“In a sense, one can never read the book that the author originally wrote, and one can never read the same book twice.” ― Edmund Wilson
Yeah, well. But one level deeper: the author can never write the book that the author reads in his/her dreams, the construct of desire. Mere mortal matter, paper or electrons, aren’t strong enough to bear the weight of what the auctorial heart would execute if it only had the power on this plane… but the poor heart’s just made of meat. …No matter. Someday every writer will come to a place where the organs of execution are equal to the vision. Souls, don’t stray unescorted into Writer Heaven: it’ll burn the ectoplasm off your theoretically-adamantium bones.
Hello, I'm the Paperllama, or Banach-Tarski Banach-Tarski (BTBT) if you prefer: my origami blog can be found here. This blog is the home of fangirlness over various shows/books/works of fiction, math stuff, writing stuff, feminism stuff, and occasionally my thoughts.
Also, imaginary numbers are adorable.
Here's a random post. • Ask me anything
Imaginary Numbers Are Cute
Also, imaginary numbers are adorable.
Here's a random post. • Ask me anything
Imaginary Numbers Are Cute
“I wrote a poem about it, and then threw it away, because that’s the last thing I need right now: More words dedicated to people who will never dedicate a single thing to me.”
— Thought Catalog (via swimmingpoolforants)
(Source: koizoraa, via itssmallerontheoutside)
“
When was super depressed, I wasn’t working—I was always too depressed. Hemingway did his best work when he didn’t drink, then he drank himself to death and blew his head off with a shotgun. Someone asked John Cheever, “What’d you learn from Hemingway?” and he said “I learned not to blow my head off with a shotgun.” I remember going to the Michigan poetry festival, meeting Etheridge Knight there and Robert Creeley. Creeley was so drunk—he was reading and he only had one eye, of course, and had to hold his book like two inches from his face using his one good eye. But you look at somebody like George Saunders—I think he’s the best short story writer in English alive—that’s somebody who tries very hard to live a sane, alert life.
You’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day. It’s probably better for your writing career, you know? I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist.
”—
In an interview with The Fix, Mary Karr debunks the toxic mythology that it is necessary to be damaged in order to be creative. My own vehement defiance to that mythology is what led me to choose Ray Bradbury – the ultimate epitome of creating from joy rather than suffering – as the subject of my contribution to The New York Times’ The Lives They Lived.
Pair with Karr on why writers write.
(via explore-blog)
(Source: , via neil-gaiman)
I don’t know if it is intentionally significant, but I think that the symbolism there is pretty compelling.
Steve Rogers is not afraid of strong women.
Steve Rogers is not afraid of strong women.
Stop it with the fic where Steve is terrified of Natasha, or Maria, or Pepper, or guh, Darcy. I guess people think it’s cute, or whatever.
Seriously. Strong women don’t make Steve scared, they make him swoon.
The only thing Steve is afraid of is that strong women won’t like him.
Acting like Steve is afraid of women also ignores one of my favorite moments of the movies, where Steve isn’t sure if Clint can be trusted, but he looks to Natasha and it just takes one nod from her for Steve to be okay with it. He respects people who know what they’re doing, male or female.
People need to stop trying to frame Cap as the embodiment of 1940’s American conservatism and prejudice. He isn’t.
“For me though, it’s those little one liners that cut deeply. Because remember, the Doctor often forgets the social mores of the time. Who can remember if the way people greet each other is with two cheek kisses or a handshake? He also finds certain human perceptions of the time incredibly odd and dated. But when the Doctor says things like “because she’s a woman” or when he smirks when Clara asks him if he’s making flying the TARDIS easy because she’s a girl, then you get the sense that the Doctor has this perception of women that belongs to the present time. A perception of women that women are fighting hard to erase […] Part of the reason that women are so up in arms about Moffat is that the way he writes women hurts stories and characters with so much potential. A lot of the stereotypes he indulges in are so incredibly unnecessary to the story he’s telling and you wonder why they are there at all. They strain credulity, twist the story and characters in weird ways and he doesn’t really get a whole lot of bang for what’s a very expensive buck.”
—
A comment on Of Dice and Pen: Sexism in Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who? The anonymous reader who sent this to me added:
This is one of the key problems I have with so many forms of Sci-fi media and the anon summed it up perfectly. In a futuristic world, in other universes and on other planets, the presence of today’s sexism is not only just as problematic as it is in any media - it also doesn’t even make logical sense in the majority of cases. Why is the Doctor, a thousand-year old alien who has been just about everywhere and experienced a melting pot of cultures, acting like the sexist old men from down the pub?
One of the reasons sci-fi is a fantastic genre is the pure escapism it offers, and unlike, say, fantasy, it can avoid the “But in the past sexism was present!” tropes and justifications that are often used (see GoT..) with relative ease. But so often it completely fails to do so, the writers unimaginatively falling back on today’s stereotypes - and the missed opportunities to be progressive in such a small way is very disheartening. I don’t know if it’s down to lazy writing or simply being oblivious that doing this is both very problematic andmaking their world less believable, but I can only hope more sci-fi writers manage to avoid this trap in the future.
(via whovianfeminism)
it’s always awkward when relatives visit because you’re supposed to act really friendly with people you barely know at all just because you share some chromosomes or something
HERE. LET ME HUG YOU. I’VE NEVER MET YOU IN MY LIFE.
