Sometimes we all need to grow elasticated, extendable arms so that we can heartily pat ourselves on the back for a job well done on life. Here are some encouraging tidbits to do just that. It’s edition #70, I hope you cool cats are all doing well out there in digi-pixel-land.
Did you know, your past self is happy about the progress you have made? by artist Leo
Mary River Turtles have green Mohican-style hair-dos made of algae and can breathe through their genitals. Photo: Chris Wan Vyk. Via Space Star Fish on Twitter
Mary River Turtles were first formally discovered in 1994, and eluded discovery in their natural environment for nearly 30 years. There has been a dramatic decrease in their population due to low reproduction rates and an increase of depredation on nests. Let’s all hope that these beautiful turtles survive.
Mirrored sky landscapes by Japanese photographer Shota
These images fill me with a sense of serenity and calm and remind me a little of a Ghibli anime.
I have no idea if this will cringe anybody, but I loved this! Jo is so inspiring and energising and her positivity and fun way about her and doing her workout is actually pretty fun. Also – there is 80’s music!
This book about introversion was profoundly disappointing.
After having recently read ‘The Highly Sensitive Person;’ by Elaine Aron and all of the immense insights this book contained, I felt that The Introvert’s Way was lacking in psychological insights and research and was instead focused on flimsy personal anecdotes and ideas rather than evidence.
I found the style of writing to be entertaining, conversational and light-hearted, however a lack of any substance to this book soon turned me off it after only a few chapters.
A better title for this book: An Introvert’s Way
This is a book written about introversion according to one woman’s experience of it, rather than an extensive evidence-based look at how all of the different kinds of introverts experience the world. As a result things that piss of the author – for example being at a party or around loud music – I completely can’t relate to. Everyone is different after all and we all have things that stress us and things that we are fine with. This critical difference isn’t really well explained in this book.
As this is a book about one person’s experience of introversion and her own traits, life and experiences being an introvert, this book very rapidly becomes boring. I am glad it was a library borrow and not a purchase.
I am not above smutty double-entendres on this blog. Therefore edition 69 is a risque and cheeky selection of pseudo-sordid antics. I hope you all enjoy it.
Known for his epic, conspicuous, sprawling arrays of human bodies as geography, these behind-the-scenes shots of Spenser Tunick wading through the bodies of models are evocative and compelling.
Who knew that medieval nunneries were such hotbeds of lesbianism
Medieval sexual adventuress Welsh writer Gwerful Mechain
Every foolish drunken poet, boorish vanity without ceasing, (never may I warrant it, I of great noble stock,) has always declaimed fruitless praise in song of the girls of the lands all day long, certain gift, most incompletely, by God the Father: praising the hair, gown of fine love, and every such living girl, and lower down praising merrily the brows above the eyes; praising also, lovely shape, the smoothness of the soft breasts, and the beauty’s arms, bright drape, she deserved honour, and the girl’s hands. Then with his finest wizardry before night he did sing, he pays homage to God’s greatness, fruitless eulogy with his tongue: leaving the middle without praise and the place where children are conceived, and the warm quim, clear excellence, tender and fat, bright fervent broken circle, where I loved, in perfect health, the quim below the smock. You are a body of boundless strength, a faultless court of fat’s plumage. I declare, the quim is fair, circle of broad-edged lips, it is a valley longer than a spoon or a hand, a ditch to hold a penis two hands long; cunt there by the swelling arse, song’s table with its double in red. And the bright saints, men of the church, when they get the chance, perfect gift, don’t fail, highest blessing, by Beuno, to give it a good feel. For this reason, thorough rebuke, all you proud poets, let songs to the quim circulate without fail to gain reward. Sultan of an ode, it is silk, little seam, curtain on a fine bright cunt, flaps in a place of greeting, the sour grove, it is full of love, very proud forest, faultless gift, tender frieze, fur of a fine pair of testicles, a girl’s thick grove, circle of precious greeting, lovely bush, God save it.
