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Art by Mashu

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well if there's one thing i have to say about oppenheimer it's that it reminded me of my brief obsession with schrodinger & everett & many worlds theory & that i wanted to write a poem about it once a time. so i did that.

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Anyway here’s a poem I wrote about my cat

After “Do not stand at my grave and weep”, author disputed:

Do not stand at your bowl and meow. I gave you food. It’s in there now. I feed you at the dawning light, I feed you at the fall of night. I feed you kibbles mixed with meat And wet food for a special treat. I feed you even though you scoff At all the food within your trough. I feed you and still yet you yell Like as a beast from deepest hell. Do not stand at your bowl and cry. I gave you food. You will not die.

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autistic expression in a neurotypical art gallery

this morning i thought i would talk about AUTHOR VOICE specifically when it comes to AUTISM. as autistic author i have learned to turn the dial up and down when writing characters. rose from CAMP DAMASCUS is basically exactly where i rest on spectrum and this shows in a few ways

in roses internal monolog you will see that she uses phrases like ‘my friend’ to talk about folks where neurotypical buckaroos might just use first name. or with her parents she will think of them in FIRST NAME instead of ‘mom’ or 'dad’. this is way many autistic buds THINK

to explain this trot I will say it is not a way of disrespect or anything like that, it is simply that these terms are TECHNICALLY all correct and interchangeable. socially, autistic buds often learn to mask by pinpointing WHEN to use these words that logically the same to us.

in CAMP DAMASCUS i left these things in to create character, but if you go back in my writing you will see it. in TINGLERS this is because they are honest in PUNK ROCK way. unfiltered expressions. in earlier novels its admittedly just because i did not realize it was unusual yet

point is, ROSES internal dialog in camp damascus is neurodivergent and i CHOSE not to change her thought process in this way, because we are BOTH autistic. this can be a risk because some neurotypical buckaroos will read it and just think ‘what a strange way. this is bad writing’

camp damascus reviews are actually very good it is a very well received book by any measure, but you will see some folks kind of making fun of these traits (i do not think they would do this if they knew it was authentic autistic way BUT we cannot educate EVERYONE on this trot)

POINT IS i am now faced with an artistic choice in later books. do i write with my AUTISTIC voice even though some neurotypical readers find it awkward? in technical sense some readers WILL think each book is better if i eliminate my autistic tendencies in later edits

my advice is this: character voice IS SO IMPORTANT, but a big part of writing is finding the place between YOUR voice and your CHARACTER voice where both are authentically existing in some way. like acting, you are always bringing something of yourself even when you 'disappear'

when writing BURY YOUR GAYS i did not plan to make misha on the spectrum, but misha is part of me and i am on the spectrum. what i have realized over time is that ALL OF MY CHARACTERS will have these traits in some way because i wrote them, and i will never disappear completely

so when edits came for BURY YOUR GAYS and misha, i took that dial and i turned it farther towards neurotypical than i did with rose, BUT I DID NOT TURN IT OFF COMPLETELY. in literal sense, i left some of those ‘my friends’, because i will always bring MY VOICE to my art as well

i am proud of being on the spectrum. while my voice may not hit every convention of ‘good writing’ it is authentically ‘MY writing’ and i think that is more important than any outside checklist for ‘correct literary expression’. and guess what THE RESULTS ARE IN, MY BOOKS DO WELL

so if you are an artist getting feedback or reviews, consider which parts you can LEARN FROM and grow and change, and which parts are just AUTHENTICALLY YOU. because while your honesty may defy conventions and seem unusual to some folks, IT IS OFTEN WHAT MAKES YOUR ART SING

feel free to turn that dial marked 'YOUR TRUE VOICE' up and down when it makes sense. i do this all the time. but i have long since decided i will never turn that dial OFF completely. your voice is your POWER buckaroo, dont be afraid to sing with it

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I think an easy way to sum up american domestic architecture is that if you are remodeling and older bathroom you have to watch for razor blades in the walls

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Wild creature. 1968. Source.

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Heritage News of the Week

Discoveries!

Excavations of graves within a bronze age necropolis in Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan revealed that women had been buried with weapons such as razor-sharp arrowheads, a bronze dagger and a mace, as well as jewellery.

Human remains found at prison sewer site are 4,500 years old in East Yorkshire

Archaeologists investigating the site of a new sewer to serve a jail being built at Full Sutton in East Yorkshire, England, have discovered a burial monument containing human remains thought to be about 4,500 years old.

Monastic site founded by St Moulag discovered on Scottish island

According to the researchers, the site dates from the 7th to 10th century AD and was likely founded by St Moluag, an Irish missionary who evangelized the Picts on the western seaboard of Scotland.

