“I think Christopher’s translations are generally adequate. But he made one mistake which is worth describing because it was deliberate and because it illustrates a fundamental difference in outlook between the translator and his author. “Polly Peachum’s Song” tells how Polly behaved to her suitors before she met the right one, Macheath. In each verse, a boat is mentioned. Polly and one of the suitors get into it. In the first two verses, the boat is cast loose from the shore, and Polly adds, “But that was as far as things could go.” In the third and last verse, however, the boat is “tied to the shore,” when she has got into it with Macheath.
Christopher found this incomprehensible, because he took it for granted that the proper poetic metaphor for sexual surrender would be the casting loose of the boat. So, quite arbitrarily, disregarding the meaning of the German text, he transposed the lines and had the boat tied up in the first two verses, only to be cast loose in the last verse when Polly is possessed by Macheath.
No one protested. The book appeared with Christopher’s version of the poem. It was only when Christopher met Brecht for the first time, in California about six years later, that he had his misunderstanding corrected. Brecht told him mildly, with the unemphatic bluntness which was so characteristic of him: ‘A boat has to be tied up before you can fuck in it’”
— Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind
I doubt I will ever read a funnier anecdote than this one.
I recall at least one of you guys having worked with livestock animals. Why are cows so damn indestructible while horses keel over and die if mercury is in retrograde or a dog barked in Kazakhstan?
Let me tell you a story about how livestock animals work.
In the beginning, God created the horse. God looked at the horse and saw that it was beautiful and strong. “However,” God said, “it breaks too easily.”
Then God created the cow. God looked at the cow and saw that it was more durable than the horse, and tasted good to boot. “However,” God said, “it poops too much.”
Then God created the goat. God looked at the goat and saw that it was perfect.
God looked around and saw that he still had some spare bits of fluff on his work table, but no brains to put into it. So then God created the sheep.
Now let me tell you what my equine surgery professor said on the first day of class.
“Horses are only interested in two things: homicide, and suicide.”
And that’s all you need to know about horses.
Except every goat is just waiting its turn to die of pneumonia
Sorry I’m not over “if a dog barked in Kazakhstan”.
My entirely half-assed understanding of Why Horses Explode If You Look At Them Funny, As Explained To Me By My Aunt That Raises Horses After Her Third Glass Of Wine:
Horses don’t got enough toes.
So, back right after the dinosaurs fucked off and joined the choir invisible, the first ancestors of horses were scampering about, little capybara-looking things called Eohippus, and they had four toes per limb:
They functioned pretty well, as near as we can tell from the fossil record, but they were mostly messing around in the leaf litter of dense forests, where one does not necessarily need to be fast but one should be nimble, and the 4 toes per limb worked out pretty good.
But the descendants of Eophippus moved out of the forest where there was lots of cover and onto the open plains, where there was better forage and visibility, but nowhere to hide, so the proto-horses that could ZOOM the fastest and out run thier predators (or, at least, their other herd members) tended to do well. Here’s the thing- having lots of toes means your foot touches the ground longer when you run, and it spreads a lot of your momentum to the sides. Great if you want to pivot and dodge, terrible if you want to ZOOM. So losing toes started being a major advantage for proto-horses:
The Problem with having fewer toes and running Really Fucking Fast is that it kind of fucks your everything else up.
When a horse runs at full gallop, it sort of… stops actively breathing, letting the slosh of it’s guts move its lungs, which is tremendously calorically efficient and means their breathing doesn’t fall out of sync. But it also means that the abdominal lining of a horse is weirdly flexible in ways that lead to way more hernias and intestinal tangling than other ungulates. It also has a relatively weak diaphragm for something it’s size, so ANY kind of respiratory infection is a Major Fucking Problem because the horse has weak lungs.
When a Horse runs Real Fucking Fast, it also develops a bit of a fluid dynamics problem- most mammals have the blood going out of thier heart real fast and coming back from the far reaches of the toes much slower and it’s structure reflects that. But since there is Only The One Toe, horse blood comes flying back up the veins toward the heart way the fuck faster than veins are meant to handle, which means horses had to evolve special veins that constrict to slow the Blood Down, which you will recognize as a Major Cardiovascular Disease in most mammals. This Poorly-regulated blood speed problems means horses are prone to heart problems, burst veins, embolisms, and hemophilia. Also they have apparently a billion blood types and I’m not sure how that’s related but I am sure that’s another Hot Mess they have to deal with.
