"Explosive epic of the beat generation" On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. Pan Giant M39, 1963 #beatnik #jazz pic.twitter.com/1ewWTLykcS

— Pulp Librarian (@PulpLibrarian) May 31, 2015

Recreation of Helen of Troy's maquillage based on 13th BC Mycenaean plaster head, Nat Arch Mus Athens. #WorldGothDay pic.twitter.com/rCby2znvNh

— QueensClassics (@QueensClassics) May 22, 2015

"April Orchard," Franz Wright

We think if we’re not conscious we exist
we won’t exist, but
how can that be? 
Just look at the sun.
Oh, if I could only make myself
completely unafraid—once
born, we never die—
what talks we’d have, and will. It’s theorized
the universe is only one
among others, infinite
others. Though
didn’t Christ tell us, “In my father’s house
there are many rooms . . .”
And I would tell you
what it’s like,
real fear. And
how there are human beings for whom the sun
is never going to shine
Is never going to rise again, ever, not
really—
not the real sun.
They’re not exactly waking up
in radiant awareness
and celebration of their own presence these days,
who’d get rid of themselves with no more thought
(if it were possible) than you would give to
taking off a glove.
How in deep sleep sometimes even we get well.
So you can believe me, in the far deeper
sleep (these new apple leaves, maybe) we are all going
to be perfectly all right.

'safe in heaven dead'

Mike Wallace interviews Jack Kerouac for the New York Post, January 21, 1958:


MW: What is the basis of your mysticism?

JK: What I believe is that nothing is happening.

MW: What do you mean?

JK: Well, you're not sitting here. That's what you think. Actually we are all great empty space. I could walk right through you... you know what I mean, we're made out of atoms, electrons. We're actually empty. We're an empty vision... in one mind.

MW: In what mind - the mind of God?

JK: That's the name we give it. We can call it tangerine... god... tangerine... But I do know we are empty phantoms, sitting here thinking we are human beings and worrying about civilization. We're just empty phantoms. And yet, all is well.

MW: All is well?

JK: Yeah. We're all in Heaven, now, really.

MW: You don't sound happy.

JK: Oh, I'm tremendously sad. I'm in great despair.

MW: Why?

JK: It's a great burden to be alive. A heavy burden, a great big heavy burden. I wish I were safe in Heaven, dead.

ending of "Johnny Got His Gun," Dalton Trumbo (1938)

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquillity in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.

....yyyyyeah, I still remembered almost all of those last three pages not quite word-perfect but too fucking close enough (it came up in a discussion of Metallica elsewhere) and boy, talk about Excellent Books You Will Read Only Once. Never Again. And Remember Forever. And not in the good way. That story would make Gandhi punch a baby bunny.

That final paragraph always seemed like the most brutal turn of the screw ever to me, though, because how is that enraged desperate call to arms supposed to be pacifist? It seems like the war has finally driven the narrator absolutely nuts and there's nowhere else for the story to end, it self-destructs, like a bomb. The solution to killing is to kill the bastards who kill.

Nobody ever said insanity was logical, though, just look at the War on Terror ("sweep it all up, things related and not").

Alice in Chains - "Would? (Unplugged)"

#Poemoftheday is Pessoa's riddling gem 'Autopsychogeography' #Translationtuesdaybecausewecantwaituntilthursday! pic.twitter.com/EE610zwoTO

— Carcanet Press (@Carcanet) May 26, 2015

12 years ago today, we last saw the #ChosenOne #BTVS "She saved the world, a lot" #BuffyTheVampireSlayer pic.twitter.com/9xjsNEg1rB

— Sarah Michelle (@SarahMGellar) May 20, 2015

IN FUCKING DEED

This movie went eons beyond our normal expectations, where we grudgingly award points for a well-written female character or a vaguely interesting backstory. It left that kind of judgement in the dust, a two-hour car chase with more female characters than men, including a pregnant pacifist messiah and a motorcycle gang of elderly desert cowboy grandmas. It's like this movie came from another damn planet. 

- Gavia Baker-Whitelaw

There's a big gay rainbow over Dublin, if that's not Jesus giving the Yes vote I don't know what is pic.twitter.com/p38LKtLgOv

— Karl (@karltims) May 22, 2015

"Solution," Franz Wright

What is the meaning of kindness?
Speak and listen to others, from now on,
as if they had recently died.
At the core the seen and unseen worlds are one.

T: So what films other than the Mad Max franchise has George Miller directed?

MOI: I don't know! //goes to Wikipedia ....Happy Feet, "a musical epic about the life of singing penguins in Antarctica."

T: 0.0

this was me except Step 5A was 'all my feminist friends raving about it ecstatically'

And also, no lie, the very first time I saw the trailer I thought they had rebooted the franchise with Mad Max as a girl. BUT IT WAS EVEN BETTER THAN THAT.

