#crafting a thesis

[corporateintel]

What Does Winning Look Like?

If you’ve ever been in a planning meeting with me, you are familiar with this question: What does winning look like? This is how I like to frame decisions around initiatives we are considering. If we can define success in advance, we will know if we achieve it. If we have no idea what winning looks like before we commit resources to a project, how do we know if it was worth it once we deliver the…

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[dresshistorynerd]

I'm so fucking tired of every book on William Morris or Arts & Crafts Movement in general being like: "William Morris said he's a socialist and yet he ran his design business successfully! Curious! Wasn't it kinda hypocritical to criticise society but also live in society?? Hmm! A lot to think about!"

And they are always soo smug about it. Like he didn't realize that everyone has to still participate in capitalism to survive? Like if you read the things he actually said and wrote he didn't talk about how frustrated he was about the material reality of capitalism, which he had to live in? And like that being a major reason why he in the first place was anti-capitalist????

[badassindistress]

This weekend I have started the rather ambitious project of tatting this yoke from the Priscilla Yoke Book(1916) from the antique pattern library. I'm probably going to change the pattern a bit for my purposes, we'll see how long it takes me to get this somewhere I'm happy with!

[uncanny-tranny]

I just find it very interesting that all the labour classed as lesser (most often seen as "women's labour") becomes indispensable in moments of crisis. It's just interesting to see how quickly people turn to that labour and then discard it in moments of peace or prosperity, devaluing it until another crisis hits.

[san-sebastienne]

Mulling over the “Rocky Road to Dublin” scene in Sinners and how it plays into the discussion of appropriation and assimilation—which is to say, I think the movie was brilliant and complex and I don’t think I have enough brainmeat to pull it apart myself. How this song was purposely framed as a parallel to the ancestors’ dance in the way it used the swoopy camera and audio (I am not a film person). How there was power there too in the way the movie frames music as power, or the whisper of it, but no connection to the ancestors or healing the community as Annie said music could do.

A vampire is dead and can’t be brought back, and its drive is to make everything like itself. Does that mean the power of these songs can only now be used for violence and threat (warning/mocking the people still alive in the juke that they’re surrounded)? Even/especially when it’s a song about ancestral struggle that is becoming the past (WWI did a lot of legwork assimilating the Irish into American whiteness, and antiblack racism has always been used as a tool in America to get other minorities in line—ie telling poor white sharecroppers “at least you aren’t Black”)? When European and white American cultural traditions are used as cudgels and dog whistles for white supremacy (“reject modernity embrace tradition”)—is there any way to rebuild that healing connection, to stop being a vampire?

This is muddled. And I write it understanding that Sinners is a love letter to Black American music, culture, history, stories. That it’s not about the vampires. And also, that Stack gets to listen to Sammie play again.

[legionofpotatoes]

jason beekeper statham you are so so terrible at being a movie but so so good at channeling the incredibly narrow niche of indulgent fantasy wherein arrogant tech bros get karmic justice beaten into them through sheer physical violence. one even tried to plead for his life by offering up an nft collection. truly transcendent filmmaking. biblical levels of schadenfreude

[avas-poltergeist]

it’s rosh hashanah 2024. a young woman stands in her bedroom wishing she could do a sick wheelie.

[eibhlin-dubh]

Bright autumn days & writing & reading

[otrtbs]

do you have pinterest? i can't seem to find you

yes!! i’ve recently reentered my pinterest era ,,, you can find it here !!!

[dayarmor]

cheeky lil rewatch and i forget what an insane dynamic hector and lenore have wow

[raven23anna]

Two days ago I remembered Krabat existed and now I remember how this book had me hooked as a teen in school. The story just sucks you in and I remember being amazed, enchanted and horrified at the same time. I'm amazed that a book like this exists. The analysis options are seemingly endless. There's so much symbolism to umpack. And Wikipedia said Otfried Preußler was processing his time in the Hitler Youth in Krabat and every word I'm thinking how and where? Like what does the magic stand for? What is Lyschko's role and meaning as a snitch ? What's with the war against sweden? Also it's only men in this story and I'm thinking about how that is also important somehow? It's almost like a fraternity kind of situation, with all the rituals involved and I never thought about this but working in manual labor kinda does this to you? Also the dualism between women only communities and men only communities and the dualism between christianity and black magic? Also thinking about work and work communities, the themes of fair work conditions, but also how working closely together can give you a sense of belonging...also the benefits and detriments of strict hierarchy in work communities/organizations. As a person who worked in a kitchen as an apprentice in the hundreds year old german apprenticeship system I appreciate the vague villinification of the boss and the weird emotional dynamics at play. Also how his trauma with the death of his friend resulted in pain and suffering for his apprentices? This book can be interpreted in a socialist way and in a non socialist way, it has so much to say about morals, culture, colonialism, society etc. It has so much to say about emotions, relationship and life, how to handle emotions as a man in a men only setting and how NOT to. It's just not brainy at all you just kinda get it? And it's literally just the german Harry Potter??? And I don't understand why just because of it's simple writing we only read it once in seventh grade and not later because the analysis options are fruitful and endless. I'm literally so impressed by the depth and sheer viceral quality of this book.

[moonsun2010]

This has been on my mind for a long while so I've to ask; for those that use the term "Crew of Light" to refer to the main cast of Dracula, where did you first come across it? As far as I'm aware it originated from Christopher Craft's essay "'Kiss Me with those Red Lips': Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula", where he explains in his endnotes that "This group of crusaders includes Van Helsing himself, Dr. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, and later Jonathan Harker; the title Crew of Light is mine, but I have taken my cue from Stoker: Lucy, lux, light” (130n7).

So, no Mina or Lucy included, but the way I've seen it used here by Dracula Daily peeps is as though the term includes them. I'm guessing its from a Dracula adaptation or something?

[stardustedknuckles]

As a tutor, there's no better catnip than a kid who really wants to get what you're saying. I wasn't too sure about tonight's session bc past note said he disconnected randomly (usually a bad sign, means you didn't do it for them so they left) but as I spent a few minutes sussing out the exact prompt he'd been given and the examples provided, once I started "drawing lines" from the paragraph he'd started to the example, he was fully like "OH. That makes so much sense." And man. There's really no better feeling. It's why I vastly prefer tutoring over teaching in general. Teaching can spread you too thin to get a real lightbulb moment out of someone. You're just there to present the information and check for vague/broad understanding. One on one is where I shine because if the other person is really willing to put their time in, there's nothing I can't connect for them. Feels good. It's why those two years I tutored in college are still my favorite job I've ever had, and it's why I am even considering getting my masters in teaching (and therefore implicitly choosing it as my general life path, if not necessarily in America).

[reiverreturns]

you ever read back a wip and think 'hm yes i've clearly thought about this character a normal hinged amount'