At long last, pt. 2 of my wall-improvement series is ready. My plan had been to show just a couple of samples from the nature illustration print collection of the NY public library’s Digital Gallery, but, well, there were way too many that I adored.

and so BELOW are just an itty bitty smattering (apologies for the nautical prejudice - it’s just where my interest lies) of the vast collection of archived science/nature book pages scanned and available for purchase (for like $50 and up, depending on size):

Testudo polyphemus. from North American herpetology; or, A description of the reptiles inhabiting the United States. (1842) (omg, TURTLE BELLIES.)

Sixteen Varieties of Gooseberries, from A collection of the most esteemed fruits…with the blossoms and leaves… (1812) (who knew there were so many varieties of gooseberries? not me, that’s for damn sure.)

Himanthalia lorea, from Photographs of British algae: cyanotype impressions. (1843)

Fig. 1. Male Narwal, or Unicorn (15 Ft. in length); Fig. 2. Under side view of the same Narwal; Fig. 3. Lamantin. from American natural history. Part 1.–Mastology (1826)

Sea Anemones from Animate creation; popular edition of our living world, a natural history (1898)

Les Poissons: le Hareng, la Morue, la Baleine from Cabinet du petit naturaliste (1812) (Woodcut = yay)

Ctenophores. from The new natural history (189-?) (Just LOOK at that loverly shade of blue…)

1. Helix antiqua; 2. Helix Coreanica; 3. Helix leucostoma; 4. Helix orientalis; 5. Helix immaculata; 6. Helix caliginosa; 7. Helix decora; 8. Helix densa; 9. Helix plurizonata; 10. Helix canescens; 11. Helix conoidalis. from The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Samarang; under the command of Captain Sir Edward Belcher … during the years 1843-46 (1850)

Siren lacertina from North American herpetology; or, A description of the reptiles inhabiting the United States. (1842)

They also have cartography, russian civil war posters, fashion illustration (see below), industrial blueprints, architecture, menus… I just… it’s just so… overwhelming. Go forth, acquire.

from Ladies’ dress shoes of the nineteenth century (published 1900)

… but it seems as though the sea slug (specifically the chromodoris toxic nudibranch) might be the new Cutest Most Wonderfulest Sea Creature of All Time, Ever.

I mean, really, what? are you kidding? it’s smiling for heavens-sakes. truly there is *almost* no competition.

Thank you to dearlingest lauren who shared this collection of amazing photographs of sea slugs courtesy of National Geographic.

Just because it’s icky outside, doesn’t mean you can’t shoot people.

From Alex Wooley Design: “This unique, funnel shaped umbrella harnesses the flow of rainwater down into its handle, a water pistol. The user can fire at will, maintaining a constant flow of water as long as rain continues to fall.”

Genius.

this is actually fun-umbrella-design post #2 on NSTGD, here’s the first.

And because I love you, and I love the Hollies, and because the Hollies love umbrellas, and because if a = b and b = c then c = a, here is their song “Bus Stop“.

via designboom.

holy cephalopods! According to Science*, the first 6-footed octopus (hexapus) has been discovered!

now typically, I would be 100% entirely jazzed about this wonderous, cryptozoology-meets-actually-actual-zoology news, but the 1955 Film “It Came from Beneath the Sea“** prophecized that the city of san francisco would be destroyed by a giant hexapus and, frankly, I’m concerned for my left-coast friends.

SF’ers: MOVE INLAND!

And while we are on the topic, I’d like to encourage everyone ever, who reads my blog, to purchase their very own tentacle arm:

*let me be the first to commend the cnn.com copy-editors for properly pluralizing “hexapus” as “hexapuses” and not “hexapi”. also, this quote makes me giggle incessantly:

Octopuses are renowned for having three hearts, blue blood and the ability to alter their skin complexion in the blink of an eye.

heh “renowned”?

