keyboard crumbs

archival

[beanytuesday]

Two Friends Discuss Angels

There's a 45 minute explainer video on my Patreon if people want to learn more

[a-book-of-creatures]

Finally some good takes on that awful "biblically accurate angels" meme

[hammercarexplosion]

I hate the historical revisionism that "everyone hated Hitler's ethnonationalism" as if Hitler wasn't literally copy/pasting from how the US was treating native people and how Britian operated in India. There were antifascists. They were treated like terrorists just like they are today. Quit acting like antifascism was more popular than a fascist-accepting status quo.

[newsfromstolenland]

he based his concentration camps in part on residential schools in "canada" as well. none of these countries are innocent of similar if not the same crimes as nazi germany

[snoopyisbisexual]

hey, let's not say other countries commit(ted) the same crimes Hitler did when that's objectively false! you can draw conclusions based on similarities (which do exist) without light holocaust denial.

[newsfromstolenland]

I'm not denying a damn thing. the nazis wanted to eradicate Jewish people. the colonists wanted to eradicate Indigenous people.

they used many of the same strategies and had the same mindsets. "kill the lesser beings". Hitler took inspiration from canada's treatment of Indigenous people.

it's not offensive to liken one genocide to another.

[newsfromstolenland]

and you know what, as an Indian person and since our treatment by the brits was mentioned, I'm allowed to call what the brits did to my people a genocide. they called us savages, slaughtered us, enslaved us. don't tell me what to call it or compare it to.

the nazis saw what the brits did to my people and saw a model to follow. how can you not compare the two?

[2spirit-1spoon]

How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow | HISTORY

To craft legal discrimination, the Third Reich studied the United States.

“One of the most striking Nazi views was that Jim Crow was a suitable racist program in the United States because American Blacks were already oppressed and poor,” he says. “But then in Germany, by contrast, where the Jews (as the Nazis imagined it) were rich and powerful, it was necessary to take more severe measures.” Because of this, Nazis were more interested in how the U.S. had designated Native Americans, Filipinos and other groups as non-citizens even though they lived in the U.S. or its territories. These models influenced the citizenship portion of the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jewish Germans of their citizenship and classified them as “nationals.”

[...]The Nuremberg Laws, too, came up with a system of determining who belonged to what group, allowing the Nazis to criminalize marriage and sex between Jewish and Aryan people. Rather than adopting a “one-drop rule,” the Nazis decreed that a Jewish person was anyone who had three or more Jewish grandparents. Which means, as Whitman notes, “that American racial classification law was much harsher than anything the Nazis themselves were willing to introduce in Germany.”

[cognitivejustice]

Why guerrilla gardening is solarpunk AF

A way to advocate for the environment in your local neighbourhood through small, everyday actions

Guerrilla gardening is the act of cultivating plants in a public place, usually in a spot that is not otherwise being cared for, often with the aim of improving the surroundings and protecting the environment. It has a range of benefits from improving biodiversity to helping to keep temperatures low.

Jenny van Gestel, coordinator of Guerrilla Gardeners NL, explains how transforming one street can have a far-reaching impact on the environment.

“Stones and tarmac capture the heat,” she notes. “When you remove stones and you add plants, then you know that the temperatures won't rise so much.

“There’s water retention as well; we have flash floods nowadays because of climate change, or we have really dry periods. Adding more green means that you have better water management.”

“It’s direct action against nature deprivation and depletion - highlighting the issue of biophobic urbanisation while fighting it,” explains Ellen.

“It’s fighting for people, plants, and the planet by taking action into your own hands. It’s anarchic, in the purest sense, and is challenging the status quo of what we’ve been taught cities should look like, and who can have the power and right to shape them.”

Ellen also sees the connection between guerrilla gardening and community. She notes that living in greener neighbourhoods improves mental health, life spans increase and that there are patterns indicating that crime is less common in greener areas.

“I find it empowering to positively impact my local environment and have a sense of ownership of the place I live,” explains Ellen. “There’s a real issue of young urbanites not feeling they ‘belong’ in their neighbourhood, and it’s clear why - cities just aren’t designed for people.

“Guerrilla gardening puts the power to transform the streets that people live in in the hands of the people who live there. It lifts the spirits seeing bright patches of life in otherwise bare, grey spots and I love knowing that I’m helping the local ecosystems and community.”

