“1/4? Really? Who writes a measure of ¼. WHY would you write a measure of ¼?” “Because fuck you that’s why.”
“I will literally trade you my sandwich for that practice room.” “Dude you should eat your lunch.” “I won’t be able to eat it if my teacher decapitates me for not practicing JUST TAKE IT.”
“I always wanted to look inside the percussion room. It’s like Narnia, but noisier.”
“Satan created piccolos to punish the trumpets for their pride.”
“I’m thinking about dropping music history.” “But why, don’t you need that class?” “Yes but half of it is non-music majors and two people were having a discussion about why there were hashtags at the beginning of the music.”
“So my teacher convinced me to take the History of Rock and Roll over the Summer but it was an online course and he found the webcam filters and inevitably the first unit ended up being taught by a talking dinosaur on my webcam. This man teaches college theory.”
“SHH. Don’t say the theory teacher’s name. He’s like Beetlejuice. If you say it three times he’ll appear behind you and fuck your shit up.”
“I found out Mozart had a butt fetish and I’m never going to be able to stop calling him Mozfart.”
“If I see a drink within 100 feet of that Steinway I will track you down and beat you with my harpsichord.”
“Theres no way a tuba can fit in that tiny ass locker.” “Not with that attitude.”
~somebody accidentally slams the piano keys with the backpack~ “Same.”
“It’s just simple stomps and claps.” “I’m a SINGER. If I could stomp and clap don’t you think I’d be SOMETHING ELSE?!”
“It’s a simple repetition.” “You’re a simple repetition.” “Shut the fuck up.”
A loaf of bread made in the first century AD, which was discovered at Pompeii, preserved for centuries in the volcanic ashes of Mount Vesuvius. The markings visible on the top are made from a Roman bread stamp, which bakeries were required to use in order to mark the source of the loaves, and to prevent fraud. (via Ridiculously Interesting)
(sigh) I’ve seen these before, but this one’s particularly beautiful.
I feel like I’m supposed to be marveling over the fact that this is a loaf of bread that’s been preserved for thousands of years, and don’t get me wrong, that’s hella cool. But honestly, I’m mostly struck by the unexpected news that “bread fraud” was apparently once a serious concern.
Bread Fraud was a huge thing, Bread was provided to the Roman people by the government – bakers were given grain to make the free bread, but some of them stole the government grain to use in other baked goods and would add various substitutes, like sawdust or even worse things, to the bread instead. So if people complained that their free bread was not proper bread, the stamp told them exactly whose bakery they ought to burn down.
Bread stamps continued to be used at least until the Medieval period in Europe. Any commercially sold bread had to be stamped with an official seal to identify the baker to show that it complied with all rules and regulations about size, price, and quality. This way, rotten or undersized loaves could be traced back to the baker. Bakers could be pilloried, sent down the streets in a hurdle cart with the offending loaf tied around their neck, fined, or forbidden to engage in baking commercially ever again in that city. There are records of a baker in London being sent on a hurdle cart because he used an iron rod to increase the weight of his loaves, and another who wrapped rotten dough with fresh who was pilloried. Any baker hurdled three times had to move to a new city if they wanted to continue baking.
If you have made bread, you are probably familiar with a molding board. It’s a flat board used to shape the bread. Clever fraudsters came up with a molding board that had a little hole drilled into it that wasn’t easily noticed. A customer would buy his dough by weight, and then the baker would force some of that dough through the hole, so they could sell and underweight loaf and use the stolen dough to bake new loafs to sell. Molding boards ended up being banned in London after nine different bakers were caught doing this. There were also instances of grain sellers withholding grain to create an artificial scarcity drive up the price of that, and things like bread.
Bread, being one of the main things that literally everyone ate in many parts of the world, ended up with a plethora of rules and regulations. Bakers were probably no more likely to commit fraud than anyone else, but there were so many of them, that we ended up with lots and lots of rules and records of people being shifty.
Check out Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony by Madeleine Pelner Cosman for a whole chapter on food laws as they existed in about 1400. Plus the color plates are fantastic.
