#and there's the existentialism of frank learning that everything is fake

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

ok im actually making a dent on the Lights Out prelim outline - ive got a bit over 4k in it but i didnt realize how tough the real start would be. It's actually... sort of boring lmao

[marinobyssus]

THE MARINO BYSSUS SOUNDTRACK

a soundtrack dedicated to your friend, tribute, clown, marino

marino, the econ major frat boy he always thought he was

1. You’re A Fucking Star by Alex Somers, Zach Shields (from the Honeyboy Soundtrack)

2. HIGHEST IN THE ROOM by Travis Scott

3. RNP (feat. Anderson .Paak) by Cordae, Anderson .Paak)

4. Starboy by The Weeknd, Daft Punk

5. Roman’s Beat - “Hearts” by Nicholas Britell (from the Succession Soundtrack)

marino and district eight

1. Never Dreamed You‘d Leave In Summer by Stevie Wonder (a song for his mother)

I never dreamed you'd leave in summer But now I find my love has gone away

2. Blame it on the Sun by Stevie Wonder (a song for a life unsatisfied)

I'll blame it on the time That never was enough I'll blame it on the tide and the sea But, my heart blames it on me 

3. Heaven Help Us All by Stevie Wonder

Heaven help the boy who won't reach twenty-one Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall Lord, Heaven help us all

marino and the mentors he’d come across in his short life

1. Fear of My Identity by Best Coast // Surya, Ophelia, and Hunter

You taught me that my heart would grow old, old, old The fear of my identity standing right in front of me I want to run but I can't see I want to scream but I can't speak

2. SUGARPARENTS by Amine, Rico Nasty // Max

When I get into the show let me pull a few strings Put the boy on game, he could learn a few things 

3. The Greatest Gift by Sufjan Stevens // Auri

But the greatest gift of all And the law above all laws Is to love your friends and lovers To lay down your life for your brothers

4. Good Heart by Indigo De Souza // Hyacinth

Oh I want to believe that you've got a good heart Oh I want to believe in some things I happen to read on the inside of fortune cookies

THE 122ND HUNGER GAMES

PART 1 - Opening by Jung Jae Il (from the Parasite soundtrack)

1. Leaning on You by HAIM // for his first friend, Memphis

Was I fearless at seventeen years old Or was I faking it, I was just a kid leavin' home Now I get scared for reasons I don't know Is it just because I ain't tough enough to be alone?

2. Before the World Was Big by Girlpool // Bonk Alliance

I just miss how it felt standing next to you Wearing matching dresses before the world was big 

3. Hot Girl Summer (feat. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign) by Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, Ty Dolla $ign // YOU ALREADY KNOW

Got a whole lot of options 'cause you know a bitch poppin' I'm a hot girl, so you know ain't shit stoppin'

4. Sorry by beabadoobee // Alon

I never wanna think twice With what could've been your life 

5. Godspeed by Frank Ocean // Juliet

I let go of my claim on you It's a free world You look down on where you came from sometimes But you'll have this place to call home always

6. Bad Friend by Rina Sawayama // to all the friends tributes he fucked over lol

I'm so good at crashing in Making sparks and shit but then I'm a bad, I'm a bad, I'm a bad friend So don't ask me where I've been Been avoiding everything 'Cause I'm a bad, I'm a bad, I'm a bad friend

PART II - Doldrums by Franz Becker

1. Who’s Gonna Save U Now? by Rina Sawayama

Who's gonna save you now? Who's gonna save you this time? Who's gonna save you now? 

2. Haha No One Can Hear You! by Gallant // marino’s existential crisis anthem

Tell me you don't wonder what your Feet look like on private beaches, baby? And tell me you don't wish for something More incessant than your own reflections?

3. Soldier, Poet, King by The Oh Hellos // Everett, Marino, Alder

Everett

There will come a soldier Who carries a mighty sword He will tear your city down

Marino

There will come a poet Whose weapon is His word He will slay you with His tongue 

Alder

There will come a ruler Whose brow is laid in thorn Smeared with oil like David's boy

4. Another Lifetime by Nao // Alder

I swear I won't run Won't run from you, I swear about it I swear I won't run In another life, I'll keep us bounded

5. Don’t Forget About Me by Noname

I know everyone goes some day I know my body's fragile, know it's made from clay But if I have to go, I pray my soul is still eternal And my momma don't forget about me

[thetimetravellershigh]

an informal goodbye to my sunflower eyes

I miss you.

