Super Bowl LV
Cancer is one of the twelve constellations of the zodiac and is located in the Northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for crab and it is commonly represented as one. Its astrological symbol is♋. Cancer is a medium-size constellation with an area of 506 square degrees and its stars are rather faint, its brightest star Beta Cancri having an apparent magnitude of 3.5. It contains two stars with known planets, including 55 Cancri, which has five: one super-earth and four gas giants, one of which is in the habitable zone and as such has expected temperatures similar to Earth. At the (angular) heart of this sector of our celestial sphere is Praesepe (Messier 44), one of the closest open clusters to Earth and a popular target for amateur astronomers.
Urania's Mirror; or, a view of the Heavens is a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards, first published in November 1824.[1][2] They are illustrations based on Alexander Jamieson's A Celestial Atlas,[2] but the addition of holes punched in them allow them to be held up to a light to see a depiction of the constellation's stars.[1] They were engraved by Sidney Hall, and were said to be designed by "a lady", but have since been identified as the work of the Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam, an assistant master at Rugby School.[3]
The cover of the box-set depicts Urania, the muse of astronomy. It originally came with a book entitled A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy… written as an accompaniment.[2][4] Peter Hingley, the researcher who solved the mystery of who designed the cards a hundred and seventy years after their publication, considered them amongst the most attractive star chart cards of the many produced in the early 19th century.
Urania's Mirror illustrates 79 constellations on 32 separate cards. Some of the illustrated constellations are now obsolete, as are some of the subconstellations, such as Caput Medusæ (the head of Medusa, carried by Perseus).[2] Urania's Mirror was originally advertised as including "all the constellations visible in the British Empire",[1][4] but, in fact, it left out some southern constellations. By the second edition (1825), advertisements merely claimed illustration of the constellations visible from "Great Britain".[4] Some cards focus on a single constellation, others include several, with Card 32, centered on Hydra, illustrating twelve constellations (several of which are no longer recognised). Card 28 has six, and no other card has more than four.[2] Each card measures 8 inches by 5 1⁄2 (about 20 by 14 cm).[4] A book by Jehoshaphat Aspin entitled A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy (or, to give its full name, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, Explaining the General Phenomena of the Celestial Bodies; with Numerous Graphical Illustrations) was written to accompany the cards.[2] The cards and book came in a box illustrated with a woman almost certainly intended to be Urania, muse of astronomy.[4] The cards and book were originally published by Samuel Leigh, 18 Strand, London,[4] although, by the fourth edition, the publishing firm had moved to 421 Strand and changed its name to M. A. Leigh.[5]
P.D. Hingley calls Urania's Mirror "one of the most charming and visually attractive of the many aids to astronomical self-instruction produced in the early nineteenth century".[4] On its main gimmick, the holes in the stars meant to show the constellation when held in front of a light, he notes that, as the size of the holes marked correspond to the magnitude of the stars, a quite realistic depiction of the constellation is provided.[4] Ian Ridpath mostly concurs. He describes the device as an "attractive feature", but notes that, due to the light at the time being provided primarily by candles, many cards likely burned up due to carelessness when trying to hold them in front of the flame. He notes three other attempts to use the same gimmick—Franz Niklaus König's Atlas céleste (1826), Friedrich Braun's Himmels-Atlas in transparenten Karten (1850), and Otto Möllinger's Himmelsatlas (1851), but states that they lack Urania's Mirror's artistry.[2]
Over the past few months, Henry has been giving us clues about his involvement with Everence. Now the company that specializes in technology that allows you to add the DNA from a loved one into a piece of jewelry or into a tattoo has made it official. They've recently added this photo of Henry with Kal to their cover page, confirming he's their customer. You can learn more at Everence.life.
We don't know if this is just the first step in a promo campaign that might include testimonials, but we'll keep on top of it for you and bring you updates as they are released.
Thanks to Kris for the heads up!
The questioning of one's sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender, or all three[1][2] is a process of exploration by people who may be unsure, still exploring, or concerned about applying a social label to themselves for various reasons.[3][4] The letter "Q" is sometimes added to the end of the acronym LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender); the "Q" can refer to either queer or questioning.[5][6]
Sexual orientation, sexual identity, or gender does not always coincide with each other; meaning for example, if an individual identifies themselves as a heterosexual, they may not only be attracted to someone of the opposite sex and have sexual interactions with someone who is of the same sex without necessarily identifying themselves as bisexual.[7] The understanding that one does not need to apply any type of gender or sexuality label to oneself is relatively publicly and socially prominent in the modern day, along with gender and sexual fluidity, which is also more openly discussed and accepted in today's society.[8] Individuals who do not identify themselves as male, female, transgender, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual or feel their sexuality is fluid, may refer to themselves as gender neutral, genderqueer, non-binary, or agender.[9]
If the tone of the new Adam Foster Fine Jewelry Showroom is dark and moody, it’s only part of Foster’s effort to accentuate his collections rather than outshine them.