Guerrilla gardening: The purest form of climate rebellion

Meet the guerrilla gardeners of Europe. Their form of climate activism transforms neighbourhoods and brings local communities together.

‘I call it botanarchy’: The Hackney guerrilla gardener bringing power to the people

For author Ellen Miles, planting in public spaces is a radical act that’s about community ownership and belonging

[gnetophyte]

i miss when you could make political art without placing personal identity (and the self) at the center of everything

[gnetophyte]

this piece (“artist bio” by anna daliza) sort of perfectly sums it up. the emphasis on identity politics and tokenization in art/music/performance spaces feels reductive and exploitative- like it offers a sort of racial tourism for the wealthy white patrons. none of what im saying are original thoughts btw go see White by james ijames

[petite-elf]

[ID:A photo of a brick wall with a big cinematic light up box with with text that reads: "The writer (she/her) is a trans woman and lebanese-canadian who also identifies as queer. Her work is about" /End ID]

[anarchistmemedistro]

[beesandwasps]

We haven’t “learned this shit yet” because every mainstream political party on earth wants people to think this way. The right-wing ones want to be able to demonize people based on their demographic identities, the liberal ones want to be able to run a center-right candidate with the “right” demographics in order to cut off criticism of their policies. Hillary Clinton is an excellent example of both: politically, she was basically a Reagan Republican brought forward in time. Both parties needed a way to keep their voters from noticing that she was beloved of Henry Kissinger and phenomenally pro-1%, and focussing on her gender instead of her politics was an easy way to do that. Nearly every token minority candidate you see would be impossible without identity politics — the overwhelming majority of them were selected specifically because they are far to the right of the majority of their demographic.

[mswyrr]

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1090402436995473408

[woman-respecter]

a great thing about people transitioning is it presents us with scenarios where we have the perfect control variable to undeniably reveal sexism in the workplace. I read about a trans man neuroscientist who was told he was “so much smarter than his sister” (his sister being his pre-transition self)

and damn i knew the gaming industry was notoriously sexist (even more sexist than other stem fields, and that’s saying a lot) but seeing it laid out so clearly like this is so demoralizing.

[42chickens]

Ben Barres was that neuroscientist

[catboybiologist]

Barres has been discussed a lot by my peers, and is generally considered an icon for people like me. And his biting statements on sexism are a HUGE part of that. I don’t have much to say other than yes, it’s a big problem and still is.

[dissociative-disaster]

Can I just say from what little I know about Barres he seems like he was a wonderful person. I know this is changing the subject a bit, but when he was dying he said the following: “I lived life on my terms: I wanted to switch genders, and I did. I wanted to be a scientist, and I was. I wanted to study glia, and I did that too. I stood up for what I believed in and I like to think I made an impact, or at least opened the door for the impact to occur. I have zero regrets and I’m ready to die. I’ve truly had a great life.”

[cognitivejustice]

Why guerrilla gardening is solarpunk AF

A way to advocate for the environment in your local neighbourhood through small, everyday actions

Guerrilla gardening is the act of cultivating plants in a public place, usually in a spot that is not otherwise being cared for, often with the aim of improving the surroundings and protecting the environment. It has a range of benefits from improving biodiversity to helping to keep temperatures low.

Jenny van Gestel, coordinator of Guerrilla Gardeners NL, explains how transforming one street can have a far-reaching impact on the environment.

“Stones and tarmac capture the heat,” she notes. “When you remove stones and you add plants, then you know that the temperatures won't rise so much.

“There’s water retention as well; we have flash floods nowadays because of climate change, or we have really dry periods. Adding more green means that you have better water management.”

“It’s direct action against nature deprivation and depletion - highlighting the issue of biophobic urbanisation while fighting it,” explains Ellen.

“It’s fighting for people, plants, and the planet by taking action into your own hands. It’s anarchic, in the purest sense, and is challenging the status quo of what we’ve been taught cities should look like, and who can have the power and right to shape them.”

Ellen also sees the connection between guerrilla gardening and community. She notes that living in greener neighbourhoods improves mental health, life spans increase and that there are patterns indicating that crime is less common in greener areas.