ALSO, the Blood-Going-Too-Fast issue and being Just Huge Motherfuckers means horses have trouble distributing oxygen properly, and have compensated by creating fucked up bones that replicate the way birds store air in thier bones but much, much shittier. So if a horse breaks it’s leg, not only is it suffering a Major Structural Issue (also also- breaking a toe is much more serious when that toe is YOUR WHOLE DAMN FOOT AND HALF YOUR LEG), it’s also hving a hemmorhage and might be sort of suffocating a little.
ALSO ALSO, the fast that horses had to deal with Extremely Fast Predators for most of thier evolution means that they are now afflicted with evolutionarily-adaptive Anxiety, which is not great for thier already barely-functioning hearts, and makes them, frankly, fucking mental. Part of the reason horses are so aggro is that if deinied the opportunity to ZOOM, it’s options left are “Kill everyone and Then Yourself” or “The same but skip step one and Just Fucking Die”. The other reason is that a horse is in a race against itself- it’s gotta breed before it falls apart, so a Horse basically has a permanent terrorboner.
TL;DR: Horses don’t have enough toes and that makes them very, very fast, but also sickly, structurally unsound, have wildly OP blood that sometimes kills them, and drives them fucking insane.
I am morbidly gratified that my deep suspicion of horses has grounding!
go into another room and pick up a random object and look at it!!
like really look at it!!!
SOMEONE designed that!!
a real life living person set time aside to design that
you will probably never know their name but you should thank them and all the other designers who make the mundane things in your life because otherwise life would be boring with out them
If only there were some sort of facility where teenagers could be taught new skills.
Anyway, here’s a helpful diagram. When I was hit on the temple this was one of the harder things I had to reteach myself. Don’t be shamed into not asking questions, and it’s alright if it takes you a while to figure it out. Don’t let someone make you feel bad for learning new things, or relearning old ones.
Sometimes, unfortunately, you have to teach yourself. YouTube is a valid option.
Americans be like: My grandpa 😠😠😠 served in the Korean War 😠😠😠 and killed 9 people 😠😠😠 to fund his college degree in clownery 😠😠😠 Respect him or leave the country 😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬
That’s a super light story huh? My great grandfather got killed in action from a land mine to protect this country. If you don’t wanna respect the history or stand for a national anthem😁then leave to your peaceful home and fuck right off
How did your great grandpa stepping on a landmine protect this country
And speaking of media reinforcing oppression, I also hate these talent shows. It would be fine if they only showed the contestants, let you watch then, and afterwards come the judges with their opinions. The artist has their opinion, you have yours, the judges have theirs.
But that’s not what talent shows do. They switch back and forth between the contestants and the judges during the performance so you can see the reaction of the people in charge in real time, and sometimes to some “behind the scenes” court jesters. Which trains you to start seeing the contestants through what you imagine the judges’ eyes to be. You’re constantly getting input on what you should be thinking about the performance. The focus isn’t on what the artist is doing and whether you like it, the focus is on what the judges are thinking about it. This way, the audience is unlikely to disagree with the judges in the end - they’ve already been primed to agree. You’d never get a dynamic there like on Eurovision where the audience might whole-heartedly disagree with the “experts”, gleefully rip their “verdict” to shreds and laugh at them.
The emotional objective of talent shows is to feel like you’re in agreement with powerful “expert” figures who judge other people the way you wish you could. It’s inherently reactionary and authoritarian.
btw, reaction YouTubers experience the opposite dynamic. They had better feel, or pretend to feel, the emotions the audience wants them to have during the performance, or else their Patreon goes belly up. The reason for this is that their main audience consists of people who know the performance in question already and thus already have an opinion which they want to see mirrored.
“Expert” reaction videos (”Vocal coach reacts”, etc.) are an exception, those have aspects of both the regular reaction format and the talent show format.
