Thanks For Nothing

Neil banging out the tunes in Kid Pix Deluxe 4??

ok for some reason when i reblogged this the formatting of the poem got all skwunched up. im pretty inexperienced on tumblr so idk why that happened but im gonna reblog this again soon with proper formatting

“1. “…and your mother said ‘Happy birthday. I am sorry to inform you that everyone you love is dead’” Explain, with reference to Sylvia Plath’s first suicide attempt and subsequent admittance to hospital, the relevance of the quote above to your childhood, when, upon seeing the brilliant blue of a butterfly’s wings—(10 marks) 2. Should a poet’s work be enjambed or read in sequence? Examinees are encouraged to utilise essay structure and one reference to Walt Whitman in their answer.(5 marks) 3. There’s stardust in our eyes and laughter on our lips, Over and over again the orchestra plays our last dance: Amor, amor, amor—(10 marks) 4. They saw that post you made last night, when you thought they had gone to sleep and you could let the hurt bleed. Give up. It’s over. You’re over. A person who has feelings is a ruined person unless they keep their mouth shut - which is exactly what you didn’t do. (5 marks) 5. I hold stars for the gods, their flashing eyes are nebulae, colours blooming against the universe; their council is the companion of beauty and destruction. The moirai, with their pale fingers, trace my body, as cold and unfeeling as porcelain, each brush a calculation and every new line a fate thrown into existence. They cut my golden hairs one by one; there is no string of fate, destinies are written in my stars— (10 marks) 6. “You trace my scars like you could brush them away and wipe the blood from my mouth as if it would remove the wounds on my lips.” Discuss this statement, with evidence cited from the decline of the relationship between Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to support your conclusion. (5 marks) 7. “Now the sky is still heartbreakingly blue. It’s a blue that lovers kiss under, in the cooling summer air, the kind that drags itself across the skin of my body and leaves a trail of goose bumps to hint at its existence. It’s so quiet I can hear the radio playing somewhere. It’s singing about people, and about feelings… feelings about people. It’s warbling words of love and murdering us with words edged like an axe. It’s crooning the song of death.” Do you agree? (20 marks) 8.Cassandra was gone long before her death, murmuring words, and words, and words; and her mind falling as Apollo watched her beauty heighten in her madness, and the truth will always be madness, but when she died with screams on her lips, she could not help but be satisfied with her choice, though it may never have been hers, because she cannot be her own person any more than you can stand to keep away from blades, do you understand please do you understand—(10 marks) 9. Is opinion a requirement for literature? Are you? (15 marks) 10. If, at 5 A.M. on a Monday morning I still haven’t slept and countless cups of coffee have cooled in my hands, but I’m still reaching for your number in my phone even after you told me “never again”: (i) Explain why the French Revolution was an amalgamation of poor leadership, economic troubles and enlightened thinking, making sure to provide sufficient illustration of the dramatic irony and use of paradox used by the authors of the nightmare you had two hours ago every night but never wake from. (ii) Draw the colour of your soul. (10 marks) — BONUS QUESTIONS: Shouldn’t you have learnt by now? (25 marks) Death won’t get an A on your exam. (25 marks) If I don’t exist, how do I know about me? (25 marks)Please? (25 marks) — All working must be demonstrated. All questions must be answered. Illegibility will be penalised.”

— standard exam, E.C.

The New Republic

Trump Wants Snitches to Report on DEI. There’s Just One Problem.

Donald Trump wants people to expose diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the federal government. The idea is already flopping.