ALL OF THIS IS SO COOL
I found something too awesome not share with you!
I’m completely fascinated by the history of food, could I choose a similar topic for my Third Year Dissertation? Who knows, but it is very interesting all the same!
Bread fraud us actually where the concept of a bakers dozen came from. Undersized rolls/loaves/whatever were added to the dozen purchased to ensure that the total weight evened out so the baker couldn’t be punished for shorting someone.
[wants to talk about bread fraud laws and punishments]
I have seen many great men, and known countless honors. But the greatest honor of this ancient and tired soul has been the privilege of fighting beside you, and calling you my friend.
‘American Gods’ Casts Its Shadow: ‘The 100’ Actor Ricky Whittle to Play Lead Role in Starz TV Adaptation
“American Gods,” Starz’s TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s beloved fantasy novel, has cast Ricky Whittle in the lead role of Shadow Moon, the premium cabler announced Thursday.
The series posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs…”
Years ago I once mentioned to a coworker at a theatre where I was interning that my boss was bi (he was out, I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t) and she said “Oh! He sometimes shops at the other market!”
I almost fell over laughing at the expression, and I reported the conversation to my mum later. She picked it up and would joke about it for like, YEARS after. It became a running joke in our family, the expression “He shops at the other market.”
This ended up being REALLY funny about five years later when we were trying to find a grocery store on a family road trip and ended up buying what we needed from a grocery store with a big sign out front reading BI-MART. We pulled into the parking lot and I leaned over to my mother and said, “This is the other market he shops at.”
OK someone write me a fic where Steve uses some of these in conversation and nobody figures it out until someone (Natasha?) has a Classic Movies marathon. (you’re fond of your mother? um, me too? I ought to warn you that hitchhiking isn’t as safe as it used to be, by the way. OH, THE POSSIBILITIES FOR CONVERSATIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS.)
Asexuality is OFFICIALLY not a disorder, according to the APA.
The images above are from the DSM-5, which is the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM-5 is a really important book. It is used by doctors and mental health care providers around the world to diagnose mental disorders.
The DSM-5 explicitly and clearly recognizes asexuality, and says that if a person is asexual, that they should not be diagnosed with Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder or Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder.
This book says that you are valid, your feelings are real, and that you do not have a disorder because you feel this way.
Anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
They do not know what they are talking about. You can point them at this book as proof that they are wrong.
Full Reference:
On page 434, in the section on Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder (302.72), at the end of the “Diagnostic Features”, it reads:
If a lifelong lack of sexual desire is better explained by one’s self-identification as “asexual”, then a diagnosis of female sexual interest/arousal disorder would not be made.
On page 443, in the section on Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (302.71), at the end of the “Differential Diagnosis”, it reads:
If the man’s low desire is explained by self-identification as an asexual, then a diagnosis of male hypoactive sexual desire disorder is not made.
Being recognized by mainstream psychology, which often overlooks marginalized groups, is fantastic.
And at the center of it all: Chocolate. Chocolate as a discourse on imperialism. Chocolate as a metaphor for sex. Chocolate magnifying the difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation. Chocolate as currency. Chocolate as power. Oh, Tremontaine is an adventure, and at least two love stories, too — but it’s also a savvy commentary on the economics and ethics of cultural exchange. Kaab is a woman of color, hailing from a people of color, from a land far away, where chocolate is crafted and exported to a nation of people the color of ant-eggs who bastardize the Kinwiinik’s sacred preparation and consider their sugared up, creamed up version of the drink the height of sophistication. It’s not just an entertaining series; it’s an incisive cultural critique.
Well, and the gayness: One thing most of these writers of have in common is that their previously published works all give prominence to queer characters in worlds where being queer is a non-issue. The same is true of Tremontaine, where every love story is between men who love men, or women who love women, or men and women who love both men and women. The sex is good fun, but the romance is deliriously well-written. Such aching and longing and pining and promises (amid cups and cups of chocolate!).
Kimchi and Justice 