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Taste the World of Salt

@the-yodelling-muffin / the-yodelling-muffin.tumblr.com

I came out to attack people and I'm honestly having such a good time right now.

I keep seeing posts crossing my dash talking about the evolution of vampire archetypes in popular culture that end up giving Joss Whedon way too much credit because apparently no one on this site has ever seen The Lost Boys (1987).

I just remembered that this was a thing that was HILARIOUS in 2006 and apparently that was ten years ago now.

Old people: join with me in remembering how funny we found this on LiveJournal.

Young people: look at this lolrus, it’s so happy, it has a bucket.

And then they stealed away the bucket and we realised we had fucked up a perfectly good elephant seal and given it anxiety.

listen this vintage meme is high quality and i will hear nothing said against it

20 years. I am not happy about this.

“The Militarization of the Police Department – Deadly Farce,” an original painting by Richard Williams from “The 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2014″ in Mad magazine #531, published by DC Comics, February 2015.

Here’s the original, for comparison. And here’s a bit more about the artist and why he created the piece above for MAD Magazine.

Richard Williams on Norman Rockwell:

“For most people, he was the painter of ‘America,’” he added. “But even he said his vision was what he wanted ‘America’ to be. It was a mythical ‘America,’ a place where all people were decent, honest and full of good will. His work was full of gentle humor that made you feel a little better; even if you knew it wasn’t really true… you just wished it was. My parody of Rockwell’s painting simply says, ‘That myth is dead.’”

I think it’s relevant to add that even Norman Rockwell chose to leave his cushy job at the Saturday Evening Post because he wanted to make artwork that was more radical. The Post had rules that wouldn’t allow him to do artwork depicting black people as anything other than servants. The job paid really well and that was a huge reason he continued on. But he wanted change that and so he moved to Look magazine.

A lot of people know about the very first piece he did when he left the post which was the The Problem We All Live With which depicts Ruby Bridges walking to school under federal protection.

But I don’t think enough people know about Murder in Mississippi which depicts three real civil rights activists who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and sherriffs. The magazine ran the sketch instead of the finished piece because they felt it had a more striking statement to accompany the article. Norman Rockwell would finish that version after publication which is here

Rockwell’s legacy is sanitized because he decided to maintain his job at the Post for so long despite his frustrations with not being able to express himself. The civil rights movement was just his final straw to change what he could with the little time he had left. Look magazine received a lot of hate for Rockwell painting these as well.

Another favorite piece of mine is The Right to Know which depicts an integrated populace questioning their government. In 1968, the year of Vietnam and the year the Fair Housing Act only just got signed in months prior:

But I think it’s important to include the caption Rockwell originally wrote for the piece as well. I think it represents how a 74 year old Rockwell felt about the America he believed in and the people in it:

We are the governed, but we govern too. Assume our love of country, for it is only the simplest of self-love. Worry little about our strength, for we have our history to show for it. And because we are strong, there are others who have hope. But watch us more closely from now on, for those of us who stand here mean to watch those we put in the seats of power. And listen to us, you who lead, for we are listening harder for the truth that you have not always offered us. Your voice must be ours, and ours speaks of cities that are not safe, and of wars we do not want, of poor in a land of plenty, and of a world that will not take the shape our arms would give it. We are not fierce, and the truth will not frighten us. Trust us, for we have given you our trust. We are the governed, remember, but we govern too.

I’d just like to briefly say even Rockwell’s seemingly feel good Americana pieces are often more political than people today realize for example

likely the most famous picture of a Thanksgiving dinner ever painted and you see it all the time.

What you may not know is its actual title

“Freedom From Want” it’s a part of a series of 4, including this now famous meme

“Freedom of Speech” These paintings were illustrations of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech where The President laid out a vision that would become what the Allies were fighting for in WWII universal human rights that became a part of the UN charter.

So this homey American Thanksgiving scene was also a bold statement that no one in the world should go hungry

Rockwell’s work was very political, he used that Americana small town America vibe of his work to make what he was saying feel very close to the viewers he was trying to reach and also his optimism of the human spirt but for sure not blind to the need to build a better world.

when I was a little kid at some point I got upset with my parents because I didn't have a crucifix in my bedroom and they did- I was like why do YOU get to be safe from vampires??? you're okay with me getting my blood sucked???? so we took a little trip to the catholic store but the one closest to us was run by a group of nuns that had been moved here from romania. I got a little baby pink cross and this sweet old nun was like 'aww, is this a baptism gift?' and I was like no. I need to be protected from vampires. and she immediately got SO serious and was like 'this is the best one we've got, you'll definitely be safe' and since she was literally from vampire land I was convinced she was like, van helsing. like the whole time my parents had been laughing about how cute my fear was but she literally Knew dracula and was taking my concerns seriously I held this over my parents for so long lmfao

listen she may have just been humoring you but even my limited experience with Romanian nuns has taught me that there is one thing they are absolutely dead serious about and it is their multi-generational fear of vampires

mold pisses me off so much

oh you have to eat your produce the moment it leaves the store or the fuckin Hungering Dust will get it. and. poison your food

I ran into this post years ago and to be honest, it has completely reoriented the way I engage with food.

Like. I’ve always sorta understood that things grow moldy or stale or sour or such if left out, but I never really internalized it in a meaningful way.

But now I’m just like.

Yeah. The hungering dust. There exists omnivorous dust in the air that will eat my food if I don’t.

Those bagels have been sitting there for a week. Are we going to eat them soon or are we leaving them for the hungering dust?

Pizza’s been sitting out on the counter for an hour. Everyone’s enjoying the pizza, but if we don’t want “everyone” to include the hungering dust then we should probably put it away soon.

That’s just. That’s how food works to me now. There exists an invisible predator in the air that hungers for your yummies, and it will not hesitate to eat your food if you don’t make the effort to protect and preserve it. And eat what can’t be preserved before the dust can.

Life-changing.

always pissed off to see people acting like there’s any coherent amount of possibility that luigi mangione wasn’t framed. when you look at the “evidence,” the way in which it was gathered, the timeframe between the crime that’s being pinned on him up to his arrest, and the methodical way in which the actual claims adjuster did everything possible to leave no evidence (contrasted with the allegation that mangione just simply had a manifesto and confession on his person, which we are simply supposed to believe because the pigs say so), this is like the most obviously framed man in history. “even if he did it i want to see him acquitted” well. he didn’t do it. hope that helps.

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