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Thursday, July 18, 2019

deep summer late afternoon, July 18th 2019

Lovely digital art by Tara Turner that reminds me of Tiffany's stained glass.




















Neat to see

Mountains of the World: 3D Size Comparison


Nifty invention

OGarden Smart Live On KickStarter



Four generations

So funny
Anderson Cooper enduring tequila shots is honestly the most relatable I’ve ever seen him. #CNNNYE

Friday, July 12, 2019

a couple of inappropriate 'gifts' of yore

I lived in India between 1975 and 1985, studying Tibetan Buddhism for 6 years in the mountains. My life there was extremely simple, $100 per month was what I gave myself for basic survival, so I could study and heal from an extremely traumatic childhood in NYC, surviving a violently abusive sociopathic narcissist of a biological 'mother', who I refer to as the ex-momster.

I needed peace and quiet, sanity, kindness, honesty in my life. For the better part of six years I lived mostly in seclusion and isolation, doing meditation, trekking, learning to have some kind of a quiet, thoughtful adult life.

Once a year the ex-momster would airmail a package to me. I almost always asked if she did send anything, please, could she send a down sleeping bag, a down jacket, knee socks, which I couldn't get in India. Year after year she sent me her second hand clothing, her bathing suits, her sequined evening dresses, a trench coat. These things were not only useless to me but inevitably made me feel invisible, that my requests had not been heard, that my actual life was unknown. Year after year I'd make the mistake of taking a 16 hour bus ride to New Delhi, to Palam Airport customs and picking up the box of used whatever for another dose of disappointment.

There were two 'presents' that were beautiful, her own used things but again, useless to the life I had chosen to live. One was a fabulous silk Gucchi scarf. Beautifully designed. I was living in simple clothes and decided that maybe one of my fellow Buddhists could use it as an altar cloth. The other thing was a longer than floor length, sumptuously soft, green Halston velour lounge gown. It wasn't practical at all for me to wear or wash while living in a small stone and adobe house, where I was chopping firewood and lugging buckets of water from the stream.

Once in a while I've thought about those 'presents', which appeared to be loving gestures of extravagant beauty but felt on the receiving end like a ridiculing of the life I'd chosen. Now I know about pathological narcissism, I understand her hurtful and inappropriate 'gifts' were typical of her personality disorder.


From a wonderfully readable and interesting blog, called the eye has it

GUCCI FLORA

The “Flora” print has become iconic for Gucci and in the history of textile design. Created by artist Vittorio Accornero in 1966, the scarf’s history is as fabled as Gucci’s past. The story is that Rodolfo Gucci commissioned Accornero to design an original scarf as a gift for Princess Grace after she visited the boutique in Milan. Accornero painted nine bouquets of flowers dedicated to the four seasons. The intricate botanical print includes a dragonfly, a grasshopper, a butterfly and beetles throughout the design. The naturalistic artwork is comprised of 37 colors, unheard of for most scarves due to the expense of printing with so many screens.


















Thursday, July 11, 2019

July 11th, 2019

Loving kindness is delightfully moving and inspiring.

Injured Stray Dog Enters Pharmacy For Help. Viral Video Melts Hearts
As if that stray dog knew to come to that pharmacy for medical treatment.

full of joy

Jisoo Yu & David Hart - September by Earth, Wind & Fire



sweetly precise and amazing kite flying



humbling to see the liquefaction during an earthquake in Sulawesi

Map of Sulawesi, Indonesia

What that looks like on ground level

My late neighbor, Boy Fong Lee, who I loved very much, survived this occupation of the Japanese in China and went on to live to be 100 years old.

Bad Menu, an endless source of chuckles, smiles and occasional belly laughs



I love seeing this simple timeline

Timeline of the Rulers of France


Tina Turner is one of my heroes. Such a marvelous voice, so fierce, happily sexual, full of vitality and a sort of honest rawness. I hadn't known she lost a son. 

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

First post of 2019, January 2nd

The Wave Organ

The Wave Organ is a wave-activated acoustic sculpture located on a jetty in the San Francisco Bay. The concept was developed by Peter Richards and was installed in collaboration with sculptor and master stone mason George Gonzalez.

Something deeply alluring about


Best Movies of 2018

Here's a list of all the movies mentioned in case anybody wants a 2018 watchlist: Mission: Impossible - Fallout The Night Comes for Us A Prayer Before Dawn Upgrade Suspiria A Quiet Place Annihilation Mandy Hereditary Searching The Guilty Widows You Were Never Really Here Three Identical Strangers American Animals Won't You Be My Neighbor Free Solo Isle of Dogs Mirai Ralph Breaks the Internet Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Avengers: Infinity War Black Panther Jamanji: Welcome to the Jungle Creed II Solo: A Star Wars Story Ant-Man & the Wasp Incredibles 2 Love, Simon Sorry to Bother You Leave No Trace First Reformed Mid90s Eighth Grade Burning Capernaum Let the Corpses Tan Roma Shoplifters Crazy Rich Asians Death of Stalin Vice Game Night BlacKkKlansman Can You Ever Forgive Me Paddington 2 A Star is Born The Favourite First Man If Beale Street Could Talk

Tracy Ullman's brilliant sketch, that so succinctly ridicules the victim blaming in rape and sexual abuse.

What were you wearing?




Victorian Street Life in London via Nag on the Lake

In 1876 radical journalist Adolphe Smith set out to document the harsh street life of London which was characterized by poverty, disability and filth. He collaborated with photographer John Thomson to produce a book that was the first example of photographic social documentation and it shocked the nation.


Fascinating to learn how NYC's skyline got its distinctive look


Archaeological mysteries! 

Ooparts. = O.O.P.Arts
Out Of Place Artifacts

Aww, a gentleman duck
Our boy goat picks on our girl goat, so our duck has started keeping the boy goat on the spool and escorting the girl around.

How People Make a Living by Cleaning Up Crime Scenes | Inc.


Fascinating, historic reading. 
Richmond Afro American newspaper 1947

History of Richmond Afro American

Richmond Afro American is a newspaper based in richmond, virginia. Newspaper Archives are an incredible resource when tracing your family tree to uncover treasures from the past about your ancestors. The Richmond Afro American historical newspaper collection has been preserved on microfilm and it includes full images of every page. The archives covers history from (1947) and will allow you to search for your ancestors by name and to narrow your results by year to help you discover more about their daily lives. Find local news articles that tell the story of your ancestor's place and capture the growth of their local communities to research your genealogy. 
About the Richmond Afro American newspaper

Cool thing to know how to make

How to make ● a $2 Close-up/Magnifier Lens for your Phone Camera

Mesmerizing and beautiful

Perpetual Ocean (2005-2007) 

This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007. The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.
This visualization was produced using NASA/JPL's computational model called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II or ECCO2.. ECCO2 is high resolution model of the global ocean and sea-ice. ECCO2 attempts to model the oceans and sea ice to increasingly accurate resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow-current systems which transport heat and carbon in the oceans.The ECCO2 model simulates ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization. The dark patterns under the ocean represent the undersea bathymetry. Topographic land exaggeration is 20x and bathymetric exaggeration is 40x. credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio