blog with gal attached

[aralintheobsessive]

if you want butterflies, you need to live with caterpillars.

i am not being metaphorical, i work in a garden center, stop buying plants 'to bring in the bees and butterflies' and then immediately poisoning every caterpillar that dares to consume a single leaf

you will not get butterflies if you kill all the things that turn into butterflies! what are you doing!

[fipindustries]

I cannot stand the parodies of modern major general, they're overdone and simply not as good as the original. They've done them about everything, whatever topic, big or small.

And when i notice one of them my eyes will always start to roll.

The diction's always slurry when they rush the complicated words, and adding many fricatives will turn it so cacophonous. The slanted rhymes are silly and they keep just making more and more, please someone stop the parodies of modern major general.

The scanning of the lyrics in the meter is unbearable, they emphazise the syllables in ways that are untenable, in short in matters musical, prosodic and ephemeral, i cannot stand the parodies of modern major general!

[unorthodoxchronicles]

[stanfordgsb]

[unconventiononthelawofthesea]

somethjng like this is another example of the thing I was talking about re: looksmaxxing a while ago where it seems like really the main reason people are going "this is CRAZY" is that it's not a woman doing it. a thing you wear under your shirt that changes what your body looks like is socially obligatory for women in many environments.

[gruelight]

if i go read some very old novels will it get the LLM taste out of my mouth

[weaselandfriends]

Could you give us an official Bavitz-endorsed classics list? Like 10 or 15 must-reads, either with huge influence on your work, or just stuff you think is most essential?

Sure! I get this question time to time so I'm certain I've answered it before, but my list usually remains pretty consistent. Let's go with:

The Castle and The Trial by Franz Kafka

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Ulysses by James Joyce

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Paradise Lost by John Milton

King Lear by William Shakespeare (really any and all Shakespeare, but King Lear is the best)

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

The Brothers Karamazov and Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Oresteia by Aeschylus

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Some other great books that are less of a traditional "classic" bent:

VALIS by Philip K. Dick

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe

Stoner by John Williams (this one is starting to acquire real classic status lately)

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Loser by Jerry Spinelli

Misery and The Long Walk by Stephen King

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Underground by Haruki Murakami and Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley had a significant influence on When I Win the World Ends specifically; La Bas and A Rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans had a significant influence on 1 Over X; The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser had a significant influence on Cleveland Quixotic (as did the aforementioned Paradise Lost).

[thissweetenamor]

[transgenderer]

There should be a napoleon in every generation. Like the dalai lama. French revolutionary monks searching the countryside with a group of artillerymen which each candidate child must attempt to command

[elfyourmother]

a cosplay photo so old it was taken on actual film (which explains the streaks from my scanner) and the con we were at doesn’t even exist anymore. it was around 13 years ago actually now that I think about it.

[sabimaki]

i have been looking for this picture for YEARS and it’s finally back on my dash….wow

[jackscarab]

This photograph predates 9/11.

[raccoonmilf]

When I was in grade school I used to send emails to biologists and zoologists asking them questions to get answers to include in school projects I was working on, and would cry when they did not respond because I thought I was stupid for thinking that some random kid would ever be deserving of a response from someone who does something as smart and cool and important as *checks notes* studies frog fungus.

Now, at 29, I’m lowkey having a panic attack because my academic email is filled with middle schoolers wanting me to answer their questions about pygmy raccoons and I keep putting off answering them because I’m so overwhelmed with all the other raccoon stuff I have to do.

Anyway, greatest apologies to any scientist I ever emailed as a child and also an adult.

[mephistopheles]

midsummer: if the feudal strictness of your home kingdom can’t give you what you want, try going on an adventure guided by magical supernatural beings

macbeth: but not like that

hamlet: if you’re in a duplicitous violent world, your king and your peers and your girlfriend may lie to you, so only follow the advice of your steadfast best friend

othello: but not like that

as you like it: if you undergo a misfortune that causes you to hate your life in your city, give yourself a makeover and run away to the woods

timon of athens: but not like that

two gents: if you’re in love in italy, you can quickly and easily communicate important information via the verona postal service

romeo and juliet: but not like that

[livearound]

tweets i think about regularly

[unhinged-soapbox]

So I just saw the most incredible production of Macbeth that wove parental grief into the whole regicide plot in such a fascinating way.

So at the very beginning of the play there was a scene where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are at a funeral as the primary mourners. A stretcher is carried on with a covered body. The body was notably very small. They laid flowers on it and Macbeth immediately left for battle.

Now *I* studied Shakespeare in college so I immediately knew there is one single line that implies that the Macbeths lost a child at some point. Most of the time this isn't utilized in productions; it's just a throwaway line, intended to paint just how determined Lady M is for this regicide thing to work and how furious she is that her husband has cold feet. In this production she delivers "I have given suck, and know how tender tis to love the babe that milks me" nearly in tears. She takes a moment to steel herself before saying, "I would while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains pit, had I so sworn" and she very nearly SCREAMED this in Macbeth's face.

Also noted was how the Macbeths looked at Macduff's children. Lady M was clutching her heart, nearly breaking watching them embrace their parents. Macbeth could not even look at them.

At the end of Lady Macbeth's plot, when she is sleepwalking and sleeptalking, she is typically portrayed as speaking to no one or to her husband. However, at a certain point of her monologue she got on her knees, raised her voice to a comforting octave, and began miming tear wiping, hand holding, hair and face stroking, around a child-sized figure. "Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave." Then she stands and appears to take the child's hand. "Go to bed, go to bed. I can hear knocking at the gate-" then she looks down and realizes that no one is there, followed be the most heartbreaking shriek I've ever heard followed by a full minute of her just weeping while curled up on the floor before she stood up, finished her monologue and left the stage.

Most of the time when the loss of a child is utilized in a performance or adaptation, it is assumed that the child was an infant and lost some time ago. To imply that the child died IMMEDIATELY prior to the events of the play and had been cared for and loved by their parents for a few years adds such a fascinating layer to the desperation to ascend to the throne, Lady M's madness, and Macbeth's initial hesitation into "in for a penny, in for a pound" attitude, Macbeth's fury that Banquo's, not his, children will take the throne, and even Macbeth's eventual demise following a frenzied final battle.

How far will grief push you to fill a hole? How far will grief push you to desperation? And what happens when none of your new pursuits are filling the void left by the one you lost? And what happens when you realize you have nothing left to lose?

It was a PHENOMENAL production.

[vriskakinnieaynrand]

[segamascott]

[schmergo]

To be a truly great musical, the plot or premise must sound horrible or boring to people unfamiliar with the show. The addition of music is the alchemical spark that brings it to life. If it works without the music? Nope. Fun and exciting plots? Relatable characters? Based on a popular piece of media? The musical may be good, but it won’t be great. But if someone offers you tickets to a musical about the daily life of a garbage man in Lithuania, it’s probably great.

[prokopetz]

Comedy version of Hamlet which opens with an extended bit involving various characters seeing the King's ghost and trying to figure out who they can pass the buck to because this is not going to be their problem.