Tarnport

Bon vivant, aspirant

Joined: Oct 28, 2022
Location: Southern Europe
Toots auto-delete in: 1 week

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nos.lol

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npub1eshu978jvr5p6hpu2yz52x8ddydq7a38qmprk3u0vfrv7rrs43ws44wk4a

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Last Notes

2026-02-01 15:08:30 GMT

Every day abroad is an adventure. Today it's explaining Bob Ross to a bunch of young video game set designers and... I might as well have thrown a ball of elemental phosphorus onto the table. They exploded in incandescent sizzling! "What, what, WHAT IS THIS???" I have either created magic or a monster. Why not both?

2026-01-31 07:37:33 GMT

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:possum_blush:

2026-01-30 17:05:09 GMT

I just want to say thank you to the Americans on here who have evidently made a concerted effort to start putting an F to specify when they are talking about Fahrenheit degrees.
I can't imagine what prompted the recent shift, but it makes a difference, it's clearer and respectful to the rest of the world, and I for one have noticed the change.

2026-01-30 09:39:49 GMT

Anyone expecting the USA to have free, fair, uncontested elections at this point is being intentionally obtuse. If someone is building a battering ram in your front yard right in plain sight, it's unreasonable to believe they're not intending to use it on your door.
Before laboring to get out the vote, I think we might need to labor to get out the fash, sine qua non.

2026-01-25 15:42:30 GMT

Just off a group call with Americans. Liberal New England older females, educated, some bgltq+... Wow. They still don't get it. They are talking about calling their Senators. They are talking about voting harder, impeaching Trump, and then "he'll have no choice, that's the law."
Oh dear. While one of their daughters adopted from China is refusing to go outside.
There's also a weird subtext of "I can always run to Canada/Europe" - like that option is taken for granted and they'd be welcomed.

2026-01-25 00:39:34 GMT

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fyi it's on heavy rotation in Europe. Every detail. Often before they show up here or in the American press.

2026-01-24 09:19:37 GMT

There was an unprecedented actual cyclone in the Mediterranean 2 days ago that caused billions in damage to heavily populated coastal areas most everyone has heard of if not been to personally (Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria, etc.)
I mention it because big as it was, this event barely made the news. And because it's evidence that even if we are politically victorious in pushing back fascism, we still have the problem of climate change. Existently speaking it's far more important.

2026-01-24 09:04:39 GMT

Alt-text images get more boosts because alt-text facilitates equal access, automatic translation, screen readers, low-bandwidth access, and searchability.
#AltText

2026-01-24 07:10:02 GMT

One big change this week is we can stop having the constant conversation about whether it's really fascism.
Americans in general now seem awake to their real situation and how dire it is, already past the point of no return. Even my most die-hard "hands-across-the-aisle" liberal friend admitted it this week. She was the last holdout. She believed the courts or congress or the Dems would rise to help. She sees now we're way past that limit.

2026-01-21 08:38:54 GMT

General Strike as a vector cartoon.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/932/179/175/761/749/original/5f0cc98897524a42.jpg

2026-01-19 14:24:05 GMT

Paul Klee. The Last Still Life, 1940.
He died within months of the completion of this work, and today I learned that his tombstone is engraved with his credo:
"I cannot be grasped in the here and now, for my dwelling place is as much among the dead as the yet unborn. Slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual, but still not close enough."
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/922/196/280/287/634/original/081f00cc7e53fb00.jpg

2026-01-15 06:41:28 GMT

Release the Epstein Files.

2026-01-13 09:48:42 GMT

Please give Scrivener a free trial. I have this one writer friend who put it off for almost 2 years but after all my begging she finally relented last summer. Now she's a non-stop torrent of praise and thanksgiving, telling me how grateful she is for the recommendation. I didn't do anything except say what I had found: a writing program made for writers. (By the way, she's discovered several features I never knew about, and shared back with me.)
#Writing #Scrivener

2026-01-12 07:18:07 GMT

Please Alt-Text your own images, thanks.
Searchability, translation, inclusion, explication.
#AltText

2026-01-10 11:52:48 GMT

EPSTEIN.

