parasols

Zero Energy Idea House I am fascinated with this home....

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:46:17 -0500

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.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:42:07 -0500

damhnait:

Guess what?

FUCKYEAHDAMH.

"7:55 am PST. Dreamt I solved the Poincaré Conjecture using a tennis racket, a teapot & a rubber..."

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:28:14 -0500

“7:55 am PST. Dreamt I solved the Poincaré Conjecture using a tennis racket, a teapot & a rubber sheet. It really worked but vital steps gone”

- Stephen Fry. And this is why joining Twitter has been beneficial to my life.

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

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:28:00 -0400

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...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:08:42 -0400

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.

Hulu - Castle: Vampire Weekend

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:03:00 -0400

Hulu - Castle: Vampire Weekend:

kfan:

If you are a Nathan Fillion fan and have not watched the cold open to this week’s Castle, you need to do so immediately.

I’m not kidding, this sort of made my heart break in about eighty-seven thousand pieces. I miss my captain. No matter who else he plays, Nathan Fillion is always Mal Reynolds first and foremost— that was just His Role, you know? The one he was born to play. That role was the love of his life. You can just see it all over him.

(I tend to wax nostalgic/rhapsodic/poetic/insane about Firefly. It is my very favorite show.)

Maria Taylor - “Time Lapse Lifeline” I get up, I...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:58:51 -0400

Maria Taylor - “Time Lapse Lifeline”

I get up, I get up

Stop, fast-forward, rewind

And watch the sun watch the moon

Taking turns in the same sky

And you were dead as the leaves

Now you’re new like the spring-time

I get up I get up

Stop, fast-forward, rewind

"Alice wasn’t accustomed to being taken by surprise."

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:58:00 -0400

“Alice wasn’t accustomed to being taken by surprise.”

- Stephenie Meyer: brilliant irony or did anybody even edit these bricks of nonsense before they were put out for mass consumption? I realize that hating on her is the Done Thing nowadays, but the inferno of my ridicule and contempt is all-consuming. It will never expire.

masterblaster: I’m calling bullshit on this — certainly some of...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:18:02 -0400

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.

Tycho Brahe

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:24:25 -0400

Tycho Brahe:

I am enamoured. What an eccentric charmer! I can’t resist a good mustache. (Proof: my love of Gogol Bordello.) Dueling in the dark! A silver prosthetic nose! A common-law wife! A drunk moose! Dying from holding it in when he had to pee!

This rivals Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wombats. Oh yeah, I said it.

surrealism

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:37:53 -0400

Everyone seemed tired today, as if they were moving through honey. “Paparazzi” was stuck in my head on a permanent loop and I felt as though I had forgotten my land legs. Getting home felt uneventful, not a relief at all. I fell asleep on my side; napping in the evening is delectable but confusing, like finishing a book in one sitting or eating at a restaurant alone. The dog curled up behind my knees. I woke confused to Jay Leno adhering Christmas-colored glitter to a picture of Martha Stewart’s cat.

(via distorte) This does not make me feel any better about sea...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:59:34 -0400

(via distorte)

This does not make me feel any better about sea monsters.

For blaaargh, an overture to friendship, in the same vein as...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:33:11 -0400

For blaaargh, an overture to friendship, in the same vein as this and this.

FUGGYOU. YOUAH STUPIT.

“Wuthering Heights” - Kate Bush Does anybody like...

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:25:00 -0400

“Wuthering Heights” - Kate Bush

Does anybody like Kate Bush unironically? I’m not just being a jerk. It’s a serious question without a satisfactory answer. I feel like I ought to turn this into some kind of Discovery miniseries. Finding Kate Bush: No, Seriously, Are You For Fucking Real?

(Bonus: same song, red dress in the woods. I couldn’t choose. You go ahead.)

(Bonus bonus: this is like an extra kick in the face, sort of like watching her crazily violate my homegirls the Brontës while I stand by and watch, powerless. Kate. We’re all sisters here. Why you gotta play that way?)

kate bush, cont.

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:00:00 -0400

Me: she's a vampire
Me: listen I know it for a fact
Me: it has to be true
Me: we could do Kate Bush in triplicate and cast her as the crazy chicks in Dracula's castle AND NO ONE WOULD BLINK
Alex: hey Nick Cave would never turn a dumb bitch like that

search engine

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:36:58 -0400

There is cake and ice cream in the kitchen, but I already had a slice (chocolate and cold from the refrigerator). I am not going to eat another one. Two hours left at work says I will, but I can handle the temptation. I think.

