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Shira Barzilay, A Crazy Night in the Museum, 2022

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Iranian photographer Hossein Fatemi, offers a glimpse of an entirely different side to Iran than the image usually broadcasted by domestic and foreign media. In his photo series An Iranian Journey, many of the photographs reveal an Iran that most people never see, presenting an eye-opening look at the amazing diversity and contrasts that exist in the country.

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La Vague (The Wave) is a Stained Glass Window Design by Henri Privat-Livemont, 1897.

Located at the Hotel Saintenoy, Brussels, Belgium.

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Occasionally as an Australian you'll be talking to someone from overseas, and you'll discover a common phrase you took for granted is, in fact, not universally known outside of our country.

Turns out casually dropping "fuck me dead" into conversation will give unsuspecting Americans an aneurism.

The more you know.

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Haunted Books

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When I (M29) was a young boy (M7) my father (M35) took me into the city (X167) to see a marching band (M23, M21, M22, F22, M24, M25, F21, M

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Unreliable narrators are one hell of an idea. You can just write whatever, and if a reader points out "hey the way this scene happened should not be physically possible if it's done the way this character described it", you can just be like "yeah I don't trust that fucker either."

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Cat resting on a cross of Orthodox church in Perast, Montenegro.

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You can be talking to someone and she'll be like, "Oh I made a silly mistake. Women don't deserve voting rights teehee." And you'll be like, "What." And she'll be like, "Oh I'm sorry! That must sound so bad out of context. No it's this Tiktok meme where, if you're a girl and you do something dumb, you say 'Women don't deserve voting rights teehee.'"

And you'll be like, "That sounds bad." And she'll be like, "No no. It's totally not that bad. It's just a meme. Men say it too. Like if a man does something silly he'll be like, 'I am like those women who do not deserve to vote.'" And you'll be like, "Does that make it better?" And she'll be like, "Well there was one guy who tried to make 'Men shouldn't vote' a popular meme. But it never caught on and also he got yelled at a lot."

And then you drop it there because like, you're harshing the vibe.

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Frank Buchser - A sacred Nook in Virginia, 1867

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making the argument I want to make about the relationship between addiction and illness feels like threading the tiniest fucking needle in the world. 'addiction is disease' rhetoric is both inaccurate and stigmatising AND 'addiction is not a disease' rhetoric often implies that addiction is a moral problem, which is also inaccurate and stigmatising AND labelling something as a disease carries all the cultural baggage around illness and medicalisation that is ultimately ableist and eugenicist in nature. basically I'm suspicious of every single thing I've read on this matter thus far. lol.

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some of yall need to understand that "my body, my choice" also applies to:

addicts in active addiction with no intention of quitting

phys disabled people who deny medical treatment

neurodivergent people who deny psychiatric treatment (yes, including schizophrenic people and people with personality disorders)

trans people who want or don't want to medically transition (yes, including trans masc lesbians with top surgery and trans women without bottom surgery, yall are so weird to them wtf)

and if you can't understand that, then you don't get to use the phrase

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Eight emotions that every parent of an addict goes through:

   (my father wrote this a few years ago, and i feel it is too good to not be shared)

Anger:  Probably the most felt emotion when you’re the parent of an addict.  And definitely the quickest way to respond to something that you know nothing about.   Angry at everything.  Angry about the lies, the stealing, the manipulation.  Angry that my child was born an addict.  Angry that if there is a god in heaven that he would instill such an illness on a sweet innocent beautiful little girl.  Angry that you just won’t listen to me and stop using drugs!  Angry of the countless nights staying up till 6am wondering and hoping if my child was still alive.  As if it was just that easy.  Angry that despite all the meetings, agencies, and therapist that offer support that I still feel so alone in this never-ending battle.   

Sadness:  Once the anger subsides sadness sets in.  Nothing is sadder then watching someone you love destroy themselves with drugs.  Cannot even begin to count the nights staying up and crying.  Crying for what my little baby girl let herself turn into.  Crying that despite all my efforts of trying to help that I get nowhere.  Crying thinking about how many times I tucked this little girl in bed at night.  How many times I played dolls with her.  Crying thinking about the old days, the way things use to be before this horrible disease took control of my daughter.  Crying sitting on the computer looking through countless number of pictures.  I go to work every day smiling, joking.  The sad clown.  If anyone ever knew the extreme sadness that fills my body each and every day.  Unless you are the parent of an addict you will have no idea.  Despite this sadness I must stay strong and put on a brave face. 

