#Ayn Rand with Candles

[tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons]

Appendix D: Some Pig/One More Final

The first three posts in this series are here.

Undertale was a slightly postmodern children's fantasy movie produced by Jim Henson's Creature Shop in the '80s. Noah Hathaway played the protagonist, Frisk, who went on a long quest to escape from a magical prison inside Mt. Ebott; Frisk's father had thrown them into the mountain, known to be full of monsters, in an attempt to kill them. However, it's suggested that as a human, Frisk is inherently more of a protagonist than a monster can be, and has a vague sort of magical power over them. Toriel's death, which Frisk accidentally causes early in the movie, is commonly listed as a Peak Sad Childhood Moment.

George Orwell wrote The Writing In The Web, a political fable about a cult started by a well-meaning spider. E. B. White wrote Snowball's Farm, a whimsical children's tale about a farm whose animals decide to take over.

Infamously, Emmanuel Goldstein's monologue fills dozens of pages, takes at least three hours to read aloud, and brings the plot of Ayn Rand's 1984 to a screeching halt.

Short story collections and anthologies often keep the same title, author, and spirit, it's just the stories that are swapped out. For example, classic episodes of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone include A Wonderful Life, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, Miracle On 34th Street, and The Sixth Sense. 1983's The Twilight Zone Movie includes segments based on classic episodes Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (directed by John Landis and given anti-war themes), Cocoon, The Poltergeist, and In Search of the Twelve Monkeys (the original starred a young William Shatner). Candle Cove is an episode of Black Mirror.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a 1999 Ben Stiller comedy about a team of low-rent superheroes who theme themselves after public domain characters because they cannot afford licensing fees. The film was well-reviewed, but a box office bomb. It was actually the first film to use Smash Mouth's One Week - the One Week music video is actually cross promotion with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - and it would remain the film most associated with the song until Dreamworks' Happily N'Ever After hit theaters two years later.

The Amazing Digital Circus was a virtual pet game and toy line that struck when the iron was hot on that niche, before being bought out by Hasbro and rebooted a few times in different forms and mediums. Lauren Faust created a long-running television cartoon of it that was a huge smash hit with fandom culture despite the show's clearly very young target audience. The property's canon is all very light kiddie fare; the scariest thing about The Amazing Digital Circus is that for a brief and touchy stretch of time in the early 2000s, it was owned by the Peoples Temple, which was seriously considering turning it into a recruiting platform.

Your cringe unpublished works that you gave up on were almost certainly swapped around with other people's cringe unpublished works that they gave up on. There's lots of upwards and downwards mobility to the scramble, but not usually that much. Exceptions are very rare - like a beggar suddenly being made king, or a god being reincarnated into an ant - but they do occasionally happen. For example, what you know as the land of Oz exists only in the head of a young Milwaukee stoner, who suddenly came up with the idea for an epic graphic novel one day in the 2010s while sitting on the bus, and spent a couple of years absolutely convinced she would eventually make it. (She cannot draw.) Conversely, L. Frank Baum's children's fantasy series, Enormia, which has been adapted and reimagined many times, most notably as audiences' introduction to color film, exists in your world only as a different Milwaukee stoner's overly elaborate backstory for his jerkoff sessions. This kind of thing is much more the exception than the rule, and even such exceptions are almost always much smaller in scope - an obscure stillborn project getting swapped around with an obscure out-of-print novel, or an obscure direct-to-video z-movie.

The True Detectives forum and its many schismatic spinoffs, all of which are devoted to discussing mystery fiction, host literally thousands of Wind fanfics. Many of the writers - perhaps most of them - have never actually read Wind, just other fanfiction of it; next to none of the fics are worth reading. Most Wind fics reuse the original protagonist, Rorschach, but treat him as a generically relatable blank slate. The most common fic format by far is the "altdunnit", a form of what-if scenario in which the mystery that sets off Wind's plot is different in some way.

Rorschach is held by a substantial portion of the fandom to be an egg (a trans woman who has not realized it yet). Wildbow has never endorsed this interpretation, and it doesn't seem to be much on his radar. In recent years, the trans Rorschach portion of the fandom has grown; they don't tend to look especially kindly on Warn, much of which Wildbow wrote as a response to fans (like those on the True Detectives forum) he felt had been too inclined to take Rorschach's side in Wind. Flame wars over Warn's content were constant throughout its serial publication, and made it easily the rockiest experience of Wildbow's writing career.

Some noteworthy and relevant podcasts include Jonathan Sims' The Dresden Files, the Ranged Touch Network's Scott Pilgrim Made The World, Doof Media's Winding Down (later Warning Down), and the McElroy family's The Adventure Zone (an actual play podcast which has currently had three major campaigns, two anthology series, and various one-shots). Film Reroll is still an actual play podcast that runs the basic setups of movies (and occasionally other media) as short tabletop campaigns; occasionally, their version of a movie will be much closer to ours than it is to the version of the movie in their own universe.

Xenobuddy was an early childhood public access show, originally created for the BBC in the late 1990s but later aired internationally. The title character is a small alien puppet who lives on a futuristic spaceship staffed by children (who speak a vague conlang akin to a dollar store Esperanto). At the end of every episode, it gets lost and is found, usually by (harmlessly) bursting out of one of the children. It was very popular with its target audience and much loathed by parents. Edgy ironic fanart depicting the titular Xenobuddy as some kind of dangerous parasite abounds.

Static is a supernatural slasher franchise created by Wes Craven, with the first film, also simply titled Static, released in 1984. The movies concern a group of gibbering neotenous ogre-fae who wake up in the modern day after a long sleep, incorporate televisions into their bodies, and start eating people by sucking them into hellish pocket dimensions. The Screen-Guts collectively are probably in the top five antagonists most people think of when they think of slasher horror.

Toby Fox's ROSEQUARTZ is especially known for its meta take on video game morality systems. The game has a mission-based structure; throughout it, the player is encouraged to take on a pacifist playstyle, championed by the player character's late mother, the title character. However, the Crystal Gems give the player enough autonomy that you are entirely able to take a much more violent tack; doing so has a rippling effect on the game's writing in countless immersively-integrated ways. If the player goes out of their way to be as murderous as possible - the so-called "genocide route" - the differences from the main route grow much more extreme, and rather than gaining allies, you start to lose them, as the Crystal Gems realize what you're doing and one by one turn against you. If you manage to shatter Garnet - it's the hardest and most iconic fight in the game, Megalovania is playing, her Future Vision gets used for all it's worth - then you use your knife to slash at the cosmos, erasing Earth, Homeworld, and everything else. This, Toby Fox is saying, is apparently all you want out of a video game - another toy to break.

Warner Bros still did Space Jam with Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes, it's just that the Looney Tunes in question were Mickey Mouse and friends. They also still did a second one with LeBron James, which was, by God, somehow worse. They put Ms. Frizzle in it.

Walt Disney made his squeaky clean reputation on the back of adaptations of things like Rudyard Kipling's adventure novel The Call of Cthulhu, P. L. Travers' Thomas the Tank Engine, and Erich Kästner's feel-good coming-of-age kidnapping tale about the power of perseverance, Lolita, originally done with Hayley Mills and later remade with Lindsay Lohan.

Nabokov's extremely controversial literary classic that has defined the idea of the unreliable narrator is Father's Trap, from the perspective of a man who plots to obtain custody of both of his daughters for nefarious purposes. Most publishers ignored Nabokov's instructions not to depict the twins, Lisa and Lottie, on the cover. Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne have directed mediocre film adaptations, and songwriting team Lerner and Loewe did a musical that was a legendary flop.

The Japanese fashion movement is Gothic Pollyanna, after an otherwise-forgotten series of penny dreadfuls about a cute, cheery, rules-minded young girl who is, despite appearances, an insane criminal. Minor character Bonesaw in Alan Moore's Worm Turns also clearly hearkens back to the Pollyanna stock character.

