May 17
As in, why did the band pick that name anyway? Logic might tell you it comes from a long line of band names that change one or two letters of an ordinary word to become something wacky and eye-catching. As in The Beatles, The Monkees, The Byrds, Cyrcle, Def Leppard (a Led Zeppelin imitator if …
May 10
When it comes to Led Zeppelin songs, their titles recall mostly about one thing: Blues, Blues, Blues. Unlike Beatles songs, they didn’t dabble in storytelling or psychedelia. This makes the song titles themselves not too interesting, but they’re also easy to recreate. Maybe there’s a bootleg of these around somewhere… Led Zeppelin Songs, what …
May 03
Above is a portrait of the most recent of Hungary’s exports: the Vizsla, wearing a traditional peasant outfit courtesy of AI art. The speedy, good-natured hunting dog joins the rank of other notable exports like paprika, ghoulash, video pioneer Ernie Kovacs, and Gene Simmons (by way of Israel) to name a few. Situated in Central …
Apr 26
Like the color green, the color yellow has a split personality. Yellow, and its cousin gold, can mean wealth, sunlight, cheer and happiness, even life itself. But it is also the color of sweat, feces and urine, cowardice and betrayal, just as green’s sour side is that of poison, jealousy, snot, and pus. Unlike green, …
Apr 19
Now that Spring is here, it’s entirely appropriate to talk about shades of green, and how they are named. Pictured above is a set of green PMS colors, once the standard for the printing industry. Basic colors of ink were mixed together to create the colors in the squares, which were referred to by …
Apr 12
Now let’s get down to what makes a Dark Acadamia setting truly dark: the secret societies! There are for students, and in the Ivy League schools, for the elitist of the elite. Dartmouth has its Sphinx Society, Princeton its 21 Club, and Yale, the most notorious one of all: The Skull and Bones, thrust into …
Apr 05
For some reason, there aren’t as many fictional colleges around as there are cities, states, and countries. Of them, Miskatonic University, H. P. Lovecraft’s creation and the setting for many of his stories, is the best known and detailed, even having a map. (I’d call those stories Dark Academia before the term existed, even though …
Mar 29
Dark Academia is one of those -punk subgenres/aesthetic styles, but without the punk in its name. It deals with, basically, anything you’d see at the site of a old, respectable university in Europe or the U.S. — a library full of weighty tomes and classic literature, old money, gothic architecture, dark wood, leather seats, well-kept …
Mar 22
On to the second part of the Western states! As promised, I am puncturing some cowboy myths. Cowboys didn’t always ride horses. They likely weren’t white. It was a career that attracted the outcasts of society, so many were black, Hispanic, mestizo, Native American, or of mixed race. It was not considered a fun or …
Mar 01
A selection of plant-related Twittersnips from the years 2017 – 2020. Plants Plants Butterstink Blessed Weaselwand Thimble of Thorns Toadbeard Herbal Infusions Weeping skullcap Extraction of crushed foxpot Essence of sweethimble and pussy-pine Frogboot stamen solution that reduces a fever Brew of hairy queenspike bark and greatblossom seeds Nurestink Pollen Oil Pink Fiddlerus Velvet …