V.w.verweij

Bovey Lee's fantastical and delicate papercuts are filled with intense scenes showing the power of nature, railing against the machinations of man.

BOB SATAN AND THE SILVER BULLET CIRCLE - “STRANGER FROM HELL”

ATTENTION BARGAIN BIN BLASPHEMY CULT:

THE BLASPHEMER HIMSELF WILL BE MAKING AN APPEARANCE THIS UNHOLY SABBATH JULY 27 AT THE WHITE OWL SOCIAL CLUB IN SOUTHEAST PORTLAND, OREGON, UNITED STATES, HELL.

BLASPHEMOUS ARTIFACTS OF ELDRITCH PORTENT SHALL BE SOLD AND YOU MAY BRING YOUR OWN ITEMS TO BE DAMNED BY THE INFERNAL HAND OF THE BLASPHEMER.

THIS IS ALSO A REMINDER THAT THE WORKS OF THE BLASPHEMER MAY NOW BE EXCLUSIVELY BEHELD ON THE HELLISH PLANE OF INSTAGRAM, @BARGAINBINBLASPHEMY. 

SUFFER

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“My girl Bocuse, a husky we rescued her from the wilds of Montreal about 4 years ago. She spends her time split between me and her mom in Capitol Hill and Navy Yard.”

“Buster, a cat of leisure, lounging on his balcony in Takoma Park.”

“This is Manny, a 5-year-old mutt earning a new nickname for himself–”Rocket.” Manny is an adopted mutt from D.C. who loves the abundance of “street wings” (chicken wing trash) in D.C., humping pups at dog parks, and sleeping upside down.”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“Duncan of H Street too tired to get out of bed.”

“My loves Abby and Bailey post-Bonnie’s Dog (& Cat) Grooming. H Street”

“Rescue mutt Scrappy keeps an eye on my quiet little street in NE DC”

by Heather Havrilesky

Dear Polly,

First of all, let me assure you, I feel like a huge asshole just for asking this, but I've been chewing on this question on and off for more than a year without any real resolution, so I thought I'd turn to you. Here's the deal: I'm wondering whether I'm abusing feminist ideology in order to justify a natural shyness around women and, if so, whether you could find me a new narrative that would help me feel less bad about acknowledging and acting on attractions.

I've always been seriously shy about any aspect of dating, sex, hooking up, whatever. It's not that I have trouble interacting with women—indeed, my female friends greatly outnumber my male friends. I have no problem making friends with women and, in general, I feel I am generally more comfortable in mostly female environments (this probably came from being thirteen and being constantly made fun of by the other boys in my class, as well as growing up with two older sisters). While I'd hesitate to call myself a feminist, mainly due to my concerns about being appropriative, I would say that I have an enduring interest in gender politics that I do my best to express through my actions.

This interest began to manifest after unrequited crush no. 4,523, around my mid-twenties (I'm in early thirties now) when I began to wonder whether the reason I was so unhappy about my lack of meaningful romantic relationships was because of my attitudes towards women. It has, I believe, helped a lot internally: by working to change a lot of my problematic behaviors and mindsets, I'm not nearly as hung up about sex and relationships as I used to be, and overall I do feel like I approach thoughts about women in a much more healthy way than I used to, helping me get out from being the seething ball of bitterness and anxiety that I was when I was younger.

Despite this, however, dating still fills me with dread, and even though I no longer look at my lack of a love life as some sort of scathing indictment of who I am as a human being, I'll admit that I'm still kind of lonely and would like a relationship, or at the very least to get laid more than once or twice a year. However, I seem to not want to do anything about it because I can't help but think that everything that could be done to do so upholds some unhealthy societal norm.

So, for example, when my friends comment that a cute woman has been flirting heavily with me all night, and tell me to go for it, I say that there's no way to tell what she's really thinking and that the last thing any woman needs is to feel like she can't communicate the way she wants to without some entitled creep getting entirely the wrong idea, and that some people are just naturally flirty and we shouldn't assume that that's some sort of indicator for desire, and that if she REALLY liked me that way she would have made it much more clear, and I don't want to assume that any display of friendliness is automatically some attempt to get something going, because that's a real problem in the way men and women interact nowadays. And then I bring up that she has a boyfriend, and I should respect her choice and it's creepy to hit on someone in a relationship as if I know more about what she wants than she does. And my friends go, maybe she wants a new guy, to which I say, “If that were the case then she can say it and make things clear and unambiguous because I'm not going to try and override a decision she made about her own life.” This, incidentally, is the point where one of my friends says, "You're letting your feminism get in the way of your game," which makes me think but, at the same time, I think it would be safer to err on the side of not doing anything to avoid contributing to a toxic environment.

