#20th century culture

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, president of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was conducted by groups of men like himself who joined together in clubs so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group. The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him. —John Steinbeck, The Wayward Bus, ch iii (1947)

[Scott Horton]

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[vintage-russia]

"The angel sitting on the coffin" (1908/1911)

Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942)

[solcattus]

The three Graces, c. 1911

By Cesare Agostino Detti

[thetrinitytest]

happy pride month from peepaw harkness and the torchwood team 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Girls in traditional dress outside the Opera House in Kyiv.

Ukraine, mid-twentieth century. X

[mythical-redon]

By Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)

"Two young girls among flowers"

[echofromtheabyss]

For much of my life, so much media was made by men. Men with working class and military backgrounds. Chain smoking war veterans and high school diploma engineers and sleaze writers. Journalists who were 20th century journalists and not 21st century journalists. Men who were actually pretty familiar and relatable because they're like guys in my family.

This made me think, you know what would be great, if women made some of this stuff too. One day, feminism will win. We will get to be in the public sphere just like these same men. And now women do all of these things! Women with MFAs.

[urban-lad]

William Edouard Scott Full Moon, Haitian Rhythm. 1931. Oil on canvas: 76×61 cm (30×24 in).

[regina-del-mare]

Любовь Менделеева в роли Офелии

[canberramaidan]

A Ukrainian girl wearing traditional wreath and beads for a wedding - pre-World War II.

[yeoldenews]

A mother's word for word transcription of the imaginary phone call her four-year-old made to Santa Claus in 1911.

(source: The Harbor Beach Times, December 22, 1911.)

Through some outrageous case of serendipity I found a recording of another phone call this same child made 60 years later. Though I have to say his choice of conversational partner is a definite downgrade from the first call.

[luca-ercolani]

True Detective by Naoki Urasawa

(Via: Mondo di Nerd on Facebook)

[vintage-russia]

"Радоуисѧ,Невѣсто Неневѣстнаꙗ"

Icon of the Virgin Mary “Tenderness” (19th-20th century)

[solcattus]

Merry Milkmaids, 1937

By Fedir Krychevsky

[daenystheedreamer]

dont like when people try to masculinise/feminise targ names when genderbending cos valyrian names are already gendered based purely on vibes. daenys and rhaenys are feminine but aenys is masculine, and its not the prefix because daeron and rhaegar are masc but aerea is feminine. viserys jaehaerys aerys are masc but naerys daenerys are fem. yeah -a names tend to be fem and -on tend to be masc but even these have weird extras, like -ar names are masc despite similarity to -a. feminine non -ys names tend to end in -a but then there’s gael. basically a girl can be daemon and a boy can be rhaenyra