InspireHellfire @inspirehellfire - Tumblr Blog

leaving a bad review of The Art of War on Amazon so my enemies don't buy it

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homoeroticjunoincident

reblog to make prev stop having headaches

stuck-in-jelly

You know what I know I'm usually pretty silent but I need you all to understand the horrible impact SpaceX and Starship has had on South Texas.

Yes, fuck those ugly ass cyber trucks but FUCK that Space Center.

Starship genuine danger to the people who live here. It's to the point many of the people here when they heard the explosion joked that it was probably another one of Elon's rockets.

This is a horrifying pattern we are becoming numb to, we hear about a planned test launch and brace ourselves for more debris.

Several of Musk's attempts at rockets, especially after the deregulation, have resulted in catastrophic explosions. Want the list? Here are a few!!

December 9th, 2020- Starship serial No. 8, or SN8. Exploded upon landing.

February 2, 2021- Starship SN9. Exploded upon landing.

March 3rd. 2021- Starship SN10. Landed in one piece. Fire at the skirt caused an explosion.

April 20, 2023- Starship. Exploded once more. Debris scattered in Port Isabell.

March 6, 2025- Flight 8. Spun out of control and exploded in a mass of fireballs. Planes had to be grounded due to the mass explosion and the debris are stills scattered in the ocean.

And now we have the most recent and the worse one yet.

June 18-19, 2025- Starship 36 during a GROUND test caused a mass explosion, the looming mushroom cloud causing locals in Cameron to believed they had been bombed.

The loser describes this it as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" instead of what they are: fiery failures locals have to deal with as a result.

Pretty much everyone locally knows Elon Musk and his negative impact on our home, people who have had the unfortunate curse to have worked with him and the center call it Cultish, 8 members of his staff who spoke out against his behavior and sexual harassment were all fired.

Its a well known fact he hates the people here, and he goes out of his way to find employees who are not from this area and move them down here.

Musk has tried to encourage even more white people to come down to South Texas and live in his "Starship City". An attempt to gentrify and push out local citizens.

Rebekah Hinojosa, a local Activist with Another Gulf Is Possible, even had her home unlawfully entered by police after an alleged graffiti on a mural he commisioned (which didn't even obscure the mural).

This article is a good read on everything Musk has done to South Texas

One day last month, Juan Mancias, the chief of the Carrizo Comecrudo tribe of Texas, and two companions headed to Boca Chica village, a bays

I am TIRED of this going unnoticed and unheard of the People of The Valley. I need you to stop laughing and start taking this seriously.

If you want to read more on all the insane shit this man has done to South Texas here are a few more Articles I would Recommend

South Texas groups sue Texas for letting Elon Musk's SpaceX dump wastewater without permit, SpaceX's Starship explodes in space, which Musk calls a 'minor setback', What Is Starbase? Elon Musk Builds a SpaceX City With Shops, Worker Housing and Its Own Mayor — But Texas Locals Aren't Happy

thetursithan

Ah these children who always create problems for poor mothers....

purlturtle

Let's hold up traffic with mama!

paranormal-taters

hang on i need to review my entire post history from all time and make sure i haven't said anything embarrassing

paranormal-taters

awful news guys

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treecitysessions

There’s a catastrophic female loneliness epidemic happening rn but nobody gaf bc women aren’t going out and hurting people about it we just betray and destroy ourselves for nothing

danielkahndyke

sorry it’s actually so fucking crazy thinking abt how certain places have banned burqinis like literally making a woman take her clothes off in public like that shit is so fascist

danielkahndyke

genuinely horrific like that’s law mandated sexual assault & we just let it happen. hello. can anyone hear me.

plaguedocboi

So every year, my aquarium does a captive lobster hatchery project (hence all the loblings). The reason we’re doing it is because in the wild, loblings only have a 1 in 25,000 chance of surviving their larval phase. They’re plankton as babies and everything eats them. Additionally, as the Gulf of Maine warms, they are having even lower survival rates because the blooms of copepods they feed on as babies are happening earlier in the year, and they’re missing it.

