Larisa

Thank you! I really like how it came out.

The intro to Cara Romero’s solo exhibit Panûpünüwügai, or Living Light. There’s a photo of a woman (I assumed it was a self-portrait but I didn’t look at the description for this one, so maybe it’s someone else?) mostly buried in white clay, so only her face and arms from below the elbow down are visible. Her hair is arranged in a graceful swoop above her.

Four young boys wearing feather bundles and sunglasses run through an open field in the desert. Behind them is an expansive field of windmills and low mountains in the distance. The full image is a wide panorama, this is a close-up.

A piece from the “First American Dolls” series. A Northern Chumash and Sicangu Lakota woman, Naomi Whitehorse, stands in a small, bright pink space resembling a doll box, wearing clothes and holding items that represent her heritage.

Another piece from the “First American Dolls.” This photo is of Kaitlyn Anderson (Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian), wearing a long dress and holding a ukulele with other items surrounding her against a dark blue background.

My favorite part was the last thing we saw, a solo exhibit by photographer Cara Romero, whose work explores indigenous cultures. My phone died halfway through so my friend has the rest of the photos, but omg, check her out.

Angular painting of a pink flower by Ed Mell. It’s very luminescent.

Wide view of the contemporary art wing at the Phoenix Art Museum, with my friend walking through the frame in silhouette. This was an exhibit called Personal Topographies about connection with the land.

Polar Vista by Kelly Akashi. An assemblage of cut stone, natural materials like branches and petals, and sculpted glass. From the description: “During the Second World War, Executive Order 9066 authorized the forced detention of persons deemed a threat to national security. More than 125,000 individuals of Japanese descent were confined to internment camps in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. To give form to her father's unspoken experience of internment, Kelly Akashi visited the former Poston War Relocation Center in southwest Arizona where tree branches, stones, and earth remain as witnesses to the displacement and resilience of Japanese American families. Through her assembled objects, the past unfolds via multiple timelines: mortal moments, communal histories, and natural life cycles. Calcite stone and compacted earth prompt us to reflect on human experience within the vast scale of geologic time.”

A glowing white square of light by Mary Corse, one of the few women in the Light and Space art movement of the 60s and 70s. My friend is standing in front of it in profile.

The Phoenix Art Museum was amazing. So much great art!

That’s awesome! Hope it goes well.

Young Shaw, my love Keiko Randa, and a guy who I am told is from the Skull Island movie, except Bill Randa is young here too, and they're climbing through the jungle looking at a giant monster and the boys are scared but Keiko has heart eyes because she's my queen

May who is my sweet darling hacker girl standing next to her new girlfriend Cate Randa and her ex boyfriend Kentaro Randa. they were secret siblings who only recently discovered each other b/c their dad failed at polycues too and had two secret families

it's about this 1950s trio who absolutely should have all just gotten married while they were monster hunting, and also their grandkids who are now in a love triangle with this adorable little hacker girl

oh and godzilla is in it too

Brown t-shirt with flowers. In white text it reads "the horrors persist but so does the library."

The back of the shirt has white text reading "read and fight for your rights, woodstock public library."

New Friends of the Library merch dropped and it's good. Here's one of the new shirts: www.bonfire.com/the-horrors-...

i am not a middle east or international relations expert but if you'd asked me if explicitly making the stakes for the iranian regime existential might make them respond as though the stakes for them are existential i'd probably have said yeah

Anyway everyone in Portland go see “Forest Hope Through Innovation” at World Forestry Center between now and August, it’s my favorite “I wrote the grants that helped make this happen” project of the year

I’m at an art gallery show featuring college student artist/scientist teams creating new works about climate hope and I just saw an exhibit on decomposition of fallen trees as a fertile home for other organisms that says “There Is No Death In This Ancient Forest” and it hit so hard I had to sit down

Wait, this just reminded me that I saw a Waymo in Boston this week for the first time. Self-driving cars in Boston??? Of all cities??? You couldn’t pay me to ride in one of those.

Panic! At the Goddamned Disco!!!

I don’t think you could write a script to anticipate the way Boston drivers behave. It’s not just the infrastructure, it’s the need to be constantly on the defensive against deeply erratic, aggressive driving.

Boston:

who even thinks of this shit

what is wrong with these people

Check, Please!: Year Five announcement... Y5 will follow DEX, NURSEY, AND CHOWDER THROUGH THEIR SENIOR YEARS! ✨

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Anyone who argues that AI can do your research for you was not the one who did all the work in the group project

The air quality is not good here, though. I could smell it as soon as I stepped outside, and my lungs felt tight after only 15-20 min outdoors. And this isn’t even summer… yikes.

Some kind of spiky palm thing between some houses. The sky is very blue.

A very large cactus visible over a garden wall. There’s a bird, I think a mockingbird, perched on one of the branches with something in its mouth.

I’m adding so many birds to my life list, y’all can’t tell me anything.

What the heck is a great-tailed grackle? I dunno, but they’re delightfully loud.

Authors Against Book Bans is doing such important work!

You bolt awake in the mountains of Carthage. You are not online. It is 217 BC. You are the general Hannibal, and you have changed your mind. The future cannot come to pass. Rome must burn.

If I stick to East Coast time, we can go visit the Desert Botanical Garden in the morning before it gets too hot! 🌵🌺🌴

I survived the hideously cramped quarters of the flight and am in Phoenix!

One excellent thing about going backwards in time zones is that I can pretend to be on a normal person schedule for a few days. Why hello, 7 am, fancy meeting you here…

Why Your Lamp Sucks Don't search the web for mid-century lighting until you listen to this week's episode.

There's been no innovation in lighting in 50 years. The top sellers are all Modeline knock-offs, made to be disposable with no ingenuity or craftsmanship. The art came out and the spreadsheets went in.
All this is explained in the episode by Nick Ferrell, writer and dealer in modern lamps.

Why Your Lamp Sucks Don't search the web for mid-century lighting until you listen to this week's episode.

We did a really fun episode for Organized Money, and it's about lamps.
And it's really about how monopolies make everything suck.
It's a fascinating story. 🧵
www.organizedmoney.fm/p/why-your-l...

Mamdani is considering ending free street parking in NYC. This would be another huge boost to NYC residents' quality of life, reducing traffic in ways that would be comparable to congestion pricing. And it would be another step in ending suburban free-riding on NYC.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the release of Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, based on his own manga.

A fabulous environmental fable that led to the creation of Ghibli Studios.

At this point it's barely even a boycott, I've just stopped thinking of Target as a place to buy the things I used to buy at Target.

We SHOULD have reporters who are knowledgeable and passionate. Trans people writing about medical access for national papers. Transit nerds with weekly columns about infrastructure. Labor activists writing about unemployment and job markets. Disabled folks writing about social programs.

TIL that USA Today has a Beyoncé reporter. As in, there is one person on staff whose entire job is Beyoncé.

And my objection is not, “why is Beyoncé a whole subject“ — my objection is: more papers should pay passionate, emotionally invested experts for specificity in a LOT more fields.

not to be that guy but didn't he take a bit part in the harry potter audiobooks. like, the new ones. recently. a bit part. like he did a few lines on the "i spend my immense profits on anti-trans policy advocacy" lady's latest project for the prestige