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[Image ID: a twitter thread of 31+ tweets spanning 10 images, dated 22nd May 2017.
Image 1: a tweet by Dr. Paul (@/DrPnygard) that reads On this day in 1967, a show featuring a kindly man in a cardigan & blue sneakers debute- [tweet cuts off]. Included is a photo of Mr Rogers, a white American man with bushy dark eyebrows and greying straight hair, looking over his shoulder while seated obscured by a colourful red object.
This tweet is replied to by Anthony Breznican (@/Breznican) who’s 31-tweets-long thread begins by saying 50 years … I have a story to tell about this man.
Image 2: A lot of people are sharing this quote after the heartbreak in Manchester. It’s also the 50th anniversary of Mr Roger’s Neighborhood. 1/
The tweet includes a black-and-white photo of Mr Rogers smiling to camera with the following quote added: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.- You will always find people who are helping.’” -Mr Rogers
Fred Rogers was from Pittsburgh, my hometown, and my generation grew up loving this man, who taught us to be kind above all. 2/
Image 3: Fred Rogers was the real thing. That gentle soul? It was no act. 3/
As I got older, I lost touch with the show, which kept running through 2001. But in college, one day, I rediscovered it… 4/
I was having a hard time. The future seemed dark. I was struggling, lonely, dealing with a lot of broken pieces and not adjusting well. 5/
I went to Pitt and devoted everything I had to the school paper, hoping that would propel me into some kind of worthwhile future. 6/
Image 4: It was easy to feel hopeless. One span was especially bad. Walking out of the dorm, I heard familiar music: 🎶 Won’t you be my neighbor… 7/
The TV was playing in an empty common room. Mr Rogers was there, asking me what I do with the mad I feel. (l had lots to spare. still do) 8/
It feels silly to say - it felt silly then - but I stood mesmerized. His show felt like a cool hand on a hot head. I left feeling better. 9/
Days later, I get in the elevator at the paper to ride down to the lobby. The doors open. Mr Rogers is standing there. For real. 10/
Image 5: I can’t believe it. I get in and he nods at me. I do back. I think he could sense a geek-out coming. But I kept it together. 11/
Almost. 12/
The doors open, he lets me go out first. I go, but turn around. “Mr Rogers… I don’t mean to bother you. But I wanted to say thanks! 13/
He smiles, but this has to happen to him every 10 feet. ‘Did you grow up as one of my neighbors? I felt like crying. Yeah. I was. 14/
Image 6: Opens his arms, lifting his satchel for a hug. “It’s good to see you again neighbor: I got to hug Mr Rogers, y'all! 15/
I pull it together. We’re walking out and I mention liking Johnny Costa (he was the piano player on the show.) We made more small talk. 16/
As he went out the door, I said (in a kind of rambling gush) that I’d stumbled on the show again recently, when I really needed it. 17/
So I just said, “Thanks for that.” Mr Rogers nodded. He paused. He undid his scarf. He motioned to the window, & sat down on the ledge. 18/
Image 7: This is what set Mr Rogers apart. No one else would’ve done this. He goes, “Do you want to tell me what was upsetting you? 19/
So I sat. I told him my grandfather had just died He was one of the few good things I had. I felt adrift. Brokenhearted. 20/
I like to think I didn’t go on and on, but pretty soon he was telling me about his grandfather & a boat the old man bought him as a kid. 21/
Mr Rogers asked how long ago Pap had died. It was a couple months. His grandfather was obviously gone decades. 22/
Image 8: He still wished the old man was here. Wished he still had the boat. You’ll never stop missing the people you love, Mr Rogers said. 23/
The grandfather gave Mr Rogers the row boat as reward for something. I forget what. Grades, or graduation. Something important. 24/
He didn’t have either now, but he had that work ethic, that knowledge that the old man encouraged with his gift. 25/
“Those things never go away,” Mr. Rogers said. I’m sure my eyes looked like stewed tomatoes. 26/
Image 9: Finally, I said thank you. And apologized if I made him late for an appointment. “Sometimes you’re right where you need to be,” he said. 27/
Mr Rogers was there for me then. So here’s this story, on the 50th anniversary of his show, for anyone who needs him now 28/
I never saw him again. But that “helper” quote? That’s authentic. That is who he was. For real. 29/
Image 10: When Mr. Rogers died in 2003, I sat at my computer with tears in my eyes. But I wasn’t crying over the death of a celebrity 30/
I was mourning the loss of a neighbor. 31/end
/end ID]
‘You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.’
I remember hearing that, as a little kid, and not being able to believe it. And he kept saying it anyway.
Decades later, after much of my own therapy to undo the learning that led to a pre-school kid not believing that she was lovable just the way she was, I was watching an episode. I don’t remember what prompted me to seek it out, but I do remember bursting into tears when I heard that again.
