So if my students finish a quiz/test early, I ask them to draw me stuff on the back (partly so those who need more time are less self-conscious about still having the test out, partly because fuck yeah, pictures), and it may be the single best decision of my career.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve told these kids that (a) the Romans believed there were demons in their public toilets and (b) the word for “janitor” comes from “ianitor”, which means “(door) guard”.
So now I’m getting drawings of superhero janitors taking on toilet demons, and it’s so beautiful.
Aaaaand today a student showed me a video of himself lighting a fire in his toilet while chanting the conjugation of the word “to be”.
He said he wanted to recreate the ancient toilet demons, and I have concerns.
K… but why conjugations of to be?
My students kept forgetting how to conjugate esse, so I turned it into a rhythmic chant that I had them say over and over. The problem is that when you chant ANYTHING in Latin it sounds like you’re summoning a demon, which they decided was awesome, so uh. Now I’ll just be randomly walking through the hallway and hear voices chanting, “sum es est! sumus estis sunt!”
I’m 99% sure my colleagues think I’ve started a cult.
Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m sure everyone will turn out all the better for it.
one thing me n my art loving gf would do is visit galleries and play a game called “root, loot or boot”
the gist is that you would look at a group of paintings in a room and decide which figure in the painting you’d root (fuck, in Australian slang), which painting you’d loot (steal and put on your wall at home) and which painting you’d boot (punt into the garbage because it’s shit and Not Art)
a couple of things about my experiences:
1. this game is a lot more fun if you’re attracted to women because there’s so many Hot Gals to choose from
2. if you are attracted to men, you will spend a lot of time going “well, looks like I’ll have to pick jesus again” as my bi gf did
3. it gets more complicated in modern art museums and you find yourself having saying, “I’d fuck the rhombus” “you CAN’T fuck the rhombus” “then I’ll fuck that blue squiggle thing. what’s it called?” “creeping existential dread in blue” “then does that mean I’m fucking the squiggle or am I getting fucked by the existential dread it represents?” “aren’t we all already getting fucked by existential dread?”
4. if you play this with an art history nerd, they may decide to kill you over one of your “boot” choices
5. you will get Disapproving Looks from other patrons who overhear your heated debates
6. it’s also the best fun you’ll ever have in an art gallery
1. hates donald trump
2. got his ear pierced at claires because why not
3. legit asks people to beat him up in action scenes EVEN NOW AS AN OLD MAN
4. is arguably one of the most iconic star wars characters yet couldnt give less of a crap abt star wars
5. the universe tried to kill him (or at least permanently incapacitate him) twice in 2015 and it only mildly inconvenienced him
6. flies helicopters in search and rescue missions
7. was in his 40s for the majority of the indiana jones series which is insane when you think about all the stunts involved
8. quote “the director yells cut and harrison cracks open a beer and then builds a fucking shed”
9. arguably sexy
10. points angrily and its super effective
11. is just a really sweet person 12. no really my dad worked with him on firewall as the tech advisor and he was just a really swell guy 13. got my mom’s birth date from my dad and sent her flowers 14. he sent my mom flowers for her birthday 15. he didn’t even know her he just wanted to be sweet
this was a beautiful and necessary edition to this post thank you oh my god
When he was asked to be in Jimmy Kimmel’s “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck” video, in which he pulled up alongside them in a car and gave Jimmy a little wink and an air-kiss, when he showed up at the set he looked kind of put out. Kimmel was afraid he wasn’t down with what they were asking. But he just said, “I don’t know, this wardrobe…don’t you have anything mesh that I could wear?”
When he was filming “Witness” he rented a small farm from a friend of mine. At the end of the filming my friend went and checked out the property as usual. He noticed the barn door had been leveled so it no longer would swing open on it’s own. Went into the house and saw the closets had been redone, in the kitchen the cabinets had been replaced and all the drawers now opened really well. Turns out that there were thousands of dollars of work and materials put into fixing up everything at the place.
My friend called Ford and asked him how much he was asking for the work. Ford told him doing that kind of thing helped him relax and stay sane when he was filming. Would not take a dime. Plus he paid for a new water heater and got the sewage system cleaned out.
And he paid rent to live there the entire time.