And speaking of media reinforcing oppression, I also hate these talent shows. It would be fine if they only showed the contestants, let you watch then, and afterwards come the judges with their opinions. The artist has their opinion, you have yours, the judges have theirs.
But that’s not what talent shows do. They switch back and forth between the contestants and the judges during the performance so you can see the reaction of the people in charge in real time, and sometimes to some “behind the scenes” court jesters. Which trains you to start seeing the contestants through what you imagine the judges’ eyes to be. You’re constantly getting input on what you should be thinking about the performance. The focus isn’t on what the artist is doing and whether you like it, the focus is on what the judges are thinking about it. This way, the audience is unlikely to disagree with the judges in the end - they’ve already been primed to agree. You’d never get a dynamic there like on Eurovision where the audience might whole-heartedly disagree with the “experts”, gleefully rip their “verdict” to shreds and laugh at them.
The emotional objective of talent shows is to feel like you’re in agreement with powerful “expert” figures who judge other people the way you wish you could. It’s inherently reactionary and authoritarian.
anyone care to explain why my local supermarket has self checkout in latin
*squinting* is the “flag” corresponding to Latin a laurel wreath + SPQR? Usually in these situations UI designers use the Vatican City flag, but this is a fantastic commitment to the bit.
> codicem linearum
How to make “bar code” sound like ancient magic (literal translatio : “codex of lines”)
i had to go get tomatoes today anyway, so :
youre seeing more than I am. this is literally with my phone nearly touching the screen, and there’s no button that enlages the flag, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Google AI is so hard to resent. “What if there was a robot that just LIED to you at the top of your Google search?” Well, that doesn’t sound GOOD but it sounds FUNNY, so, I think I’m in favor, but I don’t know why a major company would be.
The new model of terminator is harder to spot because it no longer moos while pooping
this has so few notes vs how “try mooing while pooping!” Is going to be a mental loading screen tip I have for the rest of my fucking life. I’m making myself sick imaging this scenario and laughing.
re: that last post, ive said it before and ill say it again: no one deserves to die (deserving is fake and death is bad) but some people need to be stopped and choose to make death the only way to stop them
I disagree. Pedophiles 100% deserve death.
you are moralizing and weaponizing your disgust in order to construct and justify a category of person you’re allowed to murder
what do you think you deserve for this?
Sorry, no person deserves to die, thankfully child molesters and pedophiles aren’t human, so this doesnt apply to them.
denying the humanity of people who do horrible things accomplishes exactly three things:
give cover to people who haven’t been caught yet by allowing them to use their humanity as “proof” of their innocence
silence any criticism of societal structures and institutions that facilitate those horrible things by putting the focus on individuals who are assumed to be so uniquely monstrous that the ways it was made easy for them are irrelevant
provide a shortcut to dehumanize anyone you feel like killing: simply accuse them of doing a horrible thing
3.a. if you’ve already established that only an inhuman monster could kill a child, then all you have to do to get people to burn down the jewish quarter is say that jews kidnap christian children to bathe in their blood
3.b. if you’ve already established that only an inhuman monster could commit rape, then all you have to do to get people to string up a black man you don’t like is find a white woman who’s willing to point at him while she cries and babbles
3.c. if you’ve already established that only an inhuman monster could molest a child, then all you have to do to get people to drag gay people behind their trucks is say that since gay people can’t have babies, the only way they can make more gay people is by following a nefarious Agenda to “convert” children by molesting them
3.c.a. meanwhile if you try to address the rampant sexual assault of catholic altar boys, you’re met with “don’t be ridiculous, he’s a priest!” (see #1) and with assertions that even if it does happen sometimes, those priests are just infiltrators who don’t represent the church and there’s no reason to make sure priests and altar boys are never alone together (see #2)
tl;dr: your disgust-based violent politics are not less reactionary than any run-of-the-mill homophobe or racist’s disgust-based violent politics
re: that last post, ive said it before and ill say it again: no one deserves to die (deserving is fake and death is bad) but some people need to be stopped and choose to make death the only way to stop them
I disagree. Pedophiles 100% deserve death.
you are moralizing and weaponizing your disgust in order to construct and justify a category of person you’re allowed to murder
what do you think you deserve for this?
