#experimental history

[alpaca-clouds]

Experimental Archeologists are fucking rad!

Let me geek out about science a bit more, alright? And for that I really wanna talk about that part of archeology that normal folks know very little about: Experimental Archeology.

And I know for a lot of people this sounds kinda strange. How the fuck are you going to experiment about archeology? Isn't archeology all about dicking in the dirt for some ceramic or something? Or about excavating ruins?

Well, here is the thing. Ruins and ceramics can tell us a lot about the life back in "ye olden days", but they also leave a lot of questions. Questions about how the people were actually living and how the things that were excavated were actually created.

You might know all those Ancient Alien nutjobs. Folks that will yell about how people in the ancient times (or, lets be honest, how non-white people in the ancient times) could never have ever done this with the technology of the time.

That is where experimental archeology comes in. In a lot of the cases from the old times we actually have found some tools, too. So we know what kind of tools that might have been used and the like. And as thus they experiment how to use those tools and other things we know were available to create those things.

With that we know that for example Stonehenge could have been created by very few people in a fairly short amount of time. We also have a good idea of how the pyramids might have been build and how many people it took. (Less than you think.)

But experimental archeologists and experimental historians do even more. They recreate food and the methods it was cooked based on findings we made. They recreate clothing and furniture and other tools, learning a lot about the process through it.

Which is amazing - and we are learning quite a lot about the past through it. It is fucking amazing.

[bisonomy]

Experimental History Job Alert

I saw this on Bluesky and it had depressingly few reskeets:

Job Klaxon

Do you have a passion for history, investigating, experimenting, and communicating?

Then come join my Historic Kitchen Team at @HRP_palaces. We're seeking 6x permanent, full time roles.

Closing date 25 Feb 2024.

See advert for details

[reality-detective]

* * * History Lesson * * *

1918 Spanish flu experiment gone horribly wrong - Injecting bacteria and vaccine shedding… 🤔

[svartmalt]

Einstürzende Neubauten at Slurpen for “Tidskonsept II”, Oslo 1983.

Artist collective Lambretta invited Einstürzende Neubauten and Holy Toy to perform in their studio that they converted into a gallery space for the evening.

The locale was decorated with painted tv-screens, painted tarps, sheet metal and hanging oil drums, and playing documentary and propaganda clips from wartime Germany and the Soviet Union.

The performance was attended by the art elite, punks, and a tv-crew from the Norwegian national broadcasting network NRK.

The night ended with band members from Einstürzende Neubauten throwing Molotov-cocktails into the crowd, and the crowd reacting similarly by setting fire to the instruments and set design by Lambretta.

Videoclip taken from the NRK archives, Pan, episode “Musikk blir bilde”.

[latinalivinghistory]

I have a lot of opinions on this but I would love to know what other people think.

[dronescapesvideos]

Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet prototype fighter-interceptor, 1943 ➤➤ HIGHER RESOLUTION IMAGE: https://dronescapes.video/XP56

[triflesandparsnips]

For those who may or may not remember my mostly historically accurate Stede Bonnet lip balm, get ready-- I'm going to start experimenting soon with mostly historically accurate lavender soap.

So... I guess be prepared for me to accidentally explode more shit, hooray.

[sandmoonyelse]

A brief history of Time - series IV

(June photographs of 2019-2022)

[detroitlib]

View of a 1955 GMC L'Universelle experimental truck. Label on back: "Among the galaxy of experimental cars at the General Motors Powerama in Chicago will be this GMC 'dream truck' L'Universelle, which has created a sensation at public showings since its introduction in January. Although still in the 'show truck' category, plans are being made to put the revolutionary new vehicle into production. From: GMC Truck & Coach Division. Pontiac, Michigan." Handwritten on back: "Concept dream truck. L'Universelle, 1955."

National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library

[rinayeas]

Im still on the fence abt the ghoul boys but if they bring tourist trapped and weird wonderful world back i might have to reconvene

[archaeology-findings]

Adventures in Plant Dyeing: Part 6 - Tansy

During the spring break I decided to do some more plant dyeing, this time with tansy. Tansy is a yellow flower that was traditionally used for medicinal purposes. It's meant to yield bright yellows on its own, and olive green with iron.

I used 50g of dried tansy to dye 250g of wool fibre, which ended up not being a great idea as the dye wasn't very concentrated and all my colours were quite pale. I could have partially solved this by putting some of the skeins in first to obtain a more vibrant shade, then putting the rest after a few minutes to get a paler colour, but I was unreasonably optimistic and hoped I'd get some bright colours anyway.