Because it felt a little easier to believe. And because I realized, as an adult, how important it was to hear that as a kid. Repeatedly. Even if I couldn’t believe it. As a kid, I couldn’t trust that he meant it. As an adult, it was so clear that he did. And I was so grateful that he had planned those seeds. They took awhile to germinate, and still need constant tending. And I’m so grateful that was modeled somewhere for me.
googling shit like “why do i feel bad after hanging out with my friends” and all of the answers are either “you need better friends” (i don’t; my friends are wonderful) or “your social battery is drained, you need to rest and regain your energy levels” (i don’t; i’ve got tons of energy, it’s just manifesting as over-the-top neurotic mania). why is this even happening. it’s like some stupid toll i have to pay as a punishment for enjoying myself too much
I actually, genuinely think social event aftercare would fix me. I need someone to put me to bed and say “you were fun today and no one hated you”
True. Most Irish people, as Norwegians do with Trolls, will happily let the ‘fairies’ be a thing to make tours for tourists and idle threats to make children behave. Most Irish people will have a very normal and mature explanation of fairies as a common folk mythology that expresses some dimension of Irish culture but are not, obviously, to be taken literally.
And most Irish people, if you ask them to move a stone from a fairy circle will immoveably, flatly respond with 'absolutely fucking not’.
Construction projects have had to halt and be abandoned for it.
At work me and a couple coworkers (black, white, and mexican) had a fun discussion on whether there are more ghosts at a hospital or a cemetery.
everyone individually took a moment to specify that ghosts probably aren’t REAL real. then weighed in on where and why.
for the record my position was that there’s probably way more ghosts in hospitals because that’s where people die horribly, but since you can only see ghosts in dark, solitary conditions, graveyards at night is where the majority of ghost sightings occur. hospitals are usually well lit and busy, so even if they’re crammed with ghosts the living are too damn busy to see them. meanwhile if a cemetery has even one ghost that followed her corpse there from the hospital, she’ll be spotted because that’s where all the ghost hunters go to look.
this theory was received as extremely sensible, and a coworker drew the conclusion that that’s why abandoned hospitals are even scarier than graveyards. once the place gets abandoned then you can tell how much ghosts got built up.
we all liked this explanation a lot and explained it to everyone else all night. and of course, none of us believe in ghosts.
listen. its 2:00 am and i have to talk about this. i think that, in horror, particularly in supernatural horror, the biggest, most scary, most dread inducing thing that can happen to a character is not, in fact, death. it is an unspecified, horrific dread fate that exists only in ambiguity. i like to call this fate Death 2. Death 2 is the scariest thing that can happen to a person. even if none of us can outline what it is, we’re all, for the most part, in agreement that it’s out there, and that we’re very afraid of it. nobody knows what it is, it will never be defined, but what is important is that a ghost, or a demon, or a guy who looks at you, what’s important is those things likely have the power to do it to you. the key, the absolute key to keeping supernatural horror effective is to never, ever eliminate the possibility of Death 2 as an outcome. the moment you reveal too much lore about your monster’s intentions or methods, whether it’s by establishing the rules of their haunting too clearly, or giving them the opportunity to clearly communicate their goals (through a seance or ouija board, for example), or merely by raising the curtain a little too much, you have eliminated Death 2. Now the worst that can happen to the characters gets established as being death, or possession, or pain, and that’s just never going to be as scary as whatever Death 2 is. If you wanted to watch a fun horror movie where the tension was in whether or not people were going to get killed, you could watch something like Alien, or Friday the 13th, or Us. If there’s ghosts or demons involved though, and that’s what ends up happening, it’s like, why did I bother coming here, I could have had way more fun watching a slasher romp if I wanted this kind of horror, because a slasher romp knows what it’s doing and how to use narrative tools to make “what if a guy was coming to kill me” an actually effective plot. you have to preserve ambiguity with ghost stories. with entity stories. you gotta. you have to preserve the possibility of Death 2.
Discipline can help us finish the race (even when we really don’t feel like it).
Motivation can help us win the race (or at least enjoy it a bit more).
After making the video, I think the concept was hard for me to explain in a simple way. It’s basically just about using 2 things known to increase motivation, enjoyment, and consistency:
-Good challenge level (too hard or too easy can be demotivating)
-Consistent feedback loops (to see if we’re doing well or could do better)
there aren’t enough posts going around about the swedish cryptid known as the skvader which is a rabbit with pheasant wings and also a very good boy.
like this one dude just made a fake taxidermy and spread it around as a hoax for a good ass while and it lead to this really cool fantasy creature and i am genuinely dissapointed that it never gets used in anything
THE BOY
Rabbirds, by the amazing @tkingfisher/Ursula Vernon (source).
The lack of skvaders is particularly frustrating when you realize it forms the third point of a wonderful cryptid trifecta.