Kate Leth, "Kate or Die"

'flaunting her belly, like a bronze shield, at her enraged pursuers'*

via

Anthony Lane (only it's MORE than that, she's shielding Furiosa and puts herself right in the line of fire because she knows the warlord won't hurt her because she's carrying his baby, and she's using her and her child's status as his property against him, to protect her rescuer. And her sister is literally supporting her. It's such a fucking beautiful moment)

we are (all) not things

Max is haunted by his past, and turned into nothing more than a body by Immortan Joe. But here’s the key: in the opening scenes we root for him against the powdered boys who are attacking him. As the chase begins we are rooting for him and Furiosa, and cheer as War Boys bite it. I went in blind, so I assumed Nux was dead after the crash, and thought that Miller was going for the sick joke of Max being tied to a corpse for half the movie. But no–Nux wakes up. So then I thought he was going to be the secondary antagonist, clinging to the truck and striking at Furiosa and the women from within. But no–after he fails to assassinate Furiosa and humiliates himself in front of Joe, he’s just a kid. A traumatized, enslaved kid who’s been duped into craving Joe’s approval over all else. He loses his reason for living when he fails, and has to remake himself on the run, just as the women are. Just as Max is. As the chase continues, more and more of his paint fades away, until we see the real face underneath. And this comes to mean even more as the cars continue to explode: under the paint and the war cries, every boy on those trucks is a kid just like Nux. All the drummers. Coma-Doof. Even the horrible Rictus Erectus manages to sound sweet and vulnerable as he shares the news of his brother. Miller has subverted the story again: other than Joe (and possibly The Bullet Farmer and The People Eater…), there aren’t really any villains here.

And then he takes that a step further as well. Nux has been trained to live for a fiery death, and he gets it–but he gets it on his own new terms. Having experienced something like real love with Capable, he sacrifices himself to kill Rictus and save the woman he was maybe starting to hope he had a future with. This is terrible, and I felt it more than any of the other deaths in the film, but it also allows him to transform his destiny. Rather than being a slave to Joe’s war machine, he is a free and independent young man who sacrifices himself for others by his own choice.

....Furiosa is terribly wounded during the storm on the Citadel, and is clearly dying. Given all the other deaths in the film I figured this was it for her, and she’d be the grand sacrificial figure. Instead, Max tells her his name–which I think marks the first time in the series that he’s chosen to tell someone his name?–and then, like Nux, takes the role Immortan Joe forced on him and transforms it into something better. Having been turned into a Blood Bag against his will, he chooses to give his blood to Furiosa, and the thing that seemed like just a sick joke/dystopian objectification at the beginning of the film is turned into an act of healing. He is doing it purely to save her, but in doing it makes a new connection to humanity, and to the better part of himself, just as Nux did in his sacrifice. He becomes a hero through this healing act, not through fighting.

....Much as silent film used to be able to reach across cultures and languages, Miller’s focus on action and emotion over dialogue and exposition allows us to experience the story in a direct, intimate way. The people who referred to this film as a “Trojan Horse” were completely correct—but Miller wasn’t smuggling feminist propaganda, he was disguising a story of healing as a fun summer blockbuster. By choosing to tell a story about how a bunch of traumatized, brainwashed, enslaved, objectified humans reclaim their lives as a balls-out feminist car chase epic with occasional moments of twisted humor, George Miller has subverted every single genre, and given us a story that will only gain resonance with time.

-- Leah Schnelbach

WE ARE NOT THINGS

BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN THE MOST BADASS PART OF THE MOVIE. THE FIRST MOST BADASS PART OF THE WHOLE BY-DESIGN SUPREMELY BADASS MOVIE IS CHARLIZE THERON AS FURIOSA THE WAR RIG DRIVER. SHE GETS A SMOKY EYE EFFECT BY SMEARING GREASE FROM THE WAR RIG'S STEERING COLUMN ACROSS HER FACE. SHE HITS DUDES IN THE BRAINPAN WITH A SNIPER RIFLE IN ZERO LIGHT FROM EIGHT HUNDRED YARDS AWAY WITH EASE. AT ONE POINT SHE USES MAX AS A RIFLE MOUNT. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE HOW HARD IT WAS NOT TO HOOT OUT LOUD IN THE THEATER WHEN THE MALE PROTAGONIST OF A FILM WHO HAD JUST COME BACK FROM A FRACAS WITH DESERT VILLAINS WAS TOLD TO CHILL FOR A SEC WHILE CHARLIZE THERON USED HIM AS A PIECE OF MILITARY FURNITURE BECAUSE MAX, IT TURNS OUT, IS A LOUSY SHOT WITH A SNIPER RIFLE.  CHARLIZE THERON'S EYES ARE EASILY HALF THE DIALOGUE IN THE MOVIE AND MOST OF THE LINES THEY SAY ADD UP TO SOMETHING LIKE "I'M ONLY GOING TO USE ONE BULLET ON THIS SHITPILE OF A WORLD BECAUSE THAT'S ALL IT DESERVES AND ALSO ALL I NEED TO KILL BECAUSE I AM THE MOST LETHAL TWO-HEADED LIZARD PROWLING THIS CURSED EARTH." SHE SHOULD GET AN OSCAR. I AM NOT KIDDING AT ALL.

