#earnest hemingway cat

[stricklandvintagewatches]

Ernest Hemingway on the steps of his Cuban estate Finca Vigia, nuzzling one of his beloved polydactyl cats; San Francisco de Paula, circa 1954.

[penguins-united]

Books read in 2022!!

rereads are italicized, favorites are bolded

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

2. Boxers by Gene Luen Yang

3. Saints by Gene Luen Yang

4. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

5. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

6. Immortal Poems of the English Language by Oscar Williams

7. Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway

8. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

9. Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix by JK Rowling

10. The Dead by James Joyce

11. Soldiers Three by Richard Kipling

12. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

13. Richard iii by William Shakespeare

14. Balcony of Fog by Rich Shapiro

15. All Systems Red by Martha Wells

16. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

17. I have no mouth and I must scream by Harlan Ellison

18. Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

19. The moment before the gun went off by Nadine Gordimer

20. The importance of being earnest by Oscar Wilde

21. A farewell to arms by Ernest Hemingway

22. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

23. Rules for a knight by Ethan Hawke

24. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling

25. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

26. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

27. Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins

28. Highly Irregular by Arika Okrent

29. The Green Mile by Stephen King

30. The Swan Riders by Erin Bow

31. The King’s English by Henry Watson Fowler

32. The Truelove by Patrick O’Brian

33. The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett

34. The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O’Brian

35. The Commodore by Patrick O’Brian

36. An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

37. Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill

38. The Disaster Area by JG Ballard

39. The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi

40. Wicked Saints by Emily A Duncan

41. The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh

42. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

43. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

44. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

45. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

46. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

47. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

48. Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

49. Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

50. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

51. Confessions of St. Augustine by St. Augustine of Hippo

52. Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett

53. The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O’Brian

54. Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre

55. The Russian Assassin by Jack Arbor

56. The ones who walk away from Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin

57. Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling

58. The Iliad by Homer

59. The Treadstone Transgression by Joshua Hood

60. The Hundred Days by Patrick O’Brian

61. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead by Tom Stoppard

62. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

63. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

64. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (unknown)

65. Persuasion by Jane Austen

66. The Outsiders by SE Hinton

67. Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

68. The Odyssey by Homer

69. Dead Cert by Dick Francis

70. The Oresteia by Aeschylus

71. The Network Effect by Martha Wells

72. All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays by George Orwell

73. This is how you lose the time war by Amal El-Mohtar

74. The Epic of Gilgamesh (unknown author)

75. The Republic by Plato

76. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

77. On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

78. Ere the Cock Crows by Jens Bjornboe

79. Mid-Bloom by Katie Budris

80. Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O’Brian

81. 21 by Patrick O’Brian

82. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

83. Battle Cry by Leon Uris

84. Devils by Fyodor Dostoevsky

85. The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud

86. The Door in the Wall by HG Wells

87. Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad by MR James

88. The Birds and Don’t Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier

89. The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher

90. Blackout by Simon Scarrow

91. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

92. No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre

93. The Open Society and its Enemies volume one by Karl Popper

94. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

95. The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir

96. The Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease

97. The things they carried by Tim O’Brien

98. A very very very dark matter by Martin McDonagh

99. The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A Hayek

100. The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh

101. A Skull in Connemara by Martin McDonagh

102. The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh

103. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

104. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

105. The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth

106. Things have gotten worse since we last spoke and other misfortunes by Eric LaRocca

107. Each thing I show you is a piece of my death by Gemma Files

108. Different Seasons by Stephen King

109. Dracula by Bram Stoker

110. Inker and Crown by Megan O’Russell

111. Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis

112. Killers by Patrick Hodges

113. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

114. The Rise and Reign of Mammals by Stephen Brusatte

115. Any Means Necessary by Jack Mars

116. The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche

117. In A Glass Darkly by J Sheridan le Fanu

118. Collected Poems by Edward Thomas

119. The Longer Poems by TS Eliot

120. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

121. The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

122. The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche

123. Choice of George Herbert’s verse by George Herbert

[socialpermadeath]

So far, cat names we've come up with are:

Seven of Nine (we like star trek here)

Polly (she's a polydactyl cat, extra toes)

Ernestine (polydactyl cats are sometimes called Earnest Hemingway cats because he collected them)

Breakfast Sausage (just a good cat name)

Chorizo the Cat (another one from the brother half a country away)

Lucky (dad's up in the air pick based on the fact we rescued her)

Now personally I like Seven and Breakfast Sausage because they're both "weird" cat names but I'll reach out to my coworkers for help picking.

[vimesbootstheory]

hoorah, I finished the final book from the 41-50 range so I’m posting two of these today. here are some thoughts on books 41-50, as I continue to read along with the overdue podcast.

1. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

2. Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

3. You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers

4. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

5. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

6. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

7. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

8. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens -- In terms of pure enjoyment, this would have ranked higher, but I've been shamed into putting it slightly lower. It's a morally simplistic, rushed, psychologically unrealistic story but dammit I do not care! I loved this. It's genuinely so funny, I laughed throughout. Also, I love a redemption arc, and this is one of THE ultimate redemption stories. I think one of the themes I'm noting while pursuing this reading project is that I'm embracing happy endings big-time. Also, love the anti-capitalist themes. It's insane how people are still throwing around "overpopulation" in classist arguments when Dickens already murdered that argument back in 1840-something.

9. Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell -- Oh, the aesthetic, though! This made me want to dive into Ozark noir in a big way. I loved Ree Dolly, she's very much My Type of female character, I love scrappy women surviving poverty and being a lil butch about it and cramming an assload of determinator vibes into a tiny package. Her unreservedly affectionate friendship with Gail made me smile many times. The language was compelling without being distracting; a random favourite quirk is how it uses adjectives & verbs as nouns in reference to environmental features, e.g. referring to (I believe) melting snow as "melt". The brutality of it was great, it tread a very fine line for me where brutality against a female character can very easily veer into misogynistic and far too difficult to witness, but in this story the way it was depicted (combined with the fact that Ree is brutalized by women, not men) made it empowering to see her live through something horrific and survive. The gruesome details of, e.g. the fact that she shit herself while being beaten, and the tactile sensations when she was pulling [spoiler] up through the water, and the hunting of squirrels, that got me all snips-n-snails-n-puppy-dog-tails enthusiastic.

