A Beautiful, Beautiful Time Lapse @itspileofgoodthings - Tumblr Blog

“Then you believe in God, Shukhov?”

“Why not?” asked Shukhov, surprised. “Hear Him thunder and try not to believe in Him.”

#it’s time for me to re-teach this next year #I’ve left it alone for a couple of years. but we’re circling back.#one day in the life of Ivan denisovich

youllalwaysfindyourwaybackhome

considering the occasion - what's your favourite taylor lyric

#sooooo many and so many categories of them #these hands had to let it go free and this love came back to me #obviously #never be so kind you forget to be clever never be so clever you forget to be kind #the monsters turned out to be just trees #as foundational pieces of life wisdom #but also. there are sooooo many that are instantly visual to me #the ones that paint such a specific feeling of a person—every time she talks about her family you can instantly see them before you #or when she’s in love with someone #I still remember the swing of your step. the life of the party you’re showing off again. and I roll my eyes but then you pull me in #I’m not much for dancing but for you I did #or. I love the gap between your teeth. I love the riddles that you speak. and any snide remarks from my father about your tattoos #will be ignored #cause my heart is yours #I’ve always felt so strongly that I can see who she’s looking at in moments like these #also. I know we all hate joe(ver) but he is captured and immortalized forever in #dark jeans and your Nikes look at you #like. it makes me cry. the well-up of love in every line where she’s looking at a person #(interestingly she’s done this least with Travis but I believe it’s coming with time)#the relief of how he makes HER feel takes precedence so far #and is telling imo #then there are her place lyrics. where she paints a whole physical world in a few lines #look now the sky is gold from the best day makes my heart just FREEZE #girls carry their shoes down in the lobby is a singular brushstroke masterpiece #the beginning of you are in love. one look/dark room/meant just for you. These falling snowflakes of place and time she captures so briefly #the opening of enchanted where you feel like you’re at the lonely noisy overcrowded party #and in the city’s barren cold. I still remember the first fall of snow!!!! and how it glistened as it fell #I remember it all. too. well.#makes me cry. I am crying right now!

itspileofgoodthings

Epiphany, my first favorite from Folklore, please?

I love epiphany! (I don’t always love the upslide after rifle lol.) It’s a song that’s important for me when I fall down the rabbit hole of listening to or reading a specific type of cynical/jaded Taylor appreciation. As I sometimes do? And this is always a song that that type of fan (see: the swiftologist on instagram; actually DON’t lol) really hates. But it’s so important because it’s such a core part of her. It’s so sincere. It’s so clear-eyed. It’s so kind. But also I just think it’s good. I think it works.

There’s a gravity to epiphany —or maybe that’s not the word. There’s a meditative quality to it that just makes you sit with what she’s saying and, to me, transforms the earnestness that could be too much or a little cringe or the lyrics that are just too simplistic (the really critical part of my mind feels all of those things sometimes) into something that, when I actually listen to it, I find really poignant and am moved by every time. It’s the light through stained glass of it all! It is the organ music in an empty church. It is full of a hushed compassion!

So much of Taylor’s magic to me is the way she says things, not the what. She has such a natural balance to her tone. The introduction of the word epiphany a minute plus into the song is the key to me. (Every time she repeats the epiphany line—my favorite part of the whole thing.) She pulls off comparing world war 2 and hospital crises (in a way I would not recommend most people try) because she dips down into the line “but you dream of some epiphany” and somehow captures one of the spiritual truths about human suffering in a way that does feel revealing. And surprising. She sings it softly, she understands it is not the time for her sharp cleverness or her keen perception. But to recognize the mysterious quality both of suffering and how we handle it. And she doesn’t belabor it, and she doesn’t sugarcoat it, and she doesn’t overdo it. That is a really hard balance to strike! Many many artists cannot do that. And few pop stars would ever bother trying. And that’s why fans of Taylor who enjoy her as a kind of mean and messy diva who is there to “serve” or whatever, see: the swiftologist, are not going to get it.

As writers, we can only hope to meet people where they are in their lives, but you can’t ever orchestrate or force the encounter. You just have to hope that in some exquisite happenstance, you bump into them on the same path at the same time, that somehow, amidst the noise of life, a line we wrote or a melody that we crafted cuts through, and they hear it and they feel something, that they get chills or feel lighter or think of someone they love. Our goal is to elicit that glint of recognition in another human being, because something that felt good and true to us feels good and true to them in the same time. And in that moment, when someone blurts out, ‘I love this song,’ it was easy.

