#smithsonian books

[dinosaurgiantpenny]

[spearxwind]

I mentioned a while ago that ive been working out at home with random junk including a toolbox, I think I should let you guys know that another of the things i use for weight lifting is a heavy book about the ocean

[garadinervi]

Helen Frankenthaler. Sixty-two Painted Book Covers, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, 1973 [Exhibition: May 2 – June 17, 1973] [Barbara Kulicke papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.]

[lionofchaeronea]

Abraham's Oak, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1905

[harpyface]

found some good irl rock references for ashton :)))

right is green granite and left is green marble

[arthistoryanimalia]

#BookRecommendation for NarwhalDay :

Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend (2017)

Bonus: I saw the 2019 NMNH exhibition the #narwhal book is based on, and found a few photos of the #Inuit artworks on display:

1. Carved Narwhal Figure

Canada, mid-20th c.

Soapstone, ivory

2. Narwhal Composition sculpture

Kakee Ningeeochiak

Cape Dorset, Canada, n.d.

Soapstone & caribou antler

3. Allangua (Narwhal)

Tim Pitsiulak

Cape Dorset, Canada, 2016

Reproduction of Lithograph

4. A Woman Who Became a Narwhal

Germaine Arnaktauyok

Iqaluit, Canada, 1993

Etching & aquatint

[puffygator]

Panda from the book I drew for Smithsonian

[theradioghost]

because of a really cool one I happened across, ive been getting into ~adult coloring books~ to occupy myself and. i have discovered to my frustration that "adult-aimed coloring book featuring relatively up-to-date reconstructions of dinosaurs/prehistoric animals" doesn't seem to exist. the Smithsonian's is pretty good but it's still full of details that really bother me like feathered raptors with naked heads and sauropods with nares at the top of their skull

[moocowmoocow]

Margo Madison would not being doing this shit.

[torrentofhermits]

him!!

out of context screenies from a non mcyt fan n i (who solicited me to talk abt mr slab) under cut

[dinosaurgiantpenny]

[enstarsurbanfantasy]

Mikagura - POV Hiiro

[Mikagura: a ritual dance performed at the imperial court and various important Shinto shrines. It consists of welcoming, entertaining and greeting the deities with humorous or poetic syllabic songs.]

Hiiro hears the singing before he sees the source.

He's strolling through one of the side gardens, thinking over one of his homework questions, when he's alerted to the distant sound of instruments. Music isn't uncommon in Ensemble Square, but it's mostly the music that the idol units are making. The music now vaguely resembles Akatsuki's songs, but it's slower and doesn't have modern instruments.

Hiiro turns a corner, curious about what's going on.

Water floats around Aira, ribbons swirling around his arms and legs as he steps back and forth with a string of bells in hand. He's dancing to the music, chanting with his eyes closed and moving as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Hiiro can see the kamuy dancing with him, water, storm, and war caressing his cheek like a mother to her child.

The music ends. With a sweep of his hand, the water surrounding Aira comes together in one long stream, and it funnels into the water bottle by the door. The spirits settle around Aira's shoulders like a winter cloak. Finished, Aira bows (to the kamuy?), opens his eyes and--

He is surprised, but the realization is... slow. His unitmate is settled, possibly in that floaty feeling Hiiro gets after finishing prayers, when his mind is more in the spritual realm than the human one. There is also something... other. Something playful and tricky and entirely inhuman.

Hiiro's throat is bone dry, and he swallows, opening his mouth to say... something.

But nothing comes out, because Aira places a finger to his mouth in a gesture for quiet. In fact, he seems to be physically unable to say anything. Aira gives a high pitched laugh, beams at him uncharacteristically, and blinks.

Aira shakes his head, and he's suddenly back to his usual countenance.

"Sorry," he says. "Ame-no-Uzume is a bit of a trickster."

"Ame... no Uzume?"

"You don't know a lot about Shinto gods, do you?" Aira remarks drily.

