I wish a woman could have action in her life, like a man. It agitates me to pain that the skyline over there is ever our limit. I long sometimes for a power of vision that would overpass it. If I could behold all I imagine…
Mia Wasikowska in the title role of Jane Eyre (2011, dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga)
it’s facial reconstructions of prehistoric humans!!
like, look at this part-homo sapiens, part-neandertal man from well over 30,000 years ago:
doesn’t he just look like a dude you’d wanna hang out with? like he probably washes dishes in the kitchen with you, and has excellent weed
what a charming fellow. what stories he probably has to tell. i’d definitely go shoot the shit with him on Contemplation Rock after i’d finished my day’s work carving a bone flute for the autumn hunting ceremony, or whatever
people have been people ever since people first became people, i tell you what
they all had lives and histories and families and friends and dumb gossip and games they played and total bullshit in which they believed wholeheartedly
they all argued about the nature of the world, and of themselves
they all sang songs
they all drew pictures
they all buried their dead in graves, and they buried their dead in graves well before they did a lot of that other stuff. they buried their dead with flowers, with panther claws, with the bones of animals they’d killed, with the bones of family members who had died at the same time or earlier. they buried their dead with their arms folded across their chests
they fell in love
they took care of their old and their sick and their disabled, even when it cost them
they made new things, and worried about what the new things meant for people everywhere, as a whole
Oh I like him he looks like he would appreciate my jokes
This dude would have great stories at a get-together and would bring some really great homemade dip.
I feel like he really digs Lo-Fi Music
This guy was sculpted by Alfons and Adrie Kennis, and their Neanderthal reconstructions are all delightful.
I love the kid in the last picture a lot- they look like a kid, just a little kid who’s done some mischief and is trying not to laugh about it.
I also adore their Lucy- they’ve struck a wonderful balance between the falling angel and the rising ape.
And their Turkana boy- there’s something precious and wistful in those eyes.
But my favorite has got to be their reconstruction of H. floresiensis.
Just look at her. That’s a face of someone who’s lived and seen a lot, but also a face that’s known love and joy and laughter. That’s a face with a soul.
Last night the conversation turned to southern California, and someone said, for reasons that weren’t super clear to me, “they have birdwatchers out there.” I said “I have an Internet friend who watches birds in southern California.” A third person said “I’ve been listening to a song about birds! It’s called ‘Birds.’” Then we talked about songs with “bird” or “birds” in the title for long enough that the word lost all meaning, but anyway I felt like I should close the loop by posting this where @lies could see it.
Me, waking you up at two am: hey, do you ever think about how we live in a culture of rejecting our local “wild places” in favor of fetishizing and romanticizing the distant and different?
There’s this overwhelming rhetoric we’re fed that the only nature worth protecting is Grand and Huge and most of all Somewhere Else.
Nobody thinks about the wetland behind their local Walmart that is in Desperate need of protection, or the little remnant prairie in a cemetery, because they’re too focused on the abstract and often flawed concept of “wilderness” somewhere else.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to travel to see something new and unique, but the way I hear people talk about our own backyard, the way the last remnants of what we have here are ignored or outright rejected, breaks my heart.
My professor has spent his entire career in the Midwest trying to protect wetlands from housing developments and new superstores, but he almost always loses, not just because the developers have money, but the community doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.
Afterall, what’s a few old oak and birch trees in a little puddle of a swamp compared to miles of marsh in Scandinavia? What’s a grassy hill to a distant mountain range?
Well, to the duck, to the heron, to the bluebird, and to precious few people, I’d say it’s Everything.
I love to travel myself, and I know people probably don’t know that when they say “why is our wildlife/plant life etc. so lame” that they’re contributing to an attitude of rejecting what unique beauty we do have,
But
I hope one day people can see the wonder nearby and fight to protect it. I hope there’s something left to protect.
Anyway…..where do u keep your cups I want some water.