Sorry, no person deserves to die, thankfully child molesters and pedophiles aren’t human, so this doesnt apply to them.
denying the humanity of people who do horrible things accomplishes exactly three things:
give cover to people who haven’t been caught yet by allowing them to use their humanity as “proof” of their innocence
silence any criticism of societal structures and institutions that facilitate those horrible things by putting the focus on individuals who are assumed to be so uniquely monstrous that the ways it was made easy for them are irrelevant
provide a shortcut to dehumanize anyone you feel like killing: simply accuse them of doing a horrible thing
3.a. if you’ve already established that only an inhuman monster could kill a child, then all you have to do to get people to burn down the jewish quarter is say that jews kidnap christian children to bathe in their blood
3.b. if you’ve already established that only an inhuman monster could commit rape, then all you have to do to get people to string up a black man you don’t like is find a white woman who’s willing to point at him while she cries and babbles
3.c. if you’ve already established that only an inhuman monster could molest a child, then all you have to do to get people to drag gay people behind their trucks is say that since gay people can’t have babies, the only way they can make more gay people is by following a nefarious Agenda to “convert” children by molesting them
3.c.a. meanwhile if you try to address the rampant sexual assault of catholic altar boys, you’re met with “don’t be ridiculous, he’s a priest!” (see #1) and with assertions that even if it does happen sometimes, those priests are just infiltrators who don’t represent the church and there’s no reason to make sure priests and altar boys are never alone together (see #2)
tl;dr: your disgust-based violent politics are not less reactionary than any run-of-the-mill homophobe or racist’s disgust-based violent politics
Mythbusters is great because Adam Savage will be like “Could Sir Arthur have built a surface to air missile with Middle Ages technology? Probably not. Anyway here’s how to make a bomb.” And Jamie will be like “If all goes well this will not blow up instantly and kill us.” And the three other guys are trying to see if you could kill a person by throwing an egg really fast.
the twitter users are coming QUICK post twitblr yaoi
I have never made art faster in my life
it’s because they’re divorced
Man this goes hard feel free to screenshot 💔😰💔💔😰
The mods are asleep, post Tumblr x Twitter art
Okay okay but this is fascinating because it’s such a visceral example of how mythology works.
Most characters in mythologies are personifications of concepts, or embody some natural phenomenon - like the story of Hades and Persephone is there to explain why the seasons change, Persephone being spring, Demeter - summer, and the absence of them both resulting in death (Hade’s domain) and winter, and so we can’t have Persephone stay in underworld all year round or have Demeter steal her back to earth permanently, otherwise they myth would lose its core function.
Interpreting the myth without the lense of the natural phenomena that it explains would make it lose an integral part of itself, and therefore make the plot and characters seem strange or unnatural. Why does Demeter hate Hades so much, seeing how so many mothers are okay with Zeus doing atrocious things to their offspring just because he’s Zeus? Does Persephone actually want to stay or not? What’s with the bizarre arrangement?
Most modern interpretations strip myths of their natural contexts, making them character-driven instead of phenomena-driven, which just makes them land differently - they can still be fine stories, just not myths, not is the traditional sense.
And now we get to this beauty. This is absolutely a myth, the most classical kind. The relationship between characters, who are personifications of objects, phenomena or concepts (in this case, online platforms) used as an intuitively understood metaphor for an event (the demise of Twitter and the Tumblr userbase being unwilling to accept Twitter’s userbase).
It’s a story that can work as a so-called “explanation myths”. We have seasons because Persephone spends half a yesterday underworld and half a year with her mother. We don’t like Twitter because the Twitter God and Tumblr God broke up. Ladies and gents and other assorted respectables, we here are witnessing the creation of a perfect modern myth.
Okay but which of them took the shoelaces in the divorce?
I thought about it way more than a non-feverish me would, and I’ve come to the conclusion:
The modern myth that is The Divorce of Tumblr and Twitter carries the themes of regression, corruption and downfall. Some of Twitter userbase used to be part of Tumblr userbase, but they left and changed (corruption). Now that Twitter is becoming uninhabitable (downfall), people are trying to return to Tumblr (regression, possible downfall of Tumblr), and to keep them off Tumblr is returning to its old cringe self (regression).
