of the moon

ancient greek word of the day: ἁλιγενής (haligenēs), sea-born, of Aphrodite

in the clerb (tumblr dot com) we all fam (mentally ill and reblogging the same five posts from each other).

theo van gogh was the one who suggested that his older brother vincent start seriously painting. as soon as theo was gainfully employed he gave vincent around 15% of his own yearly salary for art supplies, lodging, and food. about 2/3rds of vincent's surviving letters were to theo (including vincent's earliest and last letters), all of which were found stored in theo's desk. theo's child, vincent willem, was born on january 31st, 1890, and vincent was so delighted by his nephew that he painted almond blossoms for him. vincent shot himself half a year later on july 29th, 1890. theo's distress at his brother's death worsened his syphilis symptoms and he died half a year after his brother on january 25th, 1891 (four days before vincent willem's first birthday). theo was reburied next to vincent in auvers-sur-oise at the request of theo's wife johanna.

I can't believe we live in a world where there's an AI company unironically called "Palantir," and it isn't a parody. It's a real thing. I remember seeing a picture of an advertisement on here and thinking, "This HAS to be a joke. This is too on-the-nose to be real. They wouldn't honestly name an AI company Palantir, after the Seeing Stones from Lord of the Rings that are supposed to offer knowledge, but famously also might be feeding you misinformation from evil sources because 'we do not know who else may be watching.'" But then here I am listening to the BBC News discussing why the CEO of Palantir just published a Manifesto that sounds like it was written by a supervillain.