An' the janitor is ... GOD!

He/Him. In search of the weird. I write Bilfred Baker's Marvelous Bookshop.

[asparklethatisblue]

First art class in history

There are some cave paintings that look as if someone held a child's hands to guide them in applying paint to stone

[o-craven-canto]

Leang Leang, Indonesia (Sulawesi), ca. 50,000 BCE

Cosquer, France, ca. 25,000 BCE (pic source)

Cueva de los Manos, Argentina, ca. 7000 BCE

Groenfontein, South Africa, ca. 2000 BCE (pic source)

Awunbarna, Australia, before 1 BCE? (can't find an actual date) (pic source)

Canyon de Chelly, USA, ca. 1000 CE (pic source)

Chhatibahar, India, recent (pic source)

[sacrificedtoatree]

Every year I read a "slim, lyrical" work of fiction in early Summer. In 2024 I read Pale Fire. Last year I read Sea of Tranquility. This year I read Piranesi.

Sea of Tranquility was definitely the worst of these. Piranesi, good, but not JS + MN good (of course). I think I still like Pale Fire best of the three. But honestly I'd still prefer to read a better book than any of them. Something that really captures early summer hope and the feeling of new lands. Dreaming of The Biographer's Tale.

[benevolentgh0st-deactivated2016]

a couple weeks ago this guy posted in the chicago pagan facebook group saying that he’s a djinn and that there’s a portal between here and egypt and only he and one other person had the power to close it and there was going to be a massive sandstorm… like dude, close the fucking portal, why are you even telling us this

[time-thy-pyramids]

Hunter-gatherer's approach to manufacturing textiles:

Find a suitable 3D mass

Peel off its outer layer to get a 2D sheet

Agriculturalist's approach to manufacturing textiles:

Produce a 1D filament

Shape it into a 2D space-filling curve

[charl0ttan]

one of the most annoying things you can do as a cis person is scream really loud all the time and bang some cymballs together and tug on peoples hair a little and spit in their mouth

[sacrificedtoatree]

as a cis person I have to make sure to keep this in mind

[nohoperadio]

i’ve been turning this question over for a while now. i wonder what you think the answer might be. i would state it informally as “is every book someone’s favorite book?” but it’s more interesting, i think, if you put limits on it: what portion of all novels traditionally published (say, this year) will end up one day being someone’s favorite?

Wouldn't wanna try to put a number on it, but I think it's gotta be a pretty small percentage! A lot a lot of fiction gets published every year, and of the slice of the population that regularly reads new release fiction the great majority are mostly picking from the same small subset of stuff that's trending/widely reviewed/wins major awards/whatever, so lots of stuff will have a very small readership right? And people can only have one favourite. And while taste varies a lot it isn't random, most people even if they've read off the beaten path a little bit will nonetheless often choose a favourite that's among the classic pool of popular stuff that overlaps with everyone else's favourites. And that's before we even consider the fact that a very common answer to "what's your favourite book?" is something like "I don't know, I don't really have favourites".

[sacrificedtoatree]

This is fascinating because it's so different from what I would have guessed, which shows the perils of speculating on something that's not your expertise!

Something that sticks out to me is that Hope is focusing on new release fiction. My naive reaction is "but don't most books have a chance to become someone's favorite long after they're published?" But maybe they don't? Do most new releases just disappear without much of a trace?

[queenlua]

32 Days of Beethoven

beethoven wrote 32 piano sonatas, ranging from roughly 8 to 45 minutes long apiece (modal length is about 20 minutes)

in the month of April i am going to listen to all of them. one sonata per day. (and okay yeah i'll spill into the first two days of May, whatever.) and i'll post about each one here as i go <3

i hereby invite whoever else to join in!

i don't have any super-unique classical music knowledge beyond the lessons i took as a kid, so it's entirely possible most of the posts will just be "i liked it" or "i didn't like it" or other similarly boring takes, but, i heard the 31st sonata in concert last weekend & haven't been able to stop thinking about it & this seems like a fun way to find out if any of the others will give me brainworms lol

[queenlua]

this starts tomorrow :)

[actualized-animal]

writers! any time you are writing a set of three characters, STOP and remember to MEW:

- one wants to fuck the Machine

- one wants to fuck the Entity

- one wants to fuck the Wound

this is mandatory for creating a good character dynamic. follow for more writing tips

[sacrificedtoatree]

what, none who want to fuck the Void?

