Andrei Tarkovsky, Time Within Time: The Diaries, 1970-1986

A Brazilian opossum being presented to Queen Isabella of Spain in the year 1500 from The Zoogoer v.15:no.1 (1986).

Full text here.

i was just thinking earlier in vague terms about a specific but weirdly prevalent thing which consistently bugs me, namely: when cis men attempt to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with feminine things, except that of course it's not actually self-deprecating to bring up how categorically distant you are and have always been from a stigmatized practice…

and then ran into this post, in which a presumably-white anon attempts to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with the racialized genres of hip hop and rap (specifically by characterizing themself as a[n implicitly uncool] 'blorbo enjoyer,' which of course—as @‍batmanisagatewaydrug correctly points out—has the knock-on effect of framing fandom as Not For People of Color, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is racist), which illustrates exactly the same dynamic along a different axis…

anyway i guess my point here is just (1) to note that yeah, this really does seem to be a pattern! and given that, (2) to underscore in my own mind that this is probably something for nerds vel sim. in particular to look out for, because we often have insecurity modifiers that makes us feel like we're not ~really~ solidly part of the privileged group, which seems to make us feel like disclosing our ignorance can somehow constitute a self-deprecating self-own, rather than an offputting humblebrag about the privilege that made it possible…

Dutch farmer in Marken, 1943.

アオバト

thinking back to the time i realized i'd been practicing such scrupulous politeness abt [bodily feature i actively wasn't attracted to] that my bff had come away with the impression that i was, like, very actively into it, which was like. wow, wild to be so deeply misunderstood—

however it turns out that after putting an enormous amount of energy into Accepting that feature, well, now sometimes i am actively into it, so like. guess i'm the one who was wrong about me after all!

ceramic gryphon wall hangings, based on an early 16th century French ceramic tile I saw at the Met Cloisters. it's come full ceramic circle

[shop] - May 3 (2025) shop update

オオルリ

Chameleon by Mansur Mughal, c.1612

found out about inupiaq baleen baskets today. i really like them! a lot of them remind me of animals popping their head out of the water

Nicholas Makalik, Barrow, Alaska, 1963

Coiled Baleen Basket by Abe Simmonds Barrow, Alaska, 1954

by Andrew Oenga, 1981.