truffledmadness

[truffledmadness]

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

[truffledmadness]

went to an elementaryschool musical production and they started the show with the director saying: "Now there's some very small viewers here today, so just so you know. There will be a scary character later in the show. This is her," and a girl in a kinda scary ghost outfit did a creepy walk across the stage, the stood up straight and did a cheery wave, "but remember, it's just Nina. She's pretending to be scary."

Aaaand i would very much like for horror movies to have that as a little bonus feature you can chose. Let me start a movie with Guillermo del Toro showing me a scary ghost that might jump at me, but don't worry, thats just Doug!

[truffledmadness]

Well, yes. Slavery was a COMPLETELY different thing than the European tradition of live-in servants, in that it was, by definition, involuntary. While yes, both involved rich people wanting to have someone on-call to do shit for them, there's a HUGE difference between someone who is there on-call to do shit because they've been physically and legally forced to, vs. because they think this an acceptable (or even desirable!) job to apply for, interview for, and accept an offer for.

something I was reminded of while watching Roma is the way that kind of servant relationship takes advantage of the blurred line between family status and employee status, demanding (yes) the emotional labour you would expect from a close family member but not reciprocating it, and only allowing the range of emotional expression you would permit a low-ranked employee (bosses can safely flip out, workers cannot).

it’s reminiscent of slave owners having slaves raise their children, taking advantage of this caretaker bond (to their future owners!) without incurring any mutual obligation in return; the kids get the emotional support of people who have known them from infancy, and yet at the same time are very well aware that those people exist purely to serve them and have no say in the matter.

sometimes people ask whether that kind of thing will come back in the future due to increased inequality, and it always seems unlikely to me as we’ve moved past being able to conceptualise class divisions in such a disarmingly frank manner, it has to be cloaked in some kind of crypto meritocracy bullshit.

I don’t think we’ll see a return to live-in servants who are born into that position, but we might see everyone sorted by an app economy that serves to obscure the fact that most people are net sellers on that market while a select group are net buyers, the disembodied engines of the internet intermediating away the fact that you do have a personal driver, he just wears a thousand faces and his name is Uber.

[truffledmadness]

On this day, 1 April 1649, a farmer and writer called Gerrard Winstanley along with a small group of 30 to 40 men and women occupied St. George’s Hill, Watton, Surrey, England and began tilling the land collectively. Over the coming months, numerous local people would join them and for the movement which became known as the Diggers. Winstanley was a Protestant who began to write pamphlets criticising the church which held that “god is in the heavens above the skies”. Instead he argued that god was “the spirit within you”. In a pamphlet published in January 1649 he wrote: “In the beginning of time God made the earth. Not one word was spoken at the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another, but selfish imaginations did set up one man to teach and rule over another.” The politics of the Diggers were a form of proto-communist anarchism, advocating direct action, common ownership and the dissolution of hierarchy. * With this and hundreds of other stories in our book, Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion, available here (or our link in bio on Instagram): https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/working-class-history-everyday-acts-resistance-rebellion-book https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1684629205055556/?type=3

[truffledmadness]

moleskine = bad

[truffledmadness]

Everyone needs their own little positive-energy remora who attaches to their belly and gives them pep-talks. My website – My Instagram - My store

[truffledmadness]

Disabled followers, check this out!

Abled Person: Hey man, can you hold this wad of $2,000 and this one penny for me while I open my wallet?

Disabled Person: YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER FOOL!

The United States Government:

(Watch how many people don’t get this.)

[truffledmadness]

Dr. Tingle is also a friend to the animals, is there anything he can’t do

[truffledmadness]

..... I just remembered the time I got into a fight with someone who said ATLA was bad because it had “jokes aimed at eight year olds” interrupting the stuff about bending or whatever, and they got really mad when I said the show had jokes aimed at eight year olds because it was a children’s show whose creators wanted eight year olds to watch it. I love ATLA, and think the slapstick is endearing, but this person seemed genuinely upset that kids media was designed to be enjoyed by kids. And that seems like part of ... whatever this is.

Marvel Movie Discourse, particularly of the “I don’t even actually like these and yet I must watch them” variety makes me….so uncomfortable.

There’s a certain demographic–generally the later half of millenials–that no one, not politicians, not various marketing high priests, not even the demographic themselves, wants to admit…grew up. Like, I just saw a guy on Twitter who seemed genuinely bewildered at how much more he enjoyed The Long Goodbye compared to Black Widow, and I just….if you’re loving The Long Goodbye, you’re probably not even in the relevant demographic for Black Widow.

And like, obviously people of all ages and demos can love what they love. But this guys seemed confused that he DIDN’T love something that was never courting his love to begin with. These movies are family films. They are meant to have toy spinoffs. They are not necessarily going to be the first choice of, like, someone in their thirties with a lease and a dog and a meeting at 11 am tomorrow. And that’s okay.

[truffledmadness]

Marvel Movie Discourse, particularly of the “I don’t even actually like these and yet I must watch them” variety makes me....so uncomfortable.

