notadragonslayer

[notadragonslayer]

“Dogs don’t know what they look like. Dogs don’t even know what size they are. No doubt it’s our fault, for breeding them into such weird shapes and sizes. My brother’s dachshund, standing tall at eight inches, would attack a Great Dane in the full conviction that she could tear it apart. When a little dog is assaulting its ankles the big dog often stands there looking confused — “Should I eat it? Will it eat me? I am bigger than it, aren’t I?” But then the Great Dane will come and try to sit in your lap and mash you flat, under the impression that it is a Peke-a-poo… Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat’s way of maintaining a relationship. Housecats know that they are small, and that it matters. When a cat meets a threatening dog and can’t make either a horizontal or a vertical escape, it’ll suddenly triple its size, inflating itself into a sort of weird fur blowfish, and it may work, because the dog gets confused again — “I thought that was a cat. Aren’t I bigger than cats? Will it eat me?” … A lot of us humans are like dogs: we really don’t know what size we are, how we’re shaped, what we look like. The most extreme example of this ignorance must be the people who design the seats on airplanes. At the other extreme, the people who have the most accurate, vivid sense of their own appearance may be dancers. What dancers look like is, after all, what they do.”

— Ursula Le Guin, in The Wave in the Mind (via fortooate)

[notadragonslayer]

i wore red eyeshadow today and this lil mexican boy like 10 yrs old had his silver chain and hat and was all puffed up machismo but got all shy walkin over to the counter and was like “i really love your eyeshadow” in the most genuine awestruck voice. can’t believe i almost didn’t wear it. i almost missed out on bein “masc mexican dude wearing makeup” representation my heart was so full

[notadragonslayer]

"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious

[notadragonslayer]

It had almost escaped my notice that it is now May, the month that dooms to a heartbroken death 99% of characters from folk ballads. So, if you suspect you may be a character from a folk ballad, for your own safety: 

don’t fall in love, don’t go by the river, don’t go to the sea, don’t talk to sailors, don’t gamble, don’t ramble, don’t go North, don’t go North-West, don’t stand in the wind, don’t dance with anyone named Sally, Sue, Mary, Ann, or Barbara, don’t go to the pub (but if you do go to the pub at least don’t drink, and if you do drink at least pay for your own drink, and if you are absolutely broke and have to let someone else pay for your drink then at the very least do try not to forget to toast everyone you know whom you think might be there very loudly and possibly multiple times), don’t lend money, don’t borrow money, don’t wish you had more money, don’t make plans to make more money, don’t start working for a new employer, absolutely do believe anyone who says they will try to kill you, curse you, or maim you, absolutely do believe anyone who says you might die, turn down every invitation to go a-hunting, horse-riding, or a-courting, be wary of flute players you meet on your path, don’t dance with satanic men in black coats, don’t marry off your daughters to the first man who’ll have them, and don’t promise your true love any herbs you can’t readily plant and gather in your own garden. 

There. That should just about cover you for 31 days. Heed the warnings and you may have a chance to last the month. Good luck.

[notadragonslayer]

i need people do do me a favor and be absolutely normal about it

[notadragonslayer]

“Take Care” by Jordan Bolton

Pre-order my debut book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ now! Get it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky

[notadragonslayer]

Bothersome beast, comforting friend

[notadragonslayer]

Ai Weiwei, “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn,” 1995

An astonishingly irreverent piece of work.  This triptych features the artist dropping a Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) in three photographs.  

When questioned about the work, he suggested that the piece was about industry: “[The urn] was industry then and is industry now.”  His statement, therefore, was that the urn was just a cheap pot two thousand years ago, and the reverence we feel toward it is artificial.  One critic wrote: “In other words, for all the aura of preciousness acquired by the accretion of time (and skillful marketing), this vessel is the Iron Age equivalent of a flower pot from K-Mart and if one were to smash the latter a few millennia from now, would it be an occasion for tears?”

However, the not-so-subtle political undertone is clear.  This piece was about destroying the notion that everything that is old is good…including the traditions and cultures of China.  For Ai Weiwei, this triptych represents a moment in which culture suddenly shifts (sometimes violently), shattering the old and outdated to make room for the new.  

[notadragonslayer]

I apologize for calling Macklemore cringe

[notadragonslayer]

on getting better

?// ?// call your mom, noah kahan// letters to friends, family and editors, franz kafka// call your mom, noah kahan// september affirmation (Don’t Be Afraid), Keaton St. James (@boykeats) // @smuktvejr // ?// ?// ‘east boston, 1996; night walk’ in god’s silence, franz wright// ending, jonny bolduc// listen, tara bray// the haunting of hill house, shirley jackson// little red cap, carol ann duffy// @daisies-on-a-cup// evermore, taylor swift// @angelwarm// long story short, taylor swift

[notadragonslayer]

[notadragonslayer]

and this is why baseball is the best sport (see also: these baseball sidequests)

[notadragonslayer]

Parks with an stage at the bottom of a hill where local musicians play their songs on summer nights and every weekend between May and October they do shakespeare in the Park

#yes

[notadragonslayer]

comments from tiktok about siblings

[notadragonslayer]

Fucked up how humanity discovered electricity and radiation and made machines and learned to make airplanes and cured diseases and our takeaway isnt that "Some Magic Is Real And Here's Why", but that magic is fake this is big boy science and it's totally not magical

[notadragonslayer]

enough reclaiming slurs, I think in 2023 we should reclaim nascar. they banned the confederate flag on all properties & their stance on lgbtq+ isn’t just performative bc in 2013 they fined a driver 10k for using a homophobic slur, condemned indiana in a statement for an anti lgbt law, and partnered w carolina’s lgbt+ chamber of conference in 2022. nascar was founded by anti-cop moonshiners/bootleggers who drove suped-up fords to out-run the police. #yaaascar

[notadragonslayer]

i think we should all consider getting emotional over this xkcd. as a group. let's get emotional about it