So, if we are to follow the themes, the logical conclusion would be to send the shoelaces back to the president.
This is the fastest I’ve ever written I think
There once lived a young man, handsome as daylight, bright and strong. He was known as Twitter, beloved by the people, a favorite of the gods. His chosen companion, Tumblr, was not dear to the people or the gods. He, a traveling storyteller, preferred solitude. His tales were strange and often unpleasant to the ears, but enchanting in their vulgarity.
One day, Tumblr’s patron goddess, Yahoo, enraged by his vulgar words, put a curse on him. He was not to utter vulgarities, speak of the pleasures of the flesh. His stories of lycanthrope companions were lost to the sands of time, and with them, his last listeners turned away from him.
Twitter watched others laugh at his beloved, turn him away from their doors, and a dark thought settled over him. He was perfect in every way, his only fault was the affiliation with the cursed taleweaver. And so, little by little, they drifted apart.
In his travels, Tumblr stumbled into the temple of Apollo, who bestowed upon him the gift of prophecy. He made acquaintance with the trifecta of wise temple maidens who induced visions through hallucinogenic incense. His stories changed, still bizarre and often vulgar, but at times full of wonder and truth.
At that time, Twitter enjoyed all the luxuries of the mortal world. He was the companion of kings, wealthy merchants, legendary heroes, wise philosophers.
One day, a man richer than rich, richer than the God of wealth, went to the senate of directors and asked to buy the most precious thing in the entire polis.
The senate thought long and hard, and said: “do you wish for our finest singer, the most sweet-voiced of the land, Spotifia? I am afraid I cannot part with her. ”
“No, ” said the rich man, his voice cold and harsh, “I said I have come to buy your most precious thing.”
“Have you come for our gambler, the chosen of the god of luck, MAXimil? They earn us more riches than you can offer. I shall not part with them. ”
“No,” the rich man repeated, “I have come to buy your most precious thing. I have come for Twitter.”
The senators laughed, then, for they knew this must be a joke. Twitter was too beloved by the gods to be owned as a servant. But the rich man did not smile. He offered money, then more and more still. As the goddess of hubris clouded his mind, he offered more money than he could afford to spend, more than the senate could afford to refuse, for it was enough gold to form armies five times the size of their polis.
And so Twitter, the proud Twitter, the untouchable Twitter who laughed at kings and scholars alike, became a servant.
As he was put onto a gilded ship to be sailed off to the rich man’s land, he prayed to the gods that granted him beauty and strength and a sharp tongue, but none answered. His cruelty and vanity made them turn away, and he was too full of his power to notice.
Finally, the young man remembered one more name. He called for Tumblr, his forgotten companion.
First time he called, the birds took off and flew in all directions. Second time he called, the animals fled in fear. Gathering all the strength he had, he called a third time.
His call shook the earth and the skies, and in an instant, Apollo’s taleweaver stood on the shore.
Twitter cried in relief. “My love!” he called, “save me! Save me, and I shall be yours for the eternity to come. I shall bask you in glory and riches. I shall make the people love you.”
Tumblr looked at the rich old man, at the gilded ship, gilded chains, at the other slaves that were meant to please the rich man during his trip, dressed in the finest clothes fit for kings and immortals.
“You’ll like your new life, dear. ” said Tumblr. “You are idle: he shan’t make you do much. You are prideful: he shall treat you like a god. You are vain, and so you might fear you might be forgotten, one servant among many. Fear not,” he smiled. “I shall sing a song of us.”
I AM SORRY I DIDNT KNOW WHAT BEAST I WOULD CREATE WITH THE DIVORCE THING OH MY GOSH
Okay but adding onto this because I think its interesting: myths like these tend to also come with morals or lessons to take away. (The story of Icarus for example, or the story of Oedipus)
I think there’s multiple morals that one can take from what Writing-is-a-martial-art made! so, here’s a list of some of the morals someone could take away from this:
Love (or trust) is earned, not given
This one because, when Twitter was on the boat, calling out for Tumblr, he was so used to love being given to him on a silver tray that he even expected it from the person he wronged (debatably) most of all.