Spoiler, it is a story of wreck and ruin by the fun police: A young girl named Burma attends a beach party with her boyfriend and after she smokes marijuana with a bunch of other girls, she gets pregnant and another girl drowns while skinny dipping in the ocean. Burma and her boyfriend go to work for the pusher in order to make money so they can get married. However, during a drug deal her boyfriend is killed leaving Burma to fend for herself. Burma then becomes a major narcotics pusher in her own right after giving up her baby for adoption.
Box of tortoiseshell sex aids made in the 1930s by the Arita Drug and Rubber Goods Co., in Kobe, Japan, with 10 compartments containing four penis sheaths, four penis rings, three brass balls, one dildo and one finger sheath. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xcte99uy
“Semen would appear, both from the smell and taste, to be a mawkish kind of substance; but when held some time in the mouth, it produces a warmth similar to spices, which lasts some time.”
In 1767 John Hunter took the yellowish penile discharge of a man he believed to have gonorrhea and rubbed it into a wound he’d created in his own penis. He believed that gonorrhea and syphilis were two forms of the same disease. He was wrong.
At the time, both diseases were known as “the pox”, despite different and distinct symptoms. Some were beginning to believe – correctly – that the two forms of pox were actually different diseases.
Yeah man, it happened…
Hunter, however, thought that the difference in symptoms was a result of differences in the tissues infected. What’s more, he was so confident he was willing to bet his own penis that he was correct.
In 1767, a patient presented to Hunter with what to most eyes would look like yellow penile discharge, but to Hunter looked like an awful lot like opportunity. He took some of that goo, and put it into puncture wounds he had created “[one] on the glans, the other on the prepuce”.
His notes show that within a couple of days, he began to experience pain, redness, and itchiness on his penis, before going on to develop other classic (and uncomfortable) symptoms of gonorrhea.
Later, to his absolute delight, he went on to develop symptoms of syphilis – horrendous sores on his penis. As you can imagine, he was ecstatic.
He believed he had proved that the two forms of pox were actually the same disease. For fifty years, many were convinced of his discovery and thought that they would be able to prevent syphilis from developing by simply burning off gonorrhea sores with mercury. Which was wrong.
Me reading this earlier
In reality, the reason why he had developed both forms of “pox” (really gonorrhea and syphilis) was that the patient whose penis pus he had partaken of was infected with both gonorrhea and syphilis.
He hadn’t proved anything, nor advanced medical science – he had merely sat down and rubbed two painful venereal diseases into his own penis for absolutely no reason whatsoever, other than setting back research for around half a century.
It’s worth noting that some historians believe that Hunter used somebody else as a subject for the experiment, which is worse.
It’s also worth adding that he died in 1793 of an aortic aneurysm – possibly caused by tertiary syphilis which was found during his autopsy – still believing he was right. 😦
An eighteenth-century literary blockbuster, Harris’s List (1757 to 1795) featured advertisements by the fair and wanton ladies of the night in London. This formed the basis of the incredible TV show Harlots.
Miss R—ch—rds—n, No. 2 Bennett- Street, Rathbone-Place. If women were as little as they are good, A peas cod would make them a gown and a hood. A pretty, little, lively, fair complex- ioned girl, with a dainty leg and foot, and as pretty a pair of pouting bubbies as ever went against a man’s stomach, and one who well deserves the attention that is paid her by every man capable of knowing her value. She is pleasing, though fond, and can make wantonness delightful; every part assists to bring on the momomentary delirium, and then each part combines to raise up the fallen mem- ber, to contribute again to repeated rapture; her price is commonly two gui- neas, [ 24 ] but if a man is clever, she is very ready to make some abatement.
Maud Allan was a much-celebrated dancer on the West End stage in the early 20th century. In 1918 she became notorious due to being sued. Her only crime was being a member of the ‘cult of the clitoris’, or in other words, a lesbian. Via The National Archives on Twitter.
