Yea

yea

Franz Liszt was truly one of the men ever

- became a lifelong alcoholic to cope with his depression at about 16

- was proud of being Hungarian. Did not speak Hungarian

- Czerny thought young Liszt's playing was a mess (but fortunately saw potential in the kid)

- penned his academic/historical writings with truly extravagant purple prose

- was a Lord Byron fanboy and tried to steal his look

- was a fail dad who was too busy touring and being a sex object to take care of his 3 kids. essentially left them in the care of his relatives for the entirety of their childhood

- sure did look ratty as hell, like he was desperately in want of soap and a hairbrush

- was apparently hot enough to turn the heads of men as well as women. fans basically wanted his gamer boy bath water. Even in his old age some people were down horrendous for the gangly rat man

- wrote a whole book about his genuine appreciation of the Romani and their contributions to Hungarian music, yet also fell into romanticizing them as untamed transcendental musical geniuses

- was mocked by the press for making too much Expressions(TM) while playing the piano

- wrote "vibrato" on a piano score at one point

- alongside his original music, also wrote an impressive amount of what were basically impossible piano covers

Do y’all think siblings in medieval times would look at the little beasts in illuminated manuscripts and point at each other like ‘ha! ‘Tis thou!’

I want everybody who’s calling Ken a Trophy Husband to know that he’s actually a Trophy Boyfriend, because when Ruth Handler invented Ken in the 1960s, she was adamant that he would never marry her and instead be her “handsome steady”, so that Barbie remained a figure of independence for the little girls and was never put in the position of housewife.

Her house is hers. She bought it and furnished it with money she made in her own job. In STEM, in politics, in healthcare, in fashion, in academy, in customer service. Her credit card is in her name (women in the US couldn’t have their own regardless of marital status until 1974). And it’s all pink and fashionable because femininity and badassness aren’t mutually exclusive. No matter who you are, you can be anything.

That’s why Barbie’s slogan is “you can be anything”. