there's our catastrophe

Oct 23

angel haze — wicked moon ft. nicole wray

ahhhhhhhh I know I’m a couple months late on this but I can’t get over how good Reservation is, it’s violent and sad and powerful

I’ve been pro-Angel Haze for a while now but this is really taking it to the next level, every track is amazing

anyway this is a song about childhood abuse, feeling suicidal, the moon, and demonic possession

Jul 1

“When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. “This is often considered to be man’s first attempt at a calendar” she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. ‘My question to you is this – what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman’s first attempt at a calendar.’ It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women’s contributions?”

Sandi Toksvig (via timeasuli)

one of my reasons

(via lovevolve)

Well, if the artifact came from China (which is pretty common for ancient archaeological artifacts), Chinese civilization (like many others) has always gone by the lunar calendar, and a lunar cycle is roughly 28 days. So both women and men throughout Chinese history have marked out 28 day cycles. However, this nitpick doesn’t invalidate the larger point being made, which is that it’s so easy (in fact, we’re indoctrinated) to overlook women’s contributions in basically all areas of civilization and it very well may have been a woman who notched those incisions in that early calendar. (I also maintain the core belief that matriarchal societies were once prevalent and that women have led the way in most human cultural development.) It’s just that in this case, the writer’s assumption that solar calendars are the norm suggest a different kind of cultural assumption.

(via zuky)

great point! also, lunar calendar =/= menstrual calendar, most people who menstruate don’t have a cycle that’s exactly in sync with the moon, and the moon being coded feminine is not universal across cultures. it’s actually pretty unlikely that the original calendar was a menstrual chart. (more.)

(via zuky)

Jun 8

The Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility, Agnes Meyer-Brandis

…While preparing for her weightlessness flight experiment she discovered Frances Godwin’s The Man in the Moone. Completed in 1638, the book is one of the first works of science fiction and the first to describe the notion of weightlessness as the protagonist flies to the Moon in a chariot towed by ‘moon geese’. Fascinated and inspired by the book, Agnes set out to create an exploratory journey to the moon, powered by the flight of her own flock of geese.

Dec 18

anotherhookerblog replied to your post: incomplete list of things I don’t believe exist:

No 2: really?! Oooo-errrrrr

yep! this really pisses people off. sorry everyone, if you believe there is a spiritual or metaphysical connection between the moon and your cycle that’s a personal matter, but if you believe there is a literal physical effect akin to the tides then that is factually incorrect because:

1. PHYSICS. the moon has only been demonstrated to have a measurable effect on very large bodies of water; do you see the water creeping out of your glass every high tide? also, tides are caused by a number of other factors (such as the sun’s gravitational force and the earth’s rotation) in addition to the moon’s gravitational force. moreover, all things exert gravitational force, not just astronomical bodies. The gravitational attraction between two bodies is determined not just by the mass of each but also by their relative proximity. in other words, the K-mart down the street brings more gravitational force to bear on your uterus than the moon does. but I guess that’s less romantic and witchy.

2. TIMING. the cycle of the moon is extremely regular and precise, while menstrual cycles are notoriously irregular and personal. if the moon affected menstruation, most people would bleed at the same time every 27.3 days, barring health problems and similar. this is clearly not the case.

3. ANTHROPOMORPHISM. all placental mammals experience estrous cycles, most of which do not happen on the roughly-once-a-month basis experienced by the majority of menstruating humans.

in short: the fact that human menstrual cycles have a timeline slightly similar to the time it takes for the moon to orbit the earth is pretty much just a coincidence. I know, I wanted to believe too.

Nov 28

Your moons are rubbish, astronomer tells Christmas card artists//Ian Sample//The Guardian

For Barthel, the last straw was a Unicef Christmas card in 2010 that showed three bobble-hatted children decorating a tree on a snowy hill beneath a waning crescent moon. The scene is unlikely, says Barthel. A waning moon, which looks like a “C” in the northern hemisphere, doesn’t rise until around 3am, and reaches the height in the card an hour or two later.

“I don’t think the children would be out at that time,” Barthel says.

… “One cannot exclude the possibility that both artists had the inention to create Australia scenes with reversed moon phases, but the presence of snow in both scenes is strongly suggestive of the northern hemisphere in December,” Barthel says.

omg, best

there's our catastrophe

work is its own cure. you have to like it better than being loved. ⚑ ♀

Your moons are rubbish, astronomer tells Christmas card artists//Ian Sample//The Guardian

work is its own cure. you have to like it better than being loved.

⚑ ♀