Fortified 14th-century castle and moat discovered under hotel in France

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 14th-century medieval castle, including a moat, hidden beneath the courtyard of a historic hotel in France. Jewellery, pots, pans and padlocks were among the artifacts recovered, offering clues about the nobility who used the castle for nearly a century.

Archaeologists uncover earliest known Iron Age house in Greek village

Archaeologists from the University of Göttingen working in the ancient village of Thorikos, outside the city of Lavrion in southern Athens, have discovered what is thought to be one of the earliest Iron Age houses in Greece, according to the Greek Reporter.

2400-year-old artifacts discovered in the Black Sea’s first scientific underwater excavation

Dozens of historical artifacts dating from the 4th century BC to the 12th century AD were unearthed in the first scientific underwater excavation in the Kerpe region in Kocaeli’s Kandıra district.

Archaeologists search for King John’s lost treasure

The researchers will be excavating an area of land next to Walpole Marsh in the Fenlands, located 8 kms from the present-day coastline. During the Medieval period, the region was a large natural marshland often prone to flooding.

The marble head of God Apollo unearthed in an excavation at Philippi, Greece

The excavation, carried out by a group of students of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the archaeological site of Philippi Kavala, brought to light important findings. Among other things, they discovered a rare head of Apollo dating back to the 2nd or early 3rd century AD.

Persian plateau unveiled as crucial hub for early human migration out of Africa, study suggests

A recent multidisciplinary study has by looking at ancient and modern DNA, revealing that the Persian Plateau played a fundamental role as a hub for early Homo sapiens who expanded beyond their African homeland.

Fortified settlements containing open-air temples found in Türkiye

Archaeologists from the Yozgat Bozok University and Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University have uncovered fortified settlements containing a new type of open-air temples within the Tunceli province, Türkiye.

Traces of Roman fort found in Aachen

Further evidence of the fort has recently been uncovered during construction works for housing utility pipes, revealing traces of a seven metre stone wall from the fort’s exterior fortifications that date from around 2,000 years ago.

'Richly decorated' Roman villa with 'curse tablets' and tiny axes unearthed in England

Based on the hundreds of artifacts unearthed there, researchers determined that the site, known as Brookside Meadows, was occupied by Romans from the first or second centuries until the late fourth or early fifth century, when Britain slipped out of Roman control.

Tiny axe!

1930’s British railway carriage found buried in Antwerp

According to a press statement by the Oosterweel verbinding, the carriage is stock from LNER – London North Eastern Railway, one of the Big Four railway companies which operated between 1923 and 1948.

Exotic horses used for jousting tournaments were buried in Westminster

Using advanced scientific techniques, researchers from the University of Exeter have analysed the chemical composition of the several horse burials to identify the origins and the routes they travelled to British shores during their formative years.

Pompeii excavation reveals ancient construction techniques

According to a recent press statement by the Pompeii Archaeological Park, archaeologists have found a Roman construction site, accompanied with tools, tiles, piles of lime, and stacked tuff bricks. The site was likely active during the day of the eruption, providing the researchers a “time capsule” of ancient construction techniques from the Roman period.

Pyramidal structures uncovered at Los Teteles de Ávila Castillo

The latest excavations have been conducted in response to both erosion and the structures being robbed by locals for construction material. This has led to three pyramidal structures being uncovered, accompanied with charred ceramics, polished lithics, and carved objects made from obsidian and basalt.

Human activity on Curaçao began centuries earlier than previously believed

New research co-led by Simon Fraser University and the National Archaeological Anthropological Memory Management (NAAM Foundation) in Curaçao extends the earliest known human settlement of Curaçao by centuries, adding pieces to the puzzle of pre-Colombian Caribbean history.

Poland’s oldest copper axe discovered in the Lublin region

A copper axe from the 4th to 3rd millennium BC identified with the Trypillia culture was found in the Horodło municipality in the Hrubieszów district.

Explorers unlock the mystery of ‘pirate king’ Henry Avery who vanished after huge heist at sea

In 1695, Henry Avery led his 160-strong crew to pull off the most lucrative heist in pirate history on the high seas, amassing gold, silver, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds worth more than £85m in today’s money. He became the most wanted criminal of his day but vanished without trace and was the stuff of legend for 300 years. Now shipwreck explorers Dr Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan claim to have solved what they call the longest cold case in pirate history: the “pirate king” had entered the service of the king of England, William III, as a spy. The evidence lies in a previously unpublished coded letter written by “Avery the Pirate” from Falmouth in Cornwall. It had lain, forgotten, in a Scottish archive after being misfiled.

Museums

The British Museum went to court Tuesday against a former curator alleged to have stolen hundreds of artifacts from its collections and offered them for sale online.

Is Science Museum’s green power gallery tainted by fossil-fuel cash?

