st. catherine of siena drinking from christ's side wound
in a hagiography of st. catherine of siena, alsace, early 15th c.
source: Paris, BnF, ms. allem. 34, fol. 43v
« The obsessive fear of the Americans is that the lights might go out. […] In the tower blocks the empty offices remain lit. On the freeways, in broad daylight, the cars keep all their headlights on. In Palms Ave., Venice, California, a little grocery store […] leaves its orange and green neon sign flashing all night, into the void. And this is not to mention the television, with its 24-hour schedules, often to be seen functioning like an hallucination in the empty rooms of houses or vacant hotel rooms […].
There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. […] It is as if another planet is communicating with you. Suddenly the TV reveals itself for what it really is: a video of another world, ultimately addressed to no one at all, delivering its images indifferently […].
In short, in America the arrival of night-time or periods of rest cannot be accepted, nor can the Americans bear to see the technological process halted. Everything has to be working all the time, there has to be no let-up in man’s artificial power, and the intermittent character of natural cycles (the seasons, day and night, heat and cold) has to be replaced by a functional continuum that is sometimes absurd […].
You may seek to explain this in terms of fear […]. The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night. »
— Jean Baudrillard, America
Eroticism is simply one of the basic modes of human expression and the fact that it terrifies people who have built their lives out of repression and self denial is only more reason to make erotic art. They will not stop with their own lives, they want to punish anyone who doesn’t conform to the same standards of cruelty they heap on themselves. But of course it will not work. It has never worked before. Even under the most adverse conditions beauty has always found ways of flourishing. We refuse to hide or live in shame and fear. We will make beautiful that which they find repulsive.
“socrates: now consider the following. barkbarkbark”
my take on the books vs fanfic debate is that the written word was invented by the devil
Literally doing nothing in class today this rules
girls when they're addicted to loneliness and desperation it's the strongest emotion they have ever known so their subconscious tells them it's their destiny
sorry for acting gay the other night bro. I was compelled by the narrative
Jorts detransitioners that sew the pant legs back on