Dinotopia is a fictional utopia created by author and illustrator James Gurney. It is the setting for the book series with which it shares its name. Dinotopia is an isolated island inhabited by shipwrecked humans and sentient dinosaurus who have learned to coexist peacefully as a single symbiotic society. The first book has “appeared in 18 languages in more than 30 countries and sold two million copies.”Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time and Dinotopia: The World Beneath both won Hugo awards for best original artwork.
God these images still send this ENTIRE thrill through me. They just evoke that feeling of being a child with a book too large for you, staying for so long on a single picture that you feel like you could turn around in it.
Gurney consistently produces a world that feels completely reasonable and real. The color, the light, the relationships between fore- and background,
the fact that it seems like a real world, where people are engaging in perfectly reasonable cultural activities…
The natural gestures, implying the personalities and relationships of characters in a single image…
And it’s quite creative. I mean, look at this pair of bagel sellers. WHAT A GREAT WAY TO SELL BAGELS?
The story of the Distant Goddess is absolute proof that it’s a crime that Ancient Egyptian mythology hasn’t entered the popular conciousness in the same way as Greek stuff.
Short, super paraphrased version: Ra is sick of humanity being rebellious wee bastards, so he sends a goddess as an embodiment of his vengeance, usually Sekhmet in the form of a great fuckoff lion – first to the southern deserts to wipe out the followers of Set. She does so, and then for unspecified reasons, Ra decides maybe humanity is redeemable hey call off the murderlion. But being an embodiment of pure divine retribution, she isn’t really having it.
So Ra sends Thoth out in an effort to soothe the goddess before she arrives in the north and wipes out everything including the gods (she’s just that strong). He’s terrified, but he tries all sorts of cunning and wisdom and trickery and tells her moral tales and all that, but all he can do is delay her.
In the meantime, Ra’s priests of the north are hard at work. They brew thousands of barrels of beer, and mix pots and pots red dye. And when the goddess inevitably arrives, they mix it up and pour it into the reeds of the nile. Believing it to be the spilled blood of her enemies, she drinks it up proudly… And gets EXTREMELY drunk, calming down and transforming into Hathor, goddess of joy and love.
And once a year to celebrate this momentous occasion, Egyptians would get Absolutely Plastered.
I didn’t find details on the exact date, but some cross-googling suggests the festival occured around the start of the Nile flood season, which is in mid-July.
Anyone got a more precise date?
Well, the traditional beginning of the flood season varies from year to year based on the first rise of the star Sirius before sunrise, and also marks the beginning of the ancient Egyptian new year. The Festival of Drunkenness would be held about 20 days after that.
Sirius’ rise – which varies around the world based on longitude, but basing it on Egypt for consistency’s sake – happens on the 24th of July in 2018.
So if you want to get smashed on behalf of an angry cat, the 13th of August is the day to mark down.
Today’s the day fuckers, get smashed on behalf of a cat.
My friend, ten minutes after picking me up at 30th Street Station yesterday: Hey, tomorrow do you want to walk around The Woodlands and visit the grave of the person whose parties inspired Satan’s Ball in The Master and Margarita?
Me: …YES.
William C. Bullitt was the first American ambassador to the USSR, serving in that role from 1933 to 1936. After a 1934 Christmas party whose entertainments included a trio of sea lions (one of which later escaped into the streets of Moscow), he decided to host a Spring Festival in 1935 that would be an even more spectacular extravaganza. Mikhail Bulgakov and his wife Elena Sergeevna were among the five hundred guests. Elena recorded her impressions of the event in her diary:
“They danced in a room with columns lit by streams of light coming from a gallery; behind a gate which separated them from the orchestra, there were living pheasants and other birds. We had dinner at small tables in a huge dining room with, in a corner, living baby bears, goats and roosters in cages. During dinner, musicians played the accordion.
“In the room where we had dinner, the table where we were sitting was covered with a green transparent cloth lit from inside. There were armfuls of tulips and roses. I do not mention the abundance of food and champagne. On the upper floor (it is a big and luxurious mansion) they had arranged a room with a grill room for shashlik and people were doing Caucasian dances.