- THE ALLCAPS REVIEW


(THE PEOPLE IN THE THEATRE I WAS IN CRACKED UP HELPLESSLY AT MAX THE RIFLE MOUNT. BECAUSE HOW COULD YOU NOT)

We just saw Mad Max: Furiosa and

MIND. BLOWN.

MIND. IS. BLOWN. Friends, see this movie. Call in sick, desert your desk job, leave the family dinner table -- GO. SEE. THIS. MOVIE. And see it in the theatre, because if I can you can, and the cinematography and editing and sound editing even are all absolutely gorgeous. Brilliantly written, acted, directed. HOLY SHIT WOW.

this is also me at six ayem (Rocket is my backup patronus)

Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!

The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and power of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer strength against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and through his bosom.

At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then presented to view? The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce, apparently, a material change in the arrangements at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror, -- so at first it seemed to me in my confusion -- now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait.

Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist -- it was Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution. His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not a thread in all his raiment -- not a line in all the marked and singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most absolute identity, mine own!

It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:

"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead -- dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou exist -- and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

- Edgar Allan Poe

Showgirls play chess between shows, New York, 1958

Gordon Parks, 1958. Caption from LIFE. "Between scenes in the show at New York's Latin Quarter, Pat Farrell prepares to make a chess move. Opponent (right) is Grace Sundstrom. Kibitzing at left is Shirley Forrest, an ex-schoolteacher."

Friendly reminder: this is the cover of the most recent issue of @CinemaJournal. #justsaying pic.twitter.com/NmQ3vAR8Pn

— KT Torrey (@catchclaw) May 21, 2015

DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) Directed by Stanley Kubrick - Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room. pic.twitter.com/uC3YesRtlz

— Rays of Cinema (@raysofCINEMA) May 19, 2015

don't mourn, organize

RIP pic.twitter.com/vjoXvPXfMX

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) May 20, 2015

So I'm sitting there enjoying my witty fun little pop sci book, as you do, and then Bryson drops this fucking bombshell* on me:

....James Chadwick devoted eleven intensive years to hunting for neutrons before finally succeeding in 1932....As Boorse and his colleagues point out in their history of the subject, the delay in discovery was probably a very good thing as mastery of the neutron was essential to the development of the atomic bomb....Had the neutron been isolated in the 1920s, they note, it is "very likely the atomic bomb would have been developed first in Europe, undoubtedly by the Germans."

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST BILL DON'T DO THAT TO ME. //hyperventilates


*indeed

Atoms, in short, are very abundant. They are also fantastically durable. Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms -- up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested -- probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley.)

So we are all reincarnations -- though short-lived ones.

- A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson


ETA  Review: 'Most of this paragraph is correct, but because atoms are stripped of their electrons in stars, Bryson should have said, ". . . the nuclei of every atom you possess has most likely passed through several stars . . . " One might be shocked that each of the 6 trillion or so humans on Earth have so many of Shakespeare's atoms in them. However, Jupiter Scientific has done an analysis of this problem and the figure in Bryson's book is probably low: It is likely that each of us has about 200 billion atoms that were once in Shakespeare's body.' (An Estimate of the Number of Shakespeare's Atoms in a Living Human Being)

gpoy

Newton was....famously distracted (upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head).

- A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

At 30, Jane Austen was an utter failure. A blocked writer with virtually no income of her own, she was living at her brother Frank’s house in Southampton with his new bride, her widowed mother, her older sister Cassandra, and an equally impoverished family friend. When she was 21, her father had queried a publisher about the first draft of Pride and Prejudice — then called First Impressions — but they refused to read it. At 27, she sold her novel Northanger Abbey, expecting this to launch her writing career — but her joy was short-lived: the publisher advertised the book but never put it out. The year before she had been offered a very tempting, well-paid day job — the job of being Mrs. Harris Bigg-Withers — but she couldn’t bring herself to accept. Either because she didn’t love the man — or because in the era before birth control that particular day job was incompatible with writing. She was 33 when it finally happened, the blessed event that would be the making of Jane Austen as a writer. It wasn’t a burst of literary inspiration — a plot, a character, her invention of a newfangled free indirect style. It was a piece of real estate — a house provided rent-free by her brother Edward. In the summer of 1809, after eight years of peripatetic living arrangements that were unproductive for her writing, Jane Austen settled down in this house and began to rewrite and revise the manuscripts of her younger years into the masterworks we know today as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. 

- Gina Fattore on Fanny Burney and dayjobs

"Intake Interview," Franz Wright

What is today’s date?

Who is the President?

How great a danger do you pose, on a scale of one to ten?

What does “people who live in glass houses” mean?

Every symphony is a suicide postponed, true or false?

Should each individual snowflake be held accountable for the avalanche?

Name five rivers.

What do you see yourself doing in ten minutes?

How about some lovely soft Thorazine music?

If you could have half an hour with your father, what would you say to him?

What should you do if I fall asleep?

Are you still following in his mastodon footsteps?

What is the moral of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”?

What about his Everest shadow?