You got the jackalopes, which are rabbits with antlers.
And you got the wolpertingers, which are rabbits with antlers and wings.
And then… what? Do you escalate? That’s unbalanced, those two rabbit cryptids don’t have the same number of extra things, the wolpertinger is clearly the jackalope But More.
BUT with the skvader on the other side, balance is restored. Antler rabbit, winged rabbit, winged antler rabbit. It’s a classic Venn diagram of imaginary lapine beasts, and it’s only complete if you acknowledge the fucking skvader.
Good thing Ursula’s got our back, at least.
This is a really excellent point and I applaud your advancements in Cryptid Theory.
Scent bottle (18th century) with gilt stopper, hand-painted enamel decoration featuring delicate floral motifs, and the French motto “Tout pour vous” (“All for you”). Currently in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Please does anybody have the picture of the orange kitten sitting in front of old yellowed wood paneling and it’s smiling like this. The post where I saw it went something like “little kids before they learn how to smile in photos”
It’s hilarious to me how Colossal Biosciences wants to be movie-version John Hammond but are 100% book-version John Hammond. In the Jurassic Park novel, it’s very clear: John Hammond is a con artist who gives people an illusion, not the truth. He knew from the beginning that what he was making weren’t dinosaurs, but he didn’t care because he had a story to sell. He wasn’t just “filling in gaps” with the frog dna, his scientists were basically making things up from whole cloth and he had no pretence about it- but he also knew what the public wanted to believe.
These are not dire wolves. These are GMO gray wolves. Dire wolves aren’t even in the same genus as gray wolves, and we know this from genetics.
What Colossal is doing is scamming the public. They want you to believe that they can pull off miracles. They can’t. It’s the flea circus where everything is mechanised, but because you want to believe, you “see” the fleas. They might be good at genetic modification and they might be good at hyping themselves up, but they haven’t de-extincted the dire wolf. They didn’t activate mammoth genes in a mouse. They are lying to you and they’re going to keep doing it. Don’t believe the hype.
It’s from Jurassic Park!
“You know the first attraction I ever built, when I came down from Scotland? It was a flea circus, Petticoat Lane.”
“Really?”
“Quite wonderful. We had a wee trapeze, a merry-go-round- carousel- and a see-saw. They all moved, motorized of course, but people would say they could see the fleas. Oh, I can see the fleas, Mummy, can’t you see the fleas? Clown fleas and high-wire fleas and fleas on parade. But this place? I wanted to show them something that wasn’t an illusion. Something that was real. Something that they could see and touch. An aim not devoid of merit.“
In the book, his preceding venture is described differently:
"Hammond was flamboyant, a born showman, and back in 1983 he had had an elephant that he carried around with him in a little cage. The elephant was nine inches high and a foot long, and perfectly formed, except his tusks were stunted. Hammond took the elephant with him to fund-raising meetings. Gennaro usually carried it into the room, the cage covered with a little blanket, like a tea cozy, and Hammond would give his usual speech about the prospects for developing what he called “consumer biologicals.” Then, at the dramatic moment, Hammond would whip away the blanket to reveal the elephant. And he would ask for money.
The elephant was always a rousing success; its tiny body, hardly bigger than a cat’s, promised untold wonders to come from the laboratory of Norman Atherton, the Stanford geneticist who was Hammond’s partner in the new venture. But as Hammond talked about the elephant, he left a great deal unsaid.
For example, Hammond was starting a genetics company, but the tiny elephant hadn’t been made by any genetic procedure; Atherton had simply taken a dwarf-elephant embryo and raised it in an artificial womb with hormonal modifications. That in itself was quite an achievement, but nothing like what Hammond hinted had been done.
Also, Atherton hadn’t been able to duplicate his miniature elephant, and he’d tried. For one thing, everybody who saw the elephant wanted one. Then, too, the elephant was prone to colds, particularly during winter. The sneezes coming through the little trunk filled Hammond with dread. And sometimes the elephant would get his tusks stuck between the bars of the cage and snort irritably as he tried to get free; sometimes he got infections around the tusk line. Hammond always fretted that his elephant would die before Atherton could grow a replacement.
Hammond also concealed from prospective investors the fact that the elephant’s behavior had changed substantially in the process of miniaturization. The little creature might look like an elephant, but he acted like a vicious rodent, quick-moving and mean-tempered. Hammond discouraged people from petting the elephant, to avoid nipped fingers. And although Hammond spoke confidently of seven billion dollars in annual revenues by 1993, his project was intensely speculative. Hammond had vision and enthusiasm, but there was no certainty that his plan would work at all.”
Basically, the tl;dr is that I’m saying that like John Hammond, this company is making promises they can’t keep based on science they aren’t doing, and the public is lapping it up because they want to believe. They want to see the fleas, even when the fleas aren’t there to be seen.