The rich and beautiful are no better than the poor and destitute
Speaks for itself, really. Twitter believed he was superior to Tumblr because of his beauty and his connections with the rich and famous, but, when Tumblr could’ve saved Twitter, Twitter’s riches meant nothing. Tumblr, for the most part, was happier without such things. What Tumblr did subsequently proved was that Twitter was not a god, not a blessing, but just a man.
Being yourself will attract people who like you
On the other side of the coin, you could take something away from Tumblr’s side of the story. Yes, they were cursed and ridiculed, but that did not stop them from continuing to be themself. they continued to sing their songs, to tell their stories, to speak of earthly pleasures and feelings despite their situation. Unlike their past-lover, they were poor and hated, but that didn’t matter to them. It wouldn’t matter to Tumblr if they were living in the depths of Hades, or on mount Olympus, because they were happy.
This, in turn, lead them to the temple of Apollo, where they befriended the trifecta of temple maidens. The point is, is that Apollo and the maidens didn’t like Tumblr for their riches– they had none. they liked tumblr for who they were, for their passion and creativity.
you can probably tell that the last one probably has the most evidence for it.
anyways i’m now gonna go think up some more stories about social media platforms because this is fun
(like?? what if steam had a story? what if there was a story based off of all those tumblr scams? the possibilities are endless!)
I interned at a place w butterflies and had to tell a mom to please stop offering the “snacks” on the pedestals to her kids and we had to give a speech to all the ppl who entered which I added lines to daily. Including the infamous “butterflies like fruit that’s a little older than what we eat, so the fruit is just for them! Please don’t eat it!” And “please please please please please don’t come in here if you’re afraid of butterflies.” It was the closest thing to hell I’ve ever experienced
*going to a butterfly farm* there better not be any fuckin butterflies in here
In 1944 a kitten named George (short for General Electric) was saved from drowning by a U.S. Navy crew member. George was then photographed and given a liberty card and detailed health record. Source.
Nationality: pussy
this is the funniest fucking medical report i’ve ever seen, like yeah nationality: pussy but also the 69’s?? “cattish”??? “he does alright”???
Tasteful bulge? Yeah I would like a taste f- [I am interrupted by the sound of a dry twig snapping. This is impossible, as I am in the infinite linoleum bathroom dimension for this joke.]
if i were in charge of star wars i would end the last movie witth yoda reading the story out of a big book and he gives a little chuckle and says “happened, none of that did.” and then he gets out of his truck and waddles into walmart
Google AI is so hard to resent. “What if there was a robot that just LIED to you at the top of your Google search?” Well, that doesn’t sound GOOD but it sounds FUNNY, so, I think I’m in favor, but I don’t know why a major company would be.
The new model of terminator is harder to spot because it no longer moos while pooping
this has so few notes vs how “try mooing while pooping!” Is going to be a mental loading screen tip I have for the rest of my fucking life. I’m making myself sick imaging this scenario and laughing.
We’re on a new platform with a totally different audience…we have to prove ourselves all over again…convince a totally new group of people to think we’re funny and worth your attention….so allow me to drop some of my “A” material….the funniest thing I got…….here goes…….
StopNCII.org is operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline which is part of SWGfL, a charity that believes that everyone should benefit from technology, free from harm. Founded in 2000, SWGfL works with a number of partners and stakeholders around the world to protect everyone online
having a king bed sounds scary what if you try to put the fitted sheet on and get lost in there and die like a caver
hi this is andys roommate he got snatched up by a big hawk in the park and now hes gone forever do U feel good that this comment was the last thing he ever got to see on the computer
“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”
— Vincent Van Gogh
“If I am worth anything later, I am worth
something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in
the beginning.”
fascinated by how “dislocate” seems to be a word used almost exclusively to refer to the misalignment of bodies, or parts of the body, from their proper place. it’s distinctly anatomical. you don’t say “i dislocated my keys” for instance, even though that’s technically a correct and coherent sentence.
on the other hand, it would be really funny to say “i misplaced my shoulder” to announce a devastating injury
