False-color image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on April 13, 2021, shows the aftermath of the explosive eruption that took place on April 9, 2021. Credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGOFalse-color image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on April 8, 2021, shows the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent before the explosive eruption. Credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured the above images of La Soufrière before and after its eruption on 9th April.
La Soufrière is an active stratovolcano on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. A series of explosive events began in April 2021, forming a plume of volcanic ash reaching 8 km in height, and generating pyroclastic flows down the volcano’s south and southwest flanks.
According to the BBC, La Soufriere had been inactive for decades before it started erupting last week. No reported injuries but thousands have fled their homes.
Yep, it’s another photorealist artist on the blog (although apparently his work is sometimes referred to as ‘Hyper-Surrealism’) and another from Canada (the other being Charles Bierk). Jeff Bartels is today’s artist and his oil paintings are phenomenal in realism and size.
Before Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block of adult programming, there was Nickelodeon’s Nick at Nite, launched in 1985. The programming block, which is still on the air today, caters for older audiences isn’t as loose as Adult Swim in terms of risqué content but it’s far from puritanical.
Back in 1999, there was a short called The Brady-Nixon Connection which looked at certain similarities between The Brady Bunch and President Nixon. In truth, there was no connection but it served as a unique way of promoting the show which aired in 1995, 1998–2003, and 2012.
As is always the case with legacy comics characters, if you look far back enough it isn’t long before you come across stories “of their time” that reflect the distinct lack of voices that didn’t belong to straight, white men with two-dimensional ideas about people who were unlike them. Superman’s always been a symbol for an idealized form of the American dream and a mythic idea of morally sound justice. But in comics like Giant Superman #239 from 1971, an issue including multiple stories from writers Otto Binder and artists Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye, you can see how DC Comics has always had a difficult time addressing Blackness in the context of Superman stories as its own identity rather than something that exists in contrast to whiteness.
Darian Mederos is a Cuban-born artist based in Nashville. He’s best known for his photorealist portraits that demonstrate his subjects’ emotions. For his ‘Obscura Series’, he used painted portraits to look like they have bubble wrap over them.
The bubble wrap reflects light and distorts the underlying image, it is only at a distance that the works come into focus. When viewed up close the faces dissolve into bold strokes of flesh tones and painted light. The artist challenges the viewer with the “Obscura Series” in asking us to understand the core of human identity, from a respectful distance.
During my first attempt at a university education away from home, I spent a lot of time falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes to combat loneliness. It filled my head with even more useless information but I had fun doing it.
Back in January, writers from The Ringer discussed some of the weirdest Wikipedia wormholes they’d found themselves in. Some were straightforward like John Gonzalez’s trip from Prometheus (the movie) to Prometheus (the Ancient Greek god who stole fire from the Gods to give to humanity, which he made from clay, and suffered the consequences).
Others were more long-winded like Michael Baumann’s route from Sir Arthur Currie, an officer in the Canadian army who fought in WWI, to Sea Dragon, a concept-designed rocket that could launch from the sea (At 150m long and 23m in diameter, it would have been the largest rocket ever built.)
My point is: All Wikipedia wormholes lead to giant rockets and/or giant explosions.
For me, I can’t remember any specific Wikiholes but I’ll make some time and report back.
A Japanese entomologist has ventured from his area of expertise to delve into the taxonomy of these plastic fish and he has actually sorted them into distinct families and genera. You may wonder, why? Perhaps it is an ode to the humble soy sauce container, perhaps another outlet for a taxonomist to channel OCD, or perhaps just because.
The author of the book, Yoshihisa Sawada, is an expert in Japanese insect taxonomy and has worked at the Museum of Nature and Human Activities in Hyogo, having published several scientific papers in this field. He took his taxonomic expertise and applied it to an unlikely subject, seemingly below his expertise: plastic fish-shaped soy sauce bottles. He applies his same methodology and treats his subject with all the reverence and seriousness of an actual taxonomic study on living animals. The book was published in 2012 and, alas, is only available in Japanese. The rough translation of the title into English is “Soy sauce sea bream”. “Bream” refers to freshwater and marine fish from a variety of genera that are typically narrow and deep-bodied.
