I just need everyone to know how much I really, really, REALLY hate Aristotle.
And there are three kinds of hatred for Aristotle, the first being visceral, so called because it rises from the intestines and through the middle of a person, yet never wanes nor increases but remains constant; and the second is called passive, and this occurs when a scholar or reader comes upon the works of Aristotle by chance, without seeking them out of their own volition, but rather confronted with them unexpectedly as a man set upon by bandits along a lonely road, but this sort of anger passes quickly; but indeed the third is active, and this occurs when a person seeks out Aristotle with the particular intention of becoming choleric; this sort of person seeks out the works of Aristotle wherever they may be found so that they might read them and thereby conjure up some bilious reason to cast invective and rebuke upon his theories and observations, and this anger is kept by its possessor at a boil.
“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.”
Me (drunk in a practice room at 3am because I wanted to see how it felt to play trombone when I can’t feel my face. Also, I’m slamming the piano keys with my forearms): FUCK YOU I’M HENRY COWELL
“I think the actors have been shortcutting through here again; I smell booze”
“what the fuck even is 5/4?″ “Mission: The Impossible Theme”
“radio feedback is absolutely a valid instrument” “spoken like a composition major”
“Help my fist is stuck in the tuba!”
And my personal favourite:
-Awful noise-
“What was that!?” “My hopes and dreams of making it in the industry.”
Not allowed to challenge anyone’s disbelief of his spots by making them dance
Not allowed to add “In accordance with the prophesy” to the end of reports involving Captain Carrot
Not allowed to form any militia
Not allowed to train adopted dogs to “kiss Carrot!”
May not call Lord Vetinari immoral, untrustworthy, lying slime even if he’s right
Not allowed to ask for the day off due to religious purposes, on the basis that the world is going to end, more than once
The proper response to a lawful order is not “Why?”
The following words and phrases may not be used in a cadence- Budding sexuality, necrophilia, so I was just trying on this lingery, sexual lubrication, barking up Carrot’s tree, slut puppy, or any references to squid
May not make posters depicting the leadership failures of Sergeant Colon
He is in need of a more suitable host body
A smiley face is not used to mark a minefield
The Tanty is not filled with yummy candy, and it is wrong to tell new prisoners that it is
Cannot arrest children for being rude
Shouting “Let’s burn the village! Let’s burn the whole fucking village!” is bad
We do not “charge into battle, naked, like the Barbarian Boys at the Mended Drum”
We also do not sidle naked.
We especially do not mention the time Captain Vimes had to leave the Mended Drum naked because it didn’t happen, did it, Nobby?
Should not confess to crimes that took place before during his employment
the thing about writing fantasy stories is that language is so based on history that it can be hard to decide how far suspension of disbelief can carry you word-choice wise – what do you call a french braid in a world with no france? can a queen ann neckline be described if there was no queen ann? where do you draw the line? can you use the word platonic if plato never existed? can you name a character chris in a land without christianity? can you even say ‘bungalow’ in a world where there was no indian language for the word to originate from? is there a single word in any language that doesn’t have a story behind it? to be accurate a fantasy story would be written in a fantasy language but who has the time for that
Tolkien had the time apparently
LIsten. Linguistics Georg, who invented over 10,000 conlangs each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
So I’ve been listening to an audiobook of Moby Dick in my downtime, and omg this book is weird. Like prepare yourself for it being super racist, but it’s also intensely gay??? The main character gets gay married to his Pacific Islander roomie like the night after he meets him???? Also I just got to the part with Captain Ahab and omg he is so Extra™ like he actually throws his pipe overboard because it doesn’t fit with his ~*~aesthetic~*~ Let me tell you Great American Literature is wild
UPDATE in this chapter the narrator can’t shut up about how hot his particular friend boyfriend Queequeg is and describes in loving detail how they’re tied together by this rope while he holds Queequeg over the side of the boat (actually he says “wedded,” WEDDED, i ask you) and he’s never felt more intimate with another human being in his life
JUST WHALERS BEING BROS
FURTHER FUCKING UPDATE OH MY GOD
okay so item 1: this book recently went from “somewhat racist at brief intervals” to “let’s have a whole chapter of unremitting racism” so like. be aware of that if you ever plan on reading this? it was not fun times
ITEM TWO
Y’ALL.