2026-01-10 07:20:32 GMT

When someone cuts down a fruit tree before its (relatively short) course of life is run, it makes me sad as few other things can. I know this comes from my grandmother, a specific event of her childhood, wherein the TVA seized and cleared their peach orchard for flooding just as it came into maturity. I've written about it, carried it as a myth, considered it from every angle. Those trees would have died naturally in 20 years, but in her grief they lived 70 more, and now on in me much longer.

2026-01-09 15:08:43 GMT

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leave X now!

2026-01-09 09:18:39 GMT

The capitalists themselves have dismantled the capitalist project. They've stolen too much.
If you have a day job, count up your past labor and costs and compare that to what you have today, and if what you have is secure, both investments and stable currency (they're undermining the money). If you are net in debt then the answer is obvious. But even if you are solvent, add in quality of life, like time, housing, food supply, and healthcare. You can see they've extracted you like a stripmine.

2026-01-05 13:00:18 GMT

Please boost.
Once again, I'm putting out the call: Anyone with contacts among Mexican, Central/S. American, Caribbean or Indigenous voices who may want to contribute (paid) to an anthology on poison plants focusing this issue on DATURA (prose, experiences, science, ethnobotany, ritual, art, folklore, interviews or anything else of interest to subscribers), please contact me privately. We are looking for Western Hemisphere material. Thanks.
Image: Georgia O'Keeffe. Jimson Weed, 1932. #Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/842/592/095/924/873/original/966688ed25a671d9.jpg

2026-01-04 23:01:53 GMT

Americans have tolerated too much at home without personally sacrificing anything to stop it, and now the deadly chaos is spilling over on the whole world, making it everyone's problem. Burning down your own house is one thing. Burning down the whole village is a different level of crime.
It's time to divest.

2026-01-04 21:27:37 GMT

As a reminder, "Nutella kills orangutans!" (And also a lot of other wildlife, too.) It's owned by private mega-corp Ferrero, "one of the most secretive companies in the world," and Ferrero steadfastly refuses to switch out palm oil in its products, such as Nutella, even knowing the environmental cost. It's a huge consumer. So maybe buy another brand of spread, palm-oil-free? There's lots.

2026-01-03 17:47:45 GMT

I'm assuming USians here are hearing it, but Europeans are enraged against the USA today in a way that hasn't happened before. Even normally moderate voices are posting things that I didn't think you could say in public. People are scorching tepid politicians and most importantly are calling for a Canada-style boycott of everything American, including against those who "didn't vote for Trump" but are now letting this chaos spill onto the rest of us through inaction. It's a palpable new anger.

2026-01-03 11:56:51 GMT

Let's please stop misusing the word Luddite.
Read up on who they actually were and how 95% of us would have agreed with them. In fact it might be time to bring back some of their tactics.

2025-12-30 21:10:44 GMT

A day's little treasures.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/810/550/992/075/425/original/f270ecfd80620069.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/810/550/914/968/616/original/4c5d5fc2f4854347.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/810/550/961/666/646/original/d641eba8c3aada58.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/810/551/018/759/614/original/2e8c7c53934a52f1.jpg

2025-12-28 20:56:43 GMT

Scrapin' around the VR.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/799/175/852/384/540/original/80499bd71f7fb80e.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/799/176/061/307/631/original/b501671bdb50ec36.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/799/176/230/675/553/original/b298e2ac5eba6c81.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/799/176/392/415/176/original/edf9d4399830dd25.jpg

2025-12-25 20:37:48 GMT

Paul Klee. Bird Wandering Off, 1926.
It's been a very foggy, wandering-off sort of day.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/782/105/821/905/760/original/db107410614cc715.webp

2025-12-23 14:24:24 GMT

Ahmed Yacoubi. King Solomon's Ring, 1963.
Here's another artist whose life story reads like an adventure novel. He was discovered in Morocco by Paul & Jane Bowles, and then shot like a rocket through artistic high society worldwide. Of all his works which I've seen, this is the one that arrests me. Are these roots, shrapnel, vessels, neurons, heaped laundry? As the Wikipedia article mentions, he had a secret way of layering paint to create extraordinary depth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Yacoubi
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/769/287/588/907/393/original/3d0e2556dfeb3bcf.webp

