hibernating bear

laphamsquarterly: “I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime,” Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo. “So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house, by soft Louis XV green and malachite, contrasting with yellow-green and harsh blue-greens, and all this in an atmosphere like a devil’s furnace, of pale sulphur. And all with an appearance of Japanese gaiety, and the good nature of Tartarin.” On the shortest day of the year in 1888, Vincent Van Gogh was having a touch of the seasonal affective disorder while painting The Night Café in Arles. Colin Dickey writes about the winter solistice and its patron Saint Lucy in our latest Roundable post.  The Patron Saint of Dark Days [LQ Roundtable]

laphamsquarterly:

“I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime,” Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo. “So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house, by soft Louis XV green and malachite, contrasting with yellow-green and harsh blue-greens, and all this in an atmosphere like a devil’s furnace, of pale sulphur. And all with an appearance of Japanese gaiety, and the good nature of Tartarin.”

On the shortest day of the year in 1888, Vincent Van Gogh was having a touch of the seasonal affective disorder while painting The Night Café in Arles. Colin Dickey writes about the winter solistice and its patron Saint Lucy in our latest Roundable post. 

The Patron Saint of Dark Days [LQ Roundtable]

I know we’re not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don’t know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don’t care that we don’t.

—Dylan Thomas (via indefinablecharm)

historical-nonfiction: Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Cochran. She took the pseudonym when she became a female journalist for the New York World newspaper, which was slightly scandalous at the time. This was the age of ‘stunt’ journalism, and Bly’s first report was to be an exposé of a women’s lunatic asylum. Pretending to be demented, Bly was admitted and experienced the lot of the patients confined on the island. The food was rancid, the nurses brutal, and the asylum hardly fit for humans. The article she wrote was a breakthrough in investigative journalism, and led to reform for mental hospitals. Her next adventure was one that brought her worldwide fame. Nellie Bly took the challenge to go around the world in less than 180 days, as told by the famous book. She set out with a special passport signed by the Secretary of State, on November 14, 1889. Her voyage started in seasickness but would end in triumph. In France, she met Jules Verne, who thought she might manage the trip in 79 days, but never the 75 she hoped. Having steamed across seas, gone through the Suez Canal, seen Colombo and Aden, visited a Chinese leper colony and bought a Monkey, Bly made it back to New York in a time of 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes. (There was a contest to see who could guess how long it would take, and one lucky man was only three seconds off, taking the prize.)

historical-nonfiction:

Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Cochran. She took the pseudonym when she became a female journalist for the New York World newspaper, which was slightly scandalous at the time. This was the age of ‘stunt’ journalism, and Bly’s first report was to be an exposé of a women’s lunatic asylum. Pretending to be demented, Bly was admitted and experienced the lot of the patients confined on the island. The food was rancid, the nurses brutal, and the asylum hardly fit for humans. The article she wrote was a breakthrough in investigative journalism, and led to reform for mental hospitals. Her next adventure was one that brought her worldwide fame. Nellie Bly took the challenge to go around the world in less than 180 days, as told by the famous book. She set out with a special passport signed by the Secretary of State, on November 14, 1889. Her voyage started in seasickness but would end in triumph. In France, she met Jules Verne, who thought she might manage the trip in 79 days, but never the 75 she hoped. Having steamed across seas, gone through the Suez Canal, seen Colombo and Aden, visited a Chinese leper colony and bought a Monkey, Bly made it back to New York in a time of 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes. (There was a contest to see who could guess how long it would take, and one lucky man was only three seconds off, taking the prize.)

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.

—William Faulkner (via rarararambles)

The next time you try to seduce anyone, don’t do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.

—William Faulkner (via getonyourdancingsh0es)

picturesofwar: The last photo of Kim Jong-il released in his lifetime.

picturesofwar:

The last photo of Kim Jong-il released in his lifetime.

1960:  Cary Grant takes a Siamese cat for a walk outside his home.

1960:  Cary Grant takes a Siamese cat for a walk outside his home.

(Source: mattybing1025)

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
CBS

—12/20/42

picturesofwar:

CBS World News Today:

Covering the latest developments around the world concerning WWII.

Originally broadcast: December 20, 1942 - 69 years ago today

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free. It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people. This bastardized, one-eyed philosophy is a con trick, whose promoters attempt to wrong-foot justice by pitching it against liberty. By this means they have turned ‘freedom’ into an instrument of oppression.

—

George Monbiot

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

(via liberalsarecool)

(via liberalsarecool)

sarahwrotethat: climateadaptation: 100% accurate! I live in that pink area for “Hippies” and was born in “Republicans.” citymister: Accurate to an extent  I’d add a small but loud maroon dot in the east part of “Hippies”: UMASS BROS

sarahwrotethat:

climateadaptation:

100% accurate! I live in that pink area for “Hippies” and was born in “Republicans.”

citymister:

Accurate to an extent 

I’d add a small but loud maroon dot in the east part of “Hippies”: UMASS BROS

todaysdocument: On December 12, 1906 Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Roosevelt was awarded the prize for his work negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

todaysdocument:

On December 12, 1906 Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Roosevelt was awarded the prize for his work negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.

Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

(via foreignaffairsmagazine)