Tarnport

Bon vivant, aspirant

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Last Notes

2026-08-18 08:22:58 GMT

Big news to make sense of words I encounter each day:
In Italian there is a noun and its magnified & minimized forms:
Casa, Casina, Casona
But there are also cutifiers & uglifiers, too!
Casetta/Casuccia, Casaccia
Pentola (pot)
Pentolino (little pot)
Pentolone (cauldron)
Pentolaccia (piñata game, ugly pot to break)
Libro (book)
Libretto (small)
Librino (very small)
Libricino (cute small)
Librone (big)
Libraccio (pulp/trash)
-accio is bad, -uccio is cute
These decline for gender, number, etc

2026-07-15 13:51:59 GMT

Friend is like, I don't know why so many people are afraid to travel in and out of the USA now, everything here is calm... And then ice took her sil into custody without charges or recourse for 5 tense hours. Fortunately he was released unharmed, but I imagine she understands better now.

2026-06-05 17:18:20 GMT

A beautiful kind of day. Call it détente.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/698/628/102/171/169/original/873b7e7ae2a4c964.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/698/628/233/707/905/original/3e8d8ffdba9b69a5.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/698/628/541/659/630/original/649cc1dd2605a82d.jpg

2026-05-12 07:18:15 GMT

I think most people know this but just in case: Where it says "fabric softener" you can pour in plain cleaning vinegar.
Particularly in hard-water areas that's a useful tack.

2026-04-18 04:13:16 GMT

American guys I know wax on rhapsodically over how life-changing moist wipees are, how adult-arrived and luxurious, "even for men."
Look. Wipees are just portable bidets for a culture that doesn't have real ones. Get yourself a bidet!

2026-04-04 07:46:58 GMT

This is the standard format on French Wikipedia for biographical info. I'm translating this example myself because it disappears if you switch to English:
"Mary Stevenson Cassatt, known as Mary Cassatt (in English pron. [kəˈsæt]), born the 22nd of May 1844[1],[2] in Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and died the 14th of June 1926 in Mesnil-Théribus in France, where she is buried, is an American painter and engraver."
I find this ass-backwards, but it's a fascinating window onto cultural difference.

2026-04-02 17:05:47 GMT

Paul Nash. The Menin Road, 1919.
WW1 changed everything forever, and part of everything was art. This may not be the battlefield scene the British War Memorial Committee envisioned memorializing in such a vast canvas, but it was not the first or last time a modern young painter returned a commission to them as a shocking new way of seeing an inimaginable new kind of war.
I think drones may change war, and so also inevitably art, in our decade to a similar extent.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/336/153/068/527/269/original/b77a3ae9ae28932c.jpg

2026-03-29 04:34:20 GMT

It's the European hour-ahead thing this morning. My sympathies. Don't miss appointments, y'all.
It's also a good litmus to gauge the connectivity of your environs. If it changes automatically, kill it and get analog.

2026-03-28 10:17:59 GMT

Ah, spring 2026, when the most common topic of conversation is how exactly do we define the threshold of WW3, anyway.
Arguably we're still fighting WW1.

2026-03-27 19:18:35 GMT

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@nprofile…4w8z @nprofile…j336 thank you. Have you ever been to the Grotte de Niaux cave in SW France? It's the only cavepaint site I know of where you are actually allowed to see the real thing in person. I mention it here however because the acoustic components of the main chamber and foyer are extreme, and a major feature of the official tours.

2026-03-27 08:39:01 GMT

The best part of many Italian recipes is the part that says, "this basic recipe works for many different garnishes, and then you can just finish it out any way you choose," followed immediately by, "Oh my god NO no no! Not that way! What, were you raised by wolves??" They sometimes assume a baseline of cultural logic that on the open internet just ain't there. Ask me how I know.

