iishmael

[iishmael]

can't stop thinking about how the "convinced to return for one last job" trope is a kind of resurrection. digging up a restless corpse that maybe should have stayed buried.

#op would love This is Happiness by Niall Williams

[iishmael]

I don’t know which author needs to hear this right now but even if you never update your wip i would never regret reading it a time of joy is never wasted

#a time of joy is never wasted....

[iishmael]

Reblog this to give the person you reblogged from a heart shaped cookie

#<3

[iishmael]

Them again

#im throwing up #crying and screaming #i miss them

[iishmael]

ok im really curious do you guys have books you consider your "white whale"? as in books you keep telling yourself oh yeah i really want to read that, but you keep not reading it?

#i mean i have a list of Long Books that I need to read #but i dont consider them my white whale i just consider them 'i can only read so many books at once' postponed #im currently reading ulysses and Moby Dick is my favourite book ever so... yeaahhh #but ive been avoiding some of the russian books i admit it #(war and peace; anna karenina; crime and punishment) #WAIT NO I KNOW #fucking Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter #its unreadable #and Herman Melville was INSANE for having a crush on that guy i stg #like babygirl was there no one with a better writing style??????? #but then i just started it; decided that i love myself too much to read this puritan shit; and gave up immediately #so not really a Captain Ahab situation lol

[iishmael]

I went to a restaurant with a friend yesterday and upon entering we saw these splendid blueberry tarts under bell jars on the counter and we made jokey small talk with the waitress like oh, people will fight over these if there's not enough for everyone, it'll tear families apart, are you making more later? and she said no, I'm afraid that's our entire stock for today, but there are 18 slices, it should be plenty! It was a small village restaurant with only one menu du jour so there weren't any other dessert options but they don't usually get that many customers—but then a couple of large groups arrived and most people noticed the tarts like we did, and went ohh blueberry tart, it's been a while, I can't wait, and it became clear that when we'd get to the end of our meal there would be winners and losers in the blueberry tart rush

But later as we were about to order dessert I wasn't hungry anymore and I was like well that's too bad but someone else will be glad to get 'my' slice of tart—and my friend said yeah, me :) You should order it anyway, I'll eat both! At first I thought she was joking, but no. I said, there's not enough for everyone, you can't take two, and she said, we were going to order two slices, what difference does it make? and I was baffled that she couldn't see the ethical difference between two people eating one slice of tart each vs. one person eating two, when there's a limited quantity of tart. I felt like we were in a simplistic social justice metaphor it was so obvious, but there was no changing her mind. When I said "it's just... not nice" she said "okay" with a shrug, and what can you say to that. She added, you don't know any of these people and I was like, why are we reverting to tribal dynamics in a non-apocalyptic setting, how would you feel if we'd arrived a bit later and seen others ordering two desserts knowing you'd get zero? And she said, I would think that's their right, and I felt kind of amazed.

I pointed out that if she didn't think it was a wee bit wrong, she wouldn't ask me to order her second piece as if it was for me, and she said yeah maybe we don't need to do that, there's no law preventing me from ordering two desserts. What about Kant's categorical imperative Okay I guess you're not breaking any laws by taking more than your fair share of a thing other people also want, just failing a kindergarten-level morality test. I felt embarrassed for sounding like an annoying preachy rigid person so I dropped the issue, and as she ate her two slices she'd smile at me every time we overheard someone order coffee without dessert—like "See? There'll be enough, no one will be deprived of tart because of me!" as if that cancelled the fact that she didn't care in the first place. I guess it was one of these tiny issues that can still significantly alter the way you perceive a person. I tried to tell myself not to be so bothered about this small thing but I was! so bothered. And I felt like writing a letter to some agony aunt like "should I end a friendship over irreconcilable blueberry tart ethics"

#im with you on this one #i dont think it makes you a bad person to order two slices #but the specific setting & circumstances does make it a bit selfish #I disagree with this being an application of Kant though #theres no end in itself - there is no OBLIGATION #i think its more a question of utilitarianism: how can i make as many people as possible happy? #friend eating 1 slice (medium happy bc they wanted two) + stranger eating 1 slice (unquantifiably happy) = more happiness #than friend eating 2 slices (happy but tbh mostly smug that they pulled one over a random stranger hence less 'moral') and stranger 0 (sad) #also as a philosophy graduate. the Kant sexism argument has me giggling. whoever said that is obviously not very well versed in philosophy #like. Name Three Unproblematic Philosophers Challenge

[iishmael]

CHŁOPI (2023) | Official trailer

#the peasants #♥️♥️♥️♥️ #gorgeous

[iishmael]

i'm proposing a new diagnostic critera for autism spectrum testing

#OP WHERE CAN I GET ONE???????? #IM SERIOUS PLEASE

[iishmael]

lewis looking fresh as always

#he looks like a little jacket potato #I love him

[iishmael]

there’s no shame in admitting that none of us have any concept of how big a whale is

#rip to y’all but I’m different 😌😌😌 #my url makes this exquisite

[iishmael]

The Peasants (2023) | dir. DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman

#I’m soooo obsessed guys I’m so unwell #the peasants #i love this movie AND THE BOOKS so so so fucking much

[iishmael]

Imagine being a patient of Hannibal’s but you just received actual therapy and then took his advice and you’re thriving, but then it comes out that almost all his patients killed at least one person I’d start wondering what was so wrong with me that he didn’t try to harness the dark urges within me, why wasn’t I worth shaping into a furry killer or some unsettling little freak with psychosexual tendencies? I’d need extensive therapy after.

