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brightwanderer:I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only...

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 11:02:02 -0400

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

"When Christian nationalists are in power and perpetrating horrors, we should oppose their..."

Sun, 24 Jun 2018 11:00:14 -0400

“When Christian nationalists are in power and perpetrating horrors, we should oppose their dominionism not with a different reading of the Bible, but with a robust defense of pluralism and secularism. We do, however, need to understand their ideology.”

- Stroop, Christopher. The Book of Sessions: America Blearily Awakens to a New Theocracy. Playboy, June 18, 2018. https://www.playboy.com/read/the-book-of-sessions-america-blearily-awakens-to-a-new-theocracy (accessed June 24, 2018).

Trick or Treaters 2017

Sat, 04 Nov 2017 17:49:25 -0400

42 Trick or treaters total. Weather: overcast, between 37 and 38°F.
Best costume: Claw game, including prizes.

"As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting..."

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 10:00:18 -0400

“As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts.”

- http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot

"In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing supernatural: on the contrary, it lies in..."

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 15:08:43 -0400

“In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing supernatural: on the contrary, it lies in the very essence of our lot and life in this world. Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our Works and Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful; and if Memory have its force and worth, so also has Hope.”

- Carlyle, Thomas. Characteristics. Vol. ⅩⅩⅤ, Part 3. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001. www.bartleby.com/25/3/. [2017-06-01].

"The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky."

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 14:44:24 -0500

“The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky.”

- Bruce Sterling’s prediction from SxSW 2014 is coming true faster than I expected——or like.

Trick or Treaters 2016

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 08:19:37 -0400

6–6:30pm	6:30–7pm	7–7:30pm	7:30–8pm
7	16	17	23

Marvelour™

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 13:50:44 -0400

Matt: Is it just you tonight?
Jon: yessir
Matt: marvelour
Matt: ous. marvelous. with an s.
Jon: I think you just invented a new brand name for the velour industry.
Matt: To the trademark office!
Jon: and the domain registry!
Jon: marvelour.xxx is available… just sayin'.

Anger after police killing of Alton Sterling | Reuters.com

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 03:44:56 -0400

Anger after police killing of Alton Sterling | Reuters.com:

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”

— George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four

"You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve...."

Tue, 17 May 2016 00:15:40 -0400

“You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell.
You grieve. Then you continue with your life.
And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on.
She is dead.
You are alive.
So live”

- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Brief Lives

Trick or Treaters 2015

Sat, 31 Oct 2015 20:13:52 -0400

6–6:30pm	6:30–7pm	7–7:30pm	7:30–8pm
13	20	8	3

44 Total. First Group at 6:18pm, last at 8:00pm

It’s here.

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 09:03:05 -0400

It’s here.

"…a Government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it."

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 10:00:11 -0400

“…a Government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it.”

- Nelson Mandela, I Am Prepared To Die

"There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When..."

Wed, 09 Sep 2015 03:00:21 -0400

“There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”

- Oliver Sacks

"Like gods and human rights, nations are fictions. A mountain is something real. You can see it,..."

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 00:50:24 -0400

“Like gods and human rights, nations are fictions. A mountain is something real. You can see it, touch it, smell it. But the United States or Israel are not a physical reality. You cannot see them, touch them or smell them. They are just stories that humans invented and then became extremely attached to.”

- Yuval Noah Harari

feltron: Selections from the personal annual reports of the...

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 01:00:58 -0400

feltron:

Selections from the personal annual reports of the German zoologist Carl Apstein. Each report is 1-2 pages and included in an album covering the years from 1905 to 1938. More detail on the album’s contents is provided by his great-grandson…
1905 is his very first page in this album, giving a résumé over a long trip from Northern Germany to Southern France.
1935 and 1936 are typical pages from the album. Take attention to the use of certain symbols:
Small signposts represent travels to other cities
All invited guests are listed, categorized by dinner guests (fork and knife), teatime guests (tea pot), coffeetime guests (coffee pot/cup), receptions (punch bowl) or beer drinking together with friends and colleagues (beer siphon, as shown on the 1905 page).
Not at these pages: Major social events contain seating orders, place cards or invitation cards, sometimes even a small cloth piece cut out from from his wife’s festive dresses.
Both important and small events are marked in this album: Wedding anniversaries (golden ring), the annual return of birds or the Olympic Games 1936.

Ozymandias

Wed, 17 Dec 2014 13:10:00 -0500

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows —
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
“The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Wikisource contributors, “Ozymandias (Smith),” Wikisource, http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Ozymandias_(Smith)&oldid=4806454 (accessed December 17, 2014).

Can a corporation adopt a child?

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 23:49:59 -0500

Had a dream in which I was eating dinner at Butch’s with some friends. The restaurant was five...

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:22:29 -0500

Had a dream in which I was eating dinner at Butch’s with some friends. The restaurant was five stories tall for some reason, with fancy elevators. Eric Evenhouse was our waiter. At some point though the dream stopped being about dinner with friends and became about the wasp nest in my left eye socket. It was stuck just under and to the (my) left of the eyeball. It wasn’t painful, but wasps kept crawling out and I had to kind of wipe/shoo them away. I could never really get a grip on the nest itself to extract it. My friends all agreed that this was unfortunate, but it also seemed to be a thing that happens to people. Not an “Oh My God! Get to the hospital now!” more like a “well, maybe it’ll clear up. Don’t pick at it while we’re at the table.”

I didn’t sleep well.

Trick or Treaters, 2014

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 20:06:53 -0400

6–7pm	7–8pm
16	13