Thoughts of a Melon

original url http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Embassy/8977/

“Say the planet is born at midnight and it runs for one day. First there is nothing. Two hours are lost to lava and meteors. Life doesn’t show up until three or four a.m. Even then, it’s just the barest self-copying bits and pieces. From dawn to late morning—a million million years of branching—nothing more exists than lean and simple cells.

Then there is everything. Something wild happens, not long after noon. One kind of simple cell enslaves a couple of others. Nuclei get membranes. Cells evolve organelles. What was once a solo campsite grows into a town.

The day is two-thirds done when animals and plants part ways. And still life is only single cells. Dusk falls before compound life takes hold. Every large living thing is a latecomer, showing up after dark. Nine p.m. brings jellyfish and worms. Later that hour comes the breakout—backbones, cartilage, an explosion of body forms. From one instant to the next, countless new stems and twigs in the spreading crown burst open and run.

Plants make it up on land just before ten. Then insects, who instantly take to the air. Moments later, tetrapods crawl up from the tidal muck, carrying around on their skin and in their guts whole worlds of earlier creatures. By eleven, dinosaurs have shot their bolt, leaving the mammals and birds in charge for an hour.

Somewhere in that last sixty minutes, high up in the phylogenetic canopy, life grows aware. Creatures start to speculate. Animals start teaching their children about the past and the future. Animals learn to hold rituals.

Anatomically modern man shows up four seconds before midnight. The first cave paintings appear three seconds later. And in a thousandth of a click of the second hand, life solves the mystery of DNA and starts to map the tree of life itself.

Applied arts museum, Berlin, Germany, 1985, R Gutbrod

Pictures by Klaas Vermaas

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Or like just in general, if you're getting most of your political news in the same apps where you do most of your fun / sexy shit,

There are a ton of quick and cheap electrolyte drink recipes that you can find online. Tea, coffee, cocount water, milk, milk substitutes, juice, etc are all hydrating despite extremely persistent myths. Many fruits and veggies like cucumbers, watermelon, strawberries, bell peppers, etc have high water content and are a great way to hydrate while also getting vital nutrients. Popsicles are also a good way to stay cool and hydrated and you can buy them or make your own with whatever ingredients you want; there are recipes online, including ones for electrolyte popsicles, but you can also just do basic ones with your choice of fruit juice and whatever you want to add, like chunks of fresh or frozen fruit.

1. Eat fruit

2. Eat something with salt.

I had a day during the worst of the heatwave when I was a feeling really ill and I realised I hadn't had anything with sodium for a good while. I ate some crisps (chips) and immediately felt better. Was that the healthiest option? Maybe not. Was it the most accessible at the time? Absolutely