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The Animals - House of the Rising Sun (1964)

Silver Jews - New Orleans (1994)

wdhmbt’s tumblr post (undated)

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the diversity of subjects in ancient greek and roman seals never ceases to amaze and entertain me. imagine getting asked for your signature and drawing a picture of a guy getting his head eaten by a lion. the world could be a more beautiful place

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Red

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I fucking hate it here

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Being a committed pedestrian in a major city will make you hyperaware of the ways urban areas will attempt to make themselves hostile to homeless people and the ways that these efforts also make life worse for everyone else. The needlessly narrow sidewalks, the uncomfortable and inconvenient seats at bus and train stops, the noise pollution from convenience stores piping loud music outside. It all sucks, it all has a negative impact on everyone simply trying to exist within a community, and it’s all in service of cruelly trying to drive a class of people from public view.

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Splendid Fairywren (Malurus splendens), males, family Maluridae, order Passeriformes, Australia

photograph by Jennifer Sexton

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Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ Finale

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finally put references of these guys together after they've been characters in this goddam western for like over a year LOLLL.

The Gravediggers are two characters who are the only ones- besides martin vargas LOL- to interact with all 3 characters. they often show up in weird places, and they seem to know a lot, and they also don't... seem to age so much- but it's never really made clear if they're just weird mundane people, or if something more is going on with them. (what is a western after all without a little bit of a ghost story?)

there's a man and a woman of the two of them; the man is warm and compassionate but distant and ineffectual, while the woman is generally apathetic towards suffering and about as subtle as a flying brick.

they have a dark sense of humor, LOL.

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being in love is great except for Oh God The Hog

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Happy 10 years anniversary to gay marriage becoming a fundamental right across the U.S.!!! we love you supreme court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges, and we will fight for you!

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I was at the liberty museum in Philadelphia and saw this next to a stairwell

Official ominous sign

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opera carmen but it's just don josé falling

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i loosely followed thedimelions’s tutorial for naturally dyeing a pride flag, with a lot of added research about natural dyes, stains, mordants, sewing, etc, and i wanted to share my results!!

process, notes, and more pics under the read more🌱

starting off i soaked my fabric (100% cotton acquired from joann's during their closing sale, rip joann's ;-;) in a 1:5 mixture of soy milk and water for 12 hours, then let dry on a clothesline in the sun, then dipped and dried two more times (the proteins in the soy milk help the natural dyes adhere to the fabric, creating darker colors and better colorfastness)

while that was happening i started making my dyes, which involved simmering my chosen dyestuffs in some water for 30-60 minutes. i didnt time it, just went until the color developed to a point i was happy with

as far as ratios i didn’t measure, but the more dyestuff = stronger color so err on the side of more

red: turmeric + baking soda, paprika, and yellow onion skin dye as the liquid base

orange: yellow onion skins

yellow: turmeric

green: red cabbage + baking powder (LOTS), turmeric

blue: red cabbage + baking powder

purple: red cabbage

for the red cabbage dyes, i added the baking powders and soda after simmering and just kept adding and stirring till i got the color i wanted. ((BIG NOTE red cabbage, and debatably most of the others that I used, are fugitive dyes, meaning its not a true dye and more of a stain that will fade with time and wash out more easily, especially without mordanting on additives like iron. keep this in mind if you end up doing this project or transfering these methods to cloth you will be using for clothes, ie washing and wearing more frequently))

i also tried to make a pink with avocado skins and pits, which did come out a lovely rosy color, but i didn’t end up using in the final flag, which i might use beet or red cabbage + lemon juice or another acidified for next time to get a more bright pink

now with my dyes ready and my cloth dried out from its previous soy milk dip i cut it into strips and stuck it in the jars, which were placed in the sun for the day (alternatively, you could simmer the cloth in the pot) and then left to sit overnight

the next day i squeezed out the excess dye and gave the ones with turmeric a light rinse to get the grit out, then hung them to dry

((small note i reused the dyes baths to see what would happen since they still looked just as pigmented, but the colors are much much much more faded on the second go around. all in all its doable, but I wouldn't recommend it.))

now time to sew! i procured a second hand sewing machine specifically for this project and had never sewed before, but thankfully this required the easiest stitch in the game (a straight stitch in a straight line). i looked up how to sew a flag specifically to get those clean lines rather than just overlapping, and this video was great (shoutout Suffolk Public Library)

as you can see my flag ended up quite long cause I left a lot of wiggle room, so I just look up flag ratios, trimmed it up (and used the extra strip of rainbow as decoration) then added a white strip folded over to make a way for me to hang it on a stick if I ever so desire.

and ta daaa! i would still like to clean it up a bit, and do a zig zag stitch around the outside to stop the cloth from fraying further, but im happy with the unpolished look of it. once i figure out how to get a pink I like, and how to get browns and blacks, i want to make a progress flag and trans flag. also just started growing some indigo, so excited to see if I can get some blue dyes out of that.

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my top hobbies are shame and embarrassment but i also occasionally dabble in envy