Or, talking to my one sister about a very attractive woman at one of my group activities, she said why not ask her out, and I said that she probably didn't join the group to meet guys and I shouldn't create an atmosphere where she has to worry about being hit on constantly. Besides, I just *know* she doesn't think of me that way (I mean I don't really know for certain, but I generally make the assumption that women aren't interested in me that way, so why bother with someone I think isn't interested?). So I don't want to make her uncomfortable or anything. Or when my sister’s husband asked whether I ever talk to attractive people I see on the subway, and I respond that that's the LAST place anyone wants to talk to a stranger and that women are harassed all the time by people who can't take a hint and I don't want to be one of them because nine times out of ten everyone on a subway, men and women, just want to be left the fuck alone.

Or, last week, I was hanging out with two friends of mine, both female, and one of them began giving me some sort of vibe that involved sitting MUCH closer than necessary, initiating much more physical contact than she had ever before, and also briefly and purposefully stroking my fingers under the blanket. When the other friend left for a bit to walk her dogs, she looked up at me and said she couldn't concentrate on the movie, and I kind of just froze and said that I thought we should watch (stupid, stupid, stupid) and she harumphed and moved across the couch and bundled up her blanket and crossed her arms and acted weird to me the rest of the night. But I've known her for two years and she never had given me any indication that she was interested in the past, and neither of us were at all sober and I don't want to be predatory and take advantage of someone, and she shouldn't have to be concerned that I would try, she should be able to have fun and get fucked up with guy without having to worry that he'll try to fuck her. And how do I know that what I perceived as flirty behavior isn't just all in my head and she didn't mean anything by it? Because that happens, not just to me but to people everywhere. But her reaction made me think I fucked up somehow, and I ALSO don't want her to think I was necessarily rejecting her because she's WAY cute and awesome and smart and principled and if I'd known I was good to go I totally would have gone for it, but I felt the situation was too ambiguous and now I'm worried I made her feel unattractive in that moment, which I know from experience is a terrible thing to feel.

So, things like that. Not helping matters is that the times when I have thought I was good to go, it turns out I had miscalculated, which made me feel awkward and probably made her feel that way too, and so I'm just crappy at trusting my instincts when they're telling me "say you want to kiss her!" because I've been wrong so often in the past and it's felt terrible and I don't want to feel that way.

And so I'm wondering whether all those fancy explanations that I wrap up with deep political meaning are just excuses to justify me not pursuing the relationships I want, like the problems I've always had with sex and dating just went to grad school and came back with an MA in women's studies and philosophy but, at heart, is still the exact same problem. It's the same fear—that there's something fundamentally unlovable about me and if I ever express a desire for someone in any way, they won't like me anymore because how could I even SUGGEST such a thing—except dressed in big words and given some sort of political justification. Like, it's not that I'm shy and need to learn to take some risks, it's that I'm not going to impose myself on someone who just wants to be left alone and live her life and have male friends who don't try to hit on her, because I refuse to be That Guy. They're different mindsets, but it's the same result: I don't bring up the topic of possibly dating people I'm attracted to and decide it's not that bad having a new friend, because, obviously, awesome people don't stop being awesome just because they're not sleeping with me, and I want to have awesome people in my life.

One thing I've been thinking about is that my mindset could be making this assumption of sexlessness on the part of women, as if they don't also have bodies that get horny as well, but I'm not sure if that's really reflective of my thoughts because I acknowledge that women also want to have sex, I just have a very difficult time thinking they want sex with me. And then I've been thinking that it's unfair to expect women to take on all of the risk in romantic interaction by wanting them to make the first move and not responding to anything unless they make their desire abundantly clear, because as a man who was raised with the expectation that I'm the one supposed to do all the asking, that fucking sucks and why do I want to burden women with having to do that. But, on the other hand, it sounds like WAY too convenient an excuse and could just be my mind trying to rationalize the predatory hunter/prey model that has caused so many problems in the first place! We must always police ourselves for bad thoughts, I believe, for the oppressor within can be far more tenacious than the oppressor without, and I wonder whether this is just the inner enemy speaking.

