The Fig Tree @devertigozation - Tumblr Blog

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eclogues

i havent done anything or been anyone ever

melonramune

2026-05-26

padek

Carnegie Hill neighborhood of Manhattan's Upper East Side

slunch

tl;dr: all "algorithmically" pushed stuff on a newsfeed is mostly ads. nothing that's really surprising form this vulture article, but it is dismal and makes me grateful for one website where you only see things from people you follow WITHOUT horrible short-form video content

bitchking-of-angmar

What if every viral song, movie, meme, influencer, and celebrity drama in recent memory was the result of a stealth marketing campaign?

https://web.archive.org/web/20260515113210/https://www.vulture.com/article/social-media-feeds-chaotic-good-projects-clipping.html

Have a paywall free link to the source!

tinyghosts

“I want you to do this with me for one month. One month. Write 10 observations a week and by the end of four weeks, you will have an answer. Because when someone writes about the rustic gutter and the water pouring through it onto the muddy grass, the real pours into the room. And it’s thrilling. We’re all enlivened by it. We don’t have to find more than the rustic gutter and the muddy grass and the pouring cold water.”

— Marie Howe, Boston University’s 2016 Theopoetics Conference (via mothersofmyheart)

artemis-howl

Marie Howe:

I ask my students every week to write 10 observations of the actual world. It’s very hard for them.

Ms. Tippett:

Really?

Ms. Howe:

They really find it hard.

Ms. Tippett:

What do you mean? What is the assignment? 10 observations of their actual world?

Ms. Howe:

Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason.

Ms. Tippett:

It does.

Ms. Howe:

It hurts us.

Ms. Tippett:

You naming something.

Ms. Howe:

We want to say, “It was like this; it was like that.” We want to look away. And to be with a glass of water or to be with anything — and then they say, “Well, there’s nothing important enough.” And that’s whole thing. It’s the point.

Ms. Howe:

It’s the this, right?

Ms. Howe:

Right, the this, whatever. And then they say, “Oh, I saw a lot of people who really want” — and, “No, no, no. No abstractions, no interpretations.” But then this amazing thing happens, Krista. The fourth week or so, they come in and clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff. And it so thrilling. I mean, it is thrilling. Everybody can feel it. Everyone is just like, “Wow.” The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, and the maple tree outside, and the blue jay. I mean, it almost comes clanking into the room. And it’s just amazing.

Ms. Tippett:

In some basic level, what they’ve done is just engage with their senses.

Ms. Howe:

Yeah, and have been present out of their minds and just noticing what’s around them, which is — we don’t do. And again, not to compare it to anything. They’re not allowed. And that’s very hard for them. And then on the fifth or sixth week, I say, “OK, use metaphors.” And they don’t want to. They don’t know how. They’re like, “Why would I? Why would I compare that to anything when it’s itself?” Exactly. Good question.

So then you think, why the necessity of a metaphor? Why do you have to use a metaphor now? Not just to do it to avoid it, but to do it to make it more there. And it’s very interesting.

The words and silences we live by. The rituals that sustain us. The poetry of ordinary time.

mariacallous

Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French author of graphic novel 'Persepolis', dies aged 56 - https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/marjane-satrapi-iranian-french-author-graphic-novel-persepolis-dies-aged-56-2026-06-04/

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/marjane-satrapi-iranian-french-author-graphic-novel-persepolis-dies-aged-56-2026-06-04/

roseanned

we exist for love btw

canary-prince

Do yourselves a massive favor: practice asking for help BEFORE it's an emergency.

I am a social worker. I have worked in community mental health and in home-based healthcare. And it is much, much easier for me to help you when the situation you're in is not yet a full-blown crisis.

"I'm out of money and have been for a while and now I haven't eaten for three days." This is a crisis. A crisis where I'm likely going to have to put you in the car and take you to the nearest food bank--except food banks require appointments now, and the next opening is in four days, so you're staring down the barrel of a week with no food. That's obviously not going to work, so, let's call eight different food banks until we've found one that has an appointment the next day...except it's in the neighboring county and you can't drive. So now I'm calling your doctor to try and brow beat an emergency plan of care update out of him so I can come back the next day and drive you to the food bank. And we haven't even started on the "constantly broke" part of the problem.