‘The child turning itself in birth’ from 1685. Apparently this was the standard for how babies looked in surgical and midwifery texts – the foetus often resembled a toddler! Via RCSEd Library & Archive on Twitter.
This is the life story of one of the most iconic musicians and fashionistas in history. She’s a rebel, an iconoclast. A bit mannish, a bit womanish, a bit old, a bit young. Completely unpredictable, indefinable and wild in heart and soul. I am speaking of Grace Jones.
Although the labels attached to her: Jamaican/American/Christian/Atheist/Singer/Straight/Bi/Afro-Carribean/European can’t really describe this woman. She was actually famous and in full throttle in the 80’s when I was a kid. I remember seeing her as a kid and thinking – whoa! I think I’ll stick to Kylie Minogue.
In fact, I will be honest that was not even really aware of Grace Jones or her influence on music and fashion until a few years ago when I found the video for Slave to the Rhythm on YouTube and I was blown away by the avante-garde strangeness of the video clip and the funky, jazzy, 80’s optimism of this music. After this, I just couldn’t get enough of her.
Her biography traces her beginnings in a middle-class, high achieving and deeply religious family in Jamaica. Early fragmentation in her family meant that her and her siblings were looked after by an abusive and horrible uncle. She overcome that early trauma and with fiery determination, she snubbed her nose up to her religious origins.
Her mother lived in the US and eventually called on her and her siblings to join her there. America suited her young free-spirited soul much more than Jamaica and she thrived there. She went to Paris became a successful model, becoming best friends with Jerry Hall, Jade Jagger and many other beauties of the time.
I found it fascinating and astonishing in a way that she was able to simply shuck off the label of ‘black woman’ and just self-identify simply as a woman or a European woman, in America, which so loves to put people into categories and boxes. She talks in the book about the extreme situations of racism that she faced in America as a young model and singer trying to make it in the disco scene and getting a modelling contract. Yet it’s with a stubborn determination and strength she dresses down these men telling her she wasn’t pretty or she was ‘too black’, literally telling them to fuck right off – and it’s immensely satisfying to read!
Grace Jones with her strong, feline and almost manly look and her charismatic way of holding herself. Her fiery, determined nature was not about to be made to feel inferior to anyone for any reason at all. And the world heard that message and bowed down to her.
As someone who has struggled in some periods of my life with self-confidence, reading about the way Grace Jones moved through the world (like a bulldozer rather than a timid flower that we women are taught to be) this was a revelation and it had the unintentional affect of making me give much less of a shit about what anyone thinks of me.
This is a very empowering book for women of colour, but also simply for any woman who has a striking, unusual look who simply don’t fit the typical mould of beauty. The motto, according to Grace Jones is: be the exotic bird you were always meant to be…that you were born to be. I loved this book, if you like reading about the decadent 80’s as well from an icon who lived through it, you will enjoy this.
Some things will be outside of your control. Don’t waste energy on fighting, do what you can to use them to your advantage. Even the fiercest of winds will eventually lose it strength. @googiemccabe #bookquote #DwieSiostry
A beautiful compendium of universal wisdom that’s simple, wise, soulful and timeless. I fell in love with this book as soon as I saw it. The illustrations and words are by my wise and kind friend Googie McCabe who wrote this book for her two beloved daughters, as a way of healing and dealing with her depression, and also as a manifestation of her artistry, imagination and love for her two girls. It features advice on life, death, love of self, love of others, finding your calling, and how to deal with life’s dark times.
“We have seen, ladies and gentlemen, how self-hood has grown and gained a foothold, become increasingly distinct and affecting. Previously barely marked, prone to being blurred, subjugated to the collective. Imprisoned in the stays of roles, conventions, flattened in the press of traditions, subjugated to demands. Now it swells and annexes the world.
“Once the gods were external, unavailable, from another world, and their apparent emissaries were angels and demons.
