torch songs about X are all always about how X is some bullshit I dig that

trabantntreasure:

i was at the beach yesterday and i saw that someone had written something in the sand.  i want you to imagine me standing there, with the surf behind me and the sun setting, trying to figure out what it said.

it said “follow me on instagram”

thehobodad:

For as much as they tell you about Stop Drop and Roll as a kid, I really expected to be on fire more times in my life.

kurosawa-akira:

What kind of influence does the Noh play have in Throne of Blood?

Akira Kurosawa: Drama in the West takes its character from the psychology of men or circumstances; the Noh is different. First of all, the Noh has the mask, and while staring at it, the actor becomes the man whom the mask represents. The performance also has a defined style, and in devoting himself to it faithfully, the actor becomes possessed. Therefore, I showed each of the players a photograph of the mask of the Noh which came closest to the respective role; I told him that the mask was his own part. To Toshiro Mifune, who played the part of Taketoki Washizu (Macbeth), I showed the mask named Heida. This was the mask of a warrior. In the scene in which Mifune is persuaded by his wife to kill his lord, he created for me just the same life-like expression as the mask did. To Isuzu Yamada, who acted the role of Asaji (Lady Macbeth), I showed the mask named Shakumi. This was the mask of a beauty no longer young, and represented the image of a woman about to go mad. The actress who wears this mask, when she gets angry, changes her mask for one the eyes of which are golden-colored. This mask represents the state of an unearthly feeling of tension and Lady Macbeth assumes the same state. For the warrior who was murdered by Macbeth and later reappears as an apparition, I considered the mask of the apparition of a nobleman of the name of Chujo. The witch in the wood was represented by the mask named Yamanba.

[ Interview with Akira Kurosawa | Joan Mellen, 1975 ]

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

tylercoates:

Adam just sent this to me and it saved my life. 

reallyreallyreallytrying:

Thrill of realizing Inca pyramids are huge QR codes when viewed from the air quickly betrayed by HIDEOUS web design of early Mesoamerican blogs

So at this point the GTA series is satire and the Saints Row series is parody, right?

monetizeyourcat:

I looked up “New Jersey Pride” to make a joke and it turns out there’s literally a team named that, I think because it’s as fantastic and mythical as a phoenix or a leprechaun

seinfelt:

When a noisy couple moves in next to Elaine, she vies for another apartment in the building, entering into a bizarre competition put on by the building’s management board to determine which residents can move into which apartments. Out of shape, she enlists the help of Jerry, who…

barthel:

Pictures of cute animals like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous for overworked adults doubting the value of their own freedom. A tiny thing being taken care of that can fall out of a box without it being cause for concern about your state of mind or medical condition. Wild island pigs as aspirational existentialism. Let us be this, when abandoned by our parents: wild and free but relaxed, all our needs cared for. Our part of the bargain is merely to be charming. And wouldn’t we just be charming as hell unburdened of all these worries and cares? Let us be hedgehogs praised for trapping our heads in cardboard tubes. Let us be dogs widely beloved for tumbling to the ground. Let us be balls of fluff trapped within walls of protective affection, rather than these responsibilities to ourself and others. 

monetizeyourcat:

higher education in liberal arts serves the primary social function of taking intelligent people who are the most skeptical and ambitious they’ll ever be and driving all of that skepticism and ambition inward

tockthewatchdog:

mattheuphonium:

kim-jong-chill:

i need feminism because when jesus does a magic trick it’s a goddamn miracle but when a woman does a magic trick she gets burned at the stake

fabulous 

i mean they did also kill jesus. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did kill jesus.

So after a few months of working my way up to it, I did the first full pullup of my life yesterday. The first two, actually, though not consecutive, ‘cause they rendered my arms incredibly sore and useless for like 10 hours each.

There is a peculiarly American expression for a peculiarly American mode of discourse: “speaking truth to power.” As far as I can tell, it’s actually a recent invention; the Quaker origin story seems plausible. This is the mode of expression typically ascribed to people like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Hicks. It’s considered unequivocally positive: it withholds nothing, it exposes the buffoonery and villainy of the mighty, it puts them in their place. It’s also absolutely worthless. What does Power care for truth? It’s got plenty of that already, and can manufacture more as needed. The whole point of Power is that its naked material might is cloaked in pervasive epistemic control. The bloodthirsty feudal warlord rules by divine right; the international philantropist and predatory financial speculator pulled himself up by his bootstraps; the abusive husband is just subject to the tempestuous whims of male biology, which require a gentle and submissive handmaiden. Those who make a career of gently mocking the order of Things Believed to be True realize this; they stop just short of unsettling conclusions, “unreasonable” claims and, yes, disturbing truths. Truth to power? You may as well go fart into a hurricane. This is the third thing, and the most important. Antigone doesn’t “speak truth to power.” Antigone calls Power to account. Actually, it’s even more than that; everything she says to Creon, the agent of Power, can be distilled down to just one word: no. She is wronged by Creon, and she disobeys. Feel free to posit that Creon transgresses against the primal and ultimate reality of Love; it’s a nice sentiment, but not one I can share in good faith. I think all the reasons she gives: love, tradition, the divine order, begin to coalesce and “make sense” only after the no, which is itself a response to Creon’s exercise of perfectly legal and eminently reasonable state violence.

spacetwinks:

harry, you’re a wizard. and you’re incredibly rich. harry, you’re also the one who lived. harry, you’re time magazine’s most influential person. harry, england wants to make you their king. harry, america wants you to be king too.  harry, god wants to give you a high five, and then cry at your feet. harry, you decide who lives, and who dies