that Brian Eno quote about how whatever you find most repulsive about a medium (film grain, record scratches/fuzz, CDs skipping) will be the first thing you try and emulate once that medium is obsolete because it’s “the sign of a moment too powerful for the medium assigned to contain it”…. man…….
“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.” -Brian Eno
hey reblog this with a piece of your favorite poem, please
When we sleep for good, I would like a tree.
I would like Ann to have a tree, too.
We can be side by side,
on one of the hills that we used to explore.
My tree will be bigger. I loved him more.
Ann is the one he picked first. But he came back for me.
(Rick Bass, from The Odyssey)
Missing someone is like hearing
a name sung quietly from somewhere
behind you. Even after you know
no one is there, you keep looking back
until on a silver afternoon like this
you find yourself breathing just enough
to make a small dent in the air.
--from “Slow Dance” by Tim Seibles
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
-- from "My Star" by Robert Browning
And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come;
And louder still and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud
Is heard the trumpet’s war-note proud,
The trampling, and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright,
The long array of spears.
- Horatius at the Bridge by Thomas Babington Macaulay
Yes, we’d like to
clap the camels,
to smell the spice,
admire her hairy legs and
bonny wicked smile, we want to take
PhDs in Persian, be vice
to her president: we want
to help her
ask some Difficult Questions
she’s shouting for our wisest man
to test her mettle:
Scour Scotland for a Solomon!
Sure enough: from the back of the crowd
someone growls:
whae do you think y'ur?
and a thousand laughing girls and she
draw our hot breath
and shout
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA!
Kathleen Jamie’s The Queen of Sheba
The first
"I love you"
will taste like
hope.
The last
"I love you"
will taste like
a lie.
The
"I love you"
that you waited for
but never arrived
will taste like
a blade.
Kat Savage - Aquired Tastes and Retrospect
Astronomies and slangs to find you, dear,
Star, art-breath, crowner, conscience! and to chart
For kids unknown your distal beauty, part
On part that startles, till you blaze more clear
And witching than your sister Venus here
To a late age can, though her senior start
Is my new insomnia,—swift sleepless art
To draw you even... and to draw you near.
I prod our English: cough me up a word,
Slip me an epithet will justify
My daring fondle, fumble of far fire
Crackling nearby, unreasonable as a surd,
A flash of light, an insight: I am the shy
Vehicle of your cadmium shine... your choir.
—John Berryman, Berryman's Sonnets: #66
You might wake up beside your spouse and with the mad urgency of an escaped convict say, ‘Tell me, what’s the opposite of three?’
- from guide for a wayward soul by Sean Macgillicuddy
Anonymous asked:
I think I may be autistic but I have no idea what to do with this information and I'm also kind of worried im trying to make myself fit into it if that makes sense? I have been diagnosed with ADHD officially, but I'm not sure, maybe I have both?
drdemonprince answered:
“Am I Autistic or Not” isn’t really a helpful question. It’s so big, and so abstract. Try asking yourself questions that are smaller and more concrete. Things like:
Which sensations are really difficult for me to handle? Do I experience sensory overloads? What can I do to reduce or prevent future sensory overloads?
Which sensations are really pleasurable for me? How can I incorporate more of those sensations into my life?
What activities or topics do I find very stimulating, thought-provoking, or exciting? How can I make more time in my life for pursuing those activities? Where can I meet other people who also enjoy those things?
Which aspects of socializing do I find hard? What do I find draining, uncomfortable, or confusing? Is there anyone I can ask for help understanding the things I find confusing? Are there social performances I can try doing less often, or less intensely?
Which activities seem to drain me more than other people, and how can I get the rest I need? Do I need far more recharge time after socializing than most people I know? Do organizational or administrative tasks like cleaning my house or answering emails take a lot of out me? Is there anyone I can ask for support, or any responsibilities I can let go of (or half ass)?
Finally, where do I feel at home? Which spaces make me feel comfortable? Which communities seem to get me? Who do I enjoy being around? Who brings out a playful, lighter, opener side of me? Where do I hate being and who do I dread being around? What do I need out of my home environment in order to feel at peace? How can I bring more of the positive into my life and reduce my contact with the negative?
