Follow @gavinthomson Gavin Thomson
 06.4.2012 

Rufus’ cover of Leonard’s song about Janis. Some really great people. Some very sad thoughts.

You told me again you preferred handsome men 

but for me you would make an exception. 

And clenching your fist for the ones like us 

who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, 

you fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind, 

we are ugly but we have the music.”  

 05.28.2012 
Images from Google street view. Have plugged it before, but it really is very good.

Images from Google street view. Have plugged it before, but it really is very good.

google street view google images 
 05.26.2012 

INTERNET!! things I’ve found recently.

  • Things banned in Leviticus. Really interesting. Really mental.
  • Great article on why cupcakes are so in right now, the fetishisation of them, and how they have come to identify femininity. Bad times. (Recommended by Imogen).
  • Just a reminder that loads of episodes of Cracker - pretty much the best programme ever - are on YouTube.
  • Great events listing, for those in London that like dirt and digging.
  • ‘Mandated Femininity’, on the kinds of women, and kinds of femininity allowed (and the kinds that very much aren’t allowed) in many feminists discussions and spaces. Totally worth reading (even the comments!), especially if, like me, you’re a cis male swimming in privilege. 

dirt london privilege leviticus cupcakes environment 
 05.24.2012 
 05.20.2012 
“Language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s intentions; it is populated –overpopulated– with the intentions of others. Expropriating I, forcing it to submit to one’s own intentions and accents, is a difficult and complicated process… As a living, socio-ideological concrete thing, as heteroglot opinion, language, for the individual consciousness, lies on the borderline between oneself and the other… The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes one’s “own” only when the speaker populates it with his own intentions, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. Prior to this moment of appropriation, the word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language… but rather it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions; it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own.”

from Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992). via @HollyNoir.

One must take the word, and make it one’s own.

 05.6.2012 
“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
from Hawking’s Brief History of Time. Seems like this anecdote may be rather famous, but it has passed me by until today. ‘It’s turtles all the way down’. What an utterly lovely phrase.
 05.5.2012 

Put onto this lovely noise by Ryan, from a forthcoming record inspired by the Orkney islands. This story crops up. It’s fascinating. Listen to the noise, read them words. 

 05.3.2012 
The story behind this photo is the most interesting thing you’ll read today.

The story behind this photo is the most interesting thing you’ll read today.

 03.29.2012 
“A young poet should realize that if he writes something and it bores him, it’s going to bore many other people also. There is nothing wrong with poetry that is entertaining and easy to understand. Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way. He should stay the hell out of writing classes and find out what’s happening around the corner. And bad luck for the young poet who has a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well.”
Charles Bukowski
 03.14.2012 

One of the best speeches I’ve ever heard. At a huge rally for the Living Wage NYC campaign. Sorry for poor audio.
In less than 5 minutes, these Pentecostals redress negative stereotypes of their denomination, explain the need for a huge umbrella of worker solidarity, tell a wee cross-faith story which unites everyone and illustrates their message. And it’s to a massive audience. And it’s in two languages. And it’s funny!

Really succinct, captivating stuff.

We’re not gonna stand for less straw and more bricks. just fyi.