Sad news, guys -
Legendary Author E.L. Konigsburg Has Passed Away
-Weeps-
(Source: mydearcorvo, via shuofthewind)
![theatlantic:
Maurice Sendak Scared Children Because He Loved Them
“Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life’s concern,” Maurice Sendak told NPR in 1993. His lush visual idiom managed to evoke the strange—and sometimes malign—intensity of real childhood, as fey, unruly protagonists sparred with adversaries (fanged monsters and imperfect parents). All his work demonstrates a strong desire, and uncanny ability, to capture the eerie vividness of youth and its crucibles. “I am trying to draw the way children feel,” Sendak told The New Yorker in an early profile. His ambiguous phrasing is apt—as though “the way children feel” was both what he tried to draw, and how. […]
Sendak railed against what he perceived to be an insidiously overprotective parent culture. The evidence does suggest we adults sometimes take our good-natured desire to protect children from unpleasantness to perverse depths. I see it in the phenomenon of “helicopter parenting,” for instance—the misguided attempt to thwart all potential pitfalls through hovering omnipresence. We seek to foil internal darkness, too, by plying young people with antidepressants and anxiety medication. And we’re highly sensitive about showing children any sort of “challenging” material, even in cases when censorship verges on absurd. The new documentary Bully, which depicts the brutal realities of life in the hallway and playground, was initially deemed “too violent” for children, the very audience it portrays, and attempts to reach.
But it is this expurgated account of childhood—what he called “the great 19th-century fantasy that paints childhood as an eternally innocent paradise”—that Maurice Sendak fought tooth and claw, horn and beak. He knew that children are unavoidably beset by grief, yearning, anxiety, and rage, the same wild and turbulent emotions that seize adult human beings. “To master these forces,” Sendak said, in his 1964 Caldecott acceptance speech, “children turn to fantasy: that imagined world where disturbing emotional situations are solved to their satisfaction.”
Read more. [Image: AP]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3rdbzHa7L1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Maurice Sendak Scared Children Because He Loved Them
“Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life’s concern,” Maurice Sendak told NPR in 1993. His lush visual idiom managed to evoke the strange—and sometimes malign—intensity of real childhood, as fey, unruly protagonists sparred with adversaries (fanged monsters and imperfect parents). All his work demonstrates a strong desire, and uncanny ability, to capture the eerie vividness of youth and its crucibles. “I am trying to draw the way children feel,” Sendak told The New Yorker in an early profile. His ambiguous phrasing is apt—as though “the way children feel” was both what he tried to draw, and how. […]
Sendak railed against what he perceived to be an insidiously overprotective parent culture. The evidence does suggest we adults sometimes take our good-natured desire to protect children from unpleasantness to perverse depths. I see it in the phenomenon of “helicopter parenting,” for instance—the misguided attempt to thwart all potential pitfalls through hovering omnipresence. We seek to foil internal darkness, too, by plying young people with antidepressants and anxiety medication. And we’re highly sensitive about showing children any sort of “challenging” material, even in cases when censorship verges on absurd. The new documentary Bully, which depicts the brutal realities of life in the hallway and playground, was initially deemed “too violent” for children, the very audience it portrays, and attempts to reach.
But it is this expurgated account of childhood—what he called “the great 19th-century fantasy that paints childhood as an eternally innocent paradise”—that Maurice Sendak fought tooth and claw, horn and beak. He knew that children are unavoidably beset by grief, yearning, anxiety, and rage, the same wild and turbulent emotions that seize adult human beings. “To master these forces,” Sendak said, in his 1964 Caldecott acceptance speech, “children turn to fantasy: that imagined world where disturbing emotional situations are solved to their satisfaction.”
Read more. [Image: AP]
(via wordpainting)
OMG THIS USED TO BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE SHOWS AND I NEVER REMEMBERED THE NAME OF IT!!!!
THANK YOU PRAISE OH HALLELUUUUUUUU!!!!! *hideous weeping*
I’ve been trying to remember the name of this boss-ass show for YEARS now. Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! THANK YOU *unabashed keening*
(Source: viperben)
Usually when people do that “you’re special” crap I tend to roll my eyes.
But when Mister Rogers said it…
(via annieelainey)
1 2 3 4 5… 6 7 8 9 10… 11… 12…
Pinball Number Count!
