I Used To Be So Good At Writing Strong, Thoroughly-researched, Thoroughly-edited Essays.

Just remembered that by completing the puzzles in portal you're actively having sex with glados. That was crazy

Smintheus, the mouse god of plagues, feels bad after making people sick in the Iliad

"my apollocheese"

That my FRIENDS were reading at lunch in high school. out loud. To each other. I was also there

"someone should just put me down. sexual style. like what george and lennie had."

-- @cleverlittlekobold 11/10/2024

nothing could prepare you for the opening of the second paragraph (source)

Reblog and put in the tags how you would die if your URL predicted your death

Saw "Ye Gods" and couldn't resist... how wretched 'twould be to render a Shakespearified Steamed Hams...

Julius Caesar, Act 1

"here, life is beautiful." (Spoilers for Cabaret, on Broadway and the West End)

Leave your troubles outside! So - life is disappointing? Forget it! We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful.

~ Emcee, Willkommen, from Cabaret

Let's unpack these lines, shall we?

leave your troubles outside!

Escapism; ignorance is bliss.

we have no troubles here!

So long as you are here, there are no problems to worry about!

So why not stay awhile? After all, what good is sitting alone in your room?

here, life is beautiful.

Life is beautiful here in our little cabaret.

Life outside the cabaret is ugly.

so why not stay awhile?

When those are all added together by the end of Cabaret, what do we get?

The Kit Kat Club is a place for people to engage in escapism. While you're in the Kit Kat Club, you have nothing to worry about, especially your worries outside. After all, in here, life is beautiful. Why bother worrying about the people who can't afford, can't find, or otherwise cannot access this beautiful little Club of ours? They aren't here, where life is beautiful, they are outside, where life must be ugly.

See where this leads?

It divides us just like the titular Kit-Kat; split in twain. There is no glory, no love of life in the line "life is beautiful" within Cabaret. It is the vessel by which we see one of many possible messages:

fascism is able to invade our lives by our proclivity for escapism.

and, simultaneously,

fascism can seduce us all into not noticing the damage that it does, by glorifying and beautifying itself.

To celebrate the show by reveling in the sexiness of it is to miss the point; you are using it as escapism. The London and now Broadway production literally showcases how everyone is slowly seduced by imagery: from the Emcee's swastika-inspired dance at the top of show, and his old war helmet in Money Money, to the very attractive and flashy dances we see performed by the beautiful Cabaret girls and boys (and "even the orchestra is beautiful!") This is the exact point. The sexiness and imagery is used to distract us from folks like Ernst Ludwig, who weaponize information and identity to divide and conquer. Neon.

I had to unfollow some old friends because they have seen this show twice and that was all they came away with. But any time I try to talk with them, they shove me off, like I'm taking things to seriously. I hope this is useful to someone. That is all. Yes, life is beautiful; but it is only as beautiful as we defend it. Life is beautiful in that it is lived, and lived deeply, by truly perceiving it.

"We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces."

~ Lady Bracknell, The Importance of Being Earnest

But how much longer can we live in such an age? And how much longer do you want to? Do we want to live only as far as we can touch and see at first touch, first glance?

People who talk about what population density is necessary to "justify" a rail system are wrong but they're wrong in the opposite way from how they think. Even in Japan which has more than twice the population density of China the rail system is not profitable. JR makes most of its profit by operating malls and collecting rent from vendors. If you blindly follow profit instead of considering the broader social benefits the result will always be putting your rail system into a death spiral of rationalization. Stop expecting public transport to turn a profit that's not what it exists for.