2026-03-27 08:01:06 GMT

I've got a writer who revised a draft for publication that violates all kinds of agreed upon limits and liabilities. The rewrite is so affrontive that I can't imagine it's not on purpose. 10 years ago my stomach would have been tied up in knots dreading the video call to fight it out. But I'm 10 years older and I don't give a damn. We had a deal, so honor it or don't. It's your paycheck.
That confidence feels great, but part of it is a devil-may-care nihilism born of experience, too.
#Writing

2026-03-26 05:15:58 GMT

Can we stop parsing US foreign policy and Iran like it's any more complicated than a pump & dump? Trump's not getting owned or shamed. They don't care about collateral damage or future consequences. There's no law or punishment. They're in it for dollars, which are pouring in. The USA is a gutted zombie smashing and grabbing for an elite cadre of stripminers. It's simpler than people want to believe.
There's not going to be any general strike, prosecution or pushback. It's past that point.

2026-03-25 08:16:51 GMT

I just read an esoteric Jewish speculation that Adam's 'rib' was actually the penis bone (which humans oddly do not have) removed through the scar-looking tissue of the perianum. Now I'm wondering how many other cultures have explanations for this odd area. It would seem to suggest that we are sewn back up like stuffed ragdolls from below.

2026-03-22 18:19:09 GMT

Marlow Moss. Composition with Double Line and Blue, 1931.
Piet Mondrian. Composition with Double Line and Blue, 1935.
Yes they knew each other and collaborated. They developed the double line cooperatively. You'll see that fact mentioned in every piece discussing the British Moss. I have never once seen it said anywhere in writing about Mondrian.
(Marjorie became Marlow and lived as a man from 1919 but is still referred to in all literature past and present with the pronoun "she.")
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/274/180/831/139/731/original/3529ebd57abdca8b.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/116/274/153/862/491/826/original/57733d60fe23c11f.jpg

2026-03-22 09:17:14 GMT

One time I had a persistent painful rash in the right corner of my mouth for almost a year. I tried everything but nothing worked. I finally signed up for a dermatologist appointment which was both a long wait and expensive, too. When my turn finally came I had barely opened the door when the kind old doctor still at his desk glanced up and said, "It's Whitening Toothpaste. Stop using it." That was it. That was the cure.
I think of that whenever I try to look up my own symptoms.

2026-02-07 09:29:50 GMT

Why did I eat salami and sardine paste for breakfast?
I should not be left alone.
I tried to repair the damages with a half a banana, sort of a "Just kidding!" for my body, but it has not helped in the least.

2026-02-01 11:34:05 GMT

Recipe: "If you can’t get your hands on achiote paste where you are, don't worry, achiote powder will also work."
Thanks for that dispensation and assurance. Whew.

2026-01-29 05:00:54 GMT

I often think I have more in common with rightwingers than libs. At least the right is honest.
I have good friends who just... are capitalists. Private property is sacrosanct and foundational to them. And all that entails. We are not the same.
When we get down to it, they bail before the change needed. They have 401Ks that are more important. The rest "won't work." They must not really believe the world is burning and we only have 30 yrs left. Because what wouldn't you try if you believe that?

2026-01-22 18:26:46 GMT

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@nprofile…la7y @nprofile…y47z sleigh.

2026-01-22 13:53:03 GMT

Jackson Pollock. Stenographic Figure, 1942.
I much prefer his early work to anything he did later, though I respect the transition and what it meant to art history more generally. But to me this fluent style might have been an even more important advancement in the language in which the world is depicted in two dimensions today - a connective arc across WW2. There are many wonderful pictures from this period in his career.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/939/055/643/087/702/original/8504b1e94463bc93.jpg

2026-01-21 20:05:56 GMT

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@nprofile…wdzu this is WILD

2026-01-20 09:08:45 GMT

People are like, holy hell this thread is incredible! Then link to BlueSky. Then it's a private thread.
Sincerely, do it twice and it's a blockable offense. No one is here on mastodon for that.