Not in the bleeding heart, hole-in-the-chest type of way that I expected. It’s just hard to catch my breath in rapid-fire moments when I want to reach for you and you’re not there. Of course, I’ve wondered if there’s quite possibly something defective about me that I haven’t quite fixed after years of self-discovery. Something in me that just shuts off in the face of emotional trauma because I can’t bear it. This hasn’t been any easy lifetime so maybe I’ve met my quota of relentless reactions to bad, unfortunate luck.

Loving and losing you just came at a rotten time when the world is already so goddamn confusing. I don’t even know how to do taxes properly, but here I am, mourning the loss of a lover in my early twenties. It seems like some cosmic joke that I haven’t unraveled yet enough to laugh at...although, if I’m being frank, I did laugh when the news broke because, of course, it’s funny in a tragic way that no one around me understands.

The only man I’ve ever loved—ever wanted to love—is dead. You’re dead.

I’m a writer, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to this tragic ending. It reads like a modern-day rendition of a Shakespearian manuscript and I can’t help but marvel at how well-executed (excuse the pun) it was considering how atypical I used to be in the face of love. I don’t know how to accurately miss you, I guess.

Maybe I’ll feel your absence later in my thirties, or perhaps in the next lifetime if it was real enough.

I used to think that meeting you was beyond happenstance. Fate had to play a part in our introduction, didn’t it? But with age, I’m starting to think it was completely by coincidence that you captured my attention so randomly despite my better judgment. Truthfully, I don’t know if I want to believe in a world where people are dangled in front of each other as lessons.

What lesson was I supposed to grasp by falling in love with you? Yes, I’m aware that our answers differ for this part of my existential crisis. You’ve always been cruelly cold when it comes to romantic gestures, and as I’ve established over the last four years, I’m wholly sentimental. I think I learned a great deal loving you.

Forgiveness was one, although I’m not sure if I have the strength to do that right now. You did leave me here all alone. Despite our rollercoaster romance, it’s the first time you’ve ever left me. I don’t like it. Not one bit. I’m not ready to come to terms with what you did.

You once taught me how to dance, at least in a passable manner, in my small, empty apartment. I’ll remember that fondly for the rest of my life although I was so embarrassed that my cheeks were red as I stumbled over your complex instructions. I’d never slow danced with a lover before. In the same breath that I write this, I’m not sure that I want to dance with another. It seems like a cheap concept. A knock-off.

You sort of taught me patience. I’m stubborn, so I don’t think that lesson will ever land. Still, you made an effort. I spent most of our small lifetime together waiting on you; waiting for you to love me, waiting for you to understand me, waiting for you to come home to me. And now I’ll wait over ten times the amount of time we were together to see your face again and ask if any of it was real, or if I’m wasting my limited energy on hopeless love letters again.

Oddly enough, even after you broke me so many times, you taught me how to stand on my own two feet. I don’t know if it’s because I wanted to impress you with my persistent resilience, or because you fostered my growth. I have trouble understanding the concept but it’s tangible enough to mention. When I met you, I was a naive girl searching for something worth writing about. A great love. Now, just days after losing you, I’m a woman with a future ahead of me (at least that’s what they say) and a story I can’t quite tell yet. Our story. Your story.

There were other lessons. Harder ones that I can’t talk about. Softer ones that I want to keep just between you and me for now.

But, what lesson was I supposed to grasp by losing you? I don’t know how to sit here and believe God put you in my life to rip you away so suddenly because I needed to understand some secret message. If I did believe it, you would laugh at me. Religion really wasn’t your thing. You lived a life full of dots, moments, without a desire to find the line that connects them. In some pipe dream, I wanted to be your line.

I guess things don’t work out the way you hope. Maybe that’s the lesson.

I know I need to bury you. Say my respects and go through the whole closure dance. All the articles I’ve been mind-numbingly reading say it’s one of the fundamental steps.

The first night I saw you after we agreed to become a thing, I snagged your beer bottle top from the kitchen counter like a little fool. I held onto it all this time in the bottom of a box of momentos. Even when my friends begged me to, in the worst of us, I couldn’t part with it because it had some meaning although it was just trash. You would have thrown it away. Again, I’m sentimental.

I thought about driving to the beach, lying to the gatekeepers and burying it right in the sand in front of those beach condos. A small funeral, just me and you like old times. I was happiest there with you. I was also saddest, but I don’t like to think about that so much.

More than anything, I want to ask you if that’s okay. Can I say goodbye to you in that way?

The circumstances of our love didn’t permit me to attend a formal goodbye. Even if it did, I don’t think I would have gone. It’s not really what I believe in and I don’t like the spectacle it creates. It seems ingenuine, which is unusually cynical for me. It’s fake, though. You faked everything so often just to feel happy that it seems like a slap in the face that you have to endure the lies of others even in death.

You weren’t a good man per the textbook definition. You lied and cheated and broke people’s hearts because you weren’t sure how to use your own. But you were good enough for me when you weren’t being tormented by your worst demons. I can’t comprehend the things other people say about you because they didn’t really know you, did they? Then again, I could be the one that’s wrong.

I’m stroking my ego when I say you’ll live on beyond this terrible moment. It’s true. There should be an asterisk on your tombstone by your death date. You’re immortal in the pages of my unsuccessful books. I scribbled everything there. Every raw emotion. The happiness, the pain, the desire, the need, the despair. All those words were always about you, my poor dead muse, even when I didn’t want them to be.

Maybe people will crack open the pages and learn the depths of my love and the fragments of my loss generation after generation. I don’t think I can live in a world where you’ve been forgotten.

We can hope for a positive outcome, can’t we?

I think this is where I have to end, although I know it’s not the last time I write about you. I’ll make sure it’s just as crude and unpolished moving forward. I know you like that kind of shit. It’ll keep me humble.

Goodbye, my sunflower eyes.

May we meet again.

[arturcii]

                               HSHQTASK041: INSPIRATION

get ready for this one folks, it’s a big one. spoiler alert for anyone on here who plays bioshock or persona 5.

i. Henry Winter (The Secret History)

cigarettes, elaborate murder plots, and existential crises, all with the luxury of an inherited sense of entitlement

“Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so? Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls – which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn’t it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one’s burned tongues and skinned knees, that one’s aches and pains are all one’s own. Even more terrible, as we grow older, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us unhappy, and that’s why we’re so anxious to lose them, don’t you think?…And how can we lose this maddening self, lose it entirely? Love? Yes, but as old Cephalus once heard Sophocles say, the least of us know that love is a cruel and terrible master. One loses oneself for the sake of the other, but in doing so becomes enslaved and miserable to the most capricious of all the gods. War? One can lose oneself in the joy of battle, in fighting for a glorious cause, but there are not a great many glorious causes for which to fight these days.”

ii. Thomas Elliot / Hush (Batman)

parental issues, big villain. quotes socrates and aristotle a lot like some pretentious prick.

"In the dark water I see the images of my parents [...] both mocking me for the monstrosity I've become. And in my delusion, I am a frightened little boy again, desperate for their approval. Willing to die for it.”

iii. Goro Akechi / Crow (Persona 5)

bastard Bastard. big daddy issues, big abandonment issues. throughout the entire game, acts like such a good guy, but willingly abandons everyone and everything for revenge and power. “everything, even his appearance, was a fake”. “that bastard – he made himself go psychotic!”

