the more I learn about the great molasses flood of 1919, the more I realize poetry can only go so far and some catastrophic sugar substitute events will just outdo you every time.
[id: The "they don't know" party meme. The person standing in the corner is thinking "They don't know the water tank that caused the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 showed signs of leaking, but was painted brown to match the stains instead of being repaired". end id]
when I become an eccentric billionaire I'm going to buy every house in 10 square blocks of unremarkable suburb. I will have them all furnished and decorated except for (and this is key) one house in the dead center. this house I will put up for sale at a ridiculously reasonable price for the area. once it sells, and the new owner/couple/family moves in, the plan will spring into action.
every single house besides the one in the center within my 10 square blocks will remain uninhabited. I will put all the lights inside on timers so that it appears that people are living in there, I will have lawns mowed when I'm sure everyone in my victim house is at work/school, I will have decorations put up during the holidays and cars moved there and parked in driveways when I'm sure that the owner/couple/family in the house at the center is not there to witness it happening. I will produce all the superficial trappings of life without a single person actually being there.
who knows how long it'll take them to realize that something is wrong? when their kids are playing in the yard, and they notice they've never seen another child around here even once, despite the four-bedroom family homes all down the street? after a few weeks, when they realize the lights in the house across the way click off at exactly 9:45, on the second, every single night? when they've been living there for a month and a half and they realize they've never seen a single car park in front of another house? when they want to greet their neighbors and not a single house in the whole neighborhood opens its door?
when they do realize that they're completely alone here, what would they do with that fact? what would you do if all at once, as you stood in a crowd, you realized that every single person around you was a mannequin? it's unnerving, sure, but enough to warrant a move? how long will they live in this idyllic ghost town before it gets to them? can a person survive in a dollhouse? Thank you. *I wave to the crowd as I walk offstage at my ted talk. one person gives a halfhearted round of applause from the back. a talk about sustainable ecosystem management was scheduled for right now and no one knows how I got up here.*
I wanted to get into embroidery last year and of course the first project that popped into my head was a massive one. So here’s the masterpost for the Discworld jacket I’m currently working on. The plan is to have at least one motif for every book and cover the whole thing. Wish me luck.
This is a work in progress, so I’ll update this post when I finish new stuff.
Feel free to suggest things that should be on there. I’ve still got a list I’m working through, but any ideas are appreciated. 😊❤
Ahhhh, nothing quite like introducing an American to the Northern Territory’s “C U in the N T” tourism marketing campaign and watching their face engage in a slapdash performance of every emotion known to man in the span of about three seconds
friends I am absolutely obsessed with the way Arrakis is introduced in the different adaptions of Dune. up until now, they all started out with Princess Irulan going “okay so here is this super hostile desert planet, it’s where we harvest Spice which gives us ALL the money. also my dad has the power to decide who governs it, everyone’s fighting over it, and whoever wins is gonna get super rich! :DDD”
1984:
2000:
I’m p sure it’s not even intentional, but what a perfect illustration of whose point of view the movie makers automatically defaulted to. what a perfect distillation of an imperialist outside perspective that sees the planet as desolate, dangerous, a resource to be fought over and harvested.
and then the 2021 movie just straight up overhead kicks that shit into the trash can.
we are not seeing Arrakis from outer space, as an outside observer would.
we are not othered from it like we are in the other adaptions.
we are right there, on its surface. and the movie opens with Chani narrating: “my home is beautiful.”
you’d think it’s just a small, insignificant change, but the difference in framing. the awareness. the fact that Arrakis gets introduced to us not as a dangerous material resource, but a beautiful home…! that shit is meaningful.
for so long this story about imperialism has been told by people who barely seemed to grasp the concept of structural critique at all. (I don’t think I have ever seen anyone miss the point as spectacularly as the guys who sat down and thought “Hey, let’s make a Dune RTS!”
“join one of three houses, whoever harvests the most Spice wins! :DDD” … just. incredible
🤣)
and I could go into more detail about how the other adaptions have a tendency to depict the Fremen as proud but primitive desert creatures and passive onlookers in their own subjugation, while the 2021 version makes it clear right off the bat that these are independent, capable human beings very well aware of their complex situation.
but I’m gonna stop ranting now cuz this was just supposed to be a quick lil meta on how the first couple lines change the entire meaning of everything, and how 2021 Dune displays a very welcome new awareness on the filmmakers’ part that has been sorely missing from previous adaptions.