2026-01-19 13:47:17 GMT

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@nprofile…3qha yes. The Thai Cave Boys were 2018. Cambridge Analytica was exposed the same year. Don't drink the milk for eight years and tell me it's not your cow.

2026-01-18 15:11:22 GMT

Paula Modersohn-Becker. Semi-nude of an Italian woman with a plate in her raised hand, 1906.
The next year she became the first known female artist to paint herself nude and nude and pregnant, and just after the birth she died suddenly of its complications, at only 31yo.
Also, her brother shot the Prussian king but didn't manage to kill him.
What a painting!
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/916/697/502/066/457/original/cebde8e78d337fa2.jpeg

2026-01-16 11:19:56 GMT

Setting your toots to automatically delete in whatever timeframe is an easier idea to adjust to than you might think, and it's good hygiene in all ways (including clearing up server space!)

2026-01-12 09:10:07 GMT

I know it keeps me young, but it can be a pain: Hot C, Cold F; remembering that dates with slashes are not reliable; Saturday/Sunday split on a calendar? It happens farther west. So much of living abroad is learning to flex, way past anything you were ready for. Postal carriers don't take mail. Red milk is lowfat, blue is whole. It goes on and on.
"To know two is to know one for the first time."

2026-01-10 13:08:29 GMT

Tom Thomson. Northern River, 1914-15.
He painted this toward the end of his short life and it is considered one of his best. He clung to the real Canada at the same time he presaged abstraction so clearly.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/870/948/945/610/001/original/68ee20ed8dc06d8a.jpg

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.

2026-01-10 07:01:04 GMT

I'm loving the return of the light each morning. I don't notice so much in the evenings, but even a little light when waking changes the whole day. Come, Sun! Shine over us.
Photo: winged scarab carving from the Edfu Temple, Egypt, ~237-57 bc.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/869/504/263/734/850/original/e80547e038fddc4c.webp

2026-01-10 06:38:16 GMT

I have taken many classes studying MLK, Gandhi. Liberation Theology, Quakers and nonviolent resistance. I think some people today are completely misunderstanding how it generally works. It's not passive, and it's not easier. There's a strategic range of tactics and application, all the way up to calculated violence. Please let's not be naïve. "Nonviolence" has often been reduced in the USA in my lifetime to a way of neutralizing resistance. Don't buy it. It's just one more way to fight.

2026-01-09 08:30:22 GMT

This post is about America.
Retooted with #AltText
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/864/196/724/726/898/original/9e2f9fe0bacc5e42.jpg

2026-01-08 20:24:47 GMT

https://youtu.be/El0CLduLgew
Jesse Welles - Good vs. Ice

2026-01-07 19:00:54 GMT

It will not be easier to stop this later.

2026-01-06 20:29:12 GMT

Käthe Kollwitz. Peasant War print 3: Whetting the Scythe, 1905.
Even without the title or knowing the whole radical revolutionary series this comes from, I think anyone can see instantly and exactly what she meant here.
#Etching #Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/850/026/388/092/420/original/9b223a3c21525fd4.webp

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

2026-01-05 07:14:00 GMT

Its not only Chinese buses yall. If Microsoft or Amazon or any one of a number of megacorps loyal to the US suddenly shut down our access, we would not be able to fight Putin. We MUST get off American infrastructure. Yesterday.

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.

2026-01-04 09:55:43 GMT

The trolls are getting harder to nail but you can still look up an unsolicited follow and check their history and general drift. It's often obvious, someone who joined yesterday and has no posts or pins but wants to be your friend without interaction. Ignore the picture and the bio (this is where the fakes seem to really be excelling lately), just look at the activity, and block without hesitation.

2026-01-04 06:54:18 GMT

There's an ineffable difference between France and Italy. If pressed I would say it has something to do with mass. The French are card-like, lean, adaptable, gadgety, légère. The Italians are solid as 500-year-o!d 20cm thick bronze doors. You feel it in the hands more than anything else. Call it ballast.
Nowhere is it more evident than in Venise, which per force has to follow the lighter French model, to keep from sinking. Back in regular Italy, I've been contemplating what that quality is.

