Two women lighting each others’ cigarettes, Westeinde, The Netherlands, 1932.

Not For Puppies

sinnersinner:

I’m really, really bored. Humor me?!

1) Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

4) What do you think about most?

5) What does your latest text message from someone else say?

6) Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

7) What’s your strangest talent?

8) Girls…. (finish the sentence); Boys…. (finish the sentence)

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?

11) Do you have any strange phobias?

12) Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

13) What’s your religion?

14) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

15) Do you perfer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

17) What was the last lie you told?

18) Do you believe in karma?

19) What does your URL mean?

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

21) Who is your celebrity crush?

22) Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

23) How do you vent your anger?

24) Do you have a collection of anything?

25) Do you perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

26) Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

27) What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

28) What’s your biggest “what if”?

29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

30) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

31) Smell the air. What do you smell?

32) What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

33) Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

34) Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

35) To you, what is the meaning of life?

36) Define: Art.

37) Do you believe in luck?

38) What’s the weather like right now?

39) What time is it?

40) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

41) What was the last book you read?

42) Do you like the smell of gasoline?

43) Do you have any nicknames?

44) What was the last movie you saw?

45) What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

46) Have you ever caught a butterfly?

47) Do you have any obsessions right now?

48) What’s your sexual orientation?

49) Ever had a rumor spread about you?

50) Do you believe in magic?

51) Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

52) What is your astrological sign?

53) Do you save money or spend it?

54) What’s the last thing you purchased?

55)  Love or lust?

56) In a relationship?

57) How many relationships have you had?

58) Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

59) Where were you yesterday?

60) Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

61) Are you wearing socks right now?

62) What’s your favorite animal?

63) What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

64) Where is your best friend?

65) Spit or swallow?(;

66) What is your heritage?

67) What were you doing last night at 12 AM?

68) What do you think is Satan’s last name?

69) Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

70) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

71) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

72) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

73) You can only have one of these things: trust or love.

74) What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

75) What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

76) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

77) How can I win your heart?

78) Can insanity bring on more creativity?

79) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

80) What size shoes do you where?

81) What would you want to be written on your tombstone

82) What is your favorite word?

83) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word: heart.

84) What is a saying you say a lot?

85) What’s the last song you listened to?

86) Basic question: what’s your favorite color/colors?

87) What is your current desktop picture?

88) If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

89) What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

90) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

91) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

92) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

93) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

94) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

95) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where

are you gonna go?

96) Do you have any relatives in jail?

97) Have you ever thrown up in the car?

98) Ever been on a plane?

99) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

100) Give me your top 5 favorite blogs on Tumblr.

Pretty pretty please !

April – 1998 I didn’t think I’d find it. Wasn’t looking for it. But it was all around me. I returned home from my month in Paris, a soul-searching sojourn, not a pleasure trip, with many overwhelming impressions of the “La Ville-Lumière”, the City of Light. This vignette resonates to this day. I quickly established my presence each morning at a café a short stroll from my flat on Rive Gauche, in the sixth arrondissement. The short jaunt alone was rife with sights and sounds and smells that put me perfectly in the mood for café au lait and some quiet contemplation.  The café was across a small, quiet intersection from an outdoor produce market. Behind the fruit-laden display stood a small, dark haired French girl. Upon discovering she barely spoke English, combined with my very limited French, we were unable to communicate beyond pointing and nodding and yes, smiling.  I would observe her discreetly from my perch outside the café. She would go long periods without a customer. She seemed bored and, I sensed, forlorn. Occasionally her gaze met mine.  One morning, I stopped by a flower stall a half block up from her market and bought a dozen gorgeous orange roses. As I approached, her face lit up. I simply handed them to her, nodded, and continued on to the café. It proved prescient on my part to not attach the gesture to words, to not require anything more from her than that traffic stopping smile I grew to anticipate each morning. And that’s just what I did for the next two weeks. Each morning I wordlessly handed her a dozen roses (they were not at all overpriced like in the states), smiled, and went on my way. Her fellow employees caught on quickly, and from behind my International Herald Tribune, I reveled in her curiosity as she tried to explain to them, while subtly gesturing toward me. The boredom of the produce stand was now cut with rumors and intrigue. Who was the American? Why was he keeping his distance? When I moved to another flat a few blocks away for the second half of my stay, I finally spoke to her, as I handed her a final dozen roses.  I lifted my hand toward hers. She rested her hand in mine.  I kissed it. “Je t’aime,” I said. “Au revoir.” And before she could say anything, I was gone.

The daily typographic quote by Dimitris Kanellopoulos

There is a reason why we dread Mondays. And it is not just because of the bad coffee in the pantry.

Under the capitalist condition, workers lose autonomy, and inevitably lose control of their lives. Under pre-capitalist conditions, a shoemaker would determine his own working conditions, have creative control over his own craft, close shop when his child has her first recital. The relationships one maintain at the workplace is more personal and meaningful.

Today, workers are replaceable cogs involved in a chain of impersonal relationships. Under supervision of “the management” - in turn managed by the powers that be - workers essentially have no control over the process of production. As a consequence they become estranged from human nature. 

An absolute monarchy puts a limits to autonomy by controlling people through webs of politics and wealth. Capitalism limits autonomy by controlling our economic life, at the workplace and beyond. It is so bleak, we really do need some fancy posters to help us relieve our stress.

Filed under: Marx’s theory of alienation

Endless list of OTPs :

Brad & Jane, Happy Endings.

Marilyn Monroe (via kari-shma)

Don’t wait for some big change or someone to pull you along, start yourself, right now.