The DEA was a prime-time soap opera about the ongoing "war on drugs"; it ran for eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993. Its plot focused on federal agents working at the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and especially partners Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez and their families. It is mostly remembered today for its downer ending (in which the treachery of late-show villain Walter White, or "Heisenberg", gets the leads killed, and he escapes from justice), and for its far-more-acclaimed spinoff series Better Call Saul, which also ran for eleven seasons from 1993 to 2004, functioning as a prequel, midquel, and sequel to The DEA.

Between The DEA and Better Call Saul, Kelsey Grammer played crooked lawyer Saul Goodman for twenty consecutive years of primetime TV, first as featured comic relief and later as a leading man. (He also guest-starred on the mostly-forgotten Mall Cop, establishing that it, too, was set in the world of The DEA and Better Call Saul.) Better Call Saul won more than a dozen Primetime Emmys. Peri Gilpin received several of these for her performance as Kim Wexler.

St. Elsewhere was a film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan in the late 1990s; it was highly acclaimed and successful, and established Shyamalan in the public eye as a skilled auteur with an affinity for twist endings. The film's final scene reveals that its main setting, St. Eligius Hospital, exists entirely within the imagination of an autistic boy, Tommy Westphall, as he gazes into a snowglobe. The so-called "Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis", which posits that this same twist applies to most of fiction due to a network of crossovers, was invented by a Saturday Night Live sketch shortly postdating the film's release, in which an amnesiac Charles McGill (from Better Call Saul) wakes up in St. Eligius, attended to by a cast of characters who are more concerned with their own nonexistence.

After rising to prominence as a writer, storyboarder, and composer for Pendleton Ward's Science Time (where she established the Summer/Jessica relationship that would come to define later seasons), Rebecca Sugar got to make her own cartoon, Henry Ichor. Set in a recently post-apocalyptic but strangely cheerful world, Henry Ichor concerns a young teenage boy who is conscripted as a mech pilot due to his rare and innate ability to link to the powerful Evangelion mecha. (His preferred Evangelion is eventually revealed to be a form of his late mother, the reason he can do this in the first place.) Henry turns out to be a vital asset in protecting humanity from the monstrous "Angels" that frequently threaten it, and is surprisingly emotionally mature for his age. However, the adults around him (especially his father, Gennady) frequently push him too far, especially considering his generally noncombative and pacifistic nature. There is much interpersonal drama and much singing about it, with a very vocally trained cast. After several seasons of slow buildup, the show was forced to suddenly rush to its ending in only a few (infamous) episodes after an arc where Henry had a romance with an Angel in male human form. Henry Ichor The Movie and an ensuing miniseries, End Of Henry Ichor, helped bring the show to a more thematically satisfying conclusion.

Although he has played a creative or consultant role in many animated projects, Alex Hirsch is best known for the one he was actually the showrunner for, Disney Channel's smash hit Sunnydale. Focusing on a small California town constantly plagued by supernatural threats, Sunnydale generally followed a simple monster-of-the-week format, but kept audiences on the hook with teases at a deeper underlying mystery. The show almost didn't get a season two, as Hirsch found working with Disney very tiring, but he was eventually persuaded; season two ran through the rest of Hirsch's ideas at a faster pace, and concluded the show with the leads graduating from Sunnydale High.

For a brief historical moment, Daron Nefcy's show, Ender vs. the Space Bug Army, looked like it would become the successor to Sunnydale, keeping Disney Television Animation prestigious after Sunnydale ended. However, though Ender drew in a big crowd, and lasted almost twice as long as Sunnydale, it was not ultimately as well-received. EvtSBA is a children's space opera, wearing its Starship Troopers (Joss Whedon) inspiration on its sleeve, but also clearly copying some (superficial) notes from Philip Pullman. Set in a future where mankind has come into violent conflict with bug-like aliens, the show follows unbearably smug boy supergenius Ender as he is sent to military school to prepare for interstellar warfare. The show has an extremely cutesy and hyperactive tone; typical filler episodes include the one (generally taken as meta about fandom drama) in which Ender's siblings' futuristic internet arguments prove instrumental to the survival of the human race. Later seasons get a bit more serious, but focus heavily on shipping. The show is infamous for its ending, in which Ender, for his final exam, destroys the Formics' home planet and releases a psychic signal that eradicates the Formic race. Although the show explicitly notes that this includes many individual Formics who we have previously known as sympathetic characters, it is nonetheless played as a happy ending in which a hostile colonial power is defeated. Ender has ended the war; he has beaten the Space Bug Army.

"Meugh-Neigh. 'Meugh' like the cat, 'neigh' like the horse." "Does it mean something?" "No answer; none at all."

Orson Scott Card is an extremely prolific author of speculative fiction. Although it isn't as close to his heart as the Steel Gear series, in which he got to flex his military sci-fi muscles and allegorically retell stories from his faith, he is undoubtedly best known for Ishtar's Curse. Initially a short story and later expanded into a full novel, the plot concerns young Princess Ishtar, or Star, heir to the heathen fairy kingdom of Meugh-Neigh. (In later novels, she changes her name to Bethlehem Diaz, or Beth.) Spoiled and destructive but magically talented, Star is sent to twentieth century Earth so she can develop the wits and the strength of character to be a viable wartime leader for her people - or at least so she can be kept out of the way. After several years of personal growth and magical misadventures with companions she met on Earth, a more grounded Star devises a spell to erase the magic that makes up the bodies of most of her throne's enemies. This plan works, and merges Meugh-Neigh into the Earth as a small and ordinary European country. However, though her subjects are eager to celebrate her for this, Star is devastated when she realizes that she has killed trillions of innocent spirits, and, seeking to atone, she takes on the title of Speaker for the Dead (also the title of the book's first sequel). Although it's frequently ranked highly in lists of fantasy novels of the twentieth century, Ishtar's Curse has received some harsh criticism, with the standard line being that Star is an idealized fantasy of a repentant Hitler figure, and that the text presents excessive justifications for her actions. The story has also been called a reactionary response to Wilde's The Little Mermaid. After more than twenty years, a film adaptation of Ishtar's Curse was released in 2009, starring Dakota Fanning, to mixed reviews. The box office took a further hit due to a boycott campaign, after Card's views on homosexuality (and, relatedly, his membership in the LDS Church) became widely known. In the end, it lost the studio a lot of money.

Hideaki Anno is best known for the classic smash hit anime he made for Studio Gainax, Einstein Goliath Nestorian, a psychologically intense deconstruction of martial arts shonen like Yoshiyuki Tomino's Dragon Ball. Einstein Goliath Nestorian concerns a mystery man known only as Saitama, who finds that he has become dissatisfied with life and alienated from the world after only three years of training have enabled him to easily surpass any physical challenge. The original series is known for its sudden, surreal, and clearly budget-driven ending, although this was quickly alleviated with a similarly surreal but more definitive finale movie. Although many Western anime fans often think of Einstein Goliath Nestorian as pretentious and ultra niche, it was actually a huge mainstream hit in Japan, with a colossal franchise of adaptations, merch, and spinoffs (notably including a series of Retrain films, which began as extremely close shot-for-shot remakes of the original series but wound up spiraling into a very different updated timeline).

Previously most noteworthy for his 2003 visual novel Oreimo, Gen Urobuchi was tapped by Shaft for their extremely successful and acclaimed anime Ohayou Hana!, hailed as a deceptively dark deconstruction of the teen idol genre. The plot concerns a girl, Saionji Mayuri, who leads a double life, being of little note at school, out of costume, but spending much of her time as #1 idol Hana. Her mental stability begins to deteriorate as she realizes that the adults in her life - especially her father, himself a former idol - have groomed her to serve as a drugged and hypnotized propaganda mouthpiece for a shadowy conspiracy. She winds up in the worst of both worlds as her ensuing breakdown, and her handlers' response to it, destroys both of her lives and brings ruin to those she cares about. In addition to the popularity of the actual anime, many of its songs became decontextualized J-Pop hits. The idol anime genre would then receive a glut of edgy lesser imitators, like Love Live: School Idol Project, Cheetah Girls, and magical girl fusion Symphogear. Although the original Ohayou Hana! was a self-contained twelve-episode story, it received a sequel movie shortly thereafter, Ohayou Hana! Rebel!, which ended on a cliffhanger that has still not been resolved over a decade later. The upcoming Ohayou Hana! MK Ultra! is expected to get things back on track. An abridged series originating on 4chan, focusing on cropped screencaps from Ohayou Hana!, called the title character "Miss Ohio", producing the memetic tagline "being Ohio is suffering".