Are you Autistic, Anon? – my answer is, who cares? It doesn’t matter. You don’t ever have to answer that if you don’t want to. Use whatever term you want, whenever it feels right. In the meantime, find the spaces, experiences, and people that help you feel less broken. That might include Autistic spaces, as well as other neurodivergent or queer ones. That’s fine. Explore widely. Each one of us is a complex enough person that we can’t be contained entirely by a single community, identity label, or space.
Private questions of identity matter very little if we aren’t actually living out that identity in community with other people. Find the spaces, people, and activities that are good for you – and if many of them are also very good for Autistic people, well then congrats, you’re our kin, whether your choose to adopt the label or not.
Further reading:
We read this passage in class yesterday and I thought it might interest youse guys. The passage is from Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans 5; it’s a discussion between Clonarium, a young man, and Leaena, a courtesan who had an unusual experience at a drinking party.
Eventually Megilla, being now rather heated, pulled off her wig, which was very realistic and fitted very closely, and revealed the skin of her head which was shaved close, just as on the most energetic of athletes. This sight gave me a shock, but she said, ‘Leaena, have you ever seen such a good-looking young fellow?’ ‘I don’t see one here, Megilla,’ said I. ‘Don’t make a woman out of me,’ said she. ‘My name is Megillus, and I’ve been married to Demonassa here for ever so long; she’s my wife.’ ‘Then, unknown to us, Megillus, you were a man all the time, just as they say Achilles once hid among the girls, and you have everything that a man has, and can play the part of a man to Demonassa?’ ‘I haven’t got what you mean,’ said she, ‘I don’t need it at all. You’ll find I have a much pleasanter method of my own.’ ‘You’re surely not a hermaphrodite,’ said I, ‘equipped both as a man and a woman, as many people are said to be?’; for I still didn’t know, Cleonarium, what it was all about. But she said, ‘No, Leaena, I’m all man.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve heard the Boeotian flute-girl, Ismenodora, repeating tales she’d heard at home, and telling us how someone at Thebes had turned from woman to man, someone who was also an excellent soothsayer, and was, I think, called Tiresias. That didn’t happen to you, did it?’ ‘No, Leaena,’ she said, ‘I was born a woman like the rest of you, but I have the mind and the desires and everything else of a man.’ ‘And do you find these desires enough?’ said I. ‘If you don’t believe me, Leaena,’ said she, ‘just give me a chance, and you’ll find I’m as good as any man; I have a substitute of my own. Only give me a chance, and you’ll see.’
Translation: M. D. Macleod, Loeb, 1961.
So Megilla - who, as a side note, is from Lesbos - was born a woman but identifies as a man, going by Megillus. Still, for some reason, they* disguise themselves as a woman. The whole situation is a bit confusing but the bolded bit is clear: Megilla/Megillus is, in modern terms, transgender.
Lucian’s Dialogues are fictional, but the fact he mentions a trans person speaks for their existence at the time. Remember that whenever people claim trans people are a recent phenomenon!
*I’m using they/them pronouns because it’s unclear exactly how they refer to themselves. Greek conjugated verbs are mostly non-gendered (so what the translation renders as ‘she said’ is actually ‘he/she/they said’), but there is one participle in the feminine (οὐδὲν ἐνδέουσάν με τῶν ἀνδρῶν, I’m as good as any man) despite Megilla/Megillus asking Leaena not to refer to them as a woman. So, unclear.
Hi, I’m OP. As of the time of writing, I’m finishing up a masters degree in Ancient Greek, and the history of LGBT+ people is something I’ve studied quite a bit over the last five years. I can confidently tell you that the assumptions you’re making in your reply don’t work here.
The text I quoted, Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans, starts with Leaina (latinised above as Leaena) telling her friend Klonarion (latinised as Clonarium) about an experience she had at a drinking party. The very first thing Klonarion asks is whether Megillos/Megilla, the person Leaina hooked up with, is a woman attracted to women:
Καινὰ περὶ σοῦ ἀκούομεν, ὦ Λέαινα, τὴν Λεσβίαν Μέγιλλαν τὴν πλουσίαν ἐρᾶν σου ὥσπερ ἄνδρα καὶ συνεῖναι ὑμᾶς οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅ τι ποιούσας μετ᾿ ἀλλήλων.
