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© C. Ford.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
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© C. Ford.
From Charly, who notes: Edible, but I never bothered to collect it so I have no personal experience with it. Strangely enough I have only seen two-three specimens this time around, both of them very young – one you have already seen in the picture besides a Larch bolete. Usually they are not particularly rare. Latin: Gomphidius glutinosus. Click for full size!
© Charly, all rights reserved.
A beautiful Grackle, from Kengi. I am overjoyed to say that while Kengi is not quite back with us yet, he’s home, and improving every day. He’s able to look in on Affinity now and then, so say hi in the comments. Click for full size!
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
Some ideas were best discarded. This is one of them, from 1916.
“The rowboat bath is the newest contribution to the physical enjoyment of living.”
“The rowing-bath has been perfected in a western sanitarium for the purpose of adding zest to the morning plunge. It is valuable as a curative measure, but it may also be used with enjoyment and benefit by any one.
The rowing-bath consists of a metal container which is attached to the nozzle of an ordinary tub by means of a rubber cord sufficiently strong to give the element of exercise. Entering the tub, the bather attaches the rowing device and turns on the cold water. As it pours into the tube he scoops up the water and, pulling the container toward him with a rowing motion, empties it full upon his breast, thus securing the zest which accompanies the pleasant pastime of buffeting surf. This bath is a diversion from the ordinary “shower” on a hot summer day.”
I wonder how many people bought this ridiculous thing before it sank into obscurity. Looking at that picture, all I can envision is what a mess it would make, and it wouldn’t be the male enthusiastic ‘rower’ who cleaned it all up, either.
Via The Public Domain.
Here’s a fun thing to do on a Wednesday evening if you’re in the area:
When the area now known as Lincoln Park was City Cemetery during the 1840s to 1860s, it was a regular smorgasbord for grave robbers — medical schools tended to have a “no questions asked” policy, and a fresh cadaver could pay as much as a month in the coal mines.
Author and tour guide Adam Selzer leads “pupils” on a walking tour of Lincoln Park, showing relics of the old cemetery, a tomb snooping demonstration, and repeating stories and quotes from the archives about all of the body snatching that took place on the grounds — featuring enough tricks of the trade to launch your very own career. Humorous, entertaining, and educational as all get out.
Tickets are $20.00, and all the details are at Atlas Obscura.
Bill O’Reilly went to Breitbart to opine about us awful lefties and promote his latest book, which I hope will end up remaindered. Bill seems to think that the whole business with confederate statues is tied up with the constitution.
On this morning’s edition of “Breitbart News Daily,” O’Reilly spoke about his new book about the American Revolution before pivoting to discussing progressive protesters who have recently called for cities and states to remove Confederate monuments in the wake of a violent white supremacist Alt-Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month.
Oh my. So O’Reilly fancies himself a historian now. That book has to be one gigantic near-fatal eyeroll. I’ll have to content myself with imagining the unholy mess it will be, because I’ll never read it.
“There’s no question in my mind that it’s the Constitution that they ultimately want to overturn,” O’Reilly said. “The statues are just a wayside to get to the Constitution.”
“They never say it, but that’s what it is,” O’Reilly continued. “The statues are just symbols, and I said very early on when I saw this controversy in Charlottesville , ‘Hey, it’s not going to stop with Robert E. Lee or the Confederate generals.’ This is going to go into the fabric of our country.”
Actually, Bill, they don’t have anything to do with one another. That said, other countries have never had a problem with updating their versions of constitutions, recognizing that times change and progress marches on in spite of people like yourself. That’s a mark of a healthy society. Instead, in this country, there’s an extreme sickness called constitution worship, which makes it damn near impossible to update the worn out, fucked up document at all. Any healthy society would look at it and say “yes, it’s time for changes, let’s get that re-write done.” I don’t have the least bit of trouble envisioning those who wrote it going back over the years, and deciding it was time for a change (Thomas Jefferson wanted it to be torn up every 19 years*). I doubt they thought anyone would be stupid enough to preserve it for hundreds of years. And yet, here we are, with a most outdated document, which politicians ignore and constantly sidestep, unless someone they don’t like is doing the same, then they scream about their constitution love. Right now, there’s an argument before the court which says that wedding cakes deserve first amendment rights, but queer people don’t. I think that’s a fair indicator that it’s time for the constitution to go, because it’s used the same way christians use the bible – it’s there to be twisted into supporting every evil viewpoint they can come up with, it’s there to support hate.