Would you compare your education to a disease so rare no one else has ever had it, or the deliberate extermination of indigenous populations?

Which is more puzzling, the existence of suffering or its frequent absence?

Should an odd number be sacrificed to the gods of the sky, and an even to those of the underworld, or vice versa?

Would you visit a country where nobody talks?

What would you have done differently?

Why are you here?

Every symphony is a suicide postponed, true or false?

Though the young Mr. Wright witnessed firsthand the ravages of the poet’s life, his professional course was set by the time he was a teenager. When he was 14 or 15, as he later recounted in interviews, he wrote his first poem and mailed it to his father.

“I’ll be damned,” James Wright wrote back. “You’re a poet. Welcome to hell.”

- Franz Wright, March 18, 1953 – May 14, 2015

At ten o'clock is when I rise from my grave And cast my eyes over the ideas that I couldn't save

We were winding up the road to the site 
With the windows down and the cigarettes alight 
Singing some rubbish about, "My soul's alright" 
I didn't know what I could do, it's just you and I 
And some other guy forever passing through

go away, internet

Moi at six ayem, only slightly exaggerated

grumpy cat is my patronus

HEY, do you know that now I wake up at SIX FUCKING AYEM EVERY GODDAMN WEEKDAY because of the GIANT CONSTRUCTION PROJECT right across the street? I sure do!

Every morning:

JACKHAMMER: OMG HI HI HI I'M SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU ALL //earsplitting, skull-shattering noise

MOI: //wakes up coffee

T: //wakes up Okay

MOI: COFFEE

COFFEEMAKER: //finishes making coffee on time, because my husband is a fucking genius

T: Here you go, coffee

MOI: //drinks it while remaining as horizontal as possible

T: Does that taste at all different to you from yesterday?

MOI: whut

T: Does it taste better than the other coffee? This is a different brand.

MOI: It tastes adequately caffeinated, bro. That is what I care about.

T: //disappointed Oh.

MOI: //tries to glare but can't focus eyes properly Tell you what, after I ACTUALLY WAKE THE FUCK UP I'll tell you whether or not I can taste the fucking noble rot in the coffee beans

JACKHAMMER: WHEEEEEE I AM SO HAPPY TO GO TO WORK TODAY

At ten o'clock is when you open up your apple eyes

'for books are people'

via

we're still talking about that great movie

MOI: Clearly the motto of Ex Machina is....

T: ....?

MOI: CALEB SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE HOUSE ONCE IN A WHILE

T: //cracks up

MOI: Go bowling, nerds! Join a book club! Find a real-life D&D group, there's hundreds of them now!

T: He did actually leave the house, though, he went to work and he told her his apartment was five minutes away from the ocean.

MOI: ....He probably brought his cell phone to the beach.

T: Everyone brings their cell phone to the beach these days, honey.

'True solace is finding none, which is to say, it is everywhere.'

The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly, light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding. Finally, the lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.

 ― Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces

Go go Greenpeace go!

SPOTTED: A sea lion confronts Shell's Arctic oil rig. > http://t.co/aYXYu0ewxX #SaveTheArctic pic.twitter.com/kuYlEYKB0Q

— Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) May 14, 2015

this is still my take on us v superintelligent AI

from my Tumblr about a year ago:

SUPERINTELLIGENT AI: You humans appear to be destroying the planet. 
HUMANS: But but we need cars and planes! Lots of cars and planes! 
SUPERINTELLIGENT AI: But this will result in not just your deaths but the deaths of uncounted species and ecosystems. 
HUMANS: Have you seen cars? Or planes? They’re really neat. 
SUPERINTELLIGENT AI: //zaps humanity //tries to choose between raccoons and octopuses

yessssssssssss

How would you respond to allegations that in the final plot twist you’re calling upon deep cultural stereotypes about female duplicity – the femme fatale who uses her sexuality to wrap men around her little finger and get what she wants – in a story that supposedly has more enlightened goals in mind?

It’s so interesting. It simply never occurred to me, that thought, because I felt so allied to Ava. What I feel is that subjective responses can come from all sorts of areas, from one’s own life experience, broadly. I think the simplest way of looking at it is that it depends which character you attach yourself to. What’s your proximity, basically? Now, if your proximity is with Caleb, the young man, I understand. I could follow a logical argument that allows for that interpretation and actually feel, in a way, perfectly comfortable with that interpretation. But it’s not mine.

Because what I saw was somebody who’s trapped in a glass box – and, by the way, I was with Ava even before I wrote the first line of this script. I knew what I was doing as I did it. She is trapped in a glass box with some strange indications of the outside world. Traffic intersections, yes, which she refers to, but also wigs and photographs of girls, fragments that she is both like but not like. There’s a garden area behind a glass wall that she can’t get past, and there’s a crack in the glass that she knows she didn’t make and that looks like something was trying to get out, and so on. In that context, which is a prison, absolutely a prison, she’s given a carrot. There’s something out there, but she’s locked in by a wall and a door and a jailer who is frightening and predatory and intimidating in all sorts of different ways, and who is inspecting her in a way that would be chilling if you were on the receiving end of it.