**see one of my first blog posts, “Cryptozoology: a film series“, in which this movie could easily fit.

“Liberté, égalité, butteré” - mr phipps

In a victory for crustacean-sentience-activists everywhere, several dozen death row lobsters liberated themselves from their fishtank shackles, broke out of the supermarket and started heading down the street, narrowly escaping a boiled and buttery future. Oh my starsfish, genius. If only someone had thought to video the lobster exodus.

from speigel online:

Lobsters in Germany took fate into their own claws and broke out of an Asian supermarket. They now face a brighter future in an animal home.

Not all lobsters are so lucky.

Dozens of lobsters destined to be boiled alive made a successful getaway from an Asian supermarket in the German city of Stuttgart in the early hours of Sunday morning, police said.

The clawed crustaceans, some of them up to 15 centimeters long, managed to crawl out of their crates, which had been poorly secured with wire mesh, then scurried across the floor of the supermarket and squeezed through the metal shutters covering the front of the store. The front door had been left open by mistake.

“The breakout was successful,” Katrin Brandeis, spokeswoman for the Stuttgart police, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Passers by alerted the police at 1:45 a.m. reporting a large number of the animals heading down the street.”

The escape may have saved their lives. “These animals weren’t ever going to be pets,” Brandeis said. “Now they’ve been taken to an animal home. The supermarket hasn’t got in touch with us.”

thank you to the lovely rachelle for fowarding the article.

from cnn.com article “Full swimming pool stolen”:

Daisy Valdivia is annoyed that someone stole her backyard pool — and baffled at how they did it without leaving behind a splash, drip or trace of the 1,000 gallons of water it contained. Valdivia awoke to find her family’s hip-high, inflatable, 10-foot diameter swimming pool gone from her back yard Wednesday. Valdivia told The Record of Bergen County the theft must have occurred between 1 a.m., when her husband went to bed, and 5 a.m., when she awoke. She’s amazed someone could steal the pool that quickly and just wanted to know “what the heck they did with the water,” she said.

This is, clearly, the greatest crime of all time. I will now solve it in 11 steps.

THE FACTS:

1. The missing swimming pool was 10 ft in diameter and contained 1000 gallons of water at the time it was stolen.

2. This water was not dumped at the site, hence they moved both the pool AND the water.

3. all within a 4 hour period.

4. 1000 gallons= 8330 lbs*

5. The average man can deadlift (a term I have never in all my days on this earth used until this moment) a maximum of between 185 - 235 lbs**.

6. If a team of the strongest men*** decided they needed their very own 1000 gallon swimming pool, it would take, at-the-very-least, 36 of them to lift it, with all the water inside. (8330/235 = 35.45)

7. Forklifts and towtrucks and cranes and robots other such machines that have the lift-capacity to carry 8330 lbs are very noisy and would have left track marks in the yard.

8. Where do you find groups of 36 super-strong men, without swimming pools? What do we know about these men?

A. they are very very quiet.
B. they like to swim.
C. they couldn’t afford to purchase their own swimming pool.

9. Equivalent swimming pools on the Interwebs cost around $80.

10. $80 divided 36 ways = $2.22/each, thus each individual member of the 36 super-strong, yet highly-budgeted, thieves had less than $2.21 to their names.

11. How is this possible? How can you survive with only $2.21? How do you buy food? Pay for your home?

THE ONLY LOGICAL CONCLUSION BASED ON THESE INARGUABLE FACTS:

Clearly, the 36 thieves own and operate (hence their strength) a communal farm that provides the food necessary to survive, and the surplus food covers the property cost alone.. not enough to give them more than $2.21 each to spend on the non-essentials, like, say, a swimming pool.

But, why, you wonder, wouldn’t they dump out the water too? Because water isn’t free when you own land.. Their farm is obviously nowhere near a lake or ocean or river or pond. No water in the pool = no swimming and we all know how important swimming is to these men.

I will send my findings to the police so they can start searching land-locked commune-farms for 36 chlorine-smelling, pruny-fingered farmers.