Did you know the vocals were done by The Pointer Sisters? I did not.
(via teachingliteracy)
leskuh | face-down-asgard-up | iamateenagefeminist | waltdisneyconfessions:
“I think the people hoping for a lesbian princess need to be reminded that Disney movies are aimed at kids. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being gay, but to push the idea at kids before they understand what that means will only confuse them. Also as a parent, I would be pissed at Disney for addressing such controversial topics in a movie intended for children”.
But here’s what you’re forgetting/not understanding:
Being gay isn’t controversial
It isn’t. The fact that a person is gay is not controversial. The only thing controversial is how people feel we should treat gay people.
There a millions of kids growing up right now that have gay parents, teachers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. There are many kids in this country who are growing up and are gay themselves. All of those kids don’t get a chance to see their reality in media.
We “push” the idea of heterosexuality everyday and in every Disney movie. If we had a gay prince or princess we wouldn’t be “pushing” anything, we would just be displaying a different reality that many people have.
I hate it when people say that “being gay” is controversial. No, it’s not. How we, as a society, want to treat gay people is what is controversial.
People who say this don’t understand children.
How I explained gay to my kid:
“Mom, your friends, they kiss each other!”
“Who?”
“Those two boys.”
“Yeah, they love each other.”
“Like you loved Daddy?”
“Yeah, just like that. Also, girls can love girls like that too. It’s normal.”
“Ok.”
And then she went off and decided to color. No confusion. No exploding head. Girls can love girls and boys can love boys. She gets it because IT’S NOT A DIFFICULT CONCEPT.
Stop demanding that gay people be hidden away and just TALK TO YOUR FUCKING KIDS.
Seriously. For me, realizing that homosexuality happened was actually a moment of clarity! It was an: “Oh! That makes SENSE!” kind of thing. It wasn’t upsetting or confusing - it was like a lightbulb went off in my head and reality just became a bit more logical.
On a shallow note, this is a pretty cute manip.You know, speaking as a lesbian who grew up in a very conservative evangelical household that stopped subscribing to a specific newspaper when I was eleven because I was starting to get the idea that being gay wasn’t a bad thing:
The OP can go fuck themselves. When I started writing this, I intended to be calm and considerate, but you know what, I am so goddamn tired of this shit, because here is what it does: it erases the first eighteen fucking years of my life, including my childhood and adolescence, when I didn’t understand or like anything about myself. Like, I am legit on the verge of tears over here because—telling kids that some people are attracted to people of the same gender identity as themselves won’t confuse them, and what the fuck is wrong with you that your first thought is “omg we have to protect the children” when you clearly haven’t spared a single goddamn thought for the children, like me, who grew up thinking that there was nothing worse than being queer and that being queer meant you were a disgusting monstrosity doomed to burn eternally in the fires of hell, so you spent your entire fucking CHILDHOOD and ADOLESCENCE—you know, THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF YOUR LIFE WHEREIN LIFELONG BELIEFS AND NEUROSES ARE, IF NOT FORMED, THEN GIVEN THE FRAMEWORK AND FOUNDATION TO DEVELOP—simultaneously hating yourself and pretending to be something and someone you weren’t.
But sure. You’re thinking of the children. You’re trying to help them.
The only thing this mindset does is teach children through the erasure, minimization, and other avoidance of queerness, and esp positive and prominent portrayals of queerness, that queerness is bad, that it is undesireable, and they better fucking hope they aren’t queer.
So, you know … go fuck yourself, secret-maker.
my mom just told me that my friend ariel had 2 mommies. no big deal. people get so fucking up in arms about this shit. it doesn’t confuse kids. it confuses adults who were never talked to about gay people when they were kids
(via annieelainey)
True fucking story.
Dat TV be strapped down, bwoy!!! LOL!
^ Oh lawdy! Miss Buttahlove, your comment has slain me!
And a tree. Don’t forget the tree.
Wait. You Forgot The Birds.
Forever and fucking always.YOU FORGOT THE HOLE IN THE TREE.
^^^
THIS.
AND THAT TOTALLY RANDOM FLOWER.
BLESS THIS POST. THIS IS THE BEST THING I’VE SEEN!
you guys forgot the wavy grass erjwelrj
DON’T FORGET THE APPLES MOFO.PERFECTION GHDFJHGF
I still draw like that now.
(via camuizuuki)
