Photo: Nima Sarikhani, The Guardian.

November in Berlin. U-3, Station Schlesisches Tor. Photo Thomas Kakareko. #Berlin #November

This creature is called an aak grasshopper and aside maybe from reproductive urgency, I seriously wonder just what message it is trying to send forth into the world. #entomology

This is not helpful, Daphne. (Thx Kate Bevan.) #caturday

An early depiction of the Trojan Horse. Mykonos vase, Archaeological Museum of Mykonos, Inv. 2240. #archaeology

Octopus hiding from a fisherman. Detail from a drinking cup ca. 500 BC. Thx: @archaeologyart. #archaeology

Time for tea.

Gustav Klimt, tarot card, 1907. #oilpainting

I like to think Armani would have loved this Larson cartoon. #SundayFunnies

Go Bears! And you too, Harvard, you go as well! #Football

Getting ready for winter. "This year we'll do everything different. This winter we'll chip in together and buy a bright-as-day lamp. Then we'll produce lots of seratonin and share it equally." (Comic artist: Lukas Jüliger, Le monde diplomatique.)

Vintage photo of Cairo bookseller. #books #Cairo

The Carcer Tullianum, a Roman prison to hold prisoners awaiting trial or execution, known as the Mamertine Prison. Alumni included the Catiline conspirators, Vercingetorix, Sejanus, and St. Peter. The prisoners enjoyed plenty of fresh air through the hole in the roof. Thx: Dr Jo Ball. #Archaeology

The pointy Playtex Maidenform bra is a happy male adolescent memory of the 1950s, even yet awakening a tiny frisson of excitement. It is shown here in a photo from the world of British sport, stretching a tight sweater, always its best viewing platform, to the point of structural unsustainability.

This pleasantly self-skeptical portrait by Egon Schiele from 1912 reminds me I've not seen any Japanese lantern plants (Physalis alkekengi) since moving to California 58 yrs ago. In New England people would put them on the fireplace mantel in a vase with dried flowers during the winter. #oilpainting

Hi from all the gang at the doggie daycare. #doggos

Follow this link: www.penn.museum/cgi/cuneifor... #cuneiform #Babylon

Manhattan rainstorm, 1943. #rain

Greek archaic period, ca. 600-570 BCE. Museo Archeologico Regionale, Palermo. #archaeology #antiquity

For me this is the apotheosis of American automobile manufacture, the 1949 DeSoto convertible, appearing at a time when almost all cars were black. Plymouth produced similarly colorful models through the 1950s, replacing #wheels

Egon Schiele, Four Trees, 1918. #Oilpainting

Remembrance Day in the U.K.

I always thought if I won some insane amount of money at the lottery, I would wind up paying someone to get rid of it for me as soon as possible. But not before building myself a modest little space for books, along the lines of the Morgan Library perhaps. #books

Remember, remember, the fifth of November... This illustration taken from 'Mischeefes mysterie London' in the British Library shows Guy Fawkes being halted at the Houses of Parliament while attempting to carry out the Gunpowder Plot. #GuyFawkesNight

There came to him an image of man’s whole life upon the earth. It seemed to him like a tiny spurt of flame that blazed out briefly in an illimitable and terrifying darkness, and that all man’s grandeur, tragic dignity, his heroic glory, came from the brevity and smallness of this flame. #books

Día de Muertos costume in Tenancingo de Degollado. Photo: Cristopher Rogel, The Guardian. #DiaDeMuertos

It seems appropriate to post a couple cemetery pictures on All Souls' Day. #DíaDeMuertos

Renaissance job interview. #SundayFunnies

Witches baking pies the day after Hallowe'en. (Andrea Kowch: The Visitors.)

From the hagg and hungrie goblin That into raggs would rend ye, And the spirit that stands by the naked man In the Booke of Moones - defend ye! - Tom O' Bedlam's Song, Anonymous, ca. 1620 #Halloween

Time to get my outfit ready for tomorrow night. #Halloween

RIP Björn Andrésen (1955-2025), who was even more arresting at age 70 as when he was a teenager. I'd kill to have hair like that in old age. [Thx Tui Sankamol.] #AnatomicalAweaomeness

I light my digital candle to remember the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh ten years ago this week. #horror

Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata), photo by Rick Brown. #birds

There are some artworks I can't stop looking at, like Michelangelo's Pieta. #art

Formerly the secret of the universe was number 42. But once the answer and the question are both known, the universe disappears and is replaced by a new one. #SundayFunnies

MEDIEVAL SAN FRANCISCO #2. Fearing outbreaks of socialist violence in the late 19th century, agents of capitalism built armories across the country resembling medieval castles, to store weapons and provide drill space for local militias. # architecture #SanFrancisco

The Rök Runestone. Estimated to have been carved in the early 9th Century CE. It is considered the first piece of written Swedish literature. Cf. Wiki <Rök runestone> for more info and translation. #archaeology

While thinking about the events of last weekend and preparing my giant frog costume to confront the National Guard in San Francisco as promised by Trump, I found a 1969 Flamin' Groovies album cover which seems quite accurately to sum up the current level of political intelligence abroad in the land.

It was a warm day, almost the end of March, and I stood outside the barber shop looking at the jutting neon sign of a second floor dine and dance emporium called Florian's. A man was looking up at the sign too. He was looking up at the dusty windows with a sort of ecstatic fixity of expression,

#critters #doggos

A day to remember, October 18, 2025. Thx photographer Scott Ness. #NoKings #SanFrancisco

No Kings! #caturday

No Kings! Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Trumpet.

I have absolutely no idea what's going on with this picture, but it is tempting to think there may have existed a branch of Frederick's of Hollywood in late medieval Germany. (Berlin, germ. qu. 12 1471 Folio 97r.) #medievalsky

H.W. Tilson, "Columbus Day", The Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 11, 1930.