Local Carpenter Stumbles Into Stardom, Worries This May Interfere With His Carpentry
My step sister was driving through Wyoming once, near Ford’s ranch. She stops for gas, and as she’s filling up, this huge motorcycle roars in behind her, scared the pants off her. The rider, dressed in all black steps off, and she yells at him “who do you think you are blasting in here like that, you Darth Vader looking motherfucker?”. He takes off the helmet, and it’s Harrison Ford, and without missing a beat he says
“Hey! I’m not Darth Vader, I’m Luke Skywalker”
From the co-production designer on The Force Awakens, Darren Gilford:
“The Millennium Falcon was the first thing we were actually building. I had been in London and I came home back to L.A. for Christmas. So I go to Sports Chalet to do some last-minute shopping; I get there early, run to the back of the store, get what I need. I’m coming back through the store, and I just happen to pass this person holding up a pair of ski pants, and it’s Harrison Ford. I look at him, he looks at me and puts his head right down. I can tell he doesn’t want to be bothered; I’m sure from the look on my face he knew I knew who he was.
So I walk past him, and after about 10 feet I think, ‘If there’s ever a time to say hello to Harrison Ford, I’m building the Millennium Falcon!’ So I turn around very hesitantly and go, ‘Harrison, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m co-production designer on the new Star Wars, I’m just back from London, and I’ve been building the Falcon.’ A big smile came across his face, he put his hand out, and we had such a great conversation — he couldn’t have been sweeter.
As I’m walking away, he goes, ‘Darren!’ and calls me back. He goes, ‘The toggle switches.’ I go, ‘Toggle switches.’ He goes, ‘The toggle switches on the Falcon. When they built it the first time, they bought cheap toggle switches without any springs in them. Every time I threw a toggle switch, it fell back; it wouldn’t hold. It drove me crazy. Please, make sure the toggle switches are fixed this time.’ I go, ‘No problem! I’ll take care of it!’
So months go by, I’m back in London, we’re getting close [to principal photography], and I get a phone call saying J.J.’s headed down to check out the cockpit, and Harrison’s with him. I run down there and I see J.J. in the passenger seat and Harrison in the pilot seat. They’re just giddy; they’re having so much fun. And then I see Harrison look up, and he just starts throwing all the toggle switches: boom, boom, boom, boom. [Laughs.] And I remember thinking, ‘Phew, minor victory. Take solace in that and move on. Next task.’ That’s my favorite story.”
HARRISON FORD SMILES WHEN MEETING CREW MEMBERS AND IS A NERD FOR FUNCTIONING PRODUCTION DESIGN
Don’t forget about his Halloween costumes
Harrison ford is a chaotic-good-aligned cryptid, confirmed
have y’all ever had communion bread that was just so….nasty? like i know we have to suffer as christians, but do we really need to have whole wheat bread as the body of christ?
my old church used hawaiian bread. my standards are high
Some old housemates of mine were Syrian Orthodox. At their church different members of the church took turns baking the bread that would be consecrated for the Eucharist. This was all well and good until one woman baked raisin bread. This led to the memorable occasion of a rather flustered priest, who had not seen the bread until that moment, declaring, “This – except for the raisins – is the Body of Christ.”
have i told you guys about the time that i classically conditioned my kindergarten class
I got like 4 anons asking about this so I guess I didn’t:
omg. okay, so basically, I was a “gifted kid” which was code for fucken nerd ass bitch, so i would constantly just stare off into space during class while everyone else was tryna figure out what the fuck our teacher was tryna say. Anyway, I was learning about chemistry and biology outside of school(i know what a fucking nerd amirite ladies), and my dad got me a book that talked about all these famous psychological experiments.
So chapter one was, would you have guessed it, Pavlov’s dog. I thought it my be fun to try something to that extent with my classmates. Now, keep in mind, being a nerdy ass brown kid in a school full of white ppl meant that I wasn’t exactly popular, and no one really talked to me in class or cared what I was doing.
Everyday, at 9:45 am, our teacher would announce that it was snacktime, and everyone would fucking sprint to their cubbies to grab their lunchboxes like it was the goddamn hunger games. Kindergarten kids didn’t really have a concept of time, so i used this to my advantage. At 9:45 as my teacher would walk up to announce snacktime, I would knock on my desk really quickly three times. It was rly subtle, and I wasn’t sure that it would work.
