parasols

Zero Energy Idea House

I am fascinated with this home. I’ve had it open in a tab for days and I keep coming back to it.

damhnait:

Guess what?

FUCKYEAHDAMH.

Because farflungfriend did this and you know how I am about lists.

Contents of my bag at present: Macbook and cords, copy of Dracula, car keys, Blackberry Pearl Flip, iPod and earbuds, the Illustrated Librarian temporary tattoos, a fold-up reusable bag from Target, large Moleskine (writing journal), rosebud salve, 5 gum (I am addicted to the Solstice flavor), hair ties (useless now), hairpins, dental floss, wallet, hand sanitizer, fingernail clippers, CB I Hate Perfume in Gathering Apples, Tarte cheek stain in Natural Beauty, Jill Bliss notebook (recently transformed into BPAL diary), small Moleskine (for lists and notes), two pens (black), Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey, tea-tree oil from the Body Shop, Lipstick Queen lipsticks in Saint Red and Medieval, C.O. Bigelow lip gloss/balm in ultra-mint and lemon, notebook to keep track of Christmas shopping, mini binder clip, aluminum water bottle.

I am very bad at choosing which lipstick to take with me every day. The bag itself is a small, slouchy brown satchel. I am convinced Mary Poppins owned it at one point.

iateabee:

Someone’s 4-year-old daughter as Jareth The Goblin King from the 1986 movie, Labyrinth.

(Via Ectoplasmosis.)

…I want to make best friends with this kid.

masterblaster:

I’m calling bullshit on this — certainly some of these are pretty spot on, but really you’re going to reduce Belle’s story to that one moment? Never mind the fact that she is a compassionate thinking girl, who refuses to buy into the town’s narrow minded views on a woman’s place. A girl who refutes an easy life and outright rejects the town’s most arrogant asshole on the grounds that he is shallow, stupid, and chauvinistic. Never mind the fact that in an awful living situation she stood her ground and defied a monster twice her size, boldly speaking her mind to his face on principle alone.

Truly the story of Sleeping Beauty is one of a beholden woman, but let us not forget that Prince Phillip, at the end of the movie is utterly unable to rescue Aurora, bound and shackled as he is in Maleficent’s dungeon. In the end it is the cunning, bravery and wit of three elderly women who save Phillip — on the grounds not that he is a prince, a man, or even a handsome one, but rather on speculation that he is Aurora’s true love. It is not the kiss of a man that breaks the enchantment, but rather the token of true love. Sure the story is not quite so progressive as to portray a woman’s varied options, but you know, I’m not sure which ones are available to a girl that is cursed at birth by the Mistress of all Evil.

And let’s not pass up Maleficent. Arguably the best drawn and most powerful of Disney’s villains, she appears a self-made woman, answering to no-one, the leader of a small, but terrible army of demonic soldiers. She curses Aurora not out of spite of her beauty, or anything petty, but rather that as an important woman of power and distinction she was not included in celebratory ceremony to which the rest of the entire kingdom was invited. Sure, she essentially pulled a Kanye in the middle of the awards blessing ceremony, but let us take a minute to instead look at the sacrifices you need to make to assert yourself as a major player in any arena: being well-liked sometimes comes at the cost of standing by your principles, Mephistophelian as they may be. Maleficent understood this, and essentially answered “Fuck YOU, Stephen.”

You could argue that this is simply an allegory on the assault of the traditional family by the liberated, single working woman — but then you are faced with, again, the counter force of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather three other, single working women; women who in their very name embody all the forces of creation and nature. Women who, frankly, appear to be healthy and happy in their manless (single? I’m not so sure) lives.

I’m tired of all the revisionist back-biting, let the movies simply be a product of their times, they are entertainment pure and simple, and often pretty amazing ones at that. If you are concerned about what apparently insidious morals they are teaching today’s young girls, maybe its time to think about the intelligence in allowing a fucking DVD to have the final world in a child’s upbringing.

This whole idea that “Disney is fucking children up” amazes me. I never once got from any of those movies growing up that I was supposed to let a man save me— and I watched them all. Numerous times. Religiously. The love stories always seemed supplemental to me, except in Snow White and Cinderella, which were my least favorites of any of them. Belle is smart and wants someone to see that (and arguably this story is the most legitimate love story of them all). Ariel wants to be a human being because she is curious and longs for it, not just because she wants some dude to notice her (that rationale is asinine, on top of the fact that if you read “silencing woman” into that, you ought to take high note of the fact that it is another woman that shuts her up). Jasmine is just plain tired of the princess bullshit and doesn’t care who knows it. Aurora is a victim of circumstance who nevertheless makes the best life that she knows how to make, similarly Snow White, similarly Cinderella.

It may seem idiotic to argue over Disney movies and the finer points of their attributes, but honestly it just exhausts me when people find the most negative connotation they possibly can in every story about love or relationships. A woman does not have to lose anything or capitulate to fall in love. With half these stories I don’t remember ever being offended at the things that the female characters did, and if there was any kind of offense that could have been construed, I was more often just bored. Cinderella bored me because she didn’t do anything really interesting. Snow White the same. I liked Aurora because she talked to birds (come on, I was seven), but frankly I was into Prince Phillip, who was at least a character in the story instead of some vague hand-wavey handsome prince riding in, and I liked the fairy godmothers.

Yes, they’re idealized. No, they’re not perfect. But I love how none of this discusses Mulan (certified badass who sacrifices for what she wants), or Pocahontas (wise and honorable), or Alice (investigative), or Bianca the mouse (who is arguably one of the coolest Disney heroines ever— stylish, outspoken, feminine, self-possessed, and intelligent).  And I agree that if the last word in your child’s upbringing is a Disney movie, there are some serious issues at hand. Anybody who hearted this without thinking about it is just as culpable for little girls with messed-up mentalities as anyone who doesn’t think about it at all.