[the-domestic-mammoth]

EVERYTHING'S FINE :) By W.B. Yeats

Tracing a neat straight line, adept and sure, The falcon heeds the calling falconer; Things hang together, and the center holds; Mere symmetry is ordering the world, The sea-bright tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence proceeds; The best have strong convictions, while the worst Are full of resignation and are sad.

Surely no revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming's far away. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When an indifference borne of stable comfort Leaves my sight clear: somewhere in sands of the desert A lion with lion body and the head of a lion, A gaze calm and leonine, as is usual, Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it Reel shadows of the normal desert birds. What a nice lion, right? And now I know That twenty centuries have gone along And things were bad sometimes, and things were good, And if a lion slouches toward Bethlehem, That's 'cause it's native to the Levant.

[17steps]

JUST AN INANIMATE STATUE! Rainer Maria Rilke

We can glean much about his mortal head with eyes like two glass orbs. Such as: his torso is now dull and totally dark, like a lamp that’s been switched off,

just like his eyes, tightly shut. And that’s why his flat chest is unimpressive, and somehow you can tell his downstairs would be too.

And that’s why this stone seems a little mottled under the opaque shelf of the shoulders and it looks pretty matte; after all, it’s a rock:

and it seems pretty self-contained and static: for you are just looking at a statue alone. Your life is just fine as it is.

[pencilbrony]

Centipede economic sayings

[steviemcfly]

Who are the hated popular group in high schools these days? Like, how we always complained on our myspaces and livejournals about “preps.” Who are the “preps” of today?

[errorschacha]

It’s p much cozies vs. modders, cheerhards, fruit babies, et cetera, plus you’ve got your muppet girls, wraiths, mechanoids and whatnot. Cozies only really get on with each other, though they might date a muppet girl or two. Fruit babies are cool with anyone who’s not a cozy. Modders always want to date mechanoids, of course, but they rarely get a chance to. Modders stay underappreciated, honestly. Cheerhards are vicious, razors in their pompons and all that, going around shoving everyone else into lockers (except for wraiths, who are incorporeal).

I paid serious banknote for this 411, use it well.

[tatters-the-bat]

Reports say Windows 15 will be "a transparent pane of glass" that will be installed into frames on a wall; Lead developer comments, "finally, we got it right. Somehow we kept making operating systems instead and it was getting really frustrating."

[woman-becomer]

just found out I'm going to be reincarnated into a single sprig of grain. barley apparently. Not cool man. I didn't even know plants was an option on the table. this is bullshit

[woman-becomer]

these tags make me so mad because you're right

[2020knives]

i wake up and go over to my board that says "days since the number on the board was changed" and i erase the 0 and write a 1 and then i erase the 1 and write another 0

[cryptotheism]

Theres that tweet like "literary fiction is all just stories about English professors considering adultery." I know this isn't a literal dig, it's just a shorthand for the type of incurious writing that I assume plagues the rejected pile of the Kenyon review, but like. I've never read a novel like that. Not even a short story. I'm probably stupid and don't read books though.

[uququ]

i feel like either you have to not call india a subcontinent or you have to also call something else a subcontinent. doing neither is not reasonable

[transgenderer]

europe is the obvious candidate but nobody does it! very silly. europe and india are the same in so many ways...

[smoke-in-the-winds]

Ties into my four continental theory:

1. Africa

2, Americas

3. Asia (includes Europe)

4. Antarctica (includes Australia)

[actualized-animal]

(please read) disabled trans person in desperate need of help

hi my name is morgan / kit. i hate that i have to make this post but i was recently informed by my roommates that they are no longer able to financially support me, and i have been given a deadline of one month to either find a job or find another place to live. since they're planning on moving away this year, they've recommended that i find somewhere else to stay.

i am a traumatized autistic person with DID and have no job experience; basically all of my skills are creative in nature and not super helpful for finding steady work, though i'm hoping to be able to survive long enough to get a demo of my game out and make money off of that. i'm terrified of going homeless or being forced to move back in with my abusive mother.

i desperately need support, ideally a place to stay. i live in the hampton roads area in the southeastern part of virginia, but i'm willing to move elsewhere in the country if needed. i can cook and clean and have about 2000 dollars in saved funds, but no reliable source of income. even if you can't offer me a place to stay, you can still help by sharing this post / donating to my ko-fi here:

Support actualized animal

Support actualized animal

additionally i also have a pay-what-you-want album on bandcamp, if that interests you. all funds will go to me Not Dying or Going Homeless.

any little bit helps. thank you.