Early analysis of the asteroid Bennu sample returned by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission has revealed dust rich in carbon, nitrogen, and organic compounds, all of which are essential components for life as we know it. Dominated by clay minerals, particularly serpentine, the sample mirrors the type of rock found at mid-ocean ridges on Earth. The magnesium-sodium phosphate found in the sample hints that the asteroid could have splintered off from an ancient, small, primitive ocean world.
As parts of the United Statesemerge from a searing heat wave that culminated in record-breaking temperatures this past weekend, a six-foot-tall sculpture of Abraham Lincoln has gone viral online for its ceraceous demise, generating humorous quips and memes across social media that range from the innocent to risqué.
Featuring 10 candle wicks that visitors are encouraged to light before extinguishing them after one to two minutes, the wax sculpture titled “40 ACRES: Camp Barker” (2024) was installed on February 15 outside Garrison Elementary School in Washington, DC, which is situated on the site of Camp Barker, a Civil War contraband camp where formerly enslaved people who had liberated themselves established a community.
Users on social media were quick to poke fun at the melting wax work. (screenshot Maya Pontone/Hyperallergic via @crampedsultana on X)
Built by Richmond artist Sandy Williams IV, who also works as an assistant professor of art at the University of Richmond, the depiction of the 16th president is a 3,000-pound wax replica of the Lincoln Memorial created using a three-dimensional scan of the DC monument. Commissioned and presented by arts nonprofit CulturalDC, the sculpture is part of an ongoing series of waxen monuments that Williams has been producing since 2017. It also belongs to The 40 ACRES Archive, an expanding collection of artworks, events, performances, films, and installations focusing on Black American history that the artist established in 2021.
“The location of ‘40 ACRES: Camp Barker’ was chosen because it sits on top of a Civil War Era Freedmen community that Lincoln would often pass and visit on his commutes between the White House and [his] cottage,” Williams told Hyperallergic, adding that the work was meant to “expand awareness” about the histories of self-emancipated Black communities during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era “as a way of understanding and contextualizing our contemporary conditions.”
While some users made light-hearted jokes about the sculpture’s transformation, others took a darker approach, referencing the president’s infamous assassination. (video downloaded from @bribri_is_wheezy on TikTok)
While Williams explained that sculpture was always meant to be “impermanent,” this past week’s extreme temperatures caused the wax effigy to melt away more rapidly than expected, resulting in some fairly humorous transformations — including an unintentional decapitation and the severance of Lincoln’s legs — that naturally caught the attention of users on social media.
Yesterday, CulturalDC announced that staff members removed the president’s head entirely in order to prevent further damage.
Williams noted that although melting is a fundamental part of the sculptural series, they were “not expecting this version of the artwork to melt in this way,” wholly attributing the sudden liquification to the heat waves.
“I have been using this type of wax for public sculptures since 2020, but this is the first time the ambient heat has had such a visible effect on its integrity,” Williams said, adding that visitors can extrapolate other meanings from the ongoing melting.
“Not only does [the current melting] reference the ways in which our histories of constant displacement, genocide, inequality, failures to repair, and massive resistance to social welfare programs frames our current political and social climate, but these failures have also led to the current climate disasters affecting all of us, including the Lincoln sculpture,” Williams remarked.
To many, the sculpture’s melting aptly captured many people’s present frustration with the current state of the country. (screenshot Maya Pontone/Hyperallergic via @asliaydintasbas on X)
This is also not the first time the sculpture’s realization has not gone according to plan. An earlier version containing 100 wicks was installed in September 2023, but before it could be officially unveiled, a group of people lit over half of the wicks, resulting in another premature collapse that involved a headless Honest Abe.
A representative for CulturalDC told Hyperallergic that after consulting with the school’s principal and local community members, the installation will be removed before students return for the fall semester on August 26.
“This timeline is only slightly earlier than our original removal date of September 1st,” the representative said, adding that private collectors and galleries have made offers to purchase the work, although no firm decisions have been made yet.
“Personally, I think it’s a great platform for this work to spark conversations, not only about the historical significance of the site and of Lincoln, but about what’s going on in the world as it relates to climate change,” Kristi Maiselman, CulturalDC’s curator and executive director, told Hyperallergic.
Extremely high temperatures that engulfed the United States’s capital region over the weekend resulted in an incidental decapitation of the 16th president.
This is my very unpopular opinion. When I see 50 is the new 30, I want to scream. Take the compliments, but think about whether it supports valuing youth only, or celebrating getting old.
To me, it just reinforces the toxic culture that suggests being young is everything. I’ve been there, done that. Now it’s time to embrace my inner beauty and confidence, and rock this middle life crisis in style.
So please spare me the “you don’t look a day over 50” comments. I’m rocking this half century mark, I’m not trying to pass for anything younger. My age spots are earning their keep, rather than chasing some elusive 30. I choose to embrace the richness of this chapter. I’m here to tell you 50 is the new 50. I am 53, I look 53, I own 53, and I’m proud of 53.
