#ground level

[cl34n1ngcr3w]

HAPPY JENNY DAY

[darabeatha]

MY KING

(source)

[metropolisoftomorrow]

Dmitry Vishnevsky

[attention-all-pickpockets]

" you can light a cigarette

against the cooktop if you need to

feel the heat against your forehead

let it bleed through "

[tmglineaday]

You're never gonna get by on 3 hours' sleep a night

[tenth-sentence]

There were no pollution controls and, in many cases, the emissions were released near ground level.

"Environmental Chemistry: A Global Perspective", 4e - Gary W. VanLoon & Stephen J. Duffy

[john-gosh-darnielle]

you can make out all the exits

from a static position

[reogan]

Ground Level

(Jenny Timeline Project Song-by-Song Analysis #2)

(The Jenny Timeline Project is my attempt to figure out more about this album by doing casual literary criticism at it. It started with a post about the viewpoints of songs. The tag to follow or block if you care is Jenny Timeline. I welcome feedback if you see any of the holes in my interpretation.)

This is a LONG post, fair warning.

Ground Level was originally going to be called SW Ranch, which helps, if somehow we needed evidence, reinforce the reading that it describes Jenny's "southwestern ranch-style house" (Jenny, All Hail West Texas). For the interested, there's an ostensible illustration on a piece of merch.

The vinyl gives it an epigraph: "There was, en route to greener pastures, a small house in the city." That epigraph alone deserves a moment of consideration, because in so much of the album, there is no rest state. Everything is transitory, all is ephemeral, and even this stop is "en route" to elsewhere. Scholars of the album already know this, and this safehouse is not a place of salvation, but mere shelter. Greener pastures ahead; survivable respite here.

It's never specified why people might come to Jenny's to crash, but it's not merely from having nowhere to go. The first note given, possibly by a narrating Jenny introducing the place to a new lodger, is that "You can make out all the exits from a static position." People who are here sometimes need to be able to see who comes in and need to be able to get out. They need to be unseen, and it therefore is later noted that "nobody sees your face through the security grille."

There exists the threat of a chill in this song, in this place of what I imagined to be huddled forms. Though it is set in sunny Texas, the space heater is ready to fend off the long nights. I fumbled around with the blue pilot light for a while before discovering that space heaters can be gas based rather than the electrical ones I use. Nifty.

(This can be read, though I don't personally do so, as a fire hazard that becomes horribly relevant come Water Tower, where "There's probably gonna be a building burning in town / when you smell smoke in the air." Between this and the lit cigarettes, this house is certainly at some risk)

"We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf" reads in two ways, both of which might be so immediately clear to the listener that they seem like the only interpretation at first. The first would reference a highway cloverleaf. Here, those at the safehouse are in the lee of the road, and the traffic can always bring something new to and past the house. This fits themes of ephemerality. However, clovers are often associated with luck, and one might sleep light knowing that the wheel of fortune, which currently buoys them up, may soon crash down again. After all, those with nothing are more victims of fate than pilots of it--and fate is a major theme of the Greek tragic themes of this album.

There's a moment of potential symbolism worth mentioning in lighting a "cigarette / against the cooktop if you need to." Obviously, nicotine is addictive, sure, whatever, but what I'm interested in is the cooktop. This is an album filled with desperate needs, and food is a fundamental need. But there's only a spotless (read: empty) kitchen in Clean Slate and this cooktop used for the sating of the need to smoke. Food is nowhere in any other song, and that need is supplanted by the hunger for this stimulant. It's nothing huge, but play with it, see if it's worth your time.

I submit "you're never gonna get by on three hours' sleep a night / unless you absolutely have to, and then you get by alright" as more evidence of Jenny's need to care for others--the roots, but not branches, of her tragic flaw (discussed briefly in my Clean Slate commentary). If she is the narrator, why does she tell "you" that your sleep is insufficient? Because she's trying to help you heal. But she gets it, and knows how we can get by. If we need to.

Sleep light.

[worldcylinder]

Ok. Ground Level fucks.

[photosbyjez]

Celebrating Winter's Delicate Art: Frosty Leaves in Macro Photography Fan Of... #231

📸 Winter's artistry revealed in frosty leaves! Dive into this week's 'Fan Of…' challenge and share your macro magic. 🍂❄️ #FrostyLeafs #MacroMonday

Hi all 😁 Feel free to join this weekly challenge whenever you think, “I’m a fan of…” (see below for how-to). This is also my post for Macro Monday. Capturing the Magic of Frost: A Close-Up Look at Ice-Crystal Adorned Leaves Frosty Leafs Continue reading Untitled

[knightofleo]

[attention-all-pickpockets]

" you're never gonna get by

on three hours sleep a night

unless you absolutely have to

and then you get by all right "

[rackcty]

little rex wip for last line challenge from @ominouspuff 🌟 thank you for the tag cousin

i’ve barely had any time for art outside of merch work / summer cons so here’s a rex i use to cool down when i regret how much i signed on for

tagging back bros (absolutely no pressure) @soularsss @battlekilt @cocotter @luoiae @razzbberry @kelstares

rule: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like). 

[zeglou]

George is 5’11 and Jayden is 6’0 so it does hurt my detail oriented brain when fics will describe Charles as the shorter of the two because I just KNOW that boy would be SOOO annoying about that one inch. He is a teenage boy and height comparison is integral to ego stroking so him holding that one inch that he has over Edwin opens up so many opportunities for the silliest of squabbles

[unpersoniverse]

Skén:nen sá:sewh

as promised, here's Precious boy™ getting kissed by Precious wife™ because he deserves all the love in the world :cc

translation: Get home safe