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Many adults are put off when youngsters pose scientific questions. Children ask why the sun is yellow, or what a dream is, or how deep you can dig a hole, or when is the world’s birthday, or why we have toes. Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else. Why adults should pretend to omniscience before a five-year-old, I can’t for the life of me understand. What’s wrong with admitting that you don’t know? Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys many adults. A few more experiences like this, and another child has been lost to science.
There are many better responses. If we have an idea of the answer, we could try to explain. If we don’t, we could go to the encyclopedia or the library. Or we might say to the child: “I don’t know the answer. Maybe no one knows. Maybe when you grow up, you’ll be the first to find out.”
"Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as the Candle in The Dark (via ironfleet)
I love you, Carl Sagan. See, this is the thing: shutting down the scientific imagination, the quest for knowledge, and the idea that things CAN be known is about the worst thing you can do to the mind of a child. It’s the same as when an art teacher tells a child that they’re not drawing a tree correctly, or that the sky isn’t green: you’ve made someone be wrong about something they’re not actually wrong about. Questioning the universe is what we’re supposed to do. Science is, well: science. There are known things and unknown things, but imagining that there is an answer and asking the question is the only way unknown things become known. As for that tree, if what you’re trying to teach is representational art then tell the child that. Otherwise, STFU and go look at a Jackson Pollock for a while, because art has no right or wrong, only authenticity, imagination, and perception.
(via carnivaloftherandom)(Source: skaterboytae, via carnivaloftherandom)
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REBLOG TO SUPPORT RUE AND CINNA
Recently the actors who play Rue and Cinna have come under attack from Racist fans of the Hunger Games. Reblog if you support the casting of Amandla Stenberg, the adorable and talented actress who plays Rue, and Lenny Kravitz, the unquestionable genius who plays Cinna.
http://www.eonline.com/news/hunger_games_lenny_kravitz_amandla/304193?cmpid=sn-000000-twitterfeed-365-top_stories&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=twitterfeed_celebrities_top_stories&dlvrit=79438
Perfection.
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I would like to call bullshit …
On every single person who is being a racist jerk about Rue, Thresh, and Cinna in the movie ‘Hunger Games’. What kills me is that the people complaining supposedly READ THE BOOKS (or at least the first one).
I’m really curious as to what version these people read. Is there some special edit for racists who want everything to be whitewashed?!
Rue is described as having brown skin and dark eyes; Thresh likewise. Cinna’s skin is left up to the reader’s imagination. It CLEARLY STATES in the book BROWN SKIN AND DARK EYES for Rue and Thresh, YET PEOPLE HAVE THE BALLS TO BE ANGRY THAT THEY’VE CAST THEM AS WRITTEN?! This is so ridiculous! QUIT ASSUMING THAT EVERY CHARACTER HAS TO BE WHITE! THEY DON’T AND THEY AREN’T! THIS IS TRUE IN FICTION AND IN REAL LIFE!
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Holy fucking shit this is amazing.
I know you hate watching videos on tumblr
I know it’s annoying
But if you miss this you’ll be missing out on a video you will remember for the rest of your life.
Every once in a while something comes along that’s so singularly awesome no amount of description will do it justice and you just need to trust us and our dedication to finding awesomeness to share with you. We love those moments and this is one of them.
What you have waiting for you here is video of the Japanese dance group Wrecking Crew Orchestra performing a very cleverly choreographed dance routine in the dark whilst wearing Tron-inspired, programmed electroluminescent light suits designed by iLuminate. Oh yes, and they’re dancing to the awesome sounds of Daft Punk, Justice With Pase Rock, Crookers, David Guetta, and Flux Pavilion, which sweetens the deal even more. Every time you think Japan has produced all the awesomeness it can muster they raise the bar even higher. Enjoy!
Visit Whudat, Geekologie or Colossal to view another shorter, but still quite dazzling, performance by the Wrecking Crew Orchestra in a commercial for Experia, as well as a fantastic still from that performance (which we were sorely tempted to post here, but we wanted to make sure you saw the performance first).
Now please excuse us while we watch this video again.
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I have this odd habit…
That I am pretty sure is a part of my technically undiagnosed ADHD. Because of the amount of activity going on in my brain, there’s this thing I do. I feel like it’s my brain’s pressure release valve. It’s a compulsive behavior that ofttimes happens without my realizing it until I’ve been doing for a bit, then catch myself.
I sing.
It may be a song that my brain has decided to hyperfocus on and I can’t get it out or focus on anything else until I do. Many times it’s just a stream of consciousness, unconnected series of notes that feel the need to escape my brain. Yet another thing I’ve been told I’m weird/crazy or for doing.
It’s a coping mechanism and a compulsion. I cannot help but do it. I’m pretty sure it’s also related to the impulse control issues I have too. It’s something that happens usually as a result of mental overflow. I’ll start making up a song and it sort of seems to quieten the noise in my brain and help me try to stay a bit more focused on whatever task is at hand.
The other day at work, I was restocking. I noticed that I was doing my usual random ditty making stuff up and continued in both activities. It was during lunch so there were quite a few people about. I was at the soda fountain when I heard something seeming to intrude upon the random song that I was making. It was another song being made in the same random way that I do mine but it was coming from a guy that works in the building who was fixing his drink near me. It had the same structure. Random stream of consciousness notes strung together, no words aside from the verbalization of “doo doo dododo”, and very instant in tone and upon its mere existence. The song will never be denied.
I looked at him, smiled, and said, “Yay! I do that too!”In a world that focuses so much on telling me every minute of every day that I’m different, weird, not normal, crazy, separate, and “other”, it was such a welcome relief to know that I’m not completely alone even in this small habit.
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High-res →
This was the cover of the first Metal Hurlant I ever saw. I was — what — 14, and on a French Exchange to Paris and this beautiful magazine filled with comics opened my mind to what comics could be, and the art of Jean Giraud, AKA Moebius, made it so powerful and perfect. He drew different stories in different styles, and everything was beautiful. I bought a copy. I could only afford the one copy, but one was enough.
I couldn’t actually figure out what the stories were about, but I figured that was because my French wasn’t up to it.
I read the magazine over and over and envied the French because they had everything I dreamed of in comics - beautifully drawn, visionary and literate comics, for adults. I just wished my French was better, so I could understand the stories (which I knew would be amazing).
I wanted to make comics like that when I grew up.
I read them when I was in my 20s, in translation, and discovered that they weren’t actually brilliant stories. More like stream-of-consciousness art meets Ionesco absurdism. Didn’t matter. The damage had long since been done.
I met Jean Giraud on a couple of occasions. He was sweet and gentle and really… I don’t know. Spiritual is not a word I use much, mostly because it feels so very misused these days, but I’d go with it for him.
We wanted to work together. I wrote the Sandman: Endless Nights story DEATH IN VENICE for him to draw, but his health got bad, so P. Craig Russell drew it. Moebius’s health improved a little, and he asked if I could write him a very short story, perhaps 8 pages, and make them all posters, so I wrote the DESTINY story in Endless Nights for him. His health took a turn for the worse, and Frank Quitely drew it. And both Craig and Frank made magic with their stories, but somewhere inside I was sad, because I’d hoped to work with Moebius.
And now I never shall.
RIP Jean Giraud, 8 May 1938 - 10 March 2012
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A short, silent film I wrote and directed a couple of years ago, starring Bill Nighy and that girl from “The Dresden Dolls”.
I wonder whatever happened to her?
Music by Sxip Shirey.
So wonderful!!
