Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan, 1885
Ugh, I love this painting so much.
Just some background stuff, Ivan the Terrible was the Tsar of Russia for most of the 16th Century. In I think 1581, he caught his daughter-in-law wearing ‘immodest clothing in front of everyone’ and struck her. She was apparently pregnant and she may or may not have had a miscarriage because of it.
Ivan’s son and the girl’s husband, also named Ivan after his father, hears about it and gets into a really heated argument with his father that ends with Ivan the Terrible taking a swing at his son with his pointed staff. It’s said that he immediately fell down and kissed his son’s face, pressing his hands against his left temple to try to stop the bleeding. He famously screamed “May I be damned! I’ve killed my son! I’ve killed my son!” His son briefly regained consciousness and his last words were “I die as a devoted son and most humble servant.”
I love all the details. I love the pointed staff lying on the ground and the signs of a fight with the tossed over chair, disturbed carpet, and the door wide open. I love the single tear on Ivan’s face and their position on the floor. This is a really gorgeous but raw depiction of one of the darkest moments in an incredible man’s life. I wish there were more historical paintings like this.
(via warningdontreadthis)
Arriving in Tokyo.
wonka-bar: you know your childhood is over when you fall asleep on the sofa and when you wake up you’re still on the sofa (via whenskiesaregrey)
"Reminiscing in the drizzle of Portland, I notice the ring that’s landed on your finger, a massive insect of glitter, a chandelier shining at the end of a long tunnel. Thirteen years ago, you hid the hurt in your voice under a blanket and said there’s two kinds of women—those you write poems about and those you don’t. It’s true. I never brought you a bouquet of sonnets, or served you haiku in bed. My idea of courtship was tapping Jane’s Addiction lyrics in Morse code on your window at three A.M., whiskey doing push-ups on my breath. But I worked within the confines of my character, cast as the bad boy in your life, the Magellan of your dark side. We don’t have a past so much as a bunch of electricity and liquor, power never put to good use. What we had together makes it sound like a virus, as if we caught one another like colds, and desire was merely a symptom that could be treated with soup and lots of sex. Gliding beside you now, I feel like the Benjamin Franklin of monogamy, as if I invented it, but I’m still not immune to your waterfall scent, still haven’t developed antibodies for your smile. I don’t know how long regret existed before humans stuck a word on it. I don’t know how many paper towels it would take to wipe up the Pacific Ocean, or why the light of a candle being blown out travels faster than the luminescence of one that’s just been lit, but I do know that all our huffing and puffing into each other’s ears—as if the brain was a trick birthday candle—didn’t make the silence any easier to navigate. I’m sorry all the kisses I scrawled on your neck were written in disappearing ink. Sometimes I thought of you so hard one of your legs would pop out of my ear hole, and when I was sleeping, you’d press your face against the porthole of my submarine. I’m sorry this poem has taken thirteen years to reach you. I wish that just once, instead of skidding off the shoulder blade’s precipice and joyriding over flesh, we’d put our hands away like chocolate to be saved for later, and deciphered the calligraphy of each other’s eyelashes, translated a paragraph from the volumes of what couldn’t be said."
- “The Benjamin Franklin of Monogamy,” Jeffrey McDaniel (via clavicola)
(via sleepingtigers)
"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley
Happiness is never grand.
(Source: whatokay, via savemedear)
Guess where I am… (Taken with instagram)
I just found my favorite new place in nyc! (Taken with instagram)
(Source: let-your-spirt-fly-away, via savemedear)
(via lynnaltevogt)
After term garment… :) (Taken with instagram)
Term garment selectionsss. (Taken with instagram)
This is the worst fortune ever. Nobody wants to be leftovers! (Taken with instagram)
<3 (Taken with instagram)