The architect for the space, Chrissy Hill Rogers of St. Louis architecture firm Arcturis, calls the look “modern Gothic luxury”—“a combination of dark and light that creates a dramatic backdrop for Adam’s one-of-a-kind designs.”
The first like it in St. Louis, this combination studio, showroom, and event space gives Foster and business partner Mary Steward the opportunity to not just entice people to buy but also educate them about the jewelry-making process.
“We make everything we sell, so it’s important that if a customer should say, ‘I don’t understand this. How do you do this?’ we can walk them over and they can see where we’re actually making the work, and we can explain how it is made,” Foster says.
Individuality is also important to Foster, and the new showroom provides a space where he can meet with clients privately (he operates by appointment only) to design pieces that match each individual’s personality. It’s all part of giving clients the experiences they deserve—in short, not your typical jewelry store encounter. The showroom is what Steward describes as a relational rather than a transactional space.
“We want you to enjoy [yourself], from the minute you walk in to the minute you leave,” says Foster. “This isn’t a store where you come and stand in front of a counter, I try to sell you something, and you walk out. There’s nothing wrong with those stores, but we really think that the jewelry we’re selling needs an experience built around it.”
Before that experience could be created, however, the space had to be. Working with Hill Rogers and interior designer Emily Castle of Castle Design, Foster and Steward transformed a nearly 4,000-square-foot blank slate—devoid of windows, lights, and plumbing—to capture the thought, creativity, and craftsmanship behind Foster’s work.
Completed in April, the showroom pays homage to Foster’s personal style and Italian roots. “Adam is inspired by both Old World tradition and supremely modern styles,” says Hill Rogers, “so the hope was for the space to evoke a feeling that combines these.”
Like Foster’s jewelry, Castle says, nearly everything about the showroom is customized, from the lighting, including a Hubbardton Forge steel-and-crystal flower chandelier, to the casework, created by Ross Wardenburg, that showcases Foster’s handcrafted collections.
Similar to European jewelry houses, the showroom has a “home-like” feel, Steward says. A fully stocked bar, a seating area that invites guests to stay awhile, and a 10-seat table speak to the fact that this, more than anything else, is an inviting place to be.
The event space, which can hold 30 to 40 people, offers another way for guests to interact with the room and the jewelry. Foster says that it’s fit for cocktail parties or more formal dinners and designed to offer a unique, cohesive experience.
“We want to make sure that the jewelry, the space, the mood, the idea behind the jewelry, what you’re drinking and eating—that everything sort of goes together,” he says. “It’s all one common theme.”
When Taylor Swift announced her new album, Evermore, on Twitter this week, she added a curious flourish about the release date: “Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now.”
It’s her birthday this Sunday, Dec. 13, and this album is a gift for fans, she was saying. Never mind that that’s not really how gifts work—if you give other people a gift for your birthday, one you want them to buy from you, that’s pretty weird, but whatever. What I really want to zero in on here, though, are the numbers. Swift mentioned 13 and 31 so everyone would be impressed by the destiny of it all. Honestly: She’s expecting us to believe that, of all the things to dream about as an adolescent, hers was turning the age that’s the inverse of her lucky number? I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. I see the fudging room in her words: She is not saying she didn’t also dream of normal things, like falling in love or becoming a famous pop star. But it’s still strange. Most kids can’t really conceive of ever being older than, like, 20, making 31 seem positively decrepit. I was a teenager when the movie 13 Going on 30, about a 13-year-old who can’t wait to be “30, flirty, and thriving,” came out, and I remember thinking at the time: Who wants to be 30?
The actual explanation for Swift’s weird fib about dreaming of her 31st year as a teenager is that she has a thing for the number 13—a thing that she has subsumed into the brand of being Taylor Swift. It’s a fixation that’s struck me as increasingly less charming as the years have gone on, and I recently realized why.
