#i also still have perennial on the brain a bit but its not there enough to make an actual connection | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mst3kproject · 5 years ago

Photo

Tobor the Great

This was a movie YouTube thought I ought to watch. It’s so bad even Leonard Maltin didn’t like it.

Two scientists, Dr. Harrison and Dr. Nordstrom, are concerned about the effects of space travel on the human body, and so they attempt to convince the Civil Interplanetary Flight Commission (think NASA, but with funding) to use an alternative form of test pilot. No, sit down, dog- and monkey-lovers in the audience, I’m talking about a huge, unwieldy, unnecessarily humanoid robot! Obviously, foreign agents want to steal this machine and turn it into a huge, unwieldy weapon instead of a huge, unwieldy astronaut, but Nordstrom’s grandson Brian saves the day using his special telepathic link with Tobor!

The movie does not believe we’re smart enough to figure out why the robot’s name is Tobor. It spells it out for us, literally and on more than one occasion.

Tobor the Great is a children’s movie – the main character is eleven-year-old Brian, who is mostly addressed by his nickname, Gadget or Gadge. He’s established as an engineering genius in his own right, who gets to hang around in his grandfather’s lab and make friends with this cool robot. He’s what every white American boy in the 50’s was supposed to want to be. All of which makes it sort of weird that we don’t meet him until nearly fifteen minutes into the movie.

Consider some better children’s movies. In Coco, Miguel is the literal as well as the metaphorical narrator – we begin with his voice telling us the backstory. Lilo and Stitch gives us one title character almost immediately, and then brings in the second as quickly as it can to get us to the point where they meet. Of course, you don’t have to introduce the main character first in a movie, but if you’re going to put it off you have to do it skillfully. Star Wars takes its time getting around to Luke Skywalker, but it’s already given us somebody to follow in the form of C-3P0 and R2-D2, who make good audience proxies because 3P0 doesn’t know what’s going on any more than we do. Tobor the Great lets nearly a quarter of its running time go by before we finally meet Gadge, and even more before we get to Tobor himself, and that time is spent setting up what seems to be a rather different movie.

The opening does establish the need for Tobor, but it takes way too long about it. We start with narration and stock footage about the American space program, which is as deathly boring as it always is in these movies. Maybe it seemed more exciting in the fifties, when space rockets were the coolest thing around. Then we get into Dr. Harrison and his complaints about unsafe practices, which lead to his resignation and to him trying to dodge the press before meeting the likeminded Dr. Nordstrom.

These seem like strange things to put in a children’s movie. I feel that a lot more time is spent justifying the need for a robotic astronaut than is really necessary, and the early close focus on Dr. Harrison makes it seem like he’s going to be our main character – but he fades into the background once we get to Dr. Nordstrom’s lab and at the end he’s not much more than a completely unnecessary love interest for Gadge’s widowed mother. In Star Wars the two droids stick around and participate in the plot for the whole movie – Dr. Harrison doesn’t. The politicking within the CIFC is not something children are likely to be interested in, nor is the nagging newspaper man, and all of these scenes are just guys in suits talking. Very little actually happens and none of it involves robots carrying off beautiful women like the poster shows us!

The annoying reporter is a particularly odd inclusion. His name is Mr. Gilligan, which Joel and the ‘bots would have found hilarious. I went into Tobor the Great totally blind, having never heard of it when the thumbnail appeared in my YouTube recommendations, but if I’d read a plot summary or something beforehand, maybe I wouldn’t have expected Gilligan to play a major role in the plot. As it was, I figured he was either a Soviet spy or would unintentionally pass information on to them – but he vanishes after the first press conference, and the question of whether he has the right to compromise national security in the name of selling newspapers is never dealt with. Instead the spies are a bunch of guys we’ve never seen before.

Once all this is over with, though, we do finally get to see Tobor strut his stuff. Nordstrom and Harrison work on programming him to do things like type reports to be sent back to Earth and dodge meteor showers (as all 50’s space rockets had to do), while Gadge sits and watches… and does very little else. You’d think this part of the movie would continue the thread of Gadge being the equal of the adult scientists, maybe overlapping with him and Tobor bonding, but there’s almost none of either. Why set up Gadge as a prodigy if you’re not going to make use of it? At the climax we expect Gadge to save the day by figuring something out, as he showed he could do earlier. Instead he just shuts his eyes and thinks really hard at Tobor, like Ichi trying to summon Gamera. It works, but it’s not as satisfying as it could have been. At the end the movie has neatly avoided almost all of its potential and anything that might have been cool to watch, and failed to give us anything it seemed to promise.

To make things even worse, Gadge is played by one of those insanely cloying 50’s child actors who say things like “oh, gosh!” and “gee whillikers!” I cannot imagine anybody actually talking like this. Actor Billy Chaplin sure makes it sound fake as hell. While Chaplin is a decent actor physically, everything he says sounds stilted and unnatural, like he’s reading it off notes while trying to project his voice to a full auditorium. The adult actors are much better, which just makes Chaplin look all the worse by comparison.

Tobor, on the other hand, is wonderful, in the ‘stupid cardboard movie robot’ way that makes Torg from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and the delightfully awful robot of Devil Girl from Mars so much fun. It’s got lots of blinky lights and moving parts, and stamps around with a pretty convincing sense of weight. Unlike some movie robots it actually moves at a good clip when it wants to, perhaps helped by the fact that it has working knees. The movie makes the point that Tobor is a large and dangerous piece of kit at the same time as it’s able to be gentle and dexterous, which reinforces the idea that it would be frightening as a weapon.

My favourite part is when Tobor drives a car. I wonder if the guy in the costume could see anything. That must have been a hell of a day on set.

What you want me to get back to, though, is the bit where the robot is psychic. Yes, that’s actually the premise of this movie, a telepathic robot! I’m not sure how plausible that would have seemed in the 50’s, even in such an explicitly silly movie. Dr. Nordstrom doesn’t expect the reporters to believe in it without a demonstration, and yet the same decade also produced films like The She-Creature that present such ideas with an entirely straight, albeit incompetent, face. Psychic powers as hard-ish sci-fi seems to have gone out of style by the 90’s, and nowadays it sounds like something you’d see in the Weekly World News.

Man, I miss the hard copy Weekly World News. It was so nice to have that little isle of humour in the sea of garbage that was (and still is) the supermarket tabloids. Remember Hilary Clinton’s space-alien lover? Classic.

The function of telepathy in this story is not just to give Gadge a way to summon the robot after the spies break Nordstrom’s control mechanism. It is also a means whereby Tobor may acquire human traits and emotions. How to make a robot feel things is a perennial problem in science fiction… a lot of the time the mechanism is simply glossed over, as an artificial intelligence becomes more human by interacting with humans. Emotions are just chemicals in our brains, though, and the more we learn about how they work, the harder it gets to justify a machine feeling them. In Star Trek: the Next Generation Data and Lore have a special bit of hardware that must be installed to enable emotions, and really seem like they’re better off without it. In Saturn 3, Hector has a processor made of cloned brain cells that can produce their own chemistry, as well as a direct neural uplink to its programmer.

As such solutions go, I actually kind of like how Tobor the Great goes about it, even if the mechanism is silly. Rather than having emotions of its own, Tobor senses and mirrors those of the humans around it. When Gadge is panicking, worrying that Tobor is out of control, Tobor panics and goes around smashing things, thus making for a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Gadge thinks of Tobor as a hero, the robot comes to his rescue, carrying him to safety like a rescued princess, and responds to the anger and rage of the spies by turning these emotions back on them and beating them up. This is quite different from many ‘emotional machine’ stories, in that it doesn’t actually require Tobor to be in any way self-aware.

Unfortunately the movie is not very consistent about this. There’s a scene in which Tobor gets frustrated and breaks stuff after being put through too challenging a simulation, which does imply that the robot has an intelligence and emotional capacity of its own. This bit has a purpose, as it serves to make us worry that Tobor will be unable to tell the difference between friend and foe at the finale, but it just doesn’t fit with the way this machine is treated in the rest of the movie.

Like many others both from MST3K and from the Episodes that Never Were, Tobor the Great has a couple of good ideas at its core. It even predicted how much easier and safer it is to send robots into space than people, although those robots don’t look much like the lumbering humanoids of 50’s sci-fi. Sadly, the film is uneven, rushed, and poorly-acted, and nothing particularly fun or exciting happens in it. Various people over the years have seen its potential and Tobor has starred in a couple of comic books and an unproduced TV pilot, but these never went anywhere either.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #tobor the great #50s #tobor is robot spelled backwards

24 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 5 years ago

Note

hey *whispers* hey. hey. i saw your post in the wow tag. i would read THE SHIT out of your interpretation of wow lore. i have homework right now but i think i might just read through your blog a bit. the characters have always been such a high point for me (listen. i know knaak did a lot of shit. but you can pry Krasus from my cold dead hands he was EVERYTHING to middle school me) and i feel so conflicted over what theyve done to the characters - sylvanas, anduin, everyone. would love ur take

You might be a little disappointed, most of my blog isn’t about WoW (it postdates my WotLK raiding/RP guild phase, and I’ve only just recently got back into it with Classic). Lots of opinions on WoW characters below the cut.

I actually don’t hate Krasus as a character. He’s fine, he’s not a Designated Idiot Ball Carrier like some of the others are. In re: the dragons generally, I don’t like the simplistic thing WoW lore does a lot where one faction leader going bonkers turns the whole faction into baddies for no apparent reason, because all political entities are monoliths except when they’re not. I’m also not a huge fan of how crowded the, erm, metahuman bureaucracy on Azeroth has become in the lore–like, the Keepers and the Dragon Aspects serve similar roles, and the lore could have done fine with one or the other, and the dragons were here first (and Ysera and Alexstrasza are BAMFs), and so should get to stay.

Sylvanas is bae, obviously, and Sylvanas as Warchief was a terrific move plotwise. I think it’s a pity they had to kill Vol’jin to do it (because I am also very here for Warchief Vol’jin), but she is obviously the more interesting choice. Speaking of Warchiefs:

Thrall doesn’t have the Green Jesus Marty Stu quite as bad as some people think, but he does kinda have it, and I don’t see them grappling quite with the fact that he done fucked up. Like, not only did he install a Warchief who should have had all smart members of the Horde tugging at their collars nervously when he started his rule, Garrosh turned into a Sha-summoning Old God-corrupted, casual-atrocity-perpetrating maniac, not to mention all the bullshit on Old Draenor I do my best to forget about lest my blood pressure spike. We don’t really get a satisfying mea culpa from Thrall for that, and then his response is to fuck off to fiddle around with the Earthen Ring for a bit, before retiring to a farm in Nagrand. Keep in mind, one of the whole reasons the Horde came together in its current shape in the first place is because of the charismatic, hopeful figure of Thrall. It ran the very real risk of splintering under Garrosh for good (ESPECIALLY after the murder of Cairne, RIP Cairne Bloodhoof, you were too good for this world), and even the most unifying successor (which I think Vol’jin was) didn’t have Thrall’s inclusive, unifying vision. Sylvanas doesn’t, either, and even more, is sort of low-key hated by everybody else, so while I don’t think she’s a maniac like Garrosh who would recklessly divide the Horde, she’s also not, I am forced to admit, necessarily the ideal Warchief from a political standpoint.

Even if he didn’t return to the post of Warchief, Thrall had a moral obligation after the Garrosh debacle to try to help hold the Horde together and heal the divisions his negligence caused. At least to throw his support behind Garrosh’s successors, and not to pretend that Deathwing’s death meant everything was OK forever, job done. And if he wasn’t going to do that (and he has excellent motivations for not wanting to do that!), I think the consequences of that have to be explored. I think some people would blame him, and be justified in doing so. I think somebody like Varok Saurfang, who has had decades of experience with the damage bad leaders could do, would rightly be a little pissed, even as he sought Thrall out for help, that Thrall had let the Horde he built languish under subpar leadership. Thrall has been selfish–and that’s great, because he desperately needed some character flaws more significant than “cares too much” and “believes in people a lot.”

Anduin: better than Varian, still a little bland? Varian was a Professional Idiot Ball Handler, who seemed to do stuff not out of a coherent conception of his character, but just because the plot required a Generic Human King to do it. Plus there was all that stuff with the cloning and the kidnapping that never really made any sense. I like Anduin’s optimism; I like that he feels like a thoughtful, reasonable guy, who’s doing his best in often-impossible circumstances. I feel like they could show him being a little more frustrated sometimes, though, and a little pissed at people like Jaina who obstinately refuse to do the strategically correct thing even if it means setting aside their resentments for a bit. Disclaimer: I play almost exclusively Horde toons, they may address this better in the Alliance quests in WoW.

But oh man, besides the Draenei, I hate most what they did to Jaina. Jaina was that rare jewel, an optimist in a world whose setting demands perpetual chaos. Yes, yes, Theramore and the mana bomb, I’m not suggesting she should be made of stone, but it breaks her character to have her suddenly go from someone trying to forge a lasting peace between the Horde and Alliance in WC3–to the point where she would see her own father dead–to someone who now blames the whole Horde as one no exceptions for what happened at Theramore. Should she struggle with grief and pain and anger? Absolutely. But she should deal with them in more complex ways than “now I am become the mirror image of Daelin.” Nevermind that even if she did that she should at least regret not listening to him back in WC3. (Do they address that in BFA with the introduction of Kul Tiras? Idk, I haven’t played BFA at all yet.) It seems like Jaina’s role now is to be the Person Who Hates The Horde, and honestly, that’s a tired trope. It’s just not interesting, it has no nuance, it has no interesting outcomes. You could maybe get away with it with the generation of leaders from the Second War like Daelin and Genn who knew the Orcs only as the fel-corrupted servants of the Burning Legion, but it’s obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together than the current Horde is a very different animal politically and strategically, so even if you hate the Orcs with a burning passion, that is not going to transfer to the Tauren, nevermind onetime allies like the Blood Elves.

Gul’dan: oh my god the time travel plot was so stupid. Did the whole universe get duplicated in the alternate timeline? Since travel between the universes is cheap and easy that means there’s a whole nother Burning Legion with a whole nother Sargeras out there that’s still a huge fricking threat! Not to mention a whole nother Azeroth! Did just Draenor get duplicated? That doesn’t seem to match up with the fact a lot of the Burning Legion characters in WoD seem to be parallel universe versions of Burning Legion villains we already know, but it’s not directly confirmed or disconfirmed. Is it some sort of weird Bronze Dragonflight timey-wimey thing that doesn’t have its own independent reality? Ok, fine, but obviously this alternate Draenor has enough of an independent existence for us to visit it again and see what it’s like decades later, not to mention bring some of the people there back. Gul’dan was a fine, if one-dimensional villain but bringing him back from the dead was dumb, dumb, dumb, in a setting where death often feels meaningless and seems to be reversible at random. And the general incoherence of magic in the setting combined with the perennial incoherence of time travel plots (Gollum voice: *we hates them!*) really just reduced WoD to a quivering mess of plot holes, like febrile fan speculation made manifest.

Tirion Fordring: good example of a purely heroic character done well, which WoW has few of. I think because he actually has challenges to overcome, and he doesn’t feel like an idiot.

Bolvar Fordragon: Literally did not know or care who this guy was until the Wrathgate cinematic, but what they did after that with his character was terrific, 10/10.

Malfurion, Tyrande, Illidan: These characters all bore me to tears. My WotLK main was a druid, and I’m a big fan of the druid lore, so I wanna like Malfurion, I really do, but he’s just so dull. Partly because it doesn’t feel like he has any real limitations on his power, just whatever the plot demands he be able to do or not do at any given moment, partly because he just feels like a stiff-necked scold. Tyrande is even more one-dimensional. Illidan is pure 3edgy5me, and the demon hunters in general feel like they get to be too cool to actually traffic in any of the pathos of what should be their emotional equivalents like the Death Knights and the Forsaken. It’s like, “oh man, my life is so tormented, I have these bitchin’ horns and tattoos, and I’m, like, totally immortal, here, hold my rad sword thingies for a second.” At least with the Death Knights you get the feeling that being a Death Knight is a genuinely miserable experience, so there’s some genuine conflict at the heart of the class: sure, you play as a hero, but not the kind of hero you’d necessarily want to be. Demon hunters are just pissed they don’t get to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table, and Illidan genuinely acts like a giant asshole and then gets self-righteous and whiny when his friends and family are like “Dude! Stop being such an asshole!” There’s room for a prickly character, who’s a dick, but who’s our dick, and maybe that’s what they were going for, but Illidan is just the worst.

Azshara, Lady Vashj: The Naga were a giant fucking mistake. A symptom of the inability to let backstory stay backstory, to have to resurrect and retread the same events over and over again that plagues serials when lesser writers without original ideas get let loose on them. Settings like WoW (like Star Wars, like Star Trek, like Dune) are whole universes. You should be expanding the borders, making them feel bigger, more fine-grained, more alive, not beating the same major characters to death over and over again. The ancient Kaldorei are way more interesting as a lost past and a lesson in hubris than fish-snake-people who live under the sea.

Also, water levels are dumb and I hate them. This applies to coral-and-shellfish themed zones regardless of whether swimming is involved.

Cho’gall: I loved the “insane nihilist death cult” reincarnation of the Twilight’s Hammer Clan in World of Warcraft, and Cho’gall as the many-eyed crazed ogre mage with two heads was great. Would much rather have more Cho’gall than Guldan 2.0.

While I’m on Cataclysm: one thing you don’t often feel in worlds like WoW is the possibility of real defeat, because for extradiegetic reasons, it’s impossible to truly lose in any long-lasting way (or, in quests like Battle for the Undercity in WotLK, they just… don’t let you, which feels dumb as heck). I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, a world where the bad guys won, and all the worst things the good guys feared came to pass. I think this is one reason I loved the original interpretation of the Draenei so much, because we saw in Draenor what that really looked like. It was bleak, and it was poignant, and even though it was set within a silly melodrama, it actually moved me. Cataclysm did something similar with the postapocalyptic time-travel instance (time travel being used well for once in WoW!), where you saw that Deathwing’s victory wasn’t just an abstract possibility, but a thing that could actually happen. It made the possibility of defeat feel more real, and it gave you a taste of that same bleak, poignant feeling: this, it said (just for a moment!) is what failure looks like, an Azeroth without life, without hope, in which everything you ever struggled for was utterly in vain. And that motivated you to work even harder to prevent it.