So after two or three weeks, I decided to have some fun. Thirty minutes after school began at like 8:30 or something, I tapped knocked on the desk. Half the class turned their heads and looked straight at the cubbies. 3 boys got up and were about to run to get their lunchbox. One girls stomach started growling REALLY loudly. The teacher had to take 5 minutes to get everyone to calm down and one kid started crying because he thought it was snacktime and he was so shocked and destroyed.
Realizing that I had basically dog trained the whole class, I burst out laughing so hard I fell out of my chair and cut my head on the tile floor and got sent home early because I was laughing so hard they thought I had a concussion or something. When I explained what happened to my dad he left the room, but I could hear him losing it in the hallway.
So everytime now that I learn about classical conditioning in my Neuroscience classes, I have to fight to keep a straight face
One day, that “secret family recipe” will just be that recipe their ancestor looked up online years ago and everybody liked.
I found out one of my family’s “secret recipes” is on the back of the pudding box. Uncle Rich bakes up some lies.
While researching his book The Nordic Cookbook, chef Magnus Nilsson found that every family in Sweden has a special, unique family recipe for pickled herring passed down secretly from generation to generation. He got about 200 of these. They were all exactly the same. He traced the origin point back to a popular cookbook published in the late 1960s. I think the moral of that story is everyone’s grandma is a liar.
Guys, I can top this.
It’s time for the tale of Great-Grandma’s Macaroni and Cheese.
My Great-Grandma Mary was famous in her family for her macaroni and cheese. By all accounts it was an amazing mac and cheese- a baked casserole-style concoction of perfectly cooked elbow noodles and creamy, lusciously cheesy sauce. Because Dad loved it so much, it was always, without fail, sitting bubbling and golden in the dish set out on the dinner table just as he and his family arrived for visits, a testament to grandmotherly love and culinary mastery.
Fast-forward a couple dozen years.
My mother had never made macaroni and cheese. At the time she married my dad, she was a very good cook. She’d been cooking since she was about six or seven and had outstripped both her parents’ abilities in most areas. So when Dad started raving about Great-Grandma Mary’s macaroni and cheese, she did what any loving newlywed would do: she attempted to make macaroni and cheese.
According to all reports, it was an unmitigated disaster.
The sauce broke. The noodles turned to mush. The entire concoction was, in a word, inedible. Dad took one bite and spit it out. Horrified that her husband would do such a thing. Mom took a bite- and spat it out. It was vile. Mortified, Mom threw out the remains and vowed to obtain Great-Grandma Mary’s secret recipe.
Not long afterwards, they went and visited Great-Grandma for the holidays. As usual, there was the macaroni and cheese, laid out in golden splendor upon the dinner table when they arrived. Mom was finally able to sample the famous macaroni and cheese and pronounced it quite as good as Dad’s stories made it out to be.
After dinner, she cornered Great-Grandma Mary and spilled the whole debacle about her failed attempts to recreate Dad’s favorite dish, and begged Great-Grandma Mary to share her secret.
Great-Grandma Mary smiled and brought her and my father into the kitchen. Rather than reaching for a cookbook of family culinary wisdom, or into the pantry for a secret ingredient, she went to the freezer, opened it, and, as Dad looked on in horror, drew out a family-sized box of Stouffer’s frozen macaroni and cheese.
“I have a casserole dish just this size,” she said. “I just pop it in there, sprinkle a little extra cheese on top, and nobody knows the difference.”
You would have thought someone had just stolen Dad’s teddy bear.
To this day, nearly twenty-seven years later, we still refer to Stouffer’s as ‘Great-Grandma’s Macaroni and Cheese’.
My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big
“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner
A fave of mine was always the american tales where people freaked out because ‘someone died in this house’ and all the europeans would go ‘…Yes? That would be pretty much every house over 40 years old.’
‘…My school is older than your entire town.’
‘Sorry, you think *how far* is okay to travel for a shopping trip?’
*American looks up at the beams in a country pub* ‘Uh, this place has woodworm, isn’t that a bit unsafe?’ ‘Eh, the woodworm’s 400 years old, it’s holding those beams together.’
