Day: March 28, 2018

I really wanted a half-decent meal tonight.

So, here’s hoping that after a rest I will have somewhere near enough spoons to go ahead and do that overdue water change on the big tank đŸ˜©

(Another reason I like to do that on Fencing Night usually. If I have a sandwich or something instead of cooking for everyone, that may leave more spoons for hauling water. Off plan tonight, though.)

Tonight’s delight, while Mr. C is off fencing: some quick no-recipe red lentil/masoor dal I threw together. With some carrot and broccoli added so I can pretend it’s a balanced meal.

Also, on the side: some leftover onion raita out of the fridge.

Once again, I tried and failed to make a small batch. But, the leftovers should come in handy in the freezer. The veggies might get a weird texture, but hey.

freedom-of-fanfic:

If I could ask only one thing of the community, it would be that we stop arguing over what ‘bi’ and ‘pan’ mean. they can have heavy overlap – they can have the same fucking meaning, even – and still both be valid identifiers. I identify as bi but others might have the same attraction experiences as me and identify as pan. it’s fine! they are both fine! can we stop arguing about this please? especially people who are neither bi nor pan???

theonion:

“On the surface, it seemed plausible—owning our employees’ bodies, implementing a mandatory 18-hour workday, restricting their movements, and not compensating them with anything besides minimal food and shelter—but then it started to sound really familiar in a bad way,” said Bezos, who acknowledged his fears were confirmed when Amazon’s general counsel kept reporting back that such labor arrangements had been illegal throughout the United States since 1865. “It’s too bad; the increased efficiency and cost savings would have been tremendous. And now I have to go explain to our shareholders why I spent $1.8 million outfitting all of our managers with bullwhips, shackles, and branding irons.”

Source: theonion

furiousgoldfish:

I used to depend so much on
what people thought of me and weather i was useful/welcome presence in their
life because I honestly thought that i couldn’t live if nobody wanted me alive,
I couldn’t matter if i wasn’t bringing benefits to everyone, I wasn’t a good
person unless I was proving it constantly and giving everything I had to anyone
who could benefit from it, I needed people to want me alive, because if they
didn’t, I was afraid I’d be abandoned and left to die.

It changed when I realized I could live without anybody else. I could live even
if nobody else wanted me alive. I could feel good about myself even if I wasn’t
constantly doing favours to everyone and giving myself away to others. I could
survive even if I wasn’t beneficial to everyone.  Because I finally did
the crucial thing, I put myself into that equation, I counted myself as a
person. I want me to be alive. And that’s enough. Me wanting to live for myself
is enough. Nobody else needs to benefit from my existence. I don’t have to do
anything for anyone else’s sake, ever. This life is mine, all mine, and nobody
else has even the right to decide weather I should live or die. I get to be
beneficial to myself, and nobody else. I get to do whatever I want, weather
others like it or not. I get to do this unapologetically and without guilt, I
get to own and live my own life because this life is all I got.

I’m the only one who is going to experience consequences of my choices, there is
nobody who I owe my time or favours, there is nobody who I need to impress,
nobody I need to like me, nobody I need approval from. And no, this is not an
abusive mindset, because I don’t need to hurt anyone or benefit from anyone in
order to live, taking my own life for myself does not hurt anyone in this
world, only ones losing something here are the abusers who assumed the
ownership on my life, to which they had no right. My life is only mine, and I’m
going to fight and defend the right to do with it whatever I want until the
ends of this earth. My freedom is the most valuable thing that I have, and
I resent that they could have ever convinced me that it doesn’t matter if I
have it or not.

tlatollotl:

Fish Hacha

Date: 6th–8th century

Geography: Mexico, Mesoamerica, Veracruz

Culture: Classic Veracruz

Mesoamerican ballplayers wore protective gear called hachas, palmas, and yokes to protect their hips and abdomens from the impact of the game’s solid rubber ball (see MMA 1978.412.15 and 1978.412.16). In painting and sculpture, the yoke is shown worn around the player’s hips, the palma or hacha attached at the front. Those used during active play were most likely made of wood or some other light material; stone versions such as this one were worn, if at all, during ballgame-related rituals, or placed on display. Given the distinctive design of each hacha, both those worn and those carved in stone may have served to identify teams or individuals.

Hachas also vary greatly in form and size, so much so that they qualify as a group only in contrast to the taller and thinner palmas. The Metropolitan’s own collection includes hachas in the form of human or animal heads, full figures, even one representing a pair of human hands. The name hacharefers to the axe-like form of many (hacha is Spanish for axe), including the example seen here. In these, the back is slightly wider than the front where the sides converge in a sharp point. Facial features and any other details are carved on low relief, each side a mirror image of the other.

In other ways this stone hacha is unusual in both its subject and composition. In order to conform to the classic hacha shape, the artist has rendered the face, body and tail fin in consecutive, ascending registers of low relief. This creative solution to the problem of representing a horizontal subject within the confines of the vertical hacha format does not preclude a closely observed, detailed rendering of the subject, however. The artist has carefully rendered each scale individually, with increased depth of relief from front to back, mimicking how fish fins overlap in nature. The rounded form of the cheeks, slightly open mouth, and flared gills suggest the respiration and movement of the fish as it passes through the water.

In jarring contrast to this naturalistic image is the fish’s unusual profile. The inclusion of what looks like a very human nose suggests a composite being of the supernatural realm. The belief in a watery underworld inhabited by deities was widespread throughout Mesoamerica. At the Classic Veracruz city of El Tajín, scenes of ballgame-related rituals both on earth and in the underworld are carved on the walls of one of its many ball courts. In one, a man wearing a fish helmet sits in a water-filled temple, surrounded by supernatural figures. The unusual blending of fish and human elements on this hacha may reflect the widespread Mesoamerican belief that the ball court was a conduit, the game and its rituals a way of connecting humans to the deities dwelling in that realm.

Patricia Joan Sarro, 2017

Published references

Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas from the Museum of Primitive Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969, fig. 584.

Resources and additional reading

Ceremonial Sculpture of Veracruz. New York: Long Island University, 1987.
Earley, Caitlin C. “The Mesoamerican Ballgame.” In The Hilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mball/hd_mball.htm (June 2017)

Koontz, Rex. Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpent: The Public Sculpture of El TajĂ­n. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.

Leyenaar, Ted J.J. Ulama, Jeu de Balle des Olmeques aux Azteques – Ballgame, from the Olmecs to the Aztecs. Lausanne: MusĂ©e Olympique, 1997.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 12, The Pacific Islands, Africa, and the Americas

Scott, John F. “Dressed to Kill: Stone Regalia of the Mesoamerican Ballgame”. In The Sport of Life and Death, The Mesoamerican Ballgame, E. Michael Whittington, ed., pp. 50–63 New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001.

Shook, Edwin M. and Elayne Marquis. Secrets in Stone: Yokes, Hachas and Palmas from Southern Mesoamerica. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1996.

Von Winning, Hasso and Nelly Gutiérrez Solana. La Iconographía de la Ceråmica de Río Blanco, Veracruz. Mexico City: UNAM Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1996.

The Met