So you can see I've been having a rough time and possibly missing opportunities to find what I want in other people. It's only recently, though, that I've started wondering whether I'm hurting other people by doing this, people who may have actually wanted me but I refused to respond because I didn't think things were clear enough and I didn't want to risk making them feel shitty, which in turn could be making them feel shitty (admittedly, it's the final example that got me wondering this).

Am I overthinking all this? How do you both pursue the relationships you want while still staying true to ideals of gender equality? How can you be more comfortable expressing what you want while not going overboard and becoming an entitled creep? And, finally, should I have kissed that girl in the last example?

Sincerely,

Just a Dude

Dear Just a Dude,

Dude. There's this movie, "Legends of the Fall," that's ostensibly about three brothers, all in love with the same woman (Julia Ormond). But really, the movie is a soft porn bodice-ripper for ladies who saw Brad Pitt in that one small role in "Thelma and Louise" and decided that he was tasty man candy. If that sounds hard to believe, go watch "Thelma and Louise” (Again. You're a male feminist, so I know you've fucking seen it.) and you'll understand why Pitt had a certain undiscovered-fuck-toy appeal back then. He had this weird country-cousin allure that made him exactly the sort of squeaky plaything you wanted to ferret away to a secret corner of the house and chew to tiny little bits.

I saw "Legends of the Fall" in a crowded theater on opening night because my Irish boyfriend loved to see cheesy American blockbusters on opening night in America, among Americans. We both knew the movie would probably be stupid, and it WAS stupid, but that incited more rowdy audience back-talking, which was the real point.

Anyway, there was this one scene where scruffy cowboy Brad Pitt asks his little brother, Elliott from "E.T.," (Henry Thomas!) whether or not he's fucked his brand new, smoking-hot fiancee, Julia Ormond. Elliott says something like, "I am not… That is not… When the time comes, after we are legally married, we will… m-m-make love."

Brad Pitt replies, in a low growl, "I suggest you fuck her."

So that's pretty much the sum total of my advice to you. I suggest you fuck her.

The fact that you go from NOT wanting to hit on women with boyfriends and NOT wanting to hit on women on the subway (both reasonable) straight to NOT wanting to respond in any way to an obvious expression of sexual interest (by a woman who interests you!) really underscores how much you've overgeneralized this problem, confusing reasonable self-restraint with some overall philosophy of non-intervention.

Stop analyzing the psychosocial and political layers of every single interaction with every woman. Are you interested or not? If you are, say so. When a lady is fondling you on the couch, that typically indicates that she's interested. If you'd rather say, "Can we pick this up when we're not drunk?" that's great. If you want to say, "Can I kiss you?" that's also good. But freezing up and getting confused and then feeling bewildered by her silence and anger, but not saying a word about any of it, and THEN slicing and dicing the whole thing intellectually, passing it through every high-minded filter known to humankind? This is a squandering of precious youth, an offense against hormones and nature and humanity. PLUS, WHO HAS THE ENERGY FOR THIS SHIT? Open your mouth and speak. Say what you want. Politely stating your desires in the presence of an apparently interested human being is not a high crime against womankind. It just isn't.

If the woman in question isn't interested, she is free to tell you that. What's the problem? Where is the insult or injury there? Give a woman ample opportunity to set you straight. Feel free to apologize for presuming. But don't apologize for even CONSIDERING opening your mouth. Admitting that you have attractions and desires does not make you an oppressor. No.

I can see why your friends are encouraging you in such a wide range of situations, some of them not entirely comfortable. They just want you to stop thinking so much and do something, ANYTHING. Because you are not some stalking carnivore that needs to be shot. Stop worrying that it's offensive or poisonous or wrong to think or say this or that. Yes, I do admire your EFFORTS to always police yourself for bad thoughts. I agree that people should try to honor their highest selves, rather than merely assuming that their behavior will naturally match some stanky half-assed selfishness displayed by the lowest common denominator of humankind. But I think that these valiant efforts of yours, and all the analysis you put into every single wasted moment of your squandered existence as a virile young human being, are clearly beginning to stand in the way of your happiness. Instead of thinking quite so much about every dimension of what a woman wants and thinks and feels, I would suggest spending a little time getting to know a woman, or a few women, who interest you. That means asserting yourself. Speaking up. Saying what you want. Telling someone how you feel.