A few years ago when I was in college I did a summer program at Cambridge aimed specifically at Americans and Canadians, and my year it was all Americans and one Australian. We ended the program with a week in Wessex, and on the last day as we all piled onto the bus in Salisbury (or Bath? I can’t remember), the professors went to the front to warn us that we wouldn’t be making any stops unless absolutely necessary. We’re headed to Heathrow to drop off anyone flying off the same day, then back to Cambridge.
“All right, it’s going to be a long bus ride, so make sure you’re prepared for that.”
We all brace ourselves. A long bus ride? How long? We’re Americans; a long bus ride for us is a minimum of six hours with the double digits perfectly plausible. We can handle a twelve hour bus ride as long as we get a bathroom break.
The answer. “Two hours.”
Oh.
English people trying to travel around Australia and wildly underestimating distance are my favourite thing
a tour guide in France told my school group that a particular cathedral wouldn’t interest us much because “it’s not very old; only from the early 1600s”
to which we had to respond that it was still older than the oldest surviving European-style buildings in our country
China is both old and big. I had some Chinese colleagues over; we were discussing whether they wanted to see the Vasa ship (hugely expensive war ship which sank on it’s maiden voyage after 12 min). They asked if it was old, I said “not THAT old” (bearing in mind they were Chinese) “it’s from the 1500s.” To my surprise they still looked impressed, nodding enthusiatically. Then I realised I’d forgotten something: “…I mean it’s from the 1500s AFTER the birth of Christ” and they went “oh, AFTER…”.
My dad’s favorite quote from various tours in Italy was “Pay no attention to the tower – it was a [scornful tone] tenth century addition.”
Once the children were asleep, Sajjad headed out on an urgent shopping mission. “We are Muslims and we’d never had a Christmas tree in our home. But these children were Christian and we wanted them to feel connected to their culture.”
The couple worked until the early hours putting the tree up and wrapping presents. The first thing the children saw the next morning was the tree.
“I had never seen that kind of extra happiness and excitement on a child’s face.“ The children were meant to stay for two weeks – seven years later two of the three siblings are still living with them.
this is a beautiful article and i just want to include a few other highlights from the above family as well as another profiled:
…she focuses on the positives – in particular how fostering has given her and Sajjad an insight into a world that had been so unfamiliar. “We have learned so much about English culture and religion,” Sajjad says. Riffat would read Bible stories to the children at night and took the girls to church on Sundays. “When I read about Christianity, I don’t think there is much difference,” she says. “It all comes from God.”
The girls, 15 and 12, have also introduced Riffat and Sajjad to the world of after-school ballet, theatre classes and going to pop concerts. “I wouldn’t see many Asian parents at those places,” she says. “But I now tell my extended family you should involve your children in these activities because it is good for their confidence.” Having the girls in her life has also made Riffat reflect on her own childhood. “I had never spent even an hour outside my home without my siblings or parents until my wedding day,” she says.
Just as Riffat and Sajjad have learned about Christianity, the girls have come to look forward to Eid and the traditions of henna. “I’ve taught them how to make potato curry, pakoras and samosas,” Riffat says. “But their spice levels are not quite the same as ours yet.” The girls can also sing Bollywood songs and speak Urdu.
“I now look forward to going home. I have two girls and my wife waiting,” says Sajjad. “It’s been such a blessing for me,” adds Riffat. “It fulfilled the maternal gap.”
[…]
Shareen’s longest foster placement arrived three years ago: a boy from Syria. “He was 14 and had hidden inside a lorry all the way from Syria,” she says. The boy was deeply traumatised. They had to communicate via Google Translate; Shareen later learned Arabic and he picked up English within six months. She read up on Syria and the political situation there to get an insight into the conditions he had left.
“It took ages to gain his trust,” she says. “I got a picture dictionary that showed English and Arabic words and I remember one time when I pronounced an Arabic word wrong and he burst out laughing and told me I was saying it wrong – that was the breakthrough.”