I used 3 50g skeins of white pure wool, one of which was my handspun, and 1 100g skein.

I mordanted all the skeins with alum for 45 minutes while I soaked the dried tansy in hot water to extract the dye. The dyebath turned a rich, dark brown.

Then I strained the dye bath and split it into 2 pots, adding calcium carbonate to one. I put 3 skeins in the original bath and one in the bath with the calcium carbonate. I heated them for half an hour, making sure they didn't boil, and left them to cool for 15 minutes. The skein in the bath with the calcium carbonate turned a pretty shade of lemon yellow, while the others were a slightly more mustard colour.

I then rinsed all the skeins before preparing one afterbath of citric acid and one of ferrous sulphate (iron), to use as colour modifiers. I did this by adding roughly a teaspoon of the modifier to a few inches of hot water, then adding the yarn and heating gently for 15 minutes until they had changed colour.

The iron did indeed turn the pale yellow into a pale green as expected, however the citric acid, which is meant to produce cooler yellows, only succeeded in lightening the already-pale yarn, leaving me with a beige yarn barely more pigmented than the white I started off with.

Here are the yarns after drying:

From left to right: Citric acid, calcium carbonate, no modifier, ferrous sulphate

On the whole I'm pretty happy with the results given how little dyestuff I used, but I would definitely try this again with a much higher dye-to-fibre ratio. I think I'll leave the beige skein in my dyeing basket to be redyed next time...

[rhapsodynew]

Syd Barrett with a hand-painted painting, 1964

"THE BEE KING" AND SID'S LETTER

In December 1964, 18-year-old Barrett wrote an illustrated letter to his girlfriend Jenny Spires, telling about the first sound session of the future Floyd's. The demo recordings were made in a small London studio with an eye to signing a contract with a major record label. At that moment, the band was influenced by the "rolling stones" and Bo Diddley, this can be heard both in their own stuff and in the cover version of I'm a King Bee, which Sid mentions in the letter.

Six tracks recorded between December 1964 and January 1965 were included in the mini-album 1965: Their First Recordings, officially released in 2015. And later they were included in the box set The Early Years 1965-1972. Floydomans are well aware of this. Since that time (especially in connection with the release of the mini-album), there have been a lot of posts with playlists on social networks.

Offers a translation of the letter, which is published in Barrett's book. The definitive visual companion to the life of Syd Barrett (2011), which also includes Barrett's artwork, photographs, and other letters. It was first unveiled at the Cambridge Gallery in an exhibition dedicated to it in 2008.

Perhaps Sid is naive in this letter, and there is nothing of the great poet's rhetoric in the text, as, indeed, in his other epistolary archives. But in such modest sketches there is a breath of time and the magic of the authentic background of a single human everyday life, unadorned by historians and biographers. In addition, the epistolary syllable of Sid retains a share of stylistic melodiousness, and this also makes the written sample interesting. After all, Barrett's characteristic feature as a composer is that he "paints" a song with intonation, sounds, and syllables, as already mentioned in posts dedicated to Lucifer Sam and Arnold Layne.

It can also be mentioned that Sid illustrated himself, Mason, Waters and Bob Close, who was the lead guitarist of the band at that time. Sid signed his letters and paintings with his real name "Roger".

"Dear Jen, you are just lovely.

I'll tell you what happened during the recording. We dragged all the equipment into the studio, which was illuminated by a terrible white light and entangled with wires and microphones. Roger's amplifier was positioned behind a sound-absorbing screen, and Nicky was also "shielded". After a short conversation, we checked everything on the balance and wrote down five numbers more or less at once. However, only guitars and drums. We're going to add vocals, piano, etc. next Wednesday. The tracks sound awesome so far, especially King Bee.

When I sing, I have to stand in the middle of the studio with headphones on, and everyone else is watching from another room. I can't see them at all, but they can all see me. Also, I can only hear what I sing myself.

I hope you got home well, Jen, and had a good time. You couldn't have come to the recording. And anyway, it all lasted until midnight and it would have been a terrible burden for you.

How pleasant all these tra-la-la are (don't worry about distracting).

Do whatever you want, Jen. I love you very much and I want to hear from you, and you are very beautiful.

I'm a little tired of everything today, and I want to be in Cambridge or Greece, but not in London, where all I do is spend money and go back and forth. But the sun is still shining.