"I don't think I have enough food to make it to my next paycheck. I have (xyz) in my house and that will only last until (date)." This is bad, but not a crisis. We have a few days. We make you an appointment at the food bank and contact your brother to make sure you have a ride there. Now we can spend our visit talking about what bills are causing you the most problems and make a jump on a long-term solution, like looping in a community action agency to cover your utilities and getting you an OTC card from Medicaid to cover some of your groceries every month.

"I'm ten months behind on rent, and my landlord said I have a week to get out, or the cops will throw me out. I don't have the money, and if I get evicted, I have nowhere to go." This is a crisis. Every single thing we do here is going to be some version of a Hail Mary. In Michigan, we have the state emergency relief fund for rent issues, but process time is well over one week. There are community action agencies that we can call to assist you with payment, but they are unlikely to have sufficient funds to cover nearly a year of back rent. We can contact legal aid clinics to try and prevent your landlord from evicting you, but they may look at your case and determine that too much "fault" lies with you. Most likely, I'm going to have to put you in touch with homeless shelters and the public housing office.

"I'm two months behind on rent and I don't think I'll be able to pay next month either." This is bad, but not a crisis. This is solvable. We have time to apply for SER, or put you in contact with community action agencies. We have time to review your finances and see if you qualify for a public housing wait list or other forms of ongoing rental assistance. We have time to talk about a million possible adjustments to try and ease the burden of your rent.

"I am the sole caregiver for my elderly parent who has dementia and is emotionally volatile and fully dependent on me. I have not slept through the night in weeks and I have not had an actual break for over a year. I am having screaming meltdowns multiple times a week and I am threatening self-harm unless someone comes to collect my parent and take over all caregiver duties." This is a crisis. This is a crisis where the ethical code of my profession demands that I call 911 and report the conversation to them. They will likely come to the house and interview you. If they determine your threats were serious, they will have you forcibly committed to a psych ward. Your parent will either be dumped into a random hospital or rehab center, or left in the house on their own. Upon release from your psych hold, you will be expected to resume caregiving duties as though nothing happened. Except, now, adult protective services is actively investigating you, because it was determined you may be an ongoing danger to your parent.

"I am the sole caregiver for my demented parent, and I have not had a break in a couple of weeks, and I feel angry and weepy most of the time." This is bad, but not a crisis. We can get you in touch with volunteer groups for respite, and apply for state funded programs to get more day-to-day help, and talk about long-term planning for when the dementia symptoms get worse. We can get you the phone numbers for crisis lines and enroll you in a support group.

Obviously, you can ask for help at any point. Don't use this an excuse to never ask for help. If you always wait until it's a crisis, fine, you have free will. But you are ALLOWED to ask for help BEFORE you're in a blind panic, and it is always easier to get help when you aren't screaming and sobbing because you think your life is over.

ebookporn

pmamtraveller

Satan Views the Whole of Eden, Gustave Dore

louisegluckpdf

labs that are also churches. to me

(1. annie dillard, teaching a stone to talk 2. the deep underground neutrino experiment, a.k.a. DUNE 3. the large hadron collider 4. the sudbury neutrino observatory)

torridturncoat

Iphigenia (1977) dir. Michael Cacoyannis

cheaphalloweencostume

the style of writing is not the problem, not the genre, not the subject matter, not even the words themselves. the SINGLE defining issue with the “Tumblr Prose” style i was trying to tackle is that it’s front loaded with imagery and metaphor and completely lacking in sense, reason, symmetry, motion, conveying information. i agree that plenty of writing can sound good and feel good to read when it’s all metaphor and visceral images but it needs to have a baseline that can carry it through or else the tail wags the dog and it’s all cool “quotable” lines and no substance, nothing to read between the lines, no character

suspiriously

Gladio is the most insane thing you will ever learn about

sanguinesylph

hold on I have to look something up

suspiriously

TLDR: after WWII, the US took nazi war criminals and set them up in sleeper cells all over Europe, “activating” them whenever the “threat of communism” was deemed too much, like in the Years of Lead

sanguinesylph

oh my god?

suspiriously