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“Is your refrigerator running?”

“Yeah, fucker already has three field offices in Iowa.”

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My college admissions essay was a meta-essay about the weirdness of writing college admissions essays (sorry, lost to the mists of time). Sometime around my junior year I saw a packet given to prospective students which included some example admissions essays and mine was in it.

‪Essays I've written that had absolutely no business scoring as high as they did‬

- A literary analysis claiming that Jekyll was gay and strongly insinuating that Hyde was his drag persona‬ ‪- 500 words on how Despacito has changed the American music industry (in Spanish)‬ ‪- Literally didn’t even write an essay just turned in a picture of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the cartoon angels are playing the trumpet w their asses - We were supposed to make a ‘diary’ from the pov of a character in Romeo and Juliet. I chose to write as a gay servant who was hopelessly in love w Romeo and plotting to murder Juliet. It’s entirely handwritten w my left hand and stg every single word is spelled wrong. One page just says ‘today I saw a geese’. There are no fewer than 6 thinly veiled sexual innuendos.

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A few years ago, I was telling my sister a story from my biology class. We had a bunch of chicks, and every morning we would come to find another one dead. Finally, we figured out that one of the chicks had been murdering the others in the night.

She stopped me partway through the story so she could tell me, very annoyed, to “just say girls!” 

“What? No. Chicks. Like, baby chickens.”

“Oh.”

“You thought I was telling you that a girl in the class was murdering all the others and you weren’t concerned?”

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I first read this in its original location (probably in 1999, yes) and occasionally make reference to it, so naturally I have to reblog.

A first-hand account (originally from a Salon.com message board circa 1999) of a woman whose two primitive-type dogs – a Basenji and a New Guinea Singing Dog – found an elk carcass, holed up inside it, and refused to leave it.

An assorted list of my favorite excerpts:

“It’s way too primal in my yard right now.”

“If ever they come out, catching them and returning them to a condition where they can be considered house pets is not going to be, shall we say, pleasant.”

“What if you stand the ribcage on end, wait for them to look out, grab them when they do and pull?” “They wedge their toes between the ribs. And scream.”

“Sometimes, sleep is a mistake, no matter how tired you are. And especially if you are very very tired, and some of your dogs are outside, inside some elks.”

in a follow-up story about a basenji who got his head stuck inside a Thanksgiving turkey, while his two basenji friends gnawed on the outside. “I sent it in to one of the dog magazines but they did not print it, they said it was ‘too contrived.’ Obviously they did not know anything about basenjis.’

“My mother has gotten multiple copies [of this story] from friends, asking if my dogs are *really* that out of control.”

It’s brilliant, and I am so glad it exists on the internet. 

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if youre ever feeling bad just look at pictures of albatross chicks bc theyre adorable but also fucking hilarious like the parents look like they go to pta meetings in full makeup carrying gucci handbags and the babies look like funky little muppets and i love them

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The Purrsistence of Memory?

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what is it about capybaras that attracts groups of small animals to them? Its not just mammals either its like birds and turtles and frogs too

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I agree with this. And I’ve found it to be true in musical ensembles too, where “being the boss” (sometimes a nebulous concept, in small groups) has felt particularly awkward because 1) who am I to tell people what to do anyway, in any context, and 2) the thing I am trying to make people do is often not anything I can say is objectively better, but just my artistic opinion. But when I’m supposed to lead (and especially if I’m the composer) being explicit about what I’m looking for is a kindness rather than an imposition: the musicians want to do what I want them to, and by not saying it I was making them guess.

From the other side I’ve usually found it easy to work with people who will say exactly what they want, as long as they’re open to a reasonable conversation if what they’re asking isn’t something I can do.

One thing I’m learning from being a “boss” is that I should be way more willing to give direct, explicit instructions to people. Decisions never, ever, emerge naturally from unstructured conversation. I have to actually make the calls, and assign people tasks. Even in collaborations with people who don’t “work for me”, if a project is my idea, I have to tell everyone how I want it to work.

Giving instructions feels from the inside like i’m being way too bossy and arrogant, but I’m getting more and more evidence that people don’t read it as “asshole” behavior, and that in fact they’re more likely to feel confused or abandoned due to me not being hands-on *enough* about giving instructions.

I’ve also known other people who have the dysfunctional management style of going “what? I thought you were going to handle it. What do you mean you wanted guidance from me?!” and their projects flounder due to that failure to actually give instructions. I don’t want to make the same mistake.

Telling people what to do: it’s actually prosocial behavior in a leader!

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I think this is delightful.

(My six-year-old self would hate it. I used to have a nature book that had a huge picture of ants eating a citrus fruit and I would always skip that page because i Did Not Want To Look at the swarming pile of ants.)

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“What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like … ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?”

Mystery surrounds humpback whale found dead in depths of Brazil’s Amazon jungle

Wildlife experts only found huge mammal after following birds of prey scavenging on carcass

Brazilian wildlife experts have been left baffled after discovering a dead humpback whale in the Amazon rainforest.

The 10-ton mammal was found in the jungle undergrowth on the island of Marajo, which sits at the mouth of the Amazon River.

Although scientists presume the enormous creature was hurled onshore during a storm, they do not understand how it came so far inland or why it was swimming off the coast in the first place.

Officials from Para state’s health, sanitation and environment department said they only found the 11m-long whale after following the birds of prey which were scavenging on its huge carcass.

The remains were deposited in such a remote part of the mangrove swamp in the Amazonian delta that it took two trips for the wildlife experts to reach the site.

Marine specialists from the Bicho D’agua Institute, a conservation group based on Marajo, are part of the team examining the whale, which is thought to have died several days before it was found.

Continue reading.

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Reblogging because 1) yes and 2) I have thought about making basically this post but for clothing.

people should just embrace jewel tones already if I see one more house entirely decorated in washed out neutral colours I’m gonna sue someone

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Called out.

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Extremely accurate tempo descriptions.

Clarification: is there a set, standard amount of time, such as “one second”, that a “measure” of music lasts…? I understand that “4/4 time” means “four beats per measure”, but unless the length of time a “measure” lasts is consistent between songs, how does that make sense?

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If I saw “mm” my first thought would be that the intent is to play it at the level that causes me to make little satisfied noises to myself. Which is probably the correct volume.

dynamics yo

Okay soooooooo I know how I want this quintet to sound in my head, but there’s a section where neither mf nor mp will cut it. SO, I kinda did this

Will performers take this seriously? Is this allowed? I figured that we’re in the contemporary era, and modern composers vomit all sorts of arbitrary markings in their own scores, so why not?

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Wouldn’t you worry about everyone going sharp?

An extremely rare set of 16th century knives, engraved with musical scores which allowed guests to sing at the end of the meal. (Photo by Johan Osterman)