The Earth, Further and Further.

science:

Volcanic Sunsets and Years without Summer

On April 10, 1815, Mount Tambora exploded. Tambora is a stratovolcano in Indonesia, and has been overshadowed in the popular imagination by Krakatoa, another Indonesian volcano that erupted in 1883. But Tambora was larger. It was, in fact, the largest eruption in recorded history, topping 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. The casualties are estimated to be around 75,000-90,000, more than any other known eruption. Most interesting from a scientific perspective is the profound effect such eruptions have on the global climate.

1816 was called “the year without a summer” in the northern hemisphere, especially in Europe and North America. Now, the years of 1790-1830 saw a minimum of solar activity, which no doubt contributed to the unusually cold summer. But the reason this year was outstanding even for a cold period was almost certainly Tambora. Put simply, dust and volcanic ashes blocked the sun. Some of the effects, from an old article at The Smithsonian:

In China and Tibet, unseasonably cold weather killed trees, rice, and even water buffalo. Floods ruined surviving crops. In the northeastern United States, the weather in mid-May of 1816 turned “backward,” as locals put it, with summer frost striking New England and as far south as Virginia. “In June … another snowfall came and folk went sleighing,” Pharaoh Chesney, of Virginia, would later recall. “On July 4, water froze in cisterns and snow fell again, with Independence Day celebrants moving inside churches where hearth fires warmed things a mite.” Thomas Jefferson, having retired to Monticello after completing his second term as President, had such a poor corn crop that year that he applied for a $1,000 loan. (…)

In Europe and Great Britain, far more than the usual amount of rain fell in the summer of 1816. It rained nonstop in Ireland for eight weeks. The potato crop failed. Famine ensued. The widespread failure of corn and wheat crops in Europe and Great Britain led to what historian John D. Post has called “the last great subsistence crisis in the western world.” After hunger came disease. Typhus broke out in Ireland late in 1816, killing thousands, and over the next couple of years spread through the British Isles.

In Portugal and Spain, droughts and unseasonally low temperatures caused problems.

The effects could be seen not only in crops and thermometers, but also in art. A survey of paintings by notable artists done before or in the years immediately following major volcanic eruptions shows that sunsets, as seen by artists, were significantly redder immediately following eruptions. The findings correlate well with historic estimates of the Dust Veil Index, a measure of how much dust and aerosols a particular volcano released, compared to background conditions.

Why would volcanic dust in the atmosphere make sunsets redder? The reason the sky is blue at midday and red at dusk and dawn is Rayleigh scattering. Molecules and tiny particles in the atmosphere scatter incoming sunlight. Shorter wavelengths like blue light are scattered more strongly, resulting in a blue sky. However, when the sun is low in the sky, the angle means sunlight must pass through a much larger volume of atmosphere before it reaches us. This causes the bluer wavelengths to be scattered away, leaving reddish light, giving us red sunsets. A denser atmosphere due to a volcanic eruption would exacerbate this effect.

Above are The Lake, Petworth (circa 1827-28) and Sunset (circa 1833), both painted by J. M. W. Turner. The first painting was done before the 1831 eruption of Babuyan Claro, a volcano located in the Phillipines, while the second, redder one was most likely done less than two years after said eruption. One of the most famous red sunsets in art, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, is also speculated to have been inspired by atmospheric conditions after a major eruption, Krakatoa in 1883.

It’s very intense to live this way; very intense. Out of only intuition and desire?! It’s like I’m saturated in sensitivity to everything all the time!

(Nodding) Welcome, to the jungle. (Still noddling); [Five minutes later] I really enjoy this feeling of being surprised. Never knowing what’s coming? Your saturation, I exactly feel this saturation… I get scared. 

Céu - Retrovisor 

“Ah why would you do this?!”

“Because I’m leaving! So at least you can have this music.”

In 2 days I leave for Brazil, to paint boats for 2 weeks with my beautiful friends heading FlutuArte, a floating open-air gallery that can be seen from both land and sky, of murals on the rooftops of fishing boats in the Quadrado da Urca, a harbor framed by the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf mountain in Rio de Janeiro. (Pictures to come, obviously!)

But, silly or not, I’m super sad about leaving my kitty. I love her and I’m going to miss her so much. I will especially miss the nightly spooning.

by super talented artist, (and also my neighbor,) Niko Guardia.

nikoguardia:

We nap.

permanent life schedule

A.MAZING.

(via loveandzombies)

The popular body-acceptance movement happening in America encourages women to accept their bodies as they are and not compare themselves to “impossible standards.” Adherents are known to empower themselves with such exclamations as, “I’m not gonna feel bad about myself for eating a cookie!” and such rhetorical questions as “Why feel guilty?” There’s a smug self-righteousness in these utterances, as the speaker feels confident that there is no conceivably valid response to the question. Well, I believe there is. 

The reason to feel guilty about eating empty calories and junk that is essentially tasty toxic waste is because it reflects a lack of self control to deny an immediate cheap reward and hold out for a much much better reward in the future. This is what Kate Moss meant when she said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” I would replace skinny with healthy, though. Feeling fit, well nourished and otherwise healthful, and truly in control of yourself, this is so much more empowering than a loud mouth and indulgent shamelessness. 

Indulging is a fun treat, but as a treat it should be left for holidays and barbecues and vacations. Not any excuse you can come up with, i.e. it’s raining, some guy was rude to you on the subway, it’s on sale, etc. Too-frequent indulgence makes a person subservient to desire at whim, a state of being that prohibits the individual from connecting deeply with herself. I listen to my body, it tells me what it needs and what it doesn’t. I no longer let my tongue tyrannically pimp out the rest of me. I feel connected to my body, and it’s a connection I value enough to commit to: I am committed to doing what is best for myself and therefore what is best for my body, which is eating well and exercising for every body.

Therefore, if you are not committed to doing what is best for yourself, then I believe that is something you certainly should feel guilt and shame about. 

Drew some eyes last night.

I know how to make a bed
While still lying in it, and
Slip out of an imaginary hole
As if I were squeezed out of a tube:
Tug, smooth—the bed is made.
And if resurrections are this easy,
Why then I believe in all of them:
Lazarus rising from his tomb,
Elijah at the vertical—
Though death, I think, has more than clever
Household hints in mind and wants
The bed made, once, and for good.

self-portrait with a necklace of shadows

me, last night