wasteland

"I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself,..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:01 +0800

“I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.”

-
Charlotte Brontë’s answer to her sisters, when they told her it was impossible to make a fictional heroine interesting if you didn’t make her beautiful (via igrewupinbooks)

Precisely why I’m growing fond of Jane Eyre - she is plain as Jane can be (possibly considered to be the origin of the cliche), and Mr Rochester is hardly handsome. But that is exactly why she is attractive.

About more than one-third into Jane Eyre, and it’s been surprisingly pleasant. I thought I’d hate it from the start. But it’s hilarious in parts, especially the conversations with Mr Rochester. Onwards with the reading!

"MUSHROOMS - SYLVIA PLATH Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:08:00 +0800

“

MUSHROOMS - SYLVIA PLATH

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

”

- The Literary Piano: Mushrooms, by Sylvia Plath

I know ‘The Bell Jar’ is the quintessential teenager/twentysomething novel, and she only wrote one book before she went to bake her brains in the oven, but honestly, I’m beginning to like her poetry much more than her prose, and I’m not even a poetry person.

Truth be told, ‘The Bell Jar’ isn’t much of a book rather than an odd number of poetic late-night ruminations strung together with a vague story outline. Really good prose, in my opinion, should suggest and subtly elucidate elements of our reality and the human condition that can only be revealed in fiction, and Plath does this brilliantly in her poetry. Like ‘Mushrooms’ above, suggesting at atomic bombs and the rights of ‘common people’ or women.

Which is more effective - faint suggestion or blatant exposure? I lean more towards the former, but I can see how blatant exposure might work too. (as in the case of ‘The Bell Jar’ read so widely by a large audience, which I will always hold dearly to my heart as a formative reading experience)

"The inability of a man of science to take the poetic view simply shows his mental limitation; as the..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:18:45 +0800

“The inability of a man of science to take the poetic view simply shows his mental limitation; as the mental limitation of a poet is shown by his inability to take the scientific view. The broader mind can take both.”

- Herbert Spencer (via artandsciencejournal)

lustyloveylady: what a beautiful powerful human being I will...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:15:01 +0800

lustyloveylady:

what a beautiful powerful human being

I will always reblog this when it comes up on my dash

woooo chescaleigh! Always loved her eloquence.

Service Bell - Grizzly Bear and Feist (by Cameron Hall) OMG WHY...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:12:48 +0800

Service Bell - Grizzly Bear and Feist (by Cameron Hall)

OMG WHY DID I NOT KNOW THAT GRIZZLY BEAR AND FEIST COLLABORATED?

Ed Droste and Feist’s vocal harmonies - killing me softly

Arcade Fire presents Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (by...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:27:00 +0800

Arcade Fire presents Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (by MergeRecords)

One song I can NEVER get sick of, which is extremely rare considering how often I delete songs from my playlist.

perfect for dancing in my room! (i.e. bouncing in my chair and banging random things hahaha)

timelightbox: Photograph by Malcolm Browne—AP On the 50th...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:13:49 +0800

timelightbox:

Photograph by Malcolm Browne—AP

On the 50th anniversary of Quang Duc’s self-immolation in 1963, LightBox presents an interview with Malcolm Browne, the Associated Press photographer who captured the now-iconic image

Hal 9000 VS Dave - Ontological scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:47:12 +0800

Hal 9000 VS Dave - Ontological scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (by Oliver Djaja)

One of my favourite scenes in the movie, although my favourite has got to be when Dave is disconnecting HAL. Wow that was surreal.

I’ve got to watch this movie again and read it from a more ontological angle.

jaymclaughlin: Meetings I’M GOING I’M GOING...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:31:36 +0800

jaymclaughlin:

Meetings

I’M GOING I’M GOING EVERYONE *CRIES*

Regina Spektor - Sailor Song - Live In London [HD] (by...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:40:10 +0800

Regina Spektor - Sailor Song - Live In London [HD] (by IIIIasterixIIII)

I’d never heard this song of hers until her concert this year (last year? I can’t remember).

It blew me away! Oh god, that vocal gymnastics she did near the end…. perfection!

