obsessing much?

this is a blog with many quality posts and the occasional questionable item. you have been welcomed.

[obsessingmuch]

I am back from the dead

[blackjacktheboss]

You already know

[butch-of-the-blades]

Oh my god!!!

[lord-kitschener]

I mean the whole damn point of the Nativity story is that the supposed son of God (interpret Jesus how you fucking want, of course) was born to a couple of poor, exhausted peasants in the stable for the inn, and his first bed was a feeding trough for animals. That would nowadays be like a poor couple where the mother gives birth in a parking garage behind the motel because they couldn’t find a better place and nobody else would take them in. It’s a pretty gritty setting, and the idea is that God was reborn in some of the rock-bottom lowest circumstances. The only thing majestic was all the angels and shit, and of course motherly love

I get that a lot of the art portraying Madonna and Child as fabulously wealthy europeans in splendid robes and golden light was meant to glorify God + whichever nobility was sponsoring the artist, and while of course it’s genuinely beautiful art, it just always struck me as horribly missing the point, which is that the supposed son of God started in incredibly humble circumstances, among the kind of people that everyone else looks down on

[ziegfeldghirl]

‘Massacre des Innocents’ by Leon Cogniét, 1824. Although the Feast of the Holy Innocents is in a couple of days time, this painting is still really relevant in that it portrays Mary as how She really was: a scared refugee mum, so fearful that Her son was going to be one of the Innocents killed by King Herod.

[durnesque-esque]

My new favorite mordern interpretation is this work, José y Maria by Everett Patterson (http://www.everettpatterson.com)

[libraford]

I had to look at this like FIVE TIMES to register all the layers of symbolism going into the piece by Patterson. 

The hoodie as a veil. 

Weisman cigarettes

Each of them is haloed by an advertisement sticker. 

No Vacancy sign on the motel. 

Dove sticker over Maria’s head. 

Neon sign with a star symbol also over Maria’s head. 

The crown over the ‘Dave’s City Motel’ sign. “New Manger.”

The sign behind Jose’s elbow likely says ‘Herod.’

The wee little plant growing through the cracks at their feet. 

It’s like a New Testament ‘I Spy.’ I love it!

Ugh.

New favorite interpretation of the nativity. 

[petermorwood]

Here’s a link to a larger version of José y Maria. It’s worth examining, and I spotted a couple more I-Spy tags.

That sign behind Jose’s elbow reads “Elect(?) Herod Antipas”; the newspaper at his feet has an ad for Shepherd-brand watches and for Glad and Tide household products, there’s a bottle of Golden Ale by the phone pedestal, Maria’s hoodie is from Nazareth High School and the crown over the motel sign makes it “Royal David’s City”, as in the carol. There are probably others I’ve missed, but nothing’s there that the artist didn’t put in deliberately.

Interpretations with a contemporary setting make these images far more immediate than Sunday-school “Bible Story” illustrations, and one of the best (for a given value of “best”) isn’t modern-contemporary at all, though it was contemporary to the artists.

It’s “Massacre of the Innocents” by the Pieters Bruegel; father and son had the same name and both painted versions of the incident. Look at it while listening to “The Coventry Carol”.

Despite the 450 years separating the painting from modern viewers, it still has a chillingly familiar look which has nothing to do with the weather and which any military historian will recognise: Drogheda 1649, Amritsar 1919, Russia 1941, Lidice 1942, Oradour-sur-Glane 1944, My Lai 1968…

A long, depressing list of incidents and excuses. “Terrorists / untermensch / nits grow into lice / kill all, God will know his own / just following orders…”

It was such uncomfortable viewing for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (the men doing the killing were following orders from the Spanish side of his Hapsburg family) that he had his copy censored, The dead and soon-to-die children were overpainted with livestock and bundles of produce, turning the massacre into a more acceptable scene of simple looting.

As an example. this…

…became this…

…and this…

…became this.

This article looks at the redaction and how it was discovered during restoration of the “Massacred Innocents Pillaged Village” version in the British Royal Collection.

It’s worth reading.

But looking for all the clues in “José y Maria” is far more pleasant…

[silverloke]

What do you think about OM?

it's been eleven years since anon sent this and i still don't know what OM is 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[silverloke]

@yourrescuemission​ OMG NOW WHEN YOU MENTION IT!?!??!?!?! 😱 asfjkdfjkldfjkjkjklfmnkxcvjkasdfuilsdf i loved her i miss her, tumblr still puts her first when it recommends blogs like mine, still after all this time 😭😭😭💙💙💙

but why not just write the name full out right away so i'd know anon, lol

[obsessingmuch]

:D

[dogposts]

well, if i fit...

