I’m sorry but wtf is that poster behind them?

When I talk about looking for unlikely ways to help bring your community together, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about:

I live in a "historically underprivileged" neighborhood. I'm a part of the neighborhood committee. I was talking to a man that's a member of a car club that's mostly young men with low riders. He was telling e how frustrated he was that people in the community didn't see the car club as an asset that helped keep them out of trouble.

I offered up the idea that they might want to do something to show good faith in the community. To engage with instead of just riding by. He was super receptive!

They're sponsoring an Easter egg hunt in our park with a few cars that the kids can get in and honk the horns of, some food and music, all free to our local neighborhood.

Is this CHANGING AMERICA? I guess not. But! It's giving people a chance to SEE each other. To talk!

Is there any way that I can tell you how my life has changed? Any way at all to let you know what sweetness you have given me? Somewhere in Time (1980) dir. Jeannot Szwarc

Schloss Lichtenstein -  Germany by Benjamin Jaworskyj Photography

I think one of the most profound forms of love is "I'll try that, for you. I may not like it, but I'll try it."

It's a confused middle-aged man in a pottery class, whose daughter is helping him with his clay's plasticity. It's a kid scrunching up their brow while listening to their mom's favorite music, trying to figure out why she likes it. It's a girlfriend who says "Yes, I'll go with you" and her girlfriend cheering and buying a second ticket for a con. It's a friend half dragging another friend through an aquarium, the one being dragged laughing and calling out "Wait, wait, I know we're here for the exhibit, but I haven't been here! Slow down!"

It's being willing to spend some of your time trying something new because it makes someone you love happy.

Wait while we’re all being unhinged about, like, stew. We all obsessed over the Joy of Cooking as children right. Right

The Joy of Cooking is a cookbook written by a committee of midcentury American goofballs who weren’t sure if your life circumstances were going to call for cooking woodchuck, wedding cake, or both at the same time. But the one thing they could arm you with? Unshakeable confidence and a wine pairing. Absolutely demented manual for living, 100% recommend imprinting on it as a child.

YES our first stop will be the Backpacking menu. We find it incidentally next to THE weirdest vintage things to do with bacon. Hello, bacon and rice custard. Why are you, somehow, a small act of violence in our day. We then see the actual menu with its genuinely extremely useful information including “welcome extra munch items.”

Referencing here also, useful information about building fires, which leads you to the Ritual Psychic Incantation of Massachusetts to determine what setting an open fire is on. This spell is to be performed nonverbally. and Mississippi will also do if you are a coward. Do NOT use anything except a US state!!!! Memorise this fact diligently as you may need it later

finally what other menus do we have, you ask? Normal ones of course

Lots of people asking “is this the one with the squirrel/rabbit diagrams” of COURSE it is that one

“Does it really have woodchuck”

Yes of course. Take one (1) woodchuck

Shout out to @arthurwilde for pointing out this is the one with the recipe for opossum that starts by first keeping the opossum as a lil pet.

File that under recipes you don’t need to make tiktokers try

@tartsandcrafts OH MY GOD

I have a vintage copy with the squirrel diagrams but fun fact: The Joy of Cooking is about 900-1000 pages. In braille, it is 30 volumes long. Volumes.

Oh NO! And this is a book with so many references and cross references that it’s almost unusable as-is!

Forgot to come back with a shot from my work. These are braille volumes of the Joy of Cooking

I am so excited by this, thank you so much for sharing!

In storage I have the Windows CD-ROM of Joy of Cooking. If anyone knows how to extract the database files in a usable way that might be helpful

Also, this is the original cover image

Note: there is no cooking referenced in this image. The joy is in smacking things. A water-dragon is there but we’re not exactly aiming for it and it looks friendly. This is because Irma knew we’d be out here, fighting for our lives, every day. The actual recipes are indeed less important than knowledge and confidence. The water-dragon, which represents Cooking, is awed by the carnality and joy of the Chatelaine. She is sainted for this; her handbag is absurd, and represents keeping it silly. Thus endeth the lesson

thank you Google wonderful AI you have here

do people know that a french ex-president (nicolas sarkozy, from 2007 to 2012) is currently wearing an electronic bracelet after he was sentenced for corruption and influence peddling? do people know? i want everyone to know 😌

and that bernard squarcini, the head of internal security (DGSI) during sarkozy's presidency, just got convicted for influence peddling and has to wear an ankle bracelet for at least two years? 😌🙏

and that marine le pen, leader of the far-right party et one of the (ex)favorites for the 2027 presidential elections, has to wear an ankle bracelet for at least two years and is ineligible for five years?? 😌🙌✨️

My American ass watching other presidents face some form of consequence for wrongdoing…

FULL AUDIO:  Live audio commentary - Iron Man (2008), by Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr.  (2h29m length)

** NOTE:  the commentary starts at approximately the 7-minute mark. **

[ soundcloud | reddit | american cinematheque ]

WHAT

WHAT

highlights/key takeaways include:

saying how that costuming choice had been his call and he didn’t knowingly mean to give such a dickensian sad boy look

telling how it irritated the marvel execs to no end (“we don’t show up for one day and he puts on a castro hat?!”) while rdj murmurs defensively in the background (“c'mon, that was a great hat.”)

tell me my prof didn’t upload the reading by photocopying his kindle reader page by page

bruh

There was a time when celebrities were not expected to be political activists. And in modern times, it is a rare thing to see someone have the self awareness to know that can't speak on something with authority. Either because they just don't know enough about it or it isn't in their skill set.