“Haha! How wonderful! You don’t allow yourself to be enslaved by such things as human relations or past selves. And so, your heart is always free. The exact opposite of mine. To be honest, I’m envious. I wonder why we couldn’t have met a few years earlier. But... it’s no use in talking hypotheticals. That didn’t happen in reality. [...] All this is to make Masayoshi Shido my father, acknowledge me. Then exact revenge on him. Remember what I said before, how my mother was in a relationship with a good-for-nothing man? So I’m his bastard child. My very existence is nothing but a scandal. My mother’s life turned for the worse after she had me... and died. I was a cursed child for her, too. I resented him, but he was already a high-ranking official by then. A kid like me could do nothing. [...] Once he reaches the apex of his power and acknowledges me, I will whisper in his ear... I will tell him the truth of who I really am! And that’s when I, an utter disgrace to the world, will rule over him! I will prevail!”

iv. Frank Fontaine / Atlas (Bioshock)

the biggest scammer. pretended to help the main character of the game for a good chunk of the story before revealing that he caused an entire civil war in order to gain power... including orchestrating a murder plot of the man in charge that involves a genetically-engineered assassin and a plan that spans years. now, would you kindly...

“I just told your brain to tell your heart to stop beating. Not right off the bat, mind you. The heart’s a stubborn muscle... but it ain’t that stubborn.”

v. Kichimura Washuu / Furuta Nimura (Tokyo Ghoul)

another bastard. grew up being told that he’s to be the heir and then schemes to make sure that the entire world burns with him.  (read the panel right to left.)

vi. Lord Henry Wotton (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

bad influence. pleasure-seeking. but definitely settles down and is the most surprising good parent??? or tries to be to his own kiddo. overall, though.... probably not the guy to take life advice from, even though he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.

“We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever the personality chooses to do is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray falls in love with a beautiful girl who acts Shakespeare, and proposes to marry her. Why not? If he wedded Messalina he would be none the less interesting. You know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colorless. They lack individuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex. They retain their egotism, and add to it many other egos. They are forced to have more than one life.  They become more highly organized.  Besides, every experience is of value, and, whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience.”

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.”

[shugademus-fbandt]

houellebecq - submission (total shite) muriel spark - driver’s seat

podcasts, including:

transfert histoire d’un corps se reconnaître enfin l’enfant du bout du monde

all in the mind

arts & ideas: *philip roth in conversation *michael ignatieff and central europe ingmar bergmann wild strawberries burns, the radicall frankenstein and ai now counterculture and protest the in between landmark: the odyssey the invention of the circus ring rethinking tradition russai: totalitarianism and punishment man with a movie camera forgotten authors, the prisoner salman rushdie & uncertainty importance of networks washing in public unfinished art and literature sleep and insomnia sentimentality happiness sea journeys and voyages opium and creativity matthew arnold’s culture and creativity tom mccarthy and satirical indexes narcisissism rd lang ecstasy (medieval) tom philips japan and korea/hokusai laurent binet, the rise of the blockchain breaking free: martin luther smell; a history of dentistry leaves of grass education slow and fast killing time in imperial japan the time of your life the speed of revolution how short is a short story politics fast and slow, harriet harman monks models and medieval time fast faster fastest sleep - freedom to think play in urban design borders: on the ground, on the map, in the mind victorian bodies, citizens of everywhere the art of running elites energy and landscape capability brown the desert: geoff dyer, laurence scott, georgia okeefe walter benjamin universities: therapy or learning tale of gengi/algorithims germany/neil mcgregor concrete: marina lewycka et al sicily slavoj zizek tarkovsky’s stalker syrian buildings, georgian literature bryan mcgee

in our time arabian nights yeats and irish politics the silk road the east india company the british empire

lexicon valley getting to yes no-uh what’s the deal with 11

living with the gods

saturday review

start the week: who governs britain heart of darkness conrad and orwell the power and beauty of objects living with the gods hard work and sweet slumber pamuk competition myths self: fact and fiction india’s rise? age of spectacle paul auster american dream build that wall: borders and crossings play and creativity maps music manuscripts popular protest and patriotism island mentality loneliness and inner voices existentialism and ways of seeing is faster better scotland language and reinvention cultural lifespans france special social class and cultural capital architecture and power life in suburbia organizing the mind arabian nights al kennedy on matters of the heart france’s arab empire landscape and community digital natives dystopian future aleksandr hemon scotland -rankin and gray modernism with ali smith and kevin jackson salman rushdie werner herzog