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 09:27:13 GMT

#FotoVorschlag 'Mein bestes Foto 2025'
My best photo of 2025 came in the last few hours of the year. In my opinion it's one of the best photos I've ever taken.
(Some people don't see it right away, so I'll clarify: The shadow looks like a demon or dragon.)
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/830/433/564/426/579/original/fdce3b5756adf4cd.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

2025-12-22 12:35:33 GMT

Favorite old movies that hold up:
Knife In the Water
Rope (Hitchcock)
Slaughterhouse 5
Harold & Maude
Proteus (2003 South African)
Shallow Grave
Moonstruck
Chinatown
Cabaret
Brazil
ZOO (a zed & two naughts, Greenaway)
Bliss (1985 Australian)
Head On (1998 Australian)
Bright Young Things
Bent (1997, w/Mick Jagger)
La Reine Margot (period piece)
Harder but worth it:
La Dolce Vita
Fellini Satyricon
Clockwork Orange
Nashville (Altman)
Feel free to add your own 20y+ films.

2025-12-21 18:57:01 GMT

Egon Schiele. Four Trees, 1917.
I can't help but search for an allegory here, though there need not be any. But he did have 3 sisters. He and his pregnant wife died the next year as early casualties of the "1919" flu epidemic, which is thought to have been a result of troop movements during WW1. He could not have reasonably foreseen such apocalyptic causality stalking him, war begetting plague, but imo that's in here, too. He was just 28.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/759/036/568/952/367/original/74f5b8c6f6b5d12a.jpg

2025-12-19 16:22:37 GMT

Corot. View of Lake Garda, ~1865-70.
I've been thinking this week about ideals, particularly aesthetic and material ideals - where we get them and why we keep them, or not. At the time, the Realists were seen as radical departures from the Academic tradition. To our eyes now they can look formulaic to the point of kitsch. Yet I think they still represent the dominant common artistic language today. Even if we don't like this painting, we register that it's supposed to be "pretty."
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/747/112/907/761/721/original/86286b13b53b1bf5.png

2025-12-19 11:26:55 GMT

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@nprofile…7ppx @nprofile…tu4y grating nutmeg was one of the longterm enigmas of my existence. I could never find the right appliance for large volumes and slippery cook's hands and managing those little balls without skinning my knuckles or spreading fragrant dust over half a meter. Last summer I found this €5 overkill dedicated unbendable concave heavy-duty grater, and now it hangs in pride of place right beside the stove, one of life's most vexing problems solved. It makes me happy every day.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/745/964/117/094/345/original/85e0a3ef16249f86.jpg

2025-12-09 18:02:09 GMT

This is an old, old story - most of a millennium in one frame.
Note the old arches in the background brickwork.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/690/908/683/586/122/original/d4a811a4ec0cc8a9.jpg

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

2025-12-06 07:53:48 GMT

In America 1910 was old. Then when I arrived in Europe 1666 became my new old. Soon it was 1230. Then 900.
This morning I read that Tétouan Morocco "may" date to the 3rd c. BC and I rolled my eyes so hard. I was looking for early antiquity! Greek Sicily had already flourished and fallen by that point. Sardinia had lost count of its successive civilizations...
So that's how that particular brand of snobbery is going.

2025-12-05 08:32:57 GMT

This year I've moved from an isolated rural environment where all noises were not human to a loud village where all noises are human. I guess it's unusual to go from one extreme to the other so suddenly, and I'm still listening for nutria and pigeons, the squeak of bats, owls nesting in walls, drips, or wild boars rooting up the drive. Just now the cellophane wrap of a panettone crackled a bit and I felt a surge of excitement! Do I have a visitor? But it was only a radiator heating up the sack.

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.

