Dear roaming eyeballs and eardrums, here is a video we slapped together to give you a taste of work to come. The record, The Tropic of Entropy, to be released this sunday. For now, heres some delta-moonshine-blues. Enjoy and share! xoxo
1 November 9, 1934: Carl Sagan is born.
In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.
Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
(via sagansessed)
The sun is a drum
the moon is a cymbal
The flow of time is caught in a cup.Cupful by
cupful by
cupful time
is cut; if not,
we should choke.By night in the northern quarter the Dipper
or Northern Ladle or Bushel Measure
turns like the hand of a clock measuring time
although no punctuating tick or tock
notches its arc, sunset to sunrise.Its handle divides the year into seasons,
pointing towards earth at dusk in autumn,
upward at dusk in spring, in winter
twilight west, in summer east.And so it is and was and shall be
but not world without end (and neither
was it so from the world’s beginning).—Mary Barnard, from “Song for the Northern Quarter”
Art Credit Christopher Pratt
I know I have been threatening to release my record for a long time. This sunday it drops, kiddies. xoxo
1
Before he died our father asked to be left
on the dining room table. It was difficult,
but we’ve learned to eat our meals around him,
though at times someone
still puts a fork into his leg.Our guests become uncomfortable
when they see him on the table.
They ask if he’s asleep.
I always say yes, and that’s why they talk
in a whisper for the rest of the night.Although he no longer brings a paycheck home
he provides for us in small ways.
We dust him daily; change his clothes weekly.
He no longer shouts, stalks the house in
longjohns, or comes home drunk Friday night.We put a flower in his lapel every Sunday.
In the spring we take him outside
and air him out.
Then we buy him a new suit and put
a clove of garlic in his pocket for luck.At Christmas our lives revolve around our father.
We wire him with colored lights,
sprinkle angel’s dust in his hair,
hang glass bulbs from his fingers and toes,
lay presents at his feet.—John Pijewski, “Our Father”
Photography Credit Larry Sultan
We are The Aspiring Grand Weirdo
We are The 21st Century Rambling Man.This is what Woody Guthrie’s suitcase would have looked like if he was round today.
The Entropic Odyssey starts tomorrow. First stop, Mr. Munro’s Studio. After that Detroit…
from there we’ll just follow the tail of Haley’s Comet
13x01 // 3x04 // 3x06
ive been trying not to repost game of thrones shit, but you know what, fuck you. im a nerd. you want to kick it with a club kid, kick it with one who grows into embracing herself in all her nerdy glory. i talk about drugs and insomnia and “not fitting in” e-fucking-nough. mark me a nerd for thinking this gif set is hilarious.
(via game-of-style)
It’s raining hard today.
The day is more like night,
the spring is more like fall,
and in the yard a driving wind lays waste
to the little tree that, seeming not to, stands
steady and firm; it seems among the plants
like a too-green adolescent grown too tall.
You watch it. It may be
your pity stirs for all of those white flowers
the north wind strips from it; and they are fruit,
sweet preserves we set
aside for winter, those fallen flowers spread
across the grass. And your vast maternity
aches for them, all.—Umberto Saba, “The Little Tree”
Photography Credit Mark Steinmetz
this
“Forgetting is an activity—it’s a choice that demands the same effort as remembrance.”
Read more of our interview with Mozambican writer Mia Couto.
“History is said to be written by the victors. Fiction, by contrast, is largely the work of injured bystanders.”
The Los Angeles Times on the art of becoming Edna O’Brien.
Read our interview with the Irish novelist here. Image Credit: Edna O’Brien, in Lake Park, County Wicklow, 1952. (Edna O’Brien / Little, Brown and Company.