10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

11. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

12. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

13. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

15. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

16. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J Gaines

17. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

18. Dracula by Bram Stoker -- It's been months since I read this book (I forgot to write down my impressions at the time) but I think I can still properly attest to my opinion of it. I was expecting a much simpler story, and I was expecting it to be more laden with cliches, which would not have been the book's fault at all since it would have been the birthplace of all those cliches, but it would have been boring to read. Instead, Dracula ended up being a totally solid read, and it's given me a thorough understanding of what makes it iconic gothic literature. It does kinda feel like multiple books smushed together, in particular the first section at Dracula's castle feels so separate from everything else (and, I will say, it was my favourite part of the book... always a bummer when enjoyment peaks early). I really liked the two female leads and their friendship, though I'm not a fan of what happens to Lucy and how little it seems to affect her best friend. Anyway, solid read, spooky in a lovely familiar way, I liked it and I get why it's beloved.

19. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway -- This was an oddly comfy book to read, for me, which might not have been what was intended but that's OK. It's very short and light on plot and you can definitely see all the conflict coming -- like, if you're not going to bring the fish on board, and you're in the ocean, of course shark are going to show up? I don't fish but is that not something you have to account for regularly? I enjoyed all his reflections on DiMaggio and his bone spurs, and the wistful, one-sided communication between him and the fish he regrets pursuing even as the pursuit continues. Also, the relationship between the old man and the boy is really heartwarming, and I love that the town he lives in is ultimately so supportive, I don't know why but I assumed that they would treat the old man poorly. Reminded me of all the most grounded bits of Life of Pi, in a good way.

20. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

21. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

22. World War Z by Max Brooks

23. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut -- So, I'm very annoyed with myself about this one, because I forgot that I had not written up a blurb about Cat's Cradle until months after I finished it, and so much as happened since then (I finished it in 2019, at time of writing we are over two months into the 2020 covid-19 pandemic) that I legitimately had to google Cat's Cradle to remind myself what the plot was. So I definitely am not going to remember minutiae that impacted my opinion one way or the other. I remember it feeling very surreal, and the post-apocalyptic ending is very sudden. It has a lot of novel ideas and some approaches to philosophy that make me feel a bit too young (or just the wrong generation, more accurately) to really Get It. It was certainly novel, though, and passably fun. I'm so annoyed 'cause I'm sure I had Thoughts at the time but they're just gone.

24. Eddie and the Cruisers by P.F. Kluge

25. The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr & E.B. White

26. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

27. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre

28. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw -- I love a story about class conflict, with a URL like “vimesbootstheory” how could it be otherwise. This did not gel with me as much as it should, though, simply because it took too long for me to figure out what the play was trying to say, essentially whether it was condemning Eliza or Higgins. Probably due to its many adaptations, I had been expecting Eliza and Higgins to get together in the end, so I was very arresteddevelopmentgoodforher.jpg about the actual conclusion to the story. That bit at the very end where Higgins is all, nah I heard what she said but she’s totally going to do my chores anyway, she’s just putting on a front... blegh. Fuck Higgins, fuck everything about that character, and fuck him for making phonetics look bad. That’s another thing, ooh. When I first started reading this I was anticipating much more time spent on the process of teaching Eliza how to “speak properly”. I was under the mistaken impression that “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” was from Pygmalion, rather than My Fair Lady. And not gonna lie, I was a little excited to see this kind of proto-speech language pathology (though not pathological, since there is nothing pathologically wrong with having an accent suggestive of a lower class background) process play out in play form. Hell, I’d have taken any form of actual phonetics discussion. I was pretty disappointed when that whole process was completely skipped over, to be honest. Felt like a cop-out.

29. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

30. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe -- Let's be honest, it's weird that this is even on this list. Why not a collected works of Poe's poems, or a selection of his stories? No? Just the one poem? Uh, OK. Look, it's a good poem. Love the metre, love the rhyming. Love the idea of this guy who knows perfectly well that the bird only ever says "nevermore" but he keeps asking it questions to which "nevermore" is a hurtful and/or infuriating answer. That's all I got.

31. Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers -- I group this one together in my head with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as they are both children's books that were adapted by superior films and honestly, if you have a choice between the movie and the book, I would recommend the movie. This is also spoiled a bit by Travers' legacy of being a grumpy guss, even though her enemy was Disney and we're all learning these days that "ugh fuck Disney" is a valid take. Mary Poppins is better than Oz in that it has more book-exclusive content so there's more novelty to it than just reading a novelization of the movie, but worse in that Poppins, like her creator, is a grumpy guss. Her vanity was also really irritating to read about, like why do we have to condemn women for liking their own appearance?

32. Dune by Frank Herbert

33. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum

34. Tiny Alice by Edward Albee

35. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

36. Medea by Euripides

37. Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

38. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

39. The War of The Worlds by HG Wells

40. Don't Go Back to School by Kio Stark

41. The Awakening by Kate Chopin -- I compared this to Persuasion while reading it, since it's another old-timey romance where not a lot happens and the prose is pretty boring. Edna is more likeable than Anne, however, and the lengths she goes to claim the sort of agency that I take for granted every day is a pleasant surprise at times. Love that she had the balls to just fuckin move out and she doesn't suffer any violence from her husband as a result. Love how she's just like, I'm discovering independence and the first thing I wanna do is stay up past my bed time in this hammock outside. It felt like Edna aspired to... my life, basically? Which was validating, in a way. But then she kills herself, and kind of undercuts that whole thing. Seriously, what an abrupt and weird ending, I actually looked up a plot summary afterwards because I was so thrown when I got to the end, that it was actually the end. Didn't entirely understand what had happened to Robert, or that she had committed suicide until I clarified it with some external sources. By that point I was pretty bored, though, so that's partly just me letting details escape me through inattention.

42. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

43. The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

44. The Stand by Stephen King

45. Grendel by John Gardner

46. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

47. Persuasion by Jane Austen

48. Beowulf by Unknown

49. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

50. Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James -- I was not looking forward to writing this little reaction blurb because once I got over my reader's block about 1/6th of the way in, reading fifty shades wasn't the worst reading experience? Like don't get me wrong, it was bad, but it was bad in an entertaining way. And I don't think it's accurate to say that I didn't have any interest in knowing what was going to happen next? So I was pretty worried that the dread fifty shades would end up embarrassingly high up this list, at least higher than The Stand (the other contender for Book It Took Me The Longest To Read Because Anger). Thankfully, in these little blurbs I've taken care to note things I found valuable about even the books I did not care much for, and nope, Fifty Shades really does belong at the bottom. I think its most grievous overarching issue is the gap between author intent and what's actually on the page. If this were actually a narrative about a sheltered young woman escaping a relationship with an abuser who confuses abuse with an interest in BDSM, that would accomplish partial forgiveness. But it isn't, so it doesn't. I've already mentioned this in another post but I can't get over this -- why does Anastasia not know anything about technology in the 2010s? Why did she wait so long to get a computer and an email address? Also, if I never read the phrasing "all [noun] and [noun]" as a descriptor again it will be too soon.

[michelo-thedreamer]

Begging Ernest’s Forgiveness

Saturday, February 5, 2022

In my previous blog I was found guilty of a literary sacrilege: I errantly criticized Hemmingway on his seeming oversight of writers’ rules that apparently bind the rest of us.  Having visited Hemingway’s Key West, Florida home this past week and having discussed the matter with a self-described Hemingway scholar, I have journeyed into a status of contrition.  I thereafter begged forgiveness from Hemmingway’s ghost.  I should also add that several of the in-residence polydactyl cats snarled vociferously at me whilst I entered the house in an unrepentant state.

The wise scholar who, when I explained my proudly ignorant position, laughed and brushed my student earnestness (pun intended) aside,  He explained that many if not most of Hemingway’s early works did, indeed, “follow the rules.”  It wasn't until the author found his voice as a writer that he escaped the rough shackles that bind us in our learning and submissive years.

I departed a forgiven soul, assured that the cats had resumed their earlier slumber upon Ernest’s experienced bed.

A student’s lessons learned, eh?

[floggingink]

OH HERE WE GO LADIES IT’S RIVERDALE, CHAPTER EIGHTY: “Purgatorio”

I’m tuning in to be VERY entertained on the grounds that I missed almost the entirety of S4 and will not understand anything

we open with an incredible analogue comparing the football team to the Army, as men do construct rituals: football players get blown into the sky, etc., in a heartrending mash-up of Archie’s innocence + the American ideal/expectations/pipeline of masculinity

Archie Company is decked out appropriately to storm Hürtgen Forest

that art direction trope where a character’s hearing goes EEEEEEEEEEEEEE after an explosion……...delightful

the Vixens and friends cheering him on from the sidelines as if Archie can only process his unprocessable present through the lens of his past………...hits the spot

distressingly wood-based rifles for our purposes

Archie > Dawson: I don’t mind telling you I felt emotion upon Archie hoisting his war buddy over his shoulders to that quadruple-toned “Chivalric Archie Using His Strength for Good” tune, like when he broke his whole hand busting Cheryl out of Sweetwater River

WHEN HE SAW HIRAM LODGE, I’M TELLING YOU! 

Hiram’s dragon-scale gloves? absolutely savory; he would

“Yonkers” is one of those New York place names I don’t totally buy is real (Poughkeepsie is another)

the sepia-toned light in this hospital room rings true judging by all the Captain America fanfiction I’ve read; I also like the mint-colored hand towels draped on Archie’s bedframe bought, one assumes, using the Department of Defense’s Kohl’s Cash

Archie made Sergeant, which is the best ranking for a fictional character: important enough that they can be a leader, get into trouble; low-profile enough that you don’t have to write them in the room making terrible decisions; probably won’t die immediately, as a Captain or Private might be

Fifth period is AP English: Archie reads A Farewell to Arms to Corporal Jackson, a WWI novel by Hemingway that Jug definitely turned him onto

Christ, Archie looks good in that on-leave jacket thing

I like Jackson’s subtle graph paper-print hospital gown

Gay?!: was Jackson in love with Archie? is he gonna bus to Riverdale once he’s off his pain meds? RAS, is that you in there?

God you know I love that haunted-ass Exorcist wooden bench bus light lighting

how long has the WW been relocated under Pop’s??? I do NOT know what happened to La Bonne Nuit

Sexy, aesthetic Southside: Fangs’ hair? his Tony Stark glasses? the girls’ “I’m a Slave 4 U” Burmese pythons? Toni’s headdress and immaculate glossed lip? 

