benjhawkins

[benjhawkins]

I have a Theory that you can tell an artist was a gay man based on how he painted men vs. how he painted women.

Por ejemplo:

John Singer Sargent:

J. C. Leyendecker:

Henry Scott Tuke:

William Bruce Ellis Ranken:

[benjhawkins]

pst pst pst pst call for papers!!

anyone been working on a research article about maritime history?

Mystic Seaport Museum's Mainsheet multidisciplinary journal is looking for papers

[benjhawkins]

I hate this haunted ass house museum with this haunted ass portrait of this haunted ass salty tar

[benjhawkins]

instagram | photos are my own, reblogs fine, do not repost/reuse

[benjhawkins]

Ok lads and ladies what the hell is this tool, really? I am almost certain it is not a ‘mast scoring tool’

[benjhawkins]

I am absolutely cursed and haunted by this book. It follows me everywhere. I cannot give a tour without someone saying “oh have u read this book”

CURSED I TELL YOU

[benjhawkins]

Pentecost: “watching fistfights break out in the aisles of the Highland Ave Market Basket, now that’s the real Salem experience.”

[benjhawkins]

Me: “here’s what I know about ships. Lubber’s hole. Spanker.”

Friend: “ok you’re done”

[benjhawkins]

The ship’s deck, 1860, Édouard Manet

[benjhawkins]

The original second order Fresnel lens from the east tower of Cape Elizabeth Light in Maine, originally installed in 1874.

Fresnel lenses are graded by size, called orders. A first order would be the biggest lens. Some were as wide as six feet in diameter and could be seen as far away as 20 miles out to sea. The smallest lenses are sixth order. They are only about a foot wide and used in harbors and channels. Seventh and eight order lenses were used mostly in Scotland and Canada— they were known as steamer lenses in America.

[benjhawkins]

Trista Mateer, from a poem featured in her collection titled The Dogs I Have Kissed

[benjhawkins]

Fortune’s Favour, Or, The Man who Met with a Mermaid and Lived to Tell the Tale

A bit of original fiction set in 1820 by yrs truly

Keep reading

[benjhawkins]

morning honey. hey, while you're stealing that boat, could you get my underwear back

[benjhawkins]

“You and i are Earth 1661”. Tin-glazed earthenware plate found in a London sewer, from the Wellcome Collection’s “Dirt” exhibition.

[benjhawkins]

Imagine, if you will, a hot New England summer in the year 1702. It’s August in Massachusetts, and the humidity is oppressive. You’re a subsistence farmer in the small agricultural town of Wenham, on the post road between Newbury and Boston. It’s time to harvest the flax, and the sun is blazing down on your field, blazing down on you. It’s far too hot today to take on work this hard, but it must be done. From flax comes linen, a valuable textile.

As you begin to pull the flax under the unyielding heat of the sun you think, “No one’s around. What if I just shimmy out of these clothes? Who is to see? Who is to care?” 

And so you do. You are alone.

Time grinds by, the sun grows higher, you bend low, you pull flax. You sweat, your naked limbs ache, you bend low, you pull flax. Your muscles burn, your hands bleed, you bend low, you pull flax. 

After a good while you pause in your labors, stretch up to your full height to relieve the unbearable strain on your back and directly in front of you, you see:

You start, and he stares at you, agog, from atop his horse. 

It all takes a moment to register, and perhaps you’re a bit dazzled by the sun, but then the sickening drop in your stomach confirms that you know this man. It is Judge Samuel Sewall of Salem, of witchcraft trials fame. He is a frequent guest of your pastor in Wenham, Reverend Gerrish. And his face is quickly turning a garish, arterial shade of crimson.

You look down. You are utterly naked, covered in flax stalks and dirt. You feel an errant bead of sweat travel slowly down your shirtless chest and lodge in the muddy cup of your uncovered navel.

“Goddamn it,” you mutter, and the flushing judge, apoplectic, opens his mouth to speak.

(At least, that’s how I imagine this entry in Judge Sewall’s diary from August 11th, 1702 came about:)

(Diary of Samuel Sewall 1674-1729, Vol. 1, p. 61)

[benjhawkins]

Just looking through the 18th-century law book of Lincoln County Sheriff Charles Cushing. Proof that dudes have always loved a good 🍆 joke.

[benjhawkins]

Free my man Lafayette Chase he did nothing wrong