After you start dating someone? Trust me, THERE IS PLENTY OF TIME TO SLICE AND DICE EVERYTHING YOU DO IN A RELATIONSHIP. You will have many, many opportunities to recalibrate and reconnoiter in order to ensure a totally egalitarian pairing. The entire power dynamic of a union is not established and then set in stone within the first few milliseconds of a given interaction. There are multiple times, over the course of a relationship, to reconsider your actions, give more generously, reassert your interest in your partner's feelings, inquire after your partner's comfort. All of these things are likely to go well for you, because you care. Healthy women will appreciate your ability to put them front and center, to listen, to sensitively take their feelings into account at every turn.

But in the beginning, it's pretty black and white. There is desire, or interest, or a spark, or there's nothing. How will you know if you don't ask?

Do you need to analyze whether or not you seem predatory, or wonder if you're creating the wrong atmosphere? I'm not saying there aren't situations where these questions might be appropriate and even welcomed. On the subway, or in the company of a woman with a boyfriend: Good idea. But I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess, based in part on what everyone else is telling you, both with words and without words, that you are not in clear danger of behaving predatorily in an everyday situation with a woman who's FONDLING YOU UNDER A BLANKET.

You are, however, in danger of hiding in your hidey hole forever, of ignoring bright, flashing "COME CLOSER!" signs, and of never ever kissing a pretty woman or dating a lady or doing anything, at all, ever. You are in danger of remaining paralyzed by your neurotic thoughts indefinitely.

And that's a cop out. Your overactive, pro-feminist, hypercritical imagination is a cop out. You are more comfortable writing endless, winding sentences about why you shouldn't act, why it wouldn't be RIGHT or GOOD to act, why it's NOBLE and DECENT and RIGHTEOUS not to act, than you are with action, and desire, and the feeling of feelings.

I have to admit, there are a few red flags in your letter. First, you describe your past in very vague terms. What are you talking about? It's tough to tell. Second, the women in your letter are suspiciously faceless and interchangeable. You didn't offer a concrete detail about any of them. You seem to find them appealing, but it's never clear WHAT EXACTLY you like about any one of them. Does one woman excite you more than the others? When a faceless multitude of women add up to a problem? That's a little suspect. Let's not just skin the damn cat, here. Let's unearth your true desires and feelings and figure out WHO out there is lively and spontaneous enough to blast through your complexly constructed web of rationalizations and teach you to live a little, goddamn it.

I'm not sure you know what you want, though, because you're blocking your feelings with this rambling, self-blaming paralysis of yours. You need to make less room for your thoughts, and make much more room for your feelings. I suggest you stop thinking, listen more, ask questions, and feel your feelings. I suggest you smile at the woman you really do like. Notice how that feels—making eye contact without apology. I suggest you ask if you can kiss her. If these things go well, I suggest you talk about your attraction to each other. I suggest you express your interest without qualifying it with disclaimers and intentions to ensure that you are not in the least bit offensive or suspect. I suggest you leave all of the complicated sociopolitical ramifications out of this picture at first, if at all possible. And if all goes well? I suggest you fuck her.

Because you are not a walking encyclopedia without a working penis, are you? You are not a sex offender, either. You are not poisonous, simply because you're a man. You are a polite person. You will ask her for her consent many times. This is clear. You will be kind and you will pay attention.

But you're not a fucking computer. You ARE an animal. She is an animal. This is a good thing. I suggest you fuck her. And if you're lucky, she'll recognize that she's an animal, and she won't get clouded up by her self-consciousness and self doubts and she'll fuck you, too.

Now obviously, there are people who will read those words and assume that I mean, "DOMINATE THE LADIES, MALE OPPRESSOR!" Get real. I'm not telling anyone to become a player overnight or fuck and run or hit on women with reckless abandon. We all know about rape culture and the insane rape-y shit happening all over the place. Go read that long New York Times article about the woman who was raped at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. I mean, seriously, WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING OUT THERE?

