(Art: Scene from The Sacrifice movie)

* * * *

Man has defended himself, always against other men, against Nature. He has constantly violated Nature. The result is a civilization built on force, power, fear, dependence. All our "technical progress" has only provided us with comfort, a sort of standard. And instruments of violence to keep power. We are like savages! We use the microscope like a cudgel! No, that's wrong. Savages are more spiritual than us! As soon as we make a scientific breakthrough we put it to use in the service of evil. And as for the standard, some wise man once said that sin is that which is unnecessary. If that is so, then our entire civilization is built on sin, from beginning to end. We have acquired a dreadful disharmony, an imbalance, if you will, between our material and our spiritual development. Our culture is defective. I mean, our civilization. Basically defective, my boy! Perhaps you mean that we ought to study the problem and look for a solution together. Perhaps we could, if it wasn't so late. Altogether too late.

~Andrei Tarkovsky

(Source: The Sacrifice movie/ Other Tarkovsky Book: Sculpting in Time)

[Philo Thoughts]

Tolstoy Resting in the Woods by Ilya Yefimovich Repin, Russian Painter

As Leo Tolstoy said: ‘One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.’

.

i mean, wow, just wow. i’ve never seen anything like it.

My Shadow on Foliage.

As we have seen, man has reacted upon organized and inorganic nature, and thereby modified, if not determined, the material structure of his earthly home.

Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh

Actually the funniest part of the entire James Somerton debacle is the response his cowriter Nick gave. For context, Hbomberguy talks a bit about Nick as a cowriter, and there is not any strong evidence implicating Nick of also plagiarizing, so Hbomberguy takes the angle of "Nick is probably not (also) responsible for the plagiarism".

Nick's response?

To claim he could not be part of the plagiarism, because he does not read. And does not do research...

SOURCE: I Fact-Checked The Worst Video Essayist On YouTube - YouTube, video essay by Todd in the Shadows.

The second screen cap is maybe a tongue-in-cheek joke... but bold choice when everyone's eyes are on you to respond to serious allegations. And this screencap doesn't include the other wishy-washy statements, pre-video, from Nick saying to the effect of "I write based on vibes. I come up with an idea and ruminate on it." For research videos. For educational videos about queer history and queer media culture.

Adds flavor to the Todd video, which goes through two-dozen examples of Somerton videos which just claim... provably factually incorrect bullshit.

This guy is a writer. An author. You could not waterboard "I don't read" out of me if I were aiming to launch a writing career.

Beating the plagiarism allegations by confidently asserting you suck too bad to ever get that far.

sometimes. i just have to remind myself that percy took annabeth to paris. like, canonically. he forgot their one-month anniversary. and took his girl to paris to make up for it. the standards are in elysium.

Okay no seriously send help

name moodboard for “tallulah” for anonymous

hurt my heart why dontcha.

Needless to say i am enjoying the ever loving FUCK out of The Fall of the House of Usher. I went from having a normal day to running around like a rabid dog and shaking my head as i tear apart my favorite chew toy

Here, y'all want this?

seeing people talk about the new animated superman show reminds me that the issue superman's had for the last few decades in mainstream media, which is that too many dudebros assume the point of his character is about his "power". like "oooh look how scary he could be, if superman were real he'd be soooo dangerous" and missing the real truth. the ultimate truth. the actual truth:

superman works because he is a fundamentally very similar character to spider-man.

A Shrine.

🤭💕

it's so nice to see my boy again, and to put him back into (more of the same) situations