small taste of mark

teacher + music/band geek + books, books, books I love to play with words

[catchymemes]

[anitoonzforever]

When a tiny little frog wants to cheer you up, things will be okay after all 🐸💚💖❤️‍🩹

[depsidase]

[only-cat-memes]

[animentality]

[seemarkwander]

How I want to go

[socialistexan]

[anarcho-communism-revolution]

[aqueerkettleofish]

For those who have missed it, a tourist in Hawaii decided it would be fun to chuck a rock (a BIG rock) at a monk seal. He missed, but he was captured on video, and when told it was illegal to interfere with them, said "I'm rich, I can pay the fine."

Is the best part that he got doxxed? No.

Is the best part that he got tracked down by a local and beaten? No.

Arrested on state at federal charges, looking at up to 5 years and 50K? Nope.

The best part is the local city council's reaction.

And the best part of that is the look on the attorney's face.

[liltasteofmark]

There is still good, but we have to do it ourselves

[theconcealedweapon]

[depsidase]

[depsidase]

[liltasteofmark]

#imagine

[theonion]

[paolo-streito-1264]

Tim Swallow. Byron Bay, Australia.

[bethanydelleman]

I just learned yesterday that watermelons could explode when overripe and then today one exploded in my kitchen. So I guess I'll never learn anything new ever again just to be safe.

[yunnaan]

Pls let me share this beautiful tag with the masses milord

[strangenewclassrooms]

My mom used to bake potatoes wrapped in foil and then put them in the microwave to stay warm. *note I mean physically IN the microwave, she wouldn't actually turn it on.

Me, being a child and unobservant, saw her taking the foil-wrapped, fully cooked potatoes out of the microwave and made the assumption that she had used the microwave to cook them. Cut to several years in the future when I'm starting to cook on my own...

...not my finest moment

[anarchist-revolution]

[bridgethehook]

𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚓𝚘𝚢

˚. ✦.˳·˖✶ ⋆.✧˚

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

it is very interesting to see the language of contemporary book criticism co-opted by Christian Nationalists to remove books from classrooms and libraries.

One recent example: My novel Turtles All the Way Down was banned from being taught in English classes because one school board member claimed it "romanticizes mental illness."

(It does no such thing, of course. TAtWD makes mental illness seem really unpleasant and not at all either lowercase-r or capital-r romantic. To acknowledge something's existence is not to romanticize that thing. But part of co-opting this language is misusing it for the end of removing books thematically centered on mental illness, or physical illness, or sex, or anything else that might be deemed insufficiently inocuous for Educational Literature.)

But the question of when writing about something veers into romanticizing it IS actually a very important question for contemporary literary criticism, and one that's been explored a lot (sometimes with generosity and care, sometimes not) in book discourse online. So the Christian Nationalist Right is using the language of analysis that we are using in ways that are at best misguided and at worst disingenuous.

It's really discouraging--I mean, on a personal level obviously but also just as an American who believes teachers should be allowed to teach--to see such widespread book bans in American high schools and libraries. But it's not surprising, really. Books retain a lot of power--to deepen our empathy with those who are suffering, to connect us to ourselves and to others, and to see the full humanity of those who might be dehumanized or marginalized by the social order.

On that front, the Christian Nationalists are right to worry. Books can be a path into loving one's neighbor as one's self, and seeing the full light of the sacred in the experiences of the marginalized. God forbid.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

"Oh, there's no point to human existence. All the meanings are just made up."

MF I KNOW. That's why I'm working so hard to make something up that can withstand the reality of human experience.