Zack Snyder first came up with the idea for Madoka around 2000, a long time before he'd actually get to make it; he put the project on hold in 2006 to make his adaptation of Worm Turns. He developed the idea with his wife Deborah and a cowriter, Steve Shibuya. Inspired by the Disney Princess phenomenon, as well as Naoko Takeuchi's Pretty Cure (one of the few anime that had already become a hit in the States), Snyder wanted to tell a coherent story about fights between magical girls who could make anything happen, who could make any fantastical world or visual appear. In Snyder's film, we follow Madoka Kaname, a teenager attending a Catholic school in Los Angeles. Madoka and her friends are approached by a strange young woman who goes only by "Mommy", and her animal companion (a CGI-ed up squirrel-cat thing), QB. They offer to make the teens into "magical girls", granting them one wish each in exchange for a life devoted to spiritual warfare. (Another mysterious new girl, Lilly, urges them not to take the deal in the strongest possible terms.) This turns out to be a scam; QB is pitting the magical girls against one another for his own reasons, and in the end, every magical girl and her wish gets corrupted. Despite much of the film's plot being a horrific bloodbath - the MPAA demanded a lot of cuts to get it down to a PG-13 rating - there is a happy ending; Madoka finally makes her own wish and uses it to topple QB's whole system. Madoka isn't often discussed nowadays but it was a major discourse bomb when it came out in 2010, alternately being called misogynistic Orientalist trash and a subversive feminist masterpiece. Snyder, for his part, often notes that QB is intended as an allegory for exploitative forces within the entertainment industry that treat young women as disposable resources with an expiration date; this is already clear to anyone who's watched the film, which is not exactly subtle in its symbolism. He also explains that the film sexualizes the girls in an effort to shame the audience, to get people to understand that they are objectifying the characters in the same way that QB does. The soundtrack's got a really cool ethereal cover of Nine Inch Nails' King Nothing on it, which is probably the most remembered part of the film today.

Selena Gomez became a star by playing Violet Parr on Disney Channel's superhero sitcom The Incredibles. While the show was initially a very throwaway villain-of-the-week affair whose leads had to keep their powers hidden from the public and their caped escapades secret from the government for self-explanatory comes-with-the-genre reasons, it would eventually unfold that the show was set in something of an X-Men-style dystopia where superheroism had been outlawed and supers oppressed by the government as a potential societal fifth column.

Brad Bird directed one of Pixar's most celebrated films, Wizards of Waverly Place; it was Pixar's first film with a predominantly human cast. Disney was hungry for a fantasy property after losing a bidding war for the Luz Noceda rights. It had strong populist anti-eugenic themes, with an elaborate wizarding hierarchy of antagonists who seek to remove the Russo family's magic as part of an effort to curb wizard overpopulation. The sequel came more than a decade later, and wasn't nearly as good.

In addition to Worm Turns, Alan Moore is notable for the heavily metafictional comic Pagemaster, about a boy, Richard, who finds a magical library that contains all stories that have ever been or could ever be told; he becomes lost and imperiled in assorted pieces of historically noteworthy literature (initially ones in the public domain, though later volumes would start using legally safe serial-numbers-filed-off versions of modern stories). The 2003 film, in which Sean Connery played the librarian in one of his last film roles, is widely regarded as a terrible, deeply-toned-down adaptation that didn't grasp the tone or themes of the original story at all; it only covered the first half of the first volume, in which Richard meets "genre spirits" who wish to sort all stories into rigid categories. In a later volume, Pagemaster Millennium, an aged Richard Tyler, who has since taken on the mantle of librarian himself, meets a teenage girl, heavily implied to be Luz Noceda, who has also become lost in the library. She has become corrupted by an eldritch book, or "Necronomicon", written by "the Wrong Author", heavily implied to be the devil (and/or Hugo Astley, an Aleister Crowley caricature from W. Somerset Maugham's The Winged Bull). Flushed with demonic power and enraged by what she's become, a monstrous Luz tears through the library in a blaze of hellfire, seeking to destroy all of literature and the world. It is only through the intervention of the Fat Controller - heavily implied to be God - that Luz is defeated; he mercifully erases her by hitting her with a train, and laments what she became.

[mywifeleftme]

344: Max Webster // A Million Vacations

A Million Vacations Max Webster 1979, Anthem

When you think of the classic rock heroes of the Midwest, guys like Bob Seger and John Mellencamp are usually first to mind on account of their representing “working-class authenticity.” But realistically, if you spend the 1970s and ‘80s lifting car chassis it’s likely you’ll want to spend some of your nights dreaming of another world, which might account for the region’s enduring love affair with the gay-looking straight man star children of the AOR movement. For its part, English Canada between the coasts (which is, for all intents and purposes, a continent-wide addendum to Minnesota) was right there growing out its mullets with the best of ‘em (see Trooper, Triumph, Loverboy, and so on). The best of our local product though had a distinctly Canadian quirkiness to it that made them stand out from the Yanks—a quality that could swing between subversively weird and plain corny from one song to the next.

Both Max Webster, and their longtime touring mates Rush, had this quality in spades, and you’d’ve been hard pressed to find two sorrier looking groups of chicken men on any stage anywhere. (It would not be very nice to describe Webster guitarist-vocalist Kim Mitchell as “David Lee Meth” so I simply won’t.) But despite their looks, propensity for geeky mythos-building, eccentric vocals, and a whole host of other characteristics that made them unlike, say, Journey, both bands were reliable arena draws in this country. Rush were obviously much, much bigger, but on sheer enjoyability I’d probably side with Max Webster myself, an infinitely more peculiar, less Ayn Rand-affiliated project that sort of answers the question, “What if Frank Zappa had been born in Toronto and wasn’t a snide prick?”

A Million Vacations was their commercial highwater mark in Canada (it moved about seven copies Stateside), spinning off three charting singles amid its Mothersy gags (“Research”) and more explicitly prog wanderings—no songs break the five-minute mark, but “Sun Voices” / “Moon Voices” is effectively a cosmic eight-minute suite, and the forbidden name of Kansas may rise unbidden into your mind from time to time. The musicianship is stellar throughout, and they grind out some genuinely rocking pomp riffs, but the album’s highlight is “Let Go the Line,” an iridescent, opiated ballad both uncharacteristic of the band and one I can’t really imagine any other making.

“Let Go the Line” seems to take place in a suspended moment, stoned or just dissociated, sitting on the couch at a party, drifting off into a vivid and private world:

Come drown your thoughts if they bite you Turn off the world if it makes you hurt I'm just a clown but I like you I see you there in your satin shirt Unfocused eyes on the ceiling A trace of smile on a frozen face I think you know what you're stealing Life has been likened to a poker deal Or a poor brief candle, or a karmic wheel But all I know is that tonight I might Let go the line, let go the line…

I think that’s a really lovely set of lyrics, but what the text doesn’t get across is the shy, almost naïve way keyboardist Terry Watkinson sings them, as though reaching uncertainly across the band’s lush, cocktail-party-at-the-end-of-the-universe music to offer a comforting hand. It’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever heard.

344/365

[brookston]

Holidays 2.2

Holidays

Ayn Rand Day

Bonza Bottler Day

Chris Kyle Day (Texas)

Constitution Day (Philippines)

Day of Youth (Azerbaijan)

Feast of Torches

Femminiello Pride Day (Italy)

Grand Central Station Day

Groundhog Day  (a.k.a. ... 