*Gallons into Pounds: Multiply the specific gravity of the liquid by 8.33* (weight in pounds of 1 gallon of water); then multiply this result by the number of gallons, to obtain the weight in pounds: source.

**According to here.

***I can assume that it is a group of men because according to Science ™, women prefer to swim in the ocean, or any body of water influenced by tides/the moon.

I have returned, rested and resplendent from the other side of the country.

Note: pandas are not, in fact, native to the redwoods.

(sillyness prevailed)

(At the sasquatch museum near jedidiah forest)

A smattering of doodads and whatnots purchased along the way:

from powell’s books in portland, oregon:

Marine Molluscan Genera of Western North America: an Illustrated Key:

(”Denticles weak, operculum calcareous paucispiral” this is basically nerd-erotica.)

Seaweeds at Ebb Tide:

(ooo ’spongomorpha coalita’, yay)

Pamplet Architecture No. 9:

(this home design chart is labeled “antecedent: primitive European construction.”)

from thrift town, in the san francisco mission district

Betty Crocker recipe cards:

(I bought a pack of about 75, for a dollar total)

A small items scale:

(my glasses are about 0.5 oz)

From a craft store in portland:

(assorted tree tiles)

2 more submissions have arrived!

katy’s fortuna teller:

josh’s mafia donkey:

An update on our progress (9 letters down, 17! to go)

• B is for Barristercuda
• C is for Clambulance Driver and Cowboyster
• D is for Dental Hyenist
• F is for Fortuna Teller
• L is for Lumberjackass
• M is for Mafia Donkey
• P is for Prostiturtle and Psykoalagist and Pachydermatologist
• R is for Rottwelder
• S is for Stork Broker and Salamanwhore and Salesmanatee

Refer to the full list to choose animals from the missing letters…

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I’m not sure I will be able to offer a suitable explanation for the following. It just is. accept it. move on.

I may or may not continue to finish the entire alphabet.

The Full List of Animals/Professions*:

*This list was compiled with the help of 15 or so friends who devoted the majority of their workday in support of this noble (nobull?) endeavor.

UPDATE! Join the movement, draw your own.

Melting-ice-fetishists, evaporation-enthusiasts, and bipolar-polar-environmentalists can now communicate, one-on-one with a dying glacier, for the cost of an international call: 07758 225698

London artist, Katie Paterson, with the help of Virgin Mobile and Dolphinear, installed a waterproof hydro-phone into the icy lagoon surrounding a soon-to-be-melted glacier.

But! the exhibit and phone lines close at the end of today (june 13th) so call right now. use the company phone. go ahead. 07758 225698

To Mr. Shalini, Egon and the 3-4 other now-deceased pet fish whose names I have forgotten,

It has recently come to my attention that pet fish are capable of learning their own name, and are thus, at least in some way, sentient. I feel the need to apologize for the flippancy with which I regarded your species’ intelligence, and my shallow attitude toward your deaths under my clearly-negligent care. Egon, I am sorry for over-feeding you. Mr. Shalini, I should have known that you wouldn’t survive a 2 hour move in a plastic-bag-full-of-water.

Fincerely,
meredith

The Capsule Hotel, on the Hague.

These are “Totally Enclosed Motor Propelled Survival Craft”. I especially enjoy the gratuitous hanging globe.

Poseidon Undersea Resorts: their slogan is “prepare to be awed”, which I plan to incorporate into my phrase-regime. This is sure to be shelly winters’ favorite. that is if she were among the living.

The Cutest and Cuddliest Deep Sea Creature//

The Grimpoteuthis (or “Dumbo Octopus”) / depth 300-5000m

The Most Treacherous and Terrible Deep Sea Creature//

Stomias Boa (or “Scaly Dragonfish”) / depth 200 - 1500m (which means, potentially, that it could eat and kill our friend the dumbo octopus, which means I hate it, I hate it FOREVER)

More photos at science.