"Nope!" He'd like to learn more, if possible. The part of him that was trained to protect Nii-san rises, seeing all the possibilities of danger from such casual possession.

Aira takes a breath, exhales, and recites a story like he's heard it a thousand times before. "The sun goddess, Amaterasu, once quarreled with her brother, Susanoo, the god of sea and storms. After coming together to produce children, Susanoo vandalized her rice fields, flayed a horse and threw it at her loom, and brutally killed one of her maidservants. Amaterasu, furious, forfeited her divinity and retreated to a cave. As a result, the world was plunged into eternal night.

"The other gods came together to confer on the situation. In a bid to draw her out, Ame no Uzume placed a mirror by the cave's entrance, leapt upon an upturned tub, and proceeded to dance while tearing off her clothes. The other gods, stunned, started to laugh.

"Amaterasu heard the laughter and wondered how they could be happy in a world of eternal night. She looked out, and upon seeing her beautiful face in the mirror, went to take a closer look. As Amaterasu left the cave, the other gods threw a sacred rope across the cave entrance, preventing her from returning. Amaterasu agreed to rejoin the divine, and light was restored to the world.

And thus Ame no Uzume became known as the Heavenly Alarming Female."

Aira smiles, expression showing that he's still bit out of it. "Ame no Uzume is the goddess of revelry and the arts. I was praying for a good result in the MDM." he considers, and continues, "A sacred dance opens up your heart and mind to outside forces. Usually the gods have better things to do than to possess a random human, but Ame no Uzume likes to have a little fun."

"So it's like a send-off ritual," Hiiro murmurs.

Aira shrugs. "I... guess? I don't know much about your traditions."

Hiiro glances at Aira, just in time to see him sway concerningly. Hiiro slings an arm over Aira's shoulder to steady him, and Aira rests his head on his shoulder. "How long have you been praying?"

" 's the shorter ritual.. six hours?" Aira slurs.

Hiiro presses his lips together and declares, "I'm going to carry you back to the dorm."

Aira, already half asleep, doesn't do more than hum an assent.

[garadinervi]

James Baldwin, Sweet Lorraine (1969), «Playbill», April 2014 [Bibl.: To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words, Adapted by Robert Nemiroff, With original drawings and art by Miss Hansberry, Introduction by James Baldwin, New American Library, New York, NY, 1970, pp. xi-xv] [originally appeared in the November 1969 issue of «Esquire» (text here)] [Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.]

«We spent a lot of time arguing about history and tremendously related subjects in her Bleecker Street and, later, Waverly Place flats. And often, just when I was certain that she was about to throw me out, as being altogether too rowdy a type, she would stand up, her hands on her hips (for these down-home sessions she always wore slacks), and pick up my empty glass as though she intended to throw it at me. Then she would walk into the kitchen, saying, with a haughty toss of her head, "Really, Jimmy. You ain’t right, child!". With which stern put-down, she would hand me another drink and launch into a brilliant analysis of just why I wasn’t “right.” I would often stagger down her stairs as the sun came up, usually in the middle of a paragraph and always in the middle of a laugh. That marvelous laugh. That marvelous face. I loved her, she was my sister and my comrade. Her going did not so much make me lonely as make me realize how lonely we were. We had that respect for each other which perhaps is only felt by people on the same side of the barricades, listening to the accumulating thunder of the hooves of horses and the treads of tanks.»

[illimitable-freedom]

Facsimile of "The Jefferson Bible" by the Smithsonian. The book includes a forward on the history of Jefferson's bible as well as its conservation. It includes images of the texts that Jefferson cut out and rearranged to form his own version of the gospels.

I'm not a Christian but it's a gorgeous book (the external jacket is clear with the title and portrait printed on it, so the book itself is plain red with gold pattern around the edge). And special to have something of Jefferson's handwriting reproduced.

[thebotanicalarcade]

n7_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: The herbaceous garden London :Williams & Norgate,1913. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53761007