Badger Day

Brewhog Day

Groundhog Job Shadow Day

Hedgehog Day

”I Got You Babe” Day

Marmot Day (Alaska)

When the Bear Wakes Up Day (Croatia, Serbia)

HarryStrong Day

Hromnice (Czech Republic)

International Sex Education Day

Inventor’s Day (Thailand)

Lung Leavin’ Day

Mad Pelagius Day (Elder Scrolls)

Mindfulness Day

National Brendan Dau

National Brown Dog Day

National Catcher’s Day

National Change Your Windshield Wipers Day

National Frank Day

National Indigenous Day (Colombia)

National League Baseball Day

National River Day

Neuroblastoma Awareness Day (Australia)

Play Your Ukulele Day

Purification Day

Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Day

Self-Renewal Day

Serpent Day (Celtic)

Sled Dog Day

Sonam Locher (Sikkim, India)

Trader’s Day (Poland)

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Day (Mexico/US)

Treaty of Tartu Day (Estonia)

Twin Tail Day (Japan)

Veja Diena (Day of Wind; Ancient Latvia)

Victory of the Battle of Stalingrad Day (Russia)

Wives' Feast Day

World Day for Consecrated Life

World Ostrich Day

World Tutu Day

World Ukulele Day

World Wetlands Day (UN)

Zippo Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Brewhog Day

California Kiwi Fruit Day

Crêpes Day (France)

Heavenly Hash Day

Rolling Rock "33" Day

Tater Tot Day

1st Thursday in February

National Sweater Day (Canada) [1st Thursday]

Optimist Day [1st Thursday]

Scout Jumuah [begins sundown 1st Thursday]

Time to Talk Day (UN) [1st Thursday]

Feast Days

Adalbard (Christian; Saint)

Candlemas  (a.k.a. ... 

Candelaria Festival (a.k.a. Virgen de la Candelaria; Puno, Peru)

Dia de la Candelaria (Mexico)

Feast of the Holy Encounter (Western Christianity)

Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Western Christianity)

Feat of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Western Christianity)

La Fete de la Chandeleur (Canada, France)

Le Jour des Crepes (Crepes Day; France)

Mariä Lichtmess (Liechtenstein)

Matka Boska Gromniczna (Mother of God of the Blessed Thunder Candle; Poland)

Our Lady of the Candles (Filipino Catholics)

Quarter Day (Scotland)

Virgin of Candelaria (Tenerife, Spain)

Yemanja (a.k.a. Our Lady of Navigators; Candomblé)

Charming of the Plough (Pagan)

Columbanus of Ghent (Christian; Hermit) [Belgium, brewers]

Cornelius the Centurion (Christian; Saint)

Dabucuri ucuqui, (Initiation Rites of the Young Men; to Jurupari, South American Guarani/Tupi God)

Festival of Juno Februa (Ancient Rome)

Groundhog Day (Pastafarian)

Imbolc, Day 2 (a.k.a. Oimelc; Celtic, Pagan) [1 of 8 Festivals of the Natural Year]

James Joyce (Humanism; Saint)

Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury (Anglican Church)

Martyrs of Ebsdorf (Christian; Martyrs)

Raya (Muppetism)

Roger Corman Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint) 

Sophocles (Positivist; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Lucky Day (Philippines) [7 of 71]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Uncyclopedia Bad to Be Born Today (because it's always cold and miserable on February 2. Unless you live in Australia, in which case it's hot and miserable.)

Premieres

Alyered Carbon (TV Series; 2018)

The Benny Goodman Story (Film; 1956)

Cinema Paradiso (Film; 1990)

A Clockwork Orange (Film; 1972)

Ghost in the Shell (Anime Film; 1996)

The Great Train Robbery (Film; 1979)

The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 1998) [Discworld #22]

Long Day’s Journey into Night, by Eugene O’Neill (Play; 1956)

Louise, by Gustave Carpenters (Opera; 1900)

The Midnight Special (Music TV Series; 1973)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Film; 2008)

Oliver’s Army, by Elvis Costello (Song; 1978)

Pam & Tommy (TV Mini-Series; 2022)

The Point!, by Harry Nilsson (Animated TV Special; 1971)

South Pacific (Broadway Musical; 1949)

Susie Q, recorded by Dale Hawkins (Song; 1957)

A Trick of the Tail, by Genesis (Album; 1976)

Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1602)

Ulysses, by James Joyce (Novel; 1922)

Today’s Name Days

Bodo (Austria)

Marija, Marijan, Svjetlana (Croatia)

Nela (Czech Republic)

Leegi, Säde (Estonia)

Aamu, Jemina, Lumi (Finland)

Théophane (France)

Bodo, Mariä Lichtmess, Stephan (Germany)

Ipapanti, Ypapante, Ypapanti (Greece)

Aida, Karolina (Hungary)

Maurizio, Sabatino (Italy)

Spīdola, Spidols (Latvia)

Kantvydas, Rytis, Valdemaras, Vandenė (Lithuania)

Jomar, Jostein (Norway)

Joanna, Korneliusz, Maria, Miłosława (Poland)

Inna (Russia)

Erik, Erika (Slovakia)

Candelaria, Purificación (Spain)

Aleta, Aletha, Alethea, Alida, Alita, Lita (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 33 of 2023; 332 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 4 of week 5 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Luis (Rowan) [Day 12 of 28]

Chinese: Month 1 (Jia-Yin), Day 12 (Xin-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721(until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 11 Shevat 5783

Islamic: 11 Rajab II 1444

J Cal: 3 Xin; Threesday [3 of 30]

Julian: 20 January 2023

Moon: 92%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 5 Homer (2nd Month) [Sophocles)

Runic Half Month: Elhaz (Elk) [Day 9 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 44 of 90)

Zodiac: Aquarius (Day 13 of 30)

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 2.2

Holidays

Ayn Rand Day

Bonza Bottler Day

Chris Kyle Day (Texas)

Constitution Day (Philippines)

Day of Youth (Azerbaijan)

Feast of Torches

Femminiello Pride Day (Italy)

Grand Central Station Day

Groundhog Day  (a.k.a. ... 

Badger Day

Brewhog Day

Groundhog Job Shadow Day

Hedgehog Day

”I Got You Babe” Day

Marmot Day (Alaska)

When the Bear Wakes Up Day (Croatia, Serbia)

HarryStrong Day

Hromnice (Czech Republic)

International Sex Education Day

Inventor’s Day (Thailand)

Lung Leavin’ Day

Mad Pelagius Day (Elder Scrolls)

Mindfulness Day

National Brendan Dau

National Brown Dog Day

National Catcher’s Day

National Change Your Windshield Wipers Day

National Frank Day

National Indigenous Day (Colombia)

National League Baseball Day

National River Day

Neuroblastoma Awareness Day (Australia)

Play Your Ukulele Day

Purification Day

Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Day

Self-Renewal Day

Serpent Day (Celtic)

Sled Dog Day

Sonam Locher (Sikkim, India)

Trader’s Day (Poland)

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Day (Mexico/US)

Treaty of Tartu Day (Estonia)

Twin Tail Day (Japan)

Veja Diena (Day of Wind; Ancient Latvia)

Victory of the Battle of Stalingrad Day (Russia)

Wives' Feast Day

World Day for Consecrated Life

World Ostrich Day

World Tutu Day

World Ukulele Day

World Wetlands Day (UN)

Zippo Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Brewhog Day

California Kiwi Fruit Day

Crêpes Day (France)

Heavenly Hash Day

Rolling Rock "33" Day

Tater Tot Day

1st Thursday in February

National Sweater Day (Canada) [1st Thursday]

Optimist Day [1st Thursday]

Scout Jumuah [begins sundown 1st Thursday]

Time to Talk Day (UN) [1st Thursday]

Feast Days

Adalbard (Christian; Saint)

Candlemas  (a.k.a. ... 

