rickeyainsworth

"Happy the hare at morning for she cannot know the waking hunter’s thoughts."

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:11:00 -0400

“Happy the hare at morning for she cannot know the waking hunter’s thoughts.”

- W. H. Auden (dead poet, honorary cool cat, and grandmaster of always looking like you just knocked on his door at 11:30 PM looking for a place to crash.)

El de segundo lugar recibirá un juego de cuchillos.

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 23:51:47 -0400

El de segundo lugar recibirá un juego de cuchillos.

The universe’s melancholiest bumper cars. Do I really even...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:58:55 -0400

The universe’s melancholiest bumper cars. Do I really even need to add the Pripyat tag?

Via hanszinsli.

Photo

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:36:14 -0400

"The Wolves of Paris were a man-eating wolf pack that killed forty people in Paris in 1450. The..."

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:57:15 -0400

“The Wolves of Paris were a man-eating wolf pack that killed forty people in Paris in 1450. The animals entered the city during the winter through breaches in its walls. A wolf named Courtaud, or Bobtail, was the leader of the pack. Eventually, the wolves were killed when Parisians, furious at the deaths, lured Courtaud and his pack into the heart of the city. There the Parisians stoned and speared to death the wolves at the parvis of Notre Dame Cathedral.”

- Via Whoa-kipedia.

Cartographer Fra Mauro’s mappamundi, ca. 1450...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:50:00 -0400

Cartographer Fra Mauro’s mappamundi, ca. 1450 CE.

I’ve always loved this south-is-up depiction of Europe, Asia, and Africa. When I let my gaze wander from detail to detail, it feels like I’m looking through the eyes of some astonished Old World scholar.

Out of all the things I love, writing is the one I hate the most.

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:49:41 -0400

"Yeah. I love my nerves. Jessie much. Rickey Ainsworth. This is in regards to the Sam that was sent..."

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:45:14 -0400

“Yeah. I love my nerves. Jessie much. Rickey Ainsworth. This is in regards to the Sam that was sent to us here at G. Portion of the soonest that we can get. Sally on Monday. Yeah your appliances would be. My.”

- I can’t bring myself to listen to the audio of this message. Google Voice transforms my mundane to arcane, and I don’t want to ruin it by peeking behind the curtain.

The above scenario is exactly what Joseph Campbell was talking...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:25:34 -0400

The above scenario is exactly what Joseph Campbell was talking about in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). To quote his classic synopsis of humanity’s omnipresent monomyth:

A giant monkeyfirebear ventures forth from the world of common Tokyo into a Tokyo of supernatural wonder: fabulous giant monkeytigersnakes are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the giant monkeyfirebear comes back from this skyscraperious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow giant monkeyfirebears.

(Image via MONSTER BRAINS blog.)

The south pole of Jupiter. Unusual perspectives are neat.

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:41:55 -0500

The south pole of Jupiter. Unusual perspectives are neat.

porcupineschool: Earth from Mars (by NASA on The Commons)

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:21:22 -0500

porcupineschool:

Earth from Mars (by NASA on The Commons)

Quick attempt at capturing my writing workflow, as part of a...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:06:25 -0500

Quick attempt at capturing my writing workflow, as part of a larger project. No sources, no destinations; just cataloging how words bounce around within my local network.

My system feels clean. It’s reliable. It’s a machine that gives me access to everything I make, anywhere I go, while the gears and pulleys stay out of sight, letting me concentrate on much more interesting things. In the entirety of my digital world, this is probably the coolest, most streamlined system I have.

Not that you could tell by looking at this rat’s nest.

publiccollectors: From The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:22:59 -0500

publiccollectors:

From The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, Bantam Books, New York, 1967.

via merlin

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:22:40 -0500

via merlin

A few friends and family members have been asking me about the...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:01:00 -0400

Hubble image of the Whirlpool Galaxy

Location of the Whirlpool Galaxy

The M51 supernova: before and after

A few friends and family members have been asking me about the recent, well-publicized supernova in M51, a.k.a. the Whirlpool Galaxy. If you’ve also been hoping to catch a glimpse of this massive stellar explosion, these images (specifically the bottom two) might help you find it.

From a dark location, with a small telescope or even a good pair of binoculars, you might be able to pick out the Whirlpool Galaxy as a faint, hazy patch near the Big Dipper’s handle. You’ll be able to see much more detail through a large telescope, and if you look soon, you might even catch a glimpse of the supernova itself.

While you’re viewing it, consider that this object/event, which we see as a tiny pinpoint of light, is a star 10x the size of our Sun, exploding with the energy of roughly 10 trillion hydrogen bombs.

Also consider that the Whirlpool Galaxy is roughly 23 (+/- 4) million light years away. Which means that, although we can watch this stellar explosion tonight, its light had to travel through space for 23 million years before ever reaching our eyes. When we look into the cosmos, we look into the distant past.

If you want to see the supernova, and you’re in Grand Rapids, Michigan, consider heading out to the James C. Veen Observatory or Calvin [College] Observatory, both of which host regular public nights, weather permitting.

If you’re from elsewhere, contact your community’s local amateur astronomy club, planetarium, or observatory, and they’ll happily steer you in the right direction.

Happy stargazing!

Photo

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 02:01:13 -0400

porcupineschool: “Look at that, you son of a bitch!”

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:10:24 -0400

porcupineschool:

“Look at that, you son of a bitch!”

Beautiful, stark, haunting slices of pseudo-Pyongyang, by...

Sun, 22 May 2011 23:49:24 -0400

Beautiful, stark, haunting slices of pseudo-Pyongyang, by Charlie Crane.

szymon: Abandoned Yugoslavian Monuments by Jan Kempenaers

Sat, 21 May 2011 11:29:26 -0400

szymon:

Abandoned Yugoslavian Monuments by Jan Kempenaers

Muldoon and Halloran. Cooler cats? There. Are. None. Via The...

Fri, 20 May 2011 01:26:00 -0400

Muldoon and Halloran. Cooler cats? There. Are. None. Via The Naked City, 1948.