2025-12-20 08:32:18 GMT

Vuillard. Friends Around the Table, 1909.
1. There's no substitute for seeing art in person. Particularly as optical light & color theory pervaded painting, reproductions become harder and harder to get just right. Here's a painting that looks totally different depending on slight color adjustments in the repro.
2. We tend to miss it today but he was obsessed with 'modern' lighting in his designs, and I think that's the source of those pale blank glares often seen in this period.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/750/917/427/684/536/original/09e39b005b152176.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/750/917/447/135/659/original/db763e1719c1ef70.jpg

2025-12-19 17:24:04 GMT

Where is all the Crème de Pruneaux disappearing to? It used to be cheap as dirt and in every store, but now I can barely find it.
Young people today don't eat prune cream?? I consider it a basic food group! Was it a generational glitch and I just happened to become addicted out of cycle right as the consumer-base died out?
I'm actually reading recipes about how to make it at home.

2025-12-07 18:10:36 GMT

All the shrieking "If you don't like AI, don't use it, but quit trying to control others who do," is actually an ancient debate. It goes back to Hammurabi's Code and the Commandments of Ma'at: DO NOT POLLUTE THE COMMON WELL. It's the most ancient law we have. You can't pollute the river upstream and call it individual prerogative. Watch how fast you go down.

2025-12-07 17:54:40 GMT

When I bombed the stairwell with a guerilla "interpretive" mini-Nativity Scene in an unused fusebox it was cool. What I did not expect was the retaliation... or cooperation? I came home tonight to find blinking stars lining the staircase and a small Christmas tree perched on the balustrade! I've been raised.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/679/558/998/962/690/original/dd07f208e7abcb49.jpg

2025-12-01 17:17:23 GMT

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I sympathize. You rest now! I'm watching it in others now up close, and it's so hard.

2025-12-01 16:40:32 GMT

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is that you? I salute you big! Big hugs.

2025-12-01 16:39:34 GMT

I can't help but notice that I cook best when I'm depressed. Why is that? Sure as shootin', when I'm glum I start churning out the greatest hits, even when I don't feel like eating them myself. Is it because I go slower, am less distractible, or pickier? Or maybe it's an evolutionary adaptation to keep good friends close through hard times. They are eating well lately, with lots of warm smiles returning with the tupperware. That helps.

2025-12-01 16:28:10 GMT

Americans are missing the cries of pain from public school teachers right now, and from what I can see it means they are quitting in droves, starting with the best first - from physical endangerment, lack of pay, and burnout from struggling in the middle against arbitrary and constantly changing metrics on the one hand and parents who never take their side on the other. It's a sad situation. There's no more important profession in the world and they're valued lower than just about anyone.

2025-12-01 09:59:53 GMT

I started out trying to distinguish Greek Revival from Edwardian, soon got caught up in the history of English landscaping, and well, this seemed more interesting by far:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris%27s_List_of_Covent_Garden_Ladies

2025-11-29 18:52:30 GMT

YouTube is Google. We have to get off it. All of it.

2025-11-28 08:55:02 GMT

You know that Umberto Eco character in The Name of the Rose who speaks in many different Romance languages at once, all jumbled up? That's what it sounds like in our house every day: Poor-Man's Esperanto.
Thus fresh out of the gate this morning:
"Don' not mettre them boxes di cartone per il mio Presepe in your poubelle no anymore - merde, once again one time ho bisogno di all of them tutti !"
"Ahaokay. I'm agree."

2025-11-26 19:55:52 GMT

As an American I was never charged extra at any park worldwide for being a foreigner.

2025-11-25 17:49:31 GMT

Last night I didn't get to walk until after dark, robed all in black, hooded like a monk. The village also seemed from another era, with medieval streets, clanging bells, Napoleonic walls and foggy creek. I went down to the cemetery just meaning to turn around, but then I peeked inside. To my surprise each grave held a flickering electric flame in the cold darkness. I stood there a long time, the only living soul to see the show. It seems wasteful to illuminate the dead, but the urge is ancient.