life scientific

books and authors george saunders robert mcfarlane gg marquez

the essay

the start

in our time highland clearances hamlet beethoven moby dick thebes picts purgatory egyptian book of the dead gin craze garibaldi and the risorgimento baltic crusades animal farms epic og gilgamesh zend’s paradoxes songs of innocence and of experience gettysburg address 1816 sikh empire bedlam dutch east india company circadian rhythms empire of mali holbein at the tudor court alexander the great utilitarianism prester john lancashire cotton famine sappho the eunuch wealth of nations ashoka the great truth kafka’s the trial aesop haitian révolution caesar mrs dalloway hildegaard of bingen philosophy of solitude spartacus hindu ideas of creation microscope book of common prayer invention of radio prophecy levi strauss montaigne sakoku chekhov hardian’s wall joyce’s ulysses trojan war marco polo candide early geology measurement of time virtuous and de architectura kama sutra moon ming voyages david hume shinto minoan civilisation anatomy of melancholy bhagavad gita bannockburn medieval university mexican revolution random and pseudorandom consequences of the industrial revolution

resound

breakin’bread

guardian books aleksandr hemon’s bees rushdie toibin in conversation naomi klein islands and literature colin thubron and aggleton on memory amos oz on his new novel al kennedy, self, parson - londn walking in cities jim crace on melody short stories: my dream of flying to wake island (ballard) homage to switzerland (hemingway) my oedipus complex (frank oconnor) doll’s house (mansfield) fat (carver) the jungle (bowen) the beauties (chekhov) kitchen child (carter) conversation with my father (paley) extra (li) night driver (calvino)

long reads: why we should bulldoze business schools spectacular power of big lens fake it till you make it (instagram) post-work the diabolical genius of the baby advice industry how the sandwich consumed britain a tale of decay from unboxing to though showers how to sell a country orbiting jupiter why do we feel so guilty all the time the island for sale facebook’s war on free will how a tax haven is leading the race to privatize space trojan horse (islamic plot) neoliberalism, the idea that swallowed the world the school beneath the wave (japan) why we fell for clean eating what is a black professor in the us allowed to say unlearning the myth of american innocence is the world really better than ever the real cost of regeneration globalisation klein: how power profits from disaster the age of banter how the mod’s plan to privatize military housing ended in disaster serota and tate a reckoning for our species (anthropocene) rise of the machines accelerationism bish bash bosh - phyllida barlow rich hippies and developers went to war over instagram’s favorite beach the race to build the world’s first sex robot god in the machine into the woods: ho one man survived one in the wilderness for 27 years london bridge is down how technology gets us hooked ppe: the oxford degree that runs britain killer, kleptocrat, genius, spy (putin) total recall: the people who never forget wiley: the enigmatic godfather of grime the spy who couldn’t spell who killed the great british curry house is this what the west is really like?

ny fiction borges - book of sand coover - colonel’s daughter nelson - naked ladies williams - stuff tower - leopard july - roy spivey hasard - in these islands updike - twin beds in rome eugenides - baster calvino - love far from home cheever - five-forty-eight millhauser - a visit alexie - the toughest indian in the world gaitskill - a dream of men powers - a losing game berger - woven, sir williams - chicken hill means - the spot friel - the saucer of larks singer - the cafeteria davis - then we’ll set it right paley - my father addresses me on the facts of old age tc boyle - chicxulub brodkey - dumbness is everything couvre - going for a beer means - tree line, kansas, 1934 barthelme - chablis drury - accident at the sugar beet spark - ormolu clock nabokov - pnin polansky - leg wolff - the night in question ozick - the shawl frame - prizes bartheleme - game / school oz - the king of norway mcguane - ice johnson - work moore - paper losses calvino - the daughter’s of the moon brodkey - state of grace bolano - clara borges -shakespeare’s memory west - the lesson colwin - mr park price - his final mother schulz - father’s last escape vaughn - able baker charlie dog ishiguro - a village after dark barthleme - concerne the bodyguard dybek - paper lantern munro - axis updike - a&P mcguane - cowboy bolano - gomez palacio Cheever - swimmer millhauser - in the reign of hard iv barthleme - indian uprising johnson - two men delillo - baader-meinhof mccullerss - the jockey nabokov - my russian education george saunders - adams taylor - porte-cohere johnson - emergncy singer - disguised salter - last night jackson - the lottery malamud - a summer’s reading nabokov - symbols and signs moore - dance in america borges - the gospel according to mark barthelme - i bought a little city

