* ˚• vinny •˚ *

just a tad obsessed with book and movie and everything in between +main blog

[linafication]

here’s your reminder to let yourself create. not create ‘well’, just create. draw badly. write shitty poems. sing stupid songs. make whatever you want & have a great time doing it. that’s what creation is for. it’s self expression, not perfection

[artsydraft]

i won a giveaway last month and the book mail arrived the other day

[witch-in-the-wild]

Academia but you're in Cairo

staying up late looking up ancient jewllery, its symbolism and the stuff it was made from and the methods they used because that was some intricatte stuff you know

having an unhealthy addiction to tea. milk tea in the morning before stting off. plain tea in the afternoon when youre back. tea with mint in the chilly hours before sunset. tea with lemon when youre sick, with honey when youre sad...

listening to asmahan and laila mourad because their voices make flowers grow in your heart. you see abd el wahab or sayed darwish's names and you know youre about to heaar the most heavenly sounds you ever have.

constant debates about history (esp modern history! which is, regarless, my favourite to study!)

thrifting books from soor al azbakeyah and soor al sayeda zeinab and coming across literal gems that were sold for cheaper than dust

your uni is probably a historical site

just kidding your entire city probably is

long walks in old cairo's warm dusty mornings

constantnly stopping short to take in the glorious architecture you see before you. buildings brimming with equal parts menace and cordial affection that are simultaneously overwhelming and welcoming

does their age take your breath or does their sheer size? does their beauty make your heart flutter or is it the deep, undeniable knowledge that theres never going to be something quite like it ever again?

youre never really out of museums to visit. theres always going to be annother you just havent spotted yet

Did i tell what "cairo" means? It is derived from the arabic word "Al Qahira" meaning, She Who is Victorious. She Who Devastates. She Who is a Conqueress. She Who Is Meciless. a drop in the rich seaof her triumphant history

Visiting the ancient temples in upper egypt, the beauty of whom is so eternally breathtaking it makes you forget the tremendous amount of stairs you had to climb to get there.

Calling north Bahari (meaning "of the sea") even tho that could also be east. But you do it anyway.

The poeple going to and fro being endearing; shout/waving greatings to one another, so full of sincerity and hope in the early morning dew. It feels less lonely somehow

Romanticising everything about life as a form of conscious escapism, like all the poets and playwrights whose blood runs i your veins

there are translated works, and then there are arabic-ized wrorks of literature. its not hard to see that you prefer the latter.

also who came up with titles like "god of sword and quill" and "prince of poets"? we need to have a conversation. i love you and so does everyone else with a basic sense of art

visiting the old palaces and castles and always coming across abandoned ones. you wonder who would dare abpndon something so beautiful. you feel an immense sadness and and a crippling blow of yearning that do nothing to remove the dust coating everything or bring the music back to the pianoforte.

going to bazaars even if you knoe youre not going to buy anything. youre here for the copper, thr bass, the spices and occasional gleap of wine red jewllery. oh and the cat you befriended right outside the coffee shop!

buying jewllery and pottery from khan el khalili or el mo'ez streerts becaue everything is just so pretty and we shop local

going to century+ old cafes and sitting at a table that might have been naguib mahfouz's who knows

analizing the "foreign" words in your dialect and feeling an otherworldluy ense of knowing when you recognize wherethe come from! plage is french! shanta is turkish! em bu comes from coptic eb mu meaning water! nunu is ancient egyptian for fragile! and so much more!

[galina]

The weekend again: pink early evening light in the flat, long showers, a walk down to the river and back, small pleasures

[yesterdaysprint]

Spokane Chronicle, Washington, October 31, 1918

[lord-des-fleurs]

[graceandgirlhood]

Leanne Surfleet

[studyblr]

things to do during break: create reading lists and work them off one by one, watch movies in foreign languages, attend lectures or seminars at places you’ve never been to before, discover a new library, visit museums and galleries, send postcards to your friends, take up a new skill like photography/digital drawing, write a daily poem, take an online course on something you always loved, pick flowers and press them, rate 10 cute cafes in town, test how much you can buy for 5$ on a flea market/in second hand shops, just start walking and see where the day takes you, plan a walk/hike/bike tour, start a new blog, create a vision board, write a letter to your future self, go to indie concerts, send cute anonymous messages, try out new ice cream flavors, make your own smoothies, buy artsy magazines, take the train/subway to nowhere, go to a party where you don’t know anyone, ditch a party and spend the whole day reading outside, set up a bullet journal, jot down 5 things you are grateful for each day, create playlist for different moods, try out a new language learning app, unwind and do not use your phone for a day, try meditation, go to a food market, sleep the whole day because you can, go to the theatre/cinema/opera, take aesthetic photos of the prettiest buildings in town

[tanda-soal]

“Really, there are books meant for daytime reading and books that can be read only at night.”

— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

[m-l-rio]

One real benefit of reading I rarely hear anybody mention is how much more interesting life becomes when you read a lot. It depends what you’re reading, of course, but most (good) books will teach you something you didn’t already know, and even if you have to give the book back to the library, you get to take that much with you. A lot of people talk about things they wish they’d studied in school–I’ve done it, too–but it’s a nice consolation prize that you can always pick up a book and learn something new. And as that library in your brain collects more volumes, everything around you gains new resonances, new context, and new connections which make your lived experience richer. In quarantine alone I’ve read about religion and politics and history and evolution and computer science and astrophysics without even leaving my house and it’s already a more interesting world. 

[soyoumusik]

“Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

— Kurt Vonnegut (via lazypacific)

[vestahlls]

Oxford, Oxfordshire by novellearts

[carousel-of-memories]

“ Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be? ”

— Charles Bukowski (The Post Office)

[dykeninthdoctor]

idk i just wanna sit in a dark library in an oversized sweater and smile at my lover over the top of my book as a storm rages on outside and a fire crackles in the fireplace and i feel warm and safe and loved is that too much to ask for

[helnight]

small things we should appreciate more

the chirping of birds in the early morning

the way the sun shines through the trees

nature after it just rained

constantly learning new things every day

libraries, bookshops, bakeries and coffeeshops

[chai-n-ivy]

Girls don't want boys they want bookshelves that magically expand to comfortably hold all their books at once

[ofallingstar]

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)