I’m hoping someone out there might be able to help me figure out what this thing is. This drawing is done largely from memory of a painting of a weird figure I saw on some plates in a Turkish cookbook.The book didn’t explain exactly what this monster/mermaid/Muppet/whatever-she-is is, but I’m fascinated by her; Snake for a tail, fish for feet and a flower growing out of her head. Amazing.
Anyone know what this creature is called?Ah, got it, it’s Shahmaran!
“This much I’m certain of: it doesn’t happen immediately. You’ll finish [the book] and that will be that, until a moment will come, maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years. You’ll be sick or feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the first time in your life. It won’t matter. Out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you’ll suddenly realize things are not how you perceived them to be at all. For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You’ll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you’ll realize it’s always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won’t understand why or how. You’ll have forgotten what granted you this awareness in the first place
…
You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You’ll care only about the darkness and you’ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. It will get so bad you’ll be afraid to look away, you’ll be afraid to sleep.
Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you’ll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You’ll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse you’ll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you’ve got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.
And then the nightmares will begin.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
Thomas Peter’s blog on Poolside floods
“At some point the helicopter made a right turn, dipping the side I was sitting on deep below the horizon. And there it was right below me, the epitome of the absurd flood picture: the baby-blue oval of a swimming pool evenly surrounded by muddy water. I trained my 300mm lens straight down and composed as well as I could, which was a challenge in the soaring air stream that nearly snatched my camera out of my hands. I fired off some 10 frames before the chopper leveled out. The picture was gone. No one else on board had seen it.”
from the kickstarter page:
The “Because of Them, We Can…” project started out as a photo campaign that I launched during Black History Month. The goal was to inspire and empower our kids to be great by connecting the dots between them and the individuals past and present who have blazed and continue to blaze trails.
As the month progressed, what I once believed was confirmed - 28 days wasn’t enough.
As such, I extended the project for a full 365 days. Each day a photo is released via social media - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
The feedback has been amazing, but the biggest request has been for a book that includes all 365 images. I could go the publisher route, but I truly believe that we can fund this movement. Here’s where the Kickstarter comes in. Funding this project would allow me to self publish a high quality, hard cover art book that will serve as a source of inspiration and education for all who come across it.
Funding ends in 5 days! Signal boost or donate what you can!
subway??? no man this is domway. we tell you how you want your sandwich and u shut up and eat it.
This is domway, where we pre-negotiate how the sandwich will be made with your full understanding of the ingredients and their usual consequences. If the worst happens and you don’t like the sandwich you can use a safeword, we’ll remove it and immediately stop lunch. Then we’ll remake it for you the way you like, with plenty of communication to avoid those ingredients in the future. That way you can build a foundation of trust with us, and enjoy yourself by safely giving yourselves into the hands of other sandwich-makers who have proven their responsibility and compassion with your dietary needs.
the basic premise for daenerys and jorah as a romantic pairing is one that’s been used in a lot of fiction - a man uses his relationship/closeness with a woman for material gain but ends up falling in love with her. he either admits to this (along with his love) or is found out, and in almost every case the woman forgives him and reciprocates his feelings. there might be a moment of tension where she’s upset (“how could you!”) but in the end, she comes around. examples off the top of my head include my fair lady, she’s all that (boy i just dated myself, and yes i know it’s basically an au of the first), and anastasia.
a similar formula is followed for the setup of jorah and daenerys: jorah, exiled from his home, seeks to use his proximity to daenerys to win favor from king robert and increase his chances of being allowed back. he sends the small council reports on her movements and doings while he travels with her khalasar and gains her trust. eventually he stops sending the reports, falls in love with dany, and is later exposed as a traitor.
I have to start off by saying it was a tough decision to make. I’ve never left my my friends and family to embark on a journey to a place where I knew no one. But my world as I knew it was too tiny and there’s so much out there I didn’t know of.
I visited Europe last month and stayed in this place next to what they call the Eiffel Tower. I loved it. such a strange architecture to symbolize the exotic beauty and power of its people. With my small backpack and my Nikon D7000 camera, I set off futher to explore Europe.
I took pictures along the way. there was a Tomato Festival going on at the time and I managed to get tickets to see a Bull Fighting! The sight was alarming and facinating all at once- a sport to symbolise the raw energy and passion that European people had were shown through this bull fighting. Beautiful!
I went to a shelter and saw some homeless people begging on the streets. It is such a shame how enriched, yet, so poor Europeans are. My heart weeps for Europeans; their courage and strength to survive is inspiring.
There were loud music playing and people in the streets all looking happy and joyful because they were celebrating ‘OktoberFest’, a day to mark their love of beer and to show that even Europeans have good things to celebrate in life to distract from their everyday pain. I was aware of my privilege so I asked to join this festival incase I upset the natives. What a blast!
I took so many pictures (will post on Facebook later) of the children dancing and smiling but some elders complained about this, they didn’t seem comfortable with a complete stranger touching their young children and taking photos of them to later put on the internet.
I suppose to them, I am a stranger in the midst but it was so joyful having pictures to show back home of my experiences! I am sure they won’t mind in the end. And the children were such wonders! They were so curious about my clothes (I don’t think Europeans have ever seen Nigerian clothes in their life, it must have been so strange for them to view my own culture! It just reminded me of how deprived they were)
After I stopped at the Leaning Tower of Pisa (a great art of their sort!) I went back to Arba Airport near Helsinki (after I spent a day at Trafalgar Square, pics coming soon) and borded my flight back home, having grown up a little from viewing European Life.
