“we’ve heard you have strategic reserves of poetry, we’ve come for your words,”

“The cord that tethers ability to success is both loose and elastic. It is easy to see fine qualities in successful books or to see unpublished manuscripts, inexpensive vodkas, or people struggling in any field as somehow lacking. It is easy to believe that ideas that worked were good ideas, that plans that succeeded were well designed, and that ideas and plans that did not were ill conceived. And it is easy to make heroes out of the most successful and to glance with disdain at the least. But ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equation—the role of chance…What I’ve learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized.”

— Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Ben Styer, “Melody for Walk to the Reservoir”

Yves Klein - Monochrome bleu sans titre, (IKB 206)

Some more “what’s in my bag” posts from flickr. We have always been the same…..

One of the best shot of Total Solar Eclipse from 08-04-2024.

Via @nasa-official

A graphic from Mad magazine #182 from April 1976. The larger piece this comes from is "A Mad Portfolio of Some Idealists' Dreams" by Arnoldo Franchioni.

I have been starting to visit and revisit Mad following the discovery of a huge box of old issues in the storage unit of my wife's late uncle. Some of this stuff has aged in rather interesting ways.

tbh i didnt know you were supposed to be jerking off while you look at porn

Please look at the native range of this truly rare tree called Florida Torreya...how did you even make it