Into that space comes the jailer’s friend, the only other man she has ever seen, who may or may not be trustworthy. At a certain point in the narrative, she asks a very reasonable question: “What will happen to me if I fail your test?” And his answer is elliptical. At that point, how does she know whether she can trust this guy?

Right. Because he’s playing both sides too. He’s not sure where his loyalties lie.

He is playing both sides, and for him it’s a pretty big mistake. In the end, what she does from my point of view, is that she is resourceful, not in terms of feminine duplicity but in terms of human interaction, and she gets out. When she gets out, I’m with her. One of the things I’ve noticed is that some people say, “The film goes on three minutes too long. Why doesn’t it end with this lift door closing?” Now, if it ended there, I think that’s an indication that the person you’re with is Caleb, and his story is over. But for me, the whole story is intended to reach that final moment.

- Alex Garland in Salon

from an interview with Alex Garland

Does the act of making Ava female, at least outwardly, create an expectation on Nathan’s part and on Caleb’s part that she would behave as female? Whereas we can only guess at how she sees herself.

She may or may not see herself in that way. What we know is that the young man sees her in that way. And one of the things that Nathan does in his setup here is he presents himself to this young guy as a kind of Bluebeard type figure, from whom this young woman needs to be rescued. That then allows [Caleb] to cast himself in the role of the rescuer, the proper hero of this little narrative. Now, whether Nathan is that Bluebeard figure or just presents himself as that is one of the questions that then is posed, but also is Caleb reasonable as casting himself as the savior / knight figure? In doing that, does he make himself the "hero" of the story, without stopping to think what’s actually going on inside this machine’s head?

Would you say there’s also a Frankenstein element to her creation?

There’s always a Frankenstein element to these creation myths. It’s the text, I suppose, which all of these stories go back to. Also, it’s always the case that in looking at the creation, you inevitably end up looking at the creator. And I suppose it is like Frankenstein inasmuch as [the story itself] has sympathy with the monster. To me, definitely, my allegiances are with Ava. They’re with the machine, not with the humans in the story.

via

Ex Machina (2015)

HOLY SHIT

I WANTED TO SEE THAT FLICK IN THE THEATRES AND I AM SO GLAD I DID

IF THAT FILM DOESN'T GET NOMINATED FOR A BUNCH OF OSCARS IT WILL BE A FUCKING TRAVESTY

SO SMART, SO WELL-WRITTEN, SO WELL-ACTED AND DIRECTED, SO FUNNY

THAT IS ALSO THE MOST FEMINIST FILM I HAVE SEEN IN YEARS


OMG I THINK I WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN.

perfection is itself the most perfect lie

via

what the FUCK, Hasbro

Remember the scene where Black Widow drops out of the jet on the motorcycle? Well fuck you the toy is Captain America pic.twitter.com/juefiCqlX8

— Zac Shipley (@zacshipley) May 8, 2015

GPOY

When I can't write I can't do anything else, and when I'm writing, I can't do anything else, either.

Without paying attention I had become what I wrote and I worried what would happen if I became unable to write. And then one day it happened. And it happened the next day, and the day after that....I'd gone silent.

-- Stephen Elliott

One of the oldest “Beware of the Dog” signs in the world. Domus del Poeta Tragico, Pompeii
The House of the Tragic Poet is a typical 2nd century BC Roman house in Pompeii, Italy. The vestibule floor was decorated with a mosaic picture of a domesticated dog leashed and chained to an arbitrary point. Below the figure were the words “CAVE CANEM”, an ancient warning equivalent to the modern “Beware of the Dog”.

'Ink flowing between the cracks in a human hand'

via

you can't tell me Captain America wouldn't be really into herd immunity

via

The first thing we do, let's kill all the fangirls

I don't even like/watch Supernatural....

.....And I have seen EVERY Charlie Bradbury episode........

INCLUDING THE LAST ONE

FUCK YOU, SPN.

Robbie had meetings with TPTB, sent emails, and text messages pleading for Charlie and providing alternatives. #SPNDePaul

— Carry On (@CarryOn_SPN) May 9, 2015

"Pantoum in Wartime," by Marilyn Hacker

In memory of Adrienne Rich

Were the mountain women sold as slaves
in the city my friend has not written from for two weeks?
One of the Just has given his medal back.
I wake up four times in the night soaked with sweat.

In the city my friend has not written from, for two weeks
there was almost enough electricity.
I wake up four times in the night soaked with sweat
and change my shirt and go to sleep again.

There was almost enough electricity
to heat water, make tea, bathe, write e-mails
and change her shirt and go to sleep again.
Her mother has gallstones. Her sister mourns.

Heat water, make tea, bathe, write e-mails
to Mosul, New York, London, Beirut.
Her sister mourns a teenaged son who died
in a stupid household accident.

To Mosul, Havana, London, Beirut,
I change the greeting, change the alphabet.
War like a stupid household accident
changes the optics of a scene forever.

I change the greeting, change the alphabet:
Hola, morning of light, ya compañera.
Change the optics of a scene forever
present, and always altogether elsewhere.