It is intended to be an ­exploration of humanity’s past and future efforts to decarbonise the way we live. Historical objects mixed with interactive displays will show how environmentally friendly energy systems are shaped by imagination and innovation. But the new Science Museum gallery, Energy Revolution, the Adani Green Energy Gallery, has gone down badly – with environmentalists. Last week they picketed the ­gallery’s private opening party and confronted guests with ­banners denouncing the London ­museum’s decision to accept sponsorship from the Indian energy group Adani, arranged through its renewables subsidiary, Adani Green Energy.

Getty Museum releases 88K+ images of artworks with CC0

The J. Paul Getty Museum just released more than 88 thousand works under Creative Commons Zero (CCØ), putting the digital images of items from its impressive collection squarely and unequivocally into the public domain.

Explore the Cutty Sark in new immersive virtual reality (VR) experience

The Cutty Sark, one of the world’s most famous ships, has been recreated in virtual reality by experts at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and Smartify.

The site can be found here

The Master's cabin includes dogs!

Virtual good boys

Pro-Palestine activists occupy Met steps with massive quilt

A group of about 350 demonstrators unfurled an enormous quilt on the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 24, demanding that the museum publicly call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Smithsonian misused covid relief funds, report says

The report, which was released on February 23, says the Smithsonian failed to properly justify purchases from single vendors made with money granted to the institution. This is in breach of a Smithsonian policy that “requires competition for purchases in excess of $10,000, and any exceptions are required to be justified in writing.”

Unique “stele of the twin babies” unveiled

The National Archaeological Museum of Athens has unveiled the only surviving example of a funerary relief depicting twin babies in the same arms.

Perth Museum review – a magical display of rampant unicorns and naked Picts

It takes balls to transform a local collection of archaeology, art and stuffed salmon into a museum with ambitions on an international scale. And it so happens that balls are one of the new Perth Museum’s highlights, albeit prehistoric stone ones. Decorated with nodules large and small, these carved rocky spheres were a speciality of neolithic artists in Scotland. What do they mean? Nobody knows, but their carefully designed patterns evidently meant a lot to the people who lived in what is now called Scotland about 5,000 years ago.

This sounds amazing and I want to go.

Repatriation

California legislators have introduced a bill intended to give Holocaust survivors and their heirs a greater chance of recovering artworks stolen, or sold under duress, during periods of political oppression.

Heritage at risk

The news was shared by Ukraine’s ministry of culture and information policy, which said in a statement that “as a result of falling fragments of a missile launched by the Russian Federation, the central part of the building at the Kyiv State Academy of Decorative and Applied Arts and Design named after Mykhailo Boichuk was destroyed.”

For archaeologists, what defines people as human is how we bury our dead. Imagine, then, a society that relegates a whole community as legally inhuman, enslaved with no rights. In spite of slavery, African burial grounds are tangible reminders of the enslaved and free – defying oppressive circumstances by reclaiming people’s humanity through acts of remembrance.

Cotton Capital: Our latest journalism on the legacies of transatlantic enslavement

‘There are children here who do not want to be black’: one woman’s bid to save Mexico’s first Afro-Mexican museum

In the Costa Chica region, which is home to Mexico’s largest population of African-Mexicans, the museum is unique in the country. When it opened 25 years ago, it was heralded as recognition of the more than 2.5 million Afro-Mexicans in a country that had long overlooked them. Now, however, the museum is now facing closure. Unpaid for 15 years and deserted by the founding committee who helped her create the space in 1999, Alvarado, 62, is fearful that she will soon have to retire. “They all left and now I am old and alone here,” she says.

Odds and ends

The Israeli destruction of archaeological sites and looting of artefacts in Gaza also raises questions about archaeology’s purported neutrality in our world. The reality is that archaeology can be deeply political.

Harvard will remove binding made of human skin from 1800s book

Harvard University has said it will be removing the binding made of human skin from a 19th-century book held in its library because of the “ethically fraught nature” of how the unusual binding took place.

What should we do with books bound in human skin?

I'm going to plug Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom, which is an in depth and balanced examination of books bound in human skin (aka anthropodermic bibliopegy, and there's your word of the day)

‘We are dealing with fundamentalist rightwingers’: Berlin statues are latest battleground in Germany’s culture wars

Critics say the erection of Isaiah, Ezekiel and co is emblematic of the silent manipulation of a prestige architecture project by a shady group of donors with nationalist leanings. “It appears that we are dealing with a targeted infiltration of the Berlin palace by fundamentalist rightwingers who want to turn it into symbol of a Christian and thereby ‘white’ ethnic Germany,” said Jürgen Zimmerer, a professor of global history at the University of Hamburg

Shōgun: why the English samurai’s life and legacy still grip Japan 400 years on

The release this month of the Disney+ series Shōgun has reignited interest in the navigator from Kent whose talents were endless: shipbuilding, gunnery, mathematics, geography, trade negotiation and diplomacy, and, most notable of all, personal skills that saw him become friend and trusted adviser to the feudal warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Is anyone else watching Shogun? You should be watching Shogun, it is so good.

