#back to Byron bay

[alexturner2005]

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Teddy Picker in Byron Bay 2 Jan. 2023, By cat_mason

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Hollywood is the single best example of mature labor power in America

This afternoon (May 6), I’ll be in Berkeley at the Bay Area Bookfest for a 3:30PM event with Glynn Washington for my book Red Team Blues; tomorrow (May 7), it’s an 11AM event with Wendy Liu for my book Chokepoint Capitalism.

Weds (May 10), I’m in Vancouver for a keynote at the Open Source Summit and a book event at Heritage Hall and Thu (May 11), I’m in Calgary for Wordfest.

The Writers Guild is on strike. Hollywood is closed for business. The union’s bargaining documents reveal a cartel of studios that refused to negotiate on a single position. This could go on for a long-ass time:

https://www.wga.org/uploadedfiles/members/member_info/contract-2023/WGA_proposals.pdf

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/06/people-are-not-disposable/#union-strong

The writers are up for it. A lot of people are saying this is the first writers’ strike since 2007/8, but that’s not quite right. That was the last time the writers went on strike against the studios, but in 2019, the writers struck against their own talent agents — within the space of a week, all 7,000 writers in Hollywood fired their agents. They struck against the agencies for 22 months.

https://deadline.com/2023/04/hollywood-strike-writers-guild-studios-talent-agencies-1235333516/

The agencies had consolidated down to four major firms, two backed by private equity who loaded them up with debt that could only be repaid if the agencies figured out how to vastly increase their profits. They did so, by unilaterally switching the way they did business with their clients. Instead of taking a 10% commission on the creative wages they bargained for, the agencies started to take “packaging fees” from the studios for putting together a writer, director, stars, etc. These fees came out of the same budget that the talent got paid from, so the higher the fee was, the less the talent made. Soon, some showrunners were discovering that they were getting 10% and their agents were getting 90%!

The agencies weren’t done, either: they were building their own studios, and planning to negotiate with themselves on behalf of their clients. The writers said fuck this shit. They issued a code of conduct ordering the agencies to knock all that shit off. The agencies swore they’d never do it. Why should they? Every job these writers had ever done came through an agency, and the agencies were staffed with the toughest, most obnoxious negotiators on the planet.

They were sure the writers would cave. After all, the top tier of writers had been handled with kid gloves by the agencies and not ripped off to the same extent as their jobbing, workaday peers. They’d break solidarity and the union would collapse, right?

Wrong. Twenty-two months later, every one of the agencies caved on every single point. Bam. Union strong.

(Want to learn more? Check out Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin’s and my book about creative labor markets:)

http://chokepointcapitalism.com

Now the writers are back on strike and it’s triggered a predictable torrent of anti-worker nonsense (“striking writers will lead to public indifference to torture!) (no, really) (ugh):

https://www.readtpa.com/p/on-the-tv-writers-strike-dont-fall

One common theme in these bad takes is that writers aren’t real workers, like, you know, coal miners or Starbucks baristas. They’re coddled intellectuals, and haven’t the intelligentsia been indifferent to proletarian struggle since, you know, time immemorial?

This is wrong in every conceivable way. For starters, it’s ahistorical. Lord Byron and innumerable other toffs and poets and such were right there with the Luddites, demanding labor justice during the Industrial Revolution, as Brian Merchant writes in his outstanding, forthcoming history of the Luddites, Blood in the Machine:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/20/love-the-machine/#hate-the-factory

But you don’t have to look back to the stocking frame to find this kind of solidarity. As Hamilton Nolan writes in his newsletter, “Hollywood is the single best example of mature labor power in America”:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-coral-reef-of-humanity-encircling

The entire Hollywood workforce, from grips to carpenters, costumers to plumbers, teamsters to medics, is unionized. That includes writers and actors (I’m a member of IATSE Local 839, AKA The Animation Guild). I live in Burbank, the entertainment industry’s company town (fun fact! The “Hollywood” studios are largely over the city line, in Burbank). Walk down Burbank Boulevard, Magnolia Boulevard, or any of the other major roads, and you’ll pass many union halls.

Burbank is a prosperous place. That’s thanks, in part, to the studios, whose entertainment products are very profitable. But working in a profitable industry is not, in and of itself, a guarantee that you will get a share of those profits. Some of the most profitable industries in the world — e-commerce, fast food, logistics — have the lowest paid workforces.

Burbank is prosperous because the unions made sure that everyone — the grips, the costumers, the animators, the actors, the writers, the teamsters and the pipefitters — gets a decent wage, decent health care and a decent retirement. My pal the set-dresser who worked crazy hours shlepping furniture around sitcom sets for decades? All that work did bad stuff to his joints, which meant that he needed a hip replacement in his forties — which was 100% covered, including his sick leave while he recovered. He was able to take early retirement in his late fifties, with a solid pension, with his health in excellent shape and many years of happiness with his partner stretching before him.

That’s what unions get you: a good job that might be hard at times, and the costs of your work are borne by the employer who profits from your labor. As Nolan writes, the point of unions is to “make sure that people! Are! Not! Disposable!”

Unions deliver the American dream. As Pete Seeger sang in “Talking Union Blues”:

Now, if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you You got to build you a union, got to make it strong But if you all stick together, boys, it won’t be long You get shorter hours, better working conditions Vacations with pay. Take your kids to the seashore

http://www.protestsonglyrics.net/Labor_Union_Songs/Talking-Union.phtml

We tend to focus on wages in union discussions, but unions aren’t merely about getting better pay, it’s about making better jobs. When LA teachers went out on strike in 2019, wages weren’t at the top of their list — they bargained for greenspace for every school, replacing rotting portables with permanent buildings, ending ICE entrapment of parents at the school gates, social workers and counselors for schools…and wages.

I really like how Nolan puts this. The way that the studios make money has changed: streaming is clobbering ad-supported TV and movie theater tickets. The studios are adapting. The workers want to adapt, too. The studios would rather “treat[] their work force as a disposable natural resource to be mined, used up, and then abandoned, as business dictates.”

A union gives workers “the same ability to adapt to changing industries that companies already have.” The studios want to leave workers behind. Unions give workers the collective power to say, “No. You’re taking us with you.”

