mindless insight

and I said, “explain”

and she said, “you know you’re allowed to eat whatever food you want in the morning. you are not bound by law to the traditional american breakfast.”

No romance, no action.

have you ever met an Italian man

If you keep a book, it auto renews two times. Then it comes up as overdue. If your overdue items exceed a certain amount, your account freezes. You can’t use any of the local libraries anymore until you return the items or claim them lost and pay for them. If someone else is waiting for the book, you can’t renew. Its that simple.

And guess what. Not only did we save money, but we /got more materials back/. More materials were turned in than declared lost as compared to before. There was no stigma to it. If you had already paid for the item, the money was credited back to you.

Because the people late fees actually affected were children and elderly adults - people unable to regularly get to the library. And the stigma of late items was dropped. Attitude and mindset are important.

we still have no late fees. And we are considered to be one of the top public systems in our state. People from out of state PAY to get library cards for a year because our online Overdrive system is amazing, and we have a ton of partnerships and interlibrary loan systems in place. AND we suffer less losses of both materials and patrons due to our “no late fee” policy.

Happy Fossil Friday! The Museum’s Stenopterygius quadriscissus is world-famous because of the well-preserved outlines of this ichthyosaur’s skeletal structure as well as softer body parts. What’s an ichthyosaur, you say? It’s an extinct air-breathing animal with a body shape that closely resembled that of today’s fast-swimming fishes, such as the tuna. This specimen is an ichthyosaur that died while giving birth to live young. Get a closer look at a fossil flipper of another ichthyosaur in our new exhibition, Unseen Oceans, and follow it up with a visit to this full ichthyosaur fossil in the Hall of Vertebrate Origins!

be thin

cook for you

have long hair

wear makeup

be feminine 

be graceful

have sex with you

shave

diet

be fashionable

wear pink

love men

The Largest Portrait in Hawaii’s History.

Internationally renowned artist and friend of Supersonic Art Kamea Hadar just completed a 14-story portrait of the Hawaiian Goddess of the Moon, Hina - The largest portrait in the state’s history (and arguably the most beautiful).

“It was inspired by the sacred canoe Hokulea and its historic journey around the earth named ‘Malama Honua’ which translates to ‘Caring for Our Island Earth’” explains Hadar of the portrait that faces outwards towards Pearl Harbor.  “The voyage not only pushes the boundaries of non-instrumental navigation (using only the sun, waves, winds, stars, birds, etc to navigate) but, also, was a voyage of spreading awareness of taking care of our precious earth and its natural resources.  I did a series of projects honoring Hokulea when she left on Malama Honua and I wanted the piece to be a guiding light for Hokulea’s return, [finishing it] only a few weeks before they arrived safely home after more than three years at sea.”

Take an extended look at the epic mural’s creation along with a short video on the project below:

(All photographs by Andrew Tran, video by Redefined Media)

humans are fucking terrible and this awful world we live in will fucking kill you but if you are kind, if you are brave and clever and try really hard, you can defy it. you can impose on this bleak and monstrous structure something beautiful. even if it’s temporary. even if it doesn’t heal anything inside you that’s been hurt.  

it just requires that you be kind. viciously. vengefully. you fight back. you plant flowers. give to charity. play games. pet someone’s dog. scream into the dark. paint and write and dance, tell jokes, sing songs, bake cookies. you have been hurt and you don’t have to deny that hurt. you just have to recognize it in other people, and take their hand, and say: no more. enough. fuck this. no more. 

have a cookie.

2. A good quote: There are two kinds of people. Those who think, “I don’t want anyone to suffer like I did.” And those who think, “I suffered; why shouldn’t they?”

3. Two good quotes by Kurt Vonnegut: “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-“God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

“I. THIS IS NOT A GAME.

II. HERE AND NOW, WE ARE ALIVE.”

You can be kind and fuel it with rage. You can be kind and fuel it with a bitter twist, or you can be kind and fuel your kindness with righteous anger, or you can be kind and fuel it with love or spite or ecstatic joy. And no matter what your fuel is, you still can make kindness happen in the world so that people can warm themselves by it.

Kindness isn’t an emotion, kids. That’s the thing. Kindness is action. Kindness is choosing to take your emotions and channel them towards doing the most good where you can; to choose the targets of your actions carefully; to spread a little joy behind you, when you have a little to spare.

Kindness can mean a gentle word or a shouted imperative. It can be a warm meal or a gentle hug or a clean death. Kindness can manifest in many ways, and not all of them are one hundred percent nice. The kind thing to do may be doing nothing at all. 

But kindness is, above all else, an action. We are imperfect humans, and we cannot control our emotions–but we can control what we do as a result. We can control the actions that our emotions and experiences propel us to perform. 

The darkness is nothing but the absence of light, you know. It is endless and nihilistic and all enveloping. A lit candle has no hope against it.

But if enough of us light small candles and little matches behind us as we walk through this wide, uncaring universe, we can light up that sky. We can take an empty world and we can fill it with each other.