An archivist found a long forgotten 8mm film reel in an old metal box, marked “Philippines 1942”. Thinking it was lost WWII footage, he sent it in to be restored/digitized. When he got the footage back, he found puppies instead (via)
This is so freaking profound. Like, this was before the advent of the personal camera. Not just anyone owned a camera in these days. Cameras were expensive, and so was the film. When you were recording shit, it had to be stuff you were willing to shell out a pretty penny to have preserved. Someone so deeply and profoundly loved these dogs and found joy in them that they decided to preserve them for future generations to see, after these pups are long dead and gone. This camera operator wanted to preserve the joy these dogs brought them and to share it with others. How incredible is that?
Cats fucking love lanolin (naturally occurring on sheep's wool, secreted by their skin) so it's possible that whatever brand of wool you buy doesn't strip all the lanolin off during processing. The majority of wools will have as much stripped out as possible but it depends on what you buy and where/how it was processed.
"An old professor of mine had this great thing. He said "On the level of individuals and civilization, personality predates ideology." Meaning that before you were a fascist, you were a bully and an asshole." -Brennan Lee Mulligan in conversation with Amy Vorpahl, Adventuring Academy S1E2
You’re a daycare worker, watching over toddlers, when the imminent end of the world is announced. It becomes increasingly clear none of the kids’ parents are going to show up as the end inches nearer.
“Mom has been texting me for the last twenty minutes. She wants me to come home. It’s a four hour drive, when the roads are clear, and from what I hear everybody is trying to get somewhere right now. There’s no telling if I’d even-”
“Everybody else has left. All the other kids were picked up, the other staff left. They gave me all the keys. I promised to stay and wait for as long as- well. Even if some of the parents show up, I guess some of them won’t, so I’m just waiting. Until.”
[Clears throat.]
“A couple of people came after everybody left. Peter, one of Aidan’s fathers, gave me three hundred dollars for staying. What am I going to do with money? It’s- anyway. I kind of get it. He wanted to give me something.”
[Audio ends]
[Audio starts]
“They’re all between 2 and 4.” Sniff. “They’re so little. Too little to really- maybe if they were older, I’d have to tell them something. But um. I’m just- trying to stay calm and keep them happy and occupied. I think that’s the best thing, right now.”
[Heaving breaths.]
“I normally use this recorder to help me remember stuff. It’s just, uh, habit to talk to it. I don’t know. They’re napping, right now. I’ve got the baby monitor, they know that if they talk into it, I’ll come, so-”
[Sobbing.]
[Audio ends]
[Audio starts]
“Mom keeps texting, so I blocked her. I sent her a text telling her goodbye, first, but. I do. But these kids need me.”
[Sniff.]
“I tried calling their parents again, but I can’t get anybody. It’s just busy signals. I called the firefighter station, 911. I can’t get through to anybody.”
[Shaky breath.]
“I went out into the yard. Um, I think they can play. It’s nice out, and you can’t really see it yet. Little bit of a glimmer, if they ask I’ll just tell them it’s a plane, but it’s nice out and we’ve got hours before-”
It is very common and safe for truckers to keep pets with them on the road. Having a pet helps truckers with stress and loneliness. I looked into this account and from my understanding these kittens were born feral and rescued by this man. He has gotten them medical treatment, and is helping care for their eye infections. His set up in the truck is good, having a little box, kennel, bed and toys.
The fact that [Krypto] is terribly behaved makes Superman’s loyalty to him all the more impactful in perilous situations, Gunn said.
“He is such a compassionate person or, you know, Superman, that he’s worried about the dog being scared,” Gunn said. “That’s the thing that upsets him: The dog is scared. And we’ve only seen the dog give him grief. I think it’s really important that Superman is tuned into his own sense of compassion in that way.”
(via What Superman’s Pet Owes to a Badly Behaved Rescue Dog)
I never feel more 'are ya winnin', son???' than when I need to do literally anything on instagram other than post photos, so if you'd like to see my sad attempt at a probably already played-out meme, the reel version of this is over there. XD But I liked the snoot view of Krypto, so here we go!