Union workers are wealthier than their non-union counterparts, but that’s not just because of higher wages. As Nolan writes, “Unions make sure that the people get to adapt to changing industries, and not just the investors and the business owners.”

[Union workers] have a far greater ability to build coherent, long-term careers, as opposed to a constant treadmill of unstable short-term gigs. In non-union industries, businesses can just act like ships cutting through a desperate sea of workers, scooping up whoever they want and then tossing them overboard as soon as it’s convenient. In a union industry, though, the companies are forced to deal with the labor force as an equal. The workers have their own damn boat.

Advocates for market capitalism insist that market forces increase prosperity for everyone. They say that, in the end, having corporations serve their shareholders results in corporations serving everyone.

But a comparison of unionized and nonunionized industries reveals the hollowness of that prospect. Hollywood is wildly profitable and it pays every kind of worker well. That’s because workers have solidarity across sectors and trades. Striking writers like jonrog1 are calling on supporters to donate to the Entertainment Community Fund:

https://twitter.com/jonrog1/status/1654168529728307204

The Entertainment Community Fund supports everyone else who is affected by the work-stoppage, all the other creative and craft trades whose work has been halted by the writers’ struggle. If you want to support these workers, make sure you select “Film and TV” from the drop-down menu when you donate (we gave $100):

https://entertainmentcommunity.org/

Because all the workers are in this together. As Adam Conover explains in this amazing CNN clip, David Zazlav, the head of CNN parent-company Warner-Discovery, made a quarter of a billion dollars last year, enough to pay all the demands of all the writers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL-YwKO81go

And Carol Lombardini, spokesvillain for the studio cartel AMPTP, told the press that “”Writers are lucky to have term employment.” As John Rogers says, she “wiped out the doubt of every writer who wasn’t sure this negotiation really IS so important, that it actually IS about turning us into gig workers.”

https://twitter.com/jonrog1/status/1654506611086606336

The stakes in this strike are the same as the stakes in every strike: will workers get a fair share of the value their labor creates, or will that value be piled up in the vaults of $250,000,000/year CEOs? It’s not like the studios especially hate writers — like all corporations, they hate all their workers. The same tactics that they’re using to make it so writers can’t pay the rent today will be turned on every other kind of Hollywood worker tomorrow — and when the writers win this one, they’ll support those workers, too.

There’s a lot of concern about AI displacing creative labor, but the only entity that can take away a writer’s wage is a human being, an executive at a studio. As has been the case since the time of the Luddites, the issue isn’t what the machine does, it’s who it does it for and who it does it to.

After all, as Charlie Stross points out, a corporation is just a “Slow AI,” remorselessly paperclip-maximizing its way through the lives and joy of the flesh-and-blood people who constitute its inconvenient gut-flora:

https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future#video&t=3478

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Berkeley, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: Animators walk the picket-line during the Disney Animator's Strike in 1941.]

Image: LA Times https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screen_Cartoonist%27s_Guild_strike_at_Disney.jpg

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

[carpedeb]

Text to Husband

Deb: We've been talking about this on and off so I'm just curious if you were still interested in moving back to the states? I don't want to be in this house anymore, I don't want to be in Byron Bay anymore so I'm trying to figure out a place to go and I can't just take the kids without your permission.

[merrhea39]

binging everything judgment day pt3

Raw 6/6/22 Cody’s tits exploded. Man Finn had to join Judgment Day in that shithole town called green bay that sucks. When Finn says “finally i see clearly” it sounds like shit directly from an irish glasses ad. 

Bliss vs Doudrop vs Morgan vs Ripley. Rhea Ripley fucks up her face. Brace face Rhea incoming. Brace face riptides Niven to win and fight Belair at MITB (which never happens because of her teeth and a brain injury. She doesn’t have another match until october of 22) 

Raw 6/13/22 kevin patrick interviews bianca and rhea interrupts. A nice segment with Judgment Day, also Rhea roasts kansas lmao. Hi braceface hehe. Masochist Rhea? And I love it when she talks all calmly like a cultist it’s hot. That’s all judgment day does on this show as the main event is *checks notes* a pose-down between austin theory and bobby lashley? WTF? WHO THE FUCK CARES?

Main event 6/20/22 mysterios(w) vs judgment day. MY BIRTHDAY!! Wow judment day has come a long way. Rey mysterio being on the main event is fucking wild. Damian and Finn DO NOT have an entrance down yet lol. DOM IS SO TINY. Damian finally gets his new pants. Why the fuck does the main event have ad breaks? Finn and Damian just beat the shit out of Dom. Aja looking cunty af. Its called a dq even tho this shit happens in every match. Where Mami? I’m more confused at the end than anything. 

Raw 6/20/22 Bianca announces rhea is not medically cleared to fight her at MITB and thats all folks.

Raw 6/27/22 i accidentally thought there was nothing judgment day here but i was wrong priest balor and the mysterious have a backstage confrontation. THE IDEA HAS BEEN PLANTED REY IS A BAD FATHER LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Raw 7/4/22 mysterios(w) vs judgment day. July 4th I sure hope don’t I don’t see a ton of america propaganda. Pre-match promo from rey and dom. SUPRISE ATTACK. Damian and Finn ‘pearl harbor’ dom and rey before the match. It was a raw match, nothing special but Rey does an eddie and gets the win via dq.

Damian and Finn beat up rey and dom dom after the match I bet this won’t last for nearly 3 months.

7/11/22 Rey vs. Finn(w). suit daddy Damian is back we are so up. Finn saying “you’re a bad father” with his accent is so fucking funny “YOU’RE A BAD FODDER!” lmao. Rey took a nasty fuckin bump in this match holy shit. Finn wins and they try to manipulate Dom again.

7/18/22 Damian(w) vs. Rey. match starts during a commercial break wtf is that. mysterios wearing my high school colors lol. Damian wins fairly clean and Rey takes the razors edge nasty as fuck god damn. Dom gets bitched around by Damian and Finn… dirty thoughts are all I know.

Damian and Finn say Dom failed ‘the test’ and that he should’ve used a chair to hit his dad.

Ok so I was skipping to Dom and Rey’s reaction to what Damian and Finn said and byron was talking to corey about when he beat him for the 24/7 title and Corey said “that’s why I drink.” LMAO I WOULD TOO. Anywho the Mysterios cut a pretty basic promo. 

