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A few things to distract you from the brutish wintry clutches of... mid-March. Springtime, my ass.

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You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

- Mary Oliver

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Artist of the Day: Craig Dongoski

Craig, on his artwork:

My most recent body of work entitled Durations, begun in 2007, represents a break from my technological-rooted work Drawing Voices, which set out to explore, catalogue and use the aural artifact made by inscription as a viable tool for communicative expression. Durations is a return to basic drawing approaches using basic materials. The rate of the execution of these drawings is exceptionally slow. They mimic visually and conceptually the building of stratification over geological time and the sound waves as seen in oscilloscopes and spectrograms. One could think of my method being inverted in that rather than responding to a sound that yields a pictorial result [e.g. Drawing Voices], I am responding to a visual [line] that yields the appearance of a spectrographic result. I also see these works as internal expressions. The slow and obsessive nature of the process literally places me within the work through the meditative [sic] produced through its creation.

Additionally, I would like to mention that my work has always been primarily focused on exploring process. The mission and motivation of my work continues to strive to be immersed in an ever-changing method. I re-invigorate my process through a heartened effort to remain curious. Another source of satisfaction motivating my desire to continue evolving my methods are potential outcomes and possibilities to converse with other artists, thinkers and the community.

visit Craig's website, here!

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Single Ladies, via XKCD

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Today's beautiful man: Korean model Choi Ho Jin

yum. :D

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And last, but not least: A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE FLOW-CHART!

via A World On Fire [Zombie Blog]

For every professional zombie slayer out there who handles a shotgun like he were Jimmi Hendrix at Woodstock, there are at least two dozen Moe, Larry,and Curly’s running amock either getting eaten by zombies or getting in the way of buckshot.

Of course, every single person who is reading this site is definitely a professional otherwise, you’d be thumbing through a glamor magazine right now or watching reruns of American Idol. But, when the zombies do start stumbling down the street, I’ll bet you cold hard cash that if you aren’t near a Moe or Larry or Curly, there would probably be a Shemp just beyond your peripheral vision. These people will act as zombie magnets, and they latch onto you the moment you start showing the slightest bit of rational thought.

How do you get rid of them? Give them this wonderfully handy flowchart that details a variety of different zombie situations and how to deal with them. Then run. As fast as your legs will move. Chances are, they’ll get eaten as they read it, but at least you won’t be around.

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That's it. : )

wildcoyote

Night Watch

via XKCD

via MotherNatureNetwork

via my hard drive

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A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

via Duke Leto Atreides, from Dune (1984)

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via Explosm.net
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fin

wildcoyote

Bienvenido, Primavera

Today's Featured Artist: Benjamin Anderson

About the "Just Add Water" series:

In a series of 14 paintings that blend themes of beauty, war and materialism, Anderson uses water as his visual vehicle. Diluting and distorting the lines of perception and beauty, the artist utilizes both realism and abstraction in his vision to relegate the importance of the material world to simple forms and shapes. Finding beauty in the ugly and ugly in the beautiful, the concept of Just Add Water takes on a new meaning in these paintings.

visit Ben's site, here.

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In Related News:
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I am loving the music in this video of a hummingbird:
via Pharyngula

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and a quote...
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Living is a form of not being sure. Not knowing what's next or how. The more you know, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.

- Agnes Demille

'Ao': Blue by Paul Binnie

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and a boy...
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a beautiful, exotic magic brown man named Lavrenti Lopes:

welcome to March!

wildcoyote

Shift

Today is a day for dreams.

Today is a day for endless possibilities, distant horizons, and imminent adventure.

Today is for you; today is for me.

Today does not care about yesterday, and does not wait for tomorrow.

Today is the dawn of the realization of hopes, of goals, of the rewards of hard work.

Today is the fulfillment of desire.

Today is in your hands.

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Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in the lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists…it is real… it is possible… it’s yours.

