A Phoenix Aurora Over Iceland

http://www.lillipad.co.nz/

I already got my first choice Christmas present this year, but this is a close second!

Lost Books, Lips and

A patron approached the desk with two small children.

Patron: “Could you settle something for me? My grandkids want to ask what you do to someone who loses a book, because on the way here, the one told the other that they better not lose their books because the librarians will tear their lips off.”

Me: “Uh…No! No, that’s harsh. We just make you pay some money so we can buy a new copy.”

© Thomas Holton 

“Family Portrait”

From: THOMAS HOLTON ON DOCUMENTING LIFE INSIDE A CRAMPED NEW YORK CITY APARTMENT

Children playing in the hay

source: La bunici

Happy Indian Arrival Day.

May 5, 1838

The first British ship of indenture sailed from Kolkata, India, across the seas and made its way to Guyana. The ship was filled with Indian indentured servants, most of whom were taken by deception, while others were hoping for a new life. Hardly either received what they were expecting. 

Not a day goes by where the question of what being Indo-Caribbean means escapes me. It is something I’m always thinking about, and even become frustrated with myself for not having a straight answer. I feel the answers are written in the bones in my body that were forged by my foremothers who boarded those ships with uncertainty. I want so badly to know what they were thinking. How they were feeling. I wish I had words to describe how my ancestors live inside me but elude me at the same time.

I lament every day the vital information and pieces of self that my great-grandparents possessed but somehow became lost between generations and trauma. Forgotten in sweat that dripped down their backs as they labored under the hot Caribbean sun, producing the sweet crop they were not allowed to taste. 

Today, I will celebrate them instead. I think about the pure bravery of my pregnant maternal great-great-grandmother, boarding a British ship with hundreds of strangers, having only the clothes on her back and her children. I inherited courage from her. 

I think about her daughter, my great-grandmother, who filled her mother’s spot on the plantation when she was old enough. I imagine she must have felt obligated to put her mother’s hardened hands to rest after so many years. I inherited integrity from her. 

I think about my paternal great-grandmother and great-grandfather who traded in their fluent Bhojpuri that flowed like a river when they spoke, for the worker’s patois enforced by belts and the watchful eyes/ears of their white overseer. I inherited humility from them. 

These are legacies of strength. They sit in my core, fill me up, and make my muscles ache all at once. I carry the weight of indenture on me. 178 years ago, Indo-Caribbeans did not exist. 178 years ago, someone decided for me, who I would be. 

–Shabana B.

“His influence on design will be felt forever. There’s no doubt that, centuries from now, amazing spaceships will soar, future cities will rise, and someone, somewhere will say, ‘That looks like something Ralph McQuarrie painted.’” –George Lucas (x)

ARTILLERY SHELLS, MINES, and other ordnance still litter Cambodia, years after the Vietnam War and the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Disposing of them is dangerous work, and nowhere is the task more daunting than under water.

READ MORE: Dive deep with the men clearing cambodia’s bombs by hand.

Oklahoma City Tornado, 1898

via reddit

A visual comparison of approximate sizes of different rocket boosters

Source: https://imgur.com/ywGOVI6

'Rincewind,' said a voice like the rustle of old pages.

'Who? Me?'

'Of course you, you daft sod.'