Guilt:  There hasn’t been a day since my daughter’s addiction that I haven’t been filled with guilt.  What did I do wrong?  Where did I go wrong?  It’s my fault that this happened.  It’s ALL my fault.  How could I have let this happen.  Did I spoil this person?  Give them too much.  Made life too easy for them?  Guilty that maybe I was too hard on her growing up.  Did I not do enough.  Should I have bought her more stuff.  Went on more vacations.  My daughter is too nice of a person for something like this to have happened.  It has to be my fault, right?  Guilty as to why I didn’t see the signs.  What could I have done differently.  Maybe I could have caught this disease earlier and done something about it.   Why didn’t I protect my daughter?  Why did I let her hang out with the wrong crowd?  Was I there for her when she was growing up?  This is what goes through a parent’s head on a daily basis.  When the reality is that I was a loving kind parent who did everything they could for their child and really do not have much to feel guilty about.   

Depression:  After all the anger is let out.  All the screaming and yelling has been done.  When it feels like you have done everything you can, and nothing has seemed to work depression then sets in.  And it’s not good, it’s a terrible gut wrenching feeling thinking that this is the way things are going to be.  Depressed that the life you once knew doesn’t exist anymore.  Depressed that there is as chance that my daughter will not beat this terrible disease.  Depression can last a day, a week or months.  And the worst thing is that the more you feed into your depression the worse it gets.  There isn’t a medication on the planet that can prepare you for when you finally realize that your child is an addict and depression sets in.   

Scared:  The scariest thing is sometimes not knowing.  Where is my daughter?  Who is she hanging out with?  What is she up to now.  Scared to death as to what is going to happen next.  Are the cops going to bringing her home?  Will I get a call from a hospital?  Will I walk in her room one day and find her unconscious?  1am daughter still not home.  Just texted her, said she will be home at 2am.  2am daughter still not home, claims she will be home at 3am.  Wake up from a nightmare at 4am.  Look around the room confused and disoriented.  Did I hear my daughter come home?  Is she hopefully in her room sleeping?  Text my daughter again, when are you coming home?  Me and Mom are worried, we love you.  6am and my daughter is not only not home but now she’s not answering any text messages.  Only a parent of an addict will understand the fear and panic that goes through your body daily when your child is actively using.   

Paranoid:  What are my neighbors thinking?  Do they know that my daughter is using drugs?  What do they think of me and my family?  Do they think we are bad people?  Have they heard all the yelling going on in my house lately?  What do they think about the cars pulling up to my house all hours of the night.   What about the people I work with.  Can they tell that something is wrong with me?  Can they tell that I’ve been up all night worrying if my daughter will come home?  Do they somehow know that my daughter is an addict?  What about the extended family.  Do they think we are bad parents?  What are they saying behind my back.  

Tired:  The word tired doesn’t come close to explaining.  When I say "tired" I mean exhausted both physically and mentally.  Tired from not getting a solid night sleep in years.  From staying up all night worrying if my daughter will come home alive.  Tired from spending nights in the emergency room not knowing if my daughter will overdose or not.  Tired of trying to keep up with the lies.  Tired of trying to keep up the act that nothing is wrong.  Acting like a phony when all I want to do is drop to the floor in tears.  Even more then physically I am mentally drained.  My brain just can’t take the stress and mental anguish from the effects of this disease that has infected my daughter.  Do I quit, give up?  Just throw my hands up and say enough?  I can’t and I won’t.  It’s not even an option.  I will die trying to help my daughter get through this.   

Alone:  it’s a sad realty when you realize that we are ultimately all alone in this world.  Billions of people in the world and here I am.  Just an ordinary middle-class Dad trying to help his daughter.  My parents say that they are there for me.  It’s a nice gesture but what does that really mean.  What can they do to help?  The friends that do know about the addiction say “Hey, if there is anything I can do just let me know” Again it’s a nice thought but what can they do?  I would like to say to them yes there’s something that I need.  I need for my daughter to stop using drugs.  I wish it was that simple.  Despite the whole NA community, all the counselors, doctors, and therapist at the end of the day when you go sleep at night and your head hits that pillow, we are alone.   

A man in a movie once said hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.  I can understand what he meant.  But am I hopeful?  Absolutely.  One hundred percent.  What choice do I have?  Sure, I can curl up in a ball at night.  Cry myself to sleep each night while I feel bad for myself.  But I’m not built that way.  Won’t happen in a million years.  Each day I watch my daughter battle this horrible disease.  Each day I see her get a little better.  Get a little stronger.  Am I hopeful?  Sure I am.  Hopeful that one day my daughter will put this horrible dreadful disease behind her once and for all.  To live the life that I know she deserves.  Do I think she can?  No, I know she can.   I seen what she’s capable of.  And I know there are only better things to come.  

-Richard Banks

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the term "phasmid," meaning "stick insect," comes from a latin word meaning "apparition" or "phantom," due to the creatures' ability to hide in plain sight, and then move around and scare people.

the largest phasmids likely remain undiscovered; the longest insect known to science was a phasmid from a species that remains formally unnamed and undescribed, even since being captured for the first time in china in 2014.

a female specimen of the quasi-mythical australian species of gargantuan stick insect was sought by a curator of museum victoria for three years before he encountered one, also in 2014. upon realizing what it was, he says, “I started screaming."

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I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

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what was your almost name? mine was sofia