#"A State of Mi

[fauvester]

thanks to mels for pointing out that star trek disco has now established that cardassians are known for loving cake to such a degree that it's part of other species cultural lingo. truly love that for them. you know the first real sign that cardassia's postwar economic miracle is revving up is when the patisseries of lakat reopen

[yebreed]

Cloudy Wine Table of The Spring and Autumn Period

Another attribute of the antique bar: a bronze wine table Jin (禁).

The name of this piece of furniture involves social advertising.  Jin means “forbidden”. The name is aimed at potential consumers, encouraging them to be moderate in drinking.

It was believed that the Shang and Xia dynasties fell into decline due to alcohol abuse. The term itself has been in use since the Zhou Dynasty, when the first Dry Law was proclaimed. Wine was allowed only in rituals, in other cases, drinking it entailed the death penalty. For the same reason, it could be assumed that the table also had a religious purpose.

The wine table belonged to the Grand Chancellor Zi Geng during the reign of King Kang of Chu (楚康王).

It was manufactured with a lost-wax casting, a technology that is more often used in jewelry. The wine table rests on twelve dragons that serve as its legs. Twelve more surround it, trying to climb onto the tabletop from all sides.

Sophisticated clouds are not just for decoration. It is an allegory of the primordial forces, accumulated between Heaven and Earth, in action. The very pictograph for Qi, invented just in the Spring and Autumn period, refers to the clouds.

Finely crafted, the table was unearthed in fragments. It was a feat on the part of the restorers to bring it together. Rebuilding under the guidance of the bronze ware expert Wang Changqing took more than two years.

On display in Henan Museum (河南博物院).

[shutterandsentence]

A glorious Midwestern fall day...

Photo: Thompsonville, Michigan

[anglerflsh]

La natura sta sguarendo and I'm channeling the frantic pacing into drawing

[foreverblondie23]

[kermit-coded]

i'll settle for the ghost of you

(do not repost w/ out permission)

reblogs >>> likes

[deboracabral]

Feuilly with a book for @thepiecesofcait. Thank you!

[omarfor-orchestra]

Mi state dicendo che voi non siete così x

[whorejolras]

blows my mind reading fanfic in the les mis fandom of all places - les amis fanfic too - and seeing that overall there's more neutral-positive attitude towards cops than there ever is towards sex workers.

fucking. cops.

like i know u guys hate us (sex workers) that's very apparent, i know, but really? the fics about the little guys trying to change the world fighting against the system in place and were fully killed by the national guard will have bangers like "the police are just doing their job". fr?

and those same fics will have enjolras campaigning for sex workers to not be able to safely do their jobs. ok.

anyway writers who have enjolras as a staunch sex worker ally who listens to actual sex worker community organisers and supports them in fighting for full decriminalisation i am holding you tenderly in my hands and kissing you top of head.

writers who understand the gravity of what they're writing about re: police and understand the very simple fact that ACAB and have some real direct action fuck the state anarchist/domestic terrorist enjolras & abc, i'm shielding you from everything bad in this world and blessing ur first born.

and swerf bootlickers i hope you run face first into a hammer <3

[secretmellowblog]

I’m rereading Les mis again, and one thing I didn’t notice on my first reads is just how Militarized every single town is? Even in scenes where characters are just going about their ordinary day there are always soldiers in the street, and everyone’s always mentioning prison, and the police are always there, and there are always traces of the recent wars all around—

No matter what the characters are doing, the threat of state violence is always There. The threat of the military and police and government is always hanging over them.

Like in Fantine’s chapters with Tholomyes! As the four couples are going on their dates, there are constant references to how “Everything is Fine Now Because the Monarchy has Finally Put Down those Nasty Rebels and is Back in Power Again.”As the couples flirt and play, there are gendarmes in the street and people singing rowdy songs about the return of the king. There’s an entire intro chapter about the year’s historical context, and the rest of the chapters contains sprinkles of anecdotes about the new regime.

Hugo draws what I feel is a pretty explicit parallel between Tholomyes and the new King. We’re told that is fine in Paris because King Louis is on the throne: and we’re told that everything is idyllic in Fantine’s friend group because Tholomyes is its (quote) “dictator” who leads in a way that obligates everyone to obey.

Of course in the end Everything is Not Fine and these dictators can’t actually be trusted to rule over their people, and are going to especially hurt marginalized people like Fantine.

But it’s not just this one subplot obviously, it’s Every Single One. The threat of military violence is the background noise of the entire book.

Montreuil-sur-Mer where Valjean becomes mayor is literally a garrrison town for the military; Paris is always swarming with police and gendarmes; Marius’s story centers on his changing feelings about his Bonapartist soldier father; the Thenardiers live at the Waterloo Inn and constantly go on about Monsieur Thenardier’s military history; like the threat of the military/police is always there in the background of every scene, long before it comes to a head at the barricade.

One of the subplots that illustrates this best is Everything that Happens In Digne after Valjean is released from prison.

Valjean shows his yellow passport to the mayor and is immediately followed by a gendarme before he heads to an inn. His passport causes every inn to refuse service to him. After he asks a kind-looking peasant man at home with his family if he can stay at his house for the night, the man pulls out a gun and threatens to murder him. He attempts to get temporary housing at a prison, which refuses him.

We’re later given an explanation for what the townspeople think and say about their police force, and why they’re so determined to beat Valjean away. We’re told that the townspeople say:

“The police was very badly organized, moreover, because there was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought to injure each other by making things happen. It behooved wise people to play the part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and care must be taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to fasten the doors well.”

Which is a terrifying philosophy that we see throughout the book? The reason everyone is so cruel to Valjean is because in a world where everything is militarized, ordinary people have decided to become unofficial cops. It’s like they believe the problem with their society is that there aren’t enough police/soldiers on the street—even though we see police and soldiers on Every Page.

There’s something terrifyingly familiar about the mentality that looks at cities swarming with police and says “the way to fix this is to Add More Police. Or for regular citizens to Do Police Work themselves!”

And I feel like that tension, that constant pervasive threat of government violence that never goes away because ordinary people are actively supporting these institutions too, is such a tragically relevant part of the book.

[yebreed]

Everybody Eats Someone: Western Han Biting Artifact

Gold belt buckle of Western Han dynasty. Unearthed from the tomb of King of Chu of on Lion Rock (獅子山), Xuzhou (徐州), Jiangsu.

This dramatic buckle consists of two rectangular gold belt plates and a gold tongue. On the reliefs, everybody is eating someone. The heraldic bears of the Xiong (熊) clan, a prolongation of the royal House of Mi (芈), are present. The Ye (葉) family Taoist lineage I’ve examined here is from the same clan and House.

The bear totem is still pertinent for those with surnames Mi (芈), Yan (酓 or 檿), Shen (沈), Xiong (熊), Ye (葉), Xiang (項), Qu (屈).

The heraldic elements in the form of images represent rather archaic practice. They were gradually supplanted in China by the designation of belonging through the surnames’ hieroglyphs of or mottos.

On display in the Xuzhou Museum (徐州博物館).

[saruzzo]

Fiorello e Biagio Antonacci, circa 2002, courtesy of Techetechetè (x)

Questo gifset mi piace chiamarlo "he literally didn't have to do All That"

[apamates]

[aroacehanzawa]

packing up my bindle and trudging back to the classic lit fandom 💔