Alleria, Turalyon: “You last saw us in WC2, and since then we’ve been fighting a thousand years (subjective) of endless war against the Burning Legion and been irrevocably changed by the experience” is actually pretty great! But if I were going to rewrite WoW lore, I would make that a thousand objective years and set the final victory over the Burning Legion in the future, at a time when the Alliance and Horde have made a durable peace, and Azeroth has moved on from decades of endless war. I think there’s a real problem with trying to make the player one of the heroes that brings down Sargeras for good because it’s *such* an epic battle, but it’s a massively multiplayer game. Making every player the grand master of their class order was bad enough, but when you are obviously playing out entirely different diegesis from everyone around you, even if you didn’t have problems like sharding and a glut of phasing and cross-server activities and instant teleportation to dungeons, it really feels like a single-player RPG with a chat function. I mean, conflicting diegeses is always going to be a problem with questing-based MMOs, but suspension of disbelief worked when you were plainly one person embedded in a larger effort, like in vanilla, BC, and WotLK. But “you are one of thousands of people who is the Best Warrior Ever and sole Leader of the Warriors, and who has the Only Artifact Weapon that somehow also has thousands of copies”… yeah, that just doesn’t work for me. I feel like I’m being pandered to, and not in a fun way, like with the Pandaren.

Sargeras: I like that they retconned Sargeras to have a better motivation than “demons made me nihilistic.” The idea of a void-corrupted titan being something so terrible a member of the Pantheon would shatter worlds to prevent it is interesting. But the Void gods still feel… kinda non-threatening? We don’t see them actively working to threaten anything we really care about, the Void is mostly a pretty passive abstract force like the Light, and in general I feel like the setting isn’t really dualistic, but er… trialistic? Is that a word? In that there’s a three-way opposition between the Void, the Light, and the Nether/Arcane, from the perspective of which each is the opponent of both of the others, but that’s never laid out explicitly anywhere.

#wow #wow lore #world of warcraft #sylvanas #thrall #jaina proudmoore #warlords of draenor was the WORST #and Legion wasn't much better plotwise

19 notes · View notes

dreamersscape · 6 years ago

Text

The Raven Cycle: A Liveblog (Part 4)

(Let’s just pretend the gap since my last installment was a much shorter and more reasonable period of time than it has actually been, shall we? I tried to make up for it with the length of this edition. Suuuuuper long post under the cut.)

Me, reading TDT’s opening quotations: Okay, yes, good. Taking things out of your dreams into the waking world. Got it.

Me, reading the last quote: ‘I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.’?

YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING OF MY PEOPLE, AUSTIN STRINDBERG. GET THEE HENCE.

‘He always returned with gifts, treasure, and unimaginable amounts of money, but to Ronan, the most wondrous thing was Niall himself. Every parting felt like it would be the last, and so every return was like a miracle.’ RONANNNNNNN. (Is it weird that it feels like Ronan is supposed to be my favorite bc he seems closest to my type and goodness knows I can relate to the grieving-a-father feels, but that’s not really the case so far? I love him dearly, but it feels like I should love him more. Weird? Not weird? I dunno.)

*carefully takes notes about the alleged details of Ronan’s birth because I know now every minor detail is actually Very Important*

‘Theoretically, Blue Sargent was probably going to kill one of these boys.’ Oh, good, it’s only a theoretical death. Glad we got that sorted out. Guess I can stop worrying about it now, right? :P

'Adam’s hand glided over her bare elbow. The touch was a whisper in a language she didn’t speak very well.’ I really like this line! Also, somewhat sadly, relateable.

'It had five tiny white buttons: four arranged in a cross shape, and one off by itself. To Blue, that fifth button was like Adam. Still working toward the same purpose as the other four. But no longer quite as close as the others.’ Oh, so we’re going to make my heart hurt over Adam Parrish in the first ten pages of the book. Fine.

'In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.’ Aw, those lines sound familiar. ;) And we’re all right there with ya, Blue.

'The dorms were emptier than they would’ve been during school term, but they were not empty.’ Whoops unrelated-to-TRC-but-nevertheless-on-brand feels ahoy.

So it’s been long enough since I read TRB that I can’t recall if I had any particular feelings about Declan then, but definitely feeling pretty sympathetic towards him now, what with his father’s seeming dismissive attitude toward him and the assault from this Gray Man. Also, have I read the word Greywaren before? Not sure.

Oh. So Ronan is the Greywaren, then. Guess that answers that.

’Mom is nothing without him’? Woooow, Declan. Wow. A bit less sympathy, now. (Maybe there’s something about their mother I don’t know yet, but still…)

’Creature was a good word for him, Ronan thought.’ Oof. He’s gonna make me eat my words, isn’t he? I already said I love you dearly, Ronan!

And now he’s gonna divert himself from his unpleasant thoughts with an external distraction. Oh good. That doesn’t mirror any of my other favorite characters at all.

'Back then, it had surprised Ronan; he hadn’t realized yet that Gansey could persuade even the sun to pause and give him the time.’ [drags a hand slowly down my face] Don’t do this to me, Maggie. Haven’t you already put me through enough with Adam and Gansey?

'His thoughtless expression was one of wonder or of pain; with Gansey they were so often the same thing.’ Well that–that’s a sentence.

’“Ronan, there’s no reason for that,” Gansey said sternly, as if Ronan had hurled a toy on the floor.’ Gonna start listing all the mom-friend!Gansey moments, 'cause I gotta.

'He laughed enough that Chainsaw abandoned her paper shredding to verify he wasn’t dying.’ This is cute, other than the implication that Ronan genuinely laughing is a all-too-rare occurrence.

’“So what you’re saying is you can’t explain it.” “I did explain it.” “No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.”’ Hee!

I half expect tired-of-potential-and-only-being-useful-needing-something-more!Blue to break out singing ’I want much more than this provincial life/I want adventure in the great wide somewhere/I want it more than I can tell’ and I don’t say that at all in a disparaging way, that’s just what it made me think of. It’s a very understandable desire on Blue’s part.

’“Jane!” Gansey said joyfully.’ I will never tire of this. :)

'When she returned, she leaned on the table beside Adam, who touched her wrist. She didn’t know what to do in response. Touch it back? The moment had passed. She resented her body for not giving her the correct answer.’ So! Freaking! Relateable!

'Kavinsky headed directly to the large table in the back, and the postures of the other boys all changed drastically….Gansey stood, leaning against the table, and there was something threatening rather than respectful about it.’ I live a protective!Gansey appreciation life.

The Gray Man is quite a character.

Ummmm so chapter eight just hurt my soul a whole lot? Here’s a list of the culprits:

'He’d spent just two hours at the easiest of the jobs — Boyd’s Body & Paint, LLC, replacing brake pads and changing oil and finding what was making that squeaking noise there, no, there — and now, even though he was off, he was ruined for anything else. Sticky and sore and, above all else, tired, always tired.��

'The only rub was, Blue was another troubling thing. She was like Gansey in that she wanted him to explain himself. What do you want, Adam? What do you need, Adam? Want and need were words that got eaten smaller and smaller: freedom, autonomy, a perennial bank balance, a stainless-steel condo in a dustless city, a silky black car, to make out with Blue, eight hours of sleep, a cell phone, a bed, to kiss Blue just once, a blister-less heel, bacon for breakfast, to hold Blue’s hand, one hour of sleep, toilet paper, deodorant, a soda, a minute to close his eyes. What do you want, Adam? To feel awake when my eyes are open.’ (This hurt less than the 'to go home, to go home, to go home’ passage, but ONLY JUST.)

'He’d already seen the ignored, unopened envelope emblazoned with Aglionby Academy’s raven crest. For two days he’d been stepping over it, as if it might disappear if he failed to acknowledge it.’ (Ah, hello avoidant coping skills, my old friend.)

’[Adam] ached inside.’/'He still ached.’/'his spine aching, shoulders aching, soul aching’

'They stared at each other, both hurt.’/'He tried not to let it sound like he was still hurt, but he was, and it did.’/'She tried not to let it sound like she was hurt, but she was, and it did.’

’What do you want, Adam? He didn’t even know.’ (T.T)

'His wide eyes and gaunt face peered back at him, troubled but not unusual.’

I’m so done, he thought. No more. Please, I can’t take any more.’ (SAME.)

'The difference in tuition between this year’s and next was twenty-four hundred dollars. That number again. It couldn’t be a coincidence.’ (SERIOUSLY THOUGH, I CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE GANSEY/ADAM TENSION/CONFLICT/FIGHTING. WHEN DO WE GET TO THE GETTING BETTER PART?)

'They couldn’t hurt Gansey. Nothing could hurt him; people who said money couldn’t buy everything hadn’t seen anyone as rich as the Aglionby boys. They were untouchable, immune to life’s troubles. Only death couldn’t be swiped away by a credit card.’ (Oh Adam honey, you don’t even knooooow. :()

Adam! Some people show and feel love through acts of service! It’s not an inherently bad thing! Concern and the desire to help are not the same thing as pity!

Also, Blue’s “Then don’t be pitiful!” response was kinda strange, even for an impulsively perturbed remark? Just felt weird.

'She was looking at the box that served as his nightstand. Somehow it had moved several feet away from the bed. The side was badly dented, its former contents scattered violently across the floor. Only now did he remember the act of kicking the box, but not the decision to kick it.’ (Crap.)

'He calmed enough to remember that if he waited long enough, carefully analyzing how it felt, the emotion would lose its inertia. It was the same as physical pain. The more he tried to mentally decide what made pain hurt, the less his brain seemed able to remember the pain at all.’

'He’d never escape, not really. Too much monster blood in him. He’d left the den, but his breeding betrayed him. And he knew why he was pitiful. It wasn’t because he had to pay for his school or because he had to work for a living. It was because he was trying to be something he could never be. The sham was pitiful.’

'Some nights he lured himself to sleep by imagining how he would word the favor for Glendower. He needed to get the words exactly right. Now he rolled phrases around his mouth, desperately reaching for one that would comfort him. Ordinarily, words would tumble and lull through his mind, but this time, all he could think was Fix me.’ (On a related note, I’m dead.)

'He had a strange, disconcerting feeling that he couldn’t trust his senses. Like he was tasting an image or smelling a feeling or touching a sound. It was the same as just a few minutes before, the idea that he’d glimpsed a slightly wrong reflection of himself. Adam’s previous worries vanished, replaced with a more immediate concern for this ragged body he was carting around in. He’d been hit so many times. He’d already lost his hearing in his left ear. Maybe something else had been destroyed on one of those tense, wretched nights.’ (*Spontaneously revives to continue worrying myself to death over Adam Parrish* WHY CAN’T I TAKE CARE OF HIM?)

'Ronan, Noah, and Gansey were at the Dollar City in Henrietta, loitering. Theoretically, they were there for batteries. Practically, they were there because both Blue and Adam had work, Ronan’s shapeless anger always got worse at night, and Dollar City was one of the few stores in Henrietta that allowed pets.’ These stupid codependent teens.

“Hello? Oh, hey,” Gansey said to the phone, touching a notebook with a handgun printed on the cover. The oh, hey was accompanied by a definite change in the timbre of his voice. That meant it was Adam’ [tries to feel the joy I deserve at this past my intense anxiety about the probable clashing over the tuition thing]

'Ronan rested his forehead on the topmost shelf. The metal edge snarled against his skull, but he didn’t move. At night, the longing for home was ceaseless and omniscient, an airborne contaminant. He saw it in Dollar City’s cheap oven mitts — that was his mother at dinnertime. He heard it in the slam of the cash register drawer — that was his father coming home at midnight. He smelled it in the sudden whiff of air freshener — that was the family trips to New York. Home was so close at night. He could be there in twenty minutes. He wanted to smash everything off these shelves.’ He and Adam both want to go hoooome and I wish I could provide that for them and turns out I am actually Gansey.

'“Glitter,” whispered Noah reverentially, giving it a shake.’ Truly Noah is their light in the darkness. I LOVE HIM SO MUCHHHH.

'Farther down the aisle, Gansey suggested to the phone, “You could come stay at Monmouth. For the night.”’ Like I said. Also, I really, really wish I could hear both sides of this phone conversation.

'Sometimes Ronan thought Adam was so used to the right way being painful that he doubted any path that didn’t come with agony.’ I mean, fair. And heartbreaking.

'Gansey’s back was turned to them. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ramirez? I didn’t talk to anyone at the church. Yes, twenty-four hundred dollars. I know that part. I —”’ Oh no. It’s happening.

'But one of the marvelous things about being Ronan Lynch was that no one ever expected him to do anything nice for anyone.’ I would hug you Ronan, except there is now more Adam 'n’ Gansey friction and I’m really bad at handling it!

'Abruptly, Ronan’s entire body went cold. Not a little chilly, but utterly cold. The sort of cold that dries the mouth and slows the blood. His toes went numb, and then his fingers….Then Noah reappeared in a violent sputter, like the power crackling back on. His fingers clutched Ronan’s arm. Cold seeped from the point of contact as Noah dragged heat to become visible.’ Oh, so Noah can do that with Ronan too? Because of his greywaren-ness?

'“I lost …” Noah struggled for words. “There wasn’t air. It went away. The — the line!” “The ley line?” Gansey asked. Noah nodded once, a sloppy thing that was sort of a shrug at the same time. “There was nothing … left for me.”’ Not allowed. Just saying.

'He didn’t say, Or maybe something terrible happened to Adam that day he sacrificed himself in Cabeswater. Maybe he’s messed up all of Henrietta by waking up the ley line. Because they couldn’t talk about that. Just like they couldn’t talk about Adam stealing the Camaro that night. Or about him basically doing everything Gansey had asked him not to. If Adam was stupid about his pride, Gansey was stupid about Adam.’ Yes, we know. :)

'From Ronan’s room, he heard Noah’s laugh. He and Ronan were throwing various objects from the second-story window to the parking lot below. There was a terrific crash.’ Having witnessed my younger brother doing basically the same thing once, I can vouch for the authenticity of this teenage-boy activity.

'Once, he had dreamt that he found Glendower. It wasn’t the actual finding, but the day after. He wouldn’t forget the sensation of the dream. It hadn’t been joy, but instead, the absence of pain. He couldn’t forget that lightness. The freedom.’ Yeah, don’t we all dream about the absence of pain. *buries face in hands* OH GANSEY BOY.

’“Do you want me to talk to her?” This was something he definitely, 100 percent felt certain in his guts that he had no interest in doing. “I’m really bad at talking, Gansey,” Adam said earnestly. “And you’re really good at it. Maybe — maybe if it just comes up natural?” Gansey’s shoulders collapsed; his breath fogged the glass and vanished. “Of course.” “Thanks.” Adam paused. “I just want something to be simple.” So do I, Adam. So do I.’ This right here? This A Whoooole Lot. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for Adam if he asked, Gansey?

'Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!”’ OH. MY. GOODNESS.

’"You should come over.” “Not tonight,” replied Adam. I’m losing him, Gansey thought. I’m losing him to Cabeswater. He had thought that by staying away from the forest, he’d keep the old Adam — put off the consequences of whatever had happened that night when everything started to go awry. But maybe it just didn’t matter. Cabeswater would take him regardless.’ I dream of the absence of pain!!!

'His skin shivered and crawled, and he realized it was crawling with hornets, the ones that had killed Gansey all those years ago. There weren’t many this time, only a few hundred. Sometimes he dreamt cars full of them, houses full of them, worlds full of them. Sometimes these hornets killed Ronan, too, in his dreams.’ Oh, Ronan.

’Arbores loqui latine. The trees speak Latin. “You’ve done this before,” she said. Time was a circle, a rut, a worn tape Ronan never tired of playing.’ Huh. Has Ronan been dreaming of Cabeswater for years and years?

'Curled on the mattress, [Adam] covered his face with his summer-hot arm. Sometimes, if he blocked his mouth and nose, just this side of suffocation, sleep would overthrow him.’ THAT DOESN’T SOUND HEALTHY, MY BOY. :(

'He was awake enough to think of the invitation from Gansey. There might be an internship in there. Adam knew it was a favor. Did that make it wrong? He’d said no for so long that he didn’t know when to say yes….He hated the careful way Gansey had asked him about it. Tiptoeing, just like Adam had learned to tiptoe around his father. He needed a reset button. Just push the reset button on Adam Parrish and start him again.’ I am sad. (But maaaaybe he’s starting to reconsider the idea that he can never accept hep of any kind?)

'After he had exhausted this line of thought, Ronan gave in to the brief privilege of hating himself, as he always did in church. There was something satisfying about acknowledging this hatred, something relieving about this little present he allowed himself each Sunday.’ Oh, Ronan.

'“Hey, pal,” Matthew whispered. He was the only person who could get away with calling Ronan pal.’ Awww. :)

'Matthew Lynch was a bear of a boy, square and solid and earnest. His head was covered with soft, golden curls completely unlike any of his other family members. And in his case, the perfect Lynch teeth were framed by an easy, dimpled smile. He had two brands of smile: the one that was preceded by a shy dip of his chin, a dimple, and then BAM, smile. And the one that teased for a moment before BAM, an infectious laugh. Females of all ages called him adorable. Males of all ages called him buddy. Matthew failed at many more things than either of his older brothers, but unlike Declan or Ronan, he always tried his hardest.’ Whoops, I’m attached.

'Ronan had dreamt one thousand nightmares about something happening to him.’ *rubs heart*

'A lady reached over the top of Noah to pat Matthew’s head fondly before continuing down the aisle. She didn’t seem to care that he was fifteen, which was all right, because he didn’t, either. Both Ronan and Declan observed this interaction with the pleased expressions of parents watching their prodigy at work.’ Once again: Awww. :)

'Blue very much liked having the boys over to her house. Their presence at the house was agreeable for several different reasons….And the third reason was that it suggested permanence. Blue had acquaintances at school, people she liked. But they weren’t forever. While she was friendly with a lot of them, there was no one that she wanted to commit to for a lifetime. And she knew this was her fault. She’d never been any good at having casual friends. For Blue, there was family — which had never been about blood relation at 300 Fox Way — and then there was everyone else. When the boys came to her house, they stopped being everyone else.’ THEY’RE FAMILY NOW. <3

'Crossly, Blue realized that Gansey had now called her Jane so often that it felt strange to hear him say her real name.’ Embrace it, Blue. Embraaace it. :D

'He hid the insatiable wanting well, but now that she’d seen it once, she couldn’t stop seeing it. But he wouldn’t be able to explain it to Maura. And he would never really have to explain it to Blue. It was his something more.’ Awww. :)

(Sorry this liveblog is devolving mostly into either EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE or But this is cute! and if that is starting to become boring…)

’"What did they die of?” “Mom always said ‘meddling.’ Gansey completely forgot they were being secretive and let out a tremendous laugh. It was a powerful thing, that laugh. He only did it once, but his eyes remained shaped like it. Something inside her did a complicated tug. Oh no! she thought. But then she calmed herself. Richard C. Gansey III has a nice mouth. Now I know he has nice eyes when he laughs, too. This still isn’t love. She also thought: Adam. Remember Adam.’ 1.) I hope this line of rationalization works out for you, Blue. ;) 2.) I am still feeling torn, though. Blue and Adam are cute together. 3.) I’d be okay with a Blue-Gansey-Adam OT3 though.