I feel this. SO. MUCH. I’m turning 45 this summer and recently I was out and about with my almost 20 yo niece and her friend and I made some offhand comment about being old (I’m sure my knee or ankle was complaining as we walked or something similar) and my niece, in her well meaning and kind way, declared that I was NOT old. And I laughed and said something about how “No, I AM. And that’s okay.” Because I’ve lived a LIFE and had all kinds of experiences that take time to have, so I’m cool with getting older, even if my ankle pisses me off some times. And my niece’s friend said the best thing that reminded me that just because a person might be young, doesn’t me that they can’t get it. They said something like “Yeah. Getting old doesn’t have to be bad. Think about all the stuff we can do over the next 20 years.”
And it’s like YEAH. That’s it exactly. You got time on your side kids, USE IT. Meanwhile, I’ve earned every ache and pain and stupid ankle issue I’ve accrued over the past 4.5 decades, and I’m not going to do anything but OWN it, because they make me, ME, and that’s not a bad thing at all.
Or in the wise words of The Amazing Devil:
“And these lines aren’t wrinkles, dear heart
They’re just dollops of paint on a new work of art
And as I walk away I know, I’ve been through the wars
But that creaking you hear in my bones, it’s not pain, it’s applause.”
Beautiful, right? When they first started laying this stuff across the Atlantic during the late Victorian, people made this stuff into souvenir jewelry:
been going insane over Bruce in his eating dome for 24 hrs now
There is so much story telling here. A person got this pacific parrotlet named it Bruce which in and of itself is amazing but then this person went here my little bird friend a raspbebe for you to enjoy and Bruce said hell yeah and went cataclysmicly and irreversible ape shit ham on that berry. And that probably happened more than once. So instead of never again allowing this little dinosaur the joy of the succulent flesh of the delectable raspberry they went what can we do for our little baby boy. and then boom they got some kind of cake cover type deal and cut a door into it so that Bruce would Not Be Trapped in a fruit prison (altho truely it is the berries who are trapped in there with Bruce but none the less) and so he may go to his pent house and freak it as crazily as his little bird heart desires.
Anyway i love pets they are each distinct little guys who are carred for by the funniest ape to ever exist bc we love animal so much
I’m in this group and Bruce’s human posts eating dome updates when he’s done a particularly good job!
Two months after NASA crews reestablished diagnostic communications with Voyager 1, they just recently received scientific observational data as well. Transmitted via the last remaining instruments still operational aboard the furthest man-made object from Earth, the data provides critical observations on plasma and magnetism in interstellar space. It’s been 46 years and 7 months since […]
I normally tag these posts “specific ass machines” after a minor meme that blew through Tumblr, but I was tempted to tag this one “specific boob machines”.
EDIT: fine, if you won’t go looking for it, I’ll add the gif myself.
My friend is looking for a candle that’d smell like being on the old PotC ride would smell:
“I am looking for specifically the ambient smell of the PotC ride; which is, honestly, in some ways not a good smell. That ride smells like bromine (to keep the water clean), gunpowder (they pipe this in), maybe something swampy??, and the musty smell of damp dust / old book”
its 1am and i am overwhelmed with love for a person who kindly and knowledgeably answered questions on a forum about niche topics. this is not the first time and it absolutely will not be the last
I wanted to figure out how to identify/describe a silver blade vs a steel blade for a fic, and I found a post on silver-collecter.com from 2010, and answers from a man named uncle_vic:
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in this same thread, olewheat asked about another silver piece; uncle_vic explained that blades were not made from silver, because it’d be too soft - often carbon steel would be silver plated, and eventually get pitted.
after a volley of questions, several users asked if they could contact uncle_vic directly. vic responded, very kindly:
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I am always, always charmed by a clearly veteran hobbyist helping out new people on a forum, and i wanted to see what else uncle_vic posted, what other nuggets about his life i could learn, and it turns out he was a pillar of the community:
He joined in 2006, when the website was only 2 months old, and throughout the next 6 years, he helped many identify their silver pieces, and welcomed them all with: “Hi there and thanks for joining us”, and always ended with a “Regards, Uncle Vic”
He helped so often, he’d post on the social thread to let people know he’d be gone without internet access for an extended period of time!
These often didn’t get many interactions, but he did so anyway, like a journal made public: one about how a hurricane was reaching him in Baton Rouge; several about his fishing trips, like this one in 2011:
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A year later, he wrote a similar vacation post, which became his final topic on the forum, titled: “Gone fishin’”.
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In May 2012, 3 months later, a newer user asked Vic what type of fishing he liked.
Vic replied: (content warning for cancer)
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This was Uncle Vic’s last post on the silver-collecter.com forums. Unflinchingly honest, and this time, instead of his usual “Regards”, he ended with “Keep the Faith”.
According to the obituary posted in the same thread, he passed away the next day, at his camp on the Tickfaw river – well known for fishing.
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This isn’t the first time I’ve come across kind, dedicated forum users, usually knowledgeable retirees, who suddenly stop posting; it certainly won’t be the last. But everytime I fall in love with them, and in turn, with humanity even more, to see what we leave behind.
A retired Cajun lawyer from Baton Rouge found a silver collecting forum from a hobbyist magazine in 2006, and decided to spend the next 6 years, up to his dying day, sharing his life, his love, and his knowledge with strangers.
Thank you, Uncle Vic, for the forum users you helped; thank you for the countless, anonymous users who found your posts through search engines like me.
I’m glad your corner of the internet exists so that, 12 years since you’ve been gone, I can visit and you can still teach me a whole lot about identifying silver and silver makers.
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