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- You were born on a ship at sea. No one survived the wreck but you. Or so you’ve been told.
- Your father has been dead for months, and your mother has remarried. He still comes to dinner every night and sits in his usual chair. Nobody can see him but you.
- Your last lover disappeared. They told you she died, but they never let you see the body. The statue in the churchyard looks just like her.
- Your pale white hands are stained with red. You wash them and wash them and wash them, but they will never be clean.
- You find an infant abandoned on the beach. Your country does not have a coastline. You do not know where this ocean or this infant came from, and you do not ask.
- The owls and ravens shriek wordlessly in the night, but you ignore their warnings. They are always shrieking about something.
- You visit a faraway city where you have never been before. Everyone there knows your name.
- You wake up alone in the woods. You have no memory of how you got there. You hear fey fairy laughter and someone singing in the darkness. You feel woozy, as if you’ve been drugged.
- A girl you loved once tries to return your letters, even though you never wrote her any. Clearly she belongs in a convent. You burst into her bedroom half-dressed to tell her so.
- You are invited to a ball and you go, despite the strange feeling that Death will find you if you do. You wear a mask. Death is not fooled.
- Your young cousins went to visit their uncle last month. He says they never arrived, but you saw them playing in the garden. Nobody else has seen them since.
- It is time for you to be married, but first your suitors must answer a riddle. If they guess wrongly, they die. Your love cannot save them.
- There is a storm on the heath. You do not know what a heath is, and you do not care. You are mad. You are naked. You are dancing in the rain. The storm never ends.
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does anyone else get really anxious during the weekends because you’re aware of how poorly you’re spending your free time and you know that there’s something more productive you could be doing, but you just can’t think of anything so you continue to be on the computer
Literally today. It sucks and i hate it
(Source: thursday)
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a list of my weirdly specific favorite tiny moments from hamilton
- “everyone give it up for america’s favorite fighting frenchman / LAFAYETTE”
- the descending bass notes after “at least i keep his eyes in my life” that lead into “to the groom!”
- that looooong pause after the second chorus before wait for it EXPLODES
- “thomas claaaaaaaaims”
- the way the opening builds slowly with the cast snapping
- eliza beatboxing for philip!!!
- “BRRRAH BRRAAAH I AM HERCULES MULLIGAN”
- “we had a spy on the inside that’s right HERCULEEEEES MULLIGAN”
- “you walked in and my heart went (BOOM)”
- the syncopation in “son / i’m notcha son / watch your tone”
- “don’t modulate the key then not debate with me”
- when all the different motiffs collide at the end of non-stop
- what time is it? SHOW TIME!
- the afterbirth of a nation
- you punched the burser (burr, sir)
- “we know who’s really doing the planting”
- you, you, you, youyouYOU
- jefferson’s deadpan “what”
- shaBOOM goes the cannon
- “cuz i will POP chick-a POP these cops till i’m free”
- history has its eyeeeeees ooooooon youuuuuu
- the piano music at the beginning of cabinet battle #1
- burr’s improv “and we fAALL” at the end of wait for it
- everyone ATTACK RETREAT ATTACK RETREAT
- the deep voice in the reynolds pamphlet (“DAMN”)
- you don’t have the votes you don’t have the votes (aha ha ha ha) you’re gonna need congressional approval and you don’t have the votes
- laurens’ “the revolution’s imminent, what do you stall for?” vs hamilton’s “what are you waiting for, what do you stall for?”
- oh, can i show you what i’m proudest of
- HE’S NEVER GON’ BE PRESIDENT NOW (never gon’ be president now) NEVER GON’ BE PRESIDENT NOW (never gon’ be president now)
- the harmonies at the end of who lives who dies who tells your story!!!!!!!
- this man will not make an orphan of my daughter
- [king george voice] awesome!! wow!!
- JEFFERSON or BURR (we know its lose lose) JEFFERSON or BURR (but if u had to chose)
- he looked at me like i was stupid, im not stupid
- i think ur pants look hot / laurens i like u a lot
- when they win @ yorktown and the chorus starts singing ‘the world turned upside down’ in the background
- america u great unfinished symphony
- AND WHEN I MEET THOMAS JEFFERSON IMMA COMPEL HIM TO INCLUDE WOMEN IN THE SEQUEL
- we are OUTGUNNED (what?) OUTMANNED (what?) OUTNUMBERED, OUTPLANNED
- the transition from winter’s ball 2 helpless
(Source: medium-alison, via fireflyca)
Having grown up in DC, statues of various dead guys on horses are basically background radiation, or they were before I became Hamilton trash and started noticing them again. Now it’s like every time I turn around there’s a Founding Father looking at me like I personally disappointed him, and it’s getting a little unnerving.
Although: as a result, I sort of want to write a magical realism thing where that can really happen. Where if you do something they would have disagreed with strongly enough, the statues climb down off their columns and lumber down Mass Ave to the Russell Building or the Capitol, where they stand on the sidewalk, arms crossed, glaring into the window of whoever’s just introduced legislation that offended them. They don’t speak, or attack anyone, or damage anything– well, they do tend to bump their heads on low-handing streetlights, sometimes, but that doesn’t count. Mostly they just stand there, mournful, accusing, for everyone to see.
Sometimes lawmakers can talk them around, convince them they’re not actually betraying the political ideals of their predecessors. Politicians who are good at this tend to have much, much longer careers than the ones who aren’t. Politicians who piss off the wrong statues seldom get reelected.
George Washington rarely budges, and when he does it’s front-page news, nationwide. Madison’s always been easier to talk around than most. Hamilton spend more time off his plinth than on it, but he cools off fast. Jefferson holds grudges, to the point that hardly anyone worries too much about making him mad.
It’s not just politicians, either, and they don’t always come to life in anger. Joan of Arc’s bronze horse will shiver to life in Malcolm X Park, sometimes, and carry her off to join protest marches, when she thinks their cause is just. Gandhi walked with Iraq War protestors. The Spirit of American Womanhood, outside Constitution Hall, danced on the day that Roe v. Wade was decided, and when Obergefell vs. Hodge went through, Eleanor Roosevelt taught a clumsy Lindy to Baron von Steuben.
Lincoln has only risen from his seat once since he was put there in 1922, and that was to nod in solemn approval at LBJ from the White House lawn.
Some cities rarely put up statues, and many have taken theirs down. Paris has a great many artists and writers memorialized, and curiously few politicians. In London, during the Blitz, Nelson shinned down his column to help dig people out of collapsed buildings, until he was broken to pieces himself; he stands atop the column again today, reassembled, but has never moved since. In the last moths of the Soviet Union, a desperate Communist Party had the statues of Moscow chained in place. These days, Monument Avenue in Richmond is punctuated with a long series of empty plinths and bare columns.
But DC keeps theirs, and keeps building more.
(via academicfeminist)
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