We are the raccoons in charge around here

This is back on my dash! And listen, I love to see Amir Khusrau getting appreciation, but this translation ignores a lot. The original rhymes! And scans! And does playful things with register! And conveys a tone of affectionate banter between the two speakers, not least because it has them both addressing each other as sakhi (translated above as “girl”) in the last two lines. I think taking some liberties with line order is worth it to preserve more of the rest—and I think there’s a better translation of sakhi. And so:

Stay up for half an hour to an hour, go back to sleep for another 4&1/2. that's natural. Sleeping 8hrs in one stretch is /not/.

Arthur Roger Ekirch’s biphasic sleep theory has been thoroughly debunked by studies of non-industrial people’s sleeping patterns. We still have hunter-gatherers today and we can ask them if they do biphasic sleep. They said no. They primarily sleep in a single, consolidated block (6–7 ish hours) rather than splitting their nights into Ekrich’s proposed “first sleep” and “second sleep.” Furthermore, Ekrich’s historical research methods were shoddy. He cherry-picked references from diaries and journals to fit his hypothesis of a biphasic sleep norm. These writings where people mentioned waking up in the middle of the night are part of the “sometimes people just wake up in the middle of the night” phenomenon I’m sure every contemporary adult and child has experienced.

GROND

in almost every other children's book where the main heroine is swept away to a land of whimsy she's shown having a lovely time; braving dangers occasionally, trying to find her way home, sure, but ultimately delighting in the magic around her. meanwhile alice spends her entire time in wonderland like

look, here’s the thing: alice in wonderland’s enduring fucking charm is that it perfectly captures the vibe of being a very tired and annoyed child who is nonetheless required to play along with adult nonsense.

I'm gonna go ahead and add - the reaction image is barely even a joke. This is the original illustration of her at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

The boulder pushing punishment is iconic. But I think more people should know the reason Sisyphus was punished to begin with, which was for cheating death, twice.