Obviously, the goal of this experiment is to grow the lobsters until they’re big enough to settle to the seabed and then release them, because they have a much higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood when they’re able to hide. Ideally, captive lobster hatcheries can boost the wild population and keep things stable, so we don’t have a major crash in a decade or two.

The first year we tried this was pretty bad. We had a lot of eggs, but very few babies. It turned out that the CO2 levels in the building spiked as more guests visited throughout the summer, and that settled into the water and threw off the pH and caused a chemical reaction that prevented a lot of the eggs from hatching. I think we ended up releasing three baby lobsters (which is still better than their wild survival rate but not great).

The second year was a little better. We added a de-gasser to the aquarium and got a ton of larval lobsters, but right as they were settling to the bottom we had a disease outbreak that killed most of them. We ended up releasing four babies at the end of the season.

But this year? Oh boy. We have so many lobsters that we had to release the first round early (usually we wait till September or October so guests can see them). We just released a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE baby lobsters, and we still have over a hundred who haven’t settled to the bottom yet. I genuinely don’t even have words to explain how cool this is. OVER FIVE HUNDRED. We just added hundreds of lobsters to the wild population that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

Conservation is so fucken sick

theseventeensteps

obsessed with how fixable society is, on a structural level.

obsessed with how all you need to do is throw money at public education and eliminate most standardized testing and you will start getting smarter, more engaged, kinder adults. obsessed with how giving people safe housing, reliable access to good food, and decent wages dramatically reduces drug overdoses and gun violence. obsessed with how much people actually want to get together and fix infrastructure, invent new ways of helping each other, and create global ways of living sustainably once you give them livable pay to do so. obsessed with how tracking diseases, developing medicines, and improving public health becomes so much easier when you just make healthcare free at point of use.

obsessed with how easy it all becomes, if we can just figure out how to wrench the wealth out of the hands of the hoarders.

theseventeensteps

i've lived in four different cities in my adult life and talked to literally tens of thousands of people about politics and the change they want to see in the world and the overwhelming majority of them wanted life to be better, happier, easier for everyone, and dreamed of that world. the only people who didn't think that way were A) really obviously in need of mental/medical care, or B) rich.

wanting universal free healthcare, well-funded public education, and social support for all people is the most unbelievably normie opinion that exists, even among people who have lots of bad or misguided opinions about other things. when you feel alone, know that the reason you feel that way is billions of dollars are being spent to obscure the fact that you are in the majority.

dailymanners

I am about going to gripe about something that's been really annoying me lately.

First let me start with a disclaimer that I am speaking generally here. Of course both the U.S. and Europe are both massive and diverse places containing hundreds of millions of people, and a lot of regional differences. Neither the U.S. or Europe are a monolith (although a lot of people on the internet speak of both places as a monolith, which I wish people would stop doing, since neither are).

I could be wrong about this, since I don't live in the U.S., and haven't visited everywhere in Europe. But between where I have visited in the U.S., and where I have visited / lived in Europe, and from what I know from my friends in the U.S. and friends in other European countries, I get the feeling that overall the U.S. has stricter disability access laws than a lot of places in Europe do, especially in regard to building codes.

Of course there are exceptions, I know New York city is abhorrently hostile in its design towards anyone elderly and/or disabled. Although when I visited New York city it really just felt on par with a lot of major European cities with how abhorrently inaccessible it was.

One example of this is that recently I saw a Reddit discussion where a USAmerican vacationing in France was surprised at how many staircases didn't have handrails, because according to this man handrails are required by law in the U.S.