Raw 7/25/22 mysterio start out with a promo on the 20 years that he’s had in wwe.

Mysterios(w) vs. Judgment day. WILL YOU STOP STARTING MATCHES IN THE COMMERCIAL BREAK WTF VINCE. Balor hit the nastiest clothesline of all time on Rey lmao. Mysterios win but not really cleanly.

Mysterios celebrate… but who gives a fuck because PAPI RHEA IS IN THIS BITCH! And ofc she’s beating up Dom. Finn with the line of all time “IT’S NOT YOUR ANNIVERSARY IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!”. Rey gets tabled… (come tooesday).

SummerSlam 7/30/22 Mysterios(w) vs. Judgment Day. (Rey’s personal sponsors are why this match happened.) PAPI! Rey with the fucking beer mask lmaoooooooooo. Some people started a ‘we want tables’ chant to which the rest of the stadium responded with a ‘shut the fuck up’ chant. RHEA HURTS DOM AGAIN (rhea hurting dom counter: 2) Edge did not need all of that for a comeback. And the Mysterios still without a clean win over judgment day.

[myverylastduchess]

who has more bde between byron and shelley and why

Good question~

LB lived his life like he had a big dick — I think his body count might’ve been something in the hundreds (a number he really cranked up when he was being depraved depressed in Italy for a few years) and we have a lot of accounts of women, aristocrats as well as random fangirls (including Claire clairmont)writing letters literally offering themselves up to him for the chance to be graced with herpes his sexgod skills and he also cuckholded a man who was lowkey a high-ranking member of an Italian mafia and the guy was vaguely cool with it — so of course we might be led to conclude that Byron’s the clear winner

But no.

I have a theory that the reason why Percy Beatrice shelley died is because he had the bigger dick. So when Byron and Shelley were in Italy together trying to recreate the magic of the summer of 1816 (which gave us Frankenstein blessed be her name) and slowly realizing that they were too old and diseased Byron at this point to get back to that, they got realllllly into sailing. Both always enjoyed it but there was something a lot more obsessive and serious this time, especially for Shelley. At one point Shelley had a boat built, I think Byron might’ve helped foot the bill, and when it was finished the first thing he saw was the name Don Juan written along the side of it which I’m fully aware is more textual evidence for Byron’s bde but stick with me. But it was fine: he sailed it, renamed it the Ariel, all was right with the west wind.

And then suddenly out of nowhere a dark threatening shape emerged from the moonlit bay and Shelley could only watch in horror as he realized that his frenemy had constructed a boat that was about ten times larger than his own, complete with a full library and bedroom [*sighs*]. Byron didn’t even sail it very much he just wanted the bigger boat but anyway Shelley, ignoring that, immediately got to work trying to rig out (I don’t know sailor speak I’m sorry) his and try to make an even bigger and better one. He didn’t quite manage that but he did however manage to make his vessel incredibly dangerous to sail with and spend way too much money doing it. The hull or something else was too heavy to go out on the water safely and, well, we know how that worked out for him when he, a man who never learned how to swim or wipe his own ass, went out during a storm

As I mentioned Byron really only cared about displaying to Shelley that it was he, GEORGE GORDON, who had the money and the power to build the best boat and not Shelley … but why? Why did he feel the need to oneup him when he already had the title, the wealth, the fame, the several undiagnosed stds Even with all these things Byron always felt a little inadequate to Shelley. He thought percy had more natural poetic sensibilities and maybe even felt that he was the better writer and maybe, just maybe, that his penis was larger. It is this point in particular on which the whole of Shelley’s drowning mounts. I’m not sure if Shelley was aware that Byron felt this way or not — what I do know is that if Byron’s bde had been just a little bit stronger then this rivalry would never have been born and Shelley likely would’ve lived on quite a few more decades, he might’ve even learned to swim (jk he’d never).

It’s a bittersweet victory but, yes, it was Shelley who possessed the greater bde

And for one last piece of concluding evidence I’ve attached two paintings of lord byron which differ their depictions in radically opposing ways. One is the portrait of a man who’s at least average; the other’s just Ken — the true likeness, I think

Edit omg: I was wrong I was so so wrong. Apparently Byron's body was examined in the thirties and those present noted the remarkable size of his--

[whatthecrowtold]

#unhallowedarts - "I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side" - Bram Stoker's Dracula

“You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera.“

(Bram Stoker “Dracula”)

It was a indeed a dark and stormy night, the one in the year without Summer back in 1816, when the Shelleys, Byron and his physician John Polidori sat down to make pop culture history. Cut off from the world, bored witless and full to the brim with laudanum, his lordship challenged the gathered Romantic enfants perdu to lift the burden of ennui with telling ghost stories in the German fashion. And while both Byron and Shelley brought off rather nothing except consuming more narcotics that night, Mary famously began to write “Frankenstein” and Polidori engendered the other treasured dread, the aristocratic, suave, blood sucking king of the undead, the vampire. The myth itself was, of course, centuries old and only two generations before, a downright mass hysteria ran through Europe when repeated cases of vampirism were reported in the Balkans along the Austro-Turkish military border.

Polidori though took the revenant peasant prowling around his former home and sucking the blood of his family, clad him in evening attire and modelled him after the pattern of his employer into a Byronic hero. Polidori’s Lord Ruthven became the ancestor of the 19th and 20th century’s vampires that haunted the imaginations of countless readers and the pages of Gothic literature from the likes of Gogol and Merimee to the infamous penny dreadfuls. One of these featured a creature called “Varney the Vampire” who brought in the fangs and the tell-tale bite marks and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” from 1872 gave the myth the structure of a long dead noble á la Coleridge’s “Christabel” haunting a damsel in distress and a group of heroes bringing the creature to bay with the help of ancient lore and occult paraphernalia. The groundwork was laid and along came Bram Stoker.

