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Chris John Gilson

@chrisjohngilson / chrisjohngilson.tumblr.com

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“The phenomenon of Yeats’s enduring life resolves the contradiction he posed between perfection of the life and perfection of the work. He is still alive because his work remains vital. He had the magical ability to form words into a living organism that can continue on its own long after the poet’s death. A sense that he would continue to live through his poetry may explain the command in Yeats’s epitaph to cast a cold eye on both life and death. The poetry is what matters, and it transcends the poet’s life and death.”

2015 commemorates the 150th anniversary of W.B.Yeats birth.

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chrisjohngilson

If Steve Martin was serious.

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reblogged

Meanwhile, in prehistoric Canada…..

No no, you don’t understand, moose really do get that big. Take it from a Canadian. I’ve seen that bullshit in person. Scary as all heck.

And that’s how people can die if they hit a moose. Seriously, one of our fears when driving in the country is having to deal with this scenario of a moose jumping out in front of the car.

moose are actual legit ice age megafauna; theyve been here since the ice age, they are old as fuck. they also are pretty terrifying and ive echoed this before but i went to wiki and “In terms of raw numbers, they attack more people than bears and wolves combined” and “ In the Americas, moose injure more people than any other wild mammal and, worldwide, only hippopotamuses injure more.”

like, fuck off with that

I was dog sitting a dog once who insisted she had to go out in the middle of the night it was an emergency, so I took her out. Suddenly she starts pointing and barking and I look up and can just make out the outline of a HUGE moose. I’ve been accidentally face to face with a black bear and that scared me less than being up close with a moose. I’m 5 foot so imagine staring up at an animal several feet taller than you that is debating charging the dog who’s leash you are holding. I was terrified as I grabbed the dog by her collar to get better control over her and backed up slowly til I was out of line of sight and bolted for the house at a dead run. Did you know most Canadian lake monster stories come from people seeing moose swimming? They are massive animals.

They are massive and they charge. I get so scared when tourists are all “oh yeah, we got out of the car to get a closer look and, ya’ll have some mighty impressive animals around here.” Yes, yes we do, and they have mighty tired guardian angels because moose can, and do, charge at people. I’ve always said that moose hunting season is the one time of the year we’re allowed to fight back.

Someone my mom worked with died hitting a moose on the highway. Their eyes don’t reflect light. In the dark they are literally nothing but a big slightly darker shape in the night. Roughly every year in the town I grew up in, a cow (moose) and her calf will wander through downtown. Maybe once or twice. If she’s aggressive enough, the local Mounties will escort her through to keep idiots away.

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harukami

I’ve definitely talked with people who thought moose were deer-sized or maybe horse-sized and I was like NO YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND MOOSE ARE TERRIFYING

Moose are terrifying, you guys.

I finally live on a province where moose and deer exist.

I do not drive at night in fear of meeting one. If you hit a moose going 90 on a highway, not only is your car trashed, you are probably trashed. I’ve seen cars that got wrecked and there seems to be a consensus that at least half the time, the giant fucking beastie just shakes itself off and continues gallumphing along the countryside.

If you fucking hit a moose with your car and their legs go through your windshield, congratulations, you are dead. Massive hooves kicking you to death? Yeah. 

Moose are fucking terrifying. Bull moose won’t fuck with you too much unless you fuck with them, but the time a bull moose casually swaggered his way past 7 year old me when I was sledding literally put me off winter sports for a solid month. 

Momma moose and their babies, though? I legitimately had to call in to work to be like “ey yo there is a moose in my driveway and I can’t get out” AND MY MANAGERS UNDERSTOOD.

Moose. MOOSE.

Congratulations Canada! Your wildlife has successfully freaked out and Australian.

So Thranduil riding a moose wasn’t an exaggeration?

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prismatic-bell

I went “eh, Photoshop.”

And then got as far as “no, you don’t understand, our moose really do get that big” and scrolled back up, and entirely without my consent the phrase “sweet holy Jesus“ came flying out of my mouth. I think I just begged for protection from a deity I don’t even worship and I live in Arizona.

This puts my “I was chased by a snapping turtle the size of a manhole cover” story to shame, man. Holy fucking shit on a stick.

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kateordie

GUYS YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW

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ktlb

My uncle lives in northwestern Maine and has hit 2 moose in his life and somehow has not died. He may be invincible. My mom has told me when she was pregnant and living in Maine she saw a moose outside the window very close to the house and decided she wasn’t going to leave for the day. She called my dad at his job to warn him.

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chrisjohngilson

OH what the fuck. 

Source: outdooroddities.com
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oupacademic
https://www.oxforddnb.com/public/audio/Oxford_Biography_Christopher_Hitchens_2015_18_03.mp3?play_key=e6ba8f023e92bbb5aaf06052cd0c6551

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography podcast: Christopher Hitchens, journalist and author, 1949-2011

"Hitchens’s profile rose sharply in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as he denounced several public figures. In The Missionary Position (1995), he questioned the portrayal of Mother Teresa as a saint; he later described her as ‘a thieving fanatical Albanian dwarf’ (‘Princess Di, Mother T and me’, in Mandy Merck (ed.), After Diana: Irreverent Elegies, 1998, 59) who was ‘not a friend of the poor’ but ‘a friend of poverty’ (‘Mommie dearest’, Slate, 20 Oct 2003). He filed a lawsuit against Henry Kissinger for the bombing of Cambodia and the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende’s government in Chile. The case was laid out in The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001). In No One Left to Lie To (1999) he excoriated President Bill Clinton, a man who, Hitchens said, ‘could change his mind on any issue, but couldn’t change the fact that he was a scumbag’ (The Observer, 14 April 2002). His loathing of Clinton led him, during impeachment proceedings against the president, to testify to investigators against his close friend Sidney Blumenthal, a White House adviser. It was not the first or the last time that Hitchens would end a long friendship with an epic row."

The story of Christopher Hitchens is one of over 200 episodes available from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography’s podcast archive. New episodes are released every second Wednesday.

Image: Christopher Hitchens reading, by meesh. CC-BY-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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“Diane, 11:30 AM, February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks.” —Dale Cooper

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