awkward-adult

[awkward-adult]

You’re not the hero of this story. You’re what odor rankles the dog into snarling, what clang in the ductwork beggars the kid into pleading for a nightlight against sleep, against her dreams of violence. You’re the dread in the cellar, the bed wetted, what sets the adrenals leaking their frantic mojo, what footfalls down an alleyway force the hand into its pocket in search of keys to weave between the fingers. You’re what makes the fist, what startles the breath out of me. You spectre in the swamp gas, you spider in a slipper, you snake into my sleeping bag like an overcoat pouncing from its hook into a corner of my eye when I enter the house in an off light, my familiar torqued sinister, my prairie home made alien, and you as the pupa birthed from an acid bath in steaming nurseries of your landing craft, you as invading army and secret police berating me I’m wrong about your best intentions, and all you ever seem to tell me is I’m wrong when all it ever seems to me is the one thing worse than a good man with a bad idea is a bad man with a great idea, and I might be wrong, but you are so abundant, so burdened, so bloated with the very best ideas.

THE RUMPUS INAUGURAL POEMS: “Partisan Poem” by Jaswinder Bolina. (via therumpus)

[awkward-adult]

So somebody on my Facebook posted this. And I’ve seen sooooo many memes like it. Images of a canvas with nothing but a slash cut into it, or a giant blurry square of color, or a black circle on a white canvas. There are always hundreds of comments about how anyone could do that and it isn’t really art, or stories of the time someone dropped a glove on the floor of a museum and people started discussing the meaning of the piece, assuming it was an abstract found-objects type of sculpture.

The painting on the left is a bay or lake or harbor with mountains in the background and some people going about their day in the foreground. It’s very pretty and it is skillfully painted. It’s a nice piece of art. It’s also just a landscape. I don’t recognize a signature style, the subject matter is far too common to narrow it down. I have no idea who painted that image.

The painting on the right I recognized immediately. When I was studying abstraction and non-representational art, I didn’t study this painter in depth, but I remember the day we learned about him and specifically about this series of paintings. His name was Ad Reinhart, and this is one painting from a series he called the ultimate paintings. (Not ultimate as in the best, but ultimate as in last.)

The day that my art history teacher showed us Ad Reinhart’s paintings, one guy in the class scoffed and made a comment that it was a scam, that Reinhart had slapped some black paint on the canvas and pretentious people who wanted to look smart gave him money for it. My teacher shut him down immediately. She told him that this is not a canvas that someone just painted black. It isn’t easy to tell from this photo, but there are groups of color, usually squares of very very very dark blue or red or green or brown. They are so dark that, if you saw them on their own, you would call each of them black. But when they are side by side their differences are apparent. Initially you stare at the piece thinking that THAT corner of the canvas is TRUE black. Then you begin to wonder if it is a deep green that only appears black because the area next to it is a deep, deep red. Or perhaps the “blue” is the true black and that red is actually brown. Or perhaps the blue is violet and the color next to it is the true black. The piece challenges the viewer’s perception. By the time you move on to the next painting, you’re left to wonder if maybe there have been other instances in which you believe something to be true but your perception is warped by some outside factor. And then you wonder if ANY of the colors were truly black. How can anything be cut and dry, black and white, when even black itself isn’t as absolute as you thought it was?

People need to understand that not all art is about portraying a realistic image, and that technical skills (like the ability to paint a scene that looks as though it may have been photographed) are not the only kind of artistic skills. Some art is meant to be pretty or look like something. Other art is meant to carry a message or an idea, to provoke thought.

Reinhart’s art is utterly genius.

“But anyone could have done that! It doesn’t take any special skill! I could have done that!���

Ok. Maybe you could have. But you didn’t.

Give abstract art some respect. It’s more important than you realize.

[awkward-adult]

yahoo answers

question: HELP i am being pursued by French authorities for a crime i did not commit!!! how do i stop them from shooting at me??? best answer (chosen by voters): France is a country located in Western Europe. I hope this helped!

[awkward-adult]

[awkward-adult]

[awkward-adult]

OH MY GOD

[awkward-adult]

WELP I'm crying at work again.

Today the Department of Awesomely Good Deeds salutes Mr. Kuroki, a retired Japanese dairy farmer living with his wife in Shintomi Town in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. When his beloved wife suddenly lost her vision to diabetes at the age of 52, he decided to create a flower garden so vast that Mrs. Kurokai would be able to enjoy them by their fragrant scent alone.