The comments were all Europeans having an absolute field day with this. Pretty much all of the comments were some variation of "I can't believe Americans are too stupid and lazy to use the stairs without a handrail 🤣🤣🤣 what's wrong with you fat lazy stupid Americans that you can't even use stairs without a handrail 🤣🤣🤣 thank GOD I was born in Europe where I was just taught how to walk up and down the stairs on my own and don't need a handrail like a lazy fat stupid American 🤣🤣🤣"

A few people tried to gently point out that this was about accessibility for elderly and disabled people, and it's not cool to laugh at building codes that are about accessibility, but those commenters were usually shut down with some variation of "yeah well in MY European country if someone is disabled or becomes elderly we either move to a more accessible building or we modify our home to be more accessible, we don't sit around whining like a bunch of Americans that our building isn't already accessible 🙄"

Which is, such a cruel way to talk about accessibility. Why wouldn't disabled and elderly people deserve the same access to a building as anyone else? Are elderly and disabled people not allowed to visit friends and family? Anyone could get hit by a car today, and after that struggle with going up and down stairs without the use of a handrail for the next several months, years, possibly the rest of your life. It's so easy to feel smug when you can easily trot up and down the stairs without a handrail, but so cruel to be unwilling to consider anyone who struggles with stairs should maybe be allowed access to the same places as you.

Honestly when I go on vacation abroad with my elderly + disabled mother, it's often easier to go to the U.S. with her than other places in Europe, because the U.S. does tend to be more accessible (in my experience, and except for New York city ofc) making going around to different public places with my mom generally a lot easier than somewhere like France or the Netherlands.

Out of all the things you could clown on the U.S. about, why you gotta go for accessibility of all things? It's disgustingly ableist and ageist, and I have to wonder if these people actually just hate disabled people / accessible design, and are using the U.S. as an excuse to hate on disabled people and accessible design.

raincitygirl76

I’m a Canadian. Our disability access is probably better than much of Europe (although I haven’t visited a lot of different European countries). But it’s definitely worse than the USA.

The USA has something called the Americans With Disabilites Act (ADA), and apparently it works fairly well. An American in my WhatsApp group went to a figure skating championship in Toronto a while back and was stunned that the arena didn’t have wheelchair access for spectators. Because an American arena would have.

Not everything about the USA is awful. Not everything about Canada and Europe is great.

Also, I live in Vancouver. We didn’t have a subway system until 1986, that’s when the Skytrain was finally built. Several of the Skytrain stations were originally built with no elevators. People with wheelchairs were expected to enter or exit the system at a different station that did have wheelchair access. In 1986.

The system wasn’t built in 1896 or 1926, when wheelchairs were a newfangled idea. It was built in 1986. British Columbian Rick Hansen’s Man In Motion world wheelchair tour started in 1985 (in Vancouver).

Or well, the Skytrain was opened in 1986. Let’s say the plans for it were finalized by 1983, since it would’ve taken a few years to build. In 1983, there was already a substantial disability rights movement in Canada, but several Skytrain stations didn’t have elevators anyway, presumably because it was cheaper.

Naturally, it eventually became politically unacceptable to make wheelchair users (and people with strollers, and people with canes or walkers, and people with suitcases) skip a station because they hadn’t bothered to put an elevator in that station.

So those stations had to be retrofitted at vast expense to make them wheelchair-accessible. It probably would’ve been cheaper to just build them accessible from the start, in retrospect. But we didn’t have a Made In Canada version of the ADA, so it didn’t happen.

Also, wheelchair accessibility does not only help wheelchair users. It also helps people with babies or toddlers in strollers, people using walkers, crutches, or canes, travellers with heavy suitcases, elderly people, etc, etc. I take the Skytrain several days a week, and I see all those people taking the elevator instead of the stairs or escalators.

Rick Hansen - Wikipedia

lastoneout

You know I'm really not used to being grateful to live in the US especially now but uh. Huh. Jesus fucking christ.

penrosesun

Also, bluntly, clowning on the USA for having comparatively good disability rights is spitting in the face of all of the disabled activists who made that happen. The USA didn’t just wake up with the ADA one day, and we sure as fuck didn’t just up and decide to enact it become so many of our non-disabled citizens were lazy and fat.

