Somewhere Behind the Morning

“Each time I fall in love I feel fear that the world won't let me be in the world with it, that I either have to pick the world or the love.” — Jenny Slate

you say you love the world, so love the world | inspired by @soracities' post about how love is real and always will be

mary oliver, upstream

i am doomed by the narrative. ignore that i am also the author of the narrative

girlincalico

i am a lover. but underneath that i'm a hater. and then underneath that i'm a lover again

committing to something wholeheartedly and then changing ur mind is insane and i do it all the time

John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane

８月９日は「長崎原爆の日」。

１９６６年、ビートルズ来日直後にジョン・コルトレーンも日本ツアーで来日。

長崎公演の後に爆心地を訪れ、献花と合掌で慰霊の時を過ごしました。

in retrospect, video rental stores *would* probably still exist today in some capacity had it not been for blockbuster. the nostalgia for the blockbuster browsing experience undermines the reality of how aggressively the chain snuffed out smaller video rental stores and would eventually become notorious for its abusive late fee collection policy once there were no significant competitors standing. the rise of streaming is often attributed to blockbusters demise, but what’s not often recognized is how netflix’ earliest (and most successful) marketing tactics were in fact advertising the absence of the aforementioned terrible late fees as opposed to the convenience of not having to go to the store. I was actually surprised to find out how much of blockbuster’s demise can be attributed to spiraling out of control as it attempted to manage viacom’s ever increasing debts than to the fact that people just naturally gravitated towards streaming (which is not to say that it wouldn’t have happened eventually, but).

see also: borders / barnes & noble with bookstores. amazon’s original pitch was probably more “look how convenient!” than it was “look, you can avoid the awful sterility of the inside of a barnes & noble!” but it’s interesting that with its aggressive tracking and tailoring of recommendations amazon is having machines do (in an impersonal and invasive way) what the staff at a local, non-chain bookstore would do, which is match their selection to your preferences

Barnes & nobles and Borders raced against each other, across the country, to oversaturate the bookstore market. This isn’t paranoia or conspiracy — it’s the same fucking model Starbucks used. Oh, your community supports three bookstores? We’re going to open five, until the little indies go under. Then we’ll close four of our own (sorry not sorry staff, enjoy competing with each other for a handful of positions!) and now you have no other choice. Movie rental chains did the same thing.

And then all these huge chain retailers have the fucking gall to weep and whine as amazon proceeds to wipe them out, and now I live in a small city where you just… can’t get stuff. If you don’t want to use amazon, if you don’t have a car to drive out to the big box on the highway, you literally can’t buy a pair of socks or an ice pack. No more pharmacies, no more bookstores, no more video or music stores… if this was plants and not retailers you’d call it monoculture, and you’d raise an alarm about how prone to catastrophic collapse monocultures are.

Ohhh that last line.

Catherine Gildiner, Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Emotional Recovery

Sade

Tavi gevinsons come up is culturally important because she was the first fashion icon whose style was based off larp and moodboard. This is something that is so common now and like every trend is disseminated in the most literal way, for example the rolled up Dickies waistband - people don’t take this trend to mean they can wear an oversized piece in a playful or interesting way - but that they literally should go to the shops and buy a pair of dickies and roll up the waistband. This loss of imagination in fashion is so sad and I think its prevalent in subculture in general. I feel like this is seen with gen z fashion, it’s all literally costumes. There is no longer the existence of personal style onto which you may add elements or be inspired by trends but instead there is a didactic formula that you must choose a look/subculture and then follow the instructions on how to dress. Hence all of the moodboard types “downtown girl” “dark academia” “gorp girl” “coquette” “clean girl” etc etc. and it totally has no longevity or impact, it literally gets rinsed out so fast. Also the subtypes keep getting more and more niche like the pilled trends, ( “Lana del rey lobotomised gold jewellery anorexia girl blogger pilled” ) or whatever.

The Masochists, Roland Topor