bitches be like “this is the best piece of literature i have ever read” and it’s either a book that took them six weeks to finish or a fanfic they read at 3 AM
We need more weird historian rep in Doctor Who. The companions are too normal when faced with the prospect of time travel. I want a companion who makes a list of super specific historical destinations related to their dissertation. I want somebody whose first reaction to finding out that the Doctor is a time travelling alien is to create a Microsoft Word document and ask, “What caused the Late Bronze Age collapse?”
Blaschka Glass Models of Plants exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
From top to bottom, left to right:
[ID 1:
A photo of a large pitcher plant sculpture sitting in a case of glass and dark wood on a white background in a museum exhibit. The plant is photographed from below, so the plant's roots and bottom of the purple and yellow pitchers are in the foreground. The stems, leaves, and flowers are seen from below.
/end ID 1]
[ID 2:
A close-up photo of the leaves and pitchers, taken from above the pitchers.
/end ID 2]
[ID 3:
There are two signs to the left of the sculpture of the pitcher plant. The first and larger sign reads:
From the Hands of the Makers
Over the course of fifty years, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, father and son, continually experimented with materials and methods that pushed the boundaries of glassworking. After his father's death in 1895, Rudolf continued to refine glass formulations, experiment with pigments and varnishes, and create his own palette of colored glass enamels. He produced this Great Pitcher Plant, [italics] Nepenthes maxima [end italics] (right), the largest and most complicated model in the collection, using many of his innovative techniques.
The smaller plaque identifies the artwork and reads:
[italics] Nepenthes maxima [end italics] (Great Pitcher Plant)
Indonesia, New Guinea & Philippines
by Rudolf Blauschka, 1906
Legitimately can't explain what caused me to get just get really into this hetaliaAU that exists solely in my brain but I couldn't stop
At first it was just imagining like a Japanese woman in kimono in like 19th century New York and then I started thinking about how amazing fem japan is and like then ameripan came in and now I'm like losing it
in 1883 in the first recorded rodeo takes place in pecos, texas. in 2001 rob smets attends the PBR world finals in jeans and a sports jersey bearing sponsor logos. in 1568 the gelosi acting company coalesces in italy to perform the hot new style of live improv entertainment. in 1780 joseph grimaldi makes his stage debut at 2 years old at london’s famed drury lane. in the many, many years before any white person ever laid eyes on it, a man in what you’d now call northern arizona paints his body in black and white stripes and puts corn husks in his hair. in 1557 ivan the terrible is pallbearer to a man who walked naked in the streets of moscow. in 2017 the ringling bro’s circus announces its last show, 146 years after the titular brothers first formed it. all of these moments (and more!) have lived in my head rolling around like marbles for years now and im so happy to now have the proper method to infect your mind as well:
History of Fools is a hobby project of mine i've been working on for over a year now! part essay series, part half-assed podcast, part descent into madness, this little diddy is the culmination of years' worth of highly specific insanity. i have 4 half hour-ish essays/episodes out now reviewing the histories of:
Jesters!
Commedia Dell'arte!
Sacred Clowns and Holy Fools!
and my personal favorite (seriously if you listen to or read any please choose this one) Rodeo Clowns!
I have more episodes planned to get into clowns proper, hoping to come out in 2024. but until then please take a read or a listen and let me know what you think!
really really enjoy how The Bright Sword depicts post-Arthurian britain as this once colonized, twice abandoned place. like it was conquered and then abandoned by the romans, who remade the aristocracy and language in their image and christianized the country and left behind works of engineering that would not be replicated for a thousand-plus years. then it was this land of christian miracles held together by Arthur and God, and then God abandoned the country and those kinds of miracles were never seen again
and the book explicitly plays with the connections between the Roman Empire and Christian/monarchist power, mentioning that some crackpots believe in the eventual return of the Roman Empire the way that people believe Arthur will return some day, and having the protagonist marvel at roman mining machinery that seems impossible to believe could have ever worked the way he marvels at stories of the Quest for the Grail
not 100% sure where this is going but it’s very effective for being a story about how the age of heroes is dead, because the age of wonders and power is sort of twice dead.