AI is creating fake historical photos, and that's a problem

If you come across a picture of Napoleon giving a TED Talk or Mata Hari taking a selfie with an iPhone, chances are you're not going to mistake it for a genuine historical photo. The real danger lies in those images that are crafted with the explicit intention of deceiving people — the ones that are so convincingly realistic that they could easily pass for authentic historical photographs.

So all of the speculation about Kate Middleton was deeply unhinged, but one weird side effect was people began looking more closely at Rose Hanbury, assumed mistress of Prince William, and they realized that her house is full of stolen furniture.

and that is actually kind of funny.

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Actually the real reason I transitioned was because my parents joked so many times about returning me to the child store I decided to void the warranty.

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it just broke that israel has seized 1,977 acres of west bank land for settlement, which marks the largest land theft since 1993. west bank raids are also seeing an all-time high, with a a reuters article stating a series of israeli raids raised the palestinian death toll in the west bank to 10. there are palestinians being abducted as well, a lot of whom are children. the west bank is slowly being eaten up by both israeli settlers and raids, but this is barely being covered by mainstream media.

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here's a quick tip for life: if you hate someone and you have a choice in the matter, keep their name out of your mouth and the reasons you hate them out of your head. keep your head on a swivel around people who habitually break this guideline because they're just as capable of obsessive negativity about you

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What always gets me about learning about settler colonialism is how once you learn about it you cannot unsee the violence to the land itself. My home state was previously nearly 100% wetlands, apart of the wider Ohio river valley whose biodiversity supported such large populations of hundreds of different species that many contemporary source from settlers describe it as like the garden of Eden.

The Indigenous people who farmed and hunted here (and still farm and hunt in what land they have been able to keep and reclaim) were able to grow miles of upon miles of crops with multiple harvests a year, encouraging this biodiversity by creating forest gardens with incredible amounts of food from staples like corn and squash to local fruits like pawpaws to European imports like apples alongside controlled burns which allowed fields and buffalo ranges to expand.

Nowadays my state is known almost exclusively for its fields of nothing but corn and soy beans. Driving through in between the comparatively small cities you'll see nothing but fields where the plethora of different trees and plants were chopped down mile by mile, the remaining wetlands drained and flattened, and the rich black soils robbed of their nutrients through decades upon decades of monocrop agriculture now preserved through the life blood of petrochemical fertilizers which destroy the surrounding environment.

This process was done mile by mile as the tens of thousands of Indigenous people were killed and displaced by settlers and the US army, the land measured and sold acre by acre to white settlers who raped the land as described, filling the pockets of wealthy land speculators (like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) who bought the land directly from the government in schemes so corrupt historians have dedicated entire careers to mapping out their dramas.

It's like learning about commodity fetishism and suddenly seeing hundreds of strangers in the products that surround you. Once you learn how the land was destroyed for profit you'll never look at the miles of fields or the cracks in the concrete of buildings built on wetlands or the stench of now obsolete canals built solely for a once boat-dependent economy with no care for the environment the same.

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this perfectly encapsulates the online experience

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we need another bidoof’s law to refer to the phenomenon where someone says some rude stupid shit in the reblogs of your post and you go to their blog and all their posts are about nature loving you and being kind to each other and cute illustrations about friendship etc. the cognitive dissonance

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Has anybody else noticed that it seems that nobody tells children fairytales anymore? It seems that they only read them books or have them watch movies; oral storytelling appears to have vanished. Perhaps it’s just in my area, but it has quite literally been years since my friends, family, and I have met a child who has even referenced a fairytale character that didn’t appear in a Disney movie.

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Hey you know what's super funny about the idea of "good bi rep"?

For a character to be canonically bi you have to make sure and establish that they're attracted to multiple genders. Not all mediums allow you to get inside every character's head or show what they're thinking. Flirting can be read ambiguously, and god forbid they flirt with a character who's not into them and be read as pushy or predatory. So it can be super handy to just mention an ex or two! But you better not mention too many exes because that would make them a slutty bisexual which is (checks notes) bad, and you definitely better be careful about making them poly, because that might make them, uh... greedy. Oh, and those exes? They better be perfectly amiable breakups with no conflict or drama, because it's bad to represent queer people in toxic or abusive relationships (especially queer women! very bad), and you definitely can't have them have lost a partner if the partner was queer because that's "bury your gays..." You should probably also eliminate all trauma from their backstory, just to be safe. You should probably also make sure they're not involved in crime, deception, or anything of the sort, because that would make them "deviant" and a stereotype.

But don't worry! Once you've carefully crafted your nice, monogamous, experienced-but-not-too-experienced Lawful Good bi character, you will be rewarded with your audience deeming them "boring" and quickly passing them over for other characters. :)