As for the “fabric” of our country, well, when fabric is old, worn, frayed thin, with a zillion holes in, it’s time to replace it. Any idiot ought to be able to grasp that one, including you, Mr. O’Reilly.
Via RWW.
ETA: Apparently, this is Constitution Day. A flag wavin’ holiday no less. Point fuckin’ proved. Christ.
Violette (Violet). J.J. Grandville, Les fleurs animées. This is the last! Tomorrow begins William T. Horton.
The Be Good Tanyas – Waitin’ Around to Die (Townes Van Zandt cover).
Oh, it’s too soon. Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
From Charly, who notes: I remember finding true chanterelle only a few times in my life around here, as a child, and only a few tiny specimens at that, but my parents told me they used to grow a lot here. Then they disappeared completely and I have not seen them for thirty years at all. They went from very common to very rare during my lifetime. These false chanterelles are not too common either. I have only seen this one specimen this year, and I only ever encounter a few each year. Latin: Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca. Click for full size!
© Charly, all rights reserved.
Downy Woodpecker, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Myrte (Myrtle). J.J. Grandville, Les fleurs animées.
Jim Bakker’s Yuck in a Bucket.
Jim Bakker seems to be under the impression that no one is laughing at him anymore. It won’t take very long to dispel that notion.
“These things, when God does them, God doesn’t fool around!” Bakker bellowed. “Yesterday, I almost lost it. You know, for the last several years, preachers—even in this city—and evangelists have beat the you-know-what out of me and made fun of me because we store food.”
“They preach about it,” he claimed. “Whole revivals just preaching about Jim and Lori, ‘Ha, ha, ha, they’re storing food, that stupid Jim Bakker.’ I just came from the flood zone! Nobody was laughing at me! They all wanted the crazy preacher’s food!”
“When the crisis comes, you people that are ready, your kids that laughed at you won’t laugh any more,” Bakker added. “And I want to tell you something: You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
I had no idea your fellow christians were beating the shit out of you all the time, Jim. You must have a great make-up person. I fully expect they teased you no end, because oh gods, that yuck looks disgusting, and I doubt people who weren’t in a dire situation would want anything to do with it. Considering how many people there are in this country who go hungry every day, seems to me the christian thing to do would be to distribute your yuck in a bucket to those who are just that damn hungry. But we all know what matters to you, don’t we, Jim? Almighty Money Money Money. People are still laughing, Jim. They’ll be laughing more in a moment…
On Thursday, Jim was opining on how he could be shot for wearing a ball cap with a cross on it. (I saw it, it’s in the bucket of yuck video, plain brown with a small white cross on the front). That’s just how gosh darn horrible it has gotten for christians. A fair number of people are running around wearing various moronic Trump hats, draped in confederate flags, and they aren’t getting shot. There are degrees of offensiveness, and while I’m not a fan of christians constantly waving their favourite method of execution around, it’s not terribly offensive. Crosses are fucking everywhere, no one is going to get that bent by a little white cross on a cap. It would actually go quite a long way in protecting you from all the really nasty folk, like Trumpholes, so let’s lose the persecution game, Jim, you suck at it.
Bakker went on to declare that “everything God’s ever spoke to me has come to pass” while fuming that society has made Christians afraid to share their faith. But Bakker refuses to be controlled by that fear, even though he knows he could be killed simply for wearing a Christian hat in public.
“I wear them out in public and I know I could be shot,” he proclaimed. “I know that. There are crazy people out there, but I’m not going to deny the cross. I will not deny the cross! I won’t.”
Who asked you to deny it? Does anyone give a fuck? Because I’m pretty sure no one does, Jim. I don’t care if you dress up as a furry cross, dude. Whatever floats your boat and all that. I would not be remotely surprised if in the near future, Bakker pays someone to shoot him, in a non-fatal manner, of course. Or shows up with a bullet hole in his cap, claiming a miracle.