Tag: cool

irenydraws:

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so quite a lot of people expressed interest in a guide to lion dance! and since the lunar new year is coming up in a couple weeks, which means everyone’s exposure to lions is probably going to increase, i figured i’d go ahead and make it! right click + open in new tab to fullview, etc etc, i hope it’s helpful, although if you only take one thing away from this powerpoint, it’s this: lions are not dragons

disclaimer: i learned fut san style at an american university, and the senior members of the troupe were almost all from hong kong and taiwan, so most of my knowledge is drawn from what they taught me. lion dance varies widely depending on the style and the country of origin, and many schools do things differently! this is just an attempt to establish a baseline and give you a really basic intro to one of my favorite art forms. 🙂

rgfellows:

So, in my art history class today, my professor was talking about something that is so fuckin awesome.

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These are warrior shields from the Wahgi people of Papua New Guinea. The warriors paint them with imagery meant to symbolize animals who have traits they wish to embody in battle. These depictions are intended to give the person using it the powers of what they’re depicting.

Now. Look at this Wahgi shield:

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Hmm. That looks a bit different from the others.

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That looks VERY different. Why, it looks like

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The Phantom… American comic book character by Lee Falk. And that’s because it is.

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The Wahgi people were isolated from the rest of the “modern” world until 1933. They came into contact with WWII service men who shared some aspects of western culture with the tribesmen. In particular, they showed them the comic books they read while shipped out. The Wahgi loved them. In particular, the Wahgi adored the stories of the Phantom, who wasn’t even particularly popular in its home of America.

He is so popular that the few Wahgi who can read english will read the comics out loud in the village center and hold out the pages for everyone to see, so the whole tripe can enjoy them and marvel at the Phantom’s might in battle.

They identify with the Phantom because he came from a jungle territory, like them, wore a mask to fight, like them, and came from a long line of warriors, which the Wahgi, who worshiped their ancestors, deeply respected. Further, despite not really having superpowers, the Phantom is strong, clever, and incredibly fast. He was so fast that his enemies began to believe that he was impervious to bullets and could not be killed.

Therefore, the Wahgi began painting HIM on their shields to invoke HIS abilities in battle. There are TONS of Phantom-Wahgi shields out there.

So, you might think that you’re huge comic book fan, but the Wahgi have taken their Phantom fandom to the next level and have made the Phantom a fucking talisman to carry into battle for strength.

swanjolras:

man this has been said before by cleverer folks than me, but sometimes you have to sit down and let the sheer size and age of the storytelling tradition just completely overwhelm you, ja feel?

like— think for a second about how mind-bogglingly incredible it is that we know who osiris is? that somebody just made him up one day, and told stories about him to their kids, and literally thousands and thousands of years later we are still able to go “there was a god whose brother cut him into pieces”, it’s so arbitrary, it’s so incredible

that in talking about scheherazade and her husband, you are doing something that someone in every single generation has done since it was written— you are telling stories that have lasted an impossible amount of time 

can you conceive of telling a story, and then traveling into the future and hearing that same story told— with alterations, and through media that you could not possibly conceive of, but your story— in the year 3214?

the fact that we! as a species! have been telling the same damn stories for so long— the fact that we’ve seen homer’s troy and chaucer’s troy and shakespeare’s troy and troy with fucking brad pitt because we never fucking stop telling stories! never ever ever!

we never stop caring about stories, or returning to the same stories, or putting our own spins on stories. we never stop talking about the characters as if they were real, or asking what happened next, or asking to hear it again.

generation after generation, they never ever ever stop mattering to us.

typette:

mucholderthen:

Found! First Earth-Size Planet That Could Potentially Support Life
Astronomers have discovered a planet about the size of Earth,
orbiting its star in the zone where oceans of liquid water would be possible.

From Space.com

A study of the newly-found planet indicates it could have an Earth-like atmosphere and water at its surface. The planet Kepler-186f is the fifth planet of the star Kepler-186, 490 light-years away.

The planet has 1.11 times the Earth’s mass. Its radius is 1.1 times that of Earth. Kepler-186f orbits at 32.5 million miles (52.4 million kilometers) from its parent star. Its year is 130 Earth days. 

The planet orbits Kepler-186, an M-type dwarf star less than half as massive as the sun. Because the star is cooler than the sun, the planet receives solar energy less intense than that received by Mars in our solar system, despite the fact that Kepler-186f orbits much closer to its star.

guys this isn’t just some science jerk-offery. This is legitimately the first confirmed exoplanet that fulfils all of NASA’s main prerequisites, same mass, same density, rocky, right zone in terms of heat, it may even have an atmosphere.

Soon we’re launching a satellite code named “Star Shade”, which although it sounds badass is literal- it’s a massive unfurling shade that will allow a powerful telescope to TAKE PHOTOS of these goddamn planets, no doubt this one will be first on the list, to see what they look like.

PHOTOS, EVERYBODY. PHOTOS.

I say we name it in honour of Carl Sagan who first brought serious investigation into finding exoplanets in a time where people didn’t even believe they existed, yet.