We’re hearing strange things about you, Leaina, about how the rich Lesbian Megilla loves you like a man, and you live together and who knows what you do with each other.*
The fact this person is from Lesbos isn’t coincidental at all. “Lesbian” was well-known shorthand, in the ancient world, for women attracted to women - just like it is today. In this fictional dialogue, Lucian is using it to imply that Megillos/Megilla could be a lesbian in the modern sense, thereby acknowledging that they exist. Leaina replies:
Ἀληθῆ, ὦ Κλωνάριον· αἰσχύνομαι δέ, ἀλλόκοτον γάρ τί ἐστι.
That is true, Klonarion; but I am ashamed, since it is somewhat strange.
Ἀλλόκοτος is a word meaning strange, unusual, or different. (Actually, I might almost be tempted to translate it as “queer”.) Leaina is pointing out here that Klonarion is on the right track, but there’s more to the story than that. A bit further along, the dialogue continues:
Λ. Ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δεινῶς ἀνδρική ἐστιν.
Κ. Οὐ μανθάνω ὅ τι καὶ λέγεις, εἰ μή τις ἑταιρίστρια τυγχάνει οὖσα· τοιαύτας γὰρ ἐν Λέσβῳ λέγουσι γυναῖκας ἀρρενωπούς, ὑπ᾿ ἀνδρῶν μὲν οὐκ ἐθελούσας αὐτὸ πάσχειν, γυναιξὶ δὲ αὐτὰς πλησιαζούσας ὥσπερ ἄνδρας.
Λ. Τοιοῦτόν τι.L: The woman is terribly manly.
K: I don’t understand what you’re saying, unless she is some sort of female courtisan. They say there are women like that in Lesbos, who look like men, who don’t want anything to do with men, but have sex with women as if they were men.
L: It’s somewhat like that.
Again, Klonarion - just like modern “gender critical” people! - doesn’t understand how this person could be anything but a gender-non-conforming lesbian woman. Leaina replies that it’s almost that, but not quite. She then starts telling Klonarion what happened, and this is where the passage I quoted above comes in. The most important element is this: Megilla publicly presents as a woman, but privately identifies as a man and uses the name Megillos.
Let’s repeat that to be extra clear: Megillos is not a lesbian woman presenting as male for safety. They** are a person assigned female at birth, but who prefers to identify as male in the safety of their own home.
Leaina compares them to mythological figures in an attempt to understand better, asking if Megillos is a man disguised as a woman, like Akhilleus (whose mother hid him among the girls in the hopes that he wouldn’t be drafted to war). Megillos says no. Leaina asks if Megillos is a hermaphrodite; Megillos also says no. Lastly, Leaina mentions Tiresias, who was born female but was transformed by the Gods into a man, to which Megillos replies that they weren’t transformed in that way, but:
… ἐγεννήθην μὲν ὁμοία ταῖς ἄλλαις ὑμῖν, ἡ γνώμη δὲ καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία καὶ τἆλλα πάντα ἀνδρός ἐστί μοι.
I was born female like all of you, but I have the mind and the desires and everything else of a man.
This explanation has nothing to do with wanting the same rights as a man (especially since Megillos publicly presents as the female Megilla). It has nothing to do with gender-non-conforming presentation either. Megillos is very, very clearly expressing an inner sense of gender, which is male.
So let’s summarise:
This text is fictional; Megillos/Megilla never existed. However, Lucian’s dialogues reflect the everyday life and daily concerns of his era, and there’s no reason to believe that this text is an exception. In fact, if we look beyond him to the rest of the ancient world, we’d be quick to realise that people fitting the modern definitions of transgender and genderqueer - both AMAB and AFAB, and probably intersex too - are well-attested, from Inanna’s gala priests in the 2nd millennium BC to the Roman emperor Elagabalus in the 3rd century AD. It would be narrow-minded to attribute millennia of non-cisgender people to just misogyny and oppression.
Turns out that people have always been complicated, gender has always been complicated, and if you fail to recognise that, you find yourself in the uncomfortable position of being less accepting than Lucian, a man from the 2nd century AD.
*All translations are my own.