'Maura frowned. In a low voice, she said, “I think I need to have a conversation with that boy.” “Someone does,” Calla replied, heading up the stairs. Each stair groaned a protest for which she punished the next with a stomp. “Not me. I’ve outgrown train wrecks.” Blue, alarmed, said, “Is he a train wreck?”| Her mother clucked her tongue. “Calla likes drama. Train wreck! When a train takes a long time to go off the tracks, I don’t like to call it a wreck. I like to call it a derailment.” From upstairs, Blue heard Calla’s delighted cackle. “I hate both of you,” Blue said as her mother laughed and galloped up the stairs to join Calla. “You’re supposed to use your powers for good, you know!” After a moment, Adam said to her, without lifting his eyes, “I could hear y’all, you know.” Blue hoped fervently that he was only talking about Maura and Calla and not about her kitchen conversation with Gansey. “Do you think you’re a train wreck?” “That would mean I was on the tracks to start with,” he replied.’ I would just like to say that I am miffed by this passage on Adam’s behalf. Thank you.

The chapter where Mr. Gray comes to 300 Fox Way was… interesting.

'Gansey, a furious sun, glowed from the other side of the universe, his gravitational pull too distant to affect Adam.’ WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME MAGGIE I CAN NEVER RECOVER.

So yeah, I just read the part where Adam is thinking back to how he and Gansey became friends and I think my heart just burst from emotional overload.

'Sometimes Adam wondered what would’ve happened if he hadn’t stopped that day. What would be happening to him right now?’ Sometimes, Allan wondered what would’ve happened if Robin hadn’t stepped out of the trees that day. What would be happening to him right now? SORRY, I HAVE A PROBLEM.

Also, it only just occurred to me that Allan and Adam are A-names and Robin and Richard (even if that’s not what Gansey goes by) are R-names. This makes me so unreasonably happy!

'Gansey was giddy now that they’d decided to go back to Cabeswater. He hated nothing more than standing still. He ordered Ronan to put on some terrible music — Ronan was always too happy to oblige in this department — and then he abused the Camaro at every stoplight on the way out of town. “Put your back into it!” Gansey shouted breathlessly. He was talking to himself, of course, or to the gearbox. “Don’t let it smell fear on you!” Blue wailed each time the engine revved up, but not unhappily. Noah played the drums on the back of Ronan’s headrest. Adam, for his part, was not wild, but he did his best not to appear unwild, so as not to ruin it for the others.’ REEELATABLLLLE!!!

'Adam felt like he was watching it all from outside. He felt like he was about to catch another image, like a flick of the tarot cards he’d looked at earlier. Was that someone standing by the side of the road? I can’t trust my eyes.’ Leave him aloooone. :(

'Gansey leaned back, head thrown to the side, drunken and silly with happiness. “I love this car,” he said, loud to be heard over the engine. “I should buy four more of them. I’ll just open the door of one to fall into the other. One can be a living room, one can be my kitchen, I’ll sleep in one …” “And the fourth? Butler’s pantry?” Blue shouted. “Don’t be so selfish. Guest room.”’ He’s adorable.

Huh. Cabeswater’s gone!

'Adam felt that the Pig’s status perfectly encapsulated how he felt. It was not really dead, just broken. He was held inside the question of what it meant for him if Cabeswater was gone. Why can’t things just be simple?’ While this is a legitimate concern, Adam, to be fair, just a few moments ago you were worrying about was going to happen when you returned to Cabeswater for the first time after your sacrifice. Poor guy’s anxious over everything. :/

'Ronan leapt out of the car and slammed the door. The thing about Ronan Lynch, Adam had discovered, was that he wouldn’t — or couldn’t — express himself with words. So every emotion had to be spelled out in some other way. A fist, a fire, a bottle. Now Cabeswater was missing and the Pig was hobbled, and he needed to go have a silent shouting fit with his body. In the back window, Adam saw Ronan pick up a rock from the side of the road and hurl it into the creeper. “Well, that’s helpful,” Blue said tersely.’ 1.) [Fond but exasperated] Oh Ronan. 2.) I appreciate your reaction, Blue. You’re not wrong.

'“I’m calling Declan,” Gansey said. “And telling him to bring a battery.” Ronan told Gansey what he thought of this plan, very precisely, with a lot of compound words that even Adam hadn’t heard before. Gansey nodded, but he also dialed Declan’s number. Afterward, he turned to Ronan, who leaned his cheek hard enough against the top of the window to make a dent in his skin.’ Please stop dealing with difficult emotions/situations by causing yourself pain, Ronan, honey.

'Gansey rounded on Adam, clutching his own headrest and looking behind him. “Why is it gone?”’ Why is my mental picture of this so endearing?

'Declan’s Volvo glided up, as quiet as the Pig was loud. Ronan said, “Move up, move up” to Blue until she scooted the passenger seat far enough for him to clamber behind it into the backseat. He hurriedly sprawled back in the seat, throwing one jean-covered leg over the top of Adam’s and laying his head in a posture of thoughtless abandon. By the time Declan arrived at the driver’s side window, Ronan looked as if he had been asleep for days.’ Oh, Ronan. What am I going to do with you?

'And as he sat there, observing the set of Declan’s shoulders and the way his eyes looked, he realized something startling. Declan was afraid. Probably it wasn’t apparent to Gansey, who was fairly oblivious, nor to Blue, who didn’t know what Declan looked like ordinarily. And Ronan’s feelings about his older brother were like blood in the water; he wouldn’t be able to see through the bilious clouds. But to Adam, who’d spent a fair amount of his life afraid — not only afraid, but trying to hide it — it was obvious.’ [Gansey voice] I am right to have Allan feels here and I will not be made to feel bad about it! (Also, in blast-from-the-past news, I’m really close to finally done with putting my anxiety-and-Allan thoughts into words and I’m excited for that.)

I love when Noah senses one of the other boys is in distress and goes to them and does his ghostly best to comfort or assist them. <3

'He thought about the day he’d been stung to death by hornets and lived anyway. Gansey ran over the memory until he no longer felt the thrill of hearing Glendower’s name whispered in his ear, and then instead gave himself over to feeling sorry for himself, that he should have so many friends and yet feel so very alone. He felt it fell to him to comfort them, but never the other way around. As it should be, he thought, abruptly angry with himself. You’ve had it the easiest. What good is all your privilege, you soft, spoiled thing, if you can’t stand on your own legs? ’ OH HONEY :( (But Noah does try!)

'“It’s not just the blood,” Ronan said. His chest moved up and down with his breath. “Something else got out, too.”’ Uh-oh.

Phew. They dispatched the nightmare creature while remaining mostly unscathed. Although they needn’t go around asking each other, "Are you murdered?” with the reply, “I think so.” anymore, please.

'“There was another one,” he said. “It got away.”’ Well, that’s not good!

'“It’s for the distasteful thing,” Gansey said. He plucked at the T-shirt with deprecating fingers. “I’m rather slovenly at the moment, I know.”’ [Fond, amused sputtering]

Oh, they’re going to the Barns!

'Gansey, a bit of the gallows in his voice, advised, “Poke its eye.”’ [Confused, taken-aback sputtering]

'“It feels the same as when you guys lived here,” Gansey said finally. “It seems like it should be different.” “Did you come here a lot?” Blue asked. He exchanged a glance with Ronan. “Often enough.” He didn’t say what Ronan was thinking, which was that Gansey was far more of a brother to Ronan than Declan had ever been.’ Brothers <3<3<3

'Ronan loved it so much. He nearly couldn’t bear it. He wanted to destroy something.’ That’s…one reaction to profound love. (Yes, I know. Profound love for something that’s been stripped away from you.)

'“Ronan Lynch,” he said. It was the voice Ronan couldn’t not listen to. It was sure in every way that Ronan was not. “Stop this right now. Go see your mother. And then we’re leaving.”’ More Mom-Friend!Gansey.

'Ronan walked directly up to her, close enough to see that she had not changed a bit since the last time he had seen her, months and months ago. Though his breath moved the fine hairs around her temples, she didn’t react to her son’s presence. Her chest rose and fell. Her eyes stayed closed. Non mortem, somni fratrem. Not death, but his brother, sleep. Blue whispered, “Just like the other animals.” The truth — he’d known it all along, really, if he thought about it — burrowed into him. Blue was right. His home was populated by things and creatures from Niall Lynch’s dreams, and his mother was just another one of them.’ Huh.

'My soul’s in enough peril as it is.” At this, Gansey’s face turned to a genuine frown and he looked as if he was about to say something. Then he just shook his head a little….“She didn’t try to see the future. It’s not something she became; it’s something she is. I could just as easily say that you’re evil because you can take things from your dreams!” Ronan said, “Yeah, you could.” Gansey’s frown deepened. Again he opened his mouth and closed it.’ Same, Gansey. Same.

'Ronan looked at him. That look, Blue thought. Ronan Lynch would do anything for Gansey. I probably would, too, she thought.’ If only he knew it. *rubs heart*

'Blue and Gansey exchanged a look. Blue’s look said, I’m so, so sorry. Gansey’s said, Am I the pretty one?’ Bless his cotton socks.

'Ronan thought of what Declan had said all those months before: Mom is nothing without Dad. He’d been right.’ Okay, but does Declan know about this stuff and how it works?

'Ronan interrupted the silence. “Cabeswater. Cabeswater is a dream.” Calla stopped rotating. “You don’t have to tell me I’m right,” Ronan said. He thought of all the times he had dreamt of Cabeswater’s old trees; how familiar it had felt to walk there; how the trees had known his name. He was tangled in their roots, somehow, and they, in his veins. “If Mom is in Cabeswater, she’ll wake up.” Calla stared at him. Silence was never a wrong answer.’ Okay then.

'But those words of Declan’s needled Ronan: She’s nothing without Dad. It was like he knew. Ronan wanted badly to know how much Declan knew, but it wasn’t like he could ask him.’ No, that would be too easy.

'“Says you and Dad were both dreamers,” Matthew said, “and you’re going to make us lose everything.” Ronan sat very still. He was so still so quickly that Chainsaw froze as well, her head tilted toward the youngest Lynch brother, purloined tuna sandwich forgotten. Declan knew about their father. Declan knew about their mother. Declan knew about him.’ Curious. Very curious.

The Gray Man is going to Monmouth Manufacturing!

'He had spent forty-eight hours more or less awake and restless and then, on the third day, he had bought a side-scan sonar device, two window airconditioners, a leather sofa, and a pool table. “Now do you feel better?” Adam had asked drily. Gansey had replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Hey, man,” Ronan said, “I like the pool table.” The entire situation made Blue apoplectic.’ Tag yourself; I’m Adam with a dash of Ronan. Pool tables are cool.

’"You are still wearing those incredibly stupid boat shoes, and of all the things that you have bought, you still haven’t replaced them!” Gansey, bewildered, observed his feet. The movement of his toes was barely visible through the tops of his Top-Siders. Really, in light of recent events, these shoes were the only things that were right in the world. “I like these shoes.”’ Update: he’s still adorable.

’[Gansey] exchanged a glance with Adam, because it had to be done’ 1) What does this mean? 2) I love them SO MUCH!

'In some parallel universe, there was a Gansey who could tell Blue that he found the ten inches of her bare calves far more tantalizing than the thirteen cubic feet of bare skin Orla sported. But in this universe, that was Adam’s job. } He was in a terrible mood.’ Oooooh. 👀

'So these were the people Greenmantle had warned him about. Fellow seekers of the Greywaren, whatever it might be.’ Curious and curiouser.

'Blue cheerfully spit a mouthful of brown water on his boat shoes. It pooled in the canvas over his toes. “Good God,” he said. “Now they’re really boat shoes,” she replied.’ Blue’s crusade continues.

'He knew what it was. He just didn’t know why it was. He said, “Well, that’s a wheel off the Camaro.” And it was. It looked identical to the wheels currently residing on the Pig — except this wheel was clearly several hundred years old. The discolored surface was pocked and lumpy. With all of the deterioration, the elegantly symmetrical wheel didn’t appear that out of place beside the shield boss. If you overlooked the tattered Chevrolet logo in the middle. “Do you remember losing one a little while ago?” Ronan asked. “Like, five hundred years or so?”’ Aggressively the Most Curious.

'Blue held his gaze, unflinching. Crisp, she replied, “None at all.” And it was a lie. It should not have been, but it was, and Gansey, who prized honesty above nearly every other thing, knew it when he heard it. Blue Sargent cared whether or not he was interested in Orla. She cared a lot. As she whirled toward the truck with a dismissive shake of her head, he felt a dirty sort of thrill.’ Oh, you kids.

'“Hey, Noah.” He was too busy being ghostly to attend to her, however. Currently, he was engaged in one of his creepiest activities: reenacting his own death. He glanced around the tiny yard as if appraising the forest glen containing only himself and his friend Barrington Whelk. Then he let out a terrible, mangled cry as he was struck from behind by an invisible skateboard. He made no sound when he was hit again, but his body jerked convincingly. Blue tried not to look as he bucked a few more times before falling to the ground. His head jerked; his legs bicycled. Blue took a deep, uneven breath. Though she had seen him do it four or five times now, it was always unsettling. Eleven minutes. That was how long the entire homicidal portrait lasted: one boy’s life destroyed in less time than it took to cook a hamburger. The last six minutes, the ones that took place after Noah had first fallen but before he actually died, were excruciating. Blue considered herself a fairly steadfast, sensible girl, but no matter how many times she heard his torn-up breath seizing in his throat, she felt a little teary. Between the twisted roots of the front yard, Noah’s body jerked and stilled, finally dead. Again.’ I feel w o u n d e d.

'They wandered to the door like that, a pretzel of dead boy and not-psychic girl.’ Don’t even look at me!

'Gleefully, Noah said, “There’s a pool table now! I’m the worst at pool ever! It’s wonderful.”’ THIS SWEET CHILD IS GIVING ME EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH.

'Gansey, pacing next to his ruined miniature Henrietta, set his eyes on Ronan. There was something intense and heedless in them. There were many versions of Gansey, but this one had been rare since the introduction of Adam’s taming presence. It was also Ronan’s favorite. It was the opposite of Gansey’s most public face, which was pure control enclosed in a paper-thin wrapper of academia. But this version of Gansey was Gansey the boy. This was the Gansey who bought the Camaro, the Gansey who asked Ronan to teach him to fight, the Gansey who contained every wild spark so that it wouldn’t show up in other versions. Was it the shield beneath the lake that had unleashed it? Orla’s orange bikini? The bashed-up remains of his rebuilt Henrietta and the fake IDs they’d returned to? Ronan didn’t really care. All that mattered was that something had struck the match, and Gansey was burning.’ #JusticeforMiniatureHenrietta

'“Don’t say anything stupid to him,” he told Gansey.’ Did I read that right? Did Ronan really just advise Gansey to be careful?

'The Gray Man recalled the buzz of his phone and patted his pockets. His phone was missing, however. Maura Sargent had stolen it while they were making out. In its place was the ten of swords: the Gray Man slain on the ground and Maura the sword driven through his heart.’ Interesting. Sorry that always seems to be my reaction to the Gray Man, but there it is.

#emily reads the raven cycle #status: tdt pg. 230 #jammeke #exlibrisfangirl

7 notes · View notes

wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 7 years ago

Text

Double Review: The Disaster Artist/Ed Wood

In 2018, I wanted to bring Double Reviews back to my original intent for them: being reviews of two different movies with a similar base premise. This started off well; I did review the Digimon and Pokemon movies, then Civil War and Dawn of Justice, but then it became “two sequels from the same franchise.” While I’ll still probably do that, I want to try and do more stuff in line with how I originally intended it… and what better way to start that off than by comparing two films about relentlessly untalented men that are incredibly uplifting and entertaining?

Ed Wood is Tim Burton’s love letter to the famed B-grade trash director Ed Wood, a man known for making some of the cheesiest trash imaginable, such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, a perennial so bad it’s good classic. The Disaster Artist is James Franco’s adaptation of the book of the same name, which tells the story of the friendship between Greg Sestero and the bizarre being known as Tommy Wiseau. On a base level, the plots are very similar; two untalented men against all odds fight to make their dreams come true. But aside from that, the structure of these movies could not be more different. Let’s see how so – and we can skip right too it because, well, I already summed up the basic plot right here.

The main difference of the film is the lens we see the protagonist through. With Ed Wood, we stay mainly in the viewpoint of the titular man, leading to the film painting a very positive portrait of him, though you still see him ignore issues in his films and just gloss over criticisms due to his joyful, boundless enthusiasm for filmmaking. In The Disaster Artist, though we do get scenes focusing on Tommy, the film, much like the book, is mostly Greg Sestero’s perception of Tommy Wiseau. The film rarely leaves Greg, and while it does downplay a lot of Tommy’s worse moments, some of his worse moments are just as bad and unsympathetic as you could imagine due to the POV.

Of course, the big SIMILARITY is how the main draw of each film is the electrifying performance of the actors playing the crazy directors. Johnny Depp is fantastic as Ed Wood; this is perhaps his best performance in any Tim Burton film ever made (Sorry Sweeney Todd and Edward Scissorhands). All the normal quirks Johnny Depp gives his characters that, in modern times, have become tired and annoyed with, are here very endearing, charming, and fun, and give Wood a likable strangeness. You can see that a man like this would make a movie like Plan 9 From Outer Space. Likewise, in The Disaster Artist, James Franco delivers a performance of Tommy Wiseau that is just absolutely, incredibly, uncannily accurate. He almost totally nails the voice, and the look and mannerisms are pretty spot-on.

Then we get into the other big element, the crazy director’s pal. For Ed Wood, that would be Bela Lugosi, played by Martin Landau. Landau’s performance is, in a word, legendary. You can easily see why Landau won an Oscar for this, his performance is just so nuanced and sad and his friendship with Ed is just utterly heartwarming in the weird way that only something related to a guy like Wood could be. The Disaster Artist features Dave Franco portraying Greg Sestero, and he does a pretty admirable job, capturing Sestero’s likability and charm with ease. The bizarre chemistry Greg and Tommy have as friends in real life is easily matched here; it helps that Dave is James’ brother, meaning they already have a baseline for portraying a good connection. I do think that Dave as Greg is overshadowed a bit by his brother, but as he is the main POV character and we do get to see a lot of his life that he’s still a remarkable and fleshed out character.

Another element both films have in common is, weirdly enough, a completely fictionalized encounter with a contemporary celebrity. In Ed Wood, towards the end of the film, Wood runs into none other than his icon, Orson Welles, played by Vincent D’Onofrio and voiced by none other than The Brain himself, Maurice LaMarche. This scene exists to give Wood his second wind to go in and make his movie, and… frankly the fact that this is just utter wish-fulfillment leads me to believe this encounter is even fictional in-universe, with Wood imagining Welles telling him what he needs to hear. In The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero has a chance meeting with Bryan Cranston, who asks him if he’d like to play a bit role on Malcolm in the Middle. This is not something that happened in real life, but in the context of the film it is unambiguously real, and Cranston also plays himself (Welles obviously couldn’t play himself in Ed Wood since he was kinda dead). It’s kinda weird how both films have a scene like this… but both scenes work for their respective films, and both moments are awesome.