Sixth period is Intro to Film: the only part of From Dusk till Dawn I’ve seen is Salma Hayek putting her toe in Quentin Tarantino’s mouth but judging from that I figure I’d like the rest 

The female gaze: Jesus Sweet Pea still looks good

Toni’s stage is flanked by twin pillars of melting candles and I would like someone to track those down for my bathroom

if they lay one hand on Pop Tate…

Betty appears to be, on her own, running the FBI training course. Betty is such a freak

Betty’s FBI-appointed psychologist is “Dr. Starling,” wears a great yellow blouse; Betty eats what appears to be a mini-sized Milky Way

her blond FBI trainer-boyfriend (uh) Glen appears to be an unholy fusion of Jimmi Simpson and that one actor with brown hair and really sharp light eyes whose acting credits I can’t think of right now, you know who I’m talking about (not the guy from Vampire Diaries)

I quite like her patterned blouse and I hate his yellow (gold?!) and blue tie

Please protect Betty: obviously we stan the Silence of the Lambs shit even as it remains infuriating Bryan Fuller couldn’t get his hands in it

Betty’s cat’s crying was so disturbingly baby-like that I had to leave the room once I realized it was in fact a cat

I’ve watched the Elisa Lam tape too many times in recent hours to handle this hallway shot

REALLY GROSS LICKING NOISES

the Trash Bag Killer coming at her was scary :(

Betty’s lovely blue knit cardi with the puffed sleeves!

50 Shades of Betty: clearing her throat before the doctor quite finishes her sentence—Lili Reinhart continues to be great at conveying “slightly perturbing subterranean tension”

was Charles a serial killer too??? oh damn!

Betty has been successfully holding off giving Glen a key to her place until now, an era that must come to a close

fellas, “Do I at least get a kiss?” is a bad move

Veronica was rich: Veronica’s new digs: exposed brick, bougiely avant-garde chandelier; possibly an elevator door right there behind the dude?

Veronica has married Hiram, to no one’s surprise

Chadwick looks like Jimmi Simpson and brunet Evan Peters plus a jaw

Veronica’s single-puffled-sleeved gown…..madamn (she has absolutely been taking secret birth control pills)

Summer + Blair = Veronica: of course Veronica would be great at Howard Ratner’s job; I MUST know what “specialty showcase haute couture offense” Vinnie has committed

T-Dubbs’ green jacket

Veronica pretended she was working at like, a department store? but she MISSED the EDGE post-day-trading

their apartment is so expensive that their bedroom is totally exposed

oh my god, Hermione

Best costume bit: please get me these satiny green high-waisted slacks?! and ugh her blouse has shoulder tassels……..she’s flourishing

“That’s threatening to an alpha like Chad.”

yes, they have a private elevator. fine.

Glen and Chad get their ties from the same Men’s Warehouse

“When that helicopter went down on the way to Martha’s Vineyard…”

you know kissing is 4-real when one person cups their hand to the back of the other person’s neck all close

I don’t understand the drop of the Glamergé egg but I appreciate that there is one and that Veronica is like, get this the fuck out of my house

Veronica’s shiny cropped tweed two-piece, Yvonne’s weird feathery coat that matches her bf’s shirt (you know she’s supposed to be “too much” because she’s got big hoop earrings)

God, Jughead is next and I’m not gonna be able to handle it

OH GOD IT’S SO MUCH WORSE THAN I THOUGHT

Alphabet City?! the piano?? the fucking East Coast Beat typewriter shit—the day robe? I’m—READING CLUBMASTERS? FORSYTHE???

OH GOD HE’S DATING ANOTHER WRITER (she has nice pants)

Jughead eats: “that place you like” is a HOT DOG STAND in the middle of SOME GRASS

I’ve seen Brick like thirty times: Jughead wears high-ankle light blue jeans, grey socks, and spectators that blend to create the illusion of wading boots. I’m going to commit a crime

Jughead doubts it: “So did Kerouac. And Hemingway. And Fitzgerald.” 

fuck yes I love Floundering Jughead, and his Pushy Agent who pronounces “career” like “Korea,” and the continuing tradition of Jughead getting kicked out of his house

I like Literary Grifter’s sweater

the Brat Pack, and most of the Rat Pack for that matter, were actors, but I assume RAS couldn’t resist the rhyme 

I was 100% afraid we were about to learn Cora was an uncomfortably-young undergrad

the musical cue as she reaches into her bag is absolutely as if she’s taking out a gun, and it might as well be! it’s the scariest thing in NYC: an unpublished manuscript

showrunners doing a classic I Love Lucy job partially concealing Vanessa Morgan’s pregnancy via medium close-ups, draping black clothes

Cheryl slowly turning to ask if doesn’t she look okay 10/10 icon

Cheryl’s pins: she has either a tiny spider or maybe a tick

Cheryl’s sheaths: the lacy red thing, amazing

why is Cheryl’s left hand gloved?

Cheryl’s a chaos angel from hell: Cheryl’s going to forge a Rembrandt, which unfortunately means she’s my favorite person on the planet (she does not look happy about doing this)

btw is Nana Rose an Immortal?

please tell me about Toni’s eyelashes

EXTREMELY HAUNTED DOLL?!

“Damn good coffee”: Archie’s earnest “Where are people gonna sit for the bus?” slayed me

fuck YEAH Ghoulies party house! terrible music but really good skull spray paint art

Jug looks LOW lol

Veronica’s blouse + buttons, impeccable

I’m writing a scene where it’s gay.: Tabitha/Squeaky

the hellscape semi’s red backlighting and its skeleton’s red eyes

I like Linette’s glossy bomber!

the trucker who’s about to kill her can’t also be the Trash Bag Killer….truckers have to stick to too much of a schedule….but he could be Betty’s meandering serial

I loved this episode

NEXT WEEK: Archie brings the FBI down on some people paying their rent :(

[roughspace]

[kentuckyanarchist]

There are few albums as bipolar as Boys and Girls in America—few that combine euphoria and aching nostalgic sadness in the same way, and fewer still that do it both masterfully and in absolute earnest. The Hold Steady’s third record greets you right from the start with a double motion: the album cover, all kids with hands in the air, hot pink with confetti flying (“up to yr neck in the sweat and wet confetti” as “Most People Are DJs,” from Almost Killed Me, had it), cuts against the very first line, where Craig Finn riffs on Jack Kerouac to affirm: “boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.” Kerouac evinced the same bipolarity in On the Road, and Hemingway too, Steinbeck too, not to mention Dylan, not to mention Springsteen—it’s part and parcel of a particular kind of American lyrical masculinity that likes to bellow and wail about its sensitive seriousness. Writers in this tradition—and Finn, whose first four Hold Steady albums approach flawlessness, is among the very best of them—plumb the unchartable depths of sorrow that provide everyday hedonism with its uneasy foundation. They give voice to a pain that can’t be outrun no matter how hard their characters try, one that catches them up in solitary moments and/or comes to suffuse whole segments of lives.