**As explained in the previous post, I’m using they/them pronouns because it’s unclear which grammatical gender Megillos/Megilla uses, despite clearly identifying as male.
listen to me. i do not care how old you are or how silly you think something is. in this world you have to take the things that make you happy and be all about them. it’s the only way you’re gonna survive.
this is why i’m absolutely throwing a tiny birthday party for my plush possum Turnpike in two days bc august 18th is her birthday. she’s gonna be 1
happy birthday Turnpike!!
cutegirlsandfunnythings asked:
You mentioned in a post on my dash that you were old enough to experience real seasons unaltered by climate change. What was that like?
vaspider answered:
I was young, so it feels like something I read in a book sometimes. I remember how chilly it could get at night in the summer, which doesn’t seem to happen as much anymore.
That’s actually the thing that seems to keep popping back up in my mind - that like, it was really chilly in the mornings in summer even, and it would warm up, and it seems to just kind of… stay warm all the time.
I dunno. The seasons were more distinct, there were bigger temperature swings on individual days, and like… weather was more predictable on a seasonal basis, if not on a daily basis.
Like… the kind of seasons you read about in Olde Tyme Books? They… were real things. We didn’t always have snow on Winter Break, but we had a pretty predictable number of snow days?
And it almost feels silly to talk about it. “What were normal seasons like, Uncle Spider?”
But yeah.
Watch seasonal-based movies made before about 1975 -- ones set around Easter, or Halloween, or New Year’s -- and pay attention to what people are wearing. Late October? It got cold when the sun went down, like ‘put on a jacket’ cold and I’m not talking northern US, I’m talking Georgia.
Today (Aug 18) is only a week before the start of most public schools in the US. A week from now? Back then, it’d already be chilly in the morning, enough to need a windbreaker on the way to school. By midday it would’ve warmed up, but even in Georgia the mornings had a nip to them by end of August, start of September.
And in northern Virginia, not sure about now, but the schools used to plan for ten snow days a year. I recall one year we had eleven days off thanks to a foot or so of fresh snow every two or three days. Even in years we didn’t use all the snow days, there were still frequent late openings and early closings. It wasn’t all that uncommon for summer vacation to start a week later, because those days had to be made up, somewhere.
Locally, this summer has (despite the terrible heat elsewhere in the US) been a strange bit of callback to my childhood. Excepting two nights all summer, every night it’s dropped to 72F at the highest, but most often in the 60s -- with the caveat that it sometimes took half the night to get there. It’s not a sharp drop like I remember, as a child. But at least it has been cool enough to leave the windows open and a fan on -- and that’s the kind of summer I grew up with, in Alabama and Georgia (regions significantly warmer, otherwise, than the mid-atlantic where I live now).
That sharp drop was the reason my dad installed a whole-house fan every place we lived: because the evening air would legitimately drop a good 5-10 degrees as the sun set. Enough to open the windows, run the fan, and the whole house would cool right down by dinnertime.
Now? If we go by last summer, even having a house set up perfectly (central open staircase) for a whole-house fan, what’s the point if the temperature stays just as high after the sun goes down, as it was before?
I recently read a poem about climate change making the seasons less familiar in a poetry collection published in 1978.
I was like, excuse me? It was noticeable already? Obviously I know it's changed in my lifetime, but...
so I was reading this book Travels in Alaska by John Muir and in it, he mentions visiting Glacier Bay and that within living memory of the locals, that Glacier Bay used to be entirely iced off, but that the seasons had been changing for the warmer and the ice was in retreat. he posits in the book that this might have something to do with people burning more coal.
As a car mechanic, I can safely say, I don't understand the gay agenda.
I do however, understand the trans mission.
My ideal street layout, wide sidewalk, wide bike lanes, and a 2 lane road that only allows streetcars on it. Yes I know this a bad drawing, I made it in a hurry
Are those (black circles w/ small things) supposed to be eg cafe chairs?
If so, they’re posing an accessibility issue due to blocking the sidewalks. Recommend your street layout allow for outdoor seating without blocking sidewalks.
Agreed. The foundation is sound, but there needs to be plenty of space to walk by seating without getting run over by a bike. Seating that hugs the walls of the nearby structure, and open storefronts that let people and services flow seamlessly between the commercial spaces and the sidewalks would be an improvement here.
I actually shrunk the seating to make there be more space for pedestrians
If the tracked area is for trams/streetcars only, may I recommend that you make it green track?