One of the thesis statements of Sinners: Music is the language of both the living and the dead.
And this makes perfect sense to me, because music is so integral to our spirits that it is one of the only things that never leaves us. Even dementia, which takes almost everything from our waking selves, struggles to take music.
Haint Blue and Indigo: The Colors of Annie and Smoke
This is by no means an extensive history of haint blue and indigo*, but I just wanted to dip a bit into how much is said just by looking at one layer of costuming for Sinners. In this case color—how it's able to convey just how deeply rooted Annie is to her heritage/history, and to me, how this case of colors shows so beautifully Smoke's connection to Annie and his love for her.
"There's that haint blue that Annie lives around as part of a spiritual color. So I took the haint blue and used it in her clothes. I wanted her to have these layers. You first meet her [...] She's a community person. She's a healer, a spiritual leader." - Ruth E. Carter, Costume Design for Sinners (emphasis mine)
Haint blue is a color seen painted on porches, doorways and windows in the American South. As the name suggests, it was believed (though the oral histories are difficult to come by beyond the 30s), to ward off evil spirits. Using haint blue, according to the Gullah-Geechee, tricked evil spirts into thinking they had come across water or sky, bodies they were unable to cross, therefore deterring them from crossing over the blue.
Annie's costume was infused with this color; the blue on her cotton blouse and her skirt belted with feathers and beads. When we're introduced to Annie, her home has a collection of blues: from the wooden panelling, scraps of fabric hanging in the background, and blue bottles strewn about. This infusion of haint blue in her home is also a deliberate choice as talked about by production designer Hannah Beachler.
*Corrections, whether through comments or reblogs, for this post are definitely welcome! I cite my sources at the end of this long post.
This type of blue is not a specific color but rather, it becomes Haint Blue when it is used for the purpose of warding off haints, a belief rooted in Gullah-Geechee beliefs. (Though for technicalites' sake, it is a range of blues -> blue greens). After the 1800s, this way of using blue trickled down from the Gullah-Geechees in South Carolina to places such Louisina where Annie is suggested to be from.
The Old Plantation (Slaves Dancing on a South Carolina Plantation), ca. 1785-1795. watercolor on paper, attributed to John Rose, Beaufort County, South Carolina
Blue has always had a fraught history with enslaved Native Americans and Africans. The production of indigo was a profitable commodity demanded by the British empire as early as the 18th century. This production of indigo however, while it oppressed, was also a way for Black and Native Americans to express their individuality, and for people such as the Gullah-Geechee, their spirituality. Annie continues to draw strength from her roots and it's incredible to see it so profusely in so many aspects of her character, including her clothes.
So here is where I deviate a bit from "canon" per se, or give some interpretation of Ruth E.'s and Coogler's "Smoke is blue." We talk a lot about how the movie does a great job of showing how, though Smoke wasn't completely "sold" on hoodoo, but that he did very much believe in Annie. And that trust between them goes beyond what Smoke's willing to communicate through words (he wears the mojo bag through the war, through Chicago, and removes it only when he's ready to die. How he let's her take the reigns when talking to Cornbread. How he follows through with his promise as painful as it was).
"Smoke is blue. Stack is red." - Ruth E. Carter explaining how Ryan Coogler first posed the characters to her as a jumping off point for costuming.
Whether or not it's a conscious knowledge, I like to think that he dresses in blue as an extension of that trust. That bond between Annie and Smoke and the protection that comes with it bleeds into something as "ordinary" as Smoke's choice of color. One can say that maybe the color reminds him of Annie, and I also think there's some argument to be made about the universe answering Annie's prayers of protection, wrapping Smoke in an extra layer, another ward against evil.
----
Sources:
Blue Roots by Robert Pickney
Red, White and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life by Andrea Freeser
Haint Blue, the Ghost-Tricking Color of Southern Homes and Gullah Folktales
What the Color ‘Haint Blue’ Means to the Descendants of Enslaved Africans
Interviews of Ruth E. Carter and Hannah Beachler linked in the pull quotes above.
