Sandbox Tree (aka Dynamite Tree)
The Sandbox Tree (Hura Crepitans) grows primarily in South America, the Amazon rain-forest and certain parts of North America.
This tree is completely dangerous. The pumpkin shaped fruit it grows causes (upon consumption) vomiting, diarrhea and cramps. The sap from the tree is toxic and was once used to poison the tips of darts for combat. It can also cause blindness if it comes into contact with the eye.
The really cool (and also dangerous) thing about this tree is how the fruits explode. When they’re ripe, the hardened seed capsules explode and send flat, hard seeds over a 60 feet radius at 150 MPH (~240 KPH).
Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this wholeheartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.
“
| — | Bertrand Russell, Mortals and Others (via philosophybits) |
‘Midsommar’ Shines: A Solstice Nightmare Unfolds In Broad Daylight
Film critic Justin Chang:
In the viscerally unnerving films of Ari Aster, there’s nothing more horrific than the reality of human grief. His haunted-house thriller, Hereditary, followed a family rocked by traumas so devastating that the eventual scenes of devil-worshipping naked boogeymen almost came as a relief. Aster’s new movie, Midsommar, doesn’t pack quite as terrifying a knockout punch, but it casts its own weirdly hypnotic spell. This is a slow-burning and deeply absorbing piece of filmmaking, full of strikingly beautiful images and driven less by shocks than ideas. It’s not interested in frightening you so much as seeping into your nervous system.