As a child, Stoker was bedridden until the age of seven, rose as from the dead after his mysterious illness all of a sudden ceased, became a football star at college, graduated in mathematics and ended up a pen-pusher in Dublin Castle. Not satisfied with his lot, naturally, Stoker changed his career to theatre critic at the Dublin Evening Mail, owned by Sheridan Le Fanu, and attracted the attention of the famous actor Sir Henry Irving with a favourable review, the two became friends and Stoker followed Irving to become his manager. Meanwhile he had won the hand of Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty, courted by Stoker’s acquaintance form Trinity College Oscar Wilde as well as a host of other suitors. Stoker would bring these experiences into a literary form in his opus magnum “Dracula” with Sir Henry Irving acting as model for the undead count as Byron did for Polidori 80 years before.

Stoker had never been to Romania, during the 1890s a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but he did a thorough research on his subjects that he would add with iconic effects to the imagery of the literary Gothic, from local legends of the 1750s, the late 15th century Wallachian Prince Vlad III. Drăculea who was famed in western European sources for his cruelty and other inspirations from Central Europe like Princess Eleonore von Schwarzenberg, rumoured to be a vampire during her lifetime at the beginning of the 18th century and already an inspiration for German poet Gottfried August Bürger to his poem “Leonore”. Well-known enough known to Stoker and everyone else who read and wrote Gothic literature.

Pitting his research-wise well founded mythical Count and his ancient evil that bears strong resemblances to the feared syphilis as well as despicable moral liberties against the forces of the modern age, trains, the telegraph, typewriters, repeating rifles and established processes and organised teamwork, based on thorough research. Published in 1897, “Dracula” became an instant success and the standard followed to this day, even if Stoker and “Dracula” act only as powers behind the throne of “Urban Fantasy”.

All artwork above is by John Coulthart from his 2018 take on "Dracula" and nicked from his blog linked below

[patrickhvincent]

Commemorating Lord Byron, Taylor Swift’s “Tortured Poet”

Ever since Taylor Swift announced the release of her new album “The Tortured Poets Department” at this year’s Grammy Awards, both journalists and her millions of fans, or “Swifties”, have been speculating about the meaning of the title and the choice of release date. While the wildest theories have been circulating online, the consensus seems to be that the album evokes her break-up with Joe Alwyn in April 2023, and the various stages of grief that followed.

            Yet it’s hard to ignore that the album’s release date also coincides with the death of the most famous “tortured poet” of them all, George Gordon, Lord Byron. Moreover, many of the track and bonus titles closely fit Byron’s life. “Mad, bad and dangerous to know”, the British poet who died two hundred years ago today at age 36 behaved with the calculated cool of a pop star, and is often cited by scholars as one of the pioneers of the modern celebrity culture that has spawned the likes of Jim Morrison, Freddy Mercury, and, of course, Swift herself.

            Like these artists, Lord Byron shaped his public image not only in his poems, but also through his letters, his many portraits, his idiosyncratic behavior, and his sartorial choices. He made a point of posing in an open-necked shirt to mark his independence, for example, and claimed to love his black Newfoundland dog, Boatswain (“The Black dog”), more than people. In 1812, he became famous “overnight” with the publication of Childe Harold’s Progress, which generalized the romantic ideal of the rebellious, disillusioned and brooding poet, or what came to be known as the Byronic hero. Over the next decade, he published a series of best-selling titles, each carefully crafted to appeal to his audience and strategically released with the help of his publisher, earning him the equivalent of several million pounds. Like Taylor Swift, he reinvented himself in each work, eventually tiring of the “tortured poet” persona and adopting a wittier narrative voice in his unfinished masterpiece, Don Juan.

            Byron’s works were pirated abroad, and his fame spread to every continent, turning what his wife labelled “Byromania” into a worldwide phenomenon. Because his image was deliberately, and ambiguously, sexualized, he particularly appealed to female readers. Several hundred fan letters worshipping the poet have survived, most of them written by women, a material reminder that “stan culture” is nothing new. However, when rumors began to spread that he had abused his wife (“But Daddy I love him”) and had an affair with his half-sister, the poet was immediately viewed as guilty (“Guilty as sin?”) and left London forever (“So long, London”), going into exile first in Geneva, then in Italy, where he could live under fewer constraints.

            A supporter, like the American singer, of progressive causes, Byron joined the Carbonari in their quest to liberate Italy from the Austrians, and later supported Greek independence. On April 19, 1819, he succumbed to malarial fever, or rather to the insistent bloodletting of his doctors, in the marshy bay of Missolonghi; his body was returned aboard the Florida back to England (“Florida!!!”).

            Whether pure coincidence or a deliberate artistic choice, Taylor Swift’s new album narrates not just her breakup, but also the “tortured” life of Lord Byron. While not going to the same extremes as her illustrious predecessor, let’s hope that she might learn from him how to show a bit more political courage in this all-important election year.

p.s: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, one of Byron’s favorite poems, features an albatross (“Albatross”).

[burningvelvet]

Byron and Shelley chronicle their 1816 sailing trip in Lake Geneva — Day 2, June 24th —

Percy Shelley, History of a Six Weeks' Tour:

“The next morning we passed Yvoire, a scattered village with an ancient castle, whose houses are interspersed with trees, and which stands at a little distance from Nerni, on the promontory which bounds a deep bay, some miles in extent. So soon as we arrived at this promontory, the lake began to assume an aspect of wilder magnificence. The mountains of Savoy, whose summits were bright with snow, descended in broken slopes to the lake: on high, the rocks were dark with pine forests, which become deeper and more immense, until the ice and snow mingle with the points of naked rock that pierce the blue air; but below, groves of walnut, chesnut, and oak, with openings of lawny fields, attested the milder climate.

As soon as we had passed the opposite promontory, we saw the river Drance, which descends from between a chasm in the mountains, and makes a plain near the lake, intersected by its divided streams. Thousands of besolets, beautiful water-birds, like sea-gulls, but smaller, with purple on their backs, take their station on the shallows, where its waters mingle with the lake. As we approached Evian, the mountains descended more precipitously to the lake, and masses of intermingled wood and rock overhung its shining spire.

We arrived at this town about seven o'clock, after a day which involved more rapid changes of atmosphere than I ever recollect to have observed before. The morning was cold and wet; then an easterly wind, and the clouds hard and high; then thunder showers, and wind shifting to every quarter; then a warm blast from the south, and summer clouds hanging over the peaks, with bright blue sky between. About half an hour after we had arrived at Evian, a few flashes of lightning came from a dark cloud, directly over head, and continued after the cloud had dispersed. ‘Diespiter, per pura tonantes egit equos:’ a phenomenon which certainly had no influence on me, corresponding with that which it produced on Horace.