2025-11-30 18:20:33 GMT

It's the time of year (actually well past time in some areas) to note that if you START feeding wild birds, you KEEP ON feeding them regularly through spring. They have made overwintering decisions based on current conditions. Please don't let them go hungry.

2025-11-29 18:52:30 GMT

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

2025-11-28 09:57:42 GMT

Lorenzo Tonda. Run!, [current work].
I almost never post contemporary paintings by living artists, but this 33yo talent has my attention so thoroughly. Here is his website: https://lorenzotonda.net
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/626/699/345/040/412/original/8206dd7dd90cca3f.jpg

2025-11-26 12:41:27 GMT

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@nprofile…e4ry this is absolutely adorable.

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 18:30:09 GMT

Did someone blow a whistle on the trolls at the starting line this afternoon, or is it just Saturday?

2025-11-22 16:29:46 GMT

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@nprofile…mg74 just WOWeeeeeee. Thank you!

2025-11-22 16:15:47 GMT

Gabriele Münter. Drei Frauen im Sonntagsstaat, Marshall, Texas (3 Women in Their Sunday Best, Marshall, Texas), 1899.
I've been reading about the photographer, who is a fairly well-known painter, an early but important lover of Kandinsky's, and a founding member of The Blue Rider, too. A friend sent me a portrait today which she painted of a woman with a pipe. Independent wealth freed her at a young age. It makes you wonder what such wealth could do for any/all artists.
#Photography #Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/594/217/913/696/781/original/390da7e7658fb4a9.jpg

2025-11-21 14:46:57 GMT

I'm not naming names, but having gay in common leads to some strange friendships, and one of the most conservative people I've ever known, a righthand man and close friend of Jesse Helmes himself, all that generation long since deceased, used to tell me, "If the government can't absolutely guarantee your safety and health, then it has no right to lock you up in jail, no matter what you've done." It was a hard line for him, as a lawyer. Conservatives were different back then.

2025-11-20 17:11:55 GMT

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@nprofile…mg74 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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@nprofile…mg74 and what a band it was!

2025-11-19 19:27:30 GMT

He asked for it
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/578/003/865/349/128/original/ada95890ea59e0c3.jpg

2025-11-16 10:12:18 GMT

I'm trying to give a big Xmas trip to a couple who've mattered so much to me for years. But we are nothing alike and it's the worst possible time to travel! I'm less than 2 days into the process and my boundary issues are shot.
Do I overspend to express more love? Cozy or grandiose? Would a stunning view make mornings romantic? Or will we be spending every daytime winter hour touring. Am I frugal in lodging and show them a better time every day? Will I have to suffer an actual Christmas Fair??

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 08:15:17 GMT

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The post in question:
https://bsky.app/profile/ryanlcooper.com/post/3m5mkqxzezk22

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 16:48:22 GMT

Jan Mankes. Moneyplant in Japanese Vase, 1916.
It's that time of year, when we turn to misty softness, seed and silver.
Moneyplant is "Judaspenning" in Dutch, literally "Judas Money," which may or may not imbue the painting with deeper meanings.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/549/044/017/513/868/original/4d34cef628d9705f.jpg

2025-11-14 16:31:30 GMT

Gustav Klimt. Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, 1897.
Despite its evident beauty and noble title, this is a complicated piece of art with an ugly past in more ways than one. It was painted from a "human zoo" where this man and others were exhibited for months as specimens to be gawked at by 1000s of paying Viennese. Then it was lost during the Holocaust as its Jewish owners fled. Found, restored in 2023 and valued at €15M, no one is talking about restitution to the sitter's people.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/548/937/129/761/196/original/3efa4705405776d7.webp

2025-11-14 08:33:24 GMT

In trying to help a friend who needs new supportive work shoes, I'm talking myself into the same brands. Salomon has failed.
Is it ever too late in life to attempt zero-lift barefoot shoes like Saguaros or Forestepl? I've resisted it 20yrs but the persistence of the trend makes me 2nd-guess. The price point is low, so I guess I could at least try.
Meanwhile I'm surprised by workshoe reviews. I thought running shoes were the opposite of sustainable healthy workshoes but they dominate all recs.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/547/101/641/257/899/original/c56c75cc085daf2f.jpg