Googling “chronic fidgeting” does nothing except convince me that I have ADD or some kind of worm in my leg. It keeps jittering up and down. I pull my scarf tight and then loosen it again. Why do I wear these things? I dispatch an email for assistance, but it takes me an hour to write it and I am not sure, when it’s done, that I should have said anything at all.

I am only writing to you to tell you that I have nothing to write to you. There are no daydreams to escape into; everywhere else seems just as exhausting as sitting in a chair. If I were thinner in France with red hair and a moped I would be just as tired. If I were smarter in England reading a book on the Tube, if I were older and alone in a house in Ireland, if I were braver and walking the streets of Tokyo alone I would feel this precise emptiness. It is not the sort of thing you dream your way out of.

Horoscope: A long walk does you no good today. Drink tea. Be in the rain, if rain is to be had. Sleep. Leave the window open until the room is cold.

unsustainable: soupsoup:servemyworldblog: DONATE MONEY AND...

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:15:54 -0400

unsustainable:

soupsoup:servemyworldblog:

DONATE MONEY AND I’LL TATTOO WHATEVER ON ME!

I’m raising money for Third World orphanages. For every $10 you donate, your name gets entered into a drawing. Your name gets picked, you choose any tattoo for me to get. I get tattoo, kids get help, you get the glory of knowing there is a human out there with a tattoo of your face on it. Everyone’s happy. Donate and read about the contest HERE!

* REBLOG - FOR EVERY REBLOG UP TO 3,000 MY DAD WILL DONATE $2 * REBLOG*

GUILT TRIP ALERT: $10 provides a classroom of kids education for an entire day. It’s also two drinks at Starbucks.

Guys. This is a no brainer. Reblog this to infinity. For every reblog, $2 goes to charity.

Let’s get it up to 3,000. DO IT!

(via youdonthavethis) I feel compelled to reblog this for Milla,...

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:57:00 -0400

(via youdonthavethis)

I feel compelled to reblog this for Milla, even though I do not watch Mad Men.

I feel like this is another symptom of the Pam Beesly Syndrome, though. The reason Peggy is so easily likable is because she is so easy to relate to (I assume, from the one whole episode I have ever watched). It makes me cranky that magazines have to sexify these human beings that we see looking normal every week— why do they have to put fake eyelashes and hair extensions on Jenna Fischer? We already like her. You don’t have to give Elisabeth Moss a blowout and a couture dress. Homegirl is okay by us, I think it’s scientifically proven by now.

halloween

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:45:00 -0400

This=not articulate. Me=medicated. (Not even medicated. I am drugged.) Suggestions so far have been a flapper, the victim of a terrible accident (look, I could just go as myself, it happens to me a lot), and a zombie hunter. Things where I can use these disgustingly weird bruises to my advantage might be ideal. Hopefully they will be mostly gone by then. (I don’t know, will they be? I know nothing about bruises. Contusions. These enormous goddamned things on my arms that Jory keeps accidentally thinking are tattoos whenever he glimpses them, which makes no earthly sense but amuses me all the same.)

I looked up Clara Bow to see how she died. Unfortunately it wasn’t anything like an awesomely horrific train wreck where she might have come back from the dead with, you know, massive contusions. She just had a heart attack. (While watching a Gary Cooper movie. That is a decent way to go.) I am not going as Clara Bow for Halloween.

I am considering going Edward Gorey-inspired. I was wondering about it before this minor incident but now I am even more so, maybe hooking it up and going as one of the kids from The Gashlycrumb Tinies. P is for Prue trampled flat in a brawl.

Sing it, sister.

Three things about this photo: 1. Clara Bow hair! It is quite...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:55:00 -0400

Three things about this photo:

1. Clara Bow hair! It is quite new.

2. I got a Macbook. It is my new best friend and I take it with me everywhere and no I am not joking.

3. Very graceful people sit on top of plywood desks that collapse beneath them and leave bruises like exhibit A, showing here. I am a very graceful person. Please do not disabuse me of this notion. It’s kind of a lot worse and darker in person. There is also one on my other arm, and one on my back, and one on my leg. I feel like I got into a massive car accident or something. (I did not cry, I was very proud of myself.) Displeased expression is permanent fixture while said bruises continue to feel weird and uncomfortable, like I can feel my pulse in them.