There’s a certain demographic--generally the later half of millenials--that no one, not politicians, not various marketing high priests, not even the demographic themselves, wants to admit...grew up. Like, I just saw a guy on Twitter who seemed genuinely bewildered at how much more he enjoyed The Long Goodbye compared to Black Widow, and I just....if you’re loving The Long Goodbye, you’re probably not even in the relevant demographic for Black Widow.

And like, obviously people of all ages and demos can love what they love. But this guys seemed confused that he DIDN’T love something that was never courting his love to begin with. These movies are family films. They are meant to have toy spinoffs. They are not necessarily going to be the first choice of, like, someone in their thirties with a lease and a dog and a meeting at 11 am tomorrow. And that’s okay.

[truffledmadness]

I know a lot of my followers have mobility impairments, so check this out, it’s important!

Wait what's a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren't supposed to use the elevator to get down

[truffledmadness]

Congratulations to the couple people on my dash who recently got vaccinated despite needle phobias. You did an important thing to protect yourself and others even though it’s scary for you, and I think that’s pretty awesome. 💜👍🏽

[truffledmadness]

I get what you’re both saying, but I DO think that there’s something missing in the distinction between the TaskRabbit workers and the maids and butlers, and this is a broader pet peeve of mine in discussion of class, and particularly EUROPEAN notions of class.

The United States never really had a strong tradition of live-in servants, while Europe did. There are a few geographical reasons for this, but arguably the biggest one was that the American notion of class is, if not actually meritocractic, always and forever paying lip service to the concept of meritocracy. That DOES make a difference. It’s why American leaders and dignitaries don’t bow to monarchs, and it’s related to the fact that America’s founding myth is a rejection of the whole concept of a divinely appointed monarch.

In Europe, well into the nineteenth century in England at least, the “I’m not worthy” sentiment you’re talking about was connected with the idea that the class system was literally sacred.

A guy on TaskRabbit may be feeling financial desperation, but he doesn’t literally believe his employer’s power over him is divinely ordained. An English butler in 1860? A bit different.

(Funny enough, the few attempts to import that kind of dynamic to the US tended to end hilariously--in Jessica Mitford’s memoirs, she talks about how she and her husband talked their way into a dinner party of a wealthy New York family who had an English butler, and upon speaking briefly to this butler, were shocked and amused to learn that all the “English butlers” in New York were actually retired Cockney prizefighters who knew nothing about being butlers, knew their bosses wouldn’t notice, and considered this a highly comfortable racket)

something I was reminded of while watching Roma is the way that kind of servant relationship takes advantage of the blurred line between family status and employee status, demanding (yes) the emotional labour you would expect from a close family member but not reciprocating it, and only allowing the range of emotional expression you would permit a low-ranked employee (bosses can safely flip out, workers cannot).

it’s reminiscent of slave owners having slaves raise their children, taking advantage of this caretaker bond (to their future owners!) without incurring any mutual obligation in return; the kids get the emotional support of people who have known them from infancy, and yet at the same time are very well aware that those people exist purely to serve them and have no say in the matter.

sometimes people ask whether that kind of thing will come back in the future due to increased inequality, and it always seems unlikely to me as we’ve moved past being able to conceptualise class divisions in such a disarmingly frank manner, it has to be cloaked in some kind of crypto meritocracy bullshit.

I don’t think we’ll see a return to live-in servants who are born into that position, but we might see everyone sorted by an app economy that serves to obscure the fact that most people are net sellers on that market while a select group are net buyers, the disembodied engines of the internet intermediating away the fact that you do have a personal driver, he just wears a thousand faces and his name is Uber.

[truffledmadness]

What part, exactly, “isn’t universal”? That the UK definition of “lemonade” is very different than what most Americans consider lemonade? (American lemonade is cloudy, not carbonated, and usually much less sweet than what is often served as lemonade in the UK, where any lemon-flavored soft drink is considered “lemonade”) Or that Fentimans’ is a brand popular in the UK (I’ve seen it from Brighton to Edinburgh) which produced something like American-style lemonade?

No one is claiming that there’s a literal secret code to hoodwink pub landlords.

one time i was in a pub in london and saw lemonade on the menu and i was like mmmm lemonade!!! but i’ve been to australia and been tricked before so i was like hey is this actual lemonade lemonade or is it just sprite and she was like it’s actual lemonade so i ordered some and she brought it back and it was sprite. i hate england

[truffledmadness]

This is so COOL! The Ethiopian Jews mostly emigrated during the famine, but they have a fascinating history and their traditions are very unique--they have one of the strictest Passover observances of any Jewish community, involving a total ban on leaven, including in cheeses. I’ve always been curious to try Ethiopian Jewish food--it’s not quite the same as what you’d get in most Ethiopian restaurants, although obviously there’s a lot of overlap.

☕️ Ethiopia

(Disclaimer: I’m not an expert and most of this is lifted from Wikipedia or my memory, so some details may be wrong.)