But let's not let our criminal caveman culture keep us from realizing the full force of our sexual potential. Early feminists, suffragettes, and enlightened men have fought very hard to assert that women are not merely vessels that make babies or vessels to get fucked, we are sexual beings with thoughts and desires of our own. Please don't infantilize us with your condescending, overconcerned intellectualizing. I know you mean well. You want a new, more helpful narrative? We women want what we want, just like you do.

You're not evil. We're not helpless. Get over yourself. Put your ego aside. Far less is at stake in a single interaction than you believe. The hero doesn't succeed or fail here. People out there find love when they learn to show up and be themselves. I know, you're shy. That's why you have to practice a little, and make a few mistakes. Stop trying to protect yourself. Stop trying to control the outcome. Stop trying to remain perfect and harmless and blameless. Turn off that twisted brain of yours for once and just say what you want and ask what she wants.

You have the rest of your life to bring gender equality into your relationships—at home, at work, everywhere. You will always do that, and god bless you for it. But there is a limited window for saying, "I want to kiss you. Can I?"

Don't think. Feel. Ask. And if the answer is yes? Go for it.

Polly

Do you wish Brad Pitt would say something to you in a low growl? Write to Polly and discuss!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses.

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The post Ask Polly: I Want to Get Laid But I'm Afraid of Oppressing Women appeared first on The Awl.

India's Rural Development Ministry has decided to try to tackle two problems at the same time: Youth unemployment and bad air quality.

johndarnielle:

giraffepoliceforce:

Still pretty proud of my response to this.

I loved Marvel comics when I was a kid; I was a weird kid who didn’t get down with macho stuff, in part because of the general scene in my house & in part because I was scrawny and couldn’t really front like I was tough. In my tiny limited-to-my-personal-friends-and-surroundings comics scene, the idea that macho norm-enforcer types could be into comics would have come as a huge and deeply disappointing surprise; comics, in my mind, were for people who’d already begun to sense that, in the immortal words of Anti-Flag, “their system doesn’t work for you.”

I hope Marvel systematically “ruins” absolutely every one of their legacy characters forever, one after another, and then D.C. runs a Sgt. Rock miniseries where he renounces violence as a means of conflict resolution. May the grousing of the macho comics dudes ascend to Heaven forever and make an acceptable sacrifice unto Galactus

1658 Columbia Road, NW

From a press release:

“By Karlísima Rodas-Israel and Marcela Guio-Camargo

The Potter’s House, 1658 Columbia Road NW, in the heart of Adams Morgan, believed to be the first coffee house in Washington, D.C., has been a landmark for over 5 decades. The mission of the Potter’s House is to be the church in the market place. It is not only a coffee house or a bookstore. To understand The Potter’s House, you have to know that it is first and foremost a church and a spiritual gathering place where people of all races and social backgrounds find refuge, comfort and hope.

In 2009 The Potter’s House Mural entitled “The Light of the World” was painted by local artist Karla-“Karlisima” Rodas-Israel. She is an award-winning Salvadorian-born artist who has lived and worked in the Adams Morgan community for more than 22 years. She was featured in an article by the Washington Times “Driven By Work” as one of the most outstanding and talented local muralists. In addition, her drive and perseverance, has brought her international recognition with art exhibitions in London and Berlin in 2005 and 2006. In 2008 she painted the “Mama Ayesha’s Presidential Mural” with 11 USA Presidents including President Obama. This mural has been featured in Wikipedia, Fox News, CNN and PBS-WETA, MTV, and in US History texbooks in Norway.

“The Light of the World” was funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. It is painted outdoors right above the entrance of the Potter’s House at the second level, and it depicts a purple candle with colorful and bright rays of light. Meetings were held with community members to approve the mural’s image and design, which were approved not only by the community, but also by the Adams Morgan ANC and the Board of Directors of the Potter’s House.

To get the design approved and to paint the mural took about nine months to complete. She had to hire five assistants to achieve the task. Now everybody takes pictures of the mural and she gets compliments. People from the community told Karlisima that the mural is cheerful and that it brightens up the street with its attractive colors.

The Potter’s House has recently changed ownership, and it is going through major renovations. It now belongs to the Eighth Day Community Church. They chose a Project Team to make decisions about the future of the Potter’s House, and they decided that they will not keep the mural when they do the renovations. Their intention is to paint over it to give the New Potter’s House a more conservative “corporate, clean look.”