But the human ego burst forth and swept the gods up and inside, furnished them a place somewhere between the hippocampus and the brain stem, between the pineal gland and Broca’s area. Only in this way can the gods survive – in the dark, quiet nooks of the human body, in the crevices of the brain, in the empty space between the synapses.
“This fascinating phenomenon is beginning to be studied by the fledgling discipline of travel psychotheology.
“There is a certain well-known syndrome named after Stendhal in which one arrives in a place known from literature or art and experiences it so intensely that one grows weak or faints. There are those who boast they have discovered places totally unknown, and then we envy them for experiencing the truest reality even very fleetingly before that place, like all the rest, is absorbed by our minds.
“Which is why we must ask, once more, insistently, the same question: where are they going, to what countries, to what places? Other countries have become an external complex, a knot of significations that a good topographical psychologist can unravel just like that, interpret on the spot.”
A darkly funny, quirky and insightful book that combines compelling short stories of wanderers and voyagers, with personal anecdotes and philosophical forays. Read my review
Scottish Forensic Anthropologist and Professor Sue Black’s memoir about her life confronting death won the Saltire Book of the Year in 2018. Forensic anthropology (in case you are wondering) is the study of human remains in order to solve criminal cases. I was very excited to read this book.
Yet the first few chapters of All that Remains are pretty slow. Sue talks about her early life in Inverness and Dundee and what sparked her interest in getting into the field of forensic anthropology and anatomy. She had strong stomach, a practical Scottish clear-headed way about her and an early job working in a butchers, which normalised seeing dead things.
Every person in the world will experience a time when someone close to us dies, including the funeral and coming to terms with it and mourning, so talking about this at length seemed a bit pointless. Likewise, towards the end of the book Sue talks about how her team raised funds for a new anatomy department – this part was a bit boring.
A third of the way in, I gave up for several months and then came back to slog through it. I’m glad I did because this is when the book gets really interesting. Sue talks about the various unsolved cold cases of bones that have yet to be identified. Including one ‘The man from Balmore’ that remains unsolved to this day.
To be perfectly honest, I have never been spooked by the dead. It is the living who terrify me. The dead are much more predictable and co-operative.”
Sue explains the nitty gritty of the decomposition process (morbidly fascinating) along with the process of how people actually die. Along with the eccentric elderly characters who visit the University of Dundee and want to donate their bodies to science, but who want to see the cadavers first. This is when the book really takes flight.
Sue’s personal, emotional and professional selves are equally fascinating. She is able to compartmentalise the pain, suffering and harrowing violence done to people by other people into a locked room in her brain. Once she locks the door, she can go back to her own family life quite neatly and easily.
If I am working on decomposing remains. I find a room where the smell doesn’t register. If I am dealing with murders, dismemberment or traumatic events. I spend the day in a soft space where there is a sense of safety and calm…While occupying each box, I am aware that I am striving to be an inert observer. It is a form of analytical automation…the real me remains outside of that box somewhere, removed and protected from the sensory bombardment of my work.
Sue is both tough and soft, clinical and familiar with the remains of people that she looks after. She always operates from a place of the utmost respect and – in a strange way – love for the remains of the people in her care. Although her job is difficult, she is aware of the great honour and responsibility it entails to the family members of the missing person. She has seen incredible strength of character from family members, even when the most horrible things have befallen those they love.
The harrowing stories of her involvement in identifying mountains of bones in charred buildings in Kosovo in the 90’s or in body identification after the Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand are the most powerful and moving parts of the book, these have an emotional immediacy to them that other parts of the book lack.
This is an interesting book. Sue Black is a formidable woman with a singular personality, set of skills and knowledge to do everyday what would terrify most people. For that she has my deepest admiration and respect.
I would give this book 4/5, it’s really worth reading and deeply profound.