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
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featured artist: Mark Langan

Well versed and adept with numerous artistic mediums, Mark has concentrated his focus since the year 2004 by working strictly with a reclaimed material. A rather unlikely choice for which he creates fantastic sculptural works using nothing more than mere corrugated boxes, non-toxic glue, a razor knife, a cutting edge and mat. Artwork that is intriguing and unique because of its composition but also cries out making the visual statement…reduce, reuse, recycle!

visit Mark's site, here.

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And in the news, we have:
(via NYTimes.com)

Despite Signs of Recovery, Long Term Unemployment Rises

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Some labor experts say the basic functioning of the American economy has changed in ways that make jobs scarce.

Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 — the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks.

From the Clash of White Dwarfs, the Birth of a Supernova

For the last 20 years, astronomers seeking to measure the cosmos have used a special type of exploding star, known as Type 1a supernovas, as distance markers. They are thought to result when stars known as white dwarfs grow beyond a certain weight limit, setting off a thermonuclear cataclysm that is not only bright enough to be seen across the universe but is also remarkably uniform from one supernova to the next. Using them, two teams of astronomers a little more than a decade ago reached the startling and now widely held conclusion that some “dark energy” was speeding up the expansion of the universe.
But astronomers have not been able to agree on how the white dwarf gains its fatal weight and explodes, whether by slowly grabbing material from a neighboring star or by crashing into another white dwarf. These observations leave open the possibility that accreting dwarfs might be responsible for more of the supernovas in spiral galaxies like our own, which tend to have younger, more massive stars.

Devastating Earthquake Strikes Chile

A deadly, 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday, collapsing buildings, shattering major bridges and highways across a long swath of the country, and sending tsunami warnings along the entire Pacific basin. The earthquake struck at 3:34 a.m. in central Chile, centered roughly 200 miles southwest of Santiago, at a depth of 22 miles. 122 deaths have been confirmed within the first 12 hours of the quake, doubtless with many more to follow.
The earthquake occurred along the same fault responsible for the biggest quake ever measured, a 1960 tremor (9.5-magnitude) that killed thousands in Chile and hundreds more across the Pacific. Both earthquakes took place along a fault line where the Nazca tectonic plate, the section of the earth’s crust that lies under much of the Eastern Pacific Ocean south of the Equator, is sliding beneath another section, the South American plate. The two are converging at a rate of about three and a half inches per year.
Earthquake experts said the strains built up by that movement, plus the stresses added along the fault line by the 1960 quake and smaller ones in the intervening years, led to the rupture on Saturday along what is estimated to be about 400 miles of the fault. The quake generated a tsunami, with wave heights of about five feet recorded along the Chilean coast and larger waves forecast for Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific.
This earthquake appears to have no connection to a magnitude 6.9 quake that struck off the southern coast of Japan on Saturday, nor to the magnitude 7.0 quake that occurred in Haiti on January 12th.

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That's about it for today.

wildcoyote

Friday

Friday's feature:

Jared Leto

Actor, singer, and otherwise incarnation of human perfection

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I also have the spontaneous urge to discuss my Zodiac sign:

Aries

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, the leaders of the pack, first in line to get things going. Whether or not everything gets done is another question altogether, for an Aries prefers to initiate rather than to complete. The leadership displayed by Aries is most impressive, so don't be surprised if they can rally the troops against seemingly insurmountable odds -- they have that kind of personal magnetism. An Aries won't shy away from new ground, either. Those born under this sign are often called the pioneers of the zodiac, and it's their fearless trek into the unknown that often wins the day. Aries is a bundle of energy and dynamism, leading people along with its charm and charisma. The dawning of a new day -- and all of its possibilities -- is pure bliss to an Aries.

The symbol of Aries is the Ram, and that's both good and bad news. Impulsive Aries might be tempted to ram their ideas down everyone's throats without even bothering to ask if they want to know.Along with those qualities comes the sheer force of the Aries nature, a force that can actually accomplish a great deal. Much of Aries' drive to compete and to win comes from its Cardinal Quality. Cardinal Signs love to get things going, and Aries exemplifies this even better than Cancer, Libra or Capricorn.