The community really loves the mural and feels that it is already a “landmark” in our Adams Morgan multicultural neighborhood. This mural does not conflict with the overall structural design of the New Potter’s House. They should not paint over this beautiful mural, which is a piece of art. You don’t paint over a piece of art! …especially since it gives enjoyment to the people.

The mural has been paid with community tax payers’ dollars, and, therefore, it belongs to the community. The people have already expressed their opinion, which is that they do not want to see the mural get destroyed. “The Light of the World,” is a mural that has indeed become a beacon of Hope and Light to the people of our community.”

“Dear PoPville,

Discovered this photo at 18/Columbia (on that large four sided community board).

Photos were plastered all over each four sides.”

Has anyone else seen these posters? If so, where? I did a google search on the name but didn’t come up with anything. Has anyone ever seen other posters like this?

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“This is Riley from North Cleveland Park”

“Troubled, from U Street, in an intense face-off with Bebe, who was visiting for the weekend from Glover Park.”

“Sawyer from Logan Circle”

"I've been for it for quite some time." [ more › ]

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I had a really good day today.

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“This is 9 month old Brody after a long day. He lives in Forest Hills.”

“Hi, this photo is actually from last year but it’s one of my very favorite photos I’ve taken in Washington DC over 8 years of doing my amateur photography. The location is Georgetown in the lovely area down by the water where people often visit the ducks and seagulls. I got this shot by throwing up pieces of bread into the air and snapping my iPhone camera rapidly as the seagulls swooped up to grab up the nibbles in mid-air. He got so close to me that you can see the red band around his eye and the blue band around his beak. Exquisitely beautiful creature.

I hope others will receive as much happiness from this photo as I do.”

“Beasley on H Street NE!”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“Sweet Lucy of Monroe Street NW turned 13 this year – well over the average for an English Bulldog! She passed away peacefully in her sleep a month ago. This beautiful old lady loved to sit on our stoop and watch the passersby.”

“Lily (on the right) and Cinders from Adams Morgan will only drink from their glasses.”

“Cody enjoying brunch in Columbia Heights.”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“Ralph Socrates settling into his new home in Columbia Heights.”

“Stevie (top) and little brother Goose (bottom) enjoying a lazy Sunday in Adams Morgan! Both are alums of the WHS shelter on Georgia Ave.”

“Tidewater of Chevy Chase gently reminds everyone that dogs have an inalienable right to cake.”

tends-towards:

didymium:

Wendy Carlos:

• Was a musical prodigy who started piano lessons at six and had composed her first classical work at age ten
• Built her own computer at age 14 in 1953, before most people knew what a computer was, and won a scholarship for it
• Helped Dr. Robert Moog work on his earlier synthesizers, providing technical assistance and convincing him to give the Moog synthesizer touch sensitivity
• Her breakthrough album, Switched on Bach, won four Grammy awards, started a craze for synthesized music, and remained on the Billboard Classical Album top 200 chart for over a year
• Composed music for the movies A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and the original Tron 
• Collaborated with “Weird Al” Yankovich on a parody of Peter and the Wolf centred around the importance of oral hygeine
• In case this wasn’t enough, she is also an accomplished solar eclipse photographer

Bonus kitty:

All info from her wiki page and website

AGH, SO MUCH ADORATION.

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit. Please try to send horizontal photos 640×480 (medium size on your iphone) if possible. If you’re not using an iphone any size is fine.

“This is Harper from Columbia Heights.”

“Matilda on vacation in Bucks County PA.”

“This is Ronzo and his cousin Jasper hanging out in the Atlas District.”

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by John Herrman

As of writing, a Kickstarter campaign for "just making potato salad" has raised $37,115. Every few seconds that number climbs higher, and each uptick is greeted with cheers. It's a self-perpetuating humor machine, and it is horribly efficient. There is no joke, at least not anymore; whatever joke there was has become an adaptive, joke-like arrangement of circumstances. It is a perfect device, compatible with all known theories of humor and therefore with none of them.