The fight for the ADA was long, and bitter, and every single line of it is thanks to decades tireless activism work. Evangelical religious groups widely opposed the ADA because they believed that disability (and especially particularly disabling conditions, such as being HIV+) was God’s will, and wanted disabled people to be reliant on (religious) charity. Most large corporations and business interest groups opposed the ADA, because complying with accessibility requirements might hurt their bottom line. The US Chamber of Commerce came out swinging against it. The National Federation of Independent Business called it "a disaster for small business" and fear-mongered about it shutting down mom & pop shops and throwing hard-working American out of work. Greyhound Bus Lines literally testified before Congress that they were ~so concerned~ about the costs of requiring disability accommodations that they believed that passing the ADA would be tantamount to denying all rural people access to any buses, because apparently having to install a few fold-out ramps and fold-up seats would instantly bankrupt every extant bus company.

The bill was trapped in limbo for months. It looked hopeless. A lot of people thought it couldn’t happen – that the lobbies against disability rights and the disabled were simply too strong.

And in response, hundreds of disabled protesters showed up in Washington, DC and crawled up the steps of the Capitol.

Meet the protesters who crawled their way into history—and changed how all Americans live.

How dare anyone call the USA “lazy” for our disability rights laws. We had second graders with cerebral palsy drag themselves up 100 stone steps in order to win those rights. Get the word out “lazy” out of your fucking mouthes.

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tlirsgender

My most diagnosable take is that honestly. As much as people in social justicey spaces talk about exercising your empathy ... there's also value in being able to turn it off so you're not extremely susceptible to emotional manipulation. Sometimes you have to be able to recognize "oh, this is bullshit propaganda trying to tug at my heartstrings" and stop giving a fuck about like. Colonizer feelings or whatever. Vibes can't override your principles

tlirsgender

Like idk being niceys is a good start but your politics can't begin and end with 🌈 kindness 🌈 or you're gonna get taken advantage of. The worst people on earth will be like "but what if........ I have a sob story about it 🥺" & you Need to be able to tell them to Fuck Completely Off

tlirsgender

There's a certain strain of ... Everyone Is Valid 🌸 style pseudo leftism that ime invariably caters to whoever throws the biggest tantrum. And this is a Problem interpersonally & it's especially bad if you let these people dictate your opinions. Not everyone is valid some of you are racist

ninakaina

(putting on my mariner hat again) i think charybdis is a really good example of the worldbuilding problem in nolan's odyssey because according to nolan he wanted to have the gods express themselves through the natural world but in the movie the natural world is not very compelling. the only thing i thought was cool was when they show "a river of fire meeting a river of ice" as a river of lava meeting a glacier. Which is in the fucking background for like 30 seconds maximum. Can we get some drone shots in here for the love of god. we should be FEELING the wrath of poseidon from the sea even if odysseus denies it, not watching the crew get splashed by offscreen buckets. we should get dreadful shots of storms coming on or get jumpscared by white squalls. we should see rogue waves. Christopher Nolan has never made a sea movie before and so for all his gritty action chops he doesn't seem to know how to for example make a wave look real big, and that's honestly just not acceptable if you're going to take on the odyssey, and maybe that's why i was so unimpressed by the cinematography. The fucking Wolf Of Wall Street does the wrath of poseidon better in a 5 minute sequence. and for a writer/director who allegedly wants to make the magical feel natural, this total disinterest in actually portraying the majesty and gravity of the natural world made charybdis one of the biggest disappointments of the movie for me. To be clear i don't think there's anything wrong with doing a pirates of the caribbean style charybdis. i think that's awesome and charybdis in pirates of the caribbean was super exciting and scary when i saw it as a kid. but if you are going CGI whirlpool for your 3 hour summer action blockbuster you need to actually outdo or at least MEET fucking disney's pirates of the caribbean at the bar they set. instead we got a 5 second shot of a moderately(?) large and very fake-looking vortex in the middle of a calm sea just sitting there with no teeth or anything.

