis as half of their more media-friendly, less-obviously-fascist title of choice, “alt-right.” The alt-NPS Twitter teams give “alternative” back to the public, for its correct use.
[…]
Trump and his ilk, like Breitbart-alum-turned-chief-strategist Steve Bannon, stoke distrust in the mainstream media like an abusive boyfriend insisting that no one else in your life really wants what’s best for you like he does. When the president is a pathological liar who does everything within his power to prevent government agencies from arming the public with accurate information, something as simple as telling the truth becomes a radical act.
The Trump administration’s efforts to deny readily apparent truths is, as Masha Gessen writes, a means of “assert[ing] power over truth itself.” But these rogue Twitter accounts are a means of asserting truth over power itself. They are a way of announcing to the president — who is surely paying attention, considering how much time he spends on Twitter — that facts will not quietly be dethroned by fiction.
VIVE LA RESISTANCE!
Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, arriving at Trump Tower in January to meet with Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s team is wary of Mr. Schmidt, who has been allied with Democrats and advised the Obama White House. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times.
WASHINGTON — Few companies have been as intimately tied to the Democratic Party in recent years as Google. So now that Donald J. Trump is president, the giant company, in Silicon Valley parlance, is having to pivot.
The shift was evident a day after Congress began its new session this month. That evening, about 70 lawmakers, a majority of them Republicans, were feted at the stately Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, where they clinked champagne and bourbon glasses and posed for selfies with the 600 guests assembled in their honor.
The event’s main host was not from the Republican establishment. Instead, the party was primarily financed and anchored by Google.
“We’ve partnered with Google on events before, but nothing like this party,” said Alex Skatell, a founder of The Independent Journal Review, a news start-up with a right-leaning millennial audience, which also helped host the event. “I’ve never heard of an event as big.”
The event was emblematic of an about-face by Google. Over the last eight years, the company was closely associated with former President Barack Obama. Google employees overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns and some later took roles in his administration. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, advised the Obama White House. And last year, Google employees gave $1.3 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to succeed Mr. Obama, compared with $26,000 to the Trump campaign, according to federal filings.
Now, the tech giant is scrambling to forge ties with Mr. Trump’s new administration and to strengthen its relationship with a Republican-dominated Congress. Most important, Google is trying to change the perception that it is a Democratic stronghold.
So terribly reassuring to see everyone rush to suck up. CNN has the full story.
Rick Wiles.
Rick Wiles has been orgasmic over Trump, and that psychopathic god of his, ecstatically going on about ooze and glory spouts. It’s kinda disturbing. I don’t care what Wiles does in private, but I don’t need to hear about it, either. In this latest outing, Wiles is comparing Trump to Samson, which I find quite amusing, because El Shaddai didn’t do well by Samson.
“Friends, listen to me,” he said. “God’s favor is on us. Please, please, please comprehend what is happening. It’s more than a political revolution. This is a spiritual revolution. God’s favor is shining on us. I can’t get out of my mind what Mario Murillo said Monday, ‘Grace is oozing out of Heaven.’ It’s just oozing towards us right now. I’m basking in it. I’m rolling around in it. I’m enjoying it.”
That’s nice. I’ll stay ooze free if you don’t mind.
I keep getting this picture that Donald Trump is like this Samson, who has been raised up by God to fight the Philistines and all the Philistines have now turned their attention away from the church, turned their attention away from attacking Christianity, and all of the Philistines are running to Washington to attack Samson. But Samson is strong enough for them. He’s been called. He’s been equipped for this battle. That is his job. That is his assignment. He’s going to beat them down. They will not be able to overtake him. He’s Samson. He was designed by God. He was created for this hour to fight these Philistines.
The story of Samson is an interesting one. Warped, seriously fucked up, but interesting. Once again, I highly recommend Drunk With Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible, by Steve Wells. If you don’t have the book, but would like the insightful commentary, head over to SAB, and note the commentary on the right side. Samson wasn’t a terribly smart guy, and you couldn’t give him any points at all for astuteness, even though his mum was knocked up by an angel while her husband was gone. Tsk. Samson is wandering about one day, sees a Philistine woman he likes the look of, and demands his parents procure her. They do, he’s pleased. Apparently at some point, they marry, there’s a week long party, an inexplicable riddle, Samson gets pissed, kills 30 people and steals their clothes so he doesn’t have to pay his buddies, then gives his wife to a companion and leaves. Some hero.