The appearance of the inhabitants of Evian is more wretched, diseased and poor, than I ever recollect to have seen. The contrast indeed between the subjects of the King of Sardinia and the citizens of the independent republics of Switzerland, affords a powerful illustration of the blighting mischiefs of despotism, within the space of a few miles. They have mineral waters here, eaux savonneuses, they call them. In the evening we had some difficulty about our passports, but so soon as the syndic heard my companion's rank and name, he apologized for the circumstance. The inn was good. During our voyage, on the distant height of a hill, covered with pine-forests, we saw a ruined castle, which reminded me of those on the Rhine.”

Lord Byron in a letter to Hobhouse:

"Evian—June 23d. 1816

“At the present writing I am on my way on a water-tour round the Lake Leman — and am thus far proceeded in a pretty open boat which I bought & navigate — it is an English one & was brought lately from Bordeaux — I am on shore for the Night — and have just had a row with the Syndic of this town who wanted my passports which I left at Diodati not thinking they would be wanted except in grand route — but it seems this is Savoy and the dominion of his Cagliari Majesty whom we saw at his own Opera — in his own city — in 1809 — however by dint of references to Geneva — & other corroborations — together with being in a very ill humour — Truth has prevailed — wonderful to relate they actually take one's word for a fact - although it is credible and indubitable. — Tomorrow we go to Meillerai - & Clarens - & Vevey - with Rousseau in hand - to see his scenery - according to his delineation in his Heloise now before me. - The views have hitherto been very fine - but I should conceive less so than those of the remainder of the lake.”

UPDATE: I took my dates from Shelley, but his dates must have been confused and Byron's must be more accurate. Because I'd been confused by Byron's dates in the past, since he often wrote past midnight (thus often referring his prior day as "today"), I had assumed Shelley was more trustworthy. According to Shelley and His Circle vol. 4 pp. 700-701, they left on June 22nd which was a Saturday, and so I believe each day of their trip would be one earlier than I and Shelley stated in these posts.

Taken from Shelley and His Circle:

"TIMETABLE OF THE LAKE GENEVA TOUR

June 22, Saturday: Sailed from Montalègre, slept at Nernier.

June 23, Sunday: Sailed from Nernier, slept at Evian.

June 24, Monday: Sailed from Evian, encountered storm off Meillerie, slept at St. Gingolph.

June 25, Tuesday: Sailed from St. Gingolph, saw the mouths of the Rhone, visited Chillon Castle, landed at Clarens, visited bosquet de Julie, slept at Mme. Pauly's house (Place Gambetta) at Clarens.

June 26, Wednesday: Visited Le Châtelard, and the bosquet de Julie, sailed from Clarens, visited Vevey, slept at the Hotel de l'Ancre at Ouchy.

June 27, Thursday: Visited Gibbon's house at Lausanne, slept at Ouchy.

June 28, Friday: Remained at Ouchy.

June 29, Saturday: Sailed from Ouchy, slept at [?Rolle].

June 30, Sunday: Sailed from [?Rolle], arrived at Montalègre."

[just-run-it-out]

About the last few weeks:

Concrete got installed and it looks sick! We’re closer to having a more functional space in our backyard when the weather is nice

Still have a few more things to tick off like landscaping which I’d like to try and do by myself and potentially an undercover area of some kind?

My work bestie handed in her resignation and I had to fight back tears. Her last week is the end of may. She lives locally and isn’t going anywhere but it’s the second work bestie who’s quit in the 2.5 years I’ve been at my job

My manager has been on leave and delegated bits of her job role to our team. I got the financial/cash flow reports and whilst it’s definitely out of my scope I think I’ve done a pretty good job.

I fit back into jeans that I was squeezing into at the beginning of the year (thanks Christmas). I haven’t really changed my diet I’ve just been trying to reduce my portions at dinner and I’ve gone back to progressive overload in the gym and at least 1 x 35-45 minute cardio workout a week (on top of 10000 steps a day). Over Christmas I was still going to the gym but I was kind of slacking on adding weight/reps and I wasn’t doing as much cardio.

My bf is English and got his permanent residency this week. It’s been about 3-4 years in the making including before we first applied and we were gathering ‘proof’ of our relationship

I’ve been entering my baking/cooking era~ and trying new recipes nearly every weekend. I made pork sausage and potato soup last week and also tried the recipetineats Byron bay cookies which turned out great. The soup will be a new feature on my dinner menu I think!

It’s Mother’s Day today and bf and I are heading to my parents soon for a bbq. I’ve baked a loa( of bread and got my presents sorted for my mum so all I have to do now is drive the hour/hour 15 to their place and eat some food.

[fazcinatingblog]

why do you love adam zampa so much

I don't know, please don't judge me. He's a stupid flat earther who lives in Byron bay and probably wears a crystal and has Mason Cox sunglasses and won't eat meat or any kind of meat products but will lick jelly off Marcus Stoinis' nipples (no proof but I know y'all needed the image in your heads) and he loves changing up his hair as much as his wrong'un and

He moved to Melbourne Stars the actual same time another certain blond named Adam moved to Collingwood and both Adam's are the loveliest humans, just so sweet and both have all the time in the world for the fans and they're both so passionate and almost have, like, blinkers on that if they make a mistake in a game, they'll lock in and have an immediate response and

Idk people hate the way Zampa gets hit for so many runs (football equivalent: treloar criticised for racking up disposals with 30% efficiency) but he'll back himself to bowl from both ends in the powerplay or death overs, he loves a challenge, you can always trust him to jag a wicket or two in any game.

He cares for the environment and shops for second hand clothes and wears the most ridiculous fashion and doesn't care what people think

[redrobemerle]

hey what if i made an ffvii au based around a very niche musical i enjoy. woe dolls of ffvii be upon ye

the narrator : the Planet itself (tells the story, also tries to warn people about the consequences of their actions but cannot be heard by the rest of the cast) the gambler and the monk : JENOVA and a cetra (maybe ifalna, maybe just a random one. its not like theyre mentioned by name anyway) jasper : grimoire valentine (this is mainly bc annabel had to be lucrecia) annabel : lucrecia (she canonically sort of brought vincent back from the dead. sort of. she probably wouldve brought grimoire back if she could have. its also lowkey implied that she may have had a crush on grimoire?)

((now heres where the roles go off the rails in regards to what their original relationships were))

edgar : hojo fay : vincent (THATS RIGHT BAY BEE IF JASPER IS GRIMOIRE VINCENT HAS TO BE FAY. whos the guy vincent leaves hojo for when he realizes Oh This Guys Fucked Up Actually? probably cid or reeve. i dont really ship vincent with anyone so like. as long as its not one of the Kids. anyway also thinks about how grimoires last words in canon are "tell vincent im sorry". thinks about "i took the liberty of bringing your dear old dad back. you can talk to him again! but only if you come back and marry me". thinks) byron : sephiroth (let sephiroth be an anarchist lmao) amelia : angeal ("amelia"s shitty dad is hollander obvs) priscilla : aerith (the obvious choice, but also im always thinking about the similarities between aerith and vincent (vincents similarities with cloud are far more obvious, but listen to me. aerith and vincent have their parallels too). priscilla reminding jasper of fay (aerith reminding grimoire of vincent)) soldier 7285 : theres so many people it could be but im leaning towards zack or cloud? everyone else gets to be voodoopunks

BUT TUMBLR USER REDROBEMERLE NONE OF US IN THE FF7 FANDOM HAVE ANY CLUE WHAT DOLLS OF NEW ALBION IS! YOU ADMITTED IT'S NICHE AS HELL!

fear not, for i have typed up a summary of the musical under the cut! if you read the summary and get upset about the way ive fucked with the relationships from the game for the sake of this au, please refer to this post <3

CONTENT WARNINGS: offstage but explicitly mentioned suicide, also very brief but explicitly mentioned parental abuse, immolation mentions (sort of), execution by a militaristic police state (near the end)

The Dolls of New Albion: a Steampunk Opera is a folk opera by Paul Shapera

the opera is split up into four acts, each following a generation of a single family. each act has a narrator telling you about the world as time passes. while not all of it is directly relevant to the story at hand, it tells you something interesting about the world. however, there is a recurring motif of a gambler and a monk who played a never-ending card game. this is important later. the city of new albion was built around them by the people who came to watch them play. but more importantly, in the Now, annabel(/annabelle/annabella. the script cant decide how its spelled) mcalistair is raising up the dead

okay so basically. annabel had a big ol crush on a guy in school. they had never talked until one day they talked and kissed and they became friends for a little bit. but then annabel was expelled for stealing cadavers for her own research. and she became a shut-in and he got married then died young. and she's figured out how to call his soul down into a doll she has built!

the doll is very lifelike but cant really move and cannot talk but he can play the radio! isnt he great? look at annabels doll everyone! she can go anywhere now bc hes proof that shes brilliant! shes conquered life and death! but not everything you love loves you in return. and when she realizes that he cannot, will not ever love her back or speak to her, he doesnt want to be back, she destroys the doll. and throws all of her notes in an old trunk in the attic.

and so passes the first generation.

the narrator informs us that annabel gets married and has a son named edgar at some point. edgar grows up and falls in love, as people often do, with a woman named fay, and on the night he was planning to propose to her, she tells him that while she loves him and she really tried to make the relationship work, hes got Issues and so she leaves him for another man.

in his anger, when edgar goes through the old trunk in the attic and finds annabels notes on necromancy, he makes a business out of it! he summons back the souls of the dead for anyone who asks and pays, and when his business becomes successful enough he uses the money and influence he has to run the business of fays new partner into the ground.

he goes and finds fay and is like. "look. i have a very successful business. the man that you say you love is ruined and poor and I know you cant live like that. and whats more than that, you know your dead dad who you loved so dearly? yeah i brought him back for you, but the only way you can talk to him is if you come back and get married to me. :)" and fay does but shes also like "what the fuck. i actually loved you once why did you end up like this this is why i left you in the first place" also the person whose soul edgar brought back is jasper, the same man annabel brought back originally.

and so passes the second generation.

edgar and fay have a son named byron. now, byron becomes a voodoopunk. voodoopunk is one part religious movement, one part political party, one part punk subculture. yes i know voodoo is a closed practice i dont know that the person who wrote this does and yeah.

so basically his whole plan is to run jasper for mayor? and theres this girl named amelia whos also running with the voodoopunks. it is unclear how old she is, but she is referred to as "a girl" rather than "a woman", so it is likely she's either a teenager or a young adult.

but jasper has figured something out. jasper has figured out how to string together songs on the radio to finally speak for himself. and byron is like "here listen to our doll give you a speech and prove that the dead can run this country better than any of the vultures that are politicians in any part of the political spectrum!"

and jasper sings.

and he sings about how he did not want to be brought back. death was peaceful and he did not want to be here.

and amelia heard this. and she had no friends. and she lived only with her father who was abusive (presumably both verbally and physically? it is never elaborated upon but we do know its at least verbal.)

and she kills herself with only the words of the song jasper sang as her note.

at which point theres public outcry bc ALL the dolls have been singing this song. in the publics eyes, the dolls killed amelia. and so people start rounding up the dolls -- who there are more of than living people in new albion by now -- and burning them alive (for a given definition of alive? its really more of releasing their souls again but really violently) byron manages to "save" jasper though.

and so ends the third generation.

we revisit the card game. the gambler died of a heart attack during the final hand, and cursed with his dying breath that the game was not yet finished, promising the two would come back to finish it one day.

and so begins the fourth generation.