the thing is if you're actually trying to do realism over spectacle, charybdis is a huge opportunity. charybdis is my favorite maritime element of the odyssey because she IS EXPLICITLY a natural phenomenon. when she's described in the poem (living under a small rock on one side of a narrow channel, swallowing water and belching it back up periodically) i UNDERSTAND that this is a near-literal description of a strong tidal vortex in a dangerous narrows. that shit 100% happens in real life and it is scary and even today mariners treat these places with a mythological fascination. look up seymour narrows and the devil's hole in british columbia (there used to be a rock in the seymour narrows that according to local lore would create an even bigger vortex than the devil's hole before the canadian government blew up the rock so people would stop dying in the narrows). I also have seen some crazy breaker behavior on remote surveys that had me drawing a charybdis in my notes as a reminder of what to report for the coast pilot. so like. umm. if christopher nolan had any interest in depicting a natural world of mythological scale why on earth was charybdis so fake???? he had odysseus try to approach charybdis for some fucking reason-- why not justify it w odysseus thinking he's such a clever and excellent mariner he can make the passage at slack tide? why not set up and present charybdis as the scariest passage in the known world, the way she is in the text? mostly it comes down to nolan being a completely incurious filmmaker who thinks he's above the source material and above literally the entire physical world, and of course leaning in to the hollywood trend of including no one with any maritime knowledge in the development of maritime plot elements, which again is just not acceptable for THE ODYSSEY. and don't even get me started on the allision with scylla's rock. this guy isn't very good at boating

parkchanwoohoo

The facial expressions of everyone trying not to lose it are killing me

gunsandfireandshit

This is painfully American

dirtbaby2016

Americans be like it is totally normal for an entire stadium (including military members) to stand at attention while a fast food clown mascot sings the national anthem

unstablebill

when we say "it is functionally impossible to parody Americans in a way that will actually insult them" this is the sort of thing you're up against. is your sick burn funnier than corporation burger clown sing national anthem baseball game? no?? of course it isn't.

gumy-shark

playing stupid games but im really bad at them so im not even winning the stupid prizes

topgunvolleyballscene

how often are you getting a headache

daily

weekly

monthly

couple times a year

yearly or less

Remaining time: 2 days 8 hours

topgunvolleyballscene

how often are you getting a tummy ache

daily

weekly

monthly

every couple months

yearly or less

Remaining time: 2 days 8 hours

topgunvolleyballscene

Ok so thanks for voting on this but i need you to reblog it too

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girlnextvore

When you see a Prep in hottopic

girlnextvore

“This Prep is ready for war bring it you emo fuck”

girlnextvore

why are people reblogging this again

this post is like 11 years old

WHY AREYALL DOING THIS

derinthescarletpescatarian

We’re all having a midlife crisis leave us be

girlnextvore

hey

fuck you LOL

life-in-a-monospace-typeface

The Shibari Game

At a conference/festival last year, there was a Shibari workshop on the schedule for some reason, although the topic of the event was prediction markets. This led to the following exchange (all names changed):

Adam (who at the time was basically a stranger to me): Hmm, "Shibari"... What is that, some kind of Jewish ritual?

Me: No, it's-

Barbara: EVERYONE SHUT UP! Ok. Nobody tell this man what shibari is.

Everyone: ...?

Barbara: We’re playing 20 questions.

Thus began what was by far the best game of 20 questions I have ever witnessed. There were... appreciably more than 20 questions.

[literally ten minutes of questions later]

Adam: Ok, so! Shibari... is a Japanese social export, it's an activity somebody does, it's in some way artistic, it does not involve drawing, it does not involve writing, it involves an inorganic object and an organic object, and... the organic object is a human, right?

Everyone: Right

Adam: And the inorganic object...

Barbara: Well...

Chris: The inanimate object

Adam: The inanimate object, which, oh, which is organic, which suggests that it's clothes... Is the inanimate object clothing?