2025-11-25 09:55:14 GMT

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it came from this excellent article last week:
https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-lie

2025-11-25 08:59:24 GMT

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yes yes yes. These are exactly the lessons I hope we can all remember. All of that is still available if we just refuse to go back to their 'normal'.

2025-11-25 08:25:49 GMT

I hate covid and don't believe it's over, but I want to say what's getting lost to history:
I'm grateful for the lockdowns in 2020. I spent months in seclusion and came out with the clearest mind I've ever had. In my case it was a blissful reset, however shadowed in fear and even as it wrecked my business.
It proved that whenever we want to, we can change the economy. It can be changed overnight. It already was. Neoliberal excuses are unmasked. It's one reason they support mass amnesia since.

2025-11-24 14:34:22 GMT

So many toots I want to boost
but they don't do their own alt-text
and I'm tired!
#AltText

2025-11-23 08:40:43 GMT

Wyeth. Wind from the Sea, 1948.
In my opinion, he was the undisputed master of framing: No sooner do you start to question why than you are spiraling into his vortex and he owns you. Again.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/598/095/266/548/479/original/7cf963b4432ecdc5.jpg

2025-11-22 16:29:46 GMT

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just WOWeeeeeee. Thank you!

2025-11-20 17:11:55 GMT

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we keep looking. You are in a mind-blowing period. I hope there are sparks of pleasure too.

2025-11-20 16:45:26 GMT

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and what a band it was!

2025-11-17 13:19:07 GMT

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Thank you for laughing along.
I'm going to call it staining the nativity scene from now on.
Plus 3 wise men and a camel.

2025-11-17 13:14:58 GMT

You don't feel truly old until you hear yourself saying over the phone, "Okay I'll be there, just give me a few minutes. I have to finish pickling this daikon, put one more coat of stain on the Nativity landscape, and swap to my therapeutic shoes... There in a tick!"
Just shoot me now. Bunions and pills.

2025-11-17 10:25:18 GMT

If you or your contacts living in Mexico, or in any part of Central or South America, have cultural/scientific/folklore/family/artistic or any other thoughts on the poisonous plant family
DATURA
(including jemsonweed, brugmansia, moonflower datura, etc.), I would like to talk to you regarding possible publication. Please feel free to private message me.
Boosts appreciated for greater reach!
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/564/546/332/683/564/original/3015f1d0b7ee9d63.jpg

2025-11-16 13:39:06 GMT

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it's funny you say that because it was a supposed archeology magazine that set me off. One of those livescience clickbait things. I swear they just recycle the same "shocking" finds over and over.

2025-11-16 13:35:37 GMT

If anyone is stunned, shocked, or can't believe -
Or if anything is secret, mysterious, lost, undiscovered, or hidden -
If it's in all-caps yelling or has exclamation points -
Or even if the headline is posed in the form of a question -
That is junk news.
Move on.

2025-11-15 20:20:07 GMT

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thank you. Love it. I'll do it and let you know asap.

2025-11-15 19:54:07 GMT

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recipes needed!!!!! Yay. Thank you in advance. (I grew up with poor talentless roadside cooks - they just did salt. But nowadays they put in flavors, usually very spicy.)

2025-11-15 19:41:17 GMT

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For those who may not know, boiled peanuts are usually sold out of steaming big buckets or cauldrons on the side of the road or in a truckstop parking lot. I've never heard of anyone trying to cook them at home, but Southern Living Magazine claims it's easy! So I'm going in.

2025-11-15 19:28:07 GMT

In order to get 4-6 Tbsp of raw peanuts for a Pad Thai tonight, I had to buy 2 kilos at once, already shelled. That's a lot of leftover raw peanuts.
Now, I've not had southern boiled peanuts in more than a decade, I'm guessing. Why not try to make them at home? Apparently it's as simple as soaking and simmering. All the extra is already in a brine for overnight. I'm more excited about this than I was about the Pad Thai, and it was pretty dang good.

2025-11-15 10:23:56 GMT

#Recipe
Boiling a large amount of baking soda in a burned pot will take the worst of it off without any scrubbing.
Bonus hack: Try not to burn it again with the baking soda in it.
I had occasion to revisit both these household hints just this morning.