[obsessingmuch]

hi anon if you ever read this

i know you didn't reply to my last post yet lol BUT

i just wanted to drop in and ask if you’d listened to ed sheeran’s new album yet and if so which are your favourites??

[caesarsaladinn]

every morning i wake up and make the worst possible time management decisions anyone has ever made

[dateamonster]

vampire dude to his vampire friend: wow.. looks like there’s only one coffin….. what’ll we do?

other vampire dude who reads a lot of fanfiction: we could……….. share it

[dateamonster]

four years ago i made this post. currently it stands at about 300k notes. to this day if i google image search my url the screencapped re uploads of this post are some of the first results i see. it is perhaps my most widely reblogged post in the six year history of this blog.

and now, on this day in the year 2022 i see a gifset from the interview with the vampire tv adaptation where two vampires share a single coffin. a single tear rolls down my cheek, knowing that at last my long journey is over. at last, i can rest.

[littlealienproducts]

Ghost Art Prints by Katherine Blower Illustrator Designer

[ijaazat]

in a train right now, i can see the city lights and i feel so so overwhelmed

[obsessingmuch]

argh life

why are you so difficult and why is there no pause

[obsessingmuch]

You've had a makeover! I like the contrast of the black and white dots to the rainbow ones. Did you find out if your person is okay?! I also did not realise I had ignored your questions. Please forgive my oversight :-(( I don't play fortnite anymore! My macbook Does Not Like it and I did download it onto the playstation but couldn't be bothered getting to grips with the controls so I gave up </3 But I did win a game once! Do you always do the classic 'gotta be the last one left out of 100' or do

you ever do that one where there's like two teams? Do you play solo or do you have fortnite friends? Other things I am into atm: sudoko, origami, and Taylor Swift. What are some subreddits you enjoy? i will say that I do spend a couple of hours a day on tiktok :/ but usually only when I go to bed and when I'm on my lunch break at work for some mindless entertainment. I don't feel good about it. But I get some chuckles every now and then. And there are always cute dog videos so who could say no?!

I'm glad it's not just me that's nostalgic for lockdown! Feels a bit weird to say that but I genuinely miss the one way systems at supermarkets and the like. I haven't seen any films on your two most recent lists (except for Mrs Doubtfire) but I have watched some youtube commentaries on the Vanessa Hudgens ones and got the impression that they weren't that great :/ Who are you watching on youtube these days? I did like Folklore and Evermore! I didn't love Folklore too much at first (as it came out when I wasn't listening to her all that much, and I don't really like soft-acoustic-y music so much) but it's really grown on me over the last couple of years and these days, she's all I listen to <3 From Folklore my faves are My Tears Ricochet and The Lakes, and from Evermore my faves are Champagne Problems, Gold Rush and Cowboy Like Me. Which album re-record are you most looking forward to? My other fave songs are Long Live, All Too Well, Out of the Woods, and Forever and Always.

I'm also very sorry for the amount of notifications you're about to get from me. BUT do you still follow Jedward and what they're up to?!

anon you are back!! I was wondering how long it would be until you replied again, if it would be weeks or months or years lol. I wasn’t expecting days! (I also didn’t know how long ago you sent the previous messages cos I had no timestamps in my inbox when I replied to them - when was it??)

I did have a makeover. the garrett watts sidebar image didn’t seem appropriate anymore so I just pulled my most random/non-fandom-related gif of mine out lol.

my person hasn’t posted since about 2019. I’m hoping they’re ok and just taking another tumblr break cos they’ve done that before.

and I forgive your oversight :D I understand the vibe of your macbook Not Liking It. mine didn’t either, so I installed Windows a couple of years ago and play from there (and also have the game graphics set incredibly low and my fans on an increased speed. it does ok tbh). amazing congrats on your win!!! I do have a couple of friends so usually play duos/trios - it’s very, very rare for me to play solos. I think I would get lonely and frustrated dying alone lol. on occasion I play squads with random fill friends (but sometimes those people are not so nice). maybe you need to install windows tbh and resume your fn career :D

subreddits, mostly I read AITA and relationships ones. so basically just people complaining about their life problems lol. how about you? which good ones am I missing?

youtube has been showing me tiktoks as youtube shorts so I have been spending lots of time on these for the past few weeks. currently the algorithm thinks I want to see a mixture of: engagement rings being handcrafted, a comedian lady who pretends to be an annoying mother/teacher character, a man cooking lunch for his wife, horses getting new horseshoes put on, golden retrievers, cakes being frosted, and tiktok fashion girls trying on clothes. what all things does tiktok show you??