Consider this sentence: “It’s a world of meaning, in which every event has an occult significance, hidden from most but revealed to initiates.” That sounds like a decent description of Swift’s habit of ceding all the material—between songs, social media posts, and whatever else— that she puts into the world with clues for her fan army to run wild with, doesn’t it? But that’s not what it is: I actually copied that sentence directly from an article I read about QAnon.
I’m not saying liking Taylor Swift is like believing in QAnon. Only, maybe, that she drives me crazy in a similar way. QAnon is a conspiracy theory built around the premise that “America is run by a cabal of pedophiles and Satan-worshippers who run a global child sex-trafficking operation and that President Trump is the only person who can stop them,” as CBS News has put it. Its adherents believe that a Trump administration insider, known as Q, is communicating with them by leaving cryptic posts, or “Q drops,” on extremely shady message boards. After these posts go up, followers attempt to decode them, sort of like it’s all a multiplatform game. Journalists have likened the messages to “a bad spy novel,” full of clichés and “read[ing] like fan fiction.” Along with these Q drops, there’s a general propensity in the community to overinterpret and look for signs everywhere: The QAnon crowd was sure that Trump coming down with COVID-19 was all part of the plan, for example, and that there are definitely secret messages in run-of-the-mill-seeming posts on Army social media accounts. They do things like insist that the letters Trump decides to capitalize in his tweets must be anagrams that prove Q’s existence.
Now who does that remind you of?
Swift no longer leaves encoded messages in her liner notes like she did on early albums, but she still loves to give her fans a mystery to solve. Her use of numbers is part of that. Swift explained it to Paul McCartney in a Rolling Stone conversation earlier this year: “Numbers kind of rule my whole world. The numbers 13 … 89 is a big one.” At best, she’s that adult who never grew out of being obsessed with her birthday. You can’t fully blame her for all this: Being a child star is bound to a screw a person up a little.
Most of it is harmless and cute enough: She used to write 13 on her hand at concerts; several of her songs have 13-second intros; her fans notice stuff like “[w]hen Taylor posts a screencap of the song she is listening to on Instagram, the song’s timestamp will always be 13 seconds.” There’s a spectrum wherein sometimes these breadcrumbs are successful in adding a sense of something greater to Swift’s whole aura—a number 13 as a background detail in a music video, say. Sometimes they’re kinda silly—when fans note that a social media post of Swift’s used 13 exclamation points, fine, but who cares!—and sometimes they’re just asinine. And with this week’s particularly strained 13/31 baloney, the QAnon of it all really jumped out at me.
Here’s an even more egregious example from a few weeks ago, when Swift preceded the news that she had a new Folklore concert movie with, “Well it’s 11/24 and 24-11=13 so I’ve got an announcement.”
I’m honestly getting mad again, looking at it. How did we let Swift get away with this? She told us to take the date and subtract the month from it for what exactly? If it’s meaningful every time the date is 13 more than the month, where were the concert announcements on Oct. 23, Sept. 22, Aug. 21, and so on of this and every other year in history? You can’t retcon a date into having numerological significance, or if you can, then you have to admit that you’re just making it up. Numerology can be fun to think about, the idea that there’s something mystical at work in Swift’s oeuvre, but a sloppy reference like this undermines the whole enterprise. It makes it seem like Swift is just flinging the number 13 around willy-nilly to drive her fans (and me specifically) crazy.
The real problem here, I’m not too incensed to understand, is that QAnon and the rise of other dangerous conspiracy theories ruined this kind of silly speculating and superfan theorizing, not the other way around. Kids and Swifties should be able to go completely nuts looking for hidden meanings in their favorite artist’s work without it serving as a painful reminder of how many people in this country think they can apply a similar level of rigor to proving that the government is run by pedophiles. But I can’t do anything about all the morons who buy into QAnon. So I’m going to continue to channel my frustration into being annoyed that Taylor Swift’s references to the number 13 aren’t more sophisticated.
Because it applies to me and Henry Cavill and literally the whole reason this whole universe exists.
Super Bowl LVI will be the 56th Super Bowl and the 52nd modern-era National Football League (NFL) championship. The game will decide the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2021 season. The game is scheduled to be played on February 6, 2022, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, (with the exact date pending potential changes to the NFL calendar).[1][2] It will be the eighth Super Bowl hosted by the Greater Los Angeles Area, with the last one being Super Bowl XXVII in 1993, held at the Rose Bowl, and the first in the City of Inglewood. The game will be televised nationally by NBC.
You can kill yourself if you don’t agree that you’re inadequate and a mistake in every way.
Sorry, I just label all of you as NPC #1, NPC #2, NPC #3, so on and so forth.