The boy would run home from school and whenever they went shopping in town, he kept asking Shareen when they were going back home. She found out why: “He told me that one day he left his house in Syria and when he had come back, there was no house.” Now he’s 18, speaks English fluently and is applying for apprenticeships. He could move out of Shareen’s home, but has decided to stay. “He is a very different person to the boy who first came here,” she says, “and my relationship with him is that of a mother to her son.”
This was my submission for Jewish Perseverance Week a couple of years ago and it feels like time to bring it back.
My family are Sefardic and even though our tradition is to just light one menorah per family, this little thing always manages to put in an appearance anyway.
A few years ago, I was walking home from work when I was stopped by a rabbi and his wife. I was confused because we don’t have many Jews here and, for safety reasons, nobody is too open about it if they are. “Excuse me, are you Jewish?”
I shrugged. My mother’s family were Jewish but my last real contact with Judaism died with my grandparents. What was left of my Jewish identity was comprised of a few linguistic and cultural quirks, antisemitic neighbours who hated us, and the very occasional contact with observant family who live in other countries.
I settled on “I’m a little bit Jewish?” He said it’s like being a little bit pregnant – you can’t be. I reluctantly told him a little about my family.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to a stranger. It was that I was uncomfortable being around proper Jews again having severed my ties so completely. I was frustrated at being viewed with suspicion and excluded from the small slivers of Jewish life which exist here. I’d spent years ignoring my heritage because I wasn’t frum enough for the few Orthodox people I’d met along the way and I wasn’t Ashkenazi enough to feel particularly comfortable with the Reform people I knew. I wasn’t a “proper Jew”.
It felt like I was missing out on a huge aspect of my cultural inheritance and I’d even started to let Christian friends take me to church in an attempt to patch that hole. I quietly resented them for believing that they had “saved” this Jew who needed Christ, but at least they seemed to want me around. That phase didn’t last for long. Nothing about that felt right.
And then, as I was trudging back to my parents’ house after a truly awful day, a rabbi and his wife appeared. I was genuinely shocked by their inclusivity. Suddenly proper Jews were insisting that I still had a place. They seemed mildly amused by my assumption that I didn’t count and even invited me to dinner as though I was one of them.
They asked if I would take a menorah home and showed me the blessings written on the box. I told them I’d forgotten how to read Hebrew but they still weren’t deterred. They gave me literature in English, in Hebrew, in transliterated Hebrew. They even offered to find me some in French for the rest of the family. Whatever I needed to know, they explained. They didn’t judge me and they didn’t even patronise me. I’d expected to be admonished but it felt more like being welcomed home. I left with a hanukiyah, a forest’s worth of paper and a bemused expression.
I let my mother light the candles and was surprised to hear Hebrew flow so naturally for the first time in probably a decade. We left the menorah out well beyond Hanukkah. I think we were just enjoying having something Jewish around.
Slowly, little things started to happen at the family home. Candles came out one Friday night… and then the next one… and the next… Nobody really acknowledged it, it just became a thing that we did. Bread was replaced with matza on Pesach.
“It’s Yom Kippur tomorrow, do you still want me to cook or…?” “Shana tova, do you want to help make baklava?”
By next Chanukah, the family menorah was brought down from the loft and unwrapped from its dust cover. Somebody played Ocho Kandelikas and it was the first time I’d heard Ladino since my grandmother died. Somehow, somewhere along the way, we’d stopped being “a little bit Jewish”. We’d found our place.
I love Hanukah. I don’t care for people telling me it’s a “minor holiday” when it marks the end of my family’s weird, extended rumschpringe. Not only that, but it reminds me of what our community should be. I’d experienced so much elitism, suspicion and exclusion from fellow Jews that I didn’t even think I was Jewish. I’d experienced so much antisemitism from goyim that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be.
And then I experienced an act of kindness from a couple on the street and my life changed.
This time five years ago, a Jewish couple gave me a hanukiyah. The exchange lasted less than 10 minutes but in that time they returned to me my family, my people, my culture, my history, my faith. And if I go to synagogue and lose my place in the siddur 10 times, that’s ok now. If I still occasionally say kaddish when I mean kiddush, I’ll laugh about it and the world won’t end.
My wish for all of you is that you can feel as assured of your place and as welcomed by your people as I do now, regardless of your knowledge, background, or level of observance. I hope you get to enjoy the culture you inherit and know that you belong.