It was a feature, no doubt, of Almost Killed Me, the Hold Steady’s debut from 2004; it was unavoidably present in Separation Sunday (2005), their high-concept dramatisation of that line from “Thunder Road” about waiting “for a saviour to rise from these streets”. But on Boys and Girls songs like “Hot Soft Light” pummel you with it: the drunken reassurances and unsubtle heavy metal references of the verses cascade into the nightlife typology of the chorus, where all possible encounters are reducible to ideal types, “the guys / with the wild eyes when they ask to get you high” and “the girls / that’ll come to you with comfort in the night.” “Hot” and “soft”, such a simple pair of monosyllables, do all sorts of work here: they’re a mellow high before it becomes a problem (“it came on hot and soft / and then it tightened up its tentacles”); they’re a callback to the summing-up of human existence as just “hot soft spots on a hard rock planet” (“Most People Are DJs” again); and, when the title drops in the final line, they’re the body and the blood, Christ himself at the centre of the cross. In other hands counterposing religious ecstasy with drug-induced euphoria might seem pat, or at least like a failed attempt to shock; in Finn’s it seems entirely sincere.

Songs like “First Night” trade in a kind of nostalgia that’s not without its darkness and drama. More than almost any other Hold Steady song “First Night” runs off of Franz Nicolay’s keyboards, but there’s vastly more there too, in the strings and backing vocals especially. In the quadrumvirate of characters (not forgetting the narrator), Holly aka Hallelujah aka the central character of Separation Sunday is central, and she’s still in rough shape. The flashforward from that first night, when Holly “slept like she’d never been scared”, to last night, with Holly disconsolate and trembling, echoes in the shaking keyboards, over which the album title becomes a mantra in falsetto. At which point Finn, who from Lifter Puller days is well-acquainted with the art of the sneer and the snarl, intercedes: “don’t bother talking to the guys with their hot soft eyes”—those two adjectives for the last time—“you know they’re already taken.” All of which is not to forget that in the phrase “she was golden with barlight and beer”, “First Night” also coins the most beautiful ever way of saying “she looked hot when I was drunk.”

Songs like “Party Pit” take up the mantle of ceaseless mobility from Kerouac (the tradition Deleuze describes in which “everything is departure, becoming, passage, leap, daemon, relationship with the outside”) and run with it, juxtaposing a wayward narrator with an old friend who never escaped the vicissitudes of the teen scene. (As a 16-year-old I cycled home most nights across the Carter Bridge, over the railway just north of Cambridge railway station, and the line about crossing “that Grain Belt Bridge / into bright new Minneapolis” became wrapped up with that quotidian experience. I don’t know if “bright new Minneapolis” is a joke or just a conscious bit of mythmaking—I’ve never been to Minneapolis but I don’t see it as a city with lights so bright they can be seen glittering from above—but the image resonates nonetheless. And for the record: you’ll find lyrics sites saying the line’s “brand new Minneapolis,” but it’s not. Listen to this version.) Finn’s narrator’s been away to school and come back (“to start a band, of course”) but the heroine’s stayed put, “pinned down at the party pit,” stuck going round and round in circles, “gonna walk around, gonna walk around, gonna walk around and drink.” The party’s the site and source of sadness here and getting away’s jinxed too: coming home’s a bittersweet endeavour as much because of what’s stayed the same as what’s different.

And “Stuck Between Stations”, with its unpromising source material, its dated central metaphor, its shoehorning of a guilty-pleasure or problematic-fave author (as John Darnielle’s said—Darnielle being a man who knows his Berryman and knows his Hold Steady—the “sometimes in blackface” of Berryman’s Henry worries away at any too-friendly reading of that sad Minneapolis bard). It might not be the best Hold Steady song but it might be the one that most overtly strives for grandiosity in a Springsteenian mould, it might be the one that succeeds most evidently at making a bold statement that finds a way to hit home regardless of one’s circumstances. And the album’s clearest statement of ambivalence and bittersweetness is in the “buts” of its chorus: Berryman, at the time he took flight, we learn, “was drunk and exhausted but he was critically acclaimed and respected / he loved the Golden Gophers but he hated all the drawn out winters / he likes the warm feeling but he’s tired of all the dehydration / most nights were kind of fuzzy but that last night he had total retention.” Strung out but at least having made something of oneself—at home but not all year round—finding the booze sometimes a chore—and sometimes somehow glorious! It’s all there.

Lyrically, I wonder if this is achieved through a sort of wilful mythologisation. Berryman, after all, probably didn’t really love the Golden Gophers, but why not flesh out his story with the claim that he did? “How a Resurrection Really Feels,” from Separation Sunday, delves into its heroine’s despair but also zooms out to describe the graffiti tributes made to her by other unnamed characters—to show her story’s a legendary one in its own universe too. Once again Springsteen got there first, this time in “Highway Patrolman,” which invents a whole fictional town and county, and a slow dance for the characters to wax nostalgic about, all in order to build a world in the song and thereby make something somehow universal. Across all the Hold Steady albums the same characters recur in different (not always that different) predicaments, but their stories never totally cohere. They have the feel, at times, of characters in your peripheral vision or even on the edge of a dream, cohering to make certain points then splintering once more. The stuff of strange, half-true legends.