New Albion has become a military police state, killing anyone with any sort of memorabilia of the dead. we see priscilla, byrons daughter, hiding in a basement and playing a never-ending game of cards with jasper. (YEP THATS RIGHT ITS KINDA IMPLIED THAT JASPER AND PRISCILLA ARE THE REINCARNATIONS OF THE MONK AND THE GAMBLER, and even if theyre not, theyre still the ones continuing the game they started).

we also see soldier 7285 join the police.

priscilla loves her great grandfather jasper dearly -- and he loves her back. she reminds him of fay, when fay was younger and more innocent, and jasper lets slip during their card game that he still wants to die but he is willing to stay because he wants priscilla to live even more. because if theyre found, they both die.

priscilla is like what the fuck thats not? fair??? why should you have to sacrifice your death for my life??? and she thinks about it. and decides that a life of hiding isnt much of a life at all.

and she calls the cops on herself.

a firing squad happens, despite jasper doing all he can to prevent it because her life for his death isnt fair to her, either.

but soldier 7285 doesnt fire.

he is court martialled and stripped of his duties/rank for it. soldier 7285 thinks about how priscilla loved jasper so much she was willing to die if it meant his freedom, and goes. hey what the fuck sort of country do i serve that thinks caring about the people we loved past their deaths is punishable by death??? im going to tear this country down and rebuild it on the graves of the people who decided this, and if i die in the process, at least i can be a martyr and inspire people to finish what i started the way she inspired me.

and thats the dolls of new albion!

[simshousewindsor]

DUTY WAITS FOR NO-ONE

[Highpark House, Easton 8:11 AM WST]

Queen Katherine: Good morning, Stella!

Stella: ruff, ruff

(distant music playing)

Queen Katherine: Good morning.

[House Staff]: (bows) Good morning, Your Majesty.

(uptempo music playing)

Prince Phillip: (dancing) Like this! See, Grace?

Princess Grace: (dancing)

Prince Rainier: (dancing) That’s right! Keep moving!

Queen Katherine: (laughs) I knew you three were behind this loud music at 8AM. Good morning, kids.

Prince Phillip: Morning, mom.

Princess Grace: Look at my moves, mommy!

Queen Katherine: I see!

Prince Rainier: We’re getting our morning cardio in!

Queen Katherine: Okay, Rainier, I’m off to the Palace. I have a meeting with mom and granny to discuss an urgent matter. Martin also wants to update me on some things. Don't forget we leave for Brindleton Bay tonight!

Prince Rainier: Yes, the palace sent my new Valet over earlier to show me the outfits they selected for me to wear.

Queen Katherine: Phillip? Grace? I’ll be back soon.

Prince Rainier: When is your meeting with the Prime Minister? Don't forget what we discussed. Us staying here at Highpark House, not moving to Buckingsim Palace, is very important!

Queen Katherine: I know. I won't forget. I have an audience with him on Wednesdays.

Prince Rainier: I love you, Kate. Good luck today. You know how your mother and grandmother can be. And don't be nervous. You look nervous!

(kiss)

Queen Katherine: I’m not nervous. It’s this morning sickness. I’m tired!

Prince Rainier: Yuck! I just kissed you.

Queen Katherine: (laughs) Oh, hush! I brushed my teeth. The car is here. I should go. See you in a few hours.

[House Staff]: (bows) Good morning, Your Majesty.

Queen Katherine: Good morning. Thank you!

- - - - -

[Buckingsim Palace, Buckingsimshire 8:56 AM WST]

[Palace Staff]: (bows)

Queen Katherine: Good morning.

[Palace Staff]: Good morning, Your Majesty.

Queen Katherine: Good morning.

Queen Katherine: (walking)

Queen Katherine: Good morning.

[Palace Staff]: (bows) Your Majesty.

Martin [Private Secretary]: Your Majesty.

Queen Katherine: Martin, you found me...

Martin [P.S.]: If Your Majesty has no objection, I thought we might attend to the Cabinet papers after your meeting with Their Majesties. Your schedule allows for twenty minutes with them.

Queen Katherine: (sigh)

Martin [P.S.]: Your schedule will become more manageable after things calm down, Ma’am.

Queen Katherine: Will it?

Martin [P.S.]: Yes, and once the Palace is your main residence. For today, the paperwork is of the utmost importance.

Queen Katherine: Yes. Okay.

- - - - -

[9:04 AM WST]

Queen Rowena: (sighs) It’s all just too much!

Queen Zarah: I agree. It’s not right and needs to be addressed before the funeral, especially if she’s coming! Byron, has Glimmerbrook confirmed attending?

(doors open)

Queen Zarah: Your Majesty! (curtsy's)

Queen Rowena: (curtsy's) Hello, sweetheart.

Queen Katherine: Mommy. Granny. Byron.

Queen Zarah: How are you, darling? Are you feeling okay? You look pale.

Queen Katherine: “Just first trimester morning sickness. What’s so urgent?”

Byron [Aide]: Last minute adjustments to the funeral arrangements needing your approval, Your Majesty. If you are in agreement, ma’am, with his new elevation we thought the Duke of Hastings should join the Dukes of Kent, Brindleton Bay and the Earl of Boykins.

Queen Rowena: (sighs) That would be the row behind me.

Queen Zarah: (scoffs) I’m sure he’s bringing his nosey little wife, the new Duchess of Hastings.

Byron [Aide]: We could, if Her Majesty likes, move him back a row.

Queen Katherine: (looks at seating chart)

Queen Katherine: (points) What about there?

Byron [Aide]: Oh! That’s perfect, Your Majesty.

Queen Katherine: Yes. Okay. What else? I have about ten more minutes.

- - - - -

[9:42 AM WST]

Martin [P.S.]: The cypher will be changed next week, ma’am.

Queen Katherine: (sighs) I was really hoping all of this would wait.

Martin [P.S.]: I understand, ma’am. With you leaving for Brindleton Bay tonight, and funeral rehearsals consuming your schedule when you return, it’s imperative we review the box now. As sovereign, you must stay current on all matters of government.

Queen Katherine: Shall we?

Martin [P.S.]: “Here’s the key, Your Majesty.”

Queen Katherine: (opens box)

Martin [P.S.]: The top sheet is simply a summary of all the contents in the box. In this case, a four power conference first. The second page contains more details.

Queen Katherine: So, we start with this one?

Martin [P.S.]: Yes, Your Majesty.

Previous | Beginning | Next

[ottersinhats]

Rowena Marie Rosenthal (nee Kruger) 1890-1918

Rowena was born to Charity and Winston in Brindelton Bay in 1890. Her mother worked for the Rosenthal family as the nanny. She became close friends with Everett and Augusta Rosenthal as a child. She had to move away as a teenager but came back at eighteen where she reconnected with Everett and the two married in 1900. The two had four daughters together. Rowena maxed out the cooking and cross-stitching skills and fulfilled the big happy family aspiration.