Anybody else got like,, rlly random connections to famous ppl?? Like my older brothers were friends w Jennifer Lawrence when they were like 12 and I just found out I’m friends w the cousin of the girl who voiced honey lemon in big hero six like, idk what I’m supposed to do with either of these tid bits I feel like I was supposed to live my life in ignorance of them
my granda was in the IRA
my dad catered a party for Taylor Swift’s parents and heard her sing when she was like 10 I think
My cousin is dating the older brother of the lead actress in the new Pacific rim movie.
My coworker’s brother is college roommates with Matt Damon’s nephew
My great-grandmother was in a play with Basil Rathbone
My mom sat next to John Wayne on an airplane once and asked him to sign her Bible.
My 8th grade science teacher’s daughter was an actress and did those “Disney 411” bits. Hilary Duff slept over their house one time.
Oh! Just remembered! A substitute biology teacher in 8th grade spent an entire period gushing about his daughter, the actress. She was the brunette, glasses-wearing girl in the 2002 Spider-Man film who told Peter “don’t even think about it” on the bus.
I sang in a church choir with Lady Gaga’s uncle. My mom says he makes really strong pomegranate martinis.
My mom grew up next to Wayne Gretzsky’s wife’s grandmother.
so many, given what my mom does for a living, but i think my favorite truly random one is that i used to be kinda friendly with steve buscemi’s wife because she was good buddies with my boss at the time, and i met him a couple times
my mom got trapped on an elevator in philadelphia with robert redford.
my dad helped anderson cooper on a project in the early 2000s and helped with an event linda tripp was involved with
my great grandpa was also in the ira and one time my mom had tea with christian bale at his own house without realizing who he was
my grandpa worked for a high-end mens’ clothing store and sold suits to a ton of famous people… nixon, salvador dali… he knew cary grant really well, as in cary grant had his home phone number in case of any clothing emergencies.
also my dad sat behind mia farrow at mass once! it was in the midst of the whole woody allen court case and she wore sunglasses the whole time. they did the sign of peace.
My high school biology teacher went to school with Tom Hanks
My friends mom had a prosthetic mold of Matt Damon’s hand in the kitchen. Though thats because she worked in the industry, but i got to see matt Damon’s fake hand.
I have lots from working in film for that 2-3 year stint of my life (including: Jonathan Rhys Daives getting into an argument with me about sheep while we were both having a beer, ray liota awkwardly rubbing my shaved head, giving Selma Blair a gift for her baby, having oddly dad-esque conversations with David Hasslehoff) but out of all of these the one that always makes me ??? at myself cause the world is weird is this one time I was working on a fashion shoot at this mansion and it turned out it was Grimes’ mom’s house.
Oh also I have an actress I worked on a show with on my facebook and she randomly likes my posts sometimes and shes like… one of those actresses you have never heard of but has been in 200 things so you have Seen her. Oh also the female members of Mother Mother have worn my clothes, I forgot about that.
My brother is friends with Voltaire’s son Mars (the musician Voltaire, otherwise that would be really fucking odd), and my mom was hit on by Walter Koenig and James Doohan back when she worked at the local Trekkie conventions. Her boss at the time also lost a bet to James Doohan over a baseball game.
my high school math teacher is friends with the band Fun. like her husband went to college and is friends with Andrew Dost. they played at their wedding
My mom served Shaq in a burger king once; or rather, as a 5’2" woman, she says she served his belly button.
when I was in middle school I met gordon ramsey in the grand canyon parking lot and he was nice as hell
m. night shyamalan plays basketball with his buddies at the gym on the campus where my dad works. where my dad used to work, kenny chesney’s dad was on the athletic department staff.
When I was eleven years old my date for the school halloween dance was the son of one of the executive producers of the ‘roots’ miniseries.
my history teacher freshman year was an ex-girlfriend of the faint. “which one?” we asked. “yes,” she said.
before he got sick, steve jobs lived three blocks down from my grandmother’s nursing home, and when they were bored with jigsaw puzzles, my grandmother and her friends would pile into her car and drive over there real slow to talk shit about his hedges. they were big fuck-off privacy hedges.
Steel Phoenix Studios 