"The Duckman's goofball moves cannot remotely be described as "cool," "funky" or even "human," but he needs this song to express all the bottled-up emotion he has for Molly, because he can't tell her himself. So it's slapstick comedy, but it's also true romance: a very rock & roll combo." (x)

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In short, Grant suddenly and fully developed charm, a quality that is tantalizing because it simultaneously demands detachment and engagement. Only the self-aware can have charm: It’s bound up with a sensibility that at best approaches wisdom, or at least worldliness, and at worst goes well beyond cynicism. It can’t exist in the undeveloped personality.

-The Rise and Fall of Charm in American Men ( x)

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I loved the Rolling Stone review for the latest Game of Thrones episode. Spoilers will follow. It sums up my feelings perfectly.

The death of an idea can hurt just as badly as the death of a person. People are mortal, after all, and come with an expiration date – it's the cost of doing business with them. But ideas often have a wider impact than any one person. They're passed down and passed around, like heirlooms or viruses. It's easy to convince ourselves that an idea that gives our life meaning will outlast our life, any life, in turn. To lose an idea like that leaves us adrift, with no shore in sight...

... But for readers and viewers, it killed our idea of what this series is. The central conflict, Stark vs. Lannister, is now over. The Lannisters won. There will be no comeback now, if ever. Sure, we know on some level that there's much more going on, from smaller rivalries like Littlefinger vs. Varys or Cersei vs. Margaery to the potentially massive storms brewing north of the Wall and east of the Sea. But it's been Stark vs. Lannister the whole time, until now. A lifetime of reading and watching fiction has trained us to treat the establishment of a central conflict as a promise that it will remain the central conflict until the end of that work of fiction. The Red Wedding took that promise, cut its throat and dumped it on the floor to bleed out.

Also this part really called out to me:

Gilly called Sam a wizard for being able to memorize stuff he saw in books, making every A Song of Ice and Fire diehard out there a hero, just for one day.

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Little Eva- The Locomotion

This has got to be one of the best songs ever. Little Eva's version is so much better than Kylie Minogue's. 

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"When you start to really know someone, all their physical characteristics start to disappear. You begin to dwell in their energy, recognize the scent of their skin. You see only the essence of the person, not the shell. That’s why you can’t fall in love with beauty. You can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. You can love it with your eyes and body but not your heart. And that’s why, when you really connect with a person’s inner self, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant.”

-Lisa Unger

... I find myself reproducing entire phrases or sentences as if new, and this may be compounded, sometimes, by a genuine forgetfulness. Looking back through my old notebooks, I find that many of the thoughts sketched in them are forgotten for years, and then revived and reworked as new. I suspect that such forgettings occur for everyone, and they may be especially common in those who write or paint or compose, for creativity may require such forgettings, in order that one’s memories and ideas can be born again and seen in new contexts and perspectives.

-Speak, Memory by Oliver Sacks (x)

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I don't need anyone else," from "Never Saw the Point", may read as a tossed-off line, but in a strangely positive way, it feels like the record's main message. Even the eternally sunny "Go Outside" ends on the lyric, "I think I want to live my life and you're just in my way." These are teenage sentiments, the kind of things you feel dumb for saying and thinking once you've navigated into your mid-twenties, but they're also universal sentiments during that stage of life when you're trying to figure out what kind of person you're going to be.

-Joe Tangari's review of Cults on Pitchfork (x)

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If there wasn't a word for it, would we realize our masochism as much?

- The Lover's Dictionary, David Leviathan

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When a massive power outage struck southern California in the 1990s, Los Angeles residents reportedly called 911 to express alarm about strange clouds hovering overhead; they were seeing the Milky Way for the first time. (x)

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While filming a scene for Season Three of Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke found herself being heckled. The Khaleesi might have been in the process of checking out the Unsullied, a ferocious slave army willing to lose their nipples with nary a peep, but the “very overexcited Moroccan men” playing the soldiers were busy checking out the lovely 26-year-old Brit and her equally lovely co-star Nathalie Emmanuel. And whistling. And catcalling. It was a moment that called for a graceful intervention. “So basically when the cameras weren’t rolling, I made sure that I individually eyeballed every single one of them until they realized that we were a force to be reckoned with,” Clarke says. “Just because we were girls didn’t mean that we couldn’t be badass.” Without her having to say a word, her tactic brought the men to a heel: “They underestimated the intensity and ferocity of a woman’s stare.” Adds executive producer D.B. Weiss in his telling of the story, “Then she came back to the tent and talked for a good 10 minutes about how funny it would be in a later scene if Dany farted in the bathtub.
Location
-Rolling Stone

frisson

The French word frisson actually means "a brief intense reaction, usually a feeling of excitement, recognition, or terror". A sudden passing sensation of excitement, a shudder of emotion while you're reeling from an epic moment. Scientifically, it is a "pleasant tingling feeling, association with the flexing of hair follicles resulting in piloerection (goosebumps you guys!), accompanied by a cold sensation, and sometimes producing a shudder or shiver". We've all felt it; an emotional response when you're deeply affected by things like music, speech, art, or memories.

This is one of my favourite poems ever. You can listen to Gwendolyn Brooks reading it here.

I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You by Yumi Sakugawa in Sadie Magazine

Unsolicited Advice To Adolescent Girls With Crooked Teeth And Pink Hair

When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys call asking your cup size, say A, hang up. When he says you gave him blue balls, say you’re welcome. When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you’re a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won’t have anything to grab when you head-butt her. Then head-butt her. When a guidance counselor teases you for handed-down jeans, do not turn red. When you have sex for the second time and there is no condom, do not convince yourself that screwing between layers of underwear will soak up the semen. When your geometry teacher posts a banner reading: “Learn math or go home and learn how to be a Momma,” do not take your first feminist stand by leaving the classroom. When the boy you have a crush on is sent to detention, go home. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka. Every time. When the skinhead girls jump you in a bathroom stall, swing, curse, kick, do not turn red. When a boy you think you love delivers the first black eye, use a screw driver, a beer bottle, your two good hands. When your father locks the door, break the window. When a college professor writes you poetry and whispers about your tight little ass, do not take it as a compliment, do not wait, call the Dean, call his wife. When a boy with good manners and a thirst for Budweiser proposes, say no. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys tell you how good you smell, do not doubt them, do not turn red. When your brother tells you he is gay, pretend you already know. When the girl on the subway curses you because your tee shirt reads: “I fucked your boyfriend,” assure her that it is not true. When your dog pees the rug, kiss her,

apologize for being late. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Jersey City, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Harlem, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because your air conditioner is broken, leave him. When he refuses to keep a toothbrush at your apartment, leave him. When you find the toothbrush you keep at his apartment hidden in the closet, leave him. Do not regret this. Do not turn red. When your mother hits you, do not strike back.

The White Stripes- We're Going To Be Friends

\

Johnny Cash- Hurt

I

Well God is
love
so love me

God
is love so
love me God

is
love so love
me well

II
Love the sun
comes
up in

the morning
and
in

the evening
zippy zappy
it goes

III
We watched
a red rooster
with

two hens
back
of the museum

at
St. Croix
flap his

wings
zippy zappy
and crow
- "Calypsos" by William Carlos Williams