grumpygreenwitch

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STRAYS of STYX

Short comic for my summer exam with "Death and Taxes" as the prompt.

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Wait I don’t think I ever showed any of you guys the results of the chicken photo shoot

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I found an interview with Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson talking about the music of Sinners, and there's a very touching part about how the mid-credits scene came to be. So, spoilers below:

The final scene in the film, technically a post-credits scene, was actually the first one shot chronologically. Coogler wanted to show a more recent link to the story’s century-old events, and he really wanted his uncle’s favorite blues musician, Buddy Guy, to be involved. But he quickly learned that Guy, now in his late 80s, hadn’t been to a theater since the “fish movie,” a.k.a. “Jaws,” and he despaired of his chances. Still, he arranged to go see Guy play in Chicago. “I get to the show,” says Coogler, “and his whole family is in the backstage room — his grandkids. And they’re like, ‘Oh, cool, we’re going to bring you to see our grandpa.’ And me and Zinzi go in there and sit down, and he’s like, ‘Yo, man.’” “I’m not a movie guy,” the bluesman said, in Coogler’s retelling of this momentous meeting, “but my kids love your movies and they tell me that I gotta meet with you. So I’m here — whatever you need. You want me to sing? I’ll sing. You want me to act? I’m on for the work. But I got you.” “I pitched him what the movie was,” Coogler continues, “and he told me his life story about being a sharecropper as a kid and going up to Chicago and trying to learn how to play. I broke down crying, because everything I had just written in the script, this dude lived.” “Outside of the supernatural stuff,” Coogler clarifies.

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—Did you know that Juneteenth is also celebrated in a part of Mexico? Nacimiento Mexico was once home to thousands who escaped slavery in the US. As many as 10,000 slaves followed a clandestine Southern Underground Railroad to Mexico. —To date, many Black Mexicans from the Texas area retrace a portion of the same route their African American ancestors followed in 1850 when they escaped slavery. —Descendants of slaves who escaped across the southern border observe Texas’s emancipation holiday with their own unique traditions in the village of Nacimiento. —Slave hunters would patrol the southern border for escapees, led by the Texas Rangers but the Mexican army would be there waiting for them (the slave hunters) to turn them away.

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Oh yeah there's a part 2 of the horse desensitizing that I love.

🐎: Hey what's with that tiny predator, the one you're hold- WOAH WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS IT UP SO HIGH

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The Far Side for Wednesday March 5.

Don't cha hate when that happens?

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NEVER GIVE UP

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Okay, another little lesson for fic writers since I see it come up sometimes in fics: wine in restaurants.

When you buy a bottle of wine in a (nicer) restaurant, generally (please note my emphasis there, this is a generalization for most restaurants, but not all restaurants, especially non-US ones) you may see a waiter do a few things when they bring you the bottle.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it

The waiter uncorks the bottle in order to serve it

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle

The waiter pours a small portion of the wine (barely a splash) and waits for the person who ordered it to taste it

The waiter then pours glasses for everyone else at the table, and then returns to fill up the initial taster's glass

Now, you might be thinking -- that's all pretty obvious, right? They're bringing you what you ordered, making sure you liked it, and then pouring it for the group. Wrong. It's actually a little bit more complicated than that.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it so that they can inspect the label and vintage and make sure it's the bottle they actually ordered off the menu

The waiter uncorks the bottle so that the table can see it was unopened before this moment (i.e., not another wine they poured into an empty bottle) and well-sealed

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle so that they can inspect the label on the cork and determine if it matches up; they can also smell/feel the cork to see if there is any dergradation or mold that might impact the wine itself

The waiter pours a small portion for the person who ordered to taste NOT to see if they liked it -- that's a common misconception. Yes, sometimes when house wine is served by the glass, waiters will pour a portion for people to taste and agree to. But when you order a bottle, the taste isn't for approval -- you've already bought the bottle at this point! You don't get to refuse it if you don't like it. Rather, the tasting is to determine if the wine is "corked", a term that refers to when a wine is contaminated by TCA, a chemical compound that causes a specific taste/flavor. TCA can be caused by mold in corks, and is one of the only reasons you can (generally) refuse a bottle of wine you have already purchased. Most people can taste or smell TCA if they are trained for it; other people might drink the wine for a few minutes before noticing a damp, basement-like smell on the aftertaste. Once you've tasted it, you'll remember it. That first sip is your opportunity to take one for the table and save them from a possibly corked bottle of wine, which is absolutely no fun.

