Everything about this is so fucking funny. The song. The chubby dances. The way he just gets fucking KIDNAPPED. The presentation of the guy in the white shirt in the picture when he returns. This is my favorite post.
Video Clip SS218421 (Tardigrade Walking Through Algae)
Tardigrade (Hypsibius dujardini) walking through algae, microscope view.
Tardigrades are commonly known as water bears or moss piglets. They are found in practically every habitat on Earth, from hot springs to beneath ice sheets, and are renowned for their toughness.
Experiments have shown they can survive being frozen to nearly absolute zero and heated to 150 degrees Celsius. They have survived pressures of more than 6000 atmospheres, and have survived after prolonged exposure to the vacuum and radiation found in space.
In unfavorable conditions they can dehydrate to 1% of their normal water content and remain alive in stasis for over a decade. In more normal conditions, they prefer moist environments where they feed on algae and bacteria.
This tardigrade is often used as a model organism in biological research, and its genome is being sequenced.
I started working on The Wooden Tarot in February 2013. In January 2013, I had no idea what a tarot deck even really was. I just had the thought, “wouldn’t it be cool if I made a tarot deck”. I had no idea that there was a whole, huge tarot community, or that indie decks were about to EXPLODE in popularity. I just had a neat concept and wanted to set a lofty goal for myself.
As some of you might remember, The Wooden Tarot originally started out as a major’s only deck. I didn’t have the skill, vision, or patience to do 78 paintings. I read about the Fool’s Journey and began making the deck with that in mind with the little brown mouse (named Elwood) as the protagonist. A humble, common creature trying to find his way in the world, dying, being reborn, and starting everything all over again after (hopefully) learning enough from his past experiences to be better next time.
I know I’ve promised a guidebook. Everyone constantly asks for one. But to be 100% honest and transparent, I just cannot do it. I’ve been trying to write it for 3 years now and it just doesn’t come to me. The full deck has been out for almost 4 years now and I just can’t put myself back in the position that I was in when I started the deck. I was a totally different person then, mentally and physically. I didn’t have a guide when I made it. A lot of the cards are just stream of consciousness drawings that may or may not have made sense to me at the time.
I started the deck before I came out as transgender, and worked on it while I started transitioning. It transitioned with me. We were both kind of The Fool together, just running tits first (until top surgery, anyway) into the world and hoping it all worked out. It mostly did. The deck is finished, and I’m now essentially post-transition. Those journeys have reached their resolution.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that The Wooden Tarot is finished. I really do not want to keep going back to it. It was an extremely personal project for me, and while I’m perpetually thrilled (and still a bit shocked) that it’s resonated with so many folks, I can’t bend its purpose or will to be a deck that’s meant to be easily read by other people. In some ways I believe that’s what draws a lot of people to it, but on the flipside it makes the deck extremely inaccessible. I’m not interested in projecting a false persona of knowing everything about tarot, even my own deck, and to be completely honest with everyone, it kind of does bother me that some fans of the deck seem to think that every card was divinely inspired somehow (seriously… otters float in water. that’s why Temperance is an otter. It really is that simple). it kind of bums me out that I want to try new things but I keep being asked to come back to this. The Wooden Tarot means a lot of things to a lot of people now, and it seems wrong in a way to interject and try to tell everyone What It Really Means after so many years.
By now, the deck probably has a different, specific meaning to you than it does to me. That’s the way it should be, in my humble opinion. If I do anything further it may just be simple revisions for anniversary editions.
Where were you twenty years ago? Ten years ago? When I was new? When I was one of those innocent young maidens you always come to? How dare you! How dare you come to me now when I am this!
The Last Unicorn (1982) dir. Jules Bass & Arthur Rankin Jr.