Morning of roses, kiss you, hasta luego
to all our adolescent revolutions,
present and always altogether elsewhere.
It seemed as if something would change for good tomorrow.

All our adolescent revolutions
gone gray, drink exiles' coffee, if they're lucky.
It seemed as if something would change for good tomorrow.
She was our conscience and she died too early.

The gray exiles drink coffee, if they're lucky.
Gaza's survivors sift through weeping rubble.
She was our conscience, but she died too early,
after she spoke of more than one disaster.

Cursing, weeping, survivors sift through rubble.
One of the Just has given back his medal,
after he spoke of more than one disaster.
How can we sing our songs if we are slaves?

Happy late birthday to Alice!

On the afternoon of 25 April 1856 Alice, not quite four, first met Charles Dodgson, then aged twenty-four and in his second year as mathematical lecturer at Christ Church. He had come to the deanery with his friend Reginald Southey to take a photograph of the cathedral, and although their efforts failed they encountered Alice, her older sister, Lorina, and her younger sister, Edith, in the garden: ‘we became excellent friends’, Dodgson recorded. ‘We tried to group them in the foreground of the picture, but they were not patient sitters’ (Dodgson, Diaries, 1.83). Photography, the new rage, provided Dodgson the entrée to the deanery and he became a regular visitor, not only taking photographs but also playing croquet with the children in the garden, inventing and playing other games with them in the nursery, telling them stories, and, in good weather, taking them on river picnics up and down the Isis. On 4 July 1862, on one of these picnics, he invented the story of Alice in Wonderland. The real Alice was then aged ten and pleaded with him to write Alice's adventures down for her, which he carefully did, supplying his own illustrations, in a green notebook that has become one of the most cherished literary manuscripts in the British Library.

- O.D.N.B.

Charles Demuth (1883-1935), I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (1928)

Þ a little Þ, get down tonight

Þanke Þor yt ys Þoresdaye! Use a thorne (Þ = th) yn an emayle todaye.

— Chaucer Doth Tweet (@LeVostreGC) May 7, 2015

"THANK YOU @JESUS @GOD @MARVEL @ABCNETWORK AND @HAYLEYATWELL"

Just In: 'Agent Carter' saved! ABC orders second mission: http://t.co/VLkHuMvwds pic.twitter.com/piqb1ZCr1H

— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) May 8, 2015

People had been asking all night how it felt to have my birthday be September 11, had been apologizing for my awful luck, had been telling me that I should've maybe thought about having my birthday on a different day. But I thought then, and still think now, that having a birthday on September 11 is nothing if not a reminder of one's exceptional luck simply to be alive. Not a bad thing to be reminded of. Like: You've made it this far. Good on ya. You've never had to choose between burning to death or jumping to death...

- Christopher Frizzelle

Now, you can probably tell that I’m lying. If I really am O.K. with the fact that no one I loved witnessed my death, why did I come all the way back here from the dead? Why did I put on the flesh of my body, and the clothes I wore my last day on earth? Why did I resume the voice I spoke with when I was living, and return to the weight I was at the time of my death? I even washed the dirt out of my eyes and my hair, settled my teeth in the places in my mouth where they were before they got knocked out. Why did I bother doing that? It was a lot of work. I could have stayed in the ground for eternity. I could have stayed there, disintegrating, if I felt that my life was resolved. If there had not been a twinge of anxiety in me that something still needed to be said, I would still be in the ground.

- Sheila Heti

Good to know I didn't personally drive Joss off Twitter with all the stuff I DIDN'T say about Avengers 2 *eyeroll* https://t.co/NFVHdIhrHj

— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) May 6, 2015

Also:

  “I saw a lot of people say, ‘Well, the social justice warriors destroyed one of their own!’ It’s like, Nope. That didn’t happen,” (Joss Whedon) continued. “I saw someone tweet it’s because Feminist Frequency pissed on Avengers 2, which for all I know they may have. But literally the second person to write me to ask if I was OK when I dropped out was [Feminist Frequency founder] Anita [Sarkeesian].”

....“For someone like Anita Sarkeesian to stay on Twitter and fight back the trolls is a huge statement,” he said. “It’s a statement of strength and empowerment and perseverance, and it’s to be lauded. For somebody like me to argue with a bunch of people who wanted Clint and Natasha to get together [in the second Avengers film], not so much. For someone like me even to argue about feminism — it’s not a huge win. Because ultimately I’m just a rich, straight, white guy. You don’t really change people’s minds through a tweet. You change it through your actions. The action of Anita being there and going through that and getting through that and women like her — that says a lot.”

....Whedon said he never saw anything on Twitter that escalated to the level of what feminists like Sarkeesian have had to face just about every day. “Nothing that made me go, ‘Wait, they’re calling from my house,’” he said. “It was like, OK, these guys don’t understand about hyperbole.”