the Knight Before Christmas was not good. BUT I did kinda like the Princess Switch ones lol. they were fun and easy to watch if you just want a happy albeit cheesy and I’m-definitely-older-than-the-target-audience-for-this movie and not a Serious Cinematic Marvel. 

youtubeeeeee I’m watching mostly hmmm. (edit: this was originally going to be a short list but it turned out longer than I expected): simply nailogical (esp. her podcasts), jammidodger and shaaba (highly recommend), molly burke, tom scott, ryland adams, hannah witton, jessica kellgren-fozard, carrie hope fletcher, louise pentland, vlogbrothers, a few fortnite youtubers, and the Cut and Jubilee channels. do you watch any of those? who are you watching?

I am a Bad Fan maybe cos I’m not getting the Taylor’s Version songs. I have all my music in iTunes so it’s not like I’m streaming and giving revenue for the old versions, but I like how the old ones sound for nostalgia and don’t want 2 of everything. but I have listened to some of the new ones to compare. and I have been getting any new ones that were previously-unrelated / From The Vault etc. sooooo I guess I’m not excited for any re-records specifically, but I will be interested to see how they sound. do you have the old or new versions?

jedward no lol. are they up to anything? occasionally I stumble across a tweet of theirs and I’ve noticed they now swear openly in tweets which I found amusing and not unexpected. and generally call out people for bad human rights / sexism / other isms. which I guess matches with 2011/12 jedward except now it comes with less sneakiness and more swears lol. 

this is such a long post. I hope my multitude of decimated followers have had a most enjoyable read :D

[obsessingmuch]

also xkit doesn't work on safari anymore? this is sad but apparently happened a couple of years ago. and now i shall be forever not knowing the dates on any posts. is there a way to get dates to show without xkit?

[obsessingmuch]

2. tick tick boom

3. promising young woman

4. free guy

5. the quiet place 2

6. turning red

7. king richard

8. everybody's talking about jamie

9. boiling point

10. the guilty

11. operation mincemeat

12. us

13. ambulance

14. the lost city

15. everything everywhere all at once

16. the last five years

17. mrs doubtfire*

18. soul

(17)(1)

[obsessingmuch]

1. tenet

2. onward

3. into the spiderverse

4. the father

5. the killing of a sacred deer

6. beast

7. in the heights

8. i'm thinking of ending things

9. luca

10. alita: battle angel

11. dear evan hansen

12. dune

13. coda

14. nowhere special

15. the princess switch: switched again

16. happiest season

17. the knight before christmas

18. last christmas

19. love hard

20. don’t look up

(20)(0)

[obsessingmuch]

ALSO what do think of what Taylor Swift is up to these days??? I’ve become a bit obsessed over the last couple of years and vaguely remember you liking her!

i still enjoy taylor very much. i liked her last 2 albums a lot. (and the All Too Well 10 minute version, which might be my favourite song of hers ever). marjorie and the last great american dynasty were my standout top 2 songs from f+e.

did you like them? which were your favourite songs? or which are your favourite older songs??

[obsessingmuch]

obsessingmuch!! sometimes I log in to see if you’ve posted but you’ve been so quiet, I didn’t realise it had been such a long time though </3 how have you been?! What are you obsessing over these days??? Have you found a new social media platform that’s taken over your life? I am very embarrassed to admit that I’ve grown quite fond of tiktok and Reddit which I feel are both equally cringey in their own way. How was your lockdown experience?! Whatever happened to your filmings list?

anon!!! you're alive!!! :D

i've not been posting no. i don't really check tumblr anymore - maybe once or twice a year lol. i checked it today because i randomly remembered someone's blog who i used to follow who had been having a hard time and then disappeared from tumblr and i wanted to check if they'd come back / were doing any better. but i couldn't remember their blog name. so i had to log in and look at my Following list.

i am still obsessing over Fortnite. you never answered my multitude of Fortnite questions lol. have you played since?

what other things are you into atm?

i do read reddit often. but i never post myself. and i have yet to get tiktok but i have been considering it recently (but is it really wise to sign up to losing multiple more hours per day? idk)

i really enjoyed lockdown and not having to go outside and having a legitimate "reason" to not go out and do things if i didn't want to. for once the world worked in my favour. but alas, everyone seems to have forgotten covid / pretends it doesn't exist anymore.

my filmings lists... i still keep them! i just haven't posted them. maybe i will, just for you. (edit: updated 2020 list / 2021 list / 2022 list thus far).

:D