Tell them to look up.

Hello, you have found one of my blogs. This one is just a collection of things I like. Blog posts I put any thought into are here and my Twitter is here.

My other Tumblrs:
✪ Contrary Librarian
✪ Fuzzy Felt
✪ #TillTreasures
✪ What Sparklenight Wore Today
✪ My Life on Animal Crossing
✪ A Note On The Type

Ugh, every time I see someone post isthisfeminist or that social justice Sally meme I get sad because those things mock feminism with hyperbole or present it as ludicrous by representing it with extreme examples (they don’t speak for me!) and I really need feminism to feel like I’m worthwhile and all the women and men and others need it too and when they see it presented like that they don’t take it seriously and think it’s just a farce.

That’s it I guess.

Wish the doctors would call me back I’ve got a tonne of stuff to do today.

These were my favourite things to read when I was tiny. I loved the characters Tom and Kate and their friend Suki and thought Suki was the coolest name (I still think it’s pretty cool). Also their dog was called Sam and so was my brother and “No, Sam, no!” was one of my favourite things to exclaim. The first ones in the series were really easy with two- and three-word sentences, and they gradually got more difficult. My favourite ones were The Space Boat (I always used to play this one with boxes) and Tom’s Storybook.

So to prepare for my trip to Tokyo I’ve been watching this BBC series from the early nineties called Japanese Language and People that I got from the library and one episode was on recreational activities in Japan and they talked about the almost religious experience of pachinko, an addictive pinball-type game that is big in Japan. The commentary described playing pachinko as a meditative experience that people do to shift their attention from their hard work and I guess I’ve been thinking about things as meditative since then because I suppose I am trying to do the present with a bit more deliberateness. Maybe the Internet is my pachinko because I like to come here especially to tumblr and surround myself with people that post things that conform a bit more to how I would like the world to be and by doing that I realise in a way that is how the world is and it makes it a bit easier and more pleasant to be alive knowing this. Maybe the Internet isn’t my pachinko after all. I think I will play pachinko in Japan maybe it will be enlightening who knows

This is the red version of the watch I had in blue as a child. It was my very first watch and taught me how to tell the time - it came with a storybook called It’s About Time. Since losing my phone I’ve had no idea at any given point what time it was so I looked on eBay for a cheap watch and found this familiar face.

I appear to be channelling Maureen Johnson today.

Particularly because when I started typing just now I realised I had capslock on.

Last night I watched High School and remembered how much I love teens and Twitter convinced me that I’m competent enough to be a school librarian and I got angry all over again about adults and YA because of these two articles.

I’m staying in my pyjama bottoms all day because WRITING SLACKS.

Also yes I have a coffee machine at my bedside because there’s nothing worse than having to get out of bed in the morning to make coffee.

This essay I’m writing: not so much a discussion of the ‘key issues’ as a guide on how to SAVE THE WORLD through information literacy.

Even though every time I write the word ‘information’ I make a typo.

Camera: Photo Booth

I WENT INTO THE GUARDIAN TO TALK ABOUT YA A LITTLE

maureenjohnsonbooks:

And here is a video of it.

I love you Maureen! I hugged my laptop after watching this video. That bit about negativity sells - so true. Oh my goodness, it’s a trend I’ve noticed a lot. I think cynicism and negativity sells so easily because it’s so cool and easy to be cynical but a lot of people don’t have reasons to be so negative; it just comes from a gut feeling or vague past experience or self-defense or whatever. So when they see their negativity articulated like that by someone who got published in a newspaper, they latch onto it with both hands and this becomes what they think because they don’t have the energy or desire or will to challenge it or work it out for themselves.

Maybe.

People need to stop using codified descriptions of how things are right now as a guide to how things should be. For example, the dictionary as a prescriptive guide to usage, or scientific studies that ‘prove’ that people prefer one type of attractiveness or that justify certain immoral behaviour.

Okay I’m going to Stop putting words on Tumblr now.

I really like discussions. You can have one with me by going to http://sparklenight.tumblr.com/ask or emailing me but not phoning please.

old-ads-and-mags:

1950’s interiors

Lately I’ve been fantasising about buying a flat in Embassy Court and imagining how I’d decorate it. For the past eight years I’ve lived in newbuilds and rented accommodation with magnolia walls and beige carpet which I’ve had to expend a lot of energy on making not look boring. I really like patterns and colour and plain things make me sad because they’re designed to go unnoticed so as to not offend anyone. I think I want my Embassy Court flat to look something like this picture.

lesserjoke:

I can’t relate to this, but I have to give props for the first linguistics confession I’ve seen on this site. Well-designed, too!

I would like to do my linguistics confession: I don’t have a FOOT/STRUT split because I’m from the East Midlands of England. My vowel for both used to be really far back but the vowel is now centralising to a schwa because I’ve moved down south where there is a FOOT/STRUT split and I don’t like my new central vowel which isn’t consistent anyway because of place assimilation and I miss my back vowel.

EDIT: it’s not place assimilation, is it? That thing where vowels are modified by the environment they’re in?

(Source: glottalplosive)

The Pale King - Some Thoughts on Boredom.

(I wrote this immediately after finishing David Foster Wallace’s posthumously published unfinished novel The Pale King in the latter half of 2011. I can’t remember exactly when this was, date-wise. I’m typing it up only now and adding a bit of fluency to it but these are just my thoughts - I don’t even have the book with me to refer to.)