quick reminder that NT's production of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring human ray of sunshine Ncuti Gatwa, will be streaming FOR FREE on YouTube this weekend
www.radiotimes.com/movies/ncuti...
Yes, hello, is that God? Yeah, hi. I have a complaint. You gave me this brain thatβs designed for finding berries and avoiding lions and now people are βjust circling backβ to see if we can βmove the needleβ on βkey initiativesβ? NONE of those things are berries.
I sometimes worry that too many people think being a good critic means being a self-righteous dick about every little thing and I think far too many miss the point that you can't critique anything if you don't know how to love something.
Photo of a cuneiform tablet fragment shaped a bit like an irregular diamond. It preserves nearly 20 incomplete lines of text separated by a horizontal ruling
There's a broken cuneiform tablet from the Old Babylonian period, nearly 4,000 years ago, which preserves a tiny portion of a dialogue between two friends.
It feels a bit like the conversations I've been having for the past week, so I wanted to share it.
Redditβs got a megathread for Glaswegians who need to know about road closures and other Union Street fire stuff:
www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/co...
if gender is so innate why does it need deputized citizens to meticulously enforce it?
When museums, libraries, and cultural sites are destroyed, that is an attack on us all.
I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.
Some photos of Chehel Sotoon before the Leader of the Free World got to it. Some of these paintings are irreplaceable historical record, including the scene of Shah Abbas hosting the Mughal emperor Houmayoun.
This video of the damages to the Chehel Sotoun palace in Isfahan is hard to watch. The finest example of Safavid architecture, the palace is a marvel of art & architecture that has survived more than 400 years. It is unbelievable that the βmost moral army in the worldβ has cared so little about it.
Welcome to Scotland. You've arrived at a glorious time.
So, in other words, what cultural impact did Elvis have on future generations? Beatles are still influencing songwriters as is Paul Simon and (god help us all) Bob Dylan. But what can this & future generations gleam from Elvis? Stagecraft? Ah, but you have Mercury and Jagger.
As much I'm loathe to cute Harold Bloom here, the anxiety of influence might be key. Is this celebrity able to influence the next generations? Is that celebrity's cultural output still relevant beyond the context of their immediate time/space?
Even the Baz Luhrmann film didn't spawn a renewed interest. This idea of the cultural half-life of celebrities is interesting: who will stick around 50 years later and who will not? Will Bowie? Prince? Beyonce?
photo of the gold headdress ornament and its gallery label on display at museum: βMoche artist (s); North Coast, Peru Headdress ornament 200-800 CE Gold The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.1151) Recorded provenance: CDO Collection, Zurich, by 1964; Galerie Koller, Zurich, 1964; AndrΓ© Emmerich Gallery, New York,1964-65; Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York, 1965, on loan to the MPA, 1965-78 Created by cutting and embossing a hammered gold sheet, this ornament would have been sewn on a turbanlike headdress. It was likely attached to the cloth through the two pairs of holes above and below the central image-the face of a snarling feline with prominent fangs. Surrounded by two downward-facing birds of prey, the feline itself wears a crescent-shaped headdress, a marker of high, perhaps even divine, status.β
#MetalMonday :
Moche artist(s); North Coast, Peru
Gold headdress ornament (with #feline and #birds of prey), 200-800 CE
On display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1979.206.1151)
Can you think of a cozy fantasy cottage core book that features
- found family
- small towns
- cats, mermaids AND unicorns
and IS NOT The Spellshop?
We're hunting for a book for a reader. Any suggestions?
βAnd as Iβve read about the opening days of this pointless, stupid, awful, horrifying war, I couldnβt help but think that the everyday use of these machines is quite literally enhancing them.β
New fancy dress costume just dropped
I had forgotten how stressful it feels when a post breaks containment. Social media can really mess with you long-term.
Two firefighters resting, sitting on the plinth of the "Citizen Firefighter" statue.
Quite an image on the BBC live page (www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd...; no photographer credited).
Sounds as if they've saved the station and the hotel, and more importantly, without loss of life.
Citizens; heroes.
How it works in industrial cities like London and Glasgow. Poor neighbourhoods were built downwind from industries, railways, and factories. Generally winds went going from west to east.
Tonight this means if you live in the East End of Glasgow, close your windows & wear a mask tomorrow morning.
THIS. If youβre in central Glasgow tonight please close your windows; if you have to be out please wear the best mask you have available. If you can smell it, youβre at risk.
not to be all βif this is were in Londonβ but if this were Kings Cross- which has similar levels of traffic and history- it would absolutely be all over everyoneβs news
Glasgow Central is the busiest station in Scotland, and 3rd outside of London.
Luckily no casualties reported yet, but leaving aside my personal interest in the Grade A listed buildings at risk- this is going to hit commuters and Scotland particularly very hard.
Lots of love and admiration for the firefighters in Union Street tonight β€οΈ
Do not get me started on fire regulations in public-facing buildings and retail spaces. I hyperfixated about a year ago.
Bottomline: remote landlordism is a major safety concern.
People are speculating that it might have been caused by exploding vapes.
In which case, it is again down to building regulations. If you rent out retail space to someone selling inflammables, your space should live up to specific fire regulations.
Much like you have with deep fryers.
I don't know who owns the building that's on fire but I know that Union Street has a lot of shops that need a good refit with short-term rentals on the floors above.
Might be time to address remote landlordism at Holyrood.
The fire in Central Glasgow is not unique. The city has many old buildings with ageing electrical wiring. Landlords live elsewhere and rarely renovate.
This time the lack of oversight might cost Glasgow essential rail services.
Alt text (which should be standard, thx): a drone photo of a domed Victorian stone building. Fire engines are trying to contain a fire. Smoke is billowing.