Here’s a fun fact: the Ethiopian church has the longest Bible in the world. Almost all Christian denominations have the exact same New Testament, but they include different books in the Old Testament. All Christians (and Jews) accept the protocanonical books, which are the books of the Old Testament that were accepted as canonical from very early on, and for which we have extant Hebrew copies. Beyond that are books which were either written in another language, were originally written in Hebrew but the only version that survived is a translation, were written too late, or are otherwise theologically dubious. These are called deuterocanonical. Jews and most Protestants reject these books, but Catholics and Orthodox Christians accept at least some of them. (Some Protestants accept them as works which aren’t fully canonical but are nevertheless worthy of study.) Catholics recognizes 7 of these books as canonical, while Orthodoxy accepts those 7 plus another 2.

The Ethiopian church, however, accepts most of those books plus 15 of their own, 7 from the Old Testament and 8 from the New. In fact, some of those books only survive in translation thanks to the Ethiopian church. The original Hebrew or Aramaic texts have been lost, or exist only in fragments (including in the Dead Sea Scrolls). Most of these texts would have been rejected by other churches because they were clearly late compositions relative to the rest of the Hebrew Bible, but I suppose that Ethiopia, being relatively cut off from the rest of Christendom, followed its own path.

Perhaps the most interesting of these is the Book of Enoch, which among other things expands on the story found in Genesis of when humans had sex with fallen angels to produce a race of giants. Here’s why other groups rejected it (even though it actually gets referenced in the New Testament):

Although evidently widely known during the development of the Hebrew Bible canon, 1 Enoch was excluded from both the formal canon of the Tanakh and the typical canon of the Septuagint and therefore, also from the writings known today as the Deuterocanon.[8][9] One possible reason for Jewish rejection of the book might be the textual nature of several early sections of the book that make use of material from the Torah; for example, 1 En 1 is a midrash of Deuteronomy 33.[10][11] The content, particularly detailed descriptions of fallen angels, would also be a reason for rejection from the Hebrew canon at this period – as illustrated by the comments of Trypho the Jew when debating with Justin Martyr on this subject: "The utterances of God are holy, but your expositions are mere contrivances, as is plain from what has been explained by you; nay, even blasphemies, for you assert that angels sinned and revolted from God."[12] Today, the Ethiopic Beta Israel community of Jews is the only Jewish group that accepts the Book of Enoch as canonical and still preserves it in its liturgical language of Ge'ez where it plays a central role in worship and the liturgy.[13]

(Beta Israel are a group of Jews who lived in Ethiopia and were cut off from the rest of Judaism. As a result, their faith was quite divergent, and was presumably influenced by their Christian neighbors. They have recently mostly immigrated to Israel.)

Another book in the Ethiopian canon is a translation of a 10th century AD text loosely based on the writings of the ancient Jewish historian Josephus:

The Sefer Josippon was compiled in Hebrew early in the 10th century by a Jewish native of the Greek speaking Jewish community of South Italy, which was at that time part of the Byzantine Empire.[2] Later Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi, a Romaniote Jew from Achrida edited and expanded the Sefer Josippon.[3][4] The first edition was printed in Mantua in 1476. The book subsequently appeared in many forms, one of the most popular being in Yiddish, with quaint illustrations. Though the chronicle is more legendary than historical, it is not unlikely that ancient sources were used by the first compiler. The book enjoyed great popularity in England. In 1558, Peter Morvyn translated an abbreviated version into English, and edition after edition was called for. Lucien Wolf has shown that the English translations of the Bible aroused so much interest in the Jews that there was a widespread desire to know more about them. This led to the circulation of many editions of Josippon, which thus formed a link in the chain of events which culminated in the readmission of the Jews to England by Oliver Cromwell. As the Muslim writer ibn Hazm (d. 1063) was acquainted with the Arabic translation by a Yemenite Jew, Daniel Chwolson proposes that the author lived at the beginning of the 9th century.

Commencing with Adam and the geographical conditions of the first millennium BCE, the author passes to the legendary history of Rome and Babylon, to the accounts of Daniel, Zerubbabel (according to the Apocrypha), the Second Temple, and Cyrus the Great, and to the histories of Alexander the Great and his successors. He then gives the history of the Jews down to the destruction of the Temple. The last part contains, among other things, a brief history of Hannibal and an account of the coronation of an emperor, which, according to Basnage[5] refers to that of Otto the Great (crowned 962); this would be the only and a most valuable source of information concerning this event. If Basnage's conjecture is correct, the date of the composition of the "Yosippon" may be placed at the end of the 10th century. "Yosippon" is written in comparatively pure Biblical Hebrew, shows a predilection for certain Biblical phrases and archaisms, and is rich in poetical passages and in maxims and philosophical speculations.

Who knows how it got to Ethiopia.

The other books of the Ethiopian Bible are less interesting to describe, but you can read about them in the links above if you’re interested.

[truffledmadness]

I make little bags! i also need help :(

i'm autistic, intersex and unemployed. my partner drives for uber eats, but as hard as he's tried we can't make rent this month. i know everybody's struggling rn, but if anyone has a few dollars to spare, wants a lovingly handcrafted bag, or can reblog, it would mean so much to us! thank you for reading

my shop is below and my cashapp is $kateclrk, i also have a venmo, just dm me. i may also be able to make you a custom bag, depending on the request!

[truffledmadness]

even a libertarian is right twice a day