Don’t Forget Your Second Wind

Hello, I'm Amanda! I'm from Long Island, New York. This blog is a myriad of the things that I love. I hope you enjoy your stay. Best Wishes!

[babbhad]

the ides of march is taking place at the white house this year

[retrogamingblog2]

Animal Crossing Seasons by LeapHere

[boniver]

Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past. Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.

Sometimes you need to talk it over (over and over and over) for it to ever really be… over. Like your friend who calls you in the middle of the night going on and on about their ex, I just couldn’t stop writing. This will be the first time you hear all 30 songs that were meant to go on Red. And hey, one of them is even ten minutes long.

[stars-bean]

“The time of hot chocolaty mornings and toasty marshmallow evenings.”

Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997) dir. Karl Geurs

[birdmans]

LITTLE WOMEN 2019 | Greta Gerwig

[sexedinthecity]

[disney-rapunzel-merida-vanellope]

[makeawishitsadream]

This is one of the best running gags in cinematic history

[danaa-scully]

Period dramas + Art (parallels)

[guerrillatech]

.

[jewfrogs]

frankenstein is about self loathing and recognition through the Other. it’s about the original sin. it’s about what we owe to our creations and each other. it’s about internalized homophobia and the monstrosity of a man desiring another man. it’s about Romance. it’s about romance. it’s about playing god. it’s about being transgender. it’s about the absent fathergod. it’s about society. it’s about unethical medical experiments. it’s about gay college dropouts. it’s about a big nasty monster dude who is, and i cannot stress this enough, spooky

[cheesethesecond]

Here’s something I wanna say real quick, while I’m feeling salty: Amazon has totally contributed to the devaluation of literature. Those prices you see, the $13 they’re asking you to pay for a hardcover book? Those are deep, DEEP discounts that they’re able to implement because they don’t collect sales tax if they can get away with it, they don’t contribute money to the communities where they have a physical presence, they have shitty labor practices, Jeff Bezos has more money than god, etc. 

(Read this report from the Institute for Self-Reliance if you really want to get into how they’re hurting the economy.)

They’re so omnipotent at this point that they’ve normalized the discounted prices for books as the standard. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had someone come up to me and tell me what the price on Amazon is, expecting me to match it. The number of times I’ve been told, “Oh, it’s cheaper on Amazon, I’ll just get it there.” Even at author events, where book sales DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE to whether or not that bookstore will be able to get more authors in.

So when you go into a bookstore, and you’re asked to pay $27 for a hardcover, remember: THAT IS THE COVER PRICE. Set by the publishers. The bookstore is not upcharging you. They are asking you to pay the value of the book. Amazon’s low prices come with a cost. Please, just keep that in mind. 

(I made a post with options for buying books online that aren’t Amazon. Check it out!)

[allofthefeelings]

This is a great post, and I just want to point out: publishers aren’t upcharging you either.

The cost of the book is the advance for the author, it’s the salaries for all the people who work on it (including editors, yes, but also designers and marketers and publicists and lawyers and accountants and everyone else who makes sure publishing works). It’s the cost of printing the books and the materials to print those books on and the warehouses to store those books in. It’s keeping the literal lights on.

No one in the book business, from the author to the publisher to the bookseller, is making themselves rich off your money. This is the cost to survive. Amazon is running at a deficit because they can make up the cost with other things they do, and because once they run everyone else out of business, they’ll be the only game in town and can charge whatever they damn well please.

[sanspatronymic]

And please, please do not ask a bookstore (especially an indie bookstore) if they “price match.” It’s so insulting.

Amazon routinely sells books at or *below* wholesale cost. Meaning that when you ask a bookstore to ‘price match’ Amazon, you’re literally asking them to give you the book for free, or even take a financial loss on it. 

‘So how can Amazon do it?’ you ask? The answer is Amazon does not care about losing money. It sells goods at a loss continuously. (Don’t believe me? Just search “Amazon quarterly losses” and you can find article after article about this) Why? Because its goal isn’t to sell the most things, it’s goal is to be the only place where you CAN buy things. They gouge prices on goods to a point where brick and mortar retailers absolutely cannot compete and they do it with the singular goal of eliminating competition.

Things have value. They represent many people’s time and labor. For books, specifically, they represent tremendous cultural worth that extends far beyond the value of the paper they’re printed on. We have to appreciate the value of goods and be willing to pay a fair price that will support and nurture industries. 

It’s ok to be upset that you can’t afford $26 for a new hardcover, but make sure that that anger is directed, not at the people whose labor makes books possible, but at the people on top (like Jeff Bezos) who have devalued your own labor such that you can’t afford it.

[the-tin-dog]

^^^ if anyone is wondering this is LITERALLY the exact same strategy that Walmart used to destroy any small business and fuck over local economies.

[feralkwe-deactivated20210912]

Might I suggest Indie Bound for those who still need the option of home delivery?

[starlightomatic]

I’ve been using Bookshop also :)

[jennysparksandtheauthority]

Understanding the Johansson/Disney lawsuit thanks to Twitter wisdom…

Here’s part of Disney’s statement…

Yes. They’re excusing a breach of contract over the pandemic. Oh. So righteous.

And because context is everything…

Some say Johansson made a dick move because Disney is “the hands that feeds her”. I wonder if they’d say the same thing if this was Tom Cruise or Robert Downey Jr or some MAN of the likes.

Last, but not least:

I say: good for her. Go after the mouse. Let it all burn if you have to.

✨Slay✨

[teamroscoes]

A local resident puts love hearts and slogans on the plastic that covers offensive graffiti on the vandalised mural of Manchester United striker and England player Marcus Rashford on the wall of a cafe on Copson Street, Withington on July 12, 2021 in Manchester, England. Rashford and other Black players on England’s national football team have been the target of racist abuse, largely on social media, after the team’s loss to Italy in the UEFA European Football Championship last night.

[teamroscoes]

[teamroscoes]

[teamroscoes]

[teamroscoes]

A defaced mural of Marcus Rashford is repaired by the artist Akse P19 on July 13, 2021 in Manchester, England.

[teamroscoes]

[teamroscoes]

People take a knee as they gather at the newly repaired mural of England footballer Marcus Rashford by the artist known as AKSE_P19. (13.7.21)

[givemearmstopraywith]

me after sitting in the sun for ten minutes: love is real

[madeofwhitebone]

Actually, life is beautiful and I have time

[thundergrace]

The Senate voted unanimously to make Juneteenth a national holiday.

That means EVERY republican senator voted to make Juneteenth a national holiday. NONE of them objected. That includes the most racist of them. So that shows you what an empty gesture it is, because the likes of Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz were like "*shrug* why not?"

They're trying to wipe Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project clean from the curriculum and go back to pretending slavery never happened or wasn't "that bad" and of course go back to pretending racism is over and denying systemic racism exists. That is the current news wave. That is trending, pressing, news.

And in the midst of that they go "sure, let's make the day that literally marks the end of slavery a day of recognition" because it doesn't mean shit.

Now, Juneteenth should be a national holiday and this would be great news if it came with approval of Critical Race Theory and MAYBE if they also passed the goddamn Voting Rights Act and stopped implementing Jim Crow era-type suppressive voting laws in a different state every month.

There's no action behind it. It's empty. It's useless.

[christel-thoughts]

[theconcealedweapon]

[readerininvisiblewritings]

Best job advice I’ve gotten: The job is not going to love you back.