No one has come close to Michael Keaton’s live-action portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman (emphasis on ‘live-action’ as Kevin Conroy goes toe-to-toe in the animated series). In the above video, iamthatroby explained why he loved Keaton’s Batman so much.
I have a hot, hot take for all of you: I believe that every single component of Batman the general audience loves is as a result of Michael Keaton’s performances in Batman and Batman Returns. The mannerisms, the sound, the look, the Batcave, the Batsuit. The two Burton films established this language for Batman that has been replicated time and time again.
I completely agree. Keaton set the standard that ever other Batman actor has followed.
To whom it may concern at The Walt Disney Company and / or Lucasfilm:
Show me the damn lightsaber. I know you have a real one now. And it’s time to fess up.
There’s plenty of evidence that a better toy saber has been on Disney’s mind for a while. The company’s current crop of replica props and customized Galaxy’s Edge sabers are already hugely popular, to start.
To be clear, whatever Disney has, it isn’t a real lightsaber like in the movies. People have tried to make those for years and ultimately, it isn’t possible due to the amount of energy and the danger involved. Gotta leave that with the Star Wars franchise, I’m afraid.
But if you wanna look at a cool lightsaber made from plasma (that requires “a massive power pack and is almost certainly not safe to sell as a children’s toy at a theme park”), check out the one below.
I’ve never played Bloodborne but I did watch Frasier and that’s all that matters in this hilarious comic by Joe Chouinard. And if you didn’t read this in their voices, you’re not a true fan!
Under Stalin’s de facto policy of ethnic cleansing, it’s hard to picture the USSR as any kind of paradise for persecuted minorities, but in stark contrast to the trauma and systemic oppression that people of colour had long-faced in the many parts of the western world, Mother Russia poised itself as a beacon of equality, ahead of the historical curve.
The likes of Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Dorothy West found themselves in the USSR, much to the chagrin of the American federal government. But the history of Black people in Russia goes further back to include people such as Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a Cameroonian aristocrat who started an Afro-Russian dynasty in the 18th century.
After Ottoman forces kidnapped him as a boy from Cameroon, he was sold to a Russian diplomat and “gifted” to Peter the Great, who publicly adopted and freed him. Abram became a military engineer, a high-ranking general and a nobleman. He is also a maternal great-grandfather to the famed Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
For more on the subject, check out the following list of texts:
Roy Mehta is a London-based photographer and in his latest publication, Revival: London 1989-1993, he reconnected with his roots in Brent, north-west London. The book is a collection of Roy’s photos taken in a 4-year period from the tail-end of the 80s to the early 90s.
During this time, in 1989, Roy was living in Farnham, but he knew the area of Brent like the back of his hand – he just hadn’t been there for a while. So he packed up his camera and started to wander the roads of his old hometown, taking pictures along the way and observing the streets that he once used to roam as a child. “I gradually got to know the people and began to be accepted into churches, pubs, homes, dancehalls and other places in the community,” Roy tells It’s Nice That. “This was a long time before digital photography and social media, so photography was a different kind of practice; people related to the camera in a different way.”
Last year, I said I wanted to showcase more Black content, particularly creative endeavours and projects that deserve all the spotlights and this is the perfect example of that.
I’ve always wanted to have my own earring collection or design something. I always thought it would come in the form of a brand collaboration but it didn’t and still hasn’t so I decided to start it myself and learn how to make earrings. Also, as a plus sized girl, growing up, my fashion and style journey was tedious. You were forced to shop for clothes that were meant for people three times your age or the mens section. The only thing I could always rely on were earrings. They’ve been my savouir (sic) many times as well as a small representation of who I am and where I come from. So much growth has happened between then and now and that’s exactly what Khula means in Zulu, grow.
Sophia runs Khula completely on her own, working very long nights and making her vast collection of earrings by hand, as well as packing and posting the products herself. It’s the epitome of a one-woman team.
Taking inspiration from my heritage and putting that into my brand makes me feel so much closer to my roots in a way that I know how, and a language that I understand which is jewellery. I’m very interested in Black people from different eras and celebrating them and their looks.
Last year was eye-opening in terms of how far “allies” will go to let you know they’re on your side without actually doing anything. Today’s Nancy comic illustrates that type of performative activism. Literally.