“I find it empowering to positively impact my local environment and have a sense of ownership of the place I live,” explains Ellen. “There’s a real issue of young urbanites not feeling they ‘belong’ in their neighbourhood, and it’s clear why - cities just aren’t designed for people.

“Guerrilla gardening puts the power to transform the streets that people live in in the hands of the people who live there. It lifts the spirits seeing bright patches of life in otherwise bare, grey spots and I love knowing that I’m helping the local ecosystems and community.”

Guerrilla gardening: The purest form of climate rebellion

Meet the guerrilla gardeners of Europe. Their form of climate activism transforms neighbourhoods and brings local communities together.

‘I call it botanarchy’: The Hackney guerrilla gardener bringing power to the people

For author Ellen Miles, planting in public spaces is a radical act that’s about community ownership and belonging

[apas-95]

How do you not realize your Marxist ideology is false when it says shit like a trans black woman small business owner is oppressing her cis white man employees?

I don't think you're, like, genuinely asking, or are curious, here, but I'll answer anyways, for everyone else who might be confused on issues like this: it's intersectionality.

You could make this argument about essentialy any axis of oppression - 'how do you not realise your LGBT ideology is false when it says shit like a cishet black person is oppressing their white trans gay employees', or, conversely, 'how do you not realise your racial ideology is false when it says shit like a white trans gay person is oppressing their cishet black employees'.

The point here isn't to have a rock-paper-scissors, Pokémon type-effectiveness ranking of which axes of oppression 'outrank' which others, it's to understand that each axis of oppression is an entirely distinct social system that overlaps with the other. A black business owner suffers from the social system of antiblackness, and benefits from the social system of capitalism. The specific overlap of their blackness and their class character also gives them an entirely unique character with regards to their segment of society. If they are USAmerican, for example, in their specific case the state and progress of the national liberation movement in the US means that they make up the rear of the revolutionary movement, despite being themselves petit-bourgeois. These systems of oppression are qualitatively different, and cannot be simply, quantitatively, summed up against each other.

With this in mind, it should be understood that the Marxist understanding of class as the principal contradiction does not mean that class is the most important, overruling factor, and that other axes should be ignored. Class is considered the principal contradiction because it is the contradiction that all other axes of oppression, genuine in their own rights, grew out of. Antiblackness was created by the slave trade (not vice-versa), and the slave trade was created by the growing European bourgeoisie's need to extract surplus-value, in the collapse of the Feudal economy. In the example you gave, the petit-bourgeois business owner exploits the labour of her workers, and is supported in doing so by an entire legal, political, and philosophical system based on the expropriation of the proletariat. She is also herself repressed and exploited on the basis of race, gender, and transness. These do not cancel each other out. However, given the ultimate source of racial, patriarchal, and cissexist oppress is political-economic class, her ability to genuinely fight for her interests in those fields will be hamstrung by her class position - just as her ability to attain and maintain that class position in the first place is itself hamstrung by her oppression in other fields.

Ultimately, there are no simple rules that society can be flattened down by. Each and every instance and scenario must be investigated in its own right. The idea that people are driven to Marxism because it provides an easy or simplified way of looking at the world is (perhaps unfortunately!) wrong, it actually means a lot more work!

[smellyvampirez]

Commissions are OPEN! Check out the prices!

[smellyvampirez]

Can’t buy? Boost!

[smellyvampirez]

[ermengarde]

apparently i have had this in my room for 5 years

i hope the supernatural website appreciates this

[ermengarde]

"until he got to the part where cas performs a certain carnal act upon dean"

[ermengarde]

apparently i have had this in my room for 5 years

i hope the supernatural website appreciates this

[ydotcom777]

i am no longer available for things that make me feel like shit

[predecessors]

The Tank Man from another angle. June 1989.

[levourdalak]

June 5th, 1989

[pien-art]

“Rest” Inspired by this painting called “Homecoming” by Bühler.

(click image for optimal quality)

prints available here !

[sparklemaia]

Keep reading

[mirkwoodest]

One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal. 

[mirkwoodest]

This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds] 

[mirkwoodest]

#wait so they have hobbitish names and common names?

No, they have Westron names and English names.

What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us. 

There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign? 

“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”

Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down: 

In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder). 

