Sarah Jamison

flowersgardenlove:

Dahlia blyton Empero Beautiful gorgeous pretty flowers

weirdvintage:

In 1932, Dr. Archibald Purves from England designed the Dynasphere.  He believed that one huge wheel encompassing five passengers was far more efficient than a car with four wheels.  The biggest issue was that it steered quite poorly.  (via)

brianmcarey:

Heh.

Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, Paul Schaffer, Fats Domino and Ronnie Wood, 1986.

“Let’s start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you’re supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn’t. Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.”

- Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age (via painandtension)

On the Road: Original Manuscript

Flight and Sail


Untitled


Three Greek Athletes

xsomethingtolivefor:

Drawings using graphite, tape, and resin by Brooks Shane Salzwedel

awkwardmastermind:

Okay so there’s this website called litographs that prints entire(or almost entire) books onto t-shirts. I mean seriously. look at this shit. 

They have Le Mis

They have the phantom of the opera

They have the adventures of sherlock holmes

They have Leonardo da Vinci’s note books

They even have EDGAR. ALLAN. FREAKING. POE.

I AM SO EXCITED GUYS YOU HAVE NO IDEA

you can get them here

Identify mystery text, win $1000

The University of Chicago library is holding a competition to decipher the margin notes around this passage from the Odyssey. From the description on their website: 

The collection of Homer editions in the Special Collections Research Center – the Bibliotheca Homerica Langiana(BHL) – includes a copy of the rare 1504 edition of Homer’s Odyssey that contains, in Book 11 (narrating Odysseus’s journey into Hades) handwritten annotations in a strange and as-yet unidentified script.  This marginalia appears only in the pages of Book 11 of the Odyssey; nowhere else in the volume. 

Although the donor of the BHL is suspicious that this odd script is a form of 19^th-century shorthand (likely French), he acknowledges that this hypothesis remains unsupported by any evidence offered to date.

The donor of the BHL is offering a prize of $1,000 to the first person who identifies the script, provides evidence to support the conclusion, and executes a translation of selected portions of the mysterious marginalia. 

The contest is open to all, and higher-resolution photos and more details are available here, in case you’re upset that you missed the chance to decode Linear B. (The Voynich Manuscript also remains uncracked, but it’s probably a bit more daunting!)

(via lawebloca:x)

It is now.

Jack Nicholson getting his makeup done to be the Joker in Batman.

A cherry tree sits under the stars in Japan.

(via theslinkylizard)

(via third-eyes)

I was out doing a bit of weeding in the garden this afternoon, when I heard a lamb kicking up a terrific fuss. I thought perhaps one had gotten stuck in the ditch so I sidled over to check it out. Found this: newly hatched lamb struggling to take his very first step.

So, awesome.

We don’t own the field behind, but it shares a name with this house, so they were obviously together once. It’s a long, narrow field — flat as a table — and the sun rises spectacularly at the far end of it.

A thought experiment: imagine you are a lamb in Badger House Field, born at midnight. A chill, windy midnight (last year, there was snow on the ground when the lambs were born). Yours is a world of darkness (which it has always been) and cold (this is new and not very welcome).

A few hours into your life, just when you’re getting the hang of tottering a few steps behind your mother in the dark, this THING — this great, bright sun — blazes down the field in a streak of glory.

What must that be like?

Thinking on it is darn near enough to make me religious.

This thing baffled people for days, after some girl captured vid of it on her phone (I like the picture that goes with. “Hi, I’m Georgina Heap and this is a phone.”).

Turns out they were firing pyrotechnics with a trebuchet at nearby Warwick Castle and accidentally blew a giant smoke ring.

Wait, hang on, that’s kind of interesting after all.

wut

As some of you well know, I read a lot of books. Over the past few years, I've read over 300. My Goodreads Read shelf contains 750 titles, and that's not counting the books I've read this month. A decent portion of the books I've read over the last two years were the result of self-publishing. With the advent of electronic readers and books, it's never been easier to realize your dream of becoming a bona fide author. It's not always a good idea to put your lack of expertise in the area of writing on display for the world to see, however. Sometimes it's downright painful for the reader. There are stylistic problems, of course, but the more basic issues tend to be in the area of basic grammar and story structure. Some people are just bad at writing, and I'm confused about some of the things they do. Hopefully someone reading this can help me figure out just what in the holy hell is going on with creative writing these days.

1. Why are so many modern authors asking me questions during the story? 

It's happened to me  a lot:

"I got a whiff of his soap...or was it his aftershave?"

"She smelled like flowers...or was it fruit?"

"What did he want from me?"

"Where did he get that idea?"

"I had to poop....or was it pee?"


I have no problem with rhetorical questions in literature. Those are, after all, used to make a point. Or when the narrator is asking you a question in order to answer it for you. That makes sense. An open-ended question left dangling does not. Just fucking say he smelled good, all right? Because sometimes guys do. I don't care if it's his soap, his aftershave, or the tacos he ate for lunch. If he smells good, he smells good. There's no need to extensively ruminate on the origins of someone's smell. We don't care!

2. Why are some of the sexual euphemisms in romance/erotica books so fucking weird?

I remember sneaking peeks at my mom's Harlequin romances when I was young, and once coming across the phrase "love kernel" in place of "clitoris". Now, I was a fairly oversexed adolescent and enjoyed the naughty parts in those books, but that phrase confused and nauseated me. I didn't think it could get any weirder.

I was so wrong.

"...as he gave her a deep soul kiss from below."

"She slipped down on him, the sword in the scabbard..."