Not only does it add much needed greenery to public spaces, but it also reduces heat at street level, reduces the running noise of trams and dramatically improves water drainage at street level. It even goes as far as reducing the damage to the tracks caused by the material expanding and buckling in high heat by simply keeping the rails cooler and better displacing heat.
It doesn't even have to be grass! Different species of plant, local species or hardier, low-maintenance species can be used, and furthermore, it tends to reduce maintenance costs of the tracks, as soil is easier to dig up than concrete or tarmac, and so the tracks can be accessed and worked on easier.
Obviously, if you want the street to be able to accept buses along with trams/streetcars, or other rubber-tyred vehicles, then a hard surface is necessary, but if it's light rail only, then green track gets my vote.
Already made the edit, I hope you enjoy the green tracks and their flowers. This image is very green
Redoing the color of the bike path to make the street less fucking green
I love the idea of green tracks, but in this case they are not a good choice:
You still need the possibility for rubber based vehicles like Fire Cars or Ambulances to pass the streets.
You can't just put them on tracks because they need to be as mobile as possible to allow maximum efficency.
Okay removing the grass due to firecodes
Urbanism pride flag lol
we still need green so maybe put flowerpots in the middle of the sidewalk? Like rectangular ones that only take up maybe a fifth of the sidewalk width, and their intermittent, maybe one between every other set of trees.
The street planters have come in
Honestly if you want some good green space you should consider bioswales between the bike facilities and the "street", which would help replace some of the lost drainage/filtration function from de-greening the track
The bios have been swaled
ALT@puddlebrigade Okay the tables have been moved and reduced to be more accessible and some planters have been moved
ALTThe large dark green dots are trees
Is it too soon for this?
Yes, you aren’t even on the current version
Sidewalk seems a little tight tbh
Sidewalk widened. Goal achieved
ALT@i-use-oxford-comma The benches have been added and @prawnhubpremium The dragon is opening a shop
ALTWe are making a good street
I made a 3d render of our street
Oh my god, that looks like a real place I could visit, I love this
ok updated poll: *besides canes*, what mobility aid do you use the most?
crutch/crutches
walker/rollator
manual wheelchair
manual wheelchair/ w/power assist
power wheelchair
mobility scooter
other (tell me in the tags!)
on the last poll (here), canes were at over 50%, so i wanna get some data on other mobility aids. if you use more than one, choose which you use more. if you use them equally, choose which you like the best or find the most helpful
Zepotha will never be Goncharov because when it comes down to it, tumblr culture is collaborative, while tiktok culture is merely iterative, and those are not the same thing.
Op I refuse to let your tags stay in the tags cause THIS!!!!!
alright trans ppl we're returning to the fucking sea until shit gets better lets go everyone
this is awesome
trans pride flag colorpicked from this crab (i swear all those colors are on the crab itself)
yeahhh >:D
You need a gate? You are unhappy with the position? No problem. :-)
Feel free to check out my mapmaking tool 'Canvas of Kings'! :-)
suspenders (American English) and suspenders (British English) are a butch/femme couple actually
Just wear both at the same time, gosh
Your Result:
your teeth are bared, as they have been, your jaw aching for so long as growls slip free. you always have to defend yourself. you lash out in fear. you need someone who does not shrink back... a hand falling slowly to your shoulder, however briefly, in a reminder that you do not have to lunge. there is no danger here, now.
Tagged by @what-the-stark (Ty!)
tagging; @deafarcher @hellsxbellsx @xnxthinglastsfxrever @unlevshed and whoever else wants to play!
every moment of every day i am thinking about this tiktok
Lumpfish come in a variety of shapes and colors.
[He scoops up the fish, it spits water and he turns it toward the camera]
This one is stumpy and green. Very beautiful, very powerful.
[He picks up another fish and turns it toward the camera]
This is what a normal lumpfish looks like. It is more elongated, but still a vibrant blue color. Very beautiful, very powerful.
[He picks up another fish and turns it toward the camera]
This is one of the stumpiest ones we have. Its hump is very high. It is very stumpy, but yet very beautiful, and very powerful.
[He pans over a lot of fish, all looking up at the camera]
My fish army is ever growing, and soon I will over throw the world. Very beautiful, very powerful.
because of this tiktok, i frequently murmur "very beautiful, very powerful" at myself, and i cannot recommend it enough.
