His body hadn’t felt this relaxed in weeks, but his finger
pads were beginning to prune.
Thomas cracked one eye open and forced his head off the back
of the tub to look at them. They were pinkish as well. But the water was still
so warm and was making his very bones feel soft. The knock at the door cut
through his serenity and he groaned.
“Pardon my lord, but Mr. McGraw is here.”
Thomas smiled to himself. If he had been interrupted for any
other reason he might have yelled back a retort.
“Very good, Cedric. Show him up,” he said instead.
He knew he needed to get out of the tub and dress but…another
minute or two wouldn’t hurt.
And it wasn’t as though he’d be in his clothes very long
with James anyway.
Thomas wiggled a little and closed his eyes until he heard
the knock at the door. It used to be soft and polite when they had first
started seeing each other. Now it was strong and confident.
“Come.”
The door opened and closed and he opened his eyes to a
bemused James.
“How long have you been soaking this time, my lord?” James
asked with a wry grin.
“Too long, I’m sure,” said Thomas.
James approached the tub. He took in the sight of his lord—rather
lavaciously Thomas happily noted—but then he snorted.
“Thomas, there’s still steam
coming off the water.”
At last Thomas made his relaxed body move and sit, then
stand. James grabbed the bath towel.
“Thomas!” he exclaimed as his eyes traveled over Thomas’s
body. “You look like a sun-burnt raisin!”
Thomas glanced down at his body. Well, he was exceptionally pink. And wrinkled.
Everywhere.
“Hmm, perhaps I did have it a bit too warm this time…”
James stood there, not handing him the towel. His grin
turned amused, eyebrows raised.
“Oh you find this funny, do you?” asked Thomas, indignant
but feigning it just a little.
“Well look at you!” said James. He waved the towel at him as
if it were a fan. “You need to cool down first.”
“You scoundrel. Give me that!”
James chuckled as Thomas yanked the towel from him and dried
off. When he was through he discarded it and moved to the bed but James
intercepted him. He wrapped both his arms around Thomas and pecked a kiss to
his lips. Thomas melted a little.
“It was a bit too
hot,” Thomas admitted, looking at James coquettishly through his lashes.
James cocked his head and sucked in his bottom lip. He
released Thomas, who then flopped down dramatically on the bed, limbs spread
out.
“James?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you dare laugh but…would you mind fanning me again?”
i am so delighted by cats, i love that we have little bendy animals that climb all over everything and break shit and dart around our homes at top speed and we’re totally cool with it like “ah yes, there it goes again”
That book is something I shared with Thomas. I just missed it. Our life then, when he was alive. I can feel myself forgetting it and I don’t want to forget it.
A Pennsylvania museum has solved the mystery of a Renaissance portrait in an investigation that spans hundreds of years, layers of paint and the murdered daughter of an Italian duke.
Among the works featured in the Carnegie Museum’s exhibit Faked, Forgotten, Found is a portrait of Isabella de’Medici, the spirited favorite daughter of Cosimo de’Medici, the first Grand Duke of Florence, whose face hadn’t seen the light of day in almost 200 years.
Isabella Medici’s strong nose, steely stare and high forehead plucked of hair, as was the fashion in 1570, was hidden beneath layers of paint applied by a Victorian artist to render the work more saleable to a 19th century buyer.
The result was a pretty, bland face with rosy cheeks and gently smiling lips that Louise Lippincott, curator of fine arts at the museum, thought was a possible fake.
Before deciding to deaccession the work, Lippincott brought the painting, which was purportedly of Eleanor of Toledo, a famed beauty and the mother of Isabella de’Medici, to the Pittsburgh museum’s conservator Ellen Baxter to confirm her suspicions.
Baxter was immediately intrigued. The woman’s clothing was spot-on, with its high lace collar and richly patterned bodice, but her face was all wrong, ‘like a Victorian cookie tin box lid,’ Baxter told Carnegie Magazine.
After finding the stamp of Francis Needham on the back of the work, Baxter did some research and found that Needham worked in National Portrait Gallery in London in the mid-1800s transferring paintings from wood panels to canvas mounts.
Paintings on canvas usually have large cracks, but the ones on the Eleanor of Toledo portrait were much smaller than would be expected.
Baxter devised a theory that the work had been transferred from a wood panel onto canvas and then repainted so that the woman’s face was more pleasing to the Victorian art-buyer, some 300 years after it had been painted.
Christ men have been Photoshopping women to make us more “pleasing” since for-fucking-ever.
Also, Isabella de’Medici is nice looking, but also has that look in her eye of all Medicis: “I haven’t yet decided whether I’m going to kick your ass, buy you and everything you own, or have sex with you. Perhaps all three.”
As of July 4th 2018, the Internet as we know it might be dead for good.
The European Parliament is passing a new Copyright Directive. Article 13 #CensorshipMachine will impose widespread censorship of all the content we share online. Art, fanfiction, parodies, remixes, mashups, memes, etc.. Anything that you do not hold the rights over will be taken down.
Article 13 would force all online platforms to police and prevent the uploading of copyrighted content, or make people seek the correct licenses to post that content. Internet platforms hosting large amounts of user-uploaded content must monitor user behaviour and filter their contributions to identify and prevent copyright infringement.
Such filters will be mandatory for platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit and Instagram, but also much smaller websites.
Last Tuesday (19th June 2018) a group of more than 70 people who have played important roles in building the internet and developing it (Tim Berners-Lee, Vincent Cerf,
Jimmy Wales, Mitchell Baker…) into what it is today addressed an open letter to the members of the European Parliament:
“As creators ourselves, we share the concern that there should be a fair distribution of revenues from the online use of copyright works, that benefits creators, publishers, and platforms alike.
But Article 13 is not the right way to achieve this. By requiring Internet platforms to perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users. […] The damage that this may do to the free and open Internet as we know it is hard to predict, but in our opinions could be substantial.”
Europe is facing a huge problem, and unlike with Net Neutrality, the world doesn’t seem to care.
Just wanted to let everyone know – it sounds like the result of the “what’s next” vote is the Gates Lives AU, so I’ll be working on getting that done as soon as possible with my new job starting next week. I’m hoping I can get it finished and polished before I have to buckle down and really concentrate on getting familiar with a new position and new location.
Meg's Mumbles 