No Labels

I ask my students every week to write 10 observations of the actual world. It’s very hard for them.

Ms. Tippett:

Really?

Ms. Howe:

They really find it hard.

Ms. Tippett:

What do you mean? What is the assignment? 10 observations of their actual world?

Ms. Howe:

Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason.

Ms. Tippett:

It does.

Ms. Howe:

It hurts us.

Ms. Tippett:

You naming something.

Ms. Howe:

We want to say, “It was like this; it was like that.” We want to look away. And to be with a glass of water or to be with anything — and then they say, “Well, there’s nothing important enough.” And that’s whole thing. It’s the point.

Ms. Howe:

It’s the this, right?

Ms. Howe:

Right, the this, whatever. And then they say, “Oh, I saw a lot of people who really want” — and, “No, no, no. No abstractions, no interpretations.” But then this amazing thing happens, Krista. The fourth week or so, they come in and clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff. And it so thrilling. I mean, it is thrilling. Everybody can feel it. Everyone is just like, “Wow.” The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, and the maple tree outside, and the blue jay. I mean, it almost comes clanking into the room. And it’s just amazing.

Ms. Tippett:

In some basic level, what they’ve done is just engage with their senses.

Ms. Howe:

Yeah, and have been present out of their minds and just noticing what’s around them, which is — we don’t do. And again, not to compare it to anything. They’re not allowed. And that’s very hard for them. And then on the fifth or sixth week, I say, “OK, use metaphors.” And they don’t want to. They don’t know how. They’re like, “Why would I? Why would I compare that to anything when it’s itself?” Exactly. Good question.

So then you think, why the necessity of a metaphor? Why do you have to use a metaphor now? Not just to do it to avoid it, but to do it to make it more there. And it’s very interesting.

I recently got an ask [x] on colouring for this set I did for solo levelling [x] and it got so long because I wanted to say so many things and I ended up going into colour theory so I gave up fighting with photoshop and did it on keynote instead 💀

Baby, you’re so cute that I could die!

rated E, 37.2k, macklin celebrini/will smith hockey

What if he asks if Will can come to Halifax, and Dada can see everything, the entire fucking evening, broadcast on his face? The walk back from the coffee shop, the dart of Will’s tongue over his teeth before he leaned in and kissed Mack, backing him, gentle, up against the door of his hotel room. Afterwards, in the Uber back to his hotel, Mack had googled at least three variations of “Oura ring sex heart rate data delete,” afraid that his dad would start asking questions about the fifteen-minute “brisk walk” he’d taken at one in the morning in Stockholm.

Featuring slavic immigrant daddy issues, painting lessons, "generational friendlessness" (to quote user @allthespoons), growing increasingly resentful of your lonely nomadic childhood, and PININGGG.

Between the two of us…I guess it really was destiny.

Pete’s still quite young in the first episode, right? Young… You mean his face? No, I mean, he’s still all confused about this. He hasn’t caught up.

Are you scared? No, I’m not. It wouldn’t be wrong to be scared. You just saw an evil force with your own eyes.