When Mrs. Kuroki lost her eyesight she was heartbroken that she and her husband would not get to take their long-anticipated retirement trip around Japan. Mr. Kuroki couldn’t bear to see his wife so unhappy and withdrawing from life, so he spent two years clear and preparing their land and then planting and nurturing a vast garden of pink shibazakura flowers, also known as moss phlox, that grew to encircle the couple’s home.

Now their home is surrounded by a vibrant sea of pink flowers and up to 7,000 people visit the Kuroki home each year from March to April in order to experience the beauty of the garden that also represents an inspiring love story. And, most importantly, Mrs. Kuroki is smiling.

[via My Modern Metropolis]

#love #flowers

[awkward-adult]

Gotta love science! At least now I know I wasn't losing my mind last time I ate at a Szechuan restaurant... I couldn't understand how my entire mouth was numb from something my body really didn't seem to perceive as "spicy." So cool. So glad it wasn't a food allergy. I love food too much for that. :)

Sanshool Seduction: The Science of Spiciness

One of the most aggressive flavors we can experience is spiciness. Imagine a bright red chili pepper whose color gives us fair warning of its propensity to ignite a fire. So how is that spicy food can make us sweat? Read more…

Photo Credit: Serious Eats

#science #food #cooking

[awkward-adult]

you kids these days with your rapidly growing concern for the state of the world and your knowledge of important issues at increasingly younger ages despite having been told your opinions don’t matter by the adults who put you in these situations

[awkward-adult]

I don't know why I laughed so hard at this BUT I DID.

big dog and puppy enjoying some veg

[awkward-adult]

The problem comes from people whose opinions are actually misconceptions. If you think vaccines cause autism you are expressing something factually wrong, not an opinion. The fact that you may still believe that vaccines cause autism does not move your misconception into the realm of valid opinion. Nor does the fact that many other share this opinion give it any more validity… You can be wrong or ignorant. It will happen. Reality does not care about your feelings. Education does not exist to persecute you. The misinformed are not an ethnic minority being oppressed. What’s that? Planned Parenthood is chopping up dead babies and selling them for phat cash? No, that’s not what actually happened. No, it’s not your opinion. You’re just wrong.

Yes, Your Opinion Can Be Wrong | Houston Press

This whole article.

Education does not exist to persecute you.  (via witch-boots)

This article is so important. (via natureofdust)

[awkward-adult]

these are the two thoughts that keep running through my head.

[awkward-adult]

The National Aviary in Pittsburgh

[awkward-adult]