With love. Roger."

In case someone missed the Floyd's mini-album with those demo songs mentioned in the post, you can listen to it, for example (there is a song layout in the description, and to watch it, you need to go directly to the channel):

[simplydnp]

I get the sense that Phil just likes to make “”weird”” stuff and has somewhat dialed back his weirdness due to his popularity and age. But I would love to see what an unfiltered 30 year old phil Lester video would look like. What stories does he want to tell? How does he want to tell those stories?

honestly i think phil is really good at playing out whatever his brain is thinking at the time. i think a lot of people struggle with ideas because they'll be seen as too 'weird' or 'strange' or even 'impossible', and what's neat about phil is he either doesn't have those boxes, or he's able to push through them in pursuit of creating the thing to its full potential. people describe him as creative, which he is, but i think it leaves out some of his best attributes as a creator. he's inventive--remember the countless trends and challenges that came from him that have swept the internet? he's fearless--and this doesnt mean that he's not afraid of anything (for phil its probably the opposite actually) but he does things despite the fear, regardless of the unknown. he's a relentless and passionate creator who likes to make things and values seeing them through to the end. but he's not naive either--he and dan have talked about each other being their harshest critics. it's not just that he's an ideas guy, he's a good ideas guy who knows how to make something flourish.

i don't think current phil is sitting in a box waiting for his chance to break free of his popularity. he could've stopped years ago, similar to dan, if he didn't want this. but he likes doing it. he gets to have his choice on which of his ideas turn into projects, without having the stress of Needing a brilliant idea and execution every week. right now i think a lot of his energy is focused on the gaming channel. as he's expressed to us a few times, it was him who really wanted it back, and he's been ready for a long time. dan's even admitted that he's been enjoying it, and i think a lot of that comes down to phil's creative directing. he loves the gaming channel and is so thrilled it's back--his own content has taken a step back in terms of upload regularity, and i genuinely don't think he could be happier about it.

i would love a big phil project, but i honestly don't see him doing a tour of his own unless he brings dan with him, and then why not have it be something they can do together? does that make sense? that seems to be his thought process about things. it's why i've suggested taskmaster cause it's a local thing that wouldn't keep him from home for a long while, but he does get to flex his creativity, intelligence, and humour.

i'm looking forward to anything phil does. his current project seems to be making dan happy and they're both having a lot of fun doing that

[shihlun]

《實驗電影七七》特刊封面，香港火鳥電影會與衛影會合辦，1977年

[hussyknee]

tbh: you should just take all of that first thread out of the oppenheimer post. it's a little bit of truth (a couple dozen families of hispanic homesteaders had their land seized via imminent domain and were unjustly compensated) coupled with a *lot* of b.s. or exaggeration (their livestock were SHOT, they were FORCED to work in berylium mines, white workers got protective gear but hispanic ones didn't, loyda martinez sued because of the beryliosis, etc. etc.)

Thank you for telling me. I only did a general check on whether the issue was real instead of whether each claim was true. My bad. I was only able to do a cursory Google search on those claims, which didn't turn up anything, but Google is also pretty unreliable now. I'm beginning to doubt whether Alisa is a good faith actor though, which is a shame because it sabotages the surfacing of the violence done to New Mexico's Hispanos. I disabled reblogs on the post until I could look into it in-depth.

In the meantime, here's a source for the population impact and infant mortality of people caught downwind of the Trinity test:

Here's one about an NYC vigil held for the New Mexico people affected by The Manhattan Project's nuclear tests.

“They’ll never reflect on the fact that New Mexicans gave their lives. They did the dirtiest of jobs. They invaded our lives and our lands and then they left,” Tina Cordova, a cancer survivor and founder of a group of New Mexico downwinders, said of the scientists and military officials who established a secret city in Los Alamos during the 1940s and tested their work at the Trinity Site some 200 miles (322 kilometers) away.

And by far the most blood-curdling thing I found:

Jesus Christ. There's a book called The Plutonium Files written about the experiments conducted for The Manhattan Project. From the Wikipedia article:

What. The fuck. I'd never be lax about unverified claims, but you can see why shooting livestock and the forced labour of native landholders doesn't stretch believability to a lot of people.

Here's a very detailed but easy to read pdf about the experiments and who spearheaded them. I'm ADHDing my way through it, but it does include Oppenheimer's own proximity to the trials.