the road goes on from here

los angeles-based wordmonger insta twitter tags greatest hits

[lovestory49]

“It [The Lord of the Rings] is finished, if still partly unrevised, and is, I suppose, in a condition which a reader could read, if he did not wilt at the sight of it…now I look at it, the magnitude of the disaster is apparent to me. My work has escaped from my control, and I have produced a monster: an immensely long, complex, rather bitter, and very terrifying romance, quite unfit for children (if fit for anybody); and it is not really a sequel to The Hobbit, but to The Silmarillion.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien to Sir Stanley Unwin, 24 February 1950. Reprinted in The Fall of Gondolin (via thebookwormunderground)

[freenarnian]

What writer hasn’t finished their first draft and thought, “the magnitude of the disaster is apparent to me”? 

[iredreamer]

[vestiges-of-light]

[vestiges-of-light]

[vestiges-of-light]

[vestiges-of-light]

[vestiges-of-light]

[theradioghost]

when the times get rough and I lose sight of the goal i just. reread “the orange” by wendy cope again & remember. that’s where I’m going folks. sooner or later, whatever it takes.

[theradioghost]

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange— The size of it made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave— They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy. I did all the jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I’m glad I exist.

– “The Orange,” Wendy Cope

[madeline-kahn]

“It’s like Bruce knows everything I’ve ever felt, everything I’ve ever wanted.”

Blinded By The Light (2019) dir. Gurinder Chadha

[zaynmalif]

[dearmrsawyer]

#NOT REAL! FAKE! A FANTASY WE CREATED TO DEAL WITH OUR STRESS!! A MASS HALLUCINATION!!  @littlepetlouis

[emmaklee]

Paecilomyces cicadae, a fungus that infests cicadas by burrowing into their bodies & replacing their internal organs

[williamhereford]

6am in Nagano…  I shot these all within 1 block of each other on the same street while traveling on assignment last month through Japan.  

[perciejackson]

booty shorts that say “not to me. not if it’s you”

[historium]

Shepherds in Gascony, France wearing traditional stilts called tchangues (“big legs”) that allowed them to walk on the marshy ground, ca. 1895

[exhaled-spirals]

« Even more than in royal gardens and on noble estates, medieval and early Renaissance automata appeared in churches and cathedrals. Automaton Christs — muttering, blinking, grimacing on the Cross — were especially popular. A mechanical Christ on a crucifix, known as the Rood of Grace, attracted pilgrims to Boxley Abbey in Kent during the 15th century. This Jesus “was made to move the eyes and lipps by stringes of haire”. It could move its hands and feet, nod its head, roll its eyes, and show “a well contented or displeased minde: byting the lippe, and gathering a frowning and disdainful face, when it would pretend offence: and shewing a most milde, amiable, and smyling cheere and countenaunce, when it woulde seeme to be well pleased”.

Mechanical devils were also to be found. Poised in sacristies, they made horrible faces, howled, and stuck out their tongues. The Satan-machines rolled their eyes and flailed their arms and wings; some even had moveable horns and crowns. The Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi even mechanized Paradise itself: “a Heaven full of living and moving figures could be seen as well as countless lights, flashing on and off like lightning”. While elsewhere, elaborately engineered hells rumbled with thunder and flashed with lightning, spewing forth writhing automaton serpents and dragons. »

— Jessica Riskin, “Frolicsome Engines: The Long Prehistory of Artificial Intelligence” in Public Domain Review

[dressesofchina]

Recreated Tang-dynasty outfits based on cave paintings

[fearsomebeast]

2018 Transfixed. Vintage silks and wool threads with antique gold trim. . . . . . #handembroidery #mementomori #embroidery http://bit.ly/2rSFOEy

[fredtougas]

[thestateonmtv]

The inherent embarrassment in desiring anything

[just-art5]

Diana and her Nymphs by Robert Burns, 1926

[doubledecks]

“While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.”

— Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

Someone put it into words. I gotta sit down