The Dreams and Writings of an Insomniac

dementia-divine: Happy Towel Day!

Sat, 25 May 2013 22:23:08 -0400

Happy Towel Day!

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Sat, 25 May 2013 22:20:51 -0400

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 22:16:05 -0400

““There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.””

- ― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (via lostliterature)

"More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag:..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 22:15:10 -0400

“More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might have accidentally “lost.”. What the strag will think is that any man that can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Chapter 3 (1979).

Happy Towel Day! And DON’T PANIC!

(via randomquoteoftheday)

"It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a sperm whale had been called..."

Sat, 25 May 2013 22:14:49 -0400

“It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a sperm whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity. This is what it thought, as it fell: “Ahhh! Woooh! What’s happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my… well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a… tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what’s this roaring sound, whooshing past what I’m suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I’m dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There’s an awful lot of that now isn’t it? And what’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’! That’s it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me? Hello, Ground!”
Curiously, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias, as it fell, was, “Oh no, not again!” Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.”

- Douglas Adams (via lostliterature)

kuizslilla: fairy tale oil and others on canvas 60x80cm 2013

Sat, 25 May 2013 20:44:59 -0400

kuizslilla:

fairy tale

oil and others on canvas

60x80cm

2013

Photo

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:43:58 -0400

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Sat, 25 May 2013 16:43:00 -0400

Photo

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:39:39 -0400

richard-sp8-jr: the-fandoms-are-cool: gambler-x: im-the-doctor...

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:33:40 -0400

richard-sp8-jr:

the-fandoms-are-cool:

gambler-x:

im-the-doctor-basically-run:

tacticalhoneybadger:

miss-operator:

cerebralzero:

reparations:

moistnugget:

reparations:

unsubstantiatedrumors:

involved6:

cerebralzero:

bulletbutt:

Don’t move, tumblr. This is a stick up. Give me all your notes and nobody gets hurt.

Not so fast sonny boy, drop the SKS and no one will be losing any notes here.

Everybody stay frosty. No one has to close their account today if we all just stay calm.

I’ll waste the lot of you

Hände hoch, bitches. Gib mir alle ihre notizen!

NYET.

3 it is.. let’s get this party started.

Is that 3 nuggets up there? this is getting out of hand lol

I HAVE A GUN BONER.

What? What’s all this fuckery?

Oh shit, it’s a gunblr showdown!

Mama always said this day’d come!

EVERYBODY BE FUCKIN’ COOL!

WOAH Calm down! Guns don’t solve problems.

Weeeeeellllllllll… ok they solve SOME problems, like an attacking spaceship or being chased by a dinosaur, but USUALLY guns don’t solve problems.

There. I’ve disabled them. Now none of your guns work.

Go to your rooms and think about what you’ve done.

Don’t make me tell you again.

Woops! Sorry Doc, but look what I got.

A flintlock pistol, and know what flintlock pistols are mainly composed of?

Wood.

Men of tumblr, I applaud you.

JESUS CHRIST THE MEN OF TUMBLR

classy-as-fcuk: heyh8r: r3gicid3: inmyboxershalfstonedd: autu...

Sat, 25 May 2013 08:01:32 -0400

classy-as-fcuk:

heyh8r:

r3gicid3:

inmyboxershalfstonedd:

autumnseeds:

Anxiety (2013)

Oh… well, thank you tumblr for making me realise I might actually have a slight anxiety issue… because this totally explains me.

I’m so glad I’m not this bad about it anymore. Balls.

Describes me haha fml

I didn’t really realize I had anxiety issues until a few months ago :/

yes please do.

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:27:06 -0400

yes please do.

When We Try and Do Something Beautiful

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:49:45 -0400

williamtaylorjr:

I guess maybe when we try
and do something beautiful

it’s a lot like being lost
somewhere in an endless
ocean of dark

holding a fading sparkler.

It won’t last
very long

and maybe nobody else
can even see

but that doesn’t mean
it isn’t

pretty.

(From my book, Broken When We Got Here.)

madame-solace: maliciastarling: I wrote this in the inbox of...

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:02:19 -0400

madame-solace:

maliciastarling:

I wrote this in the inbox of the person who wrote this:

I just read your post on evil!Irene and would like to point out something that matters to me. Holmes by definition was a misogynist. He never believed a woman could be capable of deducing him. Now in Elementary he has that in Watson. So why do we need Irene? I’m not trying to pick a fight but in my mind this show has accomplished so much by reducing Holmes inherent misogyny to a few misogynistic observations and treating Joan like an equal. I’m glad Irene is evil. Because John is Joan now.

I would like to go on to say that in expanding the adaptation of Sherlock to a less misogynistic (I’d say he’s not at all but he has made some comments) one. To a Sherlock who is not godlike in his powers of deduction we come to a better discussion of this mythos and its legacy on sexism in literature and media.

ACD’s Sherlock Holmes was and is one of the most powerful characters in the last 125 years. Think about that for a moment there are literally HUNDREDS of adaptations. Here’s the official entry on wikipedia under adaptations for BBC’s Sherlock:

Cumberbatch’s Holmes was described by the BBC as:

Brilliant, aloof and almost entirely lacking in social graces. Sherlock is a unique young man with a mind like a ‘racing engine’. Without problems to solve, it will tear itself to pieces. And the more bizarre and baffling the problems the better. He has set himself up as the world’s only consulting detective, whom the police grudgingly accept as their superior. x

When we discuss Irene Adler as The Woman, she’s an ideal, and “she eclipses the whole of her sex.” How sexist is that extremely famous line?