“We wanted to leave the place at half past three but they did not allow us to leave. We left at half past five in one of the cars of the embassy. A certain Shteiger, I believe, a man whom we do not know but whom all Moscow knows and who can always be found when there are foreigners, joined us in the car. He was sitting next to the driver and we were in the rear. It was already daylight when we arrived home.”
(In addition to Bullitt being an inspiration for Woland, the Shteiger mentioned in the last paragraph was Boris Sergeevich Shteiger, who was the basis for Baron Meigel in the novel.)
Glad Behemoth made it home safely, and also LOLing at this line from the article about the novel: “Many believe it to be a satirical look at life under the communist system.” Like? What else? Would it be?
Okay so I love things with Peter and Shuri confusing the others with memes but consider this…
Steve Rodgers has been studying pop culture to try to “get with the times”. He probably doesn’t know how much the average adult knows, so this man has seen ALL of the memes, just because he thought that they were common knowledge.
Peter and Shuri: THIS BITCH EMPTY
Steve, without looking up from his phone: yeet
Peter and Shuri: I’d do anything fow you Captain Amewica-
Steve, without even a hint of malice in his voice: Then perish.
C A N O N
peter and shuri: mr. white wolf i would die for you
steve: Big Mood
Big mood
Shuri: I’m a lesbian
Steve, unbothered: I thought you were American
Shuri: So I’m sitting there
Steve, unbothered on his phone : Barbecue sauce on my titties
Shuri: And they were roommates–
Steve, not looking up from the article he’s reading, quietly: Oh my god, they were roommates.
Peter: Road work ahead??
Steve, turning on his blinker: Yeah, I sure hope it does
steve, holding back thanos with his Bare Hands: iM a bAd BiTCH you CANt kill mEE
But also Steve quite likely watched Marx Brothers movies, etc., back in the day:
I need to be the hottest person at the grocery store
This perfectly captures my ridiculous inner monologue that revolves around impressing other people in the most oblique ways
I need to figure out which day is dress-up day at the grocery store. See, usually I’m shopping and everyone’s wearing the average range of streetwear, but there’ve been a couple of afternoons where I’ve spotted multiple people garbed for Studio 54 in its heyday, and I need to get into that loop.
My friend, ten minutes after picking me up at 30th Street Station yesterday: Hey, tomorrow do you want to walk around The Woodlands and visit the grave of the person whose parties inspired Satan’s Ball in The Master and Margarita?
Me: …YES.
William C. Bullitt was the first American ambassador to the USSR, serving in that role from 1933 to 1936. After a 1934 Christmas party whose entertainments included a trio of sea lions (one of which later escaped into the streets of Moscow), he decided to host a Spring Festival in 1935 that would be an even more spectacular extravaganza. Mikhail Bulgakov and his wife Elena Sergeevna were among the five hundred guests. Elena recorded her impressions of the event in her diary:
“They danced in a room with columns lit by streams of light coming from a gallery; behind a gate which separated them from the orchestra, there were living pheasants and other birds. We had dinner at small tables in a huge dining room with, in a corner, living baby bears, goats and roosters in cages. During dinner, musicians played the accordion.
“In the room where we had dinner, the table where we were sitting was covered with a green transparent cloth lit from inside. There were armfuls of tulips and roses. I do not mention the abundance of food and champagne. On the upper floor (it is a big and luxurious mansion) they had arranged a room with a grill room for shashlik and people were doing Caucasian dances.
“We wanted to leave the place at half past three but they did not allow us to leave. We left at half past five in one of the cars of the embassy. A certain Shteiger, I believe, a man whom we do not know but whom all Moscow knows and who can always be found when there are foreigners, joined us in the car. He was sitting next to the driver and we were in the rear. It was already daylight when we arrived home.”
(In addition to Bullitt being an inspiration for Woland, the Shteiger mentioned in the last paragraph was Boris Sergeevich Shteiger, who was the basis for Baron Meigel in the novel.)
Mooncustafer 