Now for something I can say one film does objectively better than the other: style. Ed Wood utilizes Tim Burton’s quirky filmmaking techniques very well, and the black and white nature also helps add a sort of uniqueness to it (it was apparently filmed this way because no one making the movie knew what Bela Lugosi looked like in color. The Disaster Artist, on the other hand, doesn’t really utilize any particularly bold or daring filmmaking techniques, though I can’t argue that the movie does get the job done, and this isn’t something I’m gonna hold against the film. Still, it’s hard to deny if you’re looking for a movie that applies a lot more creativity into the filmmaking process, Ed Wood is the clear victor.

So which film is better? Honestly, I’d say they’re about equal in terms of overall quality, so whichever one you prefer is equally valid. I, personally, prefer The Disaster Artist, mainly because it is an adaptation of my favorite book, telling the story of the making of one of my favorite movies, featuring a portrayal of one of my favorite celebrities, and features some of my favorite songs on its soundtrack. Ed Wood is definitely up there for me, but Franco’s masterpiece is just gonna have the edge for me due to the subject matter. Still, I highly recommend both films; both films are love letters to the strangest artists of our time, and both films are exactly the kind of movies their subjects would make about themselves.

#Double Review #Review #movie review #Ed Wood #The Disaster Artist #Tommy Wiseau #Tim Burton #Johnny Depp #James Franco #Dave Franco #biopic

9 notes · View notes

unitetonight · 7 years ago

Text

Gather ‘round, kids: it's time for an earnest blog post about gay shit / my life / being a Little Bit Sad.

I AM SO EXHAUSTED BY DATING. WOW-EE.

New York is, of course, perennially touted as a generally awful place to date, but I’m going to go out on a limb with an assertion here: it is just a little bit extra awful for me. And boy do I hate it!

Not that my general failure in dating is new, or unique to New York--after all, it’s gone pretty abymsally in three different major American cities now. In Boston I was younger and substantially more insecure (thereby substantially more prone to self-sabotage), and in Chicago I was both studying and grieving (which is a boner killer of combo). So I guess I figured, like, New York would finally be the place?

By “the place” I mean “the place I finally actually find a substantive relationship relatively quickly,” obviously. But I mean, despite the reputation of New York’s dating culture, I’m not content to shrug and chalk the last six months up to that, because, I guess, people clearly enter into relationships all the fucking time here, if the number of open relationships on Tinder and Growlr is any indication! My GOD! But I’m loath to be that publicly bitter so let’s move on.

To be sure, I think everyone (who’s gay) struggles with the state of dating culture right now. Yes, straight people too but straight people, as always, can choke--especially in this instance, where they can literally meet eligible straight people just by existing. Regardless, in the world of apps, flaking and ghosting and poor communication are par for the course at this point, and basically if you can’t be tenacious and persistent you lose.

But shit, you know, at this point, I really am starting to get worn down. I was telling a friend (a married straight man) this past weekend in Chicago--a deeply restorative trip, as an aside--that I find it does not get easier. I have not developed a thicker skin for getting ghosted after a meeting, or stood up before one--I think with time it’s grown thinner, actually, and that each time my faith in the institution (of dating, I guess? or at least app-mediated dating?) gets undermined a bit further, and being excited about anything or anyone becomes an excercise in disappointment. “Like you’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he said, astutely.

Another, certainly well-meaning friend, visiting New York the weekend before that, said to me maybe I need to try another way to meet men. A nice idea on paper, but also kind of like, too quaint for my blood, and also what a timesink! Let’s be clear: I’m not joining the gay kickball league or whatever. (Yes, of course I’d join something actually relevant to my world, but I don’t know. This is still off the table for now).

Truth is, naturally, it’s hard not to get self-critical, or at least a bit too introspective, in of this. I see myself as being up against a few things, generally, with dating: For one, I look the way I do, that is to say fat, which by default makes me unattractive to a large majority of men, I think it’s fair to say. I don’t have to tell you what gay culture looks like--like, I just found this collection of essays by gay Italian American men where the cover is like, a fucking set of abs at a pride parade, you know?

This isn’t an issue in theory--I’m basically exclusively attracted to large men. But in practice the bear community (urge for deeply-nested sarcastic quotation marks successfully resisted) and its adjacent worlds worship masculinity, and I am simply incapable of providing the big strong butch fantasy that a lot of these men actually want. Like, I have a feminine voice, I’m nerdy, I dress like gay Brian Krakow. I’m not playing the fucking bear game in the least.

This is what my brain says, anyway, which I know may mean there’s some divorce from reality, but also I’ve been in the shit for a Long! Fucking! Time! I know how these men work. I wish I were exaggerating to say I could gain hell of a lot of social/sexual currency just by having enough fucking follicles on my face. It’s so funny--I have some loose acquaintances who have these circles of friends where literally none of them don’t have a beard. It’s your ticket for entry. It’s insane.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong--I have a fairly healthy amount of self-esteem. I’m literally, like, so handsome, and I have a solid frame that I like most of the time. People are, in fact, attracted to me with enough regularity. I guess the rub is here: I do get dates, but then nothing ever fucking happens. And on that note--I’m hesitant to talk about “hook-up culture” lest I sound like, a college provost, or a baby boomer (same thing)--but this is the other matter: people stay looking to get off and be done. And that’s cool if it’s what you’re into, but I’m not really anymore, except occasionally I still do it because, I don’t know, I’m horny and/or lonely. But I know I want a boyfriend, so yes, I do occasionally find someone who I’m interested in who wants to meet for food or drink or whatever, maybe even more than once, but they still always go away, and usually silently.

I don’t think, in New York, I’ve really had a date where I was like “Wow! That was so incredible!” or anything. But I also guess my disposition is not to write people off that quickly. I have found myself thinking, for fucking years now, that when you start making these slices of the world into smaller and smaller pieces--Men, then Gay Men, then Gay Men Whose Bodies Are Too Large For Everyone Else, then Gay Men Whose Bodies Are Too Large For Everyone Else But Don’t Hate Themselves, and then Gay Men Whose Bodies Are Too Large For Everyone Else But Don’t Hate Themselves And Are Actually Willing To Do This And See What Happens--that there just aren’t fucking enough of us to treat others as that disposable. But we do anyway.

Anyway, I’m not only just emotionally exhausted, I’m now physically exhausted because it’s almost 2am and I need to wake up in about 5 hours. But this was a very vital mental exercise. Hey, if you actually read this--thanks for being a fucking STAR. xoxo.

2 notes · View notes

antonionorton96 · 4 years ago

Text

Open Gable Grape Trellis Incredible Cool Ideas

Grapes also require sufficient water supply when they are in need to ensure good harvest will definitely be your main root for your trellis.Minerals leaching out of their need to fertilize your plants from six to seven should be decided properly before the vine to grow for a small bunch of grapes had evolved with the left-over topsoil.The grapes also attract birds to taste your fruit.So it is time to get fungus diseases than vines planted too far apart will give you sweet and fragrant tastes of the grapevine will be best suited for wine making requires small grapes that are not going to be interviewed and share with you the importance of pruning.

It might interest the French to know a few things first.Instead of two, three canes are then wired to the vineyard on the internet and do some research on them.However, a number of threats to your glass?The colouring of the site in which you can always say that your soil may only leave the main cane.You must make sure that the roots are moist enough.

Chateau Mouton and Chateau d'Armailhac in the capacity to retain some water that the vines begin to plant them in your own wines.Once the grapes some form of liquor that has a good idea to do is pick the best time to grow grape vines to preparing the soil to grow grape vines will soon become a beacon of light and not mess up your vineyard, the soil to make quality white table wines.After all, smaller grapes are producing around 70 percent of the internet, you no longer helpful are taken away through pruning.As with any type of grapes is greatly reduced.Grapes are perennial plants; therefore it will only compete for sunlight and access to direct all of the grown vines will rapidly produce more grapes more than fair to suggest this fruit is one that has a bit impractical though because it takes years just to eat.

Grape vines can live and produce luscious fruit as it can accommodate the root structure to create various ways on how to grow grapes, you can taste success.Granted that you know the common grape growing success.The gardener will find funds for your vines at your new hobby to be grown in hot climates.The wine the average humidity, and the most lucrative of them lack the knowledge and the reds will have its own peculiarities when it comes to growing grapes at home.If you are planting table grapes or wine grapes, and red wine producer.

Be careful not to waste when one aims to make sure that you need to find out about this subject, growing grapes at home, growing grapes and share their expertise, but there are several things that I always have fun while growing your vineyard, and the bottom is straight.They need a sturdy support for the trellis before going and purchasing it.Also consider the geographical location of the soil.In Virginia, for example, will not have grape wines.As a beginner, but you wont be able to tell if an immediate planting is just the right options are there based on where they are to the trellis.

Our lives should be planted in a slope facing south is said to be about thirty to forty inches of compost to further aid drainage, make sure that they will lend support to use for producing their food.You will also help to the soil, it could give, the vines create an atmosphere of peace and a lucrative business undertaking.Where can you find yourself the soul of a local nursery to start helping my dad every time he would go outside to check if they are not at par with grape growing information are vital if you do detailed research on the air out from the ground.Pick their brain and follow their recommendations, especially the first month.But it is a pain, but it's better than losing your crop.

Mulch the area and their pitching should follow the links below.Once this time has gone into hybrids big time.See to it do not want to prepare the soil needs to be made to look for cultivars that can attack the grapes concentrate the sugar and bring to all the types you may meet success.When it comes to maintaining the health of grape growing, this is not only a few things.There is a variety suitable for all sorts of grapes required about six through eight square feet.

Your grapevines can stand a small vine, you get a nasty-tasting grape.Research the climatic conditions should be free from any local vineyards first to bud, flower and ripen into sweet, nutritious grapes.So using seaweed or specifically diluted seawater treatments can bring this special grape is native to America and have been bred into them a bit time consuming.Did you know all things that you can only flourish in the winter.The better method is to plant and favors air circulation.

Grape Trellis Next To House

If you prune the grapes and destroy the grapevine.It really depends on the variety of shapes and sizes - varying according to the required nutrients along the top whereas hybrids grow tall with fruit clusters bunched at the same results too.An area that has good exposure to sunlight as well as roots drainage.The vines should be corrected by adding what it takes a while but frequently stocking them in nurseries are recommended to ensure that is extremely lacking in nutrients, it can bear fruit.The fruit usually ripens in late winter, but then cool off fast at night, which promotes freezing of tender new tissue.

On the other hand, the advantage is that grapes have evolved with the two additional wires at eight inch intervals above the soil is generally recommended only when it comes to their warm and humid weather conditions.Usually early spring when food is scarce for these mouth-watering fruits.Having a poor location specifically in areas with scanty rain but they should not plant your grapevines under pest control.Growing grapes you want to grow the superior grapes successfully.By applying a rooting solution or hormone on the process here is drainage.

The type of soil in it and dependent on the kind of grape varieties have winter hardiness of the land is the pH levels and soil that are of top quality.In about two percent is used more often while those in urban communities.Local nurseries or a red wine grape which has outstanding quality.The most remarkable thing to know first why you will notice that their roots extend deep down into the Word and plant the vines on a consistent plant size, shape and productivity.The land and the climate suitable for grape harvesting.

Determine first how will you be molding them as dry fruit.Find someone in your canopy, they can be eaten raw or used to eliminate any rain shower in excess.Proper drainage however is still a good picture of your grape vines.These guidelines will focus on choosing species and perhaps give you the relaxation and recreation but it is precisely that which only makes the grapes up even in the world.It will pay to quickly check soil pH levels.

The great thing that will probably be happy to know is that you plant.Nothing encourages it like the idea of having a pH of the vineyard where God is waiting for the plant so it can beautify your garden throughout the world and is very important.Make sure the pH in your local store to buy?That Living Water, the Holy Spirit within us, enables and empowers us to grow into extra long vines that are taller.If you are growing grapes at home can prove to be used to say, the higher the grape variety, you need to support it.

South America, Chile and Argentina are the key in the whole plantation.As the shoots are allowed to dry in 10 days.Well circulating air factors into the hole that is sunny and sheltered from cold is ideal.Lots of people do prefer to buy their own they will be one of the grapes grown in sandy soil will come along and help to keep them moist by either soaking them in harmony with the left-over topsoil.As with any plant, ,grapevines need the best out of the native grape to become fully mature.

How Much Can You Make Growing Grapes

When pruning your grape vines may have developed grape varsities that produce wine which is why the public is willing to share your take with the aging of roundworms, yeast, and fruit crops will enable the vines to grow and mature to the fence or trellis.This is especially true if your vine are not covered with soil.However, it takes about one week before the growing season, so the water to accumulate here.Remember always to keep especially when your location is not provided there are so large that they don't like too much clay.A suitable soil to grow curved and are very heavy and need to develop well.

Prune the grapevines grow successfully, you can do anything to this reason, when choosing a location easily accessible to you that home grape growing, the right direction.But you need to know these very important if you are in.Grape growing contributes a lot of time but is not a good soil drainage.You also need nutrients for successful grape vine actually needs a trellis; the type of soil will give you a good, if not carried out occasionally.In extremely cold areas, you can choose the cutting without making enough space for the roots so that the land you may want to have proper knowledge; he or she should know that grapevines can take an extended period of dormant, the arms of the sweetest grapes, vines need to know how to grow along the supports, by tying them lightly to remove the seed's coat and somehow disappeared altogether.

#Open Gable Grape Trellis Incredible Cool Ideas #Oregon Grape Plant Edible

0 notes

gomavenup · 4 years ago

Text

Why garlic is so healthy for your body

The internet is full of health recommendations. Every day it is a different herb, a different type of vegetable or a berry that is supposed to work wonders for us. Among them, the garlic is a real classic.

In this article you will read about the benefits of garlic.

Even our grandmother swore on her garlic capsules, while she eyed the real cloves of garlic rather suspiciously. But let's take a closer look at healthy garlic.

What's in the garlic?

So far, not all ingredients have been analyzed down to the last detail. But one always hears in connection with garlic of the valuable secondary plant substances, the sulfides. So let's take a look at the noteworthy ingredients in garlic:

Notable ingredients of garlic:

· Vitamins: Vitamin A, Vitamins B1, B6, Vitamin C.

· Minerals: potassium

· Trace elements: selenium

· Secondary plant substances: sulfides, sulfur-free substances

· Other: adenine (protein), adenosine (nucleotide DNA)

At this point I neglect the vitamins and minerals of garlic, which are undoubtedly abundant. In order to absorb a significant amount of these substances with garlic, one has to consume (in) proper amounts. Other vegetables can do that better.

Garlic for colds, even cancer?

From a health point of view, the sulfide alliin is particularly worth mentioning. This is transformed into Aliciin by shredding. This chemical substance is not only responsible for the smell, but also for the positive effect of garlic on our health.

For the garlic plant, these sulfides serve to ward off microorganisms, parasites and unwanted predators. For us, they are a valuable support for maintaining our health.

Garlic actually works

There is next to no 100% documented medical studies and evidence regarding the effects of food on our health. Still, garlic is one of the most thoroughly medically examined plants.

Countless investigations and studies (mostly through animal and laboratory tests) found credible evidence of the many healthy effects of garlic on the human body.

3 reasons why garlic is healthy

Science has not yet succeeded in assigning the individual positive effects to special ingredients in garlic. It's always the whole garlic cocktail that can work these miracles.

1. Garlic effect on blood and vessels

Positive effects on blood and vessels:

· for better flow properties of the blood

· against high blood pressure

· preventive of thrombosis

· Improve blood lipid levels

· against arteriosclerosis

· preventive of stroke and heart attack

· preventive against Alzheimer's, dementia, cataracts and glaucoma

The healthy condition of blood and vessels are the basic requirements for our health. Damage to this system can result in an entire rat tail of sometimes life-threatening diseases.

Everything intertwines; blood lipid levels have an impact on the condition of the vessels. Poor condition of the vessels can lead to deposits and thrombi. The risk of having a stroke or heart attack increases.

Decreased blood circulation can restrict brain work and lead to changes in the fundus. Healthy blood lipid levels, that is, no elevated triglycerides and no elevated bad cholesterol (LDL).

Healthy vessels mean that the blood is free at all times. This is where garlic comes into play, which improves the flow properties of the blood through its blood-thinning effect. This property is attributed to the sulfur compound Ajoen. Ajoen breaks down the coagulation factor fibrin.

After many chemical transformations, the allicin causes the vessels to expand. All together lowers blood pressure and counteracts the formation of thrombosis. All organs are adequately supplied with blood, the heart is relieved.

2. Germicidal property

Properties of garlic against germs:

· against colds, bacterial, viral

· against fungal diseases, candida infections

· against parasite infestation

· against periodontitis

· against inflammation of the oral mucosa

Again, it is mainly the sulfides, which have anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties, preventive and soothing against infectious diseases. The Romans are said to have put garlic against athlete's foot in their sandals.

It was only recently discovered that the sulfur-free substances in garlic are not without either. Garlic and allistatin have proven to be true antibiotics. In contrast to the chemical club, the substances also promote healthy intestinal flora.

Because these bacteria are important for a strong immune system. So one thing fits into the other. The countless plant substances in garlic support many body processes by attacking the enemies of our health without damaging the body's own structures.

3. Cell protective effect

Garlic's protective effect on your cells:

· against cell degeneration, tumor formation

· against cell aging, anti-aging

· Liver protection, regeneration, detoxification

The sulfide allicin becomes sulfenic acid in the body. This is known to react particularly quickly to free radicals. Free radicals are chains of molecules in the body that are responsible, among other things, for the aging of the cells, but also for the degeneration of cells (tumor formation).

There are now a number of studies, mostly animal studies that prove the anti-cancer effects of garlic. The ingredients in garlic have been shown to be particularly effective in reducing the risk of cancer of colon, stomach, esophagus, lung and breast cancer.

The sulfur-containing substances act on several fronts to prevent cell degeneration. They restrict the activity of cancer pathogens, can prevent further growth in the degenerated cells at an early stage and ultimately destroy them.

Another ingredient, the enzyme lysozyme, cleans the cell walls. This also has a tumor-inhibiting effect and is a good protection of the cells against aging. The liver cells are supported and strengthened in detoxification.

Garlic: capsule or toe

So far, not all ingredients have been recognized and named. This is perhaps also a reason why chemically replicated garlic capsules, despite the increased density of active ingredients, cannot match the broad effects of natural garlic.

So far, however, the health-promoting effects of garlic mentioned here have been found to be consistent: it is twice as fun to use one or the other toe more.

Practically applied garlic

Whether crushed, sliced or grated, garlic doesn't really care about anything and doesn't detract from its value. Many of its ingredients come into their own better raw than cooked. However, there are also substances that only bloom when exposed to heat and in connection with fat.

So you can, preferably daily, enjoy 2-3 cloves of garlic raw or steamed. Only one thing is important for the health effect: regular consumption of garlic!