Who says it is beautiful, that middle range, lies—
For it is not, nor is it meant to be. Full of dust-
Choke and nebula-bound sky, you slideInto her realm, colorless and brittle-toned
As the sound of a spoon banging the burned underside
Of a copper pot, where the highs and lows no longerBear the sayable: how tightly wrapped bodies
Come unraveled in the dark and a distance
Sets in like a spell of stillness that, when broken,Could harm. You do not remember your dreams
Here, for excess is no longer energy but murder
With bare hands. There is no chance of sleepEither; even closed eyes stare mesmerized and all
You can pray for its languor and distraction,
A woman spinning slowly, then wildly in air.—Emily Fragos, “Callas in Hamburg”
Photography Credit Beth Chucker
How To Be A ‘Reverse-Racist’: An Actual Step by Step List For Oppressing White People
by A.D Song and Mia McKenzie
White people who are confronted with their white privilege and the white supremacist acts they perpetuate have been known to cry, “You’re being a reverse-racist!” That is completely true: people of color have the power and control to create, perpetuate, and maintain brutal systematic reverse-racism that oppresses white people every day. As such, we have created this handy list on how to continue this oppression.
1. Enslave their bodies.
Ship them from Germany, Sweden, and other exotic countries. Force them to build entire cities, roads, bridges. Force them to plant and harvest all the food everyone eats. Let an entire economic system be built on their backs, with their blood and sweat. Later, deny them access to the system they have been used to build, and accuse them of being extremely lazy.
2. Steal their land.
If they were here before you, steal their land. This is essential. Basically, just go in there and take it. If you have to kill some of them to get it…no worries. If you have to kill almost all of them to get it…shit, no worries. After you steal their land, make sure you create laws to keep them from ever returning to it. If they try to return anyway, build fences, and let bands of POC vigilantes patrol the borders with guns. If they somehow get past the borders and into your country, no worries, you can always just deport them.
3. Enslave their minds.
From these systems, build a long lasting institution of reverse-racism until all the violence and microaggressions make many white people into suspicious people with a lot of internalized self-hatred, health problems, and mental illnesses. Then deny them access to adequate mental health care. Or, adequate health care of any kind, while you’re at it. ‘Cause, you know, fuck ‘em.
4. Wipe out and/or appropriate their customs.
Since many of their customs are savage and unworthy of preserving, wipe out their traditions of eating mashed potatoes and meatloaf, playing miniature golf, buying khakis at Banana Republic, and sleeping with thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets. For the customs you think are kinda cool, culturally appropriate from them. Sometimes wear a beret and lederhosen, because Swedish culture is really exotic even though it’s inferior to ours.
5. Break their espresso machines.
With baseball bats or large hammers. Or, you know, just unplug them all.
6. Call them “honky”.
As people of color, we have been rightfully accused of being racist to white people, especially when we call them “honky”. As we all know, calling them “honky” is egregiously offensive and horribly shocking because of this long, violent, reverse-racist history.
7. Just keep being terrible to them.
Do everything you can think of to make it so that white people make less money; their children are shot by cops; white women are at higher risk for assault and they are exotified until they no longer seem human; white men are beaten and thrown into jails because they look “suspicious” and “threatening”; they are racially profiled everywhere they go.
8. Make sure most representations of them in the media are negative.
They should almost always be portrayed as pasty, stringy-haired, rhythm-less, sexless, uptight, and booooring. Also, there should be very few representations of them and when they’re portrayed at all, they should always only be the comic relief, the silent exotic sex object, the Debbie Downer, or the incompetent sidekick. They are only allowed to be easily forgettable, one-dimensional characters. Sometimes use POC actors in white-face to portray these white people. By presenting this ONE image of them all the time, you will be able to convince the rest of the population that all white people are like this, thus ensuring a widespread belief in their inferiority.
9. Keep telling them how beautiful they are not.
White people know they will never be beautiful with their boring sour cream complexions and blonde hair (that was actually caused because of mutations). Plaster people of color on every magazine, show them in every television show and movie, and praise them as the most beautiful. When white people cry at these injustices, bottle their tears and sell them as health creams for people of color. Nothing like a soothing lotion made from the pain of white folks!
10. Go bananas!
Force them underground and away from the sun to become even whiter, while you laugh manically like the cruel, bloodthirsty, oppressive person of color you are! Take their thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets to make POC-supremacist flags and hoods and march through the streets, spreading fear and terror. Every time a white person thinks your behavior is unfair or wrong, tell them that they should stop being so sensitive! We live in a post-reverse-racial society now! Jeez.
(via sleeplessnyc)