The threat was loud and clear: Report your so-called “DEI” employees or else. What exactly “DEIA or similar ideologies” means is up in the air, but the message was out there. And so was the email address of the DEIA snitching hotline. Fake emails quickly started to roll in. ‘I don’t care, fuck these McCarthyite bastards,” one BlueSky user said, with an screenshot attached of an email to the hotline where he ironically reported Donald Trump and JD Vance for being “put in their positions solely because of their race and/or gender despite the fact that they are wholly unqualified for their jobs and, in some cases, have criminal records.” “Anyone have a script to fire off a billion e-mails an hour??” another user asked in the replies. “Anyone can email anything of any size even if it crashes the site,” one X user noted. The scope and effectiveness of this latest phase of Trump’s anti-DEI crusade remains to be seen.

search history, 1:11 am - 1:39 am

if i go through withdrawals when a person doesn’t talk to me as much is that a sign of love?

what do i do when all of my connections feel fleeting or flimsy on my end, even those i have with my own mother?

what does it mean when i sit by the phone waiting for them to respond?

i fantasize that every kind stranger i meet has secretly fallen in love with me, am i lonely?

do i lose value as a potential partner if i cannot feel sexual pleasure?

is it wrong to feel devastated that i am doomed to be a temporary fixture in my best friends life?

i haven’t been able to feel romantic love in years, did something inside of me break?

when will i cease to exist in a constant state of catabolic mayhem?

when a caterpillar is inside the chrysalis, does it dream?

is living vicariously through romance between fictional characters a valid coping mechanism?

what do i do if ive become so disconnected from myself that ive even lost understanding of what my sexuality is?

i could easily kill myself right now and that doesn’t really scare me, is this a bad sign?

how do i die metaphorically, and be born anew literally?

is my relationship with the universe parasocial?

is my understanding of myself superficial?

is suicidality contagious?

is anyone out there?

Oh damn the Catholics have joined in on the war against AI "art".

I LOVE MY FRIENDS SO MUCH I'M JUST STUPID AND FORGET THAT FEELINGS NEED TO BE EXPRESSED IN ORDER FOR THEM TO BE FELT

stop instinctively calling people dude/bro/guy if you’re aware some people are made uncomfortable

your instincts are serving to harm your community and your defense of them as being applied equally feels like a cope when asked to confront your own androcentric bias. You should confront your bias without making these excuses, asking isn’t more considerate than adjusting your speech patterns.

i’m sorry that my comment made you upset, i was not trying to defend anything unsavory. i was giving an example of how i go about ensuring i am using language that makes the people i meet feel comfortable. allow me to explain my reasoning:

when i meet a new person that i am going to be around a lot, and i ask them about wether or not it’s okay to use dude and bro, i do this to try to personalize the language i use around that person to help them feel comfortable. i see this as being equivalent to asking what their pronouns are, or if they are sensitive to curse words, or if there are topics that they become uncomfortable around discussion of, like, for example, discussion of insects. i am actively taking an interest in their comfort.

i adjust my speech patterns from person to person based on what makes them happiest. that’s why i ask questions like “is dude okay? if it’s not that’s fine, i just always ask when i meet someone new.” if this was a stupid question to ask then i wouldn’t ask it and assume a “no,” but the thing is that of all the people in my life, only one person that i’ve asked has ever told me that it was not okay with the use of dude and bro. and i was fine with it, and we actually brainstormed other informal terms i could use when referring to it and all was well in the world. we were happy and it thanked me for checking.

i don’t intend to fully amputate a piece of myself when i can just as easily take the steps to preemptively check with those around me and put some beloved words away as needed. not everybody wants to hear bro. not everybody wants to hear fuck. and yet i am not psychic and cannot know who feels what way about which words unless i ask.

anyways, sorry that was long, but this is why i ask that question. now, if i may give you a little critique in return, saying that when quote “some people are made uncomfortable” with a word means that it should be permanently struck from my lexicon is wild. if i were to, as a blanket, avoid the use of every word that some people happen to dislike, then i would never be saying anything at all. of course the key word is “some.” if “some” is “most” then the word is gone. bye bye. but to believe we need to censor every word that some people happen to personally dislike is crazy work.

(just as a little disclaimer in case i didn’t make it clear, i say this about words like “shit” or “girliepop” or “moist”. not words with a harmful history, like slurs)

gift for @pb-s-corner.