—The Superiority Theory, which suggests that all humor derives from a feeling of "sudden glory," explains potato salad: Its participants have money so disposable that they can spend it on nothing. But the Inferiority Theory of humor, which holds that much humor derives from modesty, works too: It is both an assertion of cruel dominion over the world and an act of self-deprecation to donate ten dollars to a Kickstarter to make potato salad.

—The Relief Theory of humor, which claims that laughter comes from the "release of excessive energy," explains the potato salad as well. The campaign is a release of seriousness, a release of techno-utopianism, a release of capital. It is a multi-purpose blowoff valve, BUT WHERE DOES ALL THE ENERGY GO NEXT?

—The Incongruity Theory suggests that humor stems from absurdity or inconsistency, or, in a more specific formulation, the "mechanical encrusted upon the living." Kickstarter is, in its own formulation, "a new way to fund creative projects." Potato salad is not a typical "project," nor is it particularly "creative." But the campaign itself—the use of Kickstarter—was initially creative, before the parody was so effortlessly assimilated. An inversion, an incongruity, another explanation. And yet still: despair.

Potato salad satisfies these and all other doomed attempts to systematize humor, which might be the only way to understand it: It is humor-shaped and perfectly optimized. If it was ever whimsical it isn't anymore—there is too much money, too much potential, tied up with this salad. But this foundation of whimsy has created circumstances in which more capital is equated with more humor, which is too horrible an idea to even joke about: It is a transcendence that is out of our control, a villain, an invader, an awakening of The Old Ones, a Dire Event, or at least a Portent. What's funnier than $37,115 for potato salad? $47,115 for potato salad, ha ha. What's funnier than $47,115? $100,000. With every new dollar it feels more urgent to a viewer that he attach his name and his dollars to the thing, which is now obscured entirely by noise—a fee for ensuring that you're in on the joke.

It's an investment compulsion, and the investment is a scam. (It's fun to imagine all business opportunities as jokes: They are temporary and dependent entirely on context; they are taken advantage of at the expense of someone or something that is often neither aware nor present; they are—necessarily?—cruel; they inspire the same embarrassing urge for inclusion, and the same shameful regret upon misapprehension or exclusion. Jokes! Look around you: Isn't it nice, that it's all just jokes?). If the campaign keeps going, some people may start to claim that, at some specific level of investment, the joke is no longer funny. It will be too much—the money could be better used on another campaign, or in another context entirely. This will be true but it will have always been true. None of these people will be able to explain to you what exactly changed.

This is when it will begin to feel obvious, after Kickstarter takes its five percent, after Amazon banks its cut, when all at once the internet feels an opposite, equally irresistible urge to pretend that none of this ever happened, that we realize what the joke really was, and at whose expense it was told.

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The post The Potato Salad Kickstarter Is the Science Fiction Villain We Deserve appeared first on The Awl.

No. 100 and 101. [ more › ]

by Choire Sicha

As a people we have lost the plot. Because we can document everything, we will, and we can't stop. Every event is now a sea of people with their arms held up in a triangle, forming an illuminati symbol with our phones at the apex. We've gone too far. It has to stop. Like a Beyoncé concert, the New York City fireworks were a nightmare of phones, and for what? For nothing. Data for your cloud. You can fully understand why performers—and brides and grooms!—want to ban all cellphones at events.

Take a picture of a flower, a baby, a cat, a sidewalk, an airplane, a painting, please. Please do! It's wonderful that we all have instant access to an artistic practice that was once expensive and elitist. But the compulsory documentation of everything is monstrous. Let it stop with you.

The fireworks as seen from Brooklyn Bridge Park were beautiful. I don't even really like fireworks! As a tall person, I was happy to be able to see through your arms and around your phones. I hope you're treasuring all those photos right now.

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The post Put Your Phone Down appeared first on The Awl.

A Rogue State Along Two Rivers is a New York Times interactive which explore the rise of ISIS by following the paths of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The interactive stitches together a series of aerial images of both rivers to create a linear narrative as you scroll down the page. Obviously there is a danger with this kind of linear narrative that the medium becomes the whole message. Any

Your daily "awwww." [ more › ]

tentinybugs:

Toadfriend I rescued from inside the store. I shook his hand (it seemed the polite thing to do)

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July 2nd, 2014: This comic, unlike the previous two, doesn't accidentally use two similar-sounding words in different senses. OH WELL?? It was a good accidental run while it lasted. – Ryan