“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing. 

“Banazîr” is Westron for “half-wise, or simple.” In Proto Germanic, the prefix “Sam” means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use. 

“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because  “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”

“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match. 

Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine. 

I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently). 

The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn”  is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss). 

“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L. 

The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron. 

The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.

Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud. 

Further Reading: 

Rohirric , Westron 

[aviculor]

I’m having a stroke

[perfectionistdia-deactivated202]

Tolkien was the most extra son of a bitch my goodness

[norseminuteman]

This is why C.S. Lewis wanted to punch Tolkien in the face sometimes. 

[dashaibo]

In the great hierarchy of nerds, Tolkien remains at the very top.

[deepfriedanon]

No one can top Tolkien.

[firefallnz]

pretend? pretend to translate????

[linguisticparadox]

He also gave instructions for translators, directing them to translate English-derived names like the hobbits’ but not to translate Elvish/Dwarvish/etc names like Arwen.

[vigilantsycamore]

This is also why I think a fanfic written from the perspective of another scholar arguing with Tolkien’s translation would be fun

[sazandorable]

Ftr, the (pretend) executive decision of translating made-up/gibberish words is in fact often done in localisations IRL!

I grew up reading fantasy stuff translated into French, and the common practice was to come up with other made-up words that give the same feeling to a native reader of the target language, based on etymology and on grammatical or phonetical norms (like Bilba ‘becoming’ Bilbo because an -a ending sounds feminine to English readers, which is not the case in the ‘original’ language).

In fact, Bilbo Baggins is Bilbon Sacquet in the first French localisation, because 1) existing Germanic names ending in -o were adopted in modern French with an -on ending (Drogo -> Drogon), 2) a bag is un sac, 3) the -ins suffix sounds foreign in French, but our existing -et suffix sounds equivalently and appropriately local, diminutive, inoffensive, and slightly funny.

(Aaand then there have been at least 2 other variations in later localisations by other people. So yes, we have scholars in Tolkien arguing with each other’s translations! :D)

Another great example is translations of Lewis Caroll’s Jabberwocky poem; the words are made-up, but they are still evocative and understandable to an English reader… but not so in French, or German, or Japanese. So reusing them as-is won’t have an equivalent effect, and a translator will come up with equivalent made-up words for the target language.

(This will often happen in SF too, of course. Also, I’m not a pro, but I know there is wider discourse in the field of professional translators on whether a translated text should sound natural and give an equivalent experience to the reader as to a native reader of the original, or if it should sound foreign and give an impression of reading the original language. Etc etc. Fascinating stuff.)

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

On an intellectual level i know that early 20th century megacity concepts are deeply impractical and would cause triple the harm they purported to solve, but damn if the art doesn’t make me yearn to visit.

Hugh Harriss made some of my favorites.

[theoutcastrogue]

It’s Hugh Ferriss, check out The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929). Some of his work is speculative, some of it is just artistic renderings of existing (or proposed) buildings for advertising purposes, some of it is educational, and a lot of it is New York. All of it is dope.

[honourablejester]

I love Hugh Ferriss cityscapes so much. I grew up with Batman: The Animated Series, and it’s responsible for a lot, and this whole vibe, the massive, monolithic, Art Deco cityscape, Hugh Ferriss is the epitome of it. Gotham, Metropolis, Rapture, New Capenna. Any fantasy dieselpunk art deco city you’ve ever seen. This guy, along with the original Metropolis, was one of the first. 

I especially love that last image from the first post:

I have it saved to most of my computers so I can use it as a desktop occasionally. This tiny human figure standing back in awe of this cityscape view that absolutely dwarfs them, this mass of concrete and light that looks like a dawn beyond them. 

And, yes, this is from an early 20th century dream of a future that would have been incredibly bad for us, but the imagery. This is the city as a mass, as an entity, as a pillar to the heavens, as a radiance, as a dawn. The solidity of it. These are cities as the epitome of humanity’s ability to say ‘I built this’. I made this mountain, and I made it radiant. I put this thing here and it is so solid that no wrath of any god could strike this babel down.

(They wouldn’t have needed to. We’d never have gotten them up, and if we had they’d have slowly killed us in and of themselves. But damn they look good)

I really love his stuff …