2025-11-15 08:11:45 GMT

Did everyone see the fantastical Cory Doctorow truckstop sighting by the trashcan swingers yesterday? This morning several of my peers have blurted out "AA battery for what??" without further context and I haven't laughed so hard in a while.
I've been asking myself what makes it so funny and I think it's just a reflection on our collective jadedness. At this point no one breaks chew for anything raunchy. We're just trying to keep the threads together.

2025-11-14 13:33:38 GMT

I seem to be in need of lots of help from the Fediverse today.
Can anyone advise: I want to start a blog for a friend in a politically difficult situation to have an anonymous mouthpiece. Where is the best place to do that now? Not Substack, not WordPress? Ideas?

2025-11-13 16:43:13 GMT

Every day I distribute things from here to friends outside. Mastodon offers amazing quality and breadth, both. I forward high-quality content to lil old hippie ladies, trans programmers, a historian, profs, cooks, translators, a Hollywood scout, marketers, witches, Quakers, a physics teacher, decorators, activists, tech millionaires and a dog groomer. When they inevitably ask where did you ever come across this, I always tout Mastodon, but I don't have a single convert to show for it yet.

2025-11-11 09:37:40 GMT

At the end of my tiny weird little apartment is a wide wardrobe that's been screwed shut. In fact it covers a grand marble doorway and serves as a closet to the huge empty apartment nextdoor, formerly ensuite, which is the most spectacular neoclassical muraled domestic space I've ever seen.
I want my Narnia.
Now it's for rent. My whole place could be just my closet! They're over there banging hammers and who knows what for who knows who new renters, but it's mine. I need them to hear me: MINE.

2025-11-10 08:58:33 GMT

One of the smartest techiest people I know uses chatGTP and truly believes he's in control of it, but even as he praises what it can do "when used correctly," he gives away the truth: He is weighing its opinions and conforming himself to its suggestions. From the outside this seems clear as day, but this very smart person insists that he's as in control of chatGTP as he is of an inkpen when he writes. I think we're in very dangerous psychological territory with this stuff.

2025-11-09 21:03:15 GMT

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wow. Thank you for the tip on the building. I did look, and I will be looking many more times.

2025-11-09 17:18:46 GMT

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well true there aren't many but the smooth arcs of the back and the date! True.

2025-11-09 17:07:45 GMT

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that's my take exactly. There's an early 1970s BBC documentary that talks eloquently about the two kinds of art deco, sort of the two bifurcating directions the world went at that moment in design - and this was the backward-looking artisanal one that lost out.

2025-11-09 14:12:07 GMT

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y'all are the best LOL I've had all day. Touché. For those of us deep In The Libertine South (on all continents) it's simply looked exotic and erect

2025-11-09 08:56:23 GMT

Rudolph Thygesen. Chair, for the Th. Lunde company, 1927. Norwegian.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/518/890/356/655/202/original/b64ca1053d58a5dd.jpg

2025-11-06 17:07:38 GMT

Yoan Capote is a Cuban artist famous enough now not to need my publicity or anyone else's, but when I tell you this exhibit blew my mind... It was with works as simple and rugged and massive as they were refined and detailed and provocative. It was one of those unforgettable shows where you leave feeling humbled to have even been there. I'm a huge fan, and the curation was top-notch.
At Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, until 7 Jan 2026.
#Art #YoanCapote
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/503/809/148/533/133/original/f8e8a5f97ed5619b.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/503/810/074/124/392/original/31f6dbe9a244c923.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/503/810/800/259/292/original/62c1a20f05a968b0.jpg

2025-11-06 10:01:25 GMT

Copied from Linza to retoot. Too good.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/502/163/349/518/013/original/47225ed12dbc5bdb.jpg

2025-11-05 07:15:44 GMT

At the breakfast bar:
What in god's name is the ketchup for?
For the English.
What do the English want with ketchup at breakfast?
They put it on the eggs.
No way. You made that up. You are just saying it because you hate them.
No, Sir, they do it because they hate us!