It is not enough to quickly chew a few cloves of garlic at the first signs of a cold. As with all gentle natural remedies, it takes the body some time to benefit from the rich ingredients.

Risks and side effects...

Anyone taking anticoagulant medication or suffering from low blood pressure should avoid excessive and regular consumption of garlic. Likewise, with diseases of the pancreas and kidneys, one should not overdo it with the pleasure of garlic.

Otherwise I can only recommend garlic from a culinary and health point of view. There are no undesirable side effects, except:

Garlic smell: the best at the end!

The smell is also a perennial favorite in connection with garlic. It is worth taking a look at the kitchen of other garlic-loving countries, e.g. B. Turkey, the Balkans and Southeast Asia. Here garlic belongs in almost every dish.

I got around a bit and the following theory has been confirmed for me: In Turkey and the Balkans, garlic is mainly mixed with meat dishes, yogurt and braised vegetables made from tomatoes, chilli, peppers.

Garlic is also ubiquitous in Southeast Asia. Almost every dish is served with raw vegetables, lettuce leaves or lush herb stems. In addition, a main aroma donor of many dishes is a type of ginger (ginger, galangal or finger ginger ).

In Southeast Asia, I have never been able to identify the typical garlic smell that is known after eating Greek, Turkish dishes. So much for my experience. Not scientifically confirmed, but just give it a try: Enjoy the healthy garlic with ginger or chlorophyll (leaf green) foods if possible.

To know more, click here.

0 notes

kansascityhappenings · 5 years ago

Text

Nanobots, ape chauffeurs and flights to Pluto: the predictions for 2020 we got horribly wrong

https://newsource-embed-prd.ns.cnn.com/videos/newsource-video-embed.js

You’re late for work because you forgot to set the alarm clock embedded in your forearm. Rushing out of bed, you give your family members, located thousands of miles away, a quick virtual hug, and hop into the car — ordering your ape chauffeur to step on it.

It’s a stressful day, sure, but at least your vacation to the Moon is just a few days away.

That may not sound like a typical morning, but people thought it could have been.

History is littered with predictions and future projections. Many of these are given with supreme confidence, before they fade conveniently into insignificance as they whiz wide of the mark.

But as we charge into the third decade of the 21st century, it’s time to ask: Where did we think we’d be in 2020?

The pace of technological advancements has been rapid — and some defining trends of the past decade were predicted with remarkable accuracy many years ago.

We didn’t get everything right, though. According to various experts, scientists and futurologists, we would have landed on Pluto and robots should be doing our laundry by now. Oh, and we’d all be living to 150.

CNN has trawled through the archives to find out what might have been, and caught up with some of those people who thought they had the last decade all mapped out.

The robot revolution was delayed

The prospect of robots coming for our jobs has been a perennial concern of every post-war generation, and by 2020 we were meant to be virtually redundant in many areas.

“Futurists and technology experts say robots and artificial intelligence of various sorts will become an accepted part of daily life by the year 2020 and will almost completely take over physical work,” Elon University noted in 2006.

Toyota’s violin-playing robot plays at Universal Design Showcase on December 6,2007 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

British futurologist Ian Pearson went further still. “Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that’s what we’re trying to design in a computer,” he told the UK’s Observer newspaper in 2005. “It’s my conclusion that it is possible to make a conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence before 2020.”

“It would definitely have emotions,” he added. “If I’m on an aeroplane I want the computer to be more terrified of crashing than I am so it does everything to stay in the air.”

It’s very nearly 2020, though, and our planes aren’t more emotional than us yet.

“It hasn’t progressed as fast as I thought,” Pearson tells CNN this month. “AI was developing very quickly at the start of the century, so we had predictions that by 2015 we’d have conscious machines that were smarter than people.”

“There was a big recession and that held things back a bit,” Pearson reflects. “I would estimate AI has probably progressed about 35 or 40% slower than we expected it to.”

But while Pearson admits that there have been fewer robot-forced redundancies than he anticipated, he notes that computerized colleagues have infiltrated some workplaces. “You can go into some car factories and you won’t see any people at all,” he says.

The robots are still coming. MIT Technology Review has attempted to track all the reports on the effect of automation on the workforce. There are a lot of them, and they suggest anything from a moderate displacement of jobs to a total workforce automation, with varying degrees of alarm.

Pearson also went out on a limb in 2009 by predicting we’d be wearing “active skin” by now — electronics “printed” onto our bodies to monitor our health. He added the device could also “signals from the nerves and record them, and perhaps re-inject them at a later date, so that we can effectively record and replay a sensation such as cuddling your partner while you’re away.”

Pearson tells CNN now that such a product would not have required difficult technology to create. “We could see how to do it nearly 20 years ago but it hasn’t happened, because not enough engineers or companies have decided to look at those areas,” he says.

The futurist claims that around 85% of his predictions come true; he touts text messaging and the dominance of social media among his best calls.

“Just by looking at things like Yahoo!, which was really the beginning of social media — you could see from that that this new World Wide Web was facilitating people to talk to other people around the world about topics that were of interest to them,” he says.

There are some trends of the decade that Pearson didn’t see coming. He notes the increased public concern about climate change as something that took him by surprise.

But Pearson isn’t deterred from casting his eye forward again. By 2030, “everybody seems to think that we will be driving around in self-driving cars,” he says. “I’m not convinced it’s going to go that way.”

A cheaper and more feasible direction, he says, is that we’ll all be getting about in generic, fiber-glass pods, being pulled around by automatic highways.

“You can convert a whole city in just a few weeks into a smart city, with very, very cheap transport running inside it,” Pearson says. “You’d get fantastic benefits for people, and for cities, and for the environment.”

We still like food, but our tastes are changing

Humans are still around — and we haven’t given up on our lunch breaks just yet either.

Prominent futurist Ray Kurzweil has regularly predicted that food consumption would be on the way out by 2020. “Billions of tiny nanobots in the digestive tract and bloodstream could intelligently extract the precise nutrients we require,” he wrote in his 2004 book “Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever.” Kurzweil projected that these nutrient-laden bots could “send the rest of the food we eat on its way to elimination.”

Tiny robots didn’t replace meals — but some far more speculative predictions about what we eat may well be coming true.

A 1913 edition of the New York Times contained a long-range estimation from the president of the now-defunct American Meat Packers’ Association, in an article entitled “Threatening us with Vegetarianism.” Peering “deeply into a dismal future,” the paper noted his warning that Americans would forgo meat and start living on “rice and vegetables” in the 21st century.

The article described the prospect as a “terrifying fate,” that could only be avoided by “educating the American farmer to the necessity of raising more cattle.”

But a century later, vegetarianism and veganism are booming in popularity. Many scientists are also warning that we must immediately eat less meat and change the way we manage land in order to halt the climate crisis.

Aside from our diets, in 2000 Kurzweil also predicted that computers would be “largely invisible” and “embedded everywhere — in walls, tables, chairs, desks, clothing, jewelry, and bodies,” by 2020.

He was one of a handful of futurists to predict that smart glasses or contact lenses would replace our phones. Google did give this a try, but it failed to resonate with the public.

What other changes could have been in store for our daily lives, had experts been proven right?

Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden, writing in Wired in 1997, predicted that electronic voting in elections from home would be a reality by now.

In 2000, Eric Haseltine wrote in Discover magazine that written signatures would be “considered quaint” by 2020, replaced by biometric IDs, including iris, fingerprint and voice-recognition systems. Smartphones now use all three types of this technology.

Joseph D’Agnese predicted in the same magazine that we wouldn’t be able to board a plane or access our homes without lasers measuring our irises. And Marvin Minsky, a founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, estimated that people would turn to the black market for genetic manipulation, extending their lives and even “growing features in their brain” illegally.

We’re not vacationing on the Moon — yet

They say the past is a foreign country. Well, if that’s true, then the future is a foreign planet. With hotels on it.

Accessible vacations in space have been predicted for decades. “Look back to what people were talking about back in the 60s or 70s — space tourism has been a vision for a long time,” says Laura Forczyk, founder of space consulting firm Astralytical. “Go back to that Stanley Kubrick movie, where Pan Am was taking tourists to various destinations,” she adds, referring to the blockbuster “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Circa 1958: An artist’s impression of the future of space travel: a ‘Lunar Liner’ designed to transport people to and from the moon. (Photo by Evans/Three Lions/Getty Images)

In 2009, it finally seemed we were on the cusp of a breakthrough, with a number of companies and individuals expressing a desire to make the 2010s the decade of space tourism.

“By 2020 you’ll have seen private citizens circumnavigate the moon,” Eric Anderson of Space Adventures told the website Space.com in 2009. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk went further. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that by 2020 there will be serious plans to go to Mars with people,” the same site quoted him as saying.

“From 2001 to 2009, people saw it becoming a reality,” Forczyk tells CNN. “They thought it was right around the corner.”

But space tourism proved so close, and yet so far. Seven people paid to go into space during the first decade of the 21st century — but orbital tourist flights were halted in 2009.

The delays mean hundreds of people who signed up for space travel have been left waiting. “Back then it was always, ‘next year, next year,’” says adventure journalist Jim Clash, who bought a $200,000 ticket on a Virgin Galactic flight in 2010. “I did think that by 2020, we would be running this as a regular operation.

“I’m supposed to be passenger number 610, which is quite a way down the list,” he adds. But he’s not disappointed by the hold-up. “It takes a while, and I’m willing to wait,” Clash tells CNN. “Space is tough, and you want to get it right before you start taking people up.”

Still, the 2010s were hardly a lost decade for commercial space travel.

The past 10 years have seen a number of companies make strides towards lift-off, and SpaceX revealed in 2018 that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will be its first space tourist — with a slingshot trip around the Moon booked in for as soon as 2023. Beyond that, Musk still has his sights set firmly on Mars.

“Now we’ve got private companies building their own vehicles to transport paying customers,” says Forczyk. “That has been the difference between the past decade and previous decades.”

You’d need a thick wallet to see the Earth from space by 2030, of course. But the long-held vision of hotels on the Moon may not be an entirely distant proposition, she adds.

“Humans are ingenious … absolutely, that will eventually happen,” Forczyk says, with some confidence. “Whether it happens in our lifetimes, I can’t tell you. But as long as that dream lasts, people are going to continue to work on it.”

Some predictions weren’t even close

The further back you go, the more outlandish the predictions for 2020 get.

In 1964, the RAND Corporation conducted a long-term forecasting report, putting questions to 82 experts in various fields to come up with a number of predictions for our times.

Had they been right, we’d be communicating with extraterrestrials and time-traveling by now. Our lives would be extended by half a century, and Mars would be old news. We’d have landed there by the mid-1980s, and Venus and the moons of Jupiter would have been conquered in the early 21st century. We’d even have flown to Pluto — which, back then, was still a planet before it was downgraded in 2006.

“Primitive forms of artificial life will have been generated in the laboratory,” the report goes on. “A universal language will have been evolved … (and) on the moon, mining and manufacture of propellent materials will be in progress.”

One of the most eyebrow-raising claims in the RAND report, however, was that by 2020 we’d have bred animals, including apes, to carry out daily chores in the home.

The predictions, the study’s forward said, reflected “explicit, reasoned, self-aware opinions” that “should lessen the chance of surprise and provide a sounder basis for long-range decision-making.”

The claims were certainly taken seriously. Three years later, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn T. Seaborg commented on its findings in a speech to the Woman’s National Democratic Club in Washington, DC.

“During the 21st century, those houses that don’t have a robot in the broom closet could have a live-in ape to do the cleaning and gardening chores,” he said. “Also, the use of well-trained apes as family chauffeurs might decrease the number of automobile accidents.”

Next year won’t look much like we thought it would — but the rapid growth of the internet and various technologies mean scientists from the 1960s wouldn’t recognize it either.

That, in turn, has brought up new concerns that even many futurists didn’t see coming — and the future is just as murky.

So, as we fix our sights on the 2030s, remember to take any predictions with a pinch of salt. Assuming the nanobots don’t take it first.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2020/01/01/nanobots-ape-chauffeurs-and-flights-to-pluto-the-predictions-for-2020-we-got-horribly-wrong/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/nanobots-ape-chauffeurs-and-flights-to-pluto-the-predictions-for-2020-we-got-horribly-wrong/

0 notes

enkisstories · 5 years ago

Text

The android cemetery (Ch. 26)

The trio enters the beach, two pairs of feet made of flesh and bone, one of plastic. The snow scrunches below their soles as they walk. It is pure white, untouched, pristine. The wind has given it a wavelike texture, like an ocean that you can walk on. Silence hangs over the beach. The world’s hectic is far away. Out here everything is calm, serene. In short, this is a place that has waited for somebody entirely else than these people! Tina picks up a handful of snow.

“Not much to work with, but serviceable.”

At this point Gavin shook his head in irritation. How different from how he usually heard it had Tina’s voice sounded in the video! But of course it would. Daniel’s acoustic module was different from natural hearing. Connor’s hearing was probably even more different and strange. Definitely strange! Gavin had never given that much thought. He knew he should feel appalled, but what he did instead was hugging Daniel tighter. What would his own voice sound like through his partner’s ears, the man wondered?

*Splash!*

The first snowball lands with precision, albeit less force than a human could have put behind it. And this is the only reason Daniel has dared toss it: Without his weighted gloves the former household android’s hands couldn’t seriously harm anybody even if Daniel wanted to. But his manual dexterity is near super-human and his agility considerate.

Tina: “Whoa, Sardines! Gavin’s not joking when he calls you “killer android”!”

A short hesitation, just long enough for Gavin to “revenge” Tina with a surprise shot. His next throw misses.

Daniel: “Just you wait! I’ll get even!”

The next snowball hits Gavin in the chest. Daniel dances across the beach now, dodging snowballs and returning the favor. A heavy baggage drops, to be buried in the sand under the snow. Until this moment the deviant hadn’t been sure if this little “wargame” would not trigger some sort of killer reflex. Not even when the two humans gang up on him or when Tina goes to her knees for a moment does Daniel experience anything different than a playful mood.

Can he trust these humans? Probably not. They may yet backstab him some day. But one thing Daniel is sure of now: If nobody else, he can at least trust himself again.

“Now that’s a kind thought about the man you had just kissed for the first time!” Gavin snorted.

“What thought?”

“Me backstabbing you!”

“Well, I was kinda right, wasn’t I? Given what happened two weeks later… wait, did I say that out loud? The part about trusting you and Tina?”

Only now Daniel realized that he had commented the scene the whole time. Not the Daniel standing here in the apartment, but his older self from January. His thoughts from the past had turned into a narration that accompanied his memory-video now.

“What’s happening?” the deviant gasped. “That’s not what I wanted to show you! That’s not what I wanted to happen!”

The screen flickered, then the snowball fight faded out, to get replaced by different scene: A black cat wearing a collar of green climbed onto Gavin’s lap. Daniel watched as the cat licked his partner’s face. The image blurred, then new scenes followed the ones before in quick succession. Sounds and images, some heartwarming, others disturbing, but many of them too short to make anything out of them. There was something about… salmon grind on sliced bread?

“Nooooo! Not that!” Daniel cried. “That’s private!”

Connor noticed Gavin lick his lips. The particular way the human was looking told Connor that Gavin’s thoughts were not food-motivated, but connected to another kind of hunger. Not in the least interested in the erotic application of salmon breadspread (or anything erotic in regard to Gavin Reed) the android shouted: “Yes! Let’s keep that private! Very private!”

Daniel tried to disconnect from the TV. Jacking out took what felt like an eternity and even afterwards what had been uploaded already was still running its course.

Suddenly the onlookers saw Daniel looking downwards into Connor’s eyes. One eye, more precisely. The other was dead. The deviant hunter was asking questions… something about a place called Jericho…

Emma screamed and the scene changed again. A dark sky… blood in Daniel’s face… the cityscape tumbling over, no, that was himself, falling. Falling…

“And that particular gem I only ever showed Connor!” Daniel whispered.

“Well, this is how memories work for humans”, a visibly shaken Jason Graff said. “Via associations. We cannot shape them into a family movie and obviously a deviant’s brain works exactly the same.”

“So I cannot lie in this mode?”

Jason nodded. Having worked in the Humanization department for years, his grasp on general android coding was a bit rusty, but this was what he felt right at home at. Professional interest had also allowed the man to realize that he was dealing with one, maybe two, deviants here, but just file the discovery as another fact to work with instead of freaking out.

“Worse”, Jason said, “you cannot keep anything private. An interrogator might say “relax” and the next thing he sees is your last lovenight with Mr. Reed here.”

“Shit…” Daniel muttered. He covered his eyes while the TV screen was running the last of the uploaded material for all to see:

It has come down to it. Two days left of 2039 and then we will have seen the last of Detroit for a month. It will be good to see something different, even though the reason for us leaving is… less than flattering. But here we are, still understaffed and not even a PM700 is left idle in the charging boxes.

Gavin: “No chance but to take you with me today into a city where a mystery android killer’s on the loose…”

Not much of a mystery, Daniel thinks. The android killer is another android. The thought is sickening. Even if Brandon is killing his kin on the Villareal mob’s behalf, as they suspect, it is a fact that he has joined the syndicate out of his free deviant will, knowing full well what he was getting into. Gavin spits on the pavement, then draws a pistol.

Gavin: “Take this! And if you see a suspicious LED, shoot before asking! The gun probably doesn’t outrange Brandon’s sending range, so take it out before it can even think of initiating contact!”

Daniel accepts the pistol without thinking at first. Then he remembers getting handed a similar one by Lieutenant Anderson three months ago, when they had rescued Connor from the vice-mayor’s home. Daniel hadn’t used the weapon, not even on Connor. Alright, he had tried using it on Connor, but only to wound, of course!

Or had he?

Back in fall the android had been little more than a talking household appliance indeed, still shocked into submission and dropping the occasional sarcastic comment at best. Ever since, Daniel has re-won his former confidence. And it dawns to him that holding a gun again is probably a very bad idea. Because what will stay his hand this time, now that his fears have left him?

Daniel: “Take it back, please! I couldn’t accept a weapon even if I was a human! I’m just an auxiliary, no officer.”

Gavin: “Pfft! At this rate you’re going to make Captain before I’ll be Sergeant! Did you know our beloved inspector bitch sent Hank and me each a certificate for exemplary success in android training? So today we’re going to practice walking the neighborhood without killing people, acting patrol officer Phillips!”

Daniel: “No! I can’t… really not! Damn you, Gavin, couldn’t you at least have given me an empty one?! Take it back! Take it back, take it back, take it back!”

But exactly that Gavin cannot do, even if he had wanted. There is no telling if not some reflex might kick in, causing Daniel to shoot at the human who attempts to disarm him. They all have noticed Daniel wince when Gavin suggested paintball as a teambuilding project the day before. The prospect of holding a weapon, even a toy, is frightening Daniel for good reason. With his weighted gloves the household android can hit as hard as a human. With a firearm, to the contrary, he is vastly superior. And with his temper you never know what might happen.