And then there’s the god question. Finn doesn’t just see love, or hope, or beauty, or tenacity “in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers” (in “Citrus”), he feels Jesus there—and in so doing captures a sort of lowdown American pantheism found from Emerson to the Beats, not to mention in the final scene of Bruce Almighty. The particular form that the mystical takes in “Chips Ahoy” is not the same form it took in most of Separation Sunday, but in the narrative of the girl with a sixth sense for winning racehorses it’s there nonetheless. Even the stuttering puh-puh-puh assonance of “pinned down at the party pit” conceals a deification metaphor, its martyress fastened tight to the scene—as Lifter Puller more bluntly put it, she’s “nailed to the nightlife like Christ on the cross.” (As a disbelieving teenager I had a disproportionate number of Christian friends, I guess I was drawn to people who believed in things. It’s possible I thought I had something similar in certain bands, certain songs.) God, in America today, is as fiercely contested signifier as everything else, but it’s clear that the omnipresent God of Boys and Girls is also a personal God, not to mention a lenient, ecumenical one.

Boys and Girls met me at a particular time in my life, a couple of years after it was released, in summer 2008, which is probably the biggest part of the reason it’s stuck with me (other texts are sepia-shaded for the same reason: Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, the first Conor Oberst solo album). The rest of the first four Hold Steady albums are probably just as good, but this one works in certain ways that set it apart. It’s less cynical than Almost Killed Me, less weary than Separation Sunday, less nostalgic than Stay Positive, and more holistic than all of them. It turns out that the holism and the bipolarity amount to the same thing.

[roundtheworldwithtaytay]

Our last day.  Bittersweet, but again I miss my cat and i can’t wait to get home.  Today we will finish up strong with several monuments.  First off though is a climb to the top of St. Jacques Tower.

The tower  is all that remains of the former 16th-century Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie ("Saint James of the butchers"), which was demolished in 1797, during the French Revolution, leaving only the tower.  300 steps, but again if you give us steps we are going to climb it.

Now... I booked the French tour so for the most of the tour we have no idea what is being told to us, but I looked up the history of the tower so we aren’t that concerned. 

Finally we get to the top.  Since Tam is not going to get to climb the Notre Dame Towers I wanted to give her something similar and this is it.  The views are spectacular and from the tower we can see our next stop Centre Pompideau.  We head to the bottom of the tower and head off for some modern art.

Centre Pompideau, but first I want to look up some Banksy Art that is on a street sign nearby.  DAMN!!!  Someone cut it out.  {later I would find out that this was done 2 weeks prior to our visit}.

We visit some Warhols, Kandinsky’s, Otto Dix, Chagall, Picasso, Duchamp, and Pollock to name a few in the Modern wing and then head down to the Contemporary Wing.  I step into what seems like A Clockwork Orange and find plenty of interesting works, my favorite being a live ear bud installation by Maya Dunietz called “Thicket.”  It really speaks to me on so many levels.  Here is a link to see a video of it.  Facinating.

https://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/agenda/event.action?param.id=FR_R-ee6db28832ac918dc4d9e4987b242b8¶m.idSource=FR_E-ee6db28832ac918dc4d9e4987b242b8

Next we head down to the ile de la cite, my favorite and least favorite part of Paris.  Favorite in that it is absolutely beautiful, but least favorite in that it is swarming with tourists.  First to see the Sainte Chapelle’s gorgeous stained glass windows, but before then even a well deserved beer and some frites.

We go to a very busy bar.  The one waiter is extremely busy and I fear we miss our chance to order as he ask Tammy if she is ready and she doesn’t answer.  He’s off.  Finally we catch him a second time.  We order a couple beers and some frites and watch Paris pass us by.  Well actually watch some policemen pass us by.  We finish up and head to the church.

Sainte Chapelle is as beautiful as I remember.  The stained glass is just exquisite.  Easily one of the most beautiful building’s in Paris and you could just as easily walk just past it because it is behind many buildings.

We finish and head to the Conciergerie (where Marie Antoinette spent her final days).  They are actually setting up for a Marie Antoinette exhibit so much of the building is under construction.  Still it is interesting to see.

Finally we make our way to, “the best sorbet in the world,” Berthillon, passing by the heavily quarantined, Notre Dame on the way.  We’ll see about this, “best,” claim..  I get a toasted pineapple and blood orange scoop.  Tam gets a cassis scoop and we head out.  I’m here to tell you that it is legit the best sorbet I’ve ever tasted in my life.  We polish them off quite quickly.

We walk along the Seine and onto a bridge where we take in the back of Notre Dame.  Then down by the bouquinistas (book stalls) which line the Seine.  I stop to talk to one owner and he tells me how he watched Notre Dame burn.  I told him that I usually get a rosary, when I notice that he has an old one for sale.   These bouquinistas are known for old books, but I wasn’t expecting the rosary.  It seems perfect so I purchase it and move on.

We head to Shakespeare and company where I think I may buy a Oscar Wilde or Earnest Hemingway book.  Or perhaps some french poetry?  Baudelaire? 

"You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. ... ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish." - Charles Baudelaire

I look all around and settle on a very small book about a rat.  It seems very fitting and I like it a lot.  I grab it and a couple book bags for some friends and we decide to go next door for a couple salads and glasses of wine.

After we are full I determine that we can make it to a quick trip to the Louvre.  I more want Tam to see the building rather than any art work, but I determine that we can do a quick, “greatest hits,” which includes my favorite sculpture, “Psyche revived by Cupid’s Kiss.” 

Throughout this visit we quote Chevy Chase in Vacation, except that our, “Big Ben kids, Parliament,” becomes, “Winged Victory kids.  Venus de Milo.  We must pass by them several times while looking for, “Victory leading the People,” which we find when we give up.  Finally we get in line for Mona Lisa.

FIRST ONES HERE!!!  NOT!  We wait in line for about 45 minutes before seeing her.  After we are done we head out.  We have about 30 minutes to catch a Seine boat ride and I can’t find the bus.  Frustrated I quickly hail a cab as I don’t think a bus would get us there in time anyway.