Candelaria Festival (a.k.a. Virgen de la Candelaria; Puno, Peru)

Dia de la Candelaria (Mexico)

Feast of the Holy Encounter (Western Christianity)

Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Western Christianity)

Feat of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Western Christianity)

La Fete de la Chandeleur (Canada, France)

Le Jour des Crepes (Crepes Day; France)

Mariä Lichtmess (Liechtenstein)

Matka Boska Gromniczna (Mother of God of the Blessed Thunder Candle; Poland)

Our Lady of the Candles (Filipino Catholics)

Quarter Day (Scotland)

Virgin of Candelaria (Tenerife, Spain)

Yemanja (a.k.a. Our Lady of Navigators; Candomblé)

Charming of the Plough (Pagan)

Columbanus of Ghent (Christian; Hermit) [Belgium, brewers]

Cornelius the Centurion (Christian; Saint)

Dabucuri ucuqui, (Initiation Rites of the Young Men; to Jurupari, South American Guarani/Tupi God)

Festival of Juno Februa (Ancient Rome)

Groundhog Day (Pastafarian)

Imbolc, Day 2 (a.k.a. Oimelc; Celtic, Pagan) [1 of 8 Festivals of the Natural Year]

James Joyce (Humanism; Saint)

Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury (Anglican Church)

Martyrs of Ebsdorf (Christian; Martyrs)

Raya (Muppetism)

Roger Corman Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint) 

Sophocles (Positivist; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Lucky Day (Philippines) [7 of 71]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Uncyclopedia Bad to Be Born Today (because it's always cold and miserable on February 2. Unless you live in Australia, in which case it's hot and miserable.)

Premieres

Alyered Carbon (TV Series; 2018)

The Benny Goodman Story (Film; 1956)

Cinema Paradiso (Film; 1990)

A Clockwork Orange (Film; 1972)

Ghost in the Shell (Anime Film; 1996)

The Great Train Robbery (Film; 1979)

The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 1998) [Discworld #22]

Long Day’s Journey into Night, by Eugene O’Neill (Play; 1956)

Louise, by Gustave Carpenters (Opera; 1900)

The Midnight Special (Music TV Series; 1973)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Film; 2008)

Oliver’s Army, by Elvis Costello (Song; 1978)

Pam & Tommy (TV Mini-Series; 2022)

The Point!, by Harry Nilsson (Animated TV Special; 1971)

South Pacific (Broadway Musical; 1949)

Susie Q, recorded by Dale Hawkins (Song; 1957)

A Trick of the Tail, by Genesis (Album; 1976)

Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1602)

Ulysses, by James Joyce (Novel; 1922)

Today’s Name Days

Bodo (Austria)

Marija, Marijan, Svjetlana (Croatia)

Nela (Czech Republic)

Leegi, Säde (Estonia)

Aamu, Jemina, Lumi (Finland)

Théophane (France)

Bodo, Mariä Lichtmess, Stephan (Germany)

Ipapanti, Ypapante, Ypapanti (Greece)

Aida, Karolina (Hungary)

Maurizio, Sabatino (Italy)

Spīdola, Spidols (Latvia)

Kantvydas, Rytis, Valdemaras, Vandenė (Lithuania)

Jomar, Jostein (Norway)

Joanna, Korneliusz, Maria, Miłosława (Poland)

Inna (Russia)

Erik, Erika (Slovakia)

Candelaria, Purificación (Spain)

Aleta, Aletha, Alethea, Alida, Alita, Lita (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 33 of 2023; 332 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 4 of week 5 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Luis (Rowan) [Day 12 of 28]

Chinese: Month 1 (Jia-Yin), Day 12 (Xin-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721(until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 11 Shevat 5783

Islamic: 11 Rajab II 1444

J Cal: 3 Xin; Threesday [3 of 30]

Julian: 20 January 2023

Moon: 92%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 5 Homer (2nd Month) [Sophocles)

Runic Half Month: Elhaz (Elk) [Day 9 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 44 of 90)

Zodiac: Aquarius (Day 13 of 30)

[ramrodd]

What are the criticisms of Das Kapital by Karl Marx? Why should we avoid reading it?

COMMENTARY:

You should read it. Marxism is a fairy tale, but it is intellectually superior to the basis of Supply-Side economics. Do not avoid reading Marx. It’s a study in fallacy. 

Marx held an intellectual enchantment over Marxist that was as entrancing as Ayn Rand’s emotional enchantment over Objectivists and her Atlas Shrugged demographic.

The difference between Marxists and Objectivist is that Marxist arrived at the same conclusion regarding Marxism being untenable during the 70s that Brezhnev and Mao realized after Apollo 11 and had the moral clarity and intellectual honesty to abandon his dictates, while Objectivists basically doubled down with the Reagan/Trump cult of personality and January 6.

The primary fallacy of Marxism is that he violates the 4th Law of Logic by proposing to eliminating all the contradictions in the Tory Capitalism of the Industrial revolution. Marx basically made the same mistake that Thomas Jefferson made when he edited God out of his version of the Bible. The contradictions Marx sought to eliminate were generally the paradox in any social system that makes the system dynamical.

Marx was trying to create a social system that operated with the same mechanical principles as the steam engine, which was the engine of the dominant economic paradigm. The Scientific Management of the Harvard Business School employs the same metaphor, Ray Dalio has substituted the T Model Ford for the steam engine and improved the metaphor (because the spark plug represents the entrepreneurial impulse made possible by life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) but it’s still a mechanical paradigm. It’s why Dilbert is Scott Adam’s archetype for the Harvard MBA program’s performance  based on  Rosabeth Moss Kantor’s HR paradigm.

The key to the organic characteristic of the Starship Capitalism described by Werner von Braun and Robert Heinlein is the dynamical modeling of Paul Krugman’s _Peddling Prosperity”. If you replace the water in Krugman’s model with the physical infrastructure of the Federal Reserve and the internet and the flame of the candle with the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and the SEC, and assume the surface of the water is the grass foots strata of American constitutional capitalism, you have a working model of why Keynesian policies are four or 5 limens more effective than the static austerity policies of the Austrian economics of Ayn Rand and the John Birch Society conceits of the William F. Buckley’s Sophist Fascism of the National Review and Yale University.

As Putin observed, Marxism is a fairy tale, but it is a very intellectually rigorous fairy tale. If you read Marx, the soaring intellectual superstructures of the construct in contrast to the emotional slop of Reaganomics and Objectivism will become stark. Both schools violate the 4th Law of Logic, which dictates that paradox cannot be reduced,

Like Marxism, the 18th Amendment and the current War on Drugs violates the 4th Law of Logic.

[queersatanic]

"no bro, you'll learn so much about the human animal and how to deal with psychic vampires, bro, just check it out, please bro"

[luxe-pauvre]

NOVEMBER 2021

Read:

Avoiding Bad Decisions

Am I my connectome?

Myth and the mind

The Identity Hoaxers

The Link Between Bioelectricity and Consciousness

Blackout in the Brain Lab

I Have Come to Bury Ayn Rand

Chasing the Elusive Numbers That Define Epidemics

The politician is the malformed monster of our coexistence

Reparations to Helen: On Beauty, War, and Personal Responsibility

The Medical System Should Have Been Prepared for Long COVID

The Trouble with Brain Scans

How the Right Foods May Lead to a Healthier Gut, and Better Health

A Computer Scientist Who Tackles Inequality Through Algorithms

To find the truth, we must establish the meaning of falsehood

The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts by Farnam Street

The Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry, and Biology by Farnam Street

The Great Mental Models Volume 3: Systems and Mathematics by Farnam Street

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

Watched:

How Fungi Make Our Worlds

Why Courage Matters and How To Cultivate It with Ryan Holiday*

The Exponential Age

Deep Medicine and Social Injustice - Ai Weiwei meets Raj Patel & Rupa Marya

You Are Immune Against Every Disease

POV: When you get into Oxford & Cambridge but now “stack shelves”

why you’re so tired

Vaccines: A Measured Response**

Judith Slaying Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi: Great Art Explained

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Breaking Convention***

Temple (S2)

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

The Pursuit of Love

Showtrial

Listened To:

Supercut by Lorde****

Helen of Troy by Lorde

Fly As Me by Silk Sonic

777 by Silk Sonic

Deceptacon by Le Tigre

The ‘In’ Crowd by Bryan Ferry

Keep Loving Me by The Draytones

Went To:

A New Philosophy of Life with Philip Pullman and Iain McGilchrist

Decision Time - How to Make the Choices Your Life Depends on

Macbeth @ the Royal Opera House

[comradekatara]

omg do you have any ideas for the gaang + room decor (in a modern au ?? perhaps ??)

ok so aang wouldn’t really have that many material possessions, especially nothing flashy (though he probably has some art and assorted knickknacks) but his spaces would always have really warm vibes. like i picture his childhood bedroom walls being painted a kind of friendly, mustard yellow, and there being candles and blankets and pillows everywhere like when you’re in aang’s abode you just feel welcome and cozy and at peace

and then coupled with katara’s vibes, when they move in together as adults, it’s just extra warm and lovely and the walls are painted a light beige and there’s lots of indigenous art on the walls and seashells they’ve collected over the years on the mantle and on the coffee table and they’re both obsessed with candles which sokka claims is a fire hazard

katara’s childhood bedroom is entirely blue and purple because those are her favorite colors and she refuses to display anything in her rooms that does not match her particular colorscheme. she has lots of posters hanging on her walls, like she has a karl marx quote next to a picture of some boyband she’s obsessed with next to a poster of sea turtles she got at a climate change rally. also she would have one of those cutesy little landlines that is also purple and she twirls the cord around her finger while telling aang about her day, even though he was with her the whole time they still call each other every night just so she can twirl her phone cord around her finger

sokka’s room is extremely clean, like freakishly so, except for his desk which is an absolute fucking mess. he wouldn’t even know how to begin organizing it so he never bothers. half his closet space is dedicated to katara’s clothes (even tho she has her own closet) which he’s fine with because he only wears like three shirts, or just wears suki’s clothes anyway. he has a bunch of posters with science puns, and a periodic table poster, and a poster of uranus which is his favorite planet (everyone thinks it’s his favorite planet because he thinks the name is funny but it’s because he thinks it’s cool that it has a 98 degree axial tilt! she’s so unique.... so mysterious...) and also he has a really fluffy bright blue rug in the middle of his room that yue always insisted on lying down on even though the bed would have been objectively more comfortable. she liked sitting on the floor and getting lint all over her white sweaters, which her mother couldn’t stand. sokka gives the rug to katara after she dies because it reminds him too much of her looks kind of childish. katara had been eyeing that rug all her life (it’s fluffy and blue??? sign her tf up!!) so it actually worked out pretty well... all things considered. 

the only things toph wants in her room is things that her friends have given her that remind her of them. otherwise she hates material possessions of any kind (reminds her too much of her evil bougie family) and thinks furniture should exist to be comfortable, and that’s it. if she couldn’t fit everything she owned into a small backpack, then she wouldn’t be toph. 

zuko keeps everything because he gets sentimental over literally any object. no azula you can’t throw out that old leaf!!!!! he found that leaf in the park and it had a little caterpillar bite taken out of the side and don’t you see that leaf symbolizes him???? if he threw out that leaf it would be like parting with a piece of his soul!!!!! sokka’s like “oh so you’re a hoarder” which makes zuko even angrier because how is HOARDING if every object MEANS something even marie kondo would claim that if it sparks joy then it must be kept!!! and sokka’s like “....this empty sprite can sparks joy??” and zuko, deadpan, is just like. “IMMENSE joy.” katara hung out in his room one time and the clutter was so stressful for her that she just invited him back to her house every single time after that day. at one point mai just straight up says to zuko “maybe your weird little trash collection isn’t the problem, you just like feeling like you have some semblance of control over yourself and your life” and zuko immediately bristled at such a ridiculous, unfounded accusation and then refused to speak to her for three days, yknow, for no particular reason. 

no one knows where suki lives (though the most popular theory is that she was actually raised by wolves) so no one, including sokka, has actually seen the inside of her bedroom. they’ve seen the inside of her pickup truck, though, which is basically the same thing. it’s filled with empty chip packets and loose joints and underwear that is not hers and sports gear that is mostly hers. it smells distinctly of girl sweat, and the same playlist of indie rock angry sad girl bangers is always on in the background. she knows the words to every single song that comes on when in her car, and she isn’t afraid to sing along to them, which most people find endearing, but katara absolutely cannot stand. she enjoys driving with no destination in particular in mind, and she and sokka like going to secluded areas and lying in the back of her truck and getting high and stargazing, an activity which might resemble a date to the untrained eye, but is in fact, totally not a date, because that would mean they’re dating and they’re definitely not, okay??? 

azula, naturally, is all about the minimalist rich bitch aesthetic. her apartment as an adult is so cold and uninviting sleek and modern that people are amazed that she’s not depressed just living there (and honestly. isn’t she?). there just is so much empty space and modernist architecture, not even a single carpet or piece of art on the walls. normally people who are into modernism would at least have some modern art, or something, but azula doesn’t actually understand modern art because it’s too abstract and mystical, and all art, really, is some froufrou nonsense for people like zuzu who gaze into wells all day instead of knowing how to get ahead and make bank. most of her bookshelf is just books that look good on a bookshelf, her old law textbooks, the art of war, and of course, ayn rand. lots and lots of ayn rand. 

ty lee shares a living space with so many other girls that attempting to carve out her own distinct space for herself would be a fruitless endeavor. instead she makes a bunch of interior decor dreamboards for herself that comprise an inexplicable mix of gothic cathedrals, iconic 80s/90s teen girl bedrooms, cottagecore, and french rococo. yes, she knows it’s not aesthetically cohesive; sue her. 

mai really really hates her parents’ style of mcmansion with just enough diluted japanese influences that it somehow makes them seem more assimilated. she wishes her room had yellow wallpaper just so she could peel it. as an adult, she makes sure to hang art she actually likes on her walls, but her taste in art is strange and offputting to pretty much everyone. she’s like grunkle stan in that one scene. whatever. everyone is a bunch of filthy aesthetes; they can’t handle the real shit that actually says something. also she has a giant terrarium for her lizards that takes up like a quarter of her living room. what i’m basically saying is that she is the coolest girl in the world and also fundamentally undateable. 

when mai and ty lee ultimately move in together all of their stylistic interests clash with one another but they don’t care because their home is just filled with things they like, so it doesn’t matter. ty lee thinks that mai’s offputting art is amusing (mai’s like no it’s supposed to be DEEP but ty lee has a really twisted sense of humor so it’s just funny, the same way that horror movies are funny) and mai likes how eclectic ty lee’s tastes are. anyone who walks into their home only need to look around for 3 seconds maximum to be like “ah yes........... lesbians live here” 

[lovebombsafterthewar]

the feminine urge.

the feminine urge to drink iced coffee everyday. to sleep in a bed filled with stuffed animals. to wear pencil skirts. to wear red lipstick. to ignore your phone. to run away. to cry on his shoulder. to be scared of reptiles. to play hard-to-get. to want adventure. to watch cartoons. to babysit. to sacrifice sleep for someone. to take pictures of the moon. to take pictures of everything. to wear the same necklace everyday. to hold emotional value in jewelry. to be independent. to explain Ayn Rand. to want your fathers validation. to make your mother happy. to fulfill your parents wishes. to have a large wedding. to read to no one. to over share. to keep secrets. to wear beige. to put strawberries in water. to hide in blankets. to love the wronged. to ask for less. to laugh. to cry. to get angry. to forgive. to be early. to accept. to grow plants. to study english literature. to write poetry. to have a muse. to relate. to exist. to side with bucky. to make eye contact. to keep your hair open. to empathise with loki. to keep everyone around you safe. to call peopl. to want nothing. to save the best candles. to guilt-eat the chocolate. to stare at the sun. to find meaning in the stars. to talk to the stars. to feel bad for the passed. to remember at unconventional times. to long for love. to write what you feel. to write whatever. to hide. to contemplate life. to find answers in the sky. to find beauty in leaves. to find meaning in roots. to welcome the extraordinary. to find meaning in the ordinary. to be dramatic. to write the letter. to lick the stamp. to provide reassurance. to ask for reassurance. to study niche topics. to ask deep questions. to grieve for others. to wear anklets. to put scrunchies around your wrist. to change men. to journal. to sketch. to draw. to understand the meaning of art. to make art. to be art.