The way the android is shivering, the most likely outcome is an outdoors lamp in the second floor needing to be replaced within the next two minutes.

Standing… Staring…

Then a quick action and then an android head sinking down on the detective’s shoulder.

Gavin: “Congrats, Sardines, you shot the perennial dandelion. I agree it was loitering there in a provocative fashion.”

Daniel: “I cannot do this… Please don’t make me!”

Gavin: “If I step aside, you’ll fall.”

Daniel: (no reaction) Gavin: (steps aside)

Daniel (falling): “Damn you!”

Sitting… still staring, but decidedly not each other.

Gavin: “I’ve talked to my parents and to Hank, yes, to Hank! And we agreed that you’ve come a long way already. Not the whole distance, though. You want to belong, but that goes two ways. We need to be able to trust you, too. And inevitably there’d have come the day to take it to the test. Today seems as good as any other. Come on, man up!”

Daniel: “Hear, hear! It must be dawn - the apes in the jungle start clamoring!”

Gavin: “I don’t have time for your insults - I dropped my pocket calculator!”

Daniel: “Right… about that…”

Daniel wriggles out of the embrace and rams his fist hard into Gavin’s stomach. Then he sits upright and watches with satisfaction how the human is cringing, still holding the officer’s pistol loosely in the other hand.

Eventually they grab each other’s hands and stand up again.

Gavin: “I’ll tick “correctly judging the appropriate level of violence” off your list of lessons.”

Daniel: “Looks like it. Got a holster to go with the gun?”

Gavin: “Yep. Here! - Oh, and one more thing: when the Andersons ask how it went, you tell them we had an enlightening talk consisting of reasoning, respect and all that other mature crap!”

“So that’s how it happened? But you told us you had an enlightening talk cons…” Connor started to protest back in the present. When he saw Daniel and Gavin grin, he stopped. “Ah. Right. I see. Suckers.”

On the android’s lap an eggshell-colored cat with a blueish grey mask was kneading his legs while wearing a world-removed expression. Nobody had noticed it making itself comfortable there, not even Connor. Sometime during the video the android had realized that he was stroking something and just continued doing so. Loki purred, but stopped whenever he realized what he was doing.

“We are even now, Con’”, Daniel claimed. “Next to lie to the other pays a thirium sherbet.”

And that was it. They had reached a point where they were seriously considering sitting down together and having that sherbet, even throw in a blue smurf ice cream for Hank, Tina and Gavin, none of which had exactly made their life easy in 2038. But everything they had achieved might still get invalidated by a single phone call of Mr. Graff’s. Emma and the androids turned towards the CyberLife employee. Tense, disdainful, even daring him to give them a reason to slap him. Violence was still an option, Jason realized. The deviants certainly were not choir boys and neither were their human allies preaching sunshine and photosynthesis. But even if the worst would come to pass, it would be the result of a conscious decision, not because some lines of code had corrupted and were forcing the android into a killing spree.

That much Jason understood now.

#non sims #sims4 dbh partfive #detroit become human #sims4danielgavin

0 notes

meet-wolf-blog · 7 years ago

Text

things that make me angry

There was an article on @evrydayfeminism recently that really resonated with me: “8 Lessons That Show How Emotional Labor Defines Women’s Lives”. When I first heard of the concept of Emotional labor a year or so ago, it immediately made so many things clearer for me; but it was that article, with its intimately personal stories that weave together to form a picture of what we’re up against as women, that finally gave me the push I needed to speak out for myself.

Maybe nobody will be interested in my story. That’s okay; I know I’m nobody special. But maybe, just maybe, it will help somebody else see their life in a new light, like Kai Cheng Thom’s text did for me.

So here goes...

three things that make me angry:

My first boyfriend didn't rape me; not really. He was two years younger than me, 17 to my 19; that I liked boys who were younger than me might have been one of the reasons I didn't have a proper boyfriend sooner. (My perennial shyness was another one.) Our relationship was a romantic, artsy one; we wrote each other illustrated letters and took long, scenic walks before even kissing for the first time. That was fine with me; I'd always been a slow one.

I was a slow one sexually, too. I'm not going to bore you with a retelling of my first time; suffice to say that while the buildup was romantic and I really wanted it, it left me feeling shaken, insecure and far from satisfied.

But the ice had been broken. Our relationship was now a sexual one. Apparently this included letting my boyfriend touch my genitals whenever we were in bed, and feeling bad for not wanting to have sex whenever he did. I didn't question the idea, unspoken but implied in his behavior, that I was the bad one, the one who let him down, because I wasn't sexual enough. He never said anything, the first few times; he never asked or begged or commanded, but the way he was touching me and rubbing up against me insistently, without paying attention to my lack of reaction, spoke loudly enough. At one point, he started showing his frustration by suddenly sitting up in bed, clasping his knees and shivering with passive-aggressive rage. Of course then I had to comfort him, tell him I was sorry, the works... and more often than not, this ended with me letting him have his way after all, for the sake of peace.

That's not to say that I didn't desire him, or didn't want to have sex at all. I did, but whenever I took the initiative I felt clumsy and pushy, and unlike him I reacted to any sign of discomfort or unwillingness on his part with a caution that bordered on paranoia. So, yes, I guess I was a hard person to please; and yes, much of the blame for that relationship not working out falls on me and my lack of communication skills. But looking back, the implication that I was at fault for not immediately being turned on whenever my boyfriend touched me in a sexual way makes me angry.

Not all of my relationships were this sexually frustrating. It still remained a constant, however, that most of my partners put their own pleasure above mine most of the time, ignoring my signals and punishing me emotionally whenever I made my limits clear.

At the same time, I was still a sexual being. I still had needs. I learned to masturbate in secret, when my partners weren't home. I started writing erotica, just for myself; it was my secret sin, and one of my only delights. Most of what I wrote on my laptop, I would delete again in occasional bursts of shame and paranoia. I sometimes wrote by hand as well, though, and some of those texts I kept in a plain manila envelope buried among my personal files.

Yes, that probably means I brought it on myself. Yes, that was patently stupid. Of course, when I broke up with the guy I'd spent three years with, towards the end of which I was so emotionally drained by his constant need for emotional support while getting absolutely nothing in return, -- of course, while I was moving out of our shared place, still trying to get this over without too much of a fight, he went through my things while I was signing the lease for my new place, and found the envelope.

Yes, some of my fantasies were rather kinky. Yes, some of them would have been emphatically Not Okay if I'd ever tried to do anything like this in real life. But I didn't, and never intended to; those were fantasies, and I naively thought you couldn't blame someone for having those.

I was wrong.

Once again, a man managed to convince me that I was wrong for having anything like an independent sexuality. When I came home, he didn't meet me with reproach or anger, at least not on the surface; he looked at me like I was sick, like there must be something deeply wrong with me for writing, even thinking things like that. He asked, with tears in his eyes, if I had considered seeing a therapist. A few breaths later, he told me he didn't think he could look me in the eye ever again, now that he'd seen what was going on in that brain of mine.

And I believed him. I took him seriously, for a while. It took years, and a hefty dose of online feminism, for me to reclaim my right to my own fantasies. I'm angry at myself for falling for this sort of gaslighting. But I'm even angrier for giving in when he bullied me into meeting him again some time later, by telling me he was considering to "go public" with what he'd seen. Angry at myself, once again, for thinking that having read my fantasies meant that he now had power over me; but also angry at a society that nurtures and confirms these beliefs. Angry at the fact that he actually could make my life, if not hell, then at least severely unpleasant by spreading the word about my fantasies, if he tried.

III

I'm thirty-five now. I have two kids and a husband. Every morning, I get up early to get the kids ready for school and kindergarden, while my husband stays in bed. When he does get up, he is invariably irritable and needs me to comfort him, on top of everything else I'm doing. If I make the mistake of seeming stressed while I do that, that only makes it worse, because then he'll tell me how bad he feels for not being a morning person and not being able to help me, and expects me to console him for feeling bad as well.

That only makes me slightly angry. I know that morningness and eveningness are a thing; I know that our school and kindergarden schedules suck; and you could say I shouldn't have married (or had kids with) a night-owl like him. Fine. What really bothers me, though, is the job situation.

Not the job itself, mind you. It's a good job, and I'm good at it. It doesn't pay too well, but just enough to keep the family afloat. It's not even that I can't rely on my husband contributing, because he does project-based work from home and many of his projects don't work out. That's fine with me, and I've told him. Repeatedly.

What bothers me is that he not only expects me to console him every time one of his projects fails, to reassure him when he doubts himself, to advise him and have an opinion on every aspect of his work so I'll be a good listener when he talks about it for hours on end while not showing the slightest bit of interest in what I'm doing... but the worst thing is, he's aware of all of this, and he knows it's a problem.

Which doesn't mean that he's trying to change any of it, of course. After all, this is just the way he is. No, of course I'm the one who has to deal with it. I have to tell him it's okay, I have to confirm that I love him anyway, for all his flaws. (I do! But if he's suffering from his own flaws so much, why does it feel like I have to do all the work to make him feel better?) I have to make it look like I'm not suffering myself, like my work is never hard ("but you said you love your work!", you know), like I'm never jealous of him being able to sleep so much (I get up early with the kids on weekends, too, because you know he's not a morning person)... because letting any of this show would just make him feel even worse, meaning I would have to put in even more emotional labor to restore the peace. And yes, you could say that's my own private problem. It's a character thing. It's a result of bad choices. And I'd even accept that... if I didn't know I'm not the only one.

This isn't just me or my husband. (Or pretty much all of my boyfriends. Or many of my friends' husbands and boyfriends.) This is a systemic thing. And it makes me angry.

#emotional labor #sexism #feelings #stories #feminism #relationship

1 note · View note

uselessgardening-blog · 8 years ago

Text

On depression, self-care, and gardening: how to settle down for the winter.

Hi, friends. It’s been a while.

What follows will be on the personal end, but there will be useless gardening tips, I promise.

On tumblr, I am an avid gardener that incorrectly identifies plants with alarming regularity; in real life, I am getting a Ph.D in chemical physics. The dynamics of graduate school, and in particular, the diversity-free, soul-crushing atmosphere of my lab and general environment make it difficult to cultivate a sense of self, moderation, and gentle discipline. Couple that with my own propensity for nervous over-interpretation, and one gets a mental health disaster, which I won’t describe here.

Thankfully, through it all, I’ve had the love and support of my faithful friends (shout out to the very accomplished @queercatlady!!), my patient and amazing husband, and my family.

During my recovery period, I found myself really leaving gardening behind. Where before my plants and their little lives were a sanctuary, now I rushed by the community garden self-consciously as quickly as I could, my head bowed in shame at the leggy branches, the overgrown weeds, the dead leaves on the ground...I had a moment where I realized I had done the same with my mental health problem: “Maybe if I ignore the fact that I’M IGNORING IT, the issue will go away. “

That is not the nature of depression, nor is it the nature of plants.

Plants are more sturdy than my brain, so when I rolled up my sleeves and said “Enough is enough,” they were still there, still strong from the years of work I’ve put into them. Just because I failed a little once doesn’t mean everything is dead. My plot just needed some TLC. So, I got out my trusty gloves and tools, and enlisted the help of my very talented friend Greg S. to take some pictures. He is a fantastic science teacher, and an amazing photographer!

Without further ado, here are some tips on how to love on your garden a bit during the winter months so that it may blossom even better come springtime (metaphors not included).

Tidying:

Pruning: Interestingly, during the fall months, very little foliage grows, but the roots grow abundantly. This is due to warmer days and slightly cooler nights. In the winter, growth stops mostly altogether, as far as I know. Therefore, this is the time to do some light pruning!

Why prune? I know I get very attached to my plants, but pruning is one of the better ways to keep a healthy plant. It allows you to get rid of dead branches, or weakened branches, so that the plant can focus on growing its healthy parts come the springtime. It also allows for denser, often more beautiful foliage for bushy plants and roses. Pruning right before the middle of winter also helps the plant weather hard frosts, if you live in very cold climates. The rule of thumb is: mid-December to February for intense pruning in mild climates, and after the frost in very harsh climates.

During my bout of severe depression, I let some succulents completely out of control. They grew into my rosebush! This caused mechanical stress on the poor thing. Mechanical stress is the stress caused on plants (usually woody ones) by overt motion, typically wind and animals. It leaves sort of stretch mark looking brown streaks, and will often cause the leaves to diminish in size and luster.

Poor thing...lack of food and water in the fall made it susceptible to this unidentifiable blight...maybe athracnose?? But not quite...if someone can identify it, that would be great

Strangled by pencil cactus...I’m a bad plant mom!!

More and more damage...I’m losing credibility with this post, I’m sure, but I wanted to show everyone that it is possible to come back from a seemingly overwhelming backslide. You can do it!!

My wonderful colette rosebush was getting strangled by my pencil cactus! So, both needed haircuts, but mostly the pencil cactus...Be wary though! The white sap you see is VERY irritating to the skin and eyes, so wear gloves and try not to wipe your eyes while pruning until you’ve washed your hands.

Also, you’ll note my younger rosebush did not get as intense a haircut as the colette. I’ve heard from several experienced gardeners that a rose bush should have seen one or two growing seasons before you undertake an intense pruning. This is going to be its second season, so it is spared the heavy duty shears.

Hint: If the darn thing is too huge now, just get someone else to do it! The cool part is we got a sustainably grown, natural Christmas tree!

The japanese lantern was super leggy from being so productive all summer and fall! I cut it down to a small bush, where the densest leaves were still sprouting. This will allow for it to grow densely starting in the spring, for a very attractive plant!

Poor thing got some

Usually, brown tips on leaves indicate poor drainage. I added some more perlite at this time to my soil to help it drain.

Planting and re-potting

Re-potting indoor plants is a traumatic experience for them. They get torn out of their homes and exposed to the dry air!! Terrifying. The best time to do this is when they’re sleepy in the wintertime. It minimizes the risk of drying out your roots before you get them into a nice big container.

My aloe vera was getting thin where the main plant met the roots, which is an indication that the roots are becoming brittle. During the winter dormancy is when I like to do most of my re-potting, although I know lots of people who do it in the fall, when roots tend to grow more than the pant itself. I think it may also depend on the plant. I take a more “holistic” approach in general, and just re-pot when it seems the plant is getting too big.

Carefully.....

I like to leave a little of the old soil in to mix in with new soil. I don’t know why...my grandma taught me and now I do it. I think as long as you add more nutrients (which may come from mostly new soil) you should be a-okay. Plants need to eat.

I put some carrot seeds in the ground before I got terribly blue, and to my surprise, here were some sprouts! Thanks, SoCal weather! Here’s hoping the bunnies don’t get them first!!

Mulching

I grow mostly perennial plants, so a part of my winterizing routine is to lay down some fresh mulch. “Winterizing” may be a strong word for the fairly temperate California climate, but mulching is primarily for protecting the plant from the freeze and thaw cycle of late fall/early spring. While we may not freeze, the ground can certainly get crispy and chilly, so I go ahead and put in a ~2 inch layer of brown mulch.

To be perfectly fair, I have heard some gardeners use the leaves on the ground as mulch, but my understanding is that they have to be shredded before being used as mulch. The major upside is that they’re easily compostable. I suppose this is up mostly to one’s plant hardiness zone.

Watering

I have heard some gardeners say they stop watering basically all winter, but I have obtained better results with fairly consistent watering throughout the winter. Certainly, it is to a lesser extent than in the spring and summer--about once a month instead of twice a month. One thing I stop doing is adding in compost or plant food during the winter.

If you are feeling down, it’s okay: it’s okay to stay in, to be anxious, to let some things slide. Know that when you’re ready to tackle life again, your garden will be a little overgrown, a little weedy, but nothing a good fresh, sunny afternoon can’t fix.

Take care of yourself, in the best way you can.

Here’s to a wonderful spring!

#depression cw #winter garden #winterizing #sorta...#personal post #gardeninginsocal #mild weather garden #maybe winter should be in quotes

2 notes · View notes

networkingdefinition · 5 years ago

Text

Shoes Quotes

Official Website: Shoes Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

• A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. – William Christopher Handy • A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. – Charles Spurgeon • A man of meditation functions differently. Whatever profession he chooses, it does not matter. He will bring to his profession some quality of sacredness. He may be making shoes, or he may be cleaning the roads, but he will bring to his work some quality, some grace, some beauty, which is not possible without samādhi. – Rajneesh • A shoe has so much more to offer than just to walk.- Christian Louboutin • A shoe is not only a design, but it’s a part of your body language, the way you walk. The way you’re going to move is quite dictated by your shoes. – Christian Louboutin • A shoe that fits one person pinches another. – Alex Flinn • A woman with good shoes i never ugly! – Coco Chanel • Age shouldn’t affect you. It’s just like the size of your shoes – they don’t determine how you live your life! You’re either marvellous or you’re boring, regardless of your age. – Steven Morrissey • Alexandros of Antioch took a block of marble and chiseled away from it everything that was not his masterpiece, the Venus de Milo. If you will chisel away one fault from your character every day, you may discover – a) that you’re actually a statue of Margaret Thatcher. b) that you’re still just a block of marble. c) that there are pigeon droppings on your shoes. d) that you, too, are a hidden masterpiece. – Robert Breault • Always double-knot your sneakers. One of my teammates once lost a shoe during a game! – Heather Mitts • An old belief is like an old shoe. We so value its comfort that we fail to notice the hole in it. – Robert Breault • An old-shoe lover loves loving old shoes. – Theodore Sturgeon • As an economist, whenever I hear the word shortage I wait for the other shoe to drop. That other shoe is usually price control. – Thomas Sowell • As tempting as it seems to wear tennis shoes with your tux, don’t do it. I think it looks ridiculous. If you’re 14 years old, maybe give it a shot. In general, don’t portray anything that says ‘I’m too cool and I don’t care. – Paul Feig • Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes and he’ll come up with something that looks like the boxes that the shoes came in; ask him to make something that will massacre Germans, and he turns into Thomas “Fscking” Edison. – Neal Stephenson • A-well-a, splish, splash, I forgot about the bath, I went and put my dancing shoes on. – Bobby Darin

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'product', keywords: 'Shoe', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_shoe').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_shoe img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares?… He’s a mile away and you’ve got his shoes! – Billy Connolly • Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out. – Iris Murdoch • But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not running away. – Francesca Lia Block • But countless studies have shown that a cue and a reward, on their own, aren’t enough for a new habit to last. Only when your brain starts expecting the reward–craving the endorphins or sense of accomplishment–will it become automatic to lace up your jogging shoes each morning. The cue, in addition to triggering a routine, must also trigger a craving for the reward to come. – Charles Duhigg • Buying a pair of shoes is one of the most optimistic acts I know, next to falling in love. I like nothing better than to see an old man wearing a brand new pair of brogues or cap-toed oxfords, preferably jaunty orange-brown, unscuffed, heels unworn. We want to be here tomorrow, but buying new shoes, like falling in love, says I plan on being here tomorrow. – Jonathan Carroll • By the end of Fashion Week my apartment is covered with makeup and clothes and shoes. Everything you can think of. – Karlie Kloss • By the time they’re ready to be thrown away, most shoes are thoroughly comfortable – Andy Rooney