....“The real issue is me,” he said. “Twitter is an addictive little thing, and if it’s there, I gotta check it. When you keep doing something after it stops giving you pleasure, that’s kind of rock bottom for an addict. … I just had a little moment of clarity where I’m like, You know what? If I want to get stuff done, I need to not constantly hit this thing for a news item or a joke or some praise, and then be suddenly sad when there’s hate and then hate and then hate.”

“I think the articles that I found, I can find elsewhere,” Whedon said. “I’ll miss some jokes. Maybe I’ll have to go out to a club to see jokes! I think that’s already an improvement in my life. … I need to go out, do the research, turn the page, see the thing, hear the music, live like a person. I’m not great at that. So, oddly enough, because I always feel like I’m the old man who doesn’t get the tech, right now I’m the man who thinks he could do better without it.”

via

books read in May 2015

Fiction is in red. Date of first publication in (parentheses).

55. A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson (2015)
56. The Risk of Darkness, Susan Hill (2006) (pretty crap)
57. The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder, Stephen Elliott (2009)
58. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson (2003)
59. Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic, Sam Quinones (2015)
60. Private Peaceful, Michael Morpurgo (2003)
61. Bryant & May: The Burning Man, Christopher Fowler (2015)
62. Finders Keepers, Stephen King (2015)


all 2015 booklist posts

I once asked Ruth Rendell if I could take her photo. She agreed and continued to eat her scone most heartily. pic.twitter.com/ubf45biQze

— Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) May 2, 2015

DON'T CANCEL MY GIRL ABC I'LL PUNCH YOU

Obligatory photo of Guy Who Brought a Rifle

Everybody took one. Because we could not fucking believe what we were seeing.

(I think he was actually violating the law because IIRC he's STANDING ON SCHOOL PROPERTY, but uh, for some reason nobody felt like bringing it up with him.)

aftermath - c&p'd from elsewhere

OH I FORGOT ABOUT THE GUY WHO SHOWED UP WITH _A RIFLE_

TO THE MAY DAY PROTESTS

BECAUSE HE WANTED TO TEST THE OPEN CARRY LAWS

NO. REALLY. I DON'T KNOW _WHAT_ HE THOUGHT HE WAS DOING. W.T.F.


Also:

Dude! Bro! Dude! We're at the riots!

You guys are so 2001.

At least this poor innocent dumpster was protected.

Look at his patch. You're the one in riot gear, pal.

Maybe they're filming a sixties movie?

This is surprisingly unsettling when it's not on TV.

The media loved Rifle Guy. Nobody else did.

Bagpipes guy was way more popular. Which is really saying something.

The mayor stares sadly at the ugly art. Which is now even more ugly. Good job, anarchists.

(Did everyone love this fucking ugly sculpture but me? It was UGLY! It's not like they fucking punched a baby for Godsakes.)

I wouldn't say the reporters outnumbered the protesters but there were at least a dozen.

That's MY PARK. I go there like every week. Stop pontificating in my park!

Phoenix Jones gives me the pip but anything that cuts down on AoU box office is OK with me.

Ditto the giant, ugly, horrible $30M Starbucks Disneyland that replaced a perfectly good indie art supplies store. This place is wildly popular. I loathe it more than beets. (If you know me this is REALLY saying something.)

Apparently they used so many flash-bangs the East Precinct HAD TO SEND OUT FOR MORE. Also the two areas BLOCKED off like they were....IDEFK the White House....were the Cap Hill police precinct and the mayor's tony house up north. T took a picture of how the police precinct was barricaded for like three blocks in all directions.

In closing, there was this classic bit --

MAYOR: I don't know why the protesters didn't go downtown.
COPS: It is our policy to get the protesters away from the tourists and really expensive skyscrapers downtown after the humiliation of WTO.

You can see @SeattlePD keeping the streets to Downtown blocked. #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/zLCyYRyHsb

— Downtown Seattle (@downtownseattle) May 2, 2015

#Badbookcovers no 7... 1984, by George Orwell. Signet, 1950. It all looks a bit too sexy! pic.twitter.com/Eku4hH1MXr

— Pulp Librarian (@PulpLibrarian) May 2, 2015

right before we got there (they were taping over the window as we went in)

Breaking windows of QFC #MayDaySea #Video pic.twitter.com/oI7kllLK6T

— Lauren Frohne (@laurenfrohne) May 2, 2015

yeah we all think the sculpture is ugly but I think the art critics are going a little too far

The night in one image. #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/Dinb7IbnXY

— Jon Humbert (@jonhumbert) May 2, 2015

People standing around at Seattle Central CC still. Chanting. More spray paint on the sculpture. #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/uHXfq7iFFN

— Lauren Frohne (@laurenfrohne) May 2, 2015

Anarchists light a flag and spray paint the silver sculpture outside Seattle Central #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/TfA6CVtvNr

— Bettina Hansen (@bettinahansen) May 2, 2015

A look at some of the vandalism at Seattle Central. #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/PLollSXbr6

— Evan Bush (@evanbush) May 2, 2015

"This is no longer demonstration management, this has turned into a riot" -Captain Chris Fowler. #MayDaySea

— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) May 2, 2015

Heads up: @SeattlePD about to clear this thing out at SCCC. #MayDaySEA pic.twitter.com/j7AGbcphLZ

