Extinct, not dead

A Mandaic curse bowl in the Royal Ontario Museum. It has a spiraling Mandaic text that leads to an encircled x at the center.

This Super Bowl Sunday, I’d like to introduce you all to the magical curse bowls used in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria in late antiquity. Written in Mandaic (as here) or Syriac Aramaic, they trap demons who trespass on a household by sucking them in with spiraling spells to the center of the bowl.

a small owl is sitting on top of a green carpet . Alt: a small owl sits on a green perch with a person's hand gently petting it. When the person places their hand on the owl's head, it closes its eyes, looking comfortable and happy.

May all your owls be superb, today and every day

The March for Life bringing measles to DC feels like another thing that would be written for a satire but since satire is dead it's reality.

Young Anton Chekhov, the playwright, looking super hot in his 20s

Wait, THIS is young Anton Chekhov? This? Good lord. Let that gun go off, daddy

I think I mentioned this before, but I hope my all fellow Gen Xers have a recent measles booster. I discovered I was below immunity level after my doctor thought I should get tested. (And it won’t hurt you to get one even if you don’t need to.)

There are zillions, whining about how hard it is. “Stare at the page until drops of blood” etc.

In my experience, talent is a *detriment* to learning.

I didn't have to practice early on so I *didn't know how*. I didn't start to learn how to practice until my 30s! (When much of my life was taken up with parenting, so I didn't have time!)

I didn't start to improve as a musician until my 40s!

Digital illustration in a black and white graphite style. An anthropomorphic hot dog with mustard wearing a straw boater, gloves, big wingtip shoes, and carrying a cane is doing an outrageous strut. The background is piled with the phrase ’ maybe it will happen today’.

Look: An Unexpected Arts Experience in Arlington, Virginia — Look: An Unexpected Arts Experience In an uncertain world, art matters . . . embrace creativity, community, and fun at this POP-UP Programmed Art Gallery in a vacant commercial space in Arlington. Over three weekends, the transformed sp...

Upcoming art thing in Arlington, VA. www.lookarlington.com/about

You know, when I think about the people complaining that they can’t make art without AI because they don’t have the resources, I will now always think about how Douriean Fletcher started out by making jewelry with things she found at Home Depot. Brass wire, copper flashing, bamboo.

Just because good news is worth celebrating:

There is now a Prep medication that is an *every six month* injection.

HIV has, effectively, a vaccination.

This Clever Phishing Scheme Makes Fake Websites Look Legit This new phishing scheme uses lookalike characters (homographs) to trick users into thinking a malicious URL is legit.

Just now learning about “homoglyphs” — though I was an atavistic defender of serifs long before the current age of “Weird A.I.” … lifehacker.com/tech/this-cl...

This New Hotel Reservation Scam Is Fooling People Who Use Sites Like Booking.com If you've booked a hotel through a platform like Booking.com or Expedia, beware any communication that directs you to confirm your payment details to hold your reservation.

A scammer just tried exactly this on me via WhatsApp. Glad I saw a post here recently outlining the scam - it would be very easy to fall for. The “hotel” account had an unconvincing name, but they had my name, number & reservation dates. lifehacker.com/money/hotel-...

I wish I had received (& heeded) this advice long ago. Instead I had so many gleefully miserable quotes from writers who seemed to hate doing it. (Assemblage sculpture I actually like doing.)

Accidentally found a Sandman reference in Wikipedia that has NG borrowing Shakespeare’s Titania but fails to catch that, in partnering her with Auberon, he is actually stealing from Little, Big.

I would definitely read this story/ watch this limited series!

Somehow this struck me as a Stranger Things “upside-down” chest freezer and now I want them to make one that is more so.

"On one hand, here's this actual thing happening in pop culture. On the other hand, here's some wet garbage we found while searching behind that abandoned dumpster in the woods where all those kids died of tetanus last year. Which will be more popular? We asked two rabid raccoons."

I adore you for not seeing it & for doing this instead. This is the best.

The only review of “Melania” I needed (to google “apophatic” while reading).

I am so sorry; it’s really hard. My heart is with you and your family.

I both completely agree with this and am totally charmed when someone like Christopher Walken turns out to be a triple threat (but he just sang in, like, his opening monologue on SNL; he didn’t suddenly start a rock band…)

One of the reasons I so greatly dislike the “can men and women be friends?” nonsense (yes, full stop, shut up) is that it casts suspicion on people with opposite-sex friends instead of where it more often belongs: on people with no opposite-sex friends.

I don’t know if this is my most detailed art, but it took a long time & I actually measured carefully (scale and shape based on an actual schooner). Most of my things are not representational.

That is a *drawing*?! Staggeringly wonderful.

A woman in a long crocheted vest (or crocheted minidress?) and a 5-year-old girl sit on the floor, intently stringing a box loom. Newspaper caption: “Floor Serves As Work Area.” Dateline is Manassas, Virginia, 2/6/1974. Dang, I should have waited and posted this tomorrow.

I stagram is really (intentionally) broken. I posted this pic with the hashtag “my mother the hippie” and then clicking the tag pulls up a lot of totally unrelated posts NOT tagged that. Hopi women, references to Mother Nature, etc. Useless!

But anyway check it out… Floor Serves As Work Area 😊

😂

Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.

Thank you; i love it!

Giving unsolicited advice is one of my bad habits (hey, it has “vice” right in the name!)

Bonus points if it is advice I am not currently following myself.