[iishmael]

The Peasants (2023)

#I wanna rewatch it so bad pls I want the DVD 😭 #the peasants

[iishmael]

CHŁOPI / THE PEASANTS 2023 | dir. DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman — from the creators of Loving Vincent (2017)

#oh hello is it loving Yagna hours? #it ALWAYS is 🫶 #I’m gonna read Spring now that it’s spring omg I’m soooo exciteddddd #I love love love her sm #I’m gonna order the poster soon as a treat 😆 and then I’ll frame it hehehe

[iishmael]

One of the dopest literary stories of all time concerns the publication and distribution of Ulysses I’m not even a little bit joking.

James Joyce wrote Ulysses while living in Paris where he, and other modernist authors, hung out in a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company, founded by a woman named Sylvia Beach. The thing you gotta understand about this store and Sylvia is that this was The Place and she was That Bitch. If you were a writer and you came to Paris? You showed up. You bought a book. You talked with Sylvia. It was requisite. The result of this is that she was friends with all the modernists.

Joyce was kinda always perpetually fuckin broke and tended to overspend when he had money so he never had money for long. He was pretty broke at this time and was lamenting the fact that he couldn’t find a publisher to Sylvia. Sylvia was a big fan of Joyce’s work and also a good friend. She hated seeing him broke and was like “you know what my guy? Fuck it. I’ll publish your novel.”

So Joyce gets his book published and has some coin in his pocket and he’s happy. Sylvia has stepped up her career and she’s happy. Only problem? America is passing all sorts of obscenity laws about this time and the wretched moralists in charge have Heard About this book and will absolutely be destroying any copies that make it to port. Making matters worse is that there are hundreds of pre-orders that need to be fulfilled and she can’t do it without the books being confiscated and destroyed.

So Sylvia is lamenting this conundrum to her other good writer friend, Ernest Hemingway, who thinks for a minute and says “Sylvia, gimme a couple days and let me see what I can do.” What else do you say to Hemingway but “sure thing, Ernest.”

Couple days go by and Big Ern comes back to the store with a slip of paper. He hands that slip of paper to Sylvia and she sees it has a phone number. Hemingway tells her to call that number and tell who picks up that Ernest sent her.

There’s not a soul on earth who can resist that prompt and Sylvia, being both only human and also desperate to distribute this book she sunk money she couldn’t really afford into publishing, calls the number. Guy picks up. Asks a few questions about boxes and shipping addresses. Gives her an address in Canada and tells her to include the shipping invoices for the American addresses. Hangs up the phone.

So now a shit load of boxes containing James Joyce’s Ulysses are on their way to Canada. The address? Some fuckin apartment. Owned by This Guy. And everyday this guy takes a few books from the boxes, wraps them up and addresses them, tapes them to his body, and takes the ferry across the lake to the US where he casually slips them into the post boxes and goes on about his day.

Authorities are pretty baffled about how the book is being distributed but no one says a word about until Sylvia Beach spends roughly a page on it in her memoirs, “Shakespeare and Company.”

This was, I think, a few years before Hemingway had to look at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s dick and assure him it was a good size after Zelda told him he had a small cock during an argument…..but that’s another story.

#is this TRUE? LMAO #I didn’t know about the Hemingway involvement #ugh I would literally sell my soul to be friends with these people #I mean I would hate them all and I would want to kms the thought alone of Paris in the 20s makes my skin crawl #BUT STILL OK #I would want to go out for drinks with them #well. I would bring a Diet Coke with me from the future cos I sure as fuck am not drinking whatever they’re having 😂😭

[iishmael]

Illustrations for James Joyce's Ulysses, Henri Matisse, 1935

#wow #I love Matisse in general but this is stunning #fav

[iishmael]

I genuinely think I’m the exact target audience for James Joyce’s Ulysses. I love modernist literature, I am a snob, I love beautiful and complex language, I don’t mind rereading a difficult chapter, I know Dublin intimately, I love stories about the complexity of the human condition, I love Greek mythology references, I think theology and literature are fascinating topics to be investigated in lengthy prose, I love character studies, I am well-enough versed in Irish and European history to understand a good amount of the period-typical references. I fucking love this book so much.

#I’m 25% done #James Joyce #Ulysses #James Joyce Ulysses #they’re currently in the national library having a discussion lmao #not my favourite chapter but that’s ok the book is long enough that I don’t have to adore every single page 😂 #also Buck Mulligan gets on my nerves. is that jsut me? is he meant to be an annoying twat??? #I think the next chapter is going to be my favourite omg #also Stephen is baby like Bloom is such an interesting character and he has fucking ISSUES but I adore Stephen he’s #man Stephen’s inner voice is literally the best thing ever written #ok it’s 1.30am I need to go to sleeeeep #shut up Sam #Sam reads