[stranieroperpetuo]

10/100 Days of Productivity

i forgot again to post this yesterday

i got a new plant!! basically my mom failed to take care of it and it was kind of dying, so i now adopted it and i'll try to heal it. my fav kind of stuff.

i worked a lil bit on ayn rand's chapter but that was it for studying today.

i read about 40 more pages of One Dimensional Man by Marcuse on the train to my therapy session, and it was the art related chapter which I found much more interesting. also i got more candles, let's go!!

btw i found out fuzzi asmr on youtube and i guess i found someone else i like besides cal lol. i really just needed some pillowtalk to fall asleep or take naps. i love cal's voice bc it's so much like charlie cox's matt murdock, but fuzzi also kinda reminds me of him as daredevil?? like, when he lowers his voice with the mask on. idk. i'll take whatever reminds me of charlie. it helps a lot with my anxiety. </3

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

the worst part of being home

The food. The softness of the bed. The endless day of knowing that I have a house that contains a person who will be perfectly happy to kill me for no reason. The softness of the food. The softness of the bedsprings, the softness of the sheets, the softness of the pillow. There is a softness, a lightness which I embody, which can never be truly attained here, and which I will probably never truly attain anywhere. This softness is not loss, but familiarity. This softness is navigation, and to feel it is to know no freedom. Above me on the ceiling, lit by softly glowing candles, there is a wall of shields, which my hand, extended, can touch. If I were to release my hold, the ringing of bells, soft as candle wires, would not cease for a single moment.

-Ayn Rand, Anthem

[former-ceo-of-homeschooling]

candles, pages and leather for the asks!

Candles: Oh this is a hard one! Quotes always have been my favorite things other than music but my favorite one would probably be by Sylvia Plath, who wrote, "What horrifies me is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age." Or Virginia Woolf's, "My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness." Pages: YES and anyone who borrows my books HATES it because I write in pen, I highlight, I write in the margins, any available room there's notes. Red, blue, black, rainbow, there's notes EVERYWHERE, you should see my copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury or Anthem by Ayn Rand, it's FILLED. Leather: Tough trickster, you are. Looking For Alaska by John Green, because I lost someone the year I read it so it's very close to my heart...I try not to put stereotypical books on here like The Hunger Games/Harry Potter because everyone loves those but Pride and Prejudice (and 2005 movie) because who doesn't love Darcy am I right? Ummm and The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, if you like plays. I usually don't but this play is BONKERS and I love it. I was sick with the flu when I read but it has my kind of sarcasm and it's short so it's a great read if you have a lack of attention span and/or don't like reading.

I know this is a lot and I'm sorry but thank you for asking!

Bougies: Oh, c'est difficile! Les citations ont toujours été mes choses préférées autres que la musique, mais ma préférée serait probablement de Sylvia Plath, qui a écrit: "Ce qui me fait horreur, c'est l'idée d'être inutile: bien éduquée, brillamment prometteuse et en train de disparaître dans un âge moyen indifférent . " Ou de Virginia Woolf, "Mon cerveau bourdonne de bribes de poésie et de folie."

Pages: OUI et quiconque emprunte mes livres déteste parce que j'écris à la plume, je surligne, j'écris dans les marges, toute pièce disponible il y a des notes. Rouge, bleu, noir, arc-en-ciel, il y a des notes PARTOUT, vous devriez voir mon exemplaire de Fahrenheit 451 de Ray Bradbury ou Anthem d'Ayn Rand, c'est REMPLI.

Cuir: Truqueur dur, vous l'êtes. Looking For Alaska de John Green, parce que j'ai perdu quelqu'un l'année où je l'ai lu, donc cela me tient à cœur ... J'essaie de ne pas mettre de livres stéréotypés ici comme The Hunger Games / Harry Potter parce que tout le monde aime ceux-là sauf Pride and Prejudice (et film de 2005) parce que qui n'aime pas Darcy, ai-je raison? Ummm et The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, si vous aimez les jeux. Je n'ai pas l'habitude mais cette pièce est BONKERS et j'adore ça. J'étais malade de la grippe quand j'ai lu mais il a mon genre de sarcasme et c'est court donc c'est une bonne lecture si vous manquez d'attention et / ou n'aimez pas lire.

Je sais que c'est beaucoup et je suis désolé mais merci de demander!

Velas: ¡Oh, esta es una pregunta difícil! Las citas siempre han sido mis cosas favoritas además de la música, pero mi favorita probablemente sería de Sylvia Plath, quien escribió: "Lo que me horroriza es la idea de ser inútil: bien educado, brillantemente prometedor y desvaneciéndose en una indiferente edad media ". O Virginia Woolf, "Mi cerebro zumba con trozos de poesía y locura".

Páginas: SÍ y cualquiera que pida prestados mis libros lo ODIA porque escribo con bolígrafo, destaco, escribo en los márgenes, en cualquier habitación disponible hay notas. Rojo, azul, negro, arcoiris, hay notas POR TODAS PARTES, deberías ver mi copia de Fahrenheit 451 de Ray Bradbury o Anthem de Ayn Rand, está LLENO.

Cuero: Tramposo duro, lo eres. Buscando a Alaska por John Green, porque perdí a alguien el año que lo leí, así que está muy cerca de mi corazón ... Trato de no poner libros estereotipados aquí como Los juegos del hambre / Harry Potter porque todos aman a ellos, excepto Orgullo y prejuicio (y la película de 2005) porque ¿a quién no le gusta Darcy, tengo razón? Ummm y La importancia de ser sincero por Oscar Wilde, si te gustan las obras de teatro. Usualmente no, pero esta obra es BONKERS y me encanta. Estaba enfermo de gripe cuando leí, pero tiene mi tipo de sarcasmo y es corto, por lo que es una excelente lectura si tienes poca capacidad de atención y / o no te gusta leer.

Sé que esto es mucho y lo siento, ¡pero gracias por preguntar!

[signature-salsa]

Almost a books worth of love quotes

I love love quotes. They are so romantic and soul crushing when you don’t believe in the concept of love. It’s such bittersweet bliss. I have so many. Without further ado, lets dive in!

01.) “True love it like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen” ~ Francois De Le Rochefoucauld

02.) “You call my name, I come to you in pieces, So you can make me whole” ~Red, Pieces

03.) “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you” ~ Winnie The Pooh,  A. A. Milne

04.) “Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.” ~The Princess Bride

05.) “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depths and breath and height my soul can reach, When feeling out of sight for the ends of being and idea grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with a passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life! and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death” ~Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

06.) “We have three kinds of family. Those we are born to, those who are born to us, and those we let into our hearts” ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, Bad Moon Rising

07.) “To get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with” ~Mark Twain

08.) “I was hiding under your porch because I love you” ~Doug, Up

09.) “The sun may set and the moon may wane, but my love for you remains ever constant. I am, and always will be yours... Forever.” ~Fairy Fencer F

10.) “Deep in my soul I know that I’m your destiny” ~Mulan

11.) “To face the future with another who means more than any other is to be loved” ~The Rescuers

12.) “I have found my star. She is beauty and grace. Elegance and goodness. My laughter in winter. She is courageous and strong. Bold and tempting. Unlike any other in all the universe” ~Sherrylin Kenyon, Dance With The Devil

13.) “My dream wouldn’t be complete without you in it” ~The princess and the frog

14.) “If I had a brush right now, I’d paint you all around me” ~Single File, Laura

15.) “When I look at you, I can feel it. I look at you and I’m home” ~Dory, Finding Nemo

16.) “You are my greatest adventure” ~The Incredibles

17.) “Love is... Putting someone else’s dreams before your own” ~Olaf, Frozen

18.) “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)