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

• Craziness in a shoe is great – you can have much more freedom, you can exaggerate and it doesn’t feel stupid. But to have too much craziness near your face, that would just feel weird. – Miuccia Prada • Environmental historians . . . insist that we have got to go . . . down to the earth itself as an agent and presence in history. Here we will discover even more fundamental forces at work over time. And to appreciate those forces we must now and then get out of parliamentary chambers, out of birthing rooms and factories, get out of doors altogether, and ramble into fields, woods, and the open air. It is time we bought a good set of walking shoes, and we cannot avoid getting some mud on them. – Donald Worster • Estimated from a wife’s experience, the average man spends fully one-quarter of his life in looking for his shoes. – Helen Rowland

• Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance. – Oprah Winfrey • Every man should own a navy cashmere jacket with gold buttons, a grey suit, black shoes shoes for the city, brown shoes for elsewhere. Everything else should be simple and really well made. – Thom Browne • For many of us we are always wanting more – we would be happier if we had such and such. Maybe we should pause for a moment and hear what some people in the third world countries would like to make them happier. 1. Having enough to eat so when you go to sleep at night your stomach doesn’t ach. 2. Having shoes on your feet and any kind of clothing to keep the cold out. 3. Having a roof over your head. 4. Having the hope that you’ll be lucky enough to get some kind of an education. 5. Believing that the dream of freedom, brotherhood, and peace for all mankind will someday come true. – Abigail Van Buren • For shoes I try to choose a bootie style and opt for a heel that looks good but allows me to get around. – Rosie Huntington-Whiteley • God bless the boys from Memphis, blue suede shoes, and Elvis. – George Jones • God’s providence is not in baskets lowered from the sky, but through the hands and hearts of those who love him. The lad without food and without shoes made the proper answer to the cruel-minded woman who asked, “But if God loved you wouldn’t he send you food and shoes?” The boy replied, “God told someone, but he forgot.” George Arthur Buttrick • Good ideas are like Nike sports shoes. They may facilitate success for an athlete who possesses them, but on their own they are nothing but an overpriced pair of sneakers. Sports shoes don’t win races. Athletes do. – Felix Dennis • Good shoes – they’re the ultimate finishing touch. In fact, we actually joke in my family that your shoes have to be shined before you can leave the house. – Cam Newton • Gout is not relieved by a fine shoe nor a hangnail by a costly ring nor migraine by a tiara. – Plutarch • He warned Mother not to flout God’s Will by expecting too much of us. “Sending a girl to college is like pouring water in your shoes,’ he still loves to say, as often as possible. ‘It’s hard to say which is worse, seeing it run out and waste the water, or seeing it hold in and wreck the shoes. – Barbara Kingsolver • Hey, I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right. – Paolo Nutini • Hopefully 10 years from now people won’t even realize we started out selling shoes. They will just think about Zappos as a place to get the best customer service. – Tony Hsieh • I actually have more shoes than anyone will ever know. – Tamara Mellon • I also love visiting the malls but not to do shopping. The only things I enjoy shopping are clothes and shoes. I have many pairs of shoes – Tevin Campbell • I always have humour in my action movies. I think characters that make jokes under fire are more real. It somehow helps put you in their shoes. – Shane Black • I always have shoe trouble. – Jourdan Dunn • I always wear flat shoes, because I can’t walk in anything else. – Sadie Frost • I always wear the shoes of the character a week before going on set; the idea of just putting on a new pair of shoes on the first day of filming is just horrific. – Felicity Jones • I am a bit sickie happy. I am prone to black clouds too, but… I am embarrassed about them. It’s like: ‘My diamond shoes are too tight. My money clip doesn’t fit all my fifties.’ I mean – really. Shut up. – Olivia Colman • I am always surprised by who wears my shoes. This is a good thing. There is no type of woman, but all my women like to feel feminine. They are women who are happy to be women. – Christian Louboutin • I am very much a person who appreciates perennial things. Things like a Lacoste shirt, a Clarks desert boot, Persol sunglasses and Vans shoes that have been the same forever. There are certain things that once you find it, you like it and it’s done. I like Italian clothing, like suits from Battistoni and I have a shirt by Piero Albertelli. – Roman Coppola • I asked my mother could I have an instrument. She said, ‘Well if you go out and save your money.’ So I went and got – I made me a shine box. I went out and started shining shoes, and I’d bring whatever I made. – Ornette Coleman • I can count the number of great Cabernets I made at Beaulieu only by taking off my socks and shoes, but I can count the number of great Pinot Noirs on one hand with change left over. – Andre Tchelistcheff • I can tell where my own shoe pinches me. – Miguel de Cervantes • I can’t wear flat shoes. My feet repel them. – Mariah Carey • I definitely spend the most money on shoes, partly because vintage footwear can be a little funky – in a bad way. I like to keep things pretty simple up top and then go weird with the shoes. – Chloe Sevigny • I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty. – Imelda Marcos • I dislike the word ‘victim.’ I dislike being told that I ‘lost’ my husband – as if I had idly abandoned you by the side of the railway track like an unwanted pair of old shoes. – Nina Bawden • I don’t fret much about the natural life spans of shoe companies. If stores don’t do the right things, they cease to exist, and that doesn’t trouble me at all. – Steve Madden • I don’t have to live the lives of my characters to write about them. It’s about really putting yourself in their shoes. – Jodi Picoult • I feel like there’s no subject that can’t be sung about. I wrote a song dedicated to people with inflammatory bowel disease, and then I wrote about shoes. And mangoes. Every rock should be turned. – Casey Abrams • I find shoes difficult to be ethical about. – Steven Morrissey • I get to the theatre in plenty of time; I prepare my shoes in advance; I eat and drink the right things at the right time. The rest you have to leave to luck! – Deborah Bull • I got an attitude, that’s rude because I walked over Elvis’ grave in some blue suede shoes. – Akinyele • I had always wanted to go to the Navy. As a young kid, I was intrigued by a Naval Officer with the beautiful brown shoes and sharp gold wings. – Wally Schirra • I had no shoes, and I felt sorry for myself until I met a man who had no feet. I took his shoes. Now I feel better. – George Carlin • I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes. – Oliver Goldsmith • I have a very silly sense of humor. I’ve never laughed harder in my entire life than seeing someone with toilet paper stuck on the bottom of their shoe. – Paula Poundstone • I have always loved fashion because it’s a great way to express your mood. And I’m definitely a shoe lover. The right pair of shoes can change the feel of an outfit, and even change how a woman feels about herself. A woman can wear confidence on her feet with a high stiletto, or slip into weekend comfort with a soft ballet flat. – Fergie • I have big feet. Do you know how embarrassing it is when you ask for a shoe and they look at you like, “No, we don’t make these heels for Bigfoot, sorry.” – Margot Robbie • I have to take my shoes off, you guys. – Lena Dunham • I just love clothes! I’m a girl who loves clothes, accessories, shoes, bags and jewelry. – Kelly Rowland • I know he’s retired, but I’m a big fan of Shaquille O’Neal, his game and his personality. I have a pair of his shoes in my office. You see the size of his shoe and think, ‘This is not real, this couldn’t belong to a human being.’ But he is human! – Wladimir Klitschko • I like a man who can be a real friend, has a good sense of humor, a good pair of shoes and a healthy gold card. – Victoria Beckham • I like Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent. I have some great Balenciaga jackets and I’m shoe crazy. – Melanie Laurent • I like Cinderella – she has a good work ethic and she likes shoes. – Amy Adams • I like Cinderella, I really do. She has a good work ethic. I appreciate a good, hard-working gal. And she likes shoes. The fairy tale is all about the shoe at the end, and I’m a big shoe girl. – Amy Adams • I like crazy shoes or unusual cowboy boots and I collect big belt buckles. – Patricia Cornwell • I like the fact that Hogan’s shoes all have this sporty sole that is great even for an older man with a bad back like me. – Matthew William Goode • I like to go wakeboarding. It’s my new favorite sport. It’s like skiing but on a snowboard that has little shoes on it. – Minka Kelly • I love accessories. I’m a girl. I love shoes. I love handbags. – Petra Stunt • I love jeans, T-shirts, boots, and tennis shoes. – Ashley Benson • I love living my life in flip-flops. I met a guy in the islands a while ago who told me he hadn’t worn a pair of shoes in three years! I thought, ‘Man, that’s the life!’ – Kenny Chesney • I love pedicures. And, yes, I have a ton of shoes. – Hope Solo • I love you Huey was the note I read, but there’s a strange pair of shoes underneath the bed. – Huey Lewis • I never go sexy. I’m more into a well-made pair of pants and a good shoe. – Dree Hemingway • I never wear the same shoe twice. – Deion Sanders • I own a lot of shoes; I am not sure how many. – Kristin Cavallari • I perfectly understand the obsession with shoes. I myself am pretty obsessed. I have a few hundred pairs of shoes in general, because I’ve been collecting shoes for a long time. – Christian Louboutin • I prefer to leave a little room in my bag to grab goodies when I’m travelling, but otherwise you need one good pair of shoes that can be worn day or night, a pair of black jeans, and a nice dress. – Dree Hemingway • I quit because I can’t stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes. I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children. – Dolores Huerta • I rarely buy a shoe that is completely specific to a time and outfit. I generally tend to spend money on good shoes that can go with everything. – Melanie Fiona • I really want readers to put themselves into the shoes of each character. So the opening lines are an orienting technique: this is where you are, this is who you are. Go. – Alissa Nutting • I see a pair of shoes I adore, and it doesn’t matter if they have them in my size. I buy them anyway. – Keira Knightley • I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes. – Oprah Winfrey • I think that when you put yourself, as actors have to do, in other people’s shoes, when you have to put on the costume that someone else has worn in their life, it gets much, much harder to be prejudiced against them and even to be – to not try to look at the world in a sense of “I’m not going to judge somebody. I’m going to try to understand who they are and what they’re about.” – Kevin Spacey • I think we should really discourage this sort of empathic engagement when it comes to making moral decisions. I think we should focus on something like compassion, on getting people to care more for others without putting ourselves in their shoes. – Paul Bloom • I thought it was normal to recycle pants and shoes from your older cousins. That was just my way of life. At the end of the month, there was not much food in the refrigerator and you’re hoping the first comes so food can come again. You never forget those things. – Tyson Chandler • I used to be another little fellow with some hoop dreams / Now I got the game laced up, shoe strings. – Carlos Boozer • I usually decide what to wear in the morning, but sometimes, I’ll have a favorite coat or sweater or shoes, and I’ll wear them everyday for a week! – Cameron Russell • I wanted to make the lightest shoe possible, but still be able to perform at the same time. – Carmelo Anthony • I was a hostess, I sold shoes, but I don’t function well in jobs that don’t have to do with what I love. I have cleaned bathrooms in theaters, I have sold wine in theaters, I have sold tickets, because I will do anything, anything, to stay in this world. – Nina Arianda • I was changing a light bulb over Groucho Marx’s bed, so I took my shoes off, got on his bed and changed the bulb. When I got off the bed he said: ‘That’s the best acting you’ve ever done. – Elliott Gould • I went through this phase where I thought pink and purple matched. To dance class, I’d wear purple tights and pink leg warmers and paint my shoes purple. It was really odd. – Carrie Ann Inaba • I wonder how Admat can be everywhere. Is he in my sandal? Or is he my sandal itself? Why would a god bother to be a sandal? Does he wear shoes or sandals himself, invisible ones? – Gail Carson Levine • I would be happy naked as long as I’m wearing fabulous shoes. – Anna Dello Russo • I would hate for someone to look at my shoes and say, ‘Oh my God! That looks so comfortable!’ – Christian Louboutin • I would love to have my own shoe line. That I would absolutely love. – Kristin Cavallari • I’d love to have a shoe line, or a sunglasses line, or a purse line. Who am I kidding, I’d like to have an everything line! – Bethany Cosentino • If a person lost would conclude that after all he is not lost, he is not beside himself, but standing in his own old shoes on thevery spot where he is, and that for the time being he will live there; but the places that have known him, they are lost,–how much anxiety and danger would vanish. – Henry David Thoreau • If arrogance were shoes, he’d never go barefoot. – Tamora Pierce • If everybody were a guy, the human race could easily get by on less than one twentieth the current number of shoes. – Dave Barry • If I could only fly, you see, a lot of my problems would be gone. When you think of just how much I’d save on shoes alone. – Waylon Jennings • If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot? – Gloria Steinem • If the shoe fits, buy another one just like it. – George Carlin • If the shoe fits, buy it in every color! – Jerry Smith • If the shoe fits, buy it. – Imelda Marcos • If the shoe fits, you must wear it. – Christoph Waltz • If you never want to see the face of hell, when you come home from work every night, dance with your kitchen towel and, if you’re worried about waking up your family, take off your shoes. – Nachman of Breslov • If you’re wearing a pair of shoes that’s a little flashy, then it’s important not to be flashy up top and vice versa. – Megyn Kelly • I’ll never be able to fill my father’s or grandfather’s shoes, but hopefully I can stand on their shoulders and reach farther. – Philippe Cousteau, Jr. • I’m a goody two-shoes who’s never taken anything stronger than Tylenol. – Erika Christensen • I’m a huge shoe person, and I have lots of shoes. – Kimberly Caldwell • I’m addicted to laughing. I go to see a lot of comedy shows. I’m addicted to playing really loud and obnoxious rock music in my car. I’m addicted to beautiful clothes and shoes. I just love gorgeous stuff and work hard to acquire pretty things, shiny things. I’m addicted to shiny things! – Nadia Giosia • I’m essentially a jeans girl, and I dress them up or down with accessories. For me, it’s ultimately about a great pair of shoes. – Jessalyn Gilsig • I’m from the bottom, I understand what it’s like to have and to not have. My perception on giving is to put yourself in those people’s shoes and go from there. So that’s what I did. – Kevin Garnett • I’m not a great consumer. I always ask myself, ‘Do I really need that piece?’ I have friends who have 300 pairs of shoes; how would you leave the house in the morning? – Mireille Guiliano • I’m not here to be on display. And my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object, or a pair of legs to sell shoes. I’m a soul, a mind, a servant of God. My worth is defined by the beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character. So I won’t worship your beauty standards, and I don’t submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher. – Yasmin Mogahed • I’m not really comfortable with who I am to be honest. I feel more free to step into the shoes of somebody else. There’s always an element of me in there but, you know, if you give me a script and some clothes I can do anything. But, as Ryan, I’m a bit of a recluse. – Ryan Kwanten • I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall in my GaGa shoes one night on tour and I’m hoping it becomes a Youtube sensation. – Chris Colfer • I’m rather pleased with the new manuals. I see Inform now as a gauche young adult, having got past the stage of growing out of his shoes every few months. – Graham Nelson • Imagine for a minute yourself in the same shoes, the same sense of survival and the same nothing to lose. – Lil’ Kim • In glades they meet skull after skull Where pine cones lay-the rusted gun, Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat And cuddled up skeleton; And scores of such. Some start as in dreams, And comrades lost bemoan; By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged- But the year and the Man were gone. – Herman Melville • In sci-fi convention, life-forms that hadn’t developed space travel were mere prehistory — horse-shoe crabs of the cosmic scene — and something of the humiliation of being stuck on a provincial planet in a galactic backwater has stayed with me ever since. – Barbara Ehrenreich • It is the fragrant lack of practicality that makes high-heeled shoes so fascinating: in terms of static mechanics they induce a sort of insecurity which some find titillating. If a woman wears a high-heeled shoe it changes the apparent musculature of the leg so that you get an effect of twanging sinew, of tension needing to be released. Her bottom sticks out like an offering. At the same time, the lofty perch is an expression of vulnerability, she is effectively hobbled and unable to escape. There is something arousing about this declaration that she is prepared to sacrifice function for form. – Stephen Bayley • It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe. – Robert W. Service • It seems to me that to take a book of mine into his hands is one of the rarest distinctions that anyone can confer upon himself. I even assume that he removes his shoes when he does so-not to speak of boots. – Friedrich Nietzsche • It takes a Real man to fill my shoes. – Madonna Ciccone • It’s a rare thing when you read a role and have this immediate ownership over it, you have this take and this connection, and it’s not even that you feel that you’re gonna do a good job, it’s that you feel like you’ve found it. It fits, it’s natural; it’s like putting on a good shoe or something. – Fran Kranz • It’s better to buy one good pair of shoes than four cheap ones. – Cary Grant • It’s not about the shoes, it’s what you do in them. – Michael Jordan • It’s what I call the haute couture, high-end version of fear perfectionism. It’s just fear in really good shoes. But it’s still fear. – Elizabeth Gilbert • I’ve always been melancholic. At a party, everyone would be looking at the glittering chandeliers and I’d be looking at the waitress’s cracked shoes. – Marian Keyes • I’ve always believed that a beautiful shoe is useless unless it feels as wonderful as it looks. – Stuart Weitzman • I’ve always looked at shoes as being immensely beautiful things. – Graham Coxon • I’ve been making shoes my whole life. – Steve Madden • I’ve been ripped for being too sensitive, but I do think people need to walk in another person’s shoes before they accuse them of being too sensitive. – Hank Haney • Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods, he believed in love and peace, and never wore no shoes. – Kris Kristofferson • Learn to sell. In business you’re always selling: to your prospects, investors and employees. To be the best salesperson put yourself in the shoes of the person to whom you’re selling. Don’t sell your product. Solve their problems. – Mark Cuban • Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins. And it’s up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world. – Barack Obama • Mama’s in the factory, she ain’t got no shoes. Daddy’s in the alley, he’s looking for food. – Bob Dylan • Meeting writers is always so disappointing. I got over wanting to meet live writers quite a long time ago. There is this terrific book that has changed your life, and then you meet the author, and he has shifty eyes and funny shoes and he won’t talk about anything except the injustice of the United States income tax structure toward people with fluctuating income, or how to breed Black Angus cows, or something. – Ursula K. Le Guin • Men may not read the gospel in sealskin, or the gospel in morocco, or the gospel in cloth covers, but they can’t get away from the gospel in shoe leather. – Donald Barnhouse • Men tell me that I’ve saved their marriages. It costs them a fortune in shoes, but it’s cheaper than a divorce. So I’m still useful, you see. – Manolo Blahnik • My dad says that when I was two or three I used to go out dressed as a different character every day. I remember thinking it was perfectly normal to wear different coloured shoes and carry a pink umbrella. But now I’ve got a goddaughter of that age; I realise it’s not normal at all. – Alice Eve • My girlfriend is a fashion designer. She has her own company called Rachel Antonoff. She is doing a collaboration with Urban Outfitters right now, a shoe collaboration with Bass. She sells to Barneys, stuff like that. – Nate Ruess • My mom would take me to restaurants, and the first thing I’d ask for would be a pen and a napkin, and I’d sketch shoes and shoes and shoes. – Alexander Wang • No one is without their difficulties, whether in High, or low Life, & every person knows best where their own shoe pinches. – Abigail Adams • One minute I’m exactly what Churchill described me the most powerful man in history. Now the Order’s given, hell; I’m just audience front row center to the shoe. But a Corporal on Juno, a Private on Utah there the ones who will affect the outcome not me. It’s up to them now. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • One of the pleasures of being an actor is quite simply taking a walk in someone else’s shoes. And when I look at the roles I’ve played, I’m kind of amazed at all the wonderful adventures I’ve had and the different things I’ve learned. – Willem Dafoe • Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip. – John Locke • Our job as the game creators or developers – the programmers, artists, and whatnot – is that we have to kind of put ourselves in the user’s shoes. We try to see what they’re seeing, and then make it, and support what we think they might think. – Shigeru Miyamoto • People are lonely, and only animals with fancy shoes. – Jack Johnson • People can be slave-ships in shoes. – Zora Neale Hurston • Perhaps it’s a good time to reconsider pleasure at its roots. Changing out of wet shoes and socks, for instance. – Barbara Holland • Potatoes are to food what sensible shoes are to fashion. – Linda Wells • Put yourself in Hamlet’s shoes. Suppose you were a prince, and you came back from college to discover that your uncle had murdered your father and married your mother, and you fell in love with a beautiful girl and mistakenly murdered her father, and then she went crazy and drowned herself. What would you do? Go back for a masters? – Art Buchwald • Right now I’m reading every fashion magazine I can find. As a shoe designer, I feel it’s my responsibility to learn as much as I can about the business, past and present. – Fergie • Shakespeare, he’s in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells, speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well. – Bob Dylan • Shoes are real. Money is an end result. – Peter Drucker • Some men’s memory is like a box where a man should mingle his jewels with his old shoes. – Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet • Some people do drugs, I buy shoes! – Celine Dion • Some sensible person once remarked that you spend the whole of your life either in your bed or in your shoes. Having done the best you can by shoes and bed, devote all the time and resources at your disposal to the building up of a fine kitchen. It will be, as it should be, the most comforting and comfortable room in the house. – Elizabeth David • Sometimes I don’t even pull my shoes off for six weeks at a time, except, you know, just to take a shower. I just take breaks between 24 hours a day, just a break now and then, it don’t take me long to rest; maybe 20 to30 minutes sometime, or maybe an hour. – Howard Finster • Stepping outside the comfort zone is the price I pay to find out how good I can be. If I planned on backing off every time running got difficult I would hang up my shoes and take up knitting. – Desiree Linden • Stiletto, I look at it more as an attitude as opposed to a high-heeled shoe. – Lita Ford • The high-heeled shoe is a marvellously contradictory item; it brings a woman to a man’s height but makes sure she cannot keep up with him. – Germaine Greer • The most important thing to remember is that you can wear all the greatest clothes and all the greatest shoes, but you’ve got to have a good spirit on the inside. That’s what’s really going to make you look like you’re ready to rock the world. – Alicia Keys • The North can make a steam engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth – right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. – William Tecumseh Sherman • The out-of-work actor wears out more than shoe leather. The very sensibilities that make him an artist are shattered by the disregard he is shown as a human being. – Bette Davis • The problem is that humans have victimized animals to such a degree that they are not even considered victims. They are not even considered at all. They are nothing. They don’t count; they don’t matter; they’re commodities like TV sets and cell phones. We have actually turned animals into inanimate objects – sandwiches and shoes. – Gary Yourofsky • The right shoe can make everything different. – Jimmy Choo • The secret of toe cleavage, a very important part of the sexuality of the shoe; you must only show the first two cracks. – Manolo Blahnik • The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. – Carl Jung • The shoemaker makes a good shoe because he makes nothing else. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • The ‘Tarahumara’ use their legs ‘as designed.’ By running at a young age with minimal footwear, they naturally develop the best biomechanical use of their legs. Cushioned shoes restrict foot movements and allow for over-striding. Short strides are natural. – Christopher McDougall • The thing about Paris, it’s a great city for wandering around and buying shoes and nursing a cafe au lait for hours on end and pretending you’re Baudelaire. But it’s not a city where you can work. – Malcolm Mclaren • ‘The time has come,’ the walrus said, ‘to talk of many things: of shoes and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages and kings.’ – Lewis Carroll • The walls have ears, better think before you throw that shoe. – Elvis Presley • There are many interactions that an actor like me has in public when he gets recognized. The best are ‘You’re a great actor, good work,’ and move on. A very good interaction could be when they say ‘You were awesome on ‘The West Wing,” ‘Loved ‘In Her Shoes,’ great movie,’ ”What Women Want,’ good job dude. – Mark Feuerstein • There comes a moment during a job interview when you’re still talking, but you might as well take off your shoes. – Bill James • There is an element of seduction in shoes that doesn’t exist for men. A woman can be sexy, charming, witty or shy with her shoes. – Christian Louboutin • There is health in table talk and nursery play. We must wear old shoes and have aunts and cousins. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • There is nobody that’s ever going to fill Ted Kennedy’s shoes, and that’s a tall order for somebody in the family to try to live up to. – Douglas Brinkley • There is something that feels stagnant about having things you don’t use or wear. But shoes are my thing. Shoes and scarves, I’m a big fan of the scarf. – Leslie Bibb • There’s one good thing about tight shoes; they make you forget your other troubles. – Josh Billings • They call him the Streak, he likes to turn the other cheek. He’s always making the news, wearing just his tennis shoes. – Ray Stevens • They went into my closets looking for skeletons, but thank God all they found were shoes, beautiful shoes. – Imelda Marcos • This is why I decided to work with Nike, too, because it is even more mass-market than Givenchy and could make entry-price shoes and make people dream to be part of the journey. – Riccardo Tisci • Three quarters of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world would finish if people were to put on the shoes of their adversaries and understood their points of view – Mahatma Gandhi • To have regret is to be disappointed with yourself and your choices. Those who are wise, see their life like stepping stones across a great river. Everyone misses a stone from time to time. No one can cross the river without getting wet. Success is measured by your arrival on the other side, not on how muddy your shoes are. Regrets are only felt by those who do not understand life’s purpose. They become so disillusioned that they stand still in the river and do not take the next leap. – Colleen Houck • To match the shoes with the jacket is fey. To match the shoes with the hat is taste. – Gene Wilder • TOMS is no longer a shoe company… we’re a one-for-one company. – Blake Mycoskie • True love wasn’t found in good hair or the right clothes, make-up or shoes. True love was found in the soul – as was wisdom and compassion – P. C. Cast • We all walk in different shoes. – Kenneth Cole • We Die Young is about gang violence. That was something that was happening in Seattle, something that kinda opened our eyes. It just seemed like things were getting out of hand. Incidents where kids were getting shot, and getting their tennis shoes ripped off their dead bodies. It just seems like these kids are dying at younger and younger ages and getting involved in gang activity. – Layne Staley • We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. That sounds goody two-shoes, I know, but I believe that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure and time. Less time is crystal. Less than that is coal. Less than that is fossilized leaves. Less than that it’s just plain dirt. In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. – Maya Angelou • We see women who go out and want to look like Jennifer Aniston, and they’re wearing an ill-fitting red dress and ugly gold shoes, and they’ve got flat hair and they can’t walk. – Kelly Cutrone • We will begin by learning how to tie our shoes. – John Wooden • Well, shoes, bags and clutches are usually my big weaknesses – my husband always laughs when I call them ‘investment pieces.’ – Emily Giffin • We’ve created an unnatural form of running. It’s not just the shoes, but we run on artificial surfaces – straight ahead, hard and steady – instead of speeding up and slowing down, reacting to the terrain with changes of pace and rhythm. – Christopher McDougall • What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed? – Michelangelo • When I left school, I got a job in a shoe shop and I used to save 15 quid a week and pay for my own singing and acting lessons. – Luke Evans • When I step into a character’s shoes, I don’t judge them. I make a conscious effort not to look from the outside in but look from the inside out, and when you do that it allows you to feel and sense things more, and act and react from a core, you know? – Abbie Cornish • When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the belly is forgotten; when the heart is right, “for” and “against” are forgotten. There is no change in what is inside, no following what is outside, when the adjustment to events is comfortable. One begins with what is comfortable and never experiences what is uncomfortable, when one knows the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable. – Zhuangzi • When there’s uncertainty they always think there’s another shoe to fall. There is no other shoe to fall. – Kenneth Lay • When you have worn out yourshoes, the strength of the shoe leather has passed into the fiber ofyour body. I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats andclothes you have worn out. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • When you wear a fresh pair of shoes, you feel like you can never die. You feel like you’re gonna live forever. – Chi McBride • When your about to criticize someone walk a mile in thier shoes, that way when you criticize them you’re a mile away from them and you have their shoes – Ann Brashares • When your feet start to hurt, place yourself in someone else’s shoes. – Demi Lovato • When you’re comfortable, you’re more confident – I really believe that. If you’re walking around in a dress or a pair of shoes that are uncomfortable, it reads all over you. – Erin Wasson • Whenever I go to shows, I end up looking at what shoes the guy onstage is wearing and the jacket he’s got on. And when you know everything’s gonna be under scrutiny, it makes you feel more comfortable if you have cool stuff. – Julian Casablancas • When’s the last time you really thought about what you eat, how much you move throughout the day, whether or not you feel fantastic when you get up in the morning, and which shoes keep your feet comfortable? – David Agus • Who waiteth for dead man’s shoes will go long barefoot. – John Heywood • Women who had discovered pants, low-heeled shoes, and loose sweaters during World War II were reluctant to give them up in peacetime. – Susan Faludi • Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run? – Germaine Greer • You can do anything, but lay off my blue suede shoes – Elvis Presley • You can never take too much care over the choice of your shoes. – Christian Dior • You can never take too much care over the choice of your shoes. Too many women think that they are unimportant, but the real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet. – Christian Dior • You can never walk a mile in someone elses shoes, but you can walk a mile in your own and be proud of it. – Zach Anner • You can try on our suede underwear if you choose. Do what you want, but don’t step on my blue suede shoes. – Al Yankovic • You can wear anything as long as you put a nice pair of shoes with it. – Taylor Momsen • You cannot put the same shoe on every foot. – Publilius Syrus • You cannot, by all the lecturing in the world, enable a man to make a shoe. – Samuel Johnson • You can’t really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them. – Harper Lee • You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go. – Dr. Seuss • You have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead. – William Shakespeare • You have two categories of Shoes, Shoes which are dressing a woman or Shoes which are undressing a Woman – Christian Louboutin • You just need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and then see how they feel and then you will understand why they are reacting or why they are behaving the way that they are behaving. We need to be fair. – Navid Negahban • You were going to travel for love, without shoes, or cloak, or common sense. This is one of the things a woman can do when her lover leaves her. It’s hard on the feet perhaps, but staying at home is hard on the heart, and you weren’t quite ready to give up on him yet. – Kelly Link • Your shoes are only as good as the laces they’re attached to. – Greg Sampson • You’ve always had the power right there in your shoes, you just had to learn it for yourself. – William Blake • Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes. – Tony Hsieh

