Gute Sheep/gutefår. Värmland, Sweden (April 24, 2020).

White-crested Laughingthrush (Garrulax leucolophus), family Leiothrichidae, order Passeriformes, India

photograph by Latika Das

Die Mimik der Tethys (The Expressions of Tethys) is a high sea buoy (last was in Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, 2024), that is suspended in space and moves synchronously to another buoy in the Atlantic Ocean near Nantes. Continuously transmitting motion data via satellite to its relocated double, the information guides eight electric motors and cable winches, which precisely reproduce the buoy's movement in the ocean. The buoy functions as a hypnotising machine that inevitably leads to the idea of waves lapping around inside the exhibition space, creating an ocean in the minds of people.

Video source

Idea sent by @macfanatic, thanks for it <3

ordered a cheap wearable timer¹ that has a 'buzz every [multiple of 5 you select] minutes and repeat by default until deactivated' function and have been experimenting with it as a source of gentle non-judgmental 'do i still want to be doing what i'm doing at this time' queries that i can choose whether to ignore or respond to

anyway it's only been like a day and a half but so far it seems like a helpful tool to have in my toolkit—like it hasn't magically turned me into a go-getter or anything but it has meant i did a bit of crafting² today and went for a tiny little run which is like. usually i'm pleased with myself if i scrape together enough executive function to initiate one enrichment thing superfluous to subsistence, so

we'll see how repeatable the results are but in any event: some little wins today :)

⸻ ¹ yes i could probably also have just used my phone but (1) while you can of course get the built-in timer to repeat it doesn't default to that, which was an important part of the concept (2) i was also working from a vague notion that, while i'm not as fussed about my phone dependence as i know some people have gotten, maybe it would be good not to actively reinforce it, lol ² and yes i do mean my tiny little mends from earlier but like. sewing's a craft (zie says defiantly)

so i pretty clearly fully broke my poster's instinct, lmao

i've been turning over the problem and i think it comes down to two things: (1) i don't do enough, so i don't have enough to report on; (2) i stopped wanting to weigh in on Discourse, partially bc a lot of it feels petty in the face of rising fascism but mostly bc i started feeling abashed abt having such predictabl(y wearisom)e hobby-horses (this concern can be boiled down to 'i probably shouldn't be Too Myself in case it annoys people,' which objectively is no way to live but subjectively is a tricky little eel trap to wriggle out of!)

and if one isn't creating unprompted content, and also isn't responding to the commonest sort of prompt—well. a content shortage becomes somewhat inevitable.

(there remains of course the other subset of personal content i didn't address in point (1) above, namely mining not projects but the (non)workings of one's own psyche for material; and obviously i used to engage in a great deal of that and find it satisfying! but at this point i'm sufficiently ashamed of the fundamental structure of both my life and my self to find the prospect of public dissection aversive—which may well mean the abscess needs lancing, but. ow.)

and then on top of all that there's the conceptual-stylistic problem that too often these days i'm working with such a clogged brain that wrangling my thoughts into even half-understandable order becomes. very hard. like even on a good day i tend to think and write in nested clauses, such that you have to be able to suspend a series of unfinished parentheses in your own mind for a little while and then circle back and connect the closures; and when my thinking gets muddier my writing too gets muddier, and i find myself floundering in syntactic quicksand that even i'm struggling to parse, only moments after having extruded it…

spent almost five hours clearing up my floordrobe and excavating my off-season bins and making decisions abt clothes i don’t wear and i’m not even done 😩

Great Bustard (Otis tarda), males displaying, family Otididae, order Otidiformes, NE China

ENDANGERED.

At up to 40 lbs, the male is one of the world’s heaviest flying birds.

photographs by VCG

Tricycle Gang in Brooklyn, New York City (1930s)

Eurasian Red Squirrel/ekorre. Värmland, Sweden (April 25, 2021).