Aries is ruled by Mars, the God of War. Unafraid to do battle, these folks are bold, aggressive and courageous. They can summon up the inner strength required to take on most anyone, and they'll probably win. Aries do not lack energy or vitality, and they can stay in the game longer than most anyone else. Now that's a winning edge. Rams are also, for the most part, independent and well aware of their own interests in a given situation.

The element associated with Aries is Fire. Think action, enthusiasm and a burning desire to play the game. Aries love physicality, so they won't sit on the sidelines for long, if at all. They'll jump into the fray full force and will contribute much in the process. Aries also play as hard as they work ;)

In personal relationships, Aries natives are frank, high-spirited, direct and candid. They make for enthusiastic and generous friends, but need to curb their competitive impulses and the manner in which those impulses affect those around them. Subjects of this Sign also need to learn how to temper their natural aggressiveness and use reason--coupled with diplomacy--when dealing with others. Since those governed by Aries like to get their own way and often pit the wishes of self against what is best for any partnership, this can frequently lead to conflict. The capacity for deep affection should result in faithfulness with regard to both love and friendship, but these natives need to guard against an inclination toward jealousy and/or over-possessiveness.

The great strength of the Aries-born is in their initiative, courage and determination. These folks love to get things going and are fearless along the way. Their dynamism and competitive spirit add considerably to any of their endeavors.

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yep. that's me in a nutshell.

wildcoyote

Hiatus

Dear Modern Synthesis:

I am terribly sorry for being entirely too preoccupied to post for a week. Oh well; life happens.

Let's get down to business:

Today's featured artist:

Morgan Blair, from Brooklyn, NY

visit Morgan's wildly colorful website,

here

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And we have a quote for today:

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

- Isaac Asimov

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A couple of worth-while articles to read and consider:

Reduced Brain Size of Homo floresiensis Hints at Her Likely Ancestors

this is from Anthropology.net

...And, for the record, brains tend to UTTERLY DISINTEGRATE over time (sometimes, the brain case is filled in with minerals, a process called petrification, but this does not happen often.)

Using cranial cavity volume as a general estimate of brain size is legitimate, but theorizing over compositional elements like an expanded neocortex, and comparing these theoretical measurements with those of other extant primate species, is bad science. It can't really be proven or dis-proven.

However, these fellows' study makes an interesting case for using new investigative scientific techniques to re-examing evolutionary and phylogenetic relationships.

This article comes complete with abstract, summarized conclusion, and additional scientific criticism and commentary. ENJOY!

Spinster Aunt Begins Post with "I", Tells Anecdote

from IBlameThePatriarchy

I Blame The Patriarchy is the patriarchy-blaming blog that has been advancing the radical feminist views of Jill Psmith and/or Twisty Faster, a gentleman farmer and spinster aunt doing the butt-dance in Cottonmouth County, Texas since 2004.

This hilarious article is (mostly) about the hideousness of chanting and brainwashing that comes along with organized religion; in this case, it just happens to be Christianity (imagine that).

here's an excerpt:

I recently blew out a lobe laughing a cold, ulcerated laugh. It happened yesterday, when my sibling Tidy told me a sad tale of Christian insanity, which tale I now relate to you, right after I bore you with some background details.

For reasons that, to my surprise, turned out to be none of my goddam business, Tidy has started sending my niece Rotel to one of those honky upper-middle-class god-affiliated schools where the kids wear uniforms and attend mandatory “chapel” sessions. For the past few months I have been nervously eyeballing the child, ever alert for signs that the faithy godbag indoctrination has begun to take, so that I might countermand that moron crap with an auntly intervention of Question Authority-ism. So far it’s been all clear, which is why it was quite a jolt when, during a recent babysitting gig, young Rotel broke into song, and the song she broke into was not “Fried Ham, Fried Ham, Cheese and Baloney,” but a horrifying ditty about dewdrops of mercy and Jesus and how he is the “light of the world.” The goopy dewdroppy Jesosity blew my mind. There was only one possible response.

“Holy shit!” I said... read on...

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To end the post, let's finish with a comic, via XKCD