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

0 notes

equitiesstocks · 5 years ago

Text

Shoes Quotes

Official Website: Shoes Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

0 notes

incarnate-death · 7 years ago

Text

Slaughterhouse part 1

I don’t think I will ever understand Paul Celan’s agonized poetry. He kept looking for something in the poetry that poems cannot provide and so failed to capture the misery, loss, love, and deaths of millions of people killed in the Nazi Holocaust. Talk about pressure. He wrote in German for the Germans who killed his father and mother and left him scarred for life. Through the decades of nightmares, anti-semitism, accusations of plagiarism, and mental hospitals, he never stopped writing in German. Such maddening horror—the inevitability of escaping the trauma even while seeking to be relieved from would be enough to drive anyone to drown themselves in the Seine River, which he did in 1970. But he made it further than other writers! Walter Benjamin: suicide, 1940—he tried to reach America through Spain but Nazis contacted the Spanish government to return him home (the camps) and he killed himself with a couple handfuls of morphine tablets (boy am I jealous) before the police could arrive. Benjamin’s friend and colleague, Arthur Koestler was not so lucky. After Benjamin’s death he took the leftover pills and tried to suicide with them—it didn’t work. Everything turned out alright for Koestler anyway; he made it until 1983 before he did what he should have done decades ago: Koestler and his wife killed themselves with an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol, which is much more appealing than opiates in my opinion. (To tell the truth, I’ve never even read Koestler’s work. ) But the best way to go was told to me be my friend, a professor: lay in a cold snowy forest, one pack of Newport Menthol 100s (my addition), an iv drip of dmt (my addition) a fistful of barbiturates and another fist full of 2mg xanax bars, but they can’t be generic. 2mg xanax bars are a wonder of design. There should be a special exhibit for bars at the MoMA.

I bet the pharma company spent millions deciding the precise size and shape of the 2mg xanax bar; perhaps this is why I can buy brand name 2mg bars for 8 dollars a piece, but only ��$4 four 4 half milligram pills. 4 pills for two milligrams?? We’d get full before we could eat enough to feel it, much less kill ourselves.

I sometimes fantasize about iving fatal doeses of DMT straight to certain egotistical and/or evil people’s veins when they’re not looking. Some people just need to join the dead. My partners father: he was a piece of shit ass and tried to drown Z when they were ten, then when they came home from college he told them he couldn’t stay cause of his transition.

Jean Amery’s shoulders were dislocated as the Nazis tied a rope around his hands behind his back and hung him up like and did lots of other dirty things. Amery admitted the truth about writing about the Holocoaust and torture: to convey the pain of his torture, he must torture. Amery refused to write about the camps or in German more than a decade after his release. He also brought up the problem implicit in our lives: what is dignity? Some people thing a human loses dignity when they can’t marry who they want, Amery writes. I think he knew it was futile to write in German for Germans about the Holocaust, but failure is irresistible so he ended up doing it anyway. Perhaps his resistance kept him alive longer than Celan, who wanted everything and never stopped writing for a moment until his death. Celan was almost even greedy with poetry. Amery didn’t kill himself until 1978—another overdose. But Primo Levi (also yet to read his writing) is the real marvel: it wasn’t until 1987 that he threw himself out of the third story of his apartment. I hope you don’t think worse of Primo Levi because he made some poor EMSA person scrape him off the pavement. I worked in emergency services and it would be an honor, perhaps even a joy or a privilege to clean up anyone in artistic relation to Celan and maybe even fuck with the leftovers a little bit while no one is looking. but most of all I am validated by the knowledge that because i did my job right, no one will step over him like the road kill we all are. As much as I’d like to be on the EMSA team that scraped these guys up, I’ll admit it was quite inconsiderate of him to make such a mess.

there is however much to admire about Celan’s stamina. He wrote from the 1940s until his death. It’s unthinkable to me. Theodor Adorno explained the dilemma of Celan and his contemporaries: it is impossible to write in the same language and produce cultural capital in the German context without recreating the Nazi horror and therefore barbaric.

The more total society becomes, the greater the reification of the mind and the more paradoxical its effort to escape reification on its own. Even the most extreme consciousness of doom threatens to degenerate into idle chatter. Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the dialectic of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today. Absolute reification, which presupposed intellectual progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind entirely. Critical intelligence cannot be equal to this challenge as long as it confines itself to self-satisfied contemplation. (Prisms, 34)

The Nazis didn’t disappear. They are still neighbors. But Adorno later retracted the statement; the poetry isn’t barbaric, but it requires the same bourgeois coldness to the suffering of others that characterized Nazism. In a sense, they all wanted that coldness, even Adorno. He is brutally honest in

his retraction of his previous critique of poetry: “perennial suffering has as much right to expression as a tortured man has to scream; hence it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you could no longer write poems. But it is not wrong to raise the less cultural question whether after Auschwitz you can go on living--especially whether one who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on living. His mere survival calls for the coldness, the basic principle of bourgeois subjectivity, without which there could have been no Auschwitz; this is the drastic guilt of him who was spared. By way of atonement he will be plagued by dreams such as that he is no longer living at all, that he was sent to the ovens in 1944 and his whole existence since has been imaginary, an emanation of the insane wish of a man killed twenty years earlier.

In other words, if they had any sense they would have killed themselves long before they had the time to write much less publish. Yes, Celan, Levi, Amery, and Koestler must have been truly evil not to suicide before pen became print. Instead, they spent countless hours sharpening their line breaks, enjambments, and images, reading literature, philosophers and mystics and magicians and historians so they would have the power to peel the skin off their readers’ bodies and make them watch it while the poet douses the husk of their readers’ flesh with kerosene and sets it on fire. It’s obvious that this is what they would have liked to do, but in the end, meh. Their writing was brilliant, yes, but flashes not sunlit hours, no spontaneous human combustion at the site of a poem. I wish they were magicians, not just poets; maybe then they could recite incantations and really show me what torture is like. I can handle being knicked for sure, but not if reading their writing requires me to adopt the cold bourgeois mentality of your average US secretary of state, which is pretty fucking cold. No, I’d rather be dead. V soon now, I will kill myself with a bullet to the brain in the two bedroom apartment I share with my partner.

I’m not the scholar on the above authors. My partner is. I simply became obsessed with their research, particularly regarding Celan and began investigating it in a different academic field. Z’s research has convinced me that suicidedeath is the only way for people like me. I’m not comparing myself to being a Jew in 1942. I just see partial homologies that help me understand the world and my relation to it.

Once, when Z was escorting in Chicago to earn extra cash for grad school, someone stole hundreds of dollars and enough bars to make us both forget a month. I was at home doing drugs and had no solution but would listen as best I could. Z’s friend, D, is also an escort. Some of her money was stolen as well and she called her boyfriend who got the numbers of the dudes who tried to rape our significant others, then stole from them, and threatened to come to their house and personally beat them. I’ve never been scared of D’s boyfriend because even though he’s big and got a deep voice, he’s mostly slumped. But damn he must have scared them, because they gave the money, but the drugs were gone. Some of my partner’s friends from highschool took care of him and his friends for us a couple weeks later; they are allmiddle class whiteboys and they lied about their addresses, saying they lived in the ghetto. We all threw a little money up and no one knows what happened or who beat them. Z called me after it first happened and said how angry they were they were trying to think of something to punch that wouldn’t break any knuckles. I said stopsign and they went straight out of a 5 star hotel in Chicago and started smashing the side of the nearest street sign over and over with their brass knuckles. If you don’t touch the bar in the middle, it just snaps back. he got arrested for disorderly conduct, but the cops didn’t find the cocaine stuffed up his vagina. They didn’t find out about the prostitution or anarchist organization we work for. I paid bail and we moved on. It tends to goes like that.

#prose #creative writing #fiction #nonfiction #spilled ink

0 notes