i. “Your name is Tasbeeh. Don’t let them call you by anything else.” My mother speaks to me in Arabic; the command sounds more forceful in her mother tongue, a Libyan dialect that is all sharp edges and hard, guttural sounds. I am seven years old and it has never occurred to me to disobey my mother. Until twelve years old, I would believe God gave her the supernatural ability to tell when I’m lying. “Don’t let them give you an English nickname,” my mother insists once again, “I didn’t raise amreekan.” My mother spits out this last word with venom. Amreekan. Americans. It sounds like a curse coming out of her mouth. Eight years in this country and she’s still not convinced she lives here. She wears her headscarf tightly around her neck, wades across the school lawn in long, floor-skimming skirts. Eight years in this country and her tongue refuses to bend and soften for the English language. It embarrasses me, her heavy Arab tongue, wrapping itself so forcefully around the clumsy syllables of English, strangling them out of their meaning. But she is fierce and fearless. I have never heard her apologize to anyone. She will hold up long grocery lines checking and double-checking the receipt in case they’re trying to cheat us. My humiliation is heavy enough for the both of us. My English is not. Sometimes I step away, so people don’t know we’re together but my dark hair and skin betray me as a member of her tribe. On my first day of school, my mother presses a kiss to my cheek. “Your name is Tasbeeh,” she says again, like I’ve forgotten. “Tasbeeh.” ii. Roll call is the worst part of my day. After a long list of Brittanys, Jonathans, Ashleys, and Yen-but-call-me-Jens, the teacher rests on my name in silence. She squints. She has never seen this combination of letters strung together in this order before. They are incomprehensible. What is this h doing at the end? Maybe it is a typo. “Tas…?” “Tasbeeh,” I mutter, with my hand half up in the air. “Tasbeeh.” A pause. “Do you go by anything else?” “No,” I say. “Just Tasbeeh. Tas-beeh.” “Tazbee. All right. Alex?” She moves on before I can correct her. She said it wrong. She said it so wrong. I have never heard my name said so ugly before, like it’s a burden. Her entire face contorts as she says it, like she is expelling a distasteful thing from her mouth. She avoids saying it for the rest of the day, but she has already baptized me with this new name. It is the name everyone knows me by, now, for the next six years I am in elementary school. “Tazbee,” a name with no grace, no meaning, no history; it belongs in no language. “Tazbee,” says one of the students on the playground, later. “Like Tazmanian Devil?” Everyone laughs. I laugh too. It is funny, if you think about it. iii. I do not correct anyone for years. One day, in third grade, a plane flies above our school. “Your dad up there, Bin Laden?” The voice comes from behind. It is dripping in derision. “My name is Tazbee,” I say. I said it in this heavy English accent, so he may know who I am. I am American. But when I turn around they are gone. iv. I go to middle school far, far away. It is a 30-minute drive from our house. It’s a beautiful set of buildings located a few blocks off the beach. I have never in my life seen so many blond people, so many colored irises. This is a school full of Ashtons and Penelopes, Patricks and Sophias. Beautiful names that belong to beautiful faces. The kind of names that promise a lifetime of social triumph. I am one of two headscarved girls at this new school. We are assigned the same gym class. We are the only ones in sweatpants and long-sleeved undershirts. We are both dreading roll call. When the gym teacher pauses at my name, I am already red with humiliation. “How do I say your name?” she asks. “Tazbee,” I say. “Can I just call you Tess?” I want to say yes. Call me Tess. But my mother will know, somehow. She will see it written in my eyes. God will whisper it in her ear. Her disappointment will overwhelm me. “No,” I say, “Please call me Tazbee.” I don’t hear her say it for the rest of the year. v. My history teacher calls me Tashbah for the entire year. It does not matter how often I correct her, she reverts to that misshapen sneeze of a word. It is the ugliest conglomeration of sounds I have ever heard. When my mother comes to parents’ night, she corrects her angrily, “Tasbeeh. Her name is Tasbeeh.” My history teacher grimaces. I want the world to swallow me up. vi. My college professors don’t even bother. I will only know them for a few months of the year. They smother my name in their mouths. It is a hindrance for their tongues. They hand me papers silently. One of them mumbles it unintelligibly whenever he calls on my hand. Another just calls me “T.” My name is a burden. My name is a burden. My name is a burden. I am a burden. vii. On the radio I hear a story about a tribe in some remote, rural place that has no name for the color blue. They do not know what the color blue is. It has no name so it does not exist. It does not exist because it has no name. viii. At the start of a new semester, I walk into a math class. My teacher is blond and blue-eyed. I don’t remember his name. When he comes to mine on the roll call, he takes the requisite pause. I hold my breath. “How do I pronounce your name?” he asks. I say, “Just call me Tess.” “Is that how it’s pronounced?” I say, “No one’s ever been able to pronounce it.” “That’s probably because they didn’t want to try,” he said. “What is your name?” When I say my name, it feels like redemption. I have never said it this way before. Tasbeeh. He repeats it back to me several times until he’s got it. It is difficult for his American tongue. His has none of the strength, none of the force of my mother’s. But he gets it, eventually, and it sounds beautiful. I have never heard it sound so beautiful. I have never felt so deserving of a name. My name feels like a crown. ix. “Thank you for my name, mama.” x. When the barista asks me my name, sharpie poised above the coffee cup, I tell him: “My name is Tasbeeh. It’s a tough t clinging to a soft a, which melts into a silky ssss, which loosely hugs the b, and the rest of my name is a hard whisper — eeh. Tasbeeh. My name is Tasbeeh. Hold it in your mouth until it becomes a prayer. My name is a valuable undertaking. My name requires your rapt attention. Say my name in one swift note – Tasbeeeeeeeh – sand let the h heat your throat like cinnamon. Tasbeeh. My name is an endeavor. My name is a song. Tasbeeh. It means giving glory to God. Tasbeeh. Wrap your tongue around my name, unravel it with the music of your voice, and give God what he is due.”

Tasbeeh Herwees, The Names They Gave Me  (via rabbrakha)

[awkward-adult]

[awkward-adult]

The first time I heard an adult say the f word was when I was in fourth grade and we were doing some project that involved us baking cookies together as a class. My teacher Ms. Lindsey, who was real sweet, was demonstrating for everybody and she asked if anyone knew how to crack an egg, and I really didn’t know how to crack an egg, but I’m a go-getter, so I raised my hand and she called on me. I instantly knew I was in trouble at that point but I’d seen my dad crack eggs hundreds of times so I figured, ya know, it can’t be thaaaat hard. So I grab the egg but I have no sense of how softly you’re supposed to tap an egg to crack it, so I just slam it against the desk and splatter raw egg ten feet in every direction and my teacher said “what the fuck, Dion?”

#i laughed so hard #perfect

[awkward-adult]