So lets combine the two, Sherlock the unbeatable superior intellect pitted against his INTELLECTUAL EQUAL of Moriarty. And you combine it with the the persona of The Woman Irene Adler. Now you have not only demolished the misogyny and racism (along with the brilliantly acted role of Joan Watson but those are both for other posts) but you’ve actually begun to repair some of the damage done by this beloved but fundamentally sexist character.

Also, I’m glad that there’s been no attempt at making Sherlock and Joan’s relationship romantic. Its another step in the right direction.

More later… for the moment I need to go look up some quotes from the original stories.

Because John is Joan now.

That’s important to remember, because we don’t need only ONE WOMAN in Sherlock Holmes, we can have many not just Irene Adler and John Watson’s ill-fated sweet wife.

Photo

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:33:07 -0400

Fail Safe: Debbie Millman’s Advice on Courage and the Creative Life

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:23:15 -0400

Fail Safe: Debbie Millman’s Advice on Courage and the Creative Life:

theonlymagicleftisart:

“Imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time.”

The seasonal trope of the commencement address is upon us as wisdom on life is being dispensed from graduation podiums around the world. After Greil Marcus’s meditation on the essence of art and Neil Gaiman’s counsel on the creative life, here comes a heartening speech by artist, strategist, and interviewer extraordinaire Debbie Millman, delivered to the graduating class at San Jose State University. The talk is based on an essay titled “Fail Safe” from her fantastic 2009 anthology Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design (public library) and which has previously appeared on Literary Jukebox. The essay, which explores such existential skills as living with uncertainty, embracing the unfamiliar, allowing for not knowing, and cultivating what John Keats has famously termed “negative capability,” is reproduced below with the artist’s permission. [READ MORE…]

israelfacts: A Health Ministry inspector poured bleach over...

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:12:50 -0400

israelfacts:

A Health Ministry inspector poured bleach over pots full of food in a Sudanese restaurant in Tel Aviv Sunday night.

The inspector, from the ministry’s district office for Tel Aviv, was participating in a raid by police and municipal inspectors on illegal businesses owned by African migrants. Altogether, the raid shut down 10 businesses in the city’s Neveh Sha’anan neighborhood, confiscating their equipment and welding the doors shut. The equipment was then loaded onto vans by other African migrants who had been hired as contract workers.

Many diners saw the inspector pouring bleach on the food, and one, asylum-seeker Aladin Abaker from Sudan’s Darfur region, posted photos of the incident on his Facebook page. He also described his feelings of humiliation.

“Everyone − except the destroyers − was in tears from the humiliation,” he wrote. “The waitress told us, ‘I’ve seen very harsh things in my life, like torture in Sinai, but this humiliated me more than what happened to me in Sinai.”

Abaker accused the inspector of “insensitivity to people and their culture, which sees food as a sacred thing that must be respected,” and said the raid was aimed at “embittering our lives so we’ll return to Africa ‘voluntarily.’”

Altogether, he said, more than 200 kilograms of meat, chicken and fish and over 500 prepared meals were destroyed.

The inspectors said they didn’t know where the meat came from and therefore feared for the diners’ health, Abaker wrote. “We told them: But this is the only place we’ve eaten all our meals for four years now, and none of us ever had stomach problems. Even whites eat here.”

The Health Ministry responded that inspectors had discovered “deplorable sanitary conditions, food stored under unsuitable conditions and temperatures, and food from unknown sources. In order to preserve the public’s health and that of the diners themselves, it was decided to destroy the food immediately. As part of the process of destroying the food, chemicals suitable to this purpose are used. It should be noted that this was a routine process of food destruction that is no different from other destructions of food/meat.”

Tel Aviv’s deputy city manager, Ruby Zelof, said the raids were carried out “to eradicate the undesirable phenomenon of businesses operating illegally, with sanitation and safety problems and illegal connections to electricity and water, and sales of alcoholic beverages without permits.”

Haaretz | Photo credit: Aladin Abaker

Israel is deporting Africans and also planning to put tens of thousands into detention camps.

Knesset Member Miri Regev — a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud Party — called the refugees “a cancer in our body” and Danny Danon — also a Likud Knesset Member — wrote on his Facebook page referring to the Africans as “infiltrators”. Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the African asylum seekers threaten “the Zionist dream,” adding, “Jobs will root them here.”

See also:

Why is the birth rate in Israel’s Ethiopian community declining? Ethiopian women who immigrated to Israel were coaxed into agreeing to injections of long-acting birth control drugs, or told they would not be allowed into the country

Israeli woman has her photo taken with Africans, titles the Facebook album: “Late night tour of the Tel Aviv Safari”, captions the photo: “There are no signs forbidding taking pictures with the animals. There were no signs that forbid feeding, but we passed on that.”

ikenbot: theraceproblem: I am really confused about how many Black people I am seeing on Facebook...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:36:42 -0400

ikenbot:

theraceproblem:

I am really confused about how many Black people I am seeing on Facebook and twitter that are upset at Charles Ramsey for “perpetuating stereotypes”. How are you gonna vilify this man for living his life and being who he is? Why are none of them offering criticisms about the media and exploitation of Black working class people? I’m over here defending this man like we’re family. The fact that some Black people have been convinced to feel ashamed of this man is a tragedy.

Well said.

Robert Downey Jr Gif - Search in a Giphy

Sun, 05 May 2013 22:43:58 -0400

Robert Downey Jr Gif - Search in a Giphy

my emotions

Fri, 03 May 2013 18:45:10 -0400

my emotions