hanabi:

tspn:

letsboxthestars:

neekaisweird:

minorthings / newageaudrey / sylvysparrow

Hahahaha!

yes. yes. YES.

Joanna Newsom - “Colleen”

I’ll tell it as I best know how
and that’s the way it was told to me:
must have once been a thief or a whore
then surely was thrown overboard, where, they say
I came the way from the deep blue sea

picked me up and tossed me round
I lost my shoes and tore my gown
forgot my name and drowned, then
woke up with the surf a-pounding, it seemed
I had been run aground

well they took me in and shod my feet
and taught me prayers for chastity
and said my name would be “Colleen”
and I was blessed among all women, to have
forgotten everything

~

and as the weeks and months ensued
I tried to make myself of use
tilled and planted, but could not produce
not root, nor leaf, nor flower, nor bean; Lord!
it seemed I overwatered everything

and I hate the sight of that empty air
like stepping for a missing stair
and falling forth forever blindly
cannot grab hold of anything! no, not I
most blessed among Colleens

~

I dream some nights of a funny sea
as soft as a newly born baby
cries for me so pitifully
and I dive for my child with a wildness, in me and then
so sweetly there received

but last night came a different dream
a gray and sloping-shouldered thing
said ‘what’s cinched ‘round your waist, Colleen?
is that my very own baleen? no! have you
forgotten everything?’

~

this morning, ‘round the cape at dawn
some travellers sailed into town
scraps for sale and the saddest songs
and a book of pictures, leather-bound that showed a whale
with a tusk a meter long

well I asked the man who showed it me:
‘what is the name of that strange beast?’
he said its name translated roughly
to “He-Who-Easily-Can-Curve-
Himself-Against-The-Sky”, and I am without words
he said ‘my lady looks perturbed
(the light is in your eyes, Colleen)’
I said, ‘what ever can you mean?’, he leaned in and said
‘you ain’t forgotten everything’

~

‘you dare to speak a lady’s name?’
he said; ‘my lady is mistaken,
I would not speak your name in this place
and if I were to try, then the wind - I swear - would rise
to tear you clean from me without a trace

‘have you come, then, to rescue me?’
he laughed and said, ‘from what, “Colleen”?
you dried and dressed most willingly
you corseted, and caught the dread disease
by which one comes to know such peace’

Well it’s true that I came to know such things
as the laws that govern property
and the herbs to feed the babes that wean
the welting weight for every season, but still
I don’t know any goddamned “Colleen”!

~

then dive down there with the lights to lead
that seem to shine from everything
down to the bottom of the deep blue sea
down where your heart beats, so slow
and you never in your life have felt so free
will you come down there with me?
down where our bodies start to seem
like artifacts of some strange dream
which afterwards you can’t decipher, and so, soon
have forgotten everything

aseriesofserendipities:

lioncub:

longlivethequeen:epikfailure:fuckyeahstrangefinds:

Tuxedo Condom (Dick’s Formal Wear)

If you are going to a formal occasion, why should your condoms not be formal as well? The only FDA approved printed condom available, this thing is not just a novelty. There are times when you want to look your best, and there is no reason why you can’t still be dashing even when your tuxedo lays crumpled at the foot of the bed. (Source)

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

-DIES-

there is too much class in this whole post

Oh. My. G-d. that bow tie. Amazing.

On my wedding night I will demand NOTHING LESS

• tumbl a few more passages from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• give away beauty
• read half a book for class tomorrow
• read Japanese blogs about walking a 1,400km pilgrimage
• write a thesis topic

Two years ago when I was depressed and alone in the dark, one of the few things that could take me out of it was giving in to the need to give away beauty. Now the depression is gone, but the need to give away beauty is not.

chariya:

aaaartstar: littletiger

Yep.

hanabi: fuckyeahtea: nicecupoftea:

“If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

• First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means Indian tea.
• Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
• Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
• Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
• Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
• Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
• Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
• Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one’s tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.
• Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
• Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
• Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
  
  Some people would answer that they don’t like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one’s ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.”

George Orwell - The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters 194-1945 (Later Published in the London Evening Standard, 12 January 1946)

Oh baby. Mostly on the last point.

I concur.