There is a whole chapter about Our Hero holding hands with his fellow whalers.
WHILE THEY MASSAGE WHALE SPERM.
I could not make this shit up. Here it is, in all its slimy glory, Chapter 94: A Squeeze of the Hand –
“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”
THIS IS THE GAYEST THING I’VE EVER READ. MELVILLE IS LEGITIMATELY JUST TAUNTING ME NOW. HE’S CREEPILY ROLLING HIS LITTLE WHALER HANDS IN WHALE SPERM AND DARING ME TO SAY SOMETHING WHILE I JUST STAND THERE WITH MY FUCKING JAW ON THE FLOOR. THIS BISEXUAL ADMITS DEFEAT. I HAVE BEEN OUTFLANKED BY HERMAN FUCKING MELVILLE AND HIS GAY-ASS WHALE SPERM
FINAL. FUCKING. UPDATE.
this is what i said to @manicpanic88 earlier today, so naïvely: i said, “Meville is straight up thirsty for whales.” I added, “This man truly wants to fuck a whale.”
Let me be clear (and by the way SPOILERS up to antepenultimate chapter of the book follow this parenthetical): I am now on chapter one hundred thirty-something and we have only just now found the whale. Like. This book has been one hundred and thirty chapters of Real Nantucket Whale Thirst™ and almost no actual (Moby) Dick, do you get me? You out there who like pining fic, THIS BOOK IS THE ULTIMATE. Melville did it first, but GAYER, and WITH WHALES.
Anyway so this whole book everyone who has seen or even heard about Moby Dick is like “whoa my sweet fancy aunts, don’t go lookin’ for that there whippersnapper” (this is my attempt at imitating Melville’s weird imitation of a Nantucket accent, it’s not going well for me but it didn’t go well for him either), “whoa, THAT’S A BAD FISH, I heard he took someone’s head clean off / killed his twelve best mates / blew up a ship with the power of his LASER FLUKES!!” i mean no one actually says “laser flukes” but THIS IS THE LEVEL OF BADNESS WE ARE DEALING WITH. THIS IS NOT A NICE WHALE. YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE THIS WHALE HOME TO MEET YOUR PARENTS AT SPRING BREAK, HE WILL DRINK ALL YOUR BEER AND LEAVE THE HOUSE SOMEHOW FULL OF DOG POOP, WHILE IT IS ALSO ON FIRE.
and yet.
here is what Melville has to say about this bad motherfucker when we finally, finally see him for the very first time:
“A gentle joyousness – a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.”
RAVISHED EUROPA. STRAIGHT FOR THE NUPTIAL BOWER. WE GET IT, HERMAN. WE GET IT. YOU WANNA FUCK A WHALE. YOU WROTE A WHOLE ENTIRE BOOK ABOUT WANTING TO FUCK THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WHITE WHALE IN THE WORLD, WHO PROBABLY ALSO HAS PURPLE EYES AND PUTS ITS FLUKES UP WHEN SOME PREPS STARE AT HIM. WE GET IT.
I started thinking absently about Steve Rogers’ jogging route during my run today and then i couldn’t STOP thinking about it because there’s literally NO WAY it makes sense unless you accept that he is specifically fucking up his entire morning routine to get another look at the cute boy he clocked on his run. I got home and started to make a post about it but it was like
so you’re just going to have to trust me
Enough people asked me to Get Into This that, you know what, fine. Let’s get into it. Under the cut please enjoy my doctoral dissertation, There Is No Carol In HR, or Captain America Is a Big Ol’ Creep and I Can Prove It with Maps.
Kimchi and Justice 