[primulaceas]

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

[bizzlestix]

“Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. When you look up the stage directions, it says, ‘Exit Ariel.’”

— Tom Stoppard, University of Pennsylvania, 1996 (via flameintobeing)

[the-tenth-arcanum]

unlovable creatures quotes from: the tempest, shakespeare // henry vi part 3, shakespeare // frankenstein, mary shelley // frankenstein (play), nick dear

[kitchen-light]

“Not all writing is cursed, but surely all of it is haunted. Literature is a catacomb of past readers, past writers, past books. Traces of those who are responsible for creation linger among the words on a page; Shakespeare can’t hear us, but we can still hear him (and don’t ghosts wander through those estate houses upon the moors unaware that they’ve died?). […] Of all of the forms of expression that humanity has worked with—painting, music, sculpture—literature is the eeriest. Poetry and fiction are both incantation and conjuration, the spinning of specters and the invoking of ghosts; it is very literally listening to somebody who isn’t there, and might not have been for a long while. All writing is occult, because it’s the creation of something from ether, and magic is simply a way of acknowledging that—a linguistic practice, an attitude, a critical method more than a body of spells. We should be disquieted by literature; we should be unnerved.”

— Ed Simon, from his essay “Who’s There?: Every Story Is a Ghost Story”, published in The Millions, August 18, 2021

[polari]

I'll Teach You Cree by Gregory Scofield

with the tip of my spring tongue, ayîki      frog your mouth will be the web catching apihkêsis words,                           spider a crawling-out ceremony that cannot be translated.

hâw, pîkiskwê!                                             Now, speak!

I’ll teach you Cree, nêhiyawêwin                 the Cree language  that is the taste of pimiy êkwa saskarômina                         fat and saskatoon berries Your mouth will be the branches I am picking clean, a summer heat ceremony that cannot be translated.

hâw, pîkiskwê!                                              Now, speak!

I’ll teach you Cree in the winter, pipon                                      winter when the dogs curl against our backs. Your mouth will be pawâcakinâsis-pîsim     the frost exploding moon that cannot be translated. It will be a ceremony.

hâw, pîkiskwê!                                               Now, speak!

I’ll teach you Cree ê-kohk mistahi ê-sâkihitan.                           because I love you a lot It will be in the fall, this ceremony. You will have the mouth of a beaver, thick and luminescent.

I will make my camp there ê-kohk mistahi ê-sâkihitan.                           because I love you a lot This cannot be translated.

hâw, pîkiskwê!                                               Now, speak!

[arthoesunshine]

i like to pretend i already died and asked god to send me back to earth so i can swim in lakes again and see mountains and get my heart broken and love my friends and cry so hard in the bathroom and go grocery shopping 1,000 more times. and that i promised i would never forget the miracle of being here

[arthoesunshine]

— our town, thornton wilder

[annarobots]

snippet snaturday

thank you to @sallysavestheday @ffigwit @amorbidcorvid @mnimeresponding @stormsbreadth @motherfuckingnazgul @starspray @bad-writer @glitterlessgold @moringottocake @thescrapwitch @balrogballs @ecofutural for the tags! Tagging everyone back.

I am working on a short fic based on this struck-out footnote from The Shaping of Middle-earth:

Finrod [meaning Arafinwë] is slain at Swanhaven in trying to stay the violence.

Here is the snippet! Warning: Major Character Death.

Remember Arafinwë, the soft-spoken, who at the Darkening sought to calm the panicked Noldor. He endeavored to persuade them to pause and ponder ere deeds were done that could not be undone. Take heed, there is no shame in delay! Please, consider what you do! Never once did Artanis hear Arafinwë’s voice raised in wrath. Even when she was small, and pounded her fists against his chest in rebellion against bedtime, he would wrap his warm arms gently around her tiny body, restraining her only to prevent further violence. He would stroke her hair, he would sing a low lullaby until, at last, she softened, and slept. By the end, the golden lamps at Swanhaven were broken. The heavens, dark and still. There was the sound of gentle waves lapping upon the rocky shores. There was the sound of wailing. Fëanáro, in triumph at the stone arch through which the stolen ships must pass, his white teeth grinning. Artanis sees her father, fallen, each time she shuts her eyes. It happened so fast.

