Guantru

Comic Bats (Yatsuatari dōke kōmori). Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, circa 1846. Medium: Polychrome woodblock print. Source / Collection: Richard Kruml - JapanesePrints-London. In the early 1840s, the Tokugawa shogunate passed strict censorship laws known as the Tenpō Reforms to stop luxury spending in society. The government banned ukiyo-e artists from drawing popular kabuki theater actors. Artists who broke these rules faced heavy penalties, including the destruction of their woodblocks. To get around the censorship, Kuniyoshi found a solution in humor. He began drawing the banned actors as cats, frogs, and bats. The people of Edo instantly recognized their favorite actors from the clothes and specific patterns these human-like animals wore. The artwork I'm sharing is a parody of Sukeroku Yukari no Edo Zakura, one of the most famous kabuki plays of its time. The cherry blossoms in the background serve as a visual nod to the phrase "Edo Cherry Blossoms" in the play's title. The bat on the left, with its purple headband and black appearance, plays the main character, Sukeroku. The white-bearded figure on the right takes on the role of the story's main villain, the old samurai Ikyu. In the original play, Sukeroku tries to provoke Ikyu into drawing his sword, hoping to find his stolen family heirloom sword. To anger him, he deliberately holds his pipe between his toes and offers it to him. In Japanese culture, it's an unacceptable insult to offer someone an object with your foot. The bat presenting the smoking accessory with its foot captures that iconic moment of provocation from the stage. The artist used his artistic cleverness to bypass the government bans and continued sharing the era's beloved theater scenes with the public.

@screenrant Common sense, good to see

#AlanRitchson will not be facing criminal charges after getting into an altercation with his neighbor. Brentwood Police Captain Steven Pepin stated: “After reviewing available evidence, including video footage and witness statements, authorities determined that no criminal charges will be pursued. Mr. Ritchson’s actions were found to be in self-defense." Source: The Hollywood Reporter | Learn More: bit.ly/4rUkUAD

@_Plac3_hold3r @ThatchEffendi Are you kidding me?

@ThatchEffendi Huh? Trump still has wide popular support

Drew is the guy who converted to Manichaeism in 1300 when all that was left of the faith was 14 Buddhists in Fujian who held marginally heretical beliefs on the sacredness of light.

What an arrogant, ignorant idiot. I apologize, just no diplomatic way to phrase this.

Cloud pruning began in Japan, as part of niwaki — the practice of shaping “garden trees” into sculptural forms.

@atrupar What a spectacle

Hegseth: "The air campaign we've conducted was one for the history books. And it's because we have a president who when he sends his warfighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one."

If you want to understand why extreme wealth concentration is a failure, just look at the oligarchs it produces. Watching multibillionaires actively try to dismantle the societies that enriched them is the only argument you need against their influence

@Lex_cat11 Slow Loris ( they’re slow)

please give me animals I’ve probably never heard of I’m trying to compile a list of animals that most people have never seen before just for funsies

I grow weary of hearing the medieval world was colorless & dull when it gave us towering cathedrals, gorgeous manuscripts and wonderfully weird tales. We’re the ones who stripped all the brightness & color from film. If there’s an era lacking in beauty & imagination, it’s ours.

In the small Argentine town of Ucacha, workers arrived to remove old wooden utility poles and replace them with new concrete ones. They soon discovered two families of woodpeckers nesting inside the rotting wood. Instead of destroying the nests, the project manager told his crew to carefully cut out the exact sections of wood that held the birds. They strapped those hollowed-out blocks directly onto the new concrete poles at the same height and facing the exact same direction, so the woodpeckers would feel at home. The plan worked perfectly. The birds accepted the upgrade without any fuss and continued raising their chicks in their original wooden homes.

This morning on the first hour of Fox & Friends the network spent 12 minutes talking about two different murder cases allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants and 4.5 minutes to the war in Iran.

Jenő Dulovits was a Hungarian photographer who made some stunning colour photos in the 1930s. Enjoy this thread on some of his finest work; All pictures; © 2002, Dulovits Jenő jogutódja/Fejér Zoltán gyűjteménye fotomuveszet.net/korabbi_szamok…

Traditional European raincoat from Galicia has got immaculate Studio Ghibli vibes

This gorgeous flying squirrel has no trust issues 😍

The American left’s persistent blindness to inequality and repression in China is genuinely hard for me to understand. Many of those least willing to see it are educated elites. There is some deeper psychological dynamic at work here, and I'd love to hear a serious explanation.

@BeingJWood Inertia

What is keeping the United States from coming apart at the seams?

@politico Just what we needed, another ridiculous MAGA loser on the world stage

US’s new ‘brand ambassador’: A Hooters-loving, ‘Alpha Male’ Trump nominee dlvr.it/TRgT26

Just discovered 1920s German Brick Expressionism and my life will never be the same

@wikivictorian (Never worn)

Layette baby footwear set, 1923. Victoria & Albert Museum.