I Was Just Staring At My Cat Playing With A Ball Of Yarn Yesterday And Just Realized, Just Now, That

Emil Doerstling: Preußisches Liebesglück (Prussian Happiness in Love) – Gustav Sabac el Cher und Gertrud Perlig.

Gustav Sabac el Cher (10 March 1868 - 4 October 1934) was an Afro-German imperial bandmaster in the Kingdom of Prussia. His father, August Albrecht Sabac el Cher (born in 1836 in Kurdufan, now Sudan) had a long and remarkable career as a valet to the Prussian Prince Albert, was one of the first representatives of African diaspora in Berlin and together with Anton Wilhelm Amo, one of the first socially integrated Afro-German citizens.

Sabac el Cher was good at the violin and had a prominent career as a bandmaster and played for the royalty of Europe. He stopped in 1909 to work instead as a freelance conductor. In the 1920s he even worked in the then-new radio broadcasting business. He was loyal to the Kaiser and welcomed the rise of fascism until the appearance of the Nazis on the political scene. In 1933 his restaurant business was condemned by the Nazis and it was forced to close after a short time. He died in Berlin at 66 years old, in 1934. The Kaiser sent his condolences from his exile in Holland.

In this painting (1890) Gustav Sabac el Cher wears a Prussian infantry uniform. He was probably one of the first Africans to do so. He married Gertrud Perlig in 1901 and they had two sons together. Reportedly Sabac el Cher’s grandsons were unaware of their mixed-race ancestry until they were contacted by historians in 1999 as they tried to find the story behind this beautiful and light-hearted portrait.

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beauty/beauty by rebecca perry 

That’s dope

I’m a procrustinator: I compulsively s t r e t c h out or cut short any task so that it fits exactly into the night before it’s due

Mythology puns, go!

Get to it, mortals!

“I stayed at work for you. You stay at home for us.”

well.

Y’know, that makes me think of something, actually.

So if you’re one of those “I can only write when I feel Inspired™” type of writers but you never seem to feel very inspired, and all of the usual “You have to make a schedule and stick to it and sit down and write XYZ words per day” writing tips have never worked for you and only make you feel guilty but you have no idea why,

have you perhaps considered that you might be neurodivergent / mentally ill / have a chronic health condition, and that what you call “inspiration” is what the rest of us call “spoons”?

B/c that is exactly what happened to me.

I think “performative social justice” is something that doesn’t get addressed often enough. That’s where much of the toxicity in otherwise well-meaning circles comes from.

What I mean by “performative” social justice is basically “discourse for the sake of discourse” - argument without the purpose of persuasion, in which abstract, theoretical problems are treated as seriously as if they were real-world issues. You see it in fandom all the time. I want to stress that this isn’t directed at anyone or anything in particular. It’s something I see all the time, from all sorts of people, and while I often agree with the points they make, I think it’s ultimately a pretty destructive way of thinking.

With the right rhetoric, you can make anything sound wicked. You can bypass a lot of reasoning and nuance if you sound like you’re confident that you have the moral high-ground (that’s the whole history of politics). And heck, sometimes you do! But you have to critically examine how you came to your conclusion. Nobody wants to seem like the bad guy, especially when a foolish statement can result in instant and viral public ridicule that can circulate for months or years - a pernicious form of Death of the Author. On Tumblr, the desire to conform to a particular opinion is largely motivated by fear. The punishment for deviance is often wildly disproportionate - I think we all know a few examples of things getting way out of hand. It’s seldom in response to things that cause actual, qualifiable harm.

Is there a fix for this? Maybe not on a large scale. But individually, I think it’s important to take a step back when you see drama and ask yourself, “Is this worth it? What am I trying to accomplish? Is this the most effective approach to achieving my goal?”

You’re allowed to disapprove of things casually. You can think something is tacky, in bad taste, or otherwise objectionable without needing to justify your perspective on a grand scale of good versus evil. You don’t need to use social justice as a method of signaling, to continually reestablish to your peers that you’re the Right Kind of Person only the Wrong Kind of People would disagree with. Be sure of yourself and of your beliefs. Accept nuance. A contrary opinion on a relatively trivial matter is not a personal attack, or an opportunity to flex your righteousness. Remember that the people you disagree with are often as vulnerable and well-meaning as you are.

Dorm room bingo

Moses is gone, post Golden Calf