Neil Gaiman On What Stories Do For The Human Spirit And How They Last For Generations.

Neil Gaiman on what stories do for the human spirit and how they last for generations. 

Folklore in action.

70 years ago today, on the 6th of August, 1945 - 8:15 Hiroshima:

“In less than one second, the fireball had expanded to 900 feet. The blast wave shattered windows for a distance of ten miles and was felt as far away as 37 miles. Over two-thirds of Hiroshima’s buildings were demolished. The hundreds of fires, ignited by the thermal pulse, combined to produce a firestorm that had incinerated everything within about 4.4 miles of ground zero.

To the crew of the Enola Gay, Hiroshima had disappeared under a thick, churning foam of flames and smoke. The co-pilot, Captain Robert Lewis, commented, “My God, what have we done?”

http://www.hiroshima-remembered.com/history/hiroshima/page9.html

“Japan, the one country to have suffered nuclear attack, has taken the lead in opposing nuclear weapons. I strongly urge you to keep it up.” -Dalai Lama

Folk music is the absolute greatest musical tradition.

plaidadder:

argonauticae:

argonauticae:

im putting together a couple of scottish folk mixes bc that’s what i do and im honestly curious if anyone in my country has ever been unequivocally happy about anything ever

scottish trad music genres:

Everyone I Love Is Dead

The English Have Stolen All My Sheep

You Want To Be My Boyfriend? First You Must Answer These Riddles Three

The Protestants Have Stolen All My Sheep

I Love You A Lot But You’ve Left Me And It’s Raining [fiddle solo]

The Sea Is Treacherous, Just Like The English

One Time Bonnie Prince Charlie Punched Me In The Face And It Was Awesome

The Fairies Have Stolen All My Sheep

We have of course the traditional Irish music genres to go with them:

* Everyone I Love Is An Allegorical Representation of Ireland

* The English Stole My Farm And Put Sheep On It

* You Were My Boyfriend But Now You Won’t Even Come To The Window To Look Upon Me And Our Dead Infant Child (In The Rain)

* Whack Fol Too La Roo Umptytiddly Good They’ve Stopped Listening Now Let’s Talk About Revolution

* Something In Irish, I Think It’s About Fairies, Or Maybe A Cow

oooo can I add to this? don’t forget Appalachian folk balladry, the American cousin of Scottish and Irish traditional music and just as uplifting as its Anglo-Saxon highland forbears!!!

genres include:

I Left Everyone I Love Back Home In The Holler To Be With This Guy Who Doesn’t Wear Shoes Or Have Teeth But He Plays A Mean Jug

The English Told Us Not To Move West Yet, We Ignored Them, My Entire Family Was Killed

You Were My Boyfriend But You Tied A Sack Of Rocks To My Petticoats And Threw Me In The Creek (And My Baby Too)

Mama Loves All 14 Of Us A Lot But She’s Weary Of Our Shit And Now She’s Dyin’ (Gather Round)

The McCleans Stole A Firewood Log From Our Pile So We Won’t Rest Until The Last Of Their Male Kin Is Laid In The Cold Ground

We Knew The River Would Rise But We Still Didn’t Fix The Levee 

The River Rose, The Levee Broke, Everyone Died, It Was Just As We Reckoned (dulcimer twang-a-lang) 

When The Rebels Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Southern Man And I Feed Their Horses My Best, When The Yankees Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Northern Man And I Feed Their Horses What The Rebels Left

The Tennessee Valley Authority Killed All My Sheep Somehow

I love names. Even if I can’t pronounce them correctly, I appreciate being given the chance to learn. I feel like it is a gesture of good faith; almost like someone is trusting me to care enough and be smart enough to learn how to say and spell it correctly. And you know, even if I fail miserably, it is still an awesome name and my incorrect use of it doesn’t change that fact one bit. Keep your own name. :)

Now we know.

You will be missed.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31858156