Then there’s a raft of super-nonsense. Samson decides he wants to go back and have sex with his wife (the one he gave away). Now the story is that her father gave her to someone else (women rarely have names in the bible), and offers her younger sister to Samson. He doesn’t want the sister, so he has a cunning plan to get sex with his wife: he’s gonna set the Philistines grain fields on fire. This wouldn’t be a problem for most people. Samson figures the best way to do this is to catch 300 foxes, tie their tails together, light them on fire, and set them loose in the grain fields. Genius! How in the fuck can people not be embarrassed by this shit? Anyway, the cunning plan didn’t work, Samson’s wife and father were burned to death by the pissed off Philistines. Golly, there’s just so much love and light in this How To Be A Psychopath book. Samson then slaughtered a bunch of Philistines. Then that glory spout thing happened, y’know, the spirit of the lord came upon him, and he grabbed that conveniently placed jawbone of an ass and killed 1,000 men. Yeah. As Steve Wells notes, it’s easier to believe stories like this if you don’t know they exist.
Then Samson goes to Gaza, has sex with a prostitute, ripped out the doors and gate posts of the city, carried them up a hill, and fell in love with Delilah. Delilah was paid to find out the magical source of Samson’s strength, y’know, find his wand or whatever. There’s a long, idiotic story about these attempts. Delilah finally gets it right, and cuts his hair. The Philistines nab Samson and gouge out his eyes. They also chained him up, and put him in a prison house. Then someone gets the bright idea to bring Samson out to entertain them. Naturally, Samson prayed to El Shaddai:
Now the house was full of…about three thousand men and women…And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord God…strengthen me…that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes…and he house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at this death were more than they which he slew in his life. Judges 16.27-30.
As Steve Wells notes, this was the first suicide terrorist act. It resulted in the deaths of 3,000 civilian men and women. God approved it, and gave Samson the strength to do it. Why in the hell christians still parade this idiotic story around, I don’t know. Samson was something of a dumbfuck, mostly interested in sex and getting out of paying his bets. He was a murderer and a thief. He wasn’t too kind to animals, either. Point being, there was no reason at all to hold him above the Philistines, who couldn’t really be any worse; at best they were pretty much the same. El Shaddai didn’t love Samson enough to enhance his thinking ability, or to magically give him his eyes back, or find a way for Samson to avenge himself without having to commit suicide. Somehow this awful story never manages to make the point that the situation Samson found himself in was his own doing. It has always baffled me that christians are so damn impressed with this story. It’s awful, and just one more story highlighting the fact that Jehovah is a bloodthirsty, stupid, psychopath.
If Trump is Samson of a latter day…yeah. Maybe the folks in charge of the Doomsday Clock should shave off that 30 seconds.
Wiles added that God is also blessing his radio ministry and that God’s glory has been flowing: “I didn’t get home until after 8 last night and I had some visitors in the house, they were waiting and everybody had already finished dinner and I came in and I was floating, I just said, ‘I’ve been sitting under the glory spout all day.’ That’s what I felt like. I sat under the glory spout and it just was coming out all day long on me.”
Eeuuw. If you happen to be one of those people blessing Wiles’s ministry, I beg of you, please, think. Give me five fucking minutes: think.
Via RRW.
Dan Savage (MSNBC).
Savage announced that he’s launching Impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com, where like-minded people can buy merchandise to display their campaign shorthand.
“I didn’t think I’d see a worse president than George W. Bush in my lifetime,” Savage wrote. “But here we are. So I’m bringing back ITMFA buttons and adding T-shirts and, yes, red hats to the ITMFA collection.”
He also added that the money raised will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the International Refugee Assistance Project.
“We’re in for a long and ugly four years, readers,” he continued. “Let’s raise some money for groups fighting Trump, let’s bring ITMFA back into our everyday vocabulary, and let’s remember that we—people who voted against Trump, people who want to see him out of office as quickly as possible, people who are appalled by this and this and this and this—are the majority.”
