Cyberpunk with a Library card

This page from one of my history books looks like a lesbian utopia.

1. makeup/sunscreen remover — opt for balms or oils over micellar water. my fave is tatcha’s camellia oil.

2. non-stripping cleanser — if your skin feels squeaky clean after cleansing this means your cleanser is way too strong. good options include: glossier milky cleanser, stratia velvet milk, or la roche posay hydrating cleanser.

3. moisturizer — this step should sink into your skin and not sit on top of it with a greasy film. i like yttp’s air whip for the summer and biossance’s repair cream for the winter.

4. oil or ointment (PM only) — this locks in the moisture from your previous steps. cerave healing ointment is a cult favorite, and i personally love yttp goji berry oil.

4. SPF (AM only) — stick with american or japanese made sunscreens as these tend to have stricter standards on quality. ALWAYS wear sunscreen, even when it’s cloudy. my esthetician gave me face reality’s 30 spf which i’ve been loving, but you may also like supergoop’s options.

NOTES:

• if you have very dry skin, only cleanse at night. cleansing in both the AM and PM will make your skin soo much more dry.

• don’t let your skin dry out completely after cleansing, you want your moisturizer to go on when your skin is still damp.

• PAT on your oil or ointment at the end of your routine, don’t rub.

• consider getting hydrating facials once a month.

• if you are showing signs of premature aging (fine lines), dullness, constant flaking, and breakouts, then your skin may also be dehydrated. this would require extra TLC and gentler products. check the skincareaddiction subreddit for info.

• taking supplements like vitamin e, omega 3, and vitamin d helps.

ungrateful, wait with eagerness for the day of their fathers’ deaths (seneca’s de beneficiis)

travel everywhere, take up agriculture instead of letting nature provide (tibullus 1.3)

carp at their parents, praise evil-doers and their violent deeds (hesiod, works and days)

spend too much time talking about philosophy and pretending to be greek to fight wars (plutarch, life of cato the elder)

bad at riding horses (horace, odes 3.24)

can’t lift boulders (homer, iliad 20)

9. only care about snappy one-liners and ignore good periodic Ciceronian prose (Quintilian, IO 10)

9. take up stupid trendy fads like vegetarianism (Seneca the Younger’s father yelled at him about this, apparently)

Caspar David Friedrich (1774 -1840, German) ~ Gebirgslandschaft mit Regenbogen, 1809-10 

“I mention a real-life example of that kind of bad architecture in one episode; the Pope Lick Bridge in Kentucky, a place that looks and feels so sinister that it developed its own local folklore about a goat-man who attacks people who stray too close to the edge – and which has ended up resulting in deaths as visitors peer over the side trying to get a peek at the monster.

“I find this kind of stuff fascinating, because it plays into my own paranoia about environments, and my dislike of ghost stories with explicably human antagonists. Like David says in the first episode, people aren’t frightening. Places are frightening.

“If I’m sitting alone at home on a dark and stormy night, and I glance nervously up towards the bedroom doorway, my fear is not that my house is being haunted by a spirit called Mabel who died in the 19th century at the age of fourteen and is constantly seeking her favourite teddy bear… because all of these details both humanise her and make her ridiculous.

“My fear is that there will be something standing in the doorway, because the doorway is where things come to stand.

“Because unoccupied spaces, in our imaginations, must find something to fill them.”

I try not to make sweeping statements but I think there’s a case to be made for bernini as the greater sculptor there’s ever been.

here’s his bust of costanza bonarelli

here’s apollo and daphne from the front, where she’s mostly human

from the back, where she’s mostly tree

and details

Abortion Clinic Employee Shares How Some Pro-Life Women Act When They Come In As Customers

- I’ve been nominated for Best Lead Actor

- My play, The Prince, is up for Best New Play

- and Mary Malone & Tianna Arnold are up for Best Supporting Actor

I’m currently in 2nd place behind Jodie Comer and it would be sick to win it lmao

To vote, fill out the little form with your choices then DON’T FORGET to click the confirmation link in the email they send you afterwards

Thanks!

In Hebrew

You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.

None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace - you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.

Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise - hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.

Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.