herdivineshadow from tumblr
A monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.
Ocean Vuong, from “A Letter To My Mother That She Will Never Read”, published in The New Yorker (via soracities)
Sacredness is a form of entropy. It accrues to the rational like pollen falling earthward on a spring day or leaves during an autumn chill. The Jacobins and others established their “Cult of Reason,” or their “Cult of the Supreme Being,” re-dedicating churches as temples of reason, and enacting a festival in that ideal’s name upon the altar of Notre Dame. But ultimately temples are places of faith, no matter how loud the denials. A cult is still a cult, after all.
Why the French Revolution’s “Rational” Calendar Wasn’t | JSTOR Daily
I reached the Department of Doing Things Especially Quickly just before 9.00 p.m. The elevator was now reciting the history of the Department the way it was supposed to, which made me glum until I realised it was making up all of the dates.
‘Way to go,’ I whispered to it as I got out. ‘Fight ‘em from within.’
‘Right on’ it whispered back.
Michael Marshall Smith, Only Forward
When most people tell you they think words are so fascinating, they have in mind items like “canoodle” and “serendipity.” When linguists say it, they have in mind, like, “the.”
Geoffrey Nunberg on twitter, January 3, 2018 (via linguisten)
Captain America would have loved to have helped Thor take on Hela. Unfortunately, he had jury duty,“ Waititi joked. “I was once on a jury in New Zealand where 17 avocados went missing from a local farm. We never found the culprit.”
He pointed out that while Spider-Man wanted to help, he is still in high school. “He couldn’t get his Aunt May to write a note saying ‘Peter Parker can’t come to class today because he’s on another planet fighting gods’.”
Tony Stark was busy as well, but his clothes and glasses do appear in the film.
“Black Widow would’ve pitched in with Thor if she had been free at the time, but she wasn’t free at the time,” he said, maintaining a straight face the whole time. “She was a prisoner for stealing 17 avocados from a local New Zealand farm… wait a minute.
Taika Waititi on why the Avengers couldn’t star in Thor Ragnarok
(via fyeahmcublackwidow)
In Starfleet Academy’s alien diplomacy class, there should be an entire semester devoted to Suspiciously Chill Planets. Do the locals offer you a magical elixir of peace? Do you stumble upon a strangely calming crystal? Do the village elders use a secret ritual to unify their followers? If so, run for the hills.
Our time is recursive and forking. Our time is a garden in which all realities are simultaneously possible. All paths are truly one path. From the time of birth to the time of death, every word you utter is part of one long sentence. This sentence is utterly, heartbreakingly unique. Never before and never again. yet they, in ensemble, create One Sentence. It holds and houses us. Announces and defends us. Blesses and confesses us. Curses and condemns.
Sun Yung Shin in “The Other Asterion,” in Penumbrae.
No , Dadaism isn’t daddy kink, you ANIMALS.
Things my art history prof has had to clear up. (via gallusrostromegalus)
Unlike Godzilla, Pacific Rim doesn’t try to be serious even when it’s being serious. Characters have names like Stacker Pentecost and Hercules Hansen. The film requires you to believe that the best way to battle a giant monster is to build an even larger robot to fight that monster.
Much of the Act 2 drama derives from inter-pilot tension airlifted from the Val Kilmer scenes in Top Gun. It’s the polar opposite of the Godzilla school of drama, where everyone is a total professional who has absolutely no personal goal besides Saving The World. In Pacific Rim, Idris Elba is Rinko Kikuchi’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, and two of the last Giant Robot-pilots in the world frequently get into sneering fights over who’s the bigger badass, and Charlie Day is a scientist.
So, for all these reasons, Pacific Rim is a movie that I’ve heard perfectly smart people describe as “stupid” or “silly.” The problem with this line of thinking is that, really, that every blockbuster is pretty “silly,” in the context of Things Adults Should Care About. Godzilla is not less stupid than Pacific Rim just because people frown more. […]
The difference, I think, is that Pacific Rim glories in its own silliness. There’s a flashback scene where Idris Elba rescues a little girl, and when he emerges from his giant robot, the sun shines upon him like he’s the catharsis in a biblical epic. There’s a moment when one giant robot swings an oil tanker like a sword. Then it grows a sword out of its wrist. Then it falls from space to earth.
There are real complaints to make about Pacific Rim, I guess, all of them fair and most of them pedantic. I know a lot of people who have issues with the story. (“Why didn’t they use the wrist-sword earlier?” is a popular one.) Conversely, I don’t really know anyone who minds the story in Godzilla, possibly because everything stupid that happens is prefaced by Frowning Watanabe saying “This is why the stupid thing that’s about to happen makes sense.” Godzilla wants so badly to make sense. Pacific Rim wants so badly for Ron Perlman to wear golden shoes.
Darren Franich, “Entertainment Geekly: A call for an end to serious blockbusters” (via andhumanslovedstories)
One of my favorite things that would happen from time to time on set would be when Carrie would sing old songs. Whenever that would happen I would offer her my hand and we would waltz around the set – on a starship, in a Rebel base, on an alien planet, and she would sing and we would dance. So surreal and beautiful to think about now. For all of her delicious, wicked humor and fiery energy she also had such sweet grace. I miss her dearly.