ny writer’s voice vapnyar - waiting for the miracle klemmen - choking victim john l’heureux - three short moments in a long life yu - fable lerner - polish rider boyle - fugitive williams - stuff ferris - abandonment mcguane - papaya boule - are we not men couvre - the hanging of the schoolmarm li - on the street where you live batman - constructed worlds gilbert - underground sittenfeld - the prairie wife lodato - melville - volume 1 sharma - you are happy vapnyar- deaf and blind means - two rumination on a homeless brother li - a small flame alexie - clean, cleaner, cleanest mackin - crossing the river no name green well - an evening out marcus - blueprints for st louis bynum - likes gilbert - sightseers krauss - seeing ershadi orneill - poltroon husband coover - treatments

thinking allowed tipping points conspiracy theories politics of alcohol/cooperation home at riba high life and row life raoul moat hebden brige/neighbours urban protest builders and musicians odd couples, student drinking archaeology of homelessness; residential care revisited stan cohen drugs for life; subcultural identity gang labour in uk; industrial ruination thrift chic;thatcherism middle class enclaves and escapes stammering and identity; land of too much long hours work culture; empty labour scottish nationalism and identity; austerity food work in hospital words; the bangladesh india border michel foucault benjamin goffman noodle narratives; british men dancing capoeira work and consumption; neoliberal economics tooth loss; communist utopia in a spanish village prostitution in the community; drinking and moderation the great indoors generationaml divide; webcam kissing; the british hitman islamophonia and anti semitism masculinity and betting shops; new biological relatives and kinship late modern- hipsters history of surfing; coffee shops and idleness dalit parties and democratization in tamil nadu; history of the elevator creative britain;; sexology port cities; middle class alcohol use rituals at xmas harvard business school - construction of pain citizenship ceremonies; family ties andgenertic poverty in britain; unemployment as a choice the precariat the color black; mixed race people cross-class marriage; the social history of woman-only train carriages being single; modern romance ambivalent atheism zoos explored; funeral arranging everyday life; cafe society land ownership; home at work rituals end of careers; humour at work modern slavery; lunch boxes creative economy; grudge spending consumerism; work life balance weather forecasting; young people and politics imagining utopias refusing adulthood; how young people feel about being poor small towns; patient rescue and resuscitation éviction; self build happiness and govt; good parenting the flaneur - walking the city pierre bourdieu airport security shyness; names political polarization rentier capitalism house of commons hoods; construction blacklist evangelicals; troubled families foie gras and the politics of taste success and luck; cosmopolitanism and private education age of noise; british drinking health divides; counting global health brave new world of virtual work vertical cities; india’s property boom terrorism; hotlines squatting teen bedrooms elite education insuring against disasters russian prison visitor; prison boundaries meaning of the face fashion and class heritage and preservation male infertility the secret world of hair management jargon exhaustion: history of weariness restaurant: taste of class affluence politics and emotion new economy housing crisis - squatting in amsterdam

this american life quitting anger and forgiveness media fringe faustian bargains simulated worlds bob dole obsession cruelty of children factions harold running after antelope one of us stuck in the wrong decade other people’s mail who’s canadian business of death small towns delivery fire first day mapping trail of tears road trip! niagara barbara book that changed your life family business pimp anthropology 24 at the golden apple the fix is in american’s in paris million bubbles mob mentality kids as adults house on loon lake rashomon kid logic hitler’s yacht act v high speed chase allure of the mean friend fake science image makers (library) ghost of bobby dunbar switched at birth plattekill plaza number one party school stories pitched by our parents thugs what happened at dos erros 129 cars nummi harper school dr filmer and mr hyde my undesirable talent in defense of ignorance fear and loathing in homer and rockville

world book club