We hop into what must be the most gentlemanly cab ever as he opens our doors, cuts across traffic and maneuvers through what is the craziest traffic I’ve ever seen... and I drove through Avenue de Clichy.  Will we make it?  Yes!  With 4 minutes to spare.  We hop on the boat for a gorgeous view of the city.  We float by the darkened Notre Dame which is a little sad, but otherwise Paris remains one of the most gorgeous cities in the world.

We finish the boat ride and go to look for another bus.  There are no nearby trains.  We find one and let’s just say this guy’s driving reminds us of the time that Freddy Krueger hijacked that schoolbus full of kids.  We start joking that is what has happened, especially since he takes a city size bus across the same traffic/5 to 6 lane roundabout that the cab did, but at twice the speed and 4 times the size.  Somehow we make it to Pigalle and make the trek up to our BnB.  

It’s late and we pack.  I still have our really nice bottle of champagne that we determine that we will drink tonight after packing.  We finish up, open the windows and listen to the Parisians below while having a delicious 2012 Grand Reserve Brut.  The delicate little bubbles tickle our throat.  We drink the last drop and head to bed.

Paris you have been wonderful.  I think I may be done with you.  I am already dreaming of Scotland.   

[cleverwordsandotherstuffilike]

A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It’s a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys. —  Barbara Holland Earnest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Doris Lessing, Mark Twain, Sylvia Plath, Aldous Huxley, William S. Burroughs, Edgar Allan Poe, Hermann Hesse, T. S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Patricia Highsmith, William Butler Yeats, Charles Dickens, Steven King, Jack Kerouac, Edward Gorey, Colette, Truman Capote, W.H. Auden

[daisystudies]

40 summer reading list ideas

looking for something to read over the summer? whether you’re looking for a casual beach read or something to spend all day reading, here’s some of my favorites that I’ve read in past summers.

1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

2. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 

4. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

5. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

6. Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

7. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

8. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

9. The Stranger by Albert Camus

10. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

11. A Moveable Feast by Earnest Hemingway

12. IT by Stephen King

13. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

14. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

15. Animal Farm by George Orwell

16. I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

17. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

18. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

19. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

20. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

21. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 

22. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

23. Diary of an Oxygen Thief by Anonymous

24. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen

25. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

26. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

27. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

28. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

29. Emma by Jane Austen

30. Anna Karenina by Liev Tolstói

31. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

32. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

33. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

34. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 

35. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

36. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

37. The Iliad by Homer

38. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

39. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

40. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead     

i made an ap lit reading list a bit ago which you can find here!

hope you guys enjoy! if you read any of these lmk what you think x 

[owedbcttcr]

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 001:   THE OUTSIDE.

𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: constance ‘connie’ rose kincaid 𝐄𝐘𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐑: dark, warm toned brown 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐘𝐋𝐄 / 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐑:  dark brown, shoulder length and almost always curled so it doesn’t touch her color or rolled up up off her neck and away from her face 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓:  5′1″ 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐓𝐘𝐋𝐄: rich, jewel colors accented with white and earth tones, or vice versa.  clean and classic, with a very 1940s look for anything beyond her main verse.  it’s practical but incredibly feminine, with military pieces thrown in. 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄: her large, expressive eyes

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 002:   THE INSIDE.

𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒: loss of what little family she has, of never gaining more, of being trapped, of drowning, of dying with no one beside her 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐓𝐘 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄: a big cup of vanilla ice cream with hot fudge 𝐁𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐏𝐄𝐓 𝐏𝐄𝐄𝐕𝐄: casual cruelty 𝐀𝐌𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄: to figure out healing from her grief, to maybe reassemble her life and still find someone to live it with

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 003:   THOUGHTS.

𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐔𝐏: getting up and throwing herself through her routine 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓: medical issues and problems, making others comfortable 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐃: sometimes the day ahead, sometimes she slips into memories about bucky.  those are sad nights 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐐𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐒: she thinks its her problem solving skills

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 004:    WHAT’S BETTER ?

𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒: single, though she adores group dates with the right people 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃: loved, as nothing is better 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐑 𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒: in people, brains, though she has a deep love for all things beautiful 𝐃𝐎𝐆𝐒 𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐒: cats, but she loves both

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 005:   DO THEY  …

𝐋𝐈𝐄: more than she’s ever wanted to, but how do you tell a frightened boy he’s dying? 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐒:  if she didn’t, she’d be dead 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄: with all her heart, as painful as it has been 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄:  yes, but she’ll never have him again

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 006:    HAVE THEY EVER  …

𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐄: yes, but only for her music recitals 𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆𝐒: no, not without medical reason 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐍: never.  she always found somewhere that would accept her as she is

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 007:   FAVOURITES.

𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐑: reds and pinks 𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋: the chipmunk 𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊: for whom the bell tolls by earnest hemingway 𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄: tag

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 008:   AGE.

𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄: august third 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐁𝐄: verse dependent

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁 009:    FINISH THE SENTENCE .

𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄: too deeply, or maybe i wouldn’t feel this pain. 𝐈 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋: heavy with the memories i carry. 𝐈 𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄: the trauma because no one needs this burden. 𝐈 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒: him.  just him.  no, all of them.  but most of all him. 𝐈 𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐇: i could go back, if only for a second, if only for a kiss.

𝑻𝑨𝑮𝑮𝑬𝑫 𝑩𝒀: the best @graysistance​ 𝑻𝑨GGING: again, take it if you want it!

[sasstrologyquing]

Writers with your Venus Sign.

• Aries Venus: “There is no greater glory than to die for love.” - Gabriel García Márquez , Love in the Time of Cholera.

• Taurus Venus: “To be together again, after so long, who love the sunny wind, the windy sun, in the sun, in the wind, that is perhaps something, perhaps something.”- Samuel Beckett, Watt.