I am currently saving up to get a tatto of Europe on my shoulder , with a love heart located at the center to represent Belguim. As the Europeans say:
Τα καλά πράγματα έρχεται σε εκείνους που περιμένουν
Peace my friends <3
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Bisexual Credentials-RitchandFamous (via rainbowbreathingbisexual) Oh, man. While it’s hard to choose between what I’ve come to think of as Bi 20 Questions (you’re not bi without them! Or with them! Or at all; you’re not bi. Don’t you get it?), I think my favorite is one that isn’t mentioned here. I’ve gotten it in a number of different variations: “But what if you end up with a man, won’t you be straight?” and “But what if you end up with a woman, won’t you be a lesbian?” and, of course, the one get really gets to the heart of it, “But what happens when you settle down with someone and really decide?” (For those of you playing along at home, the correct answer to this line of questioning is, “Were you less [your sexuality] when you were a virgin? What about when you were single? No? You weren’t? Fantastic; shut up.”) The thing is, I’m always so confused about what the goal is with this shit, and I feel like this question — the “But what happens when you end up with someone for a long time??” question — really gets to the heart of why. Because man oh man, I have been asked this question by straight folk and gay folk, peers and superiors, people I’m dating, even a boss one time, and every last one of them has done it the same way: like they’re the Encyclopedia fucking Brown of my sexuality. Like they’ve just uncovered the fatal flaw in my plan to Dupe Good Citizens Into Believing I Like Fucking Dudes & Ladies. Half the time I expect them to point and yell “Aha!” maybe while jumping out of a bush or something for effect. Like. What is the theory here, folks who do this? Are you just so uncomfortable with the idea of bisexuality that you have to believe it’s all a scheme? Are you so self-obsessed that the thought of me lying about my sexual orientation for the sole purpose of ~pulling the wool over your eyes~ makes more sense to you than that thought that it’s, I don’t know, actually the way I swing? Are you waiting for me to pull off my mask and reveal the monosexual person underneath while yelling, “I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling assholes?” Whatever it is, kindly let it the fuck go, will you? Find some other mystery to chase, because I promise you, The Case of Who I Like to Fuck has been solved for a loooong time. (via gyzym) |
Your dad’s on TV.
“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks over the phone.
You’re seeing this. He’s being interviewed by Anderson Cooper for rescuing puppies from a house on fire.
“I just hope my daughters will let me back into their lives,” your dad says to Anderson Cooper.
You tell your sister you don’t like the way this looks.
***
You’re on TV.
“Are you going to accept your Dad back into your life?” Anderson Cooper asks you. “He did something good for puppies.”
You tell Anderson Cooper that if he did something good for some dogs, but he never did anything good for you or your sister, that means he treated you and your sister worse than dogs.
Someone behind Anderson Cooper throws a tomato at you.
“Are you seeing this?” your sister texts you, forgetting that you’re the one she’s looking at live on her TV screen.
***
Your Dad’s on TV.
“I want everyone to leave my daughters alone,” he tells Anderson Cooper. “I did a lot of bad things in my life, and if they can’t forgive me for them, even after I saved some puppies, then that’s their right.”
Anderson Cooper says, “No, I’m sorry but that’s bullshit!”
“Anderson, take it easy,” your Dad says.
“I fucking won’t,” Anderson Cooper says. “I don’t normally do this, take sides and whatnot, but come on. Would they rather the puppies had died? Is that what they want?”
“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks from the other side of the couch. She moved in with you. Her and Stan are having trouble again.
***
Your Dad’s on TV.
“Until there’s definitive proof that that’s me on that video recording, I stand by my assertion that it’s not me,” he’s telling Anderson Cooper.
In the corner of the screen is a surveillance video of your Dad carrying puppies into a house and then setting the house on fire. Then he’s shown waiting around for some people to show up and turn on their smartphone cameras. Then he runs into the house and runs back out with the puppies.
“It really looks like you,” Anderson Cooper says.
“Well, I maintain that it doesn’t look like me. Look at me. Am I wearing a hat, like the guy in the video?”
“If it was you, I think your daughters need to know,” Anderson Cooper says. “They need to realize how far you’re willing to go to get them back in your life. I mean, you were ready to kill puppies.”
Your dad isn’t sure how to respond so he says, “Maybe?”
“That’s a lot to have on your conscience,” Anderson Cooper says. “If those puppies had died, you would have had to live with that, all because you love your daughters so much.”
Your dad says, “So whether I set the fire and rescued the puppies, or I didn’t set the fire and rescued the puppies, my daughters should let me into their lives again.”
“You’re goddamn right!” Anderson Cooper shouts before throwing his mic at the wall and stomping around cursing while your dad chases after him, trying to calm him down.
“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks Stan over the phone. They’re trying to work it out. You hope they do.
***
You’re on TV.
“Empty your pockets,” the corrections officer says to you. You watch yourself on the closed circuit monitor as you drop your keys and loose change into the bin. Then you walk through the metal detector and into the visitors area.
“I just wanted the chance to say I’m sorry,” your Dad says when you sit at the table with him.
You tell him that you accept his apology, and he shouldn’t feel the need to do more dangerous stuff just to get Anderson Cooper to convince you to reconnect with him.
“He parked outside my house for a week, spraypainting ‘Bad Daughter’ on my front door. It was awful,” you tell your dad.
“He gets results,” your dad says. “That’s why he’s the best reporter in the biz.”
Across the room, another inmate picks up his visitor and throws him against the wall.
“Are you seeing this?” your dad asks.
You put your hand on his. You’re seeing this. You’re right there with him, seeing this together.
Happy Your Dad’s On TV Day!
