Brand-brand new tattoo. My design: the typeface is IM Fell Great Primer Pro. The quote is from a 1919 New York Times article pronouncing that the geodetic effect of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity had been proven:
LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS;
Men of Science More or Less Agog Over Results of Eclipse Observations.
EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS
Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to be, but Nobody Need Worry.
I chose this quote because I thought it was funny and remarkably candid, but also because it’s a oddly perfect secular counterpoint to my favorite scripture, back when I was a Christian:
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?
-– Psalm 8:3-5
Whether Christian or agnostic, as I am now, I’ve always felt most reassured and peaceful when looking up into a clear night sky, seeing the heavens shine back down on me.
And yeah, this is a complicated nod towards Douglas Adams’ “DON’T PANIC”.
There’s no story behind this tattoo, just a general building up of themes. To me, ships, stars and magic* have most always been intertwined, and this particular piece is good representation of that osculation. Of course there are lots of literary influences, including:
- Tolkien’s Valinor (the Utter West), and “The Road Goes Ever On”,
- the Dawn Treader,
- Hobbs’ Liveships,
- the alethiometer in His Dark Materials, and the gypsies & witches,
- a lot of Robert Frost (“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “Take Something Like a Star”),
- Shakespeare’s “star to every wand’ring bark”,
- Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”,
- Gaiman’s floating pirate ships in Stardust, and likewise the space ships in “Last Exile”,
- further back, the old English folk tales, the ones that warn against falling asleep by a river,
- the numbers three and seven,
- and of course, Kevin Smith’s differentiation between a sailboat and a schooner. (According to Wikipedia, my tattoo is a top sail schooner.)
*I think it helps if you know that I am, at heart, a gigantic fantasy nerd who only doesn’t dress up in garb & prance around renaissance fairs because I can’t be bothered.
—Timoni
I got this at Black and Blue Tattoo, over on Sixteenth & Guerrero. I picked out Siri because i really liked her line work. She did a fantastic job—I think the tattoo looks better than my vector mockup; the lines are a bit more delicate and brush-like.
The outline and line work didn’t hurt much. The color suuuuuuuuuuuuuucked. But I love the result.
The ship image is from a woodcut typeset. It’s the same icon that graces my website.