19.) “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.” ~Roald Dahl, The Witches

20.) “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream” ~Sleeping Beauty

21.) “We are most alive when we’re in love” ~John Updike

22.) “True love stories never have an ending” ~Richard Bach

23.) “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies” ~Aristotle

24.) “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other” ~Audrey Hepburn

25.) “Love always cures people, both the ones who give it, and the ones who receive it” ~Karl Menninger

26.) “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet” ~Plato

27.) “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person” ~ Mighon McLaughlin

28.) “To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship” ~Domenico Cieri Estrada

29.) “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction” ~Antoine De Saint-Exupĕcy 

30.) “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” ~ Victor Hugo

31.) “If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.” ~Michel de Montaigne

32.) “We loved with a love that was more than love.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

33.) “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” ~Victor Hugo

34.) “To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I’.” ~Ayn Rand

35.) “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” ~Victor Hugo 

36.) “If I were a zombie, I’d never eat your brain. I’d just want your heart, yeah want your heart, just want your heart” ~Stephanie Mabey, The Zombie Song

37.) “When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!” ~ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

38.) “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” ~Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen

39.) “You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.” ~The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle

40.) “ Just like nicotine, Heroine, Morphine, Suddenly, I'm a fiend and you're all I need, All I need, yeah, you're all I need” ~Never Be the Same, Camila Cabello

41.) “ You've already won me over in spite of me, And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet, And don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are” ~Head Over Feet, Alanis Morissette

42.) “ Just for a second with you, the highest mountain I'd climb, every time that I see you, each moment feels so sublime “ ~xXVVSOSVVXx

43.) “ Oh just to be with you is having the best day of my life “ ~Thank You, Dido

44.) “We’ve loved each other so long I’ve never been a man and not loved her.” ~The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry

45.) “You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling.” ~The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton

46.) “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” ~Hamlet, William Shakespeare

47.) “I would love to say that you make me weak in the knees but to be quite upfront and completely truthful you make my body forget it has knees at all.” ~Love Language, Chasers of the Light, Tyler Knott Gregson 

48.) “Love starts as a feeling, but to continue is a choice. And I find myself choosing you, more and more every day.” ~Bending The Universe, Justin Wetch

49.)  “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” ~Oscar Wilde

50.)  "Baby it's you. You're the one I love, You're the one I need, You're the only one I see." ~Love On Top, Beyoncé

51.) "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." ~Princess Bride

52.) “I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world.” ~Arwen, Lord of the Rings

53.)  “…love is not a constantly stable factor, it’s a decision you’ll have to make again and again.”  ~Black Panther

54.)  “My love for you is a puzzle…for which I have no answers.” ~Padmé, Star Wars

55.)  “We’re like changing electric and magnetic fields; you can’t have one, without the other.” ~Howard Wolowitz, Big Bang Theory

56.)  “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” ~Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (interesting enough this is also Matthew 6:21)

57.)  “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” ~Dr. Seuss

58.)  “Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.” ~Neil Gaiman, Stardust

59.)  “Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.” ~Albert Einstein

60.)  “No matter what has happened. No matter what you’ve done. No matter what you will do. I will always love you. I swear it.” ~ Defiance, C.J. Redwine

61.)  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ~Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

62.)  “Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.” ~Nicholas Sparks

63.)  “Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.” ~Ray Bradbury

64.)  Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” ~James Baldwin

65.)  Who, being loved, is poor?” ~Oscar Wilde

66.)  “I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.” ~The Crown of Embers, Rae Carson

67.)  “Sometimes I can’t see myself when I’m with you. I can only just see you” ~Tiger Lily, Jodi Lynn Anderson

68.)  “I knew the second I met you that there was something about you I needed. Turns out it wasn’t something about you at all. It was just you." ~Beautiful Disaster, Jamie McGuire

69.)  “I want everyone to meet you. You’re my favorite person of all time.” ~Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell

70.)  “If my love were an ocean, there would be no more land. If my love were a desert, you would see only sand. If my love were a star–late at night, only light. And if my love could grow wings, I’d be soaring in flight.” ~Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher

71.)  “There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” ~The Truth About Forever, Sarah Dessen

72.)  “And I’ve realized that the Beatles got it wrong. Love isn’t all we need—love is all there is.” ~Second Chance Summer, Morgan Matson

73.) “ You are the morning sun, shining on my face, when I am with you my life falls into place, you are the glittering stars, beaming so bright, you cuddle me always, all through the night, you are the wind blowing by, brushing my hair, No matter where you go, I'll always be there “ ~xXVVSOSVVXx

74.)  “ You're always in my heart, From early in the mornin' til it's dark, I gotta see your sweet, sweet smile everyday” ~Sweet Sweet Smile, Carpenters

75.)  “No matter where I went, I always knew my way back to you. You are my compass star.” ~For Darkness Shows the Stars, Diana Peterfreund

76.)  “We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

77.)  “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

78.)  “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.” ~Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

79.)  “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

80.)  “You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect—you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.” ~Bob Marley

81.)  “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” ~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

82.)  “You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.” ~Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

83.)  “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ~Robert Fulghum, True Love

84.)  “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.” ~Alfred Tennyson

85.)  “When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.” ~Jess C. Scott, The Intern

86.)  “ But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.” ~John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

87.)  “And now I’m looking at you,and you’re asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before – bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it – but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.” ~Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

88.)  “A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other...Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever” ~Dave Matthews Band

89.)  “They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” ~Tom Bodett

90.)  “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

[holy-mountaineering]

What you think of CoS? I think they just a bunch of closet Randroids.

Church of Satan is Ayn Rand with robes and candles.Anything of value in LaVeyan Satanism was just stolen from Thelema.

[diki6808]

The Truth About Generating Income From Your Writing

The title "Anthem" implies a hymn of praise, beliefs, loyalty, devotion, pride and identity. The author Ayn Rand selected it since the book reflects her beliefs, which are concepts versus totalitarianism and collectivism. The story is also about the victory and pride of the individual's independent spirit, the triumph of those who decline the ethics of collectivism.

The truth of the matter is, you can never ever say what is the finest way to release a book. Both traditional and self publishing methods need hard work , decision, and perseverance in order to enjoy benefits in the end. It may sound as though self publishing will fast - track your writing profession but then who understands about what the future may bring?

writing is the same method. In the beginning - heck, throughout your profession - attempt out originalities, new categories, brand-new audiences, brand-new topics, and as they state, if it sticks, choose it.

I'm an author, not a professional photographer. But when I take a trip, I'm constantly taking photos of my adventures, and as an author I are accountable for getting the finest shots possible to assist illustrate my short articles. I did a lot of research study before deciding to buy this SLR and I have actually liked every minute we have actually invested together. It's not too expensive, not too big, it's simple to use and there are still loads of settings I have not totally made use of. Plus, it catches great pictures without needing to modify them later on. I love the HD movie recording - helpful for taking short videos of efficiencies and carrying out interviews with residents - and the reality that its battery lasts a week-long trek without a recharge.

Crochet Pattern Central, for instance, has an entire page with almost 200 links to pick from. Not all of them are for teapots. Some are for mugs, for coffee pots, particular fruit, candle lights and even a laptop computer. Also if you're looking for a cover for your kindle, Nook or Kobo you can find it here! Still the majority are the ones we are looking for. They have very unique ones, like Sugar 'n Cream - Chicken Tea Cozy and usually the instructions how to make them are great.

Review your regular monthly declarations right away as they get here. Think about using companies that allow online account access. In this manner you can monitor your account activity daily. Know when your bills are due, and report missing ones promptly (you are responsible for paying your bills even if you didn't receive the declaration).

For more read IPad or Kindle: Which Screen Injures Your Eyes the A lot of?, Kindle Reacts to iPad: Provides Multiouch, Color and Wi-Fi, and Will the Apple IPad Ruin the Kindle and Sony Reader.

[serialcomposer]

“Don’t let assholes have satanism”

I mean given that it’s Ayn Rand with candles I think we might be a bit late on that one