2025-11-04 14:12:35 GMT

This modern sculpture emulates a 3D cloud. It's in an ancient church and we immediately began making jokes about how God looks suspiciously like a map of Spain. On closer inspection, the box is labeled "Spain." No further explanation.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/491/823/147/853/662/original/3f6c575c20966bb2.jpg

2025-11-04 08:08:08 GMT

Gloria as sung by Laura Branigan in 1982 is a cover, with a completely different tone and theme, of the original Italian version made famous by Umberto Tozzi in 1979. The latter is still more likely what you'll hear in Italy today. I just wanted to share this mind-blowing info. Thanks.

2025-11-04 03:43:48 GMT

Last night after an oil tasting a young woman interned here in viniculture and olive farming said wait, I have a surprise for you. She brought us 2 bowls of ribollita, not like restaurant versions but several days old, so the flavors had married, and then flitted away. It was the best I've ever had. I don't know why she was so kind. Because we take such interest in their study? An innate generosity?
It was warm and dry yesterday. Maybe today the harvest can finally begin, pitiful as it must be.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/489/325/833/235/070/original/f6ed2678d545b6e9.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/489/334/198/107/187/original/a134f85998c2735b.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/489/345/616/558/090/original/518f37c1582da501.jpg

2025-11-04 03:16:54 GMT

"When the war gets here,
we're all gonna hold hands."
- Jesse Welles, Red
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/489/239/962/547/622/original/23529f8302d234ad.jpg

2025-10-31 18:57:07 GMT

Some stuff I saw today.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/290/963/297/546/original/eb9b3431cc157882.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/285/163/623/466/original/c8b91e18c178e94a.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/291/028/244/631/original/13238789a209a982.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/291/091/746/946/original/1cdae1bee292fee9.jpg

2025-10-29 09:38:34 GMT

A Renaissance monster garden
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/456/776/207/673/835/original/93a44d944c684f96.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/456/776/330/073/160/original/12e9357e5b3c3909.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/456/776/472/216/964/original/963d26cd4e60d446.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/456/776/609/401/707/original/6da4755fc2cafcce.jpg

2025-10-28 11:10:46 GMT

Etruscan a/c unit
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/451/480/121/728/897/original/02ac7140bb4b6fcb.jpg

2025-10-26 17:23:44 GMT

Rain on Spello.
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2025-10-25 20:53:13 GMT

Pitstop in Ferrara.
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2025-10-24 04:03:54 GMT

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that's a keeper! Ty

2025-10-23 01:39:27 GMT

After the fire of 64, Nero seized the sweet center of Rome for himself and built the most ostentatious palace the world had ever seen. After his fall and Damnatio Memoriae, the house was razed and a People's Colosseum was built over part of the site in symbolic rebuke. The damning was so thorough that we still don't think much of Nero today.
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2025-10-22 07:35:27 GMT

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And in even happier news, we used to pack in Fisherman's Friends from America. They're actually English but we couldn't find them in southern Europe for a long time. No more. They're available in just about every podunk grocery nowadays. What a convenience and comfort that is.
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2025-10-22 07:24:29 GMT

We still don't know for sure, but it seems what we all had in this community was a strain of covid. The loss of the sense of smell is a telltale even though no one has a positive test (yet). The disease spread like wildfire even among moderately cautious people. It seems like literally everyone got it over a period of about a week. The good news is that it only lasted 48-60 hours in each case and we're back on our feet again. Of course long-term damages are yet to be seen. This has not been fun.

2025-10-21 08:31:13 GMT

Bang vs. Whimper:
I keep thinking how many movies I've seen in which the US White House is destroyed by a hostile attack or an alien spacecraft. The power of those scenes was the shocking desecration of what audiences saw as a high-holy of the democracy.
Turns out American voters got here first. They didn't even need the usual building permits to start demolition.
(It may be illegal and seem emotional, but the WH has been rebuilt several times. It's not even that old in its Cold War version.)
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2025-10-19 16:55:20 GMT

The sitting President of the United States of America posted an AI video of him dressed as a king bombing literal shit onto protestors against his regime, and the American media has.... Nothing At All to say?? Nothing? Just another Sunday afternoon?