[apocryphics]

J. Drew Lanham, Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts (2021) 

[havingapoemwithyou]

Superbly Situated by Robert Hershon

[thirdity]

“Fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it, too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night

[lifeinpoetry]

I don’t want to look dead, but what I see in the mirror dismays me. I look dead. My skin is pale—not pale as fine china, pale as whiteness, or pale as Snow White, but pallid as a drowned body or patient in the intensive care unit in desperate need of a blood transfusion, or my own undead self hunting me down. Bags hang from my eyes, and my mouth is dry. In the cabinet is some blood-red lipstick, which I draw across my lips. I dab my fingers in the pigment, then blend it into my cheeks to incorporate the color into my complexion. I want to look ruddy, alive and well. When I put on makeup, I want it to look like I’m alive.

— Moshtari Hilal, from "Decomposition," Ugliness, tr. Elisabeth Lauffer

[ewasztefka]

i did a full dragon age replay recently for the first time in years so i decided to draw some things to celebrate, starting with leliana/surana

[hitrone]

"The scent rolled over him.

He looked up.

Overhead, a lilac tree was in bloom.

He stared.

Damn! Damn! Damn! Every year he forgot. Well, no. He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn't want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart."

[brightdeadthing]

Come. And Be My Baby, Maya Angelou

[homunculus-argument]

The Odyssey but retold as a low-stakes modern adventure of one guy out with his girlfriend leaving the bar with his buddies to do just one (1) simple thing real quick, it'll take like 15 minutes tops, he'll be right back, but then some bullshit happens and the trip keeps getting more complicated as more bullshit keeps happening while he just tries to get back to the bar because he promised his girlfriend that he'd get back and he knows that she's still there because she told him she'd wait there.

And by the time he finally gets back it's almost 3 am and the bar is about to close while she's sitting there stone cold sober, surrounded by 5 drunk guys unsuccessfully trying to convince her to give up on waiting for him and go home with one of them instead. And the guy shows up to proceed to beat the shit out of them before explaining himself to her like hey sorry bullshit kept happening, my phone fell into a storm drain and my wallet got stolen when I was trying to find someone who'd borrow me a phone so I could call and

[thekijs]

His girlfriend had been fending off the 5 drunk guys for most of the evening by explaining that even if she was going to ditch her boyfriend, she can't possibly leave without finishing her beer, which she is keeping perpetually full via careful sleight of hand where she's just pouring it back and forth into and out of the pitcher.

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

That buys her another hour or so and then, finally, her boyfriend makes it back. He looks like shit, hair down and just a mess, he's wearing an entirely different jacket that he got from an alley, and barely recognizable—especially to 5 guys who've been drunk for hours now. He lurks for a minute, finds out what's going on, and proceeds to pull off the trick shot first try. Throws the jacket off, fixes his hair with a hair tie his girlfriend lends him, finally looks like himself again, and THEN beats the shit out of them with the pool cue.

[weaselle]

yuh i was there, that's how it happened

[processedlives]

“Tact, like empathy, is based on a certain form of mutual understanding. But while empathy implies the idea of entering someone else’s mind inasmuch as it is linked to the presumption that ‘I know how you feel’, tact exists to create a form of bonding between individuals that is not based on the idea of intrusion but, conversely, on the respect for existing boundaries, and on a willingness not always to assume that one knows. While empathy requires resonance and proximity, tact is there to restore distance, and to accept the difference between the individuals involved in order to protect and preserve their dignity. Tact is based on an attention towards otherness.”

— Katja Haustein, “How to Be Alone with Others: Plessner, Adorno, and Barthes on Tact” (via mehreenkasana)

[weltenwellen]

Wildness Before Something Sublime Leila Chatti