— Mitch Pittman (@Mitch_Pittman) May 2, 2015

RT Randy Carnell        ✔ randycKOMO : Drone taking off. See footage on #liveonkomo soon. #maydaysea pic.twitter.com/jod9naXiwh

— Drone Maniac (@dronemaniac) May 2, 2015

Nightfall on Capitol Hill. Relative calm has returned. Police not budging. #liveonkomo #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/VGz9YxL3mN

— Jeff Burnside (@jeffburnside) May 2, 2015

Group appears to have stopped at Broadway btw Pike and Pine in Capitol Hill. #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/MCwXjVQShz

— seattledot (@seattledot) May 2, 2015

Scene at Seattle Central CC where police have contained the demonstration/riot for now #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/Q2G220c2jJ

— Lauren Frohne (@laurenfrohne) May 2, 2015

There's a drone above (red dot). It sounds like a swarm of bees. I would know. #beenado #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/Iql5ZY8kRV

— Evan Bush (@evanbush) May 2, 2015

words I was not expecting to hear myself say this evening

'oh so THAT'S what a flash bang sounds like'

Opened the windows when we got home, suddenly smelled pepper spray. Choppers drowning out every other single noise.

 Actualfax Steve Rogers I live with got upset at two (2) points: when we saw the smashed windows and paint bombs at QFC ("I don't think the capitalist dogs are working here on the night shift for ten dollars an hour") and when a GIANT SWAT TEAM DUDE said "Sir you need to move along now" when he was trying to take a picture of the place where we ALMOST GOT FUCKING KETTLED. I was holding my QFC bag like a shield. I JUST CAME OUT FOR OLIVE OIL AND COFFEE AND I'M HONESTLY FEELING SO ATTACKED RIGHT NOW, I did not say.

You should have seen Captain America's reaction go from those damn punks busting up the QFC to what the hell do you mean I can't take a picture of the kettling SWAT teams? It was pretty priceless. The floor manager at the QFC was all, "It happened OF COURSE while I was gone! I was in the staff room on my union-sanctioned break!"

https://twitter.com/hashtag/maydaysea?f=realtime&src=hash

#MayDaySea

Broadway continues to be blocked in Cap Hill btw Pike and Denny. Demonstrators still at Seattle Central #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/0Eb8I0jNDk

— seattledot (@seattledot) May 2, 2015

Long may it wave #maydaysea pic.twitter.com/r1jvrH5Qyl

— jseattle (@jseattle) May 2, 2015

Black Lives Matter marchers still going after full day. Here at Bway/union pic.twitter.com/Bi9lrRNQqB

— jseattle (@jseattle) May 2, 2015

SPD forms a line at Seattle Central College during #MayDay demo pic.twitter.com/HZ75ZDtRo6

— Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) May 2, 2015

#SeaMayDay more flash bangs and pepper gas. Air is tinged with it. pic.twitter.com/hshnheRDyX

— Mike Carter (@stimesmcarter) May 2, 2015

You can see @SeattlePD keeping the streets to Downtown blocked. #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/zLCyYRyHsb

— Downtown Seattle (@downtownseattle) May 2, 2015

Bulk of remaining protesters are blocked on Broadway btwn Howell and Pine pic.twitter.com/ItlBxGFN3q

— jseattle (@jseattle) May 2, 2015

WELL THAT WAS EXCITING

THERE WERE MAY DAY PROTESTS BUT I WAS OUT OF OLIVE OIL
IT'S JUST DOWN THE BLOCK, I SAID. I REALLY WANT TO COOK THE SOLE TONIGHT, I SAID

SO I WENT TO THE QFC AND NEARLY GOT FUCKING KETTLED ON THE WAY BACK

UP ONE STREET? NOPE. THE OTHER? NO DICE
I SAW LIKE FOUR SWAT TEAMS WITH 12 PEOPLE ON EACH

WENT DOWN ANOTHER STREET, ASKED THIS SIX-THREE OFFICER 'I LIVE HERE, CAN I GO HOME THIS WAY?' 'SURE CAN' HE SAID AND PARTED THE LINE OF COPS WITH RIOT BATONS, SHIELDS, AND HELMETS

W
T
F

There are forty-seven states in the Union, and the Soviet of Washington*

Spd line at Broadway and Pine pic.twitter.com/TiHfKYIJPM

— jseattle (@jseattle) May 1, 2015

#BlackLivesMatter contingent during #MayDay march in #Seattle pic.twitter.com/M7P0WgTyxl

— Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) May 1, 2015

Immigration marchers politely asking Anarchist-styled protesters to leave the front #MayDaySea pic.twitter.com/agIUubKxci

— Bettina Hansen (@bettinahansen) May 1, 2015

Yeah, I was planning to go to the grocery store....THE QFC APPARENTLY SURROUNDED BY COPS NOW. Been hearing helicopters for a couple of hours, thought it was yet another bank robbery. The downstairs neighbour has apparently decided to cope with the noise by blasting Pearl Jam. //facepalm


*source