2025-11-12 11:04:32 GMT

- reply

@nprofile…7ppx you're an evil influence, evil evil evil! I am stained in a hundred ways. "He's going to catch his death out there!" Lollll. Omg.
Is it because we didn't know where it was going at first? What I watched was a 10-minute clip and a by about 2 minutes I was so perplexed by your rec that I almost put it on doublespeed, but then
..... Wow

2025-11-12 07:10:48 GMT

They don't call me Chicken "Cassandra" Little for nuttin'. I'm so impatient with the continuity bias everywhere in the culture right now, acting like the sky has not already fallen - climate tipping point blown past, fascism uber alles (yes, yes honey, they will do it all, ain't nothing slowed them yet), economic bubble at max... It's tiring, sitting alone in all this Doom. I'd always imagined the End of the World as a big decadent party, not a tedious debate on whether it was actually the end.

2025-11-12 06:48:56 GMT

Mary Cassatt. Woman Bathing, 1891.
I'm generally not a fan of western japanoiserie style but this moved me for several different reasons at once. I will need to repaint my walls now...
#Panting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/535/371/369/851/378/original/f18de9f60b211228.jpg

2025-11-11 19:18:29 GMT

There is no reason for a dehumidifier to have an app, ever.
But we're having trouble finding one that works offline.

2025-11-11 07:59:05 GMT

Someone just went on and said it to me this morning: They called Britain an "American colony". In fact their argument was self-evident, particularly in light of recent news. I'm wondering how the British feel about that, and what they might do about it.

2025-11-10 21:32:20 GMT

Abraham Janssens van Nuyssen. The Roman Emperor Nero, 1620.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/527/533/939/171/355/original/b5c94f128f254842.jpg

2025-11-10 19:34:53 GMT

Keith Haring. Untitled (for Art Attacks AIDS), 1985.
#Painting lithograph
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/527/068/473/156/946/original/2cf7ec5188775f9b.jpg

2025-11-10 11:30:53 GMT

I accidentally rented an actual medieval castle off-season last week for the price of a cheap motel room. Great views, but we peasants don't often appreciate how inflexible and cramped and cold medieval castles are. Anyway one oddly proportioned room was outfitted with a rig much like this. We were absolutely enamored with it and now I want one.
https://www.yankodesign.com/2021/06/11/this-slim-wall-cabinet-opens-into-a-sleek-modern-functional-workspace/

2025-11-10 06:56:39 GMT

Fascist enablers are called fascists. Make sure they hear it. Better, make sure our neighbors hear it.

2025-11-09 22:52:04 GMT

A year ago some people were saying to write notes to ourselves documenting the increments observed and compromises made toward fascism as it became normalized, so we could remember the facts clearly later. I started that process immediately and yet I still can hardly believe how fast this has become the new normal and how incredibly far it's degraded. It hasn't been as violently bombastic as I was expecting, but that's mostly because it's gone almost completely unchallenged, one smooth nosedive.

2025-11-09 21:30:41 GMT

Talking to Americans now feels like a clean dichotomy between those in total panic and those just living like everything is totally stable and normal. Weirdly, sometimes it's not easy at the beginning of the call to tell them apart.

2025-11-09 07:21:30 GMT

Eat the rich.
Follow me for recipes.