Rowena is survived by her daughters Hazel, Carolina, Violet, and Sadie, her step-son Byron, seven grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

She is preceded in death by her beloved Everett, her mother and father, and nephew Wayne.

[realasslesbian]

A picture of how lesbian rights in Australia is going rn: I've got a Facebook notification, it's the seventh notification this morning from this lady promoting her 'lesbian healing retreat', it's on a farm out the back of Byron Bay, which is owned by her husband, anyway, she goes onto explain how she finally opened her karmas and let the universe tell her she is a lesbian, and she would be honoured to help us other lesbians reach her level of enlightenment, all for $499.99 (breakfast included).

[whatthecrowtold]

#unhallowedarts - "But a Mermaid has no Tears" - On Andersen's Byronic Melancholies

Harry Clarke "The Little Mermaid" (1916)

“Never had she danced so beautifully; the sharp knives cut her feet, but she did not feel it, for the pain in her heart was far greater.” (Hans Christian Andersen)

There is probably a moment, when every young one with a Romantic streak felt kinship with Lord Byron. As soon as “The Corsair” or “Manfred” is opened. “Oblivion—self-oblivion! Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms Ye offer so profusely—what I ask? - It is not in our essence, in our skill; But—thou may'st die.“ We all had the measles and we had Byron. Ever since his lordship laid down his life for liberty and drama in Missolonghi, Hiera Polis, back in 1824. But Andersen? Hans Christian Andersen, teller of enchanting fairy tales, beloved by old and young across the globe? “Read Byron's biography, oh! he was just like me, even down to his little tattling;“, Andersen wrote himself, “my soul is ambitious like his, it can only feel happy when admired by all“ – he was 20 by then and obviously had a case of “Byron” more severe than the measles.

Harry Clarke "The Elf Hill" (1916)

And as difficult as it may be to align the heart-broken, melancholic, Byron-reading young Dane with Hans Christian Andersen in the guise of Danny Kaye singing the theme song of Charles Vidor’s movie from 1952 and the image of bedtime stories for the little ones – his tales are, by and large, positively dark. And while Byron had the means, the mind and the mettle to act out many of his imaginations and become his own Rock star myth, Andersen’s demons remained firmly fastened to his imagination and wishful thinking and came to light only clothed in quite harmless mannerisms and in the guise of his tales, dressed up in fairytale-like garb, more often than not. Up to the point that Andersen never engaged in physical relationships with other human beings, neither men nor women, even though there were love letters written to male friends and rejected marriage proposals, courtships and mentally intimate friendships with the female of the species, most notably the back then immensely famous Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind. She saw the eccentric poet as something of a brother, inspired him to write at least three of his fairy tales and thereby become the author of her household name “The Swedish Nightingale” and maybe she even became the role model of the Snow Queen who plays cruel games with poor Kay’s impaled heart.

Harry Clarke "The Snow Queen" (1916)

But then, the idea of fairy tales being stories for children, is relatively new. Back in the day, when those Europeans downtrodden by the major players of the Age of Empires felt the need the need to preserve their identity in heroic epics and old folk tales, those narratives were a highly political affair. And even before the Brothers Grimm began their epic quest of collecting and writing down folktales in the German states, exemplary for others who gathered the archetypical variants told from Dingle Bay to the Ural and beyond, Romantics began to write their own fairy tales.

Harry Clarke "The Butterfly" (1916)

There are classical antecedents, Aesop and Apuleius, to name but two and Charles Perrault, who introduced folk tales into the official literary canon already in the 1600s, but the tradition of composing Kunstmärchen, literary fairy tales, began in earnest with the dawn of the Romantic Age in Germany. Tieck, Novalis, Chamisso, de la Motte Fouquè and, most prominently, E.T.A. Hoffmann formed a trend, followed up by other romantically moved minds such as Charles Nodier. During the repressive atmosphere and censorship of European Restauration’s Congress System after the wars ended in 1815, literary fairy tales often were writers’ vanishing point as well, instinctively and romantically, Wilhelm Hauff’s and Hans Christian Andersen’s, who came up with some rather ambiguous “once upon a time”-stories under the influence of Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Who, promethically instigated to rebellion and lead by example anyway.

Harry Clarke "The Nightingale" (1916)

There is more to Hans Christian Andersen than literary fairy tales. He wanted to become a dancer at first, then an actor, struggling with his humble origins as son of a cobbler and an alcoholic washerwoman from Odense, an ugly duckling indeed, with barely an education to speak of, who had dreams of becoming a swan one day. He thirsted for baking in the limelight and he did, finally, after discovering his knack for storytelling in his late teens. Initially, he was at least as successful with novels, poems and travelogues as he was with his fairy tales and he found his patrons, his niche as something of a curiosity among the better classes of Denmark and his fame as an author already during his life and times. But his fairy tales stand out. As literary treatments and dreamwork, processing his many fears and imagined shortcomings as well as his wishful thinking into artificial archetypes firmly enshrined in Western thinking, from the lesson taught by the cheeky nipper in “The Emperor’s New Cloths”, the grimly poetic fate of the “Little Mermaid” and the sheer beauty of “Thumbelina” appealing to everyone’s inner child, young and old. “His own image; no longer a dark, grey bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg” and even if Andersen himself made himself believe that he was something of an illegitimate grandson of a Danish king along with other bloomers from the neurotic's family romance, he became a swan indeed, graceful and beautiful, whose song is sung in more than 125 languages across the globe.

Harry Clarke "The Hindu Maid" (1916)

Harry Clarke's full set of illustrations for Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales from the 1916 edition, including the downright psychedelic colour plates can be wondered and marvelled at here:

[philosophyofrachel]

#naclyoho day 14:

I have a few big tasks I’ve been meaning to tackle/don’t want to tackle…

- so instead I removed the old wired-in doorbell, taped the wires, shoved them back into the wall and put a coat of thin-set over the hole

- wrapped a slowly leaking tap with the self-sealing silicon tape since I had it out to wrap the electrical wires from the doorbell

- made an amazing toasted sandwich with leftover roast lamb, strawberry and black pepper jam*, and cheddar

* The Old Maid by Byron Bay Jams. I bought it cause the name made me laugh, last time I was in Byron, but it’s delicious