Celia Pavey Sings Woodstock: The Voice Australia Season 2 (by...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:31:42 +0800

Celia Pavey Sings Woodstock: The Voice Australia Season 2 (by TheVoiceAustralia)

Sigh, this is perfection

This photograph is the most expensive photograph in the world....

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 15:33:09 +0800

This photograph is the most expensive photograph in the world. Auctioned at Christie’s for $4 million.

I repeat. This photograph costs US$4.3 million. No more words needed.

I love Gursky’s other works 99 cents II, May Day V, and I can see the artistic merit in his general aesthetic, but you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me on this one.

picturesofwar: This day in history:A lone, unknown man,...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:10:00 +0800

picturesofwar:

This day in history:

A lone, unknown man, referred to by many simply as “Tank Man” stands in front of a column of Army tanks in Beijing the day after the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square.

The identity of the man and what became of him are still a mystery to this day.

June 5, 1989 - 24 years ago today

In light of the recent controversy, here is the original, iconic photograph.

The tank tried to manoeuvre its way around the protester, but the man stepped back into its path again and mounted the fucking tank in an attempt to lift the hatch.

I wonder whatever happened to him.

artandsciencejournal: Paul Hazelton’s Dust Sculptures For most,...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:03:22 +0800

artandsciencejournal:

Paul Hazelton’s Dust Sculptures

For most, dust is a non-object, a collection of life’s leftovers: dirt, hair, pollen, fibres all collecting on surfaces and in corners as time does its work. Dust’s physical presence then also comes to carry many meanings. Socially, it is often associated with carelessness, neglect, and poor housekeeping; symbolically, it recalls loss, mystery, memory, death . British artist Paul Hazelton explores these meanings by giving dust new sculptural forms, turning what was once a mere marker of the old and forgotten into a precious object all its own.

For Hazelton, this process of creating something out of nothing poses obvious existential questions. He writes of his skeletal work Being and Nothingness (2007) that it “exists as a result of something that was forced into being. That is what I do – if it doesn’t exist I will make it exist. For Sartre, what defines us is our undefined non-determined nature. If this is true, then our awareness of what we are not forces us to invent something from the nothingness of our being.”

Hazelton’s works delicately illustrates a close relationship between decay and creation with a medium that resists conventions of contemporary art display. While many museums and galleries work diligently to shield their treasures from mortality that dust’s presence implies, Hazelton looks to dust itself as meaningful sculptural material, infused with symbolic power.

See more of Hazelton’s projects at his website here.

- Erin Saunders

reuters: On the 24th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, tens of...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 13:59:58 +0800

reuters:

On the 24th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, tens of thousands of people held a candlelit vigil to urge China to respect human rights.

In China, most mentions of the anniversary were censored from the Internet. Security was tight in Beijing. On June 3-4, 1989, China’s leaders ordered troops to open fire on demonstrators and sent in tanks to crush a student-led movement, killing hundreds.

REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Ludovico Einaudi 16.- Primavera (HD) Live (by...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 23:30:58 +0800

Ludovico Einaudi 16.- Primavera (HD) Live (by TheMarbet68)

Stumbled across this piece on 8tracks and I fell in love, half-crying, half-laughing in delirium. Seriously perfect.

politemorality: Christopher Anderson I’ve loved Chris...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:29:00 +0800

politemorality:

Christopher Anderson

I’ve loved Chris Anderson’s work for a long time. So much that I honestly think he just might be my favourite photographer.

Escape From North Korea - Op-Docs (by TheNewYorkTimes)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:11:41 +0800

Escape From North Korea - Op-Docs (by TheNewYorkTimes)

Our Symptoms, Ourselves

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:00:03 +0800

Our Symptoms, Ourselves:

On ‘Mad Pride’:

While some clients may find comfort in distancing themselves from their diagnoses, others benefit from community, from reclaiming words like “crazy,” accepting their experience as part of their identity. These Mad Pride–like approaches can lessen one’s internal stigma: it’s no more shameful to experience depression than to freak out about one’s bills. The problem with Mad Pride isn’t that it considers symptoms expressions of identity; it’s that it only does so for symptoms on the extreme, “unhealthy” end of the mental health spectrum. It posits a greater difference between the “mad” and the so-called sane, and in doing so, makes it difficult for us to relate.

The cliffs

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:12:58 +0800

The cliffs