Interesting thought, Kurt…
“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
News: Medieval Reading Habits
Using a densitometer, a machine that measures the darkness of a reflecting surface, Rudy was able to intepret how a reader handled a book, which sections were the most popular and which were ignored.
“Although it is often difficult to study the habits, private rituals and emotional states of people, this new technique can let us into the minds of people from the past,” Rudy said.
(via gardant)
This sculpture entitled “29h59’59” by Chinese artist Liu Qiang really sums up this George Orwell quote for me:
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.”
(Source: theberlinveganist)
‘We’re delighted to have you here,’ he said, putting an arm round the young man’s shoulder, ‘but a word of advice. Don’t try to be clever. We’re all clever here. Only try to be kind, a little kind.’
—Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles (via sweet-tea-with-lemon)
“I’m a role model.”
Yes, I did just have the conversation that if I can somehow navigate (by that, I mean weasel) my way into the Star Trek Convention (expensive-as-all-hell) dinner this coming fall hosted at my work building, that if Patrick Stewart were there (impossibly), I would walk up to him and proclaim, “I’m a real archaeologist! You just play one!” Then I would follow this with, “But you’re a Starfleet captain and I am certainly not (ho-hum).”
When asked if I was so daring, I rationalized this faux encounter with my general uncouth American-ness that would allow me to act in direct contrast to Stewart’s so very proper and delicate British-ness.
Of course, the alcohol of the day would assist in this encounter. It’d be grand and more than generally reflect poorly on me.
But which one of you would have meet Jean-Luc himself?
(Source: novalee17, via startrekgifs)
Oh my.
(Source: mattbors.com, via gardant)
Admission: I understood Mulder as a child. Now, I understand Scully. Not in that science-y sense, but in that you’re grasping at straws sense, make me understand sense.
I have been watching loads of Monster-of-the-week episodes for the past month.
jwp:
Pumping water for the family camels in #mongolia. Google ‘npr mongolia’ for pictures and stories about the mining boom there. (Taken with Instagram at South Gobi, Mongolia)
Or just click here to go straight to the story.
Ha! Sorry for the double post. It’s such a good picture that I’m just going to leave it. —Wright
(via npr)
Train tunnels in the Enchanting Forest, Ukraine.
(via viceandvirtueintexas)
Let’s talk or not talk at all. Let’s not small talk.
(Source: fuckyeahtng)
No one that night turned /
into literature, nothing that we did or didn’t /
entered the mythology of boys growing into men /
or girls fighting to be people.
—Philip Levine, Coming of Age in Michigan from What Work Is (1992)
Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.
—Frank O’Hara, Meditations in an Emergency (via cartographe)
(via depakote-t)
Hynkel contemplates world domination in The Great Dictator (1940). One of Chaplin’s original ideas for a symbolic globe scene included Hynkel cutting off bits of a map to suit himself. The dance with the globe was choreographed by Chaplin with each movement written down in detail, unlike the scene where Hynkel harangues the crowd in mock German, which was completely improvised.