"...the taste of him filling her mouth like a Starburst candy full of hot honey."

"Her quim was salty, tasting of mushrooms and earthen pleasures."

OK, stop. Just stop right there. Quim? Mushrooms? Earthen pleasures? Do you mean dirt?! Just...why?

3. Why do people keep using words incorrectly?

Irony. Literally. Good words. Both highly overused and misused on such a scale as to make me hate them both. And I'm a word lover.

"I laughed and realized ironically it was the second time I laughed in one day."

Nothing ironic about that. Nothing at all.

There are, of course, other words that have been used incorrectly. E.L. James, for example, believes she knows what euphemisms and non-sequiturs are when she apparently has no clue whatsoever. But 'irony' and 'literally' are being destroyed. We need to stop the abuse, people. Stop saying things are ironic. Odds are, if you say it 100 times in a given week, in 98 of those instances it won't apply. And 'literally' should only be used if there's a chance someone could be thinking you're speaking figuratively. It can confuse the hell out of people otherwise. For instance, say you're telling someone about how totes mad your mom got about you putting a dent in her Subaru Forester and you tell your friends she "literally blew up". That might scare them. And if they like your mom, it will probably make them terribly sad.

I think the worst thing about the abuse of the word 'literally' is that even if it's used correctly, it sounds stupid if the person using it is talking about something that couldn't possibly be taken as a figurative statement. Say your toddler just shit in the toilet for the first time, and you say, "She literally pooped in the toilet!"


4. Why are some authors not reading what they write?

This might sound like a silly question, but it's happening. I see it happening. When two people in a conversation aren't making sense, that tells me the author wasn't fucking paying attention.

Guy: "Who knew the aloof law student had such a sense of humor?"

Girl: "I appear aloof to you?"  This is always my first impression to people. Yet, I couldn't help but feel  a little hurt. I felt different with him.

Guy: "I said appear."

Me:

5. Why is there such a discrepancy when it comes to proper comma usage?

I've seen both instances. I've seen the run-on sentences that could be edited, condensed, and separated with a comma to make a complex sentence of acceptable length. I've seen the lists that have no commas. And I've, seen sentences, where the author, felt inclined to use, commas at every, fucking, turn. Where the hell is this coming from? Surely there aren't that many shitty English instructors out there. Are these "writers" even reading books before trying their hand at their own?


The world of self publishing is both a wonderful and a horrible thing. I've been subjected to so much mediocre horse shit that it's amazing I don't have a raging case of equine pink eye. It's bolstered my self confidence, sure, but it also lowers my estimation of other people. And my estimation wasn't real high to begin with. Ah well, at least I know there will always be something to laugh at.

If you're feeling up to it, be a pal and share some of your own unsightly literary horror stories in the comments. I'm always up for a good laugh.

questionableadvice:

~ A Desk-Book of Errors in English Including Notes on Colloquialisms and Slang to be Avoided in Conversation, by Frank H. Vizetelly, 1920

Readers, Here’s a video that has gotten over 10 million hits so far:

It’s about motherhood being the hardest job at all, requiring 135 hours a week, lots of standing, very little sleeping and zero breaks.

But as “The Evil H.R. Lady” points out in this brilliant post, motherhood is not the utterly difficult, demanding, exhausting job society (and this video) paint it as. It’s only that way if we believe our kids can’t do anything safely or successfully on their own. So, says Evil H.R. Lady:

….You are doing it wrong if you never get to sit down, never get to eat lunch, and never get a break of any kind. You are not teaching your child to become an adult, you are teaching them to remain in perpetual toddler hood. This is bad parenting. I don’t know any mothers — even mothers of special needs kids — that don’t get a break. (And I will concede that some special needs kids require a tremendous amount of care from their parents–dad too!–and that may qualify as the most difficult job. But most moms have just regular kids–with problems here and there, and difficulties in different areas, but nothing requiring 24 hour nursing level care.)

Exaggerating the amount of work and expertise needed to parent not only creates guilt on the part of parents (who can live up to those expectations?). It also makes it seem like the best parents are the ones who treat their kids as helpless and endangered for as long as possible. If you believe parenting involves gradually letting go, well, gradually it gets easier.

This cult of motherhood SEEMS to venerate women, but really it is all about making them feel bad if they actually trust their kids to thrive without constant,  obsessive assistance.  - L

karenhealey:

INTERNETS OMG

"FEELS" HAS BEEN A LEGIT TERM SINCE AT LEAST 1782:

— The Duchess, by Amanda Foreman.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, really wrote a real letter to her mother complaining about the feels in 1782.

I love everything.

There’s also the 1917 letter to Winston Churchill, with the first recorded instance of OMG, which can be read in full here.

BURIED TREASURE! BURIED TREASURE! BURIED TREASURE!

I want a platypus. 

FUCKING MONDAYS, AM I RIGHT?

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED. THERE ISN’T ENOUGH COFFEE IN THE WORLD TO HELP ME RIGHT NOW. I WAS UP UNTIL 4AM LOOKING AT INTERIOR DESIGN BLOGS. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. I’M NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO PAINT MY APARTMENT.

THE INTERNET IS THE WORST FOR THAT KIND OF THING. ONE TIME I WENT ON WIKIPEDIA TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE DRUMMER FROM DEF LEPPARD’S NAME AND I ACCIDENTALLY GOT A DEGREE IN NEUROBIOLOGY.

TELL ME ABOUT IT. I WAS TRYING TO DOWNLOAD SEABISCUIT AND NOW I’M AN ORDAINED MINISTER.