Queen of the Jumble

We were heading toward all that makes life intolerable, feeling the only thing that makes it worthwhile

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:06:41 -0400

“Was that joy? Probably not. But it mimicked joy’s conditions pretty well. It included, in minor form, the great struggle that tends to precede joy, and the feeling—once one is “in” joy—that the experiencing subject has somehow “entered” the emotion, and disappeared. I “have” pleasure, it is a feeling I want to experience and own. A beach holiday is a pleasure. A new dress is a pleasure. But on that dance floor I was joy, or some small piece of joy, with all these other hundreds of people who were also a part of joy.

…It wasn’t all a waste of time though. At the neural level, such experiences gave you a clue about what joy not-under-the-influence would feel like. Helped you learn to recognize joy, when it arrived. I suppose a neuroscientist could explain in very clear terms why the moment after giving birth can feel ecstatic, or swimming in a Welsh mountain lake with somebody dear to you. Perhaps the same synapses that ecstasy falsely twanged are twanged authentically by fresh water, certain epidurals, and oxytocin.

…Real love came much later. It lay at the end of a long and arduous road, and up to the very last moment I had been convinced it wouldn’t happen. I was so surprised by its arrival, so unprepared, that on the day it arrived I had already arranged for us to visit the Holocaust museum at Auschwitz. You were holding my feet on the train to the bus that would take us there. We were heading toward all that makes life intolerable, feeling the only thing that makes it worthwhile.”

-Zadie Smith, “Joy”

The New York Review of Books, 2013

How strange it is to be anything at all.: “He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:19:32 -0400

How strange it is to be anything at all.: “He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and...:

kalynroseanne:

“He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the…

Today’s edition of “I want to go to...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:58:32 -0400

Today’s edition of “I want to go to there.”

atlasobscura:

The island of Socotra is part of an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. It is so isolated that a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on the planet. Notable are the dragon’s blood trees that look like flying saucers perched on trunks. Adenium socotranum are trees that look like elephants’ legs with pink flowers on top. Birds such as the Socotra starling, Socotra sunbird, and Socotra grosbeak are found nowhere else on Earth. Bats are the island’s only native mammal.

In 2010 a Russian archaeological team discovered the ruins of a city on Socotra dating to the second century AD. The island is also held by some to be the location of the original Garden of Eden, due to its isolation, biological diversity, and the fact that it is located on the edge of Yemen’s Gulf of Aden, which many connect with the ancient Sumerian tales of a paradise called Dilmun.

There are almost no roads on the island, which is also home to a collection of caves and a number of shipwrecks.

How to get to Socotra Island…

Beautiful new cover! Love this interpretation of their love...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:50:44 -0400

Beautiful new cover! Love this interpretation of their love story.

yukoshimizu:

On Criterion Collection’s blog today :-) criterioncast:

Check out Yuko Shimizu’s new cover for Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow

yoisthisracist: anonymous asked: Yo, I had a professor tell me a while ago that if you could fill a...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:48:52 -0400

yoisthisracist:

anonymous asked: Yo, I had a professor tell me a while ago that if you could fill a 5-gallon bucket with human DNA, the amount that would differ from different races would fill up a thimble.

Plus, as a bonus, big ole bucket of human DNA.

"The myth of the overnight success is just that – a myth."

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:43:21 -0400

“The myth of the overnight success is just that – a myth.”

- Seth Godin

Alexander Graham Bell knew this when he famously said, “It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider … who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”

Thomas Edison knew this when he proclaimed, “Success is the product of the severest kind of mental and physical application.”

Amelia E. Barr knew this when she asserted, “Everything good needs time.”

(via explore-blog)

This was quite funny - go Sarah!

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:16:00 -0400

This was quite funny - go Sarah!:

sarahkasbeer:

I was ecstatic to finally have the chance to interview me, a person I’d only seen up close in a few tenuous, out of body experiences—and usually during a rigorous exfoliation. Turns out, I’m not nearly as deep as my pores would suggest.

Me: So, I hear you’ve had quite an…

ALL OF THE TRUTH

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:17:27 -0400

abitingchance:

“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as an escape.”

- bell hooks

Paper Renaissance gowns realized by Belgian artist Isabelle de...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:01:36 -0400

Paper Renaissance gowns realized by Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave

<3

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:13:00 -0400

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

“You are not at all like my rose,” he said. “As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.”

And the roses were very much embarassed.

“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you—the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”

Photo

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:15:35 -0400

"What is it about lists that we find so irresistible? As far as I can tell, no one has tried to..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:41:57 -0400

“What is it about lists that we find so irresistible? As far as I can tell, no one has tried to figure it out (though it’s possible there are psychologists who have solved the mystery, and I just haven’t seen their work). Maybe it has to do with the promise of something both finite and complete, distilling the world down to something you can manage and then be done with. The world is full of photos of cute corgis, but these 37 are the cutest, and once you’ve seen them not only will your day be a little sweeter but you need search no more for cute corgi photos. It could also be the attraction of something easy to read—because it’s broken into small pieces, you know it won’t require too much work to read, you’ll be able to skim it easily, and if you want to read part of it and then stop, you’ll be able to.”

- As someone who has little willpower when it comes to Buzzfeed lists - I only draw the line at the *absolutely most asinine* - I have thought about the allure of lists myself.

Why we love lists. Better yet, Susan Sontag on the allure of lists. (via explore-blog)

"When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:35:58 -0400

“When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been an anticlimax.”

- Flannery O’Connor, on her first brush with celebrity. (via onemoresalutetovanity)

likeafieldmouse: Geoffrey H. Short - Towards Another Theory...

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:37:37 -0400

likeafieldmouse:

Geoffrey H. Short - Towards Another Theory (2009-10)

stfumarrieds: The translation on the image was provided by the...

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:35:06 -0400

stfumarrieds:

The translation on the image was provided by the submitter.

Kind of hilarious how low-budg even the NPR awards are

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:31:45 -0400

Also, I think my Ira Glass crush-o-meter just up went up a notch.

babesofnpr:

The following sequence captures your favorite ~~cable news lesbian~~ public radio host receiving the March Madness award from KPCC in Los Angeles.* Looking good, Ira! We love the formal glasses.

*Photos stolen from the This American Life Facebook page.

MFA Illustration as Visual Essay at SVA: Student Spotlight on: Natalya Balnova (MFAI '13)

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:33:23 -0400

MFA Illustration as Visual Essay at SVA: Student Spotlight on: Natalya Balnova (MFAI '13):

mfaillustration:

We talked with illustrator and designer (and recent winner of an Art Directors Club Bronze Cube Award) Natalya Balnova:

1. How did you get here? What did you do before coming here? How did you come to want to do illustration?

My original background was in fine art, then I switched to…

This is brilliant. Five rolls,...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:19:03 -0400

This is brilliant. Five rolls, please.

linesdamnlines:

“Wallpaper design (suitable for a Conservative bachelor apartment)”

Finally! It’s finished and I can rebuild my life!

Also, if you can guess what this is a parody of, then congratulations, you’re as warped and misguided as I am.

I love you guys. beeishappy: TDS | TCR 2013.04.22 [x]

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:53:32 -0400

I love you guys.

beeishappy:

TDS | TCR 2013.04.22 [x]

A Letter from My Father, Summer, 1966

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:52:01 -0400

What a beautiful love letter.

mydeadparents:

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