dream of the dragon

where Pickles go to grow

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How many times have I met the spring, my heart unswerving?

Daibai Hōjō

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His eyes truly betrayed him. Although half-blind, they showed no trace of the peering and blinking and involuntary intrusiveness of many shortsighted people. They looked much more like guardians of treasures and unspoken secrets which no trespassers should glimpse. This defective vision lent his features a special kind of magic in that instead of reflecting ever-changing, external impressions, they revealed only what he had internalized.

Lou Salome on meeting Friedrich Nietzsche

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Kiki feeling the pressure.

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Hedgehog in the Fog.

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At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

Frederick Douglass - July 4, 1852

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The main thing, when a sword cuts into one's soul, is to keep a calm gaze, lose no blood, accept the coldness of the sword with the coldness of a stone. By means of the stab, after the stab, become invulnerable.

Franz Kafka, Third Octavo Notebook (entry dated November 7, 1917)

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Go back from whence you came.

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Particle physics in 1983.

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It just got real.

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We rented an old castle in the Forest of Dean. And it was just us there. What we did was we set up the equipment in the dungeons of the castle, to try and get some vibe going.

Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi on working through riff-writer’s block.

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Nepal needs your help, and a small donation will go a very long way. Here are three organizations recommended by locals and people plugged into the relief effort:

American Nepal Medical Foundation

Mercy Corps

Waves for Water

There are many other options. Pick one, please, and donate what you can. I owe the gracious and courageous people of that miraculous land more than I can ever give. My heart is with you, Nepal.

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For balance.

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This was an accident.

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Who gives a fuck if somebody’s a witch, or a girl, or a dude?

Royal Thunder’s Mlny Parsonz in an interview about their new album, Crooked Doors.

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We may not be able to attend to each outrage in every corner of the world, but we should at least pause to consider how it is that mainstream opinion so quickly decides that certain violent deaths are more meaningful, and more worthy of commemoration, than others.

Teju Cole in The New Yorker on the disproportionate, broad-strokes outrage and solidarity in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack.

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NASA's new Exoplanet Travel Series is too damn good. 

Like Luke Skywalker's planet "Tatooine" in Star Wars, Kepler-16b orbits a pair of stars. Depicted here as a terrestrial planet, Kepler-16b might also be a gas giant like Saturn. Prospects for life on this unusual world aren't good, as it has a temperature similar to that of dry ice. But the discovery indicates that the movie's iconic double-sunset is anything but science fiction.