Red Sea

the lines on the bottom say do not microwave but i have been microwaving it for 7 years now. i put it away wet and it must have slid off the counter. it broke into 6 pieces. my girlfriend says this is proof a ghost that lives in my house; particularly because it is a black mug with a ouija board design. i think it is proof that i should dry things before i put them away.

i had superglue from an abandoned art project. it took me four days. inspired by kintsugi, i painted the seams golden. it is my first time doing anything like this, and it was more error than trial. i do not have any fancy materials. there is a thick band of gold across the no, so it reads like a diphthong now, N\O. a part of it broke in an almost-perfect peace sign, oddly round.

it will not be watertight anymore, it cannot be a mug. i'll reuse it as a flower pot. it will go on my back porch. it is kind of ugly, really. i didn't do an excellent job.

i spent every minute of this repair thinking about how often i had used it. how many little rituals it has been a part of. it is a big mug, but not a soup mug, which i loathe. it is perfect for two hands to hold. i have used it almost daily, so often that many of the details have worn off. my own skin did that - almost a decade of shared warmth.

none of the times i have told this story has a single person said what do you mean you have a favorite mug. not a single person who has seen the resulting half-maimed piece has said why would you put that back together? not a single person has said this is a waste of time. not a single person has told me what's the point of this? if you want to find a new mug, just use AI.

somewhere someone is probably using AI to draw an image or write a poem, i know that is true. but i think it is also probably true that most of us are going to write and read and draw and dance just because. that the process of doing so is not for a goal or a specific benefit, but because for thousands of years now - when a piece of pottery breaks, we try to fix it. for thousands of years - long before capitalism had any say in it - humans have been doing things just for the experience of it. for the fuck of it. for the love of the game.

ai is not going to win because i cut my thumb while i did it. ai is not going to win because i kept thinking about my all friends who do ceramics, how they're always asking me if i want to join them for a lesson. i was thinking about every person i've ever shared a coffee with. i was thinking about who i was when i bought this mug (graduate student. could barely afford the off-season thing on clearance). i was thinking about how many hands have held this, how many people i've been since.

ai is not going to win because i didn't do a perfect job of it.

my sister-in-law and i recently had a conversation about how one of her coworkers uses Chat instead of reading self-help books. and we both looked at each other about that, the stunned silence of rabbits. "can you imagine?" we said. what's even the point to it.

“Do not unsheath me without reason. Do not wield me without valor.”

Hello tumblr. I’m reviving my old blog from the dead with some of my PHM fanarts.

Today's animal of the day is Platyhystrix rugosus!

Image credit: cisiopurple on DeviantArt

This adorable little (relatively speaking) amphibian lived from the late Carboniferous period to the early Permian in what is now the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, and Texas. Its name means "flat porcupine" due to the series of tall neural spines that ran down its back, which in life supported a little sail similar to those of the mammal-like synapsids Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus. This is what's known as convergent evolution, which is when different groups of animals evolve similar traits independently of each other.

Edaphosaurus with Platyhystrix (image credit: Dmitry Bogdanov)

While these three creatures may have evolved their sails independently, the thing they all have in common is that paleontologists aren't quite sure what their sails were for. One theory is that they were used for display. These sails may have been brightly colored and could've been used by males to attract females or intimidate rivals. Another theory is that they could've helped with thermoregulation, where the cold-blooded animals pumped cool blood into their sails, which had thinner skin that allowed the sun to more easily warm it up, before pumping it back down to the rest of their bodies. Then, to cool down, they could lie in the shade and pump hot blood into their sail, where the thin skin could allow the excess heat to more easily dissipate. In the case of Platyhystrix specifically, the sail could've helped stiffen its vertebral column to help this amphibian better adapt to a more terrestrial lifestyle. Since we don't have any living specimens to study, paleontologists will never know for certain. Personally, I think display is the best theory, but I also think that the sails could've been used for multiple purposes.

Image credit: Darren Pepper (prehistoric-wildlife.com)

While Platyhystric was definitely way bigger than any amphibians we have alive today, around 3.3 ft long, it was still tiny compared to the other creatures it shared its habitat with. It had a stout body with short, stubby legs, which would've made it hard for this adorable little critter to run away from larger predators like the aforementioned Dimetrodon as well as the semi-aquatic Eryops, which could've ambushed Platyhystrix when it came to the water to lay its eggs. Luckily, in addition to its sail, which probably made it a little harder to swallow it up whole, Platyhystrix also had thick plates on its back that served as armor.

Image credit: Charlie Worthington

The environment that Platyhystrix lived in was semi-arid, but still somewhat humid, with infrequent patches of conifer trees and ferns scattered about. During the rainy season, numerous rivers would flow through this region of Pangaea (which had not yet split up). These would've provided a place for Platyhystrix to return to lay its eggs, and were also home to many other types of prehistoric amphibians as well as numerous species of fish. It is believed, based on the size and shape of its teeth, that Platyhystrix would've fed on smaller creatures, such as lizards, insects, and even smaller species of amphibians.

Image credit: Gabriel N. U.