It may not even be within their intellectual capacity to understand at the level required.

Which is my fancy way of saying...

But I think what sets Chappell Roan apart is that self awareness to say she doesn't have the answers. I find people saying "I don't know" very refreshing. There are much much stupider people, who are actual political representatives, who have zero self awareness of how stupid they are about politics. And it is kinda the reason we are in the current clusterfuck of fascism.

Beyond that, art is inherently political, and if you need to know the politics of an artist... refer to their art.

A queer artist becoming one of the most popular people in a country regressing to authoritarian conservatism is in itself political action. Just existing in this vast public forum is political action. Being queer on a world stage and singing about queer things is political action.

There is this weird thing where people think they essentially *own* a celebrity and so they must do what is demanded. We made this person rich, so they owe us something beyond their art, right?

I have many friends who cannot stay politically educated at all times because it is a detriment to their mental health. So they have to unplug and stay minimally engaged with what is happening. And I feel like people are saying you don't get to do that if you are a wealthy artist. You forfeit that option. Fuck their mental health.

As someone who has been slightly popular on the internet, it is hard to communicate just how toxic things can get. I am a white cis man who mostly made funny GIFs and comics about my corgi. I regularly got hate just because I didn't make a person laugh. They couldn't just move on to something they preferred. They had to make it their mission to inform me of their grievance. And in the times I decided to speak politically, I had people actually doxxing me and threatening Otis and sending things to my house.

I can't imagine what kind of toxic attention a queer pop star must receive. Yes, wealth offers great privilege, but there is no amount of money to protect you from that.

I feel like there is this unfair demand of all queer creators to be activists. I get why people think that. Shit is real bad for queer folks right now. But I watch someone like Jessie Gender allude to being suicidal because of the response to her political content and that she'd rather just talk about Star Trek.

If it is getting that bad, I think she should just talk about Star Trek.

And I also think being a popular trans woman—talking about Star Trek, and just being normal and likeable and passionate about something—is a benefit to the cause.

Normalizing trans-ness is political action.

Personally, I am fine with Chappell Roan letting her art be her political speech and leaving it at that. That's how it used to work before social media.

I mean, you probably don't even know who Edwin Starr is. But you know that war... hoo... yeah... what is it good for? Absolutely nothin. (Say it again, y'all.)

We didn't need anything else from Edwin Starr. We didn't need him to give a poorly researched analysis on the military industrial complex. Everything we needed from him was right there in the song.

War, I despise 'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives War means tears to thousands of mother's eyes When their sons go off to fight And lose their lives

That's some good shit.

I hate war now.

Good job, Mr. Starr.

I do not want nor expect unqualified people to be activists just because they have a large platform. It's a specific skill and it requires time and effort to educate oneself to do it well.

When I saw David Hogg get elevated to the leadership of the Democratic Party, I cringed. His only qualification was surviving a school shooting. But if you follow him and listen to his political arguments, they are... rough. He seems like a nice enough kid. And I'm glad he was able to use his tragedy to advocate for gun control. But he isn't an expert on gun violence. He can't speak with authority about the best solutions. And he just doesn't have any political savvy in general.

A lot of times I feel like we are saying, "You are a very popular singer, please fix my car." They say, "I don't know how to fix cars." But then we bully them into attempting it. And when they fuck up at fixing the car, we are like, "OMG, why are you so bad at fixing cars?"

I actually think part of the reason the Left is currently so disorganized and riddled with infighting is because we expect everyone to speak at the same time. And it is causing our message to get lost in the noise of it all. We talk about trusting scientific expertise but don't hold to that same standard for political expertise.

"Everyone should use their voice at all times. If you have a platform, you're an activist. Don't fuck it up."

AOC is good at this. Bernie is good at this. Kat Abughazaleh just announced she is running for office. She is good at this.

Instead of demanding everyone talk at once, we can use our platforms (big and small) to elevate the voices of people who are good at this.

Maybe something we can demand is that wealthy creators use their resources to help our best activists. When someone asks Chappell Roan how to fix trans rights, she could just say, "Please follow Erin Reed" and then sing a country song about being proficient at giving gals orgasms—which, again, is political action.