If you've sipped the wine (I generally smell it, I've found it's easier to smell than taste) and determined that it is safe, you then nod to your waiter. The waiter will then pour glasses for everyone else at the table. If the wine is corked, you would refuse the bottle and ask the waiter for a new bottle. If there is no new bottle, you'll either get a refund or they'll ask you to choose another option on their wine list. A good restaurant will understand that corked bottles happen randomly, and will leap at the opportunity to replace it; a bad restaurant or a restaurant with poor training will sometimes try to argue with you about whether or not it's corked. Again, it can be a subtle, subjective taste, so proceed carefully.

In restaurants, this process can happen very quickly! It's elegant and practiced. The waiter will generally uncork the bottle without setting the bottle down or bracing it against themselves. They will remove the cork without breaking it, and they will pour the wine without dripping it down the label or on the table.

[grumpygreenwitch]

Horse Story Number 9

for @elodieunderglass

Michael the Escape Artist When Michael came into my life, I realized very early on that the very best I could hope for was to contain and limit the mayhem and catastrophes. I knew that stopping them entirely was beyond any human capacity, and that my role in Michael's life was primarily Damage Control. I was an angry teenage punk, so, overall, my sympathies were with the chaos factory in horse form. I did, however, have some nascent inklings of conscience and an embryonic understanding of the general social contract, so I did my best to keep Michael under wraps. Dear reader, I failed.

Michael could, and would, jump out of any paddock I put him in. He could, and did, jump 6 foot fences from a standstill, with no apparent effort. He was a master at opening latches...and closing them behind him, which is how he was able to commit his Chicken Crimes. Several times, he opened every stall in the barn, letting 30 horses romp loose in the middle of the night. This was particularly alarming when we were at international horse shows, and the values of said horses were in the millions of dollars.

When I tried chaining his stall gate closed, he learned how to pull the pins out of the hinges and would then clamber over the gate. He knew how to turn door knobs. He was a Menace. I finally came up with a solution that sort of worked. I would take a rope, and tie multiple knots in it, then toss it into his stall. He would spend a happy hour or so undoing all of the knots with his teeth, then let himself out of his stall.

He would wander around with the rope hanging out of his mouth and dragging between his front legs, like a lioness carrying her kill, until he found me or another obliging human. He would then drop the rope, and wait expectantly for the human to tie his knots, then happily take it back to his stall.

He was Alexander the Great in reverse. The city of Gordium would have loved him.

This is the last Michael story. J and I are working on putting together a Michael ebook, that will have all the tumblr stories, an extra bonus story about the time Michael fell in love, illustrations, and more!

That should become a reality within the next week, or two at most.

The ebook will be available on my kofi for $5.

I'm going to write up the tragic story of our downfall and Michael's demise as a separate ebook, so if you want to know the whole story, it will be available for $2.

If you'd rather stick to the funny stuff and know that Michael and teenage me are forever living the weird life and rampaging across the globe in your imaginations, you can skip the sad epilogue, and it will be like it never happened. :)

Times are still tough here, with no end in sight, but we have a little breathing room thanks to everyone's astonishing generosity and kindness. If I can sell a few ebooks, that will help keep the lights and internet on. Thank you all for taking my weird demon horse into your hearts, and letting me relive those times for a little while through writing.

https://ko-fi.com/idiomagic

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The Wait Is Over!

We’ve been (not-so-patiently) waiting to share the news: Bear Cam is officially live for the summer!

Don’t miss a moment! Bookmark our event calendar for upcoming bear-related live events, and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky for top bear highlights, fun contests, and exclusive behind-the-scenes peeks.

the explore.org Bear Cam < click

We can’t wait to spend another unforgettable bear season with you!

Never Stop Learning,

explore.org

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Riz (@mrachniy) again <3

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Queen of the Dead part 2, 74

According to Restless Dead by Sarah Iles Johnston, the deities most frequently mentioned on curse tablets of the classical period are Hekate, Hermes, and Persephone. These three all had some kind of control over the dead, the restless dead especially in the cases of Hermes and Hekate. "Notably, entities whom we could more easily imagine as inflicting damage described in the curses themselves - such as the Erinyes - almost never appear in the tablets, which tends to support the idea that deities are chosen not on the assumption that they will work the curse but rather in the expectation that they will mobilize others to do so."

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I took my little brother (autistic, mostly non verbal) out and he was using his voice keyboard to tell me something, and this little boy (maybe 4 or 5?) heard him and asked me "Is he a robot??" I tried to explain to him that no, he isn't a robot, he just communicates differently, but my darling brother was in the background max volume "I am robot I am robot I am robot I am robot"

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