Thepretentiousacademic - Quality And Beauty In The Everyday

Fuck, these are good.

EMMA. (2020) dir. Autumn de Wilde

You ever see a pretty dress, a well-organised notebook, a peculiar balcony or read one line of poetry and get the overwhelming urge to reinvent yourself

THIS IS THE CUTEST

One of the most memorable interactions was Saturday. Into our booth strolls a small family, tempted by free samples of freshly brewed tea. We chatter and give them the spiel, that the tea is character merch and we’re a cozy health-based app called Forage Friends.

The young girl zeroes in on our pride pins.

“They have my pin!” She says excitedly. “They have my flag!”

The dad blinks. He is surprised, but also calm and positive when he sees it’s the lesbian flag. “Oh. That’s… different from what you told me.”

“That was months ago, dad.” And she rolls her eyes. Definitely a teenager.

I turn to him and say, “Yeah, dad.” And we share a little laugh about it.

He says, “No, it’s great. That’s amazing, honey. It was just news to me.”

“Well, I guess I just decided to stop lying to myself. About liking guys. Like right now.”

A little lesbian just came out to her dad and he was super cool about it.

I’m standing there in my tie-dye mask and my cheery blue apron pouring tea and making small talk and I’m trying really hard not to cry or compare it to my experience, the fire & brimstone, the disgust, the conditional acceptance as long as I never bring it up.

So as this beautiful bonding is going on, the girl’s even younger brother turns his gaze around. He’s in a snorlax hoodie and bored and wants to go look at the swords across the hall. But on the other side of our booth….

“WHY DO PEOPLE DRAW THAT?” He asks loudly, and we all turn to our neighboring booth.

Our neighbors were extremely lovely people. Every time we had a break we would talk, and we became good friends over the weekend. They kept apologizing that their booth was next to ours and we kept repeating that it was totally fine. Their booth was great. I even bought their merchandise.

The thing that was so contentious, that they felt the need to apologize for, was that they were selling explicit titty hentai stickers of popular characters. They were censored with little yellow R18 labels but the content was very clear.

So back to the family: I freeze and immediately go somewhere else to let dad handle this question. With adult customers I’ve been loud and positive about our neighbors. (“Man, how has it been boothing next to them?” It’s been great! They bring a lot of foot traffic and they’re kind and wonderful professional neighbors. If anything it’s a fun juxtaposition. We believe in artistic freedom. I bought a sticker too!)

But this is a kid, it’s not my place to explain anything…. But I was extremely curious about what this chill dad would say.

“Well,” dad says with a long measured silence between each word. “Sometimes people are horny.”

All sarcasm aside, this is exactly the stuff that keeps me from deleting Tumblr.

Heckin fascinating.

my internal monologue when Ancient Egypt is mentioned: [don't talk about imhotep and the first codified diagnostic manual. the fact you know so much about it is deeply weird and nobody cares about medicine that much]

Some well nice winter sunlight caught in the kitchen this evening, a reflection created by someone opening their window in a high-rise half a mile away. At times like these london feels so deeply interconnected

Norway

© R. Söthje

Libraries are so dreamy, New York Public Library is no exception 🕯

Monica Bellucci on the set of Briganti – Amore e libertà (1994)