Hello gorgeous friends, thanks for joining me again for another weird and wonderful tip-toe through a surreal realm, here are 10 things that looked good to me this week. Stay cool, stay inspired, stay cosy…
Here’s some books on a necklace for you. Just in case you get bored while on the train. This is a 19th century Ethiopian amulet necklace composed of 39 tiny manuscripts each within its own leather pouch.
Some of the manuscripts are in miniature codex format, others are in scroll format, each encased in a leather pouch to fit. The pouches are stained in various shades of red and brown, including examples stamped or tooled with X-motifs or other geometric expressions.
Amuletic necklaces like this were worn by all classes of Ethiopian society – here is an example worn by Prince Alemayehu, the son the son of Emperor Tewodros II, as photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron on the Isle of Wight in 1868.
The next time you make a mistake, reflect on the internal dialogue that is activated. For some, the internal critique is on pointing out everything you are doing wrong; seeing fault where perhaps there is none. Ask yourself if you would say the things you are saying to yourself to a friend who was in need. Also, what if someone spoke to you in such a negative way? I guarantee that you would think twice about having that person in your life.
In order to silence the negative talk, it is essential to cultivate a loving relationship with yourself. It takes practice and self-awareness, as well as, the ability to look at yourself from the outside. For example, say you become overwhelmed in crowds and are at a family gathering with a large group. As hard as you try, you are not able to fight the urge to flee. After you leave you are disappointed in yourself and the negative self-talk takes over. If you stop and look at the situation from the point of view of a loving friend your thoughts would be kinder and more accepting. Your friend would point out that you tried your best and not to be so hard on yourself.
Thomas Edison created a talking doll in 1877. In 1890 the Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing Company introduced ‘Edison’s Phonograph Doll’. To get the doll to talk you cranked a handle to operate a remoavable phonograph containing a single nursery rhyme: ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. It sounds crackly and creepy, you can hear the original recording on Youtube.
Here’s a super creepy recording of the dolls in the phonograph.
Get ready to discover some amazing songs from Australia and New Zealand and maybe revisit songs you haven’t heard in decades here. A lot of grunge and alternative music from that time.
William has expansive lists from other years as well, you can check out more on his amazing blog here.
A macabre tale of a mummified hand frozen forever by mesmerism (1913)
A creepy feel-good tale. In 1913, French physician Gaston Durville set out to prove that the human body pulses with invisible force fields and energies. He acquired the hand of a cadaver to prove his point.
He loved to frolick around naked, but that’s another story. His junk looks a bit like a Mattel figure here, but nevertheless.
Durville instructed his assistants to gently caress the air around the dismembered hand for 45 mins each day, never directly touching it.
He believed that this action would 'mesmerize' the hand, bathing it in the electric flow of the human body to stop it from decaying.
According to Durville, the experiment worked: the corpse hand became mummified instead of rotting away.
The tenacity of this Australian iconic bird and his ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude in how he is removing the anti-bird spikes from a building is worthy of a documentary series. Cockatoos are the true rebels of the animal kingdom!
I hope you enjoyed this foray into the strange and mystical worlds of history. Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t below and feel free to give thanks if you want on Ko-Fi. See you soon crazy cats
Dr Haare Williams MNZM has been Dean of Māori Education and Māori Advisor to the Chief Executive at Unitec. He was General Manager of Aotearoa Radio. He set up a joint venture with the South Seas Film and Television School to train Te Reo speakers as producers and operators in film and television. He has worked closely with iwi claimant communities and was responsible for waka construction and assembly at Waitangi for the 1990 commemorations. He has published poetry, exhibited painting and written for film and television. He was a cultural advisor for the Mayor of Auckland and is Amorangi at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
“What makes us most human is the possession of a unique and irreproducible story, that takes place over time and leave behind our traces.” ― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights
A darkly funny, quirky and insightful book that combines compelling short stories of wanderers and voyagers, with personal anecdotes and philosophical forays. Read my review
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