• Gemini Venus: “In black ink my love may still shine bright.”- William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

• Cancer Venus: “The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”- Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women.

• Leo Venus: “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.”- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.

• Virgo Venus: “My heart is wax molded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.”- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, La Gitanilla El Amante Liberal (Novelas Ejemplares, Obra Completa 6).

• Libra Venus: “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays.

• Scorpio Venus: “The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”- Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

• Sagittarius Venus: “I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.”- Rudyard Kipling, The Cat That Walked by Himself: And Other Stories.

• Capricorn Venus: “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

• Aquarius Venus: “To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.”- Anthony Burgess, Homage To Qwert Yuiop: Essays.

• Pisces Venus: “Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.”-Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Stories and Poems.

[owlaholic68]

1950s Noir Detective AU-What are they reading?

Holy moly a lot of books came out in 1952! Here’s what I think everybody’s been reading:

(Unless otherwise noted, all books came out in 1952.)

First off: The Price of Salt (aka Carol) is constantly being passed around from person to person as they all read and reread it, because in this AU literally everyone is gay/bi. 

Arcade: It’s always been my headcanon that he’s a fast reader, so he’s probably crying over Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) and laughing over The Borrowers (Mary Norton). He also reads the Boxcar Children books sometimes (The Yellow House Mystery, Gertrude Chandler Warner), but finds it a little too close to his own situation.

Henry: Doesn’t have much time to read, but squeezes in some poetry once in a while. He likes Hemingway. 

Judah: Loves scifi. Probably reads all of the Asimov books, though Foundation and Empire is the one that came out in 1952. Also really appreciated Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison) for its discussion of race. 

Daisy: mystery novels! Agatha Christie had a few this year (They Do It With Mirrors is one example) and has been trying to get into some Nancy Drew books. 

Moreno: My headcanon is that he knows french. He’s struggling through Proust’s A la Recherche Du temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time, 1913) and also reads a lot of nonfiction about science and history. 

Johnson: steals everyone else’s books (Arcade not excepted from this, Judah found him reading Horton Hears a Who (1954) once), but prefers exciting fiction stories, even if they are sometimes a little cheesy. His most recent is Black Skin, White Masks (Frantz Fanon). 

BONUS!

Carla- Uhhh The Price of Salt too, of course. Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie books are her guilty pleasures. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde 1954).

Goris- More Isaac Asimov! He likes the robot series a little better than Foundation, especially the Elijah Baley detective stories! He also knows French, so I think he’d be able to find some of Violette Leduc’s books (Ravages 1955, L’affammé 1948). 

Lenny- Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings (1954). What a Fantasy nerd.

Marcus- Lord of the Flies (1954), though he didn’t completely agree with the premise of the book. Borrowed the Lord of the Rings books and loved them. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and now all of them read that book too. 

[thefeedpost]

25 Best Things To Do In Key West (The Conch Republic)

The highlight of the Florida Keys Islands, Key West is situated at the very end of Florida’s Overseas Highway. Here’s what to do in Key West to have an amazing trip. Key west, Florida   Best Things To Do In Key West, Florida! Popular for its sunny days, quirky residents, wild nightlife, pastel colored homes, and beautiful coral reefs — Key West, Florida is the perfect road trip destination from Miami for people looking to escape winter. First explored by Ponce de Leon in 1521, Key West became a US territory in 1822, and has since been an island home to greats like Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. The self-proclaimed Conch Republic is probably the best known island of the Florida Keys. After multiple trips to the Florida Keys, I’ve found that there are many cool things to do in Key West that most people miss… If you’re planning to spend some time in Key West, I wanted to recommend some of my favorite fun and unusual things to do, no matter what time of year you visit. Best Things To Do In Key West Guide 1: Ernest Hemingway House & Cats Earnest Hemingway’s House Built in 1851 in the French Colonial style, the home of the famous author Ernest Hemingway is located near the Key West Lighthouse at 907 Whitehead Street. It was turned into a museum after his passing and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968. Hemingway owned a polydactyl (six-toed) cat named Snow White, given to him by a ship’s captain. Read the full article

[catharticsacrifice]

okay so i accidentally deleted that last post oops

but it turns out i couldn’t fit the whole answer anyway, so here are the tmi asks that denki requested!

1: What are you wearing?

at the time of writing, opaque black over-knee socks with cat ears on them, garters, black shorts, and a poofy/fringey purple button up top!

6: Any tattoos do you want?

the system has actually all agreed on a very specific design with a swirling rainbow tree and a series of butterflies. i intend to upload a version of it here at some point :>

11: Something you miss?

people, mostly, but i am growing close to a handful of people that really mean the world over to me, so at the moment.. i have no serious complaints -v- i suppose at this very moment i miss our mother’s weird casserole.

16: Favorite Quote?

write drunk; edit sober. -earnest hemingway

18: Favorite color?

it’s always a toss up between blue, purple, and red, though i’ve begun to lean more toward lavenders and violet hues.

20: Where do you go when you’re sad?

if i’m home alone, i go sit in the bathtub, but if someone is home i go get timothy (our bear!) and a blanket and curl up in the corner of the couch if i am trying to be inconspicuous.

21: How long does it take you to shower?

5-7 minutes, unless i am very upset

24: Turn on?

biting, scratching, hair pulling, and general bondage -v-

25: Turn off?

unexpected derogatory behaviors

30: Meaning behind your url?

catharsis is the process of releasing and thus finding a relief from strong or repressed emotions- this word originates from the greek word katharos, meaning “pure,” which evolved into kathairein, or “cleanse.” sacrifice stems from both my role in my loveless canon, and the actual word and its connotation. the two meshed up in this way is essentially my way of self-analysis- that i have always felt a sense of joy or relief in offering up what i have to others physically, mentally, and emotionally. while this is something i do not view as negative, i do understand that it may be taken as such.

37: Place you want to visit?

ireland eventually, but california at the moment!!