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I went back to the American Museum of Natural History after about 8 years. I plan on going back as frequently as I can (it’s free with my student ID!) This might have been the best thing I saw and learned on my last trip.

Even ichthyologists cannot always identify a fish species just by looking at it from the outside. So they use a technique that makes flesh transparent, which lets them see the fish’s internal anatomy without cutting it open.

Clearing and staining can help scientists distinguish similar species, determine evolutionary relationships-and even see whether a male seahorse is carrying eggs! Before CT scans were available, clearing and staining was the best way to see inside an intact specimen, and the process is still widely used today.

Matthew Barney suspended himself in this space to draw those squiggles that feature his Cremaster Cycle logo (he calls them “Field Emblems”). Not a good shot since you can’t tell the sizes of things but this is a pretty large and cavernous space.

The Cremaster films are some of the weirdest things I’ve seen (in a mostly good way).

by Sol DeWitt. ‘Only’ wood and paint but you can stare at this thing forever.

By Martin Puryear. Red cedar, pine, black locust, ash, and rattan.

I am very partial to the benisons of technology and civilization and hence hate camping.

But I did love glamping with the fine folk at Under Canvas in Valle, AZ.

I channeled a lot of Tom Haverford:

Statue of a Seated Woman from 101 CE–200 CE. “Here the figure’s head and arms, now missing, were made separately and attached by means of dowels, the holes for which are visible.”

This was a kind of template (one of a few) for noblewomen, goddesses, and other exalted female figures.

A most nonsensical thing I heard about mobiles from one of the most annoying and odious characters in television:

And so that the meaning of the mobile stems not only from its form, but the relationship between the pieces, which gives it its meaning. And I suppose the relationship between the pieces is really where it’s at, isn’t it?

From the Sui (581-618 CE) and Tang (618-907 CE) Dynasties.

Reminded me of the fluid and flowy stuctures built by the Engineers in the Prometheus movies. Was headed home from after putting away many pounds of food at my aunt’s.

I’ve never used an LUT, which stands for “Look Up Table”, and thought I’d give this one a try. The work is Fall by Allison Saar (2011). I cannot wait to take a picture of it when it snows.

At the Leica store in the Meatpacking District. Love me a good cutaway.

I’m one of those people who inadvertently dedicate a good chunk of their phone’s storage to pictures of their doggy. This might be the best of the lot.

For now.

Snapped this whilst walking the dog around the East Village. It’s a reflection of our State Capitol building. Downtown gets very calm and beautiful in the evenings.

This was my first car, a 1992 Buick LeSabre I christened Brunhilde. I bought it off my friend John for $1,000¹. She was a lovely vehicle and came with bench seats, a CD changer, and boombastic speakers. She braved over 250,000 miles. Every car-person and occasional mechanic would extol the 3800 Series II V6 under the hood with the word “bulletproof” after asserting that it was the “last good engine outta GM”. Just a very solid car. I wonder where she is.

I saw this at the hospital my little niece was born in. It was offered as gift to the maternity unit by a “grateful former patient” and is a Farsi poem by Saadi Shirazi called “Bani Adam”. Here are the first few lines:

Human Beings are members of a whole
In creation of one essence and soul
If one member is inflicted with pain
Other members uneasy will remain
If you have no sympathy for human pain
The name of human you can not pertain

Saadi! I found out much later in life that a powerful French bureaucrat named Lazare Carnot was so enamored by Saadi Shirazi’s poetry that he named his eldest son Sadi (Carnot) of Carnot Cycle fame. We had to memorize this thing (the Carnot Cycle) in high school and I only understood what he was on about about 15 years later.

My favorite watering hole is The Locust Tap. I met this old regular named Phil a while ago. Loves his Jack Daniels. He sets up his homemade telescope outside the place about once or so every week for passersby to peer through in amazement. He’s been doing this for the past twenty years. He let me take this picture through it with my phone. Built his first telescope in 1987.

Lunabear attends to her Mamabear.