So one Saturday in college we were walking through the Cornell Plantations, walking through this one huge field I think they used to rehabilitate horses and raise bees. It was all bare except for this one scraggly tree with a handmade rope swing hanging from it labeled “Piglet’s Swing”.
It had a bit of unworldly mojo to it. More so because it reminded us all of the tree from The Ring, which pretty much dates this anecdote. Even more so because we had a regular circuit - we’d walk from Risley to the Plantations, then we’d enter at this big lawn, take off our shoes, and walk across it up this hill to an ancient-looking tree. Then we’d follow a circuit of decorative gardens, cross a bouncing wooden suspension bridge across a babbling creek, and do a slight uphill woods segment. Then we’d come out into this field, spend 10 minutes or more crossing it, head on to the cliffside vista path, scramble down a scree slope and have wine and cheese and caviar by a stream, and then as the sun set we’d climb up, recross the field, and return across a golf course.
So this eerie field and this eerie tree would come two or three hours into the whole trip, which was right when the shrooms would be kicking in hard.
And you know the stereotype of people on psychedelics saying something really obvious as if it were really deep? I remember watching some deer bounding at the edge of the field, and birds flying through the air and delivering as a nugget of wisdom “it’s not the weekend for animals”.
But fuck you, it was deep. Like, I knew in theory that an animal’s life is just eating and trying not to be eaten. But the fact that that wasn’t just the dominant theme but the only and constant state of being from which there is no diversion, not only acknowledging but feeling and vicariously experiencing that as true.
And I spent time appreciating the things that flowed from that. Like, humans might for various contextual reasons have a fear of being caught having sex, but at least we can mate with our bonded partners on our own territory without maintaining a paranoid vigilance that something will take advantage of the distraction to eat us. You know, that’s nice. Next time you have sex appreciate that.
(Unless you’ve got a vore thing I guess.)
Also, in terms of thinking about how man first domesticated animals - yeah, I can totally see animals just taking the initiative to show up and stick around human settlements. As far as they were concerned, they were retiring.
I mean I guess later it turned into some mirror-image of midcentury lifetime employment - you spend years doing nothing taking a pension in feed and then at retirement instead of a gold watch you get killed and consumed.
In conclusion, the diametric of Fordism is cannibalistic slavery.
For context. Here is the antique rocking chair dildo
Antique rocking chair dildo! I’m continually impressed by human ingenuity.
#tbt
wow
Sex furniture is a wonderful thing.
Here’s something fun:
Back when he was a prince, Kind Edward VII had to have a special chair made for sex because he was a big guy who preferred big women and regular furniture just wasn’t enough.
even more amazing. Although I’m struggling to figure out how it all works. It’s clear the woman goes on that top part on her back but what’s with those foot things on the bottom portion? and why the elaborate bottom shape anyway? It seems like it must have a purpose but I don’t know what?
When she floated above the audience in
her high, high heels on that lighted dock, facing a stadium of
sixty-eight thousand people, how could she feel anything except either a
messiah complex or profound loneliness?
Later
that night, I said to my husband, “I thought of her as a
singer-songwriter.” And my husband, who has never voluntarily listened
to a single word escaping Taylor Swift’s mouth, laughed.
“Singer-songwriters don’t perform in stadiums,” he said.
They: she's just *pretending* to be a martyr, really it's just a publicity stunt/she could have avoided this/she really wants to be famous.
Me: oh my GOD, how did you *think* martyrdom worked?
Parents appear to be arming their newborn babies with intimidating names in a tough-guy take on giving them the best start in life.
More children are being given names related to guns, knives, historical warriors, dark goddesses and macho movie stars, according to a survey by a US baby name website.
Danger, Arrow, Rebel, Pistol and Arson are, believe it or not, have also been used.
Most popular of all is Gunner, which was given to more than 1,500 babies in the US last year. According to baby name site Nameberry, if Gunnar (meaning “bold warrior” in Swedish) is taken with Gunner the name hits the top 200 for boys.
Cannon, meanwhile, is in the top 1,000.
Also on the rise in the US - a nation which has seen significant gun violence this year - for baby boys are Trigger, Shooter, Caliber, Magnum and Pistol. There has also been a rise in the use of gun manufacturers such as Barrett, Remington, Kimber, Ruger, Wesson, Browning, Benelli and Beretta.
Other weapons are also finding favour as baby names.
Lance is an old-school choice, but has been increasingly joined by Mace, Blade, Saw and Dagger, whilst Sabre has been trending for girls. Nine hundred boys were an Archer last year, and many baby girls were Arrows.
Hunter continues to do very well as a first name for newborn babes and has been in the top 50 for boys for two decades in the US now. But it has reached the top 10 in hunting friendly states such as Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Maine - and is number three, rendering it practically common, in West Virginia.
Meanwhile, five little boys were named Danger last year. Even blunter were the 11 named Arson and nine called Chaos. Maverick is up 67 places on last year to 206th place for boys overall, whilst Rebel was given to 47 babies.
Historical tough guys also live on in parents’ hopes for their offspring. Titus, the Roman military commander and later Emperor, is at its highest rank ever at 285th place for boys. The names of military ranks themselves have also risen, with Major going up more than 650 places in the past three years.
Mostly absent from the trend are baby girls being given similarly scary, intimidating or tough names. But they’re not all called Sugar and Melody - there has been a rise in name of the Hindu goddess of power and destruction, Kali, to become the 262nd most popular for girls. Aela, a character from adventure computer game Skyrim, is also on the rise for girls, as is Rogue.
But parents mostly focus their dreams of powerful, protective, non-sissy offspring on their sons. Last but not least, final popular names look like a trip to the movies, with Rocky, Rambo, Clint (Eastwood) and Sylvester (Stallone) all on the rise.
