That's Why Her Hair Is So Big It's Full of SECRETS

"We are in the middle of a bloody, heartrending revolution Called America, called the Protestant reformation, called Western man, Called individual consciousness, meaning I need a refrigerator and a car And milk and meat for the kids so, I can discover that I don’t need a car Or a refrigerator, or meat, or even milk, just rice and a place with no wind to sleep next to someone Two someones keeping warm in the winter learning to weave To pot and to putter, learning to steal honey from bees, wearing the bedclothes by day, sleeping under (or in) them at night; hording bits of glass, colored stones, and stringing beads How long before we come to that blessed definable state…"

- Diane di Prima, Rant, from a Cool Place (via fernsandmoss)

Dec 18

Dec 7

RIGHTEOUS!

From Katharine Hepburn’s 1981 interview with Barbara Walters:

Hepburn: “I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man…I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I made enough money to support myself. And I ain’t afraid of being alone.”

Walters: “Is that why also you wear pants?”

Hepburn: “No, I just wore pants because they’re comfortable.”

Walters: “Do you ever wear a skirt, by the way?”

Hepburn: “I have one.”

Walters: “You have one.”

Hepburn: “I’ll wear it to your funeral.”

Good God, what a woman.

(via/photo via)

(Source: oldhollywood, via thatkindofwoman)

Dec 7

mohandasgandhi:

Mali: Children work in deadly gold mines

At least 20,000 children work in Malian artisanal gold mines under extremely harsh and dangerous conditions, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Malian government and international donors should take action to end child labor in artisanal mines, Human Rights Watch said. Artisanal miners rely on low-tech methods and often organize informally.

The 108-page report, “A Poisonous Mix: Child Labor, Mercury, and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali,” reveals that children as young as six dig mining shafts, work underground, pull up heavy weights of ore, and carry, crush, and pan ore. Many children also work with mercury, a toxic substance, to separate the gold from the ore. Mercury attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children.

“These children literally risk life and limb”, said Juliane Kippenberg, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They carry loads heavier than their own weight, climb into unstable shafts, and touch and inhale mercury, one of the most toxic substances on earth.”

Of 33 child laborers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, 21 said that they suffered from regular pain in the back, head, neck, arms, or joints. Children also suffer from coughing and respiratory disease. One boy about six years old described the pain he felt when digging shafts with a pickaxe for hours on end. Another boy said that “everything hurts” when he comes home after a day’s work underground.

Most children work alongside their parents to supplement the little income adult miners get from selling gold to local traders. Other children migrate to the mines by themselves, and end up being exploited and abused by relatives or strangers who take their pay. Some girls are sexually abused or engage in sex work to survive. Children come to the mines from other parts of Mali, as well as from Guinea, Burkina Faso, and other neighboring countries.

[…]

Figures obtained by Human Rights Watch from the Malian Ministry of Mines put the amount of artisanally mined gold exported per year at around four metric tons, worth around US$218 million at November 2011 prices. Most of this gold is exported to Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, Dubai in particular.

(Continue reading…)

(via iamthecrime)

Dec 2

Wonderful

vintageanchor:

Mark Twain’s birthday: 10 great quotes from ‘father of American literature’

William Faulkner called him “…the first truly American writer.” Ernest Hemingway declared that all American writing comes from “Huckleberry Finn,” and “there has been nothing as good since.” And Norman Mailer said “Huck Finn” stands up “page for page” to the “best modern American novels.” Wednesday marks the 176th anniversary of the birth of the matchless Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain. His genius lay in his distinctive ability to convey profound wisdom and profane wit in the same breath. Here, in tribute to the man Faulkner called the “father of American literature,” are 10 quotes from Mark Twain.

1. A recipe for contentment: “Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

2. True wisdom: “It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

3. Reading habits: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”

4. Success: “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”

5. Bravery: “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”

6. Procrastination: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”

7. Progress: “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”

8. Risk-taking: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

9. Good editing: “A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.”

10. Life: “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

Source: The Christian Science Monitor, Nov 29, 2011 (by Husna Haq)

Dec 2

flavorpill:

Chicks with Guns, Lindsay McCrum

Though the title may appeal to the lowest common denominator, this is no thinly-veiled pin-up book. McCrum’s project is a beautiful and seriously rendered study of female gun owners in America. Each exquisite portrait is accompanied by the subject’s own musings on her use of firearms, whether they be for self-defense or for pleasure or for work. Whatever your position on gun control, this is a thought-provoking (and visually stunning) study of cultural norms and gender roles, perfect for anyone who likes social commentary, fine photography, or, you know, guns.