2025-11-08 16:43:29 GMT

Peter Blume. Hadrian's Villa, 1958.
This has been a familiar scene around here for the last 3 weeks. The olive harvest is mostly done now, pitiful-rotten as it has been this year.
We usually expect Blume's art to be more overtly challenging and socially critical, at least more enigmatic and inscrutable, but here he seems to have been in a gentle, pastoral, transparent mood, only mildly contrasting the decaying ruins of the past to a current bounty and eager, industrious cooperation.
#Painting
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/515/046/208/177/734/original/7ae39503fb077639.jpg

2025-11-08 08:10:52 GMT

Odilon Redon. Figure Carrying a Winged Head (The Fall of Icarus), ~1876.
Pushing back past Roman history to earlier Mediterranean forms of art these last weeks has made me sensitive to atavistic symbols that lie so deep in us we don't even recognize them: the eye, the breast, the genitals, the Sun, a posture of dancing, a bowl, a wave. One culture consistently repeated the tearing apart of a live antelope by two lions on its sarcophaguses, and we will never know why.
#Painting pastel
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/513/036/080/555/411/original/b25471979834086e.jpg

2025-11-07 08:27:14 GMT

This Etruscan bronze object is over 2500 years old. Ever since I saw it last week it's been stuck in my head. I don't have many good pictures of it because of the glare of museum casings (a huge pet peeve) but you get the idea here, so much more than it originally appears: The hand and feet coming out of the mouths of beasts, the canopy and crown, the central human figure either godlike or dispersed... or both.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/507/447/502/669/323/original/2486a8ed0d56586e.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/507/467/388/928/992/original/89343c9cd7e971d2.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 20:25:01 GMT

This has been purely weird for me though most of the Catholics I know seem to be taking it in stride. We were positively buried in marketing materials promoting this new saint everywhere we went. A woman even handed me a pocket prayer card to him randomly in the street yesterday. Carlos Acutis (died 2006 at 15yo) was just canonized in Sept 2025 - a rush job which smacks of heavy rebranding (note the cell phone in the statue's hand). All I can see is Counter-Reformation folderol all over again.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/498/926/922/760/028/original/8a9956fdc921f973.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/498/926/123/785/716/original/a1ed06440f6ded3a.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/498/927/697/523/876/original/8d6710ebe92da8ce.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/498/928/278/782/803/original/c78fcd1aa40927bb.jpg

2025-11-05 19:15:12 GMT

The little backlit fluffy specks are tiny insects flying around. It was unexpected in such a dense medieval stone village where a potted plant counts as nature. We just stood there watching them for a long while.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/498/674/803/753/281/original/469099a8a94bc8a6.jpg

2025-11-05 13:53:11 GMT

The brotherhood of ambulances - from ancient times to the present day
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/497/293/386/583/305/original/487bddf0fac8817b.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/497/293/457/945/473/original/80b3e8fe497c17af.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/497/293/555/787/274/original/ba593d7636e712ae.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/497/293/649/074/205/original/e987ddc7dc6df9f4.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

2025-11-02 19:46:41 GMT

I'm gay, middle-aged. I'm not flamboyant - I "pass" easily, so I've always thought it was incumbent on me to speak up and show up extra proud where and when I could, pave safe passage for others, push to be seen. The whole of my life til now has been a steady process of liberation in public. But now I feel suddenly, acutely that trend reversed. We argue lately if he reaches for my hand on a crowded street. I feel I should be ready to fistfight. Imo we've seen the high point. Now come the dregs.

2025-11-02 17:04:52 GMT

A 17th-century strongbox - original steampunk. I've never seen anything else like it.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/481/180/355/016/911/original/3a49de2ffe8414be.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/481/180/489/850/782/original/94346824608c7adb.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/481/180/596/982/442/original/64bcb8b7ce8f88fd.jpg

2025-11-02 08:55:40 GMT

People should listen to dogs more.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/479/257/978/559/163/original/6c2925380c4c627d.jpg

2025-10-31 19:06:38 GMT

Yet more Etruscans. I can't stop myself and it's becoming a problem.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/328/341/681/373/original/f99c57d76ef2160d.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/328/400/390/365/original/eae7f0ab62329057.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/328/767/079/176/original/afb9c4a6f26d962d.jpg
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/115/470/328/841/200/900/original/24ec57da176530ee.jpg