—Taylor Swift, Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Speech

#taylor swift #made me tear up #you cannot in fact force or orchestrate the encounter #the way Taylor is so much more truly at peace at different reactions to her work than I am

jace-targaryen

petrova appreciation 4/--

#she looks so sparkly and beautiful and young and mysterious here #tvd

No one:

Literally no one:

me: I wonder if Rose Betts ever gets mad at that one girl on Instagram who does constant covers of her music while wearing her perfect makeup and showing off her bone structure

Nina while playing Hot Girl Summer for me on her phone: I think she does

#made me scream #I can’t believe I clocked it before hearing the song #but the thing is. it would annoy me if someone was covering my songs and their songs were getting more insta traction than my originals #(idk if this is what’s happening it was just funny to have a flash of intuition and connecting dots and then hearing a song that seemed #to confirm it)#I have wildly overexplained this. bowing out now!

itspileofgoodthings

me clicking play on The Other Bennet Sister like “look, you have to get over your purist and elitist Austen tendencies sometimes a show is just a show for entertainment and just because you find the premise stupid and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Austen doesn’t mean there won’t be some enjoyable ideas or good performances in it just actually watch something for once instead of critiquing everything from your ivory tower”

The Other Bennet Sister: here’s an inappropriate and gross moment not two minutes in

me: okay never mind

itspileofgoodthings

I don’t CARE that it’s just a moment it makes it worse to me, what on earth is this doing in here, jail for 1000 years

#and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet!??????????#I am going 2 throw up

me clicking play on The Other Bennet Sister like: look, you have to get over your purist and elitist Austen tendencies sometimes a show is just a show for entertainment and just because you find the premise stupid and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Austen doesn’t mean there won’t be some enjoyable ideas or good performances in it just actually watch something for once instead of critiquing everything from your ivory tower

The Other Bennet Sister: here’s an inappropriate and gross moment not two minutes in

me: okay never mind

#there are so many intellectual hurdles to me watching escapist Austen spinoffs #because I haaaaaaaaate them on principle #but if you are going to be disgustinG NOT TWO MINUTES IN—-#look sometimes there’s content in stuff and sometimes you have to be an adult and skip #and I don’t just love things that are 100% watchable with a whole family #but actually it is so shocking and so galling and so TELLING #to have a kind of soft core porn moment in escapist-ass MADE-UP MARY BENNET IS THE VICTIM FANTASY #that it jarred me right out of the fun time I was willing to have!!!!#like actually no you are canceled immediately and forever #you failed the easiest test for a made up escapist Austen spin off to do #which is not to be inappropriate #it’s literally so easy #canceled FOREVERRRRR I am biting I am kicking I am hurling you into the sun

itspileofgoodthings

Ruby Sparks (2012) is a fascinating exploration not only of the dangers of control when exerted in a relationship but also of the dangers of control when writing or creating, convincingly portraying the truth that once something has been created, even if you created it yourself out of thin air, you owe it a certain amount of flexibility to be itself or the entire endeavor becomes sick and twisted. It also explores the unhappiness that afflicts the one exerting the control almost as much as the one being controlled. It is one of the most unsettling movies I’ve ever seen in my life and it haunts me to my core. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Lila Rose filming herself watching videos of single women crying over being single and offering words of condescending encouragement (to their screens I guess??) while her big eyes fill with performative tears and toads in business suits in her comment section talk about how single women need accountability not encouragement is all that I hate in this world and the next, please know this.

#sorry for the second Lila rose post in the past week #but I am spiritually blasting her content into oblivion

I finished grading my finals!

#last last last day (in this string of endings) is tomorrow #and it’s just odds and ends #teaching tag

some days the rich internal life becomes like a quivering but simultaneously frozen spiderweb that traps me inside of it.

#ljke i cANNOT escape and it is torture #but generally time helps #that was me yesterday #today it’s fine

🎶 you won’t remember all my champagne problems 🎶

People need people.

#lark rise to candleford #made me cry

In the Depths.

#I don’t know if it’s side effects of the new med I’m on #or just end of year finals being slowly CRUSHED to death #but it’s a Lot and I am Not Finished #prayers appreciated if you have the energy

itspileofgoodthings

That tweet that said Taylor Swift is like Michael Jordan—

Taylor said “take me out and take me home” —

#still makes me cry all these years later

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A Beautiful, Beautiful Time Lapse