Books to buy the non-readers in your life

"At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves. I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible."

- Kenneth Clark (via atomos)

Dec 1

"Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow’s hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life."

- Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (via ventriloquistic)

Dec 1

“Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other. You can’t spend a lifetime breathing down each other’s necks. We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger.” - Paul Newman

Dec 1

“Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other. You can’t spend a lifetime breathing down each other’s necks. We are very, very different people and yet somehow we fed off those varied differences and instead of separating us, it has made the whole bond a lot stronger.” - Paul Newman

(Source: anenlighteningellipses, via thatkindofwoman)

Nov 29

prettywar:

prettywar:

sensualfairytale:

Dior Couture by Patrick Demarchelier !

Snow White’s final showdown.

No seriously.

What if Snow White learned how to be a kickass homemaker as well as hunter and fighter in that little cottage in the woods.

And then she came back to the castle in a motherfucking ballgown, confronted and beat the everliving shit out of her stepmom; and reclaimed her rightful role as Queen.

Where’s that movie? Kill Bill fairy tale couture.

"1. Run away to Brooklyn. Rent an apartment with a claw footed bathtub. Commute to Manhattan during the week and put in hours at a menial publishing job. Drive home to New Jersey on weekends to swim in the pool and cry to your mother. Smoke Gauloises on the fire escape. Let yellowing issues of Rolling Stone and Vogue pile into a protective fortress around your bed. Listen to Cat Power. Fall asleep mostly naked beneath the duvet watching Sportscenter and drinking earl grey. Date a Yankees fan and kiss his hands on the 4 Train into the Bronx. 2. Run away to Barcelona. Eat milk chocolate magnum bars and drink cheap champagne. Burst into charming fits of laughter whenever you get embarrassed about butchering the Catalan language. Wear denim cutoffs, Dr. Pepper chapstick, and very little else. Go dancing at 3 a.m. Whiten your teeth. Tan your shoulders. Braid feathers into your hair. Perpetually wake up with sand caught in the thin cotton sheets of your tiny bed. Listen to the Rolling Stones and kiss all the longhaired boys you can get your hands on without ever having to apologize. 3. Run away to Los Angeles. Sublet a studio in Venice three blocks from the beach. Listen to top 40 radio. Go to Chateau Marmont and charge drinks you can’t afford to a long-dormant credit card. Sleep with a television actor who lives in the valley. Sleep with a musician who lives in Bel Air. Break things off with both of them when gas prices begin to rise. Find Gilda Radner’s star on the Walk Of Fame and swallow a sob when you see the filthy cement around her name is cracked. Walk through the Venice Canals until the sun sets and you forget your own name. Call your mother crying from the parking lot of a 24-hour Ralph’s supermarket. Tell her you want to come home. 4. Run away to Paris. Gaze at the pink and pistachio glow of macarons in the window on Boulevard Saint-Germain. Listen to Joni Mitchell. Meet an Argentinean man in the Latin Quarter for drinks. Melt into his accent and kiss him goodnight, but return to your apartment alone because his face doesn’t look enough like the man’s you are trying to forget. Get lost in the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre, admiring Napoleon’s fine red damask. Walk alone along the Seine in an old dress, ten-dollar shoes, and an Hermes scarf. Fumble with the locks on the fence overlooking the river. They all have lovers’ names etched into them and the girl who left the red heart-shaped lock has the same name as you. 5. Run away to Martha’s Vineyard. Write heartbroken stories during the day in front of a large fan that blows curls of humid hair across your tired face. Take a waitress job at The Black Dog at night and try hard not to drop too many trays. Learn to ride a moped. Pretend you’re a Kennedy. Listen to Carly Simon. Eat hand-churned ice cream out of waffle cones. Visit the flying horses and consider how many girls just like you have sat on the same horse clutching for the same brass ring. Get stoned and dance barefoot down the length of the eroded Jaws beach. Date a Red Sox fan. Yell at each other during baseball games, and then kiss and make up between tangled sheets."

5 Fantasy Exit Strategies « Thought Catalog

All of the above?

(via kellywebb)

(Source: 472239364, via cessamarie)

Nov 29