2025-10-18 08:04:37 GMT

For some time I've been muting any news that arrives in all-caps, including the accounts that repost it. It's great. Nothing lost. Less hype.

2025-10-16 09:15:50 GMT

It's never a bad time to review the major Logical Fallacies. We all encounter at least a few of them every single day. Why, there are so many strawmen on my feed here just this morning that I could assemble the US Senate in effigy. (And Appeal to Ignorance has become a whole damn lifestyle!)
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2025-10-15 07:12:13 GMT

I was just setting a small crate of good apples out on the sidewalk with a sign that said FREE because I picked too many and can't use them all. But a passing friendly neighbor smiled and said no no, nice idea but no one will take them, that it'll just be considered trash (or worse), as there aren't acts of kindness like this toward strangers in Italy without suspicion. I don't know what to think about that. I want to blend in, but another part of me wants to start a larger free stuff exchange!

2025-10-13 19:18:32 GMT

Never ever do this. Resist the temptation! Grapes are the absolute worst choice for an arbor. They have a foul habit for 3 out of 4 seasons: insects, sap, fermenting fruit, staining, diseases. However... on someone else's loggia, in the crisp fall air, at just this time of year, with twinkling lights... Ok. Bacchanal it is.
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2025-10-13 10:09:38 GMT

Alt-Text your images for:
- reboosts, increasing reach
- accessibility for image readers
- accessibility for low-speed connections
- auto-translation options for image text
- clarity and explication
- searchability
#AltText

2025-10-09 16:45:44 GMT

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I stand amazed but you know what I'm even more amazed that the situation has gotten this bad and there's no end in sight. Teachers have never been less respected or more abused (not to mention the threat of violence and shootings) and standards have never been more confusing. The teachers are caught in the middle - of budget crises of culture wars of the lack of mental health treatments - and it's draining the talent pool and we're all going to be much poorer for it.

2025-10-09 16:33:38 GMT

Not one but 2 separate American teachers burst into puddles of stress and frustration right in front of me today.
These are excellent people who give 110% every day, for years, with next to no pay. They put their health and safety on the line and arrive home with no reserves. It's a thankless job pummeled with disrespect and shackled in impossible limitations.
Please take the time to listen to them and give them what they need. No job is more important but at this point no job is worse.

2025-10-08 12:38:00 GMT

I am in the unenviable position of text arguing a friend trying to keep her from eating a large parasol mushroom she found in a forest.
As the old saying goes, "all mushrooms are edible; some are just edible once." Then you die and they pour your liver out like a dirty oil pan.
Y'all please do not eat fungi you can't trust 10 times over with a solid ID. If you find yourself texting a friend to ask if it's edible, the answer is don't eat it. That goes for all plants but especially for fungus.

2025-10-08 10:47:55 GMT

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oh but what a statement it makes! I mean if you're trying to legitimize I claim to Empire, you know.
One wonders what Putin would do in Crimea if he had the time.

2025-10-08 10:41:32 GMT

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and then you get a Mussolini who decides to fiddle with the archeology itself LOL

2025-10-07 15:05:58 GMT

I know it's just an agricultural escapee but I have never seen a hops growing in the wild.
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2025-10-06 09:16:11 GMT

Today a Professor is introducing his best and "oldest" friend. They've known each other "almost 13 years." He just keeps talking about what a long time that is. Oh dear. I'm trying to keep a straight face but I have socks older than that.

2025-10-03 11:39:16 GMT

Dear Americans,
When you write 7/8/25, most of the rest of the world is going to read that as August 7th. When you want to be clear in a global context, try writing out dates, like 8 July 25 or similar. I'm not just being peevish; it causes a great deal of confusion, and for no one more than traveling Americans. And if you want to know how annoying it is, today is 3/10/25 for most of us. How would you read that in the wild?

2025-10-01 19:10:53 GMT

Did everyone see Jennifer Coolidge slip and fall in White Lotus? Because I just did a near-perfect homage, down some stairs, off a shelving unit, back across the room, and flat onto a bed. The bed was much appreciated as a soft landing and nothing seems broken, but my goodness I'm going to be sore tomorrow. I stretched and bounced like a rag doll.
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