Do You Think The People Who Design Modern Sewing Machines In Plastic Cases Ever Feel Insignificant Because

I went for a walk in a privately owned forest today and realized that forests and groves in Scandinavia are symbolic of how our society works.

When I try to explain to foreigners that our society is part capitalist and part socialist they don’t get it because in their eyes the two shall never meet but I don’t think it’s that hard to understand.

Thanks to capitalism you can amass wealth and own fancy cars and a mansion with a forest but you can’t get as wealthy as in other countries like China or the US because the richer you get the more taxes you have to pay so thanks to socialism Scandinavians can’t be as poor as people in those other countries either.

I grew up poor by Danish standards but that just meant I couldn’t have fancy clothes or go on vacations and I have many memories of sitting with my little fingers on the radiator during winter because I was cold and my parents couldn’t afford to turn up the heat but I never went hungry or with holes in my shoes. I didn’t even understand that I grew up poor until I was an adult and compared childhood memories with my friends. The only people I’ve met who were poorer than me were those who had a serious drug or alcohol addiction.

And that’s why forest and groves are symbolic of that. You can be rich and own a forest but thanks to Scandinavian Right to Roam laws you have to share your forest with the public because land is wealth and you can’t hoard it like an old dragon.

'Valkyrie' by Edward Robert Hughes, c. 1915.

Imagine if you met someone who can't eat watermelon. Not that they're allergic or unable somehow, but they just haven't figured out how to do that. So you're like "what the hell do you mean? it works just like eating anything else, you open your mouth, sink your teeth in, take a bite and chew. If you can bite, chew and swallow, you should be able to eat a watermelon."

And they agree that yes, they do know how to eat, in theory. The problem is the watermelon. Surely, if they figured out where to start, they'd figure out how to do it, but they have no clue how to get started with it.

This goes back and forth. No, it's not an emotional issue, they're not afraid of the watermelon. They can eat any other fruit, other sweet things, and other watery things ("it's watery?" they ask you). Is it the colour? Do they have a problem eating things that are green on the outside and red on the inside?

"It's red on the inside?"

Wait, they've never seen the inside? At this point you have to ask them how, exactly, they eat the watermelon. So to demonstrate, they take a whole, round, uncut watermelon, and try to bite straight into it. Even if they could bite through the crust, there's no way to get human jaws around it.

"Oh, you're supposed to cut it first. You cut the crust open and only chew through the insides."

And they had no idea. All their life this person has had no idea how to eat a watermelon, despite of being told again and again and again that it's easy, it's ridiculous to struggle with something so simple, there's no way that someone just can't eat a watermelon, how can you even mange to be bad at something as fucking simple as eating watermelon.

If someone can't do something after being repeatedly told to "just do it", there might be some key component missing that one side has no idea about, and the other side assumed was so obvious it goes without mention.

Mr Darcy is so fucking unsubtle all of the time I truly don't understand how Elizabeth doesn't get it. Someone mentions Elizabeth likes books? Darcy immediately goes into a rant about how he wants a wife that reads. Elizabeth says she wants to live close to her family? Darcy is bending over backwards to figure out how far is too far, would she mind it if she could easily travel back at forth, would she miss the people or the places. My girl he's so down bad, he's just autistic.

My ancestors, watching me dump an entire stick of cinnamon, two cloves, an allspice berry, and a generous grating of nutmeg into my tea, sweetened with white sugar and loaded with cream, while I sit in my clean warm house surrounded by books, 25+ outfits for different occasions, and 6 pairs of shoes, in a building heated so well I have the windows open in mid-autumn:

Our daughter prospers. We are proud of her. She has never labored in a field but knows riches we could not have imagined.

The people who say shit like "I don't dream about labour" when asked about their dream job make me sad. It's not their fault and it's an obvious conclusion to come to in the environment that we live in, but they really do seem to make no difference between work, and being exploited. You do want to work, it is inherent human nature to want to do things, you just don't want to slave for shit wages while making profit for someone else.

If art wasn't an option and I didn't have to worry about being profitable, I know what I would be doing: Keep a little shop selling secondhand-thirdhand buttons and buckles.

Thrift shops and secondhand stores could dump (or sell, whatever) their unsold and unwanted goods to me, and I could spend all day going through the heaps and picking them apart, plucking the still-perfectly-good buttons, zippers and buckles out of discarded things with threadbare fabrics and sell them.

Probably also making those little trinket storage boxes out of hollowed-out books. By hollowing out books that nobody wanted or read.

— v, from “excerpt from a book i will never write” (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

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From Stardust to Stardust

Smilodon

Was thinking of that Homotherium latidens cub they found recently...;-;

Prints:

Hyperallergic

My Grandma's Doilies Are Not a Joke

When will art institutions finally pay respect to our foremothers’ artistry?

This all day long … Elena Kanagy-Loux's article is right-on. I myself have made it a point in recent years not to share any content that glibly uses the phrase, "not your grandma's " because it's a) lazy and b) dismisses the real fact that grandmothers and older textile artists have worked hard to keep craft traditions alive and evolving, not to mention their immense skills. We should be thanking them and looking to them for inspiration, not mocking them. via @hyperallergic ❤️