elephant city on tumblr

http://bellyn.co

[faxxia]

[thenearsightedmonkey]

By Lynda Barry  May 2016

[kateordie]

Every time I see this I love it more

[jluo-deactivated20161005]

me

[louisetakesphotos]

[duskisnigh]

[nickkahler]

1. Art requires time — there’s a reason it’s called a studio practice. Contrary to popular belief, moving to Bushwick, Brooklyn, this summer does not make you an artist. If in order to do this you have to share a space with five roommates and wait on tables, you will probably not make much art. What worked for me was spending five years building a body of work in a city where it was cheapest for me to live, and that allowed me the precious time and space I needed after grad school. 2. Learn to write well and get into the habit of systematically applying for every grant you can find. If you don’t get it, keep applying. I lived from grant money for four years when I first graduated. 3. Nobody reads artist’s statements. Learn to tell an interesting story about your work that people can relate to on a personal level. 4. Not every project will survive. Purge regularly, destroying is intimately connected to creating. This will save you time. 5. Edit privately. As much as I believe in stumbling, I also think nobody else needs to watch you do it. 6. When people say your work is good do two things. First, don’t believe them. Second, ask them, “Why”? If they can convince you of why they think your work is good, accept the compliment. If they can’t convince you (and most people can’t) dismiss it as superficial and recognize that most bad consensus is made by people simply repeating that they “like” something. 7. Don’t ever feel like you have to give anything up in order to be an artist. I had babies and made art and traveled and still have a million things I’d like to do. 8. You don’t need a lot of friends or curators or patrons or a huge following, just a few that really believe in you. 9. Remind yourself to be gracious to everyone, whether they can help you or not. It will draw people to you over and over again and help build trust in professional relationships. 10. And lastly, when other things in life get tough, when you’re going through family troubles, when you’re heartbroken, when you’re frustrated with money problems, focus on your work. It has saved me through every single difficult thing I have ever had to do, like a scaffolding that goes far beyond any traditional notions of a career.

Teresita Fernandez, “Commencement Address at VCU,” 2013 (via 4a0000)

[books-n-quotes]

I wanted to tell you that wherever I am, whatever happens, I’ll always think of you, and the time we spent together, as my happiest time. I’d do it all over again, if I had the choice. No regrets.

Cynthia Hand, Boundless - Get the FREE Kindle Reading App (via books-n-quotes)

[kylerspears]

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BUY GROCERIES!!!

[mogifire]

[blundstone-deactivated20170419]

Fucking hell this is 10/10

[libertarirynn-deactivated202006]

Well the end kind of threw me for a loop but overall this is a quality post.

[retro-anime-collective]

[spidergvven]

tumblr linguists pls explain why ‘you’ sometimes needs to be ‘u’ and ‘u’ needs to be ‘you’ and how come i will mix and match my u’s and you’s within the same post or even the same sentence

[shevathegun]

the difference between “u” and “you” is really interesting to me too, and while there haven’t been a lot of plausible conclusions drawn about variable usage of the two, i’ve observed a few things about it.

one: tumblr has, effectively, its own dialect. in fact, different part of tumblr have different variants of this dialect. usage of “you” vs “u” is a part of this dialect. (here’s a great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDPasRas5u0)

two: a key feature of the “tumblr dialect” is fluidity – tumblr posts generally maintain a very specific cadence. variable usage of “u”/“you” occurs most frequently in order to increase fluidity of speech. the pattern is generally “you” at the beginning of a statement and “u"s in the body thereof. (this pattern is relatively consistent even if there is no beginning “you”.)

three: another factor seems to be emphasis, and authorial intent. “you” is used more frequently when the subject matter is serious, or, as one person already pointed out, if the statement is intended to be forceful. alternatively, “u” has an intrinsic flippancy that speakers frequently use in conjunction with humor, irony, or sarcasm.

four: authors will vary usage of “you”/”u” in instances of repetition, in part because the “tumblr dialect” involves a minimalistic approach to punctuation. (example: “omg i was so worried about u you know”)

five: users often use “u” instead of “you” to address people they know well or feel close to, almost as a form of endearment. (example: “i love u”, “are u ok”, etc.) because “you” carries with it a forcefulness or seriousness, “u” is used more frequently in casual, affectionate exchanges between friends.

six: users use “u” more often if they use other such abbreviations in the same post.

the key difference seems to be that “u” – as a single letter – feels diminutive, casual, and cute, in comparison to the full word “you”, which feels more serious, more professional, or more severe. though the have the same meaning on tumblr, their different connotations can be chalked up to their different visual presentations. 

somebody who’s a more skilled linguist than i am should pick this up tbh, would love to hear about any conclusions that have been drawn about this

[parkerwoods]

The Ransom Ltd. team and I have been working nonstop to make this project materialize and I am pleased to finally announce that Momo Tokyo will be my first published book and is now available for pre-order! 

I had never been to Japan before the two weeks I spent in Tokyo photographing the content for this book. The idea came as an afterthought–a small personal project to keep me occupied in a city I didn’t know–but quickly became the purpose of my stay. Over the course of 12 days, I carried the peach-colored (”momo” in Japanese) backdrop and (heavy) c-stand with me on foot for 100 miles. The backdrop became like a character to me in its own right and I soon felt that I was simply taking snapshots of a friend as it helped to contextualize my vignettes of the city. This book was both literally and figuratively a labor of love and I could not be more excited to share it with you. 

Momo Tokyo is not only an exercise in contextualizing my first experiences with Japanese culture but also stands as a testament to the idiom, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Every image from this project has a unique story as to how, where, and why I photographed the backdrop as well as the difficulties I encountered in doing so. As special thanks for pre-ordering the book you will receive a print from the project with a handwritten note detailing the story behind the photograph. These narratives will give the reader an inside look into what it was like to experience Japan for the first time and why these photographs are so meaningful to me.    Pre-Orders for Momo Tokyo are available now!

[huzzahs]

:'(

.

[infamoussayings]

Is this not the true romantic feeling; not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you.

Thomas Wolfe (via infamoussayings)

[mostlymilkwood]

“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing’s sake, back home to aestheticism, to one’s youthful idea of ‘the artist’ and the all-sufficiency of 'art’ and 'beauty’ and 'love,’ back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time― back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

― Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

[lgbtcinema]

Front Cover (2015) Official Trailer -  FRONT COVER is about handsome, openly gay New York City fashion stylist Ryan, who rejects his traditional Asian upbringing. Ryan is given an assignment to style Ning, a famous Chinese actor, for an important photo shoot. After a rocky start, an unlikely friendship develops between them, leading Ryan to examine his identity and consider an enticing new path for his life and career.

[raybg89]

I watched this movie when it came to the LGBT Inside Out Festival! It was actually really sweet and charming and spoke to so many ways of living and being able to express yourself whether in public/private. Good family inclusion some of the struggles immigrant Asian families face (since it’s so rare to get that kind of representation). I wish they could have done a lot more in terms of character development in some places but overall - A+.

Ill just say that a lot of straight Asian actors get gay roles and when folks talk about Asian actor opportunities and how there are so many Asian actors out there, even though white media would say otherwise….the same goes for LGBTQ Asian actors….

[mideast-nrthafrica-cntrlasia-de]

Singing in the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran

The acoustics  in the 400 year old mosque are amazing & notes hang in the air with crystal clarity. The singer is a student from northern Iran visiting Isfahan & had always wanted to sing in the mosque because of its unique acoustic resonance qualities. You have to stand on the tiled square for perfect effect.