Everyone: No

Me: To clarify, the inanimate object is always organic in terms of 'organic chemistry', but might or might not be, like, made from biological material

Adam: Ok. And so, you have an inanimate object, and you have a person... The person does not have to do anything during the... shibari activity. You are doing a manipulation to the inanimate object, with the person, for purposes that are fun... Is it for the entertainment of a group?

Barbara: Could be? ...

Adam: So it could be for the entertainment of a group, but it could be for the entertainment of the individuals?

Everyone: Right

Adam: Ok. The inanimate object - the equipment - right? It is not specialised, but is a common object, correct?

Everyone: yeah

Adam: Does it have anything at all to do with AI?

Everyone: [laughter] No

Adam: I had to check. In this setting, everything turns back to AI at some point

Me: I would say no

Frank: Not yet!

Me: Right, not yet. But yeah, 'No' is definitely the answer to that one

George: I trust Rob Miles on this

Barbara: As an expert in shibari?

Frank: As an expert in AI Shibari. I think that's what it's called.

Chris: Oh, yeah it kind of is!

Can one shibari by accident?

Adam: Ok. Is it something that one might do without knowing that it is shibari?

Everyone: [cacophony of disagreement]

Me: Interesting question!

Frank: Very interesting question.

Barbara: It's totally plausible that someone would do something that would qualify as shibari without knowing the Japanese artform

Me: Yeah, and they might also have seen things about it but not know the name of it

Chatting during shibari

Adam: Does it involve talking?

Everyone: No, not necessarily

Adam: God Dammit. Agh, I thought it might be... talking using some prop or something

Barbara: For me it always involves talking, but it's...

Adam: One doesn't have to?

Barbara: It's just 'cause I don't stop talking

[laughter]

Adam: And it doesn't involve betting markets in any way?

Everyone: No

How technologically advanced is shibari equipment?

Adam: Ok. Is the object technologically difficult to make?

Everyone: No

One guy: Yes

Everyone: What? No it isn't!

Adam: Is it only available in an industrialised economy?

Everyone: No

That one guy again: Yes!

Everyone: NO!!!

The guy: No, you're right, I'm sorry... But it is difficult to make

George: Every object is difficult to make!

Barbara: Maybe you're confused about what shibari is

Ed: Yeah, you should be up there with Adam

Adam: Would it have been available before industrialisation?

Everyone: Yes!

Adam: Ok. Um... is it a stick?

Everyone: It's not a stick

No cheap tricks allowed

Adam: I feel like I'm gonna get close to covering everything...

Me: I feel like we were very close just now, when you were like "Well what could this object be?"

Adam: Ok so the object is important. It's... before industrialisation... Does it begin with a letter before-

Everyone: No, no, we're not doing that. N/A

Adam: Ok so it starts with an N and an A...

[laughter]

What is this dang object?

Adam: Ok... so... is the object artificially pigmented?

Everyone: Can be, but not necessarily

Adam: Is it commonly painted?

Everyone: No

Adam: Is it commonly dyed?

Everyone: Yes

Adam: Ok, is it something that it's very common to dye in other purposes?

Everyone: Yeah

Adam: Does it involve a vegetable, of some kind?

Everyone: ...No?

Adam: Does it involve a plant?

Everyone: [confusion about what 'involve' means]

George: The object can have... some relation to a plant

Me: eehhh, that's more confusing than helpful. We already said that it can be biologically derived

Adam: But it would have been available before industrialisation?

Everyone: Yeah

Adam: So it's got to be something that is... around. Is it something that requires human modification to make into the form we know and love?

Everyone: Yes

Adam: Uh.. does this processing require specialised skill?

Everyone: Yeah, some skill for sure

Adam: Would I be able to do it? Like, without training?

Everyone: Probably not

Ed: On a long enough time horizon you'd figure it out, but the answer is basically no

Adam: Like, you throw me in with the tools to make it and say "come out in an hour", could I...

Everyone: No, probably not

Adam: But other people would be able to make it in an hour?

Everyone: Yeah, with the right skills

It’s not a weapon

Adam: Does it involve a weapon of any kind?

Everyone: No.

George: How creative are you allowed to-

Everyone: The answer's no

What shape is the object?

[long pause]

Adam: Well... does anyone else have any questions?

Barbara: You're asking such good questions though!

Ed: Yeah you're doing a good job

Danielle: I think you should ask more questions about the shape of the object

Everyone: Oh, great suggestion

Adam: Ok, is it spherical?

Everyone: No

Adam: Is it cylindrical?

Everyone: Yyeeaahh, sort of, yeah.

Adam: So it's not a pure cylinder but it's cylindrical-ish?

Everyone: Yeah

Adam: Is it an ovaloid?

Everyone: No.

Adam: Is it an ellipsoid?

Everyone: No

Adam: Is it uh... hmm... But it's longer than it is wide?

Everyone: Yes!!!

[scattered applause, we're close now]

Adam: Is it a plank of wood?

Everyone: No!!!

Barbara: It still isn't that!

Frank: No, his previous guess was stick

Adam: Yeah, a plank of wood requires processing and I couldn't make it... like it fits a lot of the other questions

Barbara: No you're right, that's fair, I'm convinced. It is a plank of wood.

Where is the object?

Adam: Could I find it inside a building or outside a building?

Everyone: Yes...

Adam: Wait. I mean. Ok, can you find it in a bathroom?

Everyone: Not really

Adam: Can you find it in a kitchen?

Everyone: Probably not

Adam: Can you find it lying on the ground?

Everyone: Yeah possibly

Adam: Is it something that people commonly use?

Everyone: Yeah

Adam: Is it something that people would pick up if they saw it lying there?

Everyone: Nah

It’s really not a weapon

Adam: Is it something that is dangerous at all?

Everyone: Can be, but not especially

Adam: Is any part of it sharp?

Everyone: No

Adam: Can any part of it fragment?

Everyone: [???]

Adam: Like, is it brittle?

Everyone: No

Adam: So it's firm?

Everyone: No

Adam: Is it flexible?

Everyone: Yes!!

Adam: Ok! Is it a pool noodle?

Everyone: [laughter]

Adam: Which is cylindrical, flexible, and organic, dyed but not painted...

Everyone: No, we're so proud of you, you're doing great

Me: But we did say "pre-industrial"

Pinning down the object

Adam: Ok ok. Is it a solid?

Everyone: Yes

Adam: Is it any of the solid hybrids, like a colloid or a gel?

Everyone: No

Adam: Does it retain its shape after being bent?

Everyone: Uh... yes?

Adam: So it doesn't spring back with any force?

Everyone: No, it doesn't spring back

Adam: Ok... so... Is it Japanese in origin, or is it found around the world?

Everyone: [assorted contradictory statements]

Me: The origin of the practice is Japan, but the origin of the object is all over

Adam: Is the object put on a person?

Everyone: Yes!

Adam: Is the object... um... is the object rope?

Everyone: YES!!

[scattered applause]

Me: The object is rope!

Adam: Ok!

Me: Now bring it home

Bringing it home?

Adam: Are things hung upon the rope?

Everyone: Uuuuummmmmm. Ambiguous? No.

Adam: Is the rope itself... does the rope look good?

Everyone: Yes!

Adam: Ok! Is this putting-on... a mark of esteem?

Everyone: No?? ???

[laughter]

Adam: So the object is a rope, and you're putting the rope on somebody

Everyone: Yes!

Adam: You're... putting rope on somebody!

Everyone: Yeah!

Adam: Is that... is that not the practice?

Everyone: No, no, it is, it is!

[confused cheering. Are we done?]

We’re not done

Chris: But, no, come on, there's more to it!

Ed: You're missing something critical!

Chris: You're so close!

Adam: Ok. Do you... hang someone?

Everyone: [strongly conflicting opinions]

Barbara: Only if you're doing it extremely wrong

Adam: Ok. But you can tie knots?

Everyone: YES!

Adam: Ok! Do you tie... is it a bracelet of some-

Everyone: No!

Adam: So it's not an adornment of any kind...

Everyone: Well...

Where on the body?

Adam: Is it put on your neck?

Chris: No

Danielle: Well, can be...

Adam: On your head?

Everyone: Can be

Adam: On a limb?

Everyone: Yeah

Adam: It's on a limb

Me: Not exclusively

Adam: On an arm?

Everyone: Can be

Adam: On a leg?

Everyone: Can be

Adam: On... uh... I've run out of limbs...

What does it mean?

Adam: Ok, it's rope, you put it on somebody, it's Japanese in origin... does it... signify something?

Everyone: Not really

Adam: Hmm. Do you tie the rope in a loop?

Everyone: ...Yeah??

Adam: I'm wondering, is it the casting of ropes upon people, like uh...

Chris: It's not a lasso, no

Frank: I like the idea of shibari as, like, a carnival game...

Barbara: I'm unclear on what the win condition is here...

Ed: I feel like there is a really important component that we haven't got yet

Everyone: Yeah, when he gets that component, he’s won

Are people into shibari?

Adam: Hmm... Did you find yourself fired by enthusiasm to do it upon being told about it?

Several people: Yes

Me: Personally no, but...

[laughter]

Adam: So it has mixed appeal?

Barbara: That is absolutely correct

Can one shibari... too hard?

Adam: Is it um, does it involve the tying of knots?

Everyone: YES

Adam: Ok. Are there knots that are peculiar to shibari?

Everyone: yeah

Adam: Is the learning of knots, or the tying of knots upon other people the important part?

Everyone: Uh... yes?

Adam: Do you tie someone up and they attempt to escape?

Everyone: Uh, not necessarily, but like, often.

Me: Yes is closer than no, I think

Adam: Ok, you tie rope on someone. Do you have to use some sort of special rope for it? Can you use any rope?

Barbara: You can use any rope, but some are better than others

Adam: So you wouldn't want to use any rough ropes, or...

Danielle: No, you do, that's actually preferred

Adam: You prefer rough ropes?

Chris: Some do

Frank: It depends

Danielle: Natural fibers tend to be rougher

Adam: Does it chafe?

Danielle: It can, but ideally not

Adam: Would you do it even if you were injured in the process of doing it?

Frank: No

Barbara: You would not want that to happen generally

Adam: Uh... Does it look cool?

Everyone: Yes!!

Origami?

Adam: So you're tying knots that look cool... is it like an origami for knots?

Everyone: [confused disagreement]

Ed: It's not about the knots

Chris: It's totally about the knots!

Frank: It's all about the cones...

Adam: Like, in origami you fold paper in ways that look cool, maybe you tie knots in ways that look cool?

Everyone: [loud disagreement]

Diagnosing the problem

[long long pause]

Chris: Ask the question in your heart!

Adam: ...Neckties?

Everyone: No?

Barbara: I keep thinking "But, he already has it", and then he asks a question that makes me say "No, he doesn't have it at all"

Frank: I think there's a question you want to ask, but you're not...

Everyone: Yeah

Chris: Yeah, ask the question that you don't want to ask

Danielle: I don't think he has the question...

Adam: Would it cause any gratification in someone?

Everyone: Yes!

Adam: Would it... Would it cause sexual gratification?

Everyone: Yes!!

Adam: Is it a practice... under the category of kink?

Everyone: Yes!!!

Adam: Is it tying somebody up for bondage purposes?

Everyone: YEAH!!! [Pandemonium, hollering, applause, Adam is lifted above the cheering crowd]

After the hearty congratulations were done, I wandered off, elated from the experience, and I bumped into a group of friends.

"Friends!" I said, "I just had the funniest experience. This guy didn't know what 'shibari' was, so we-"

"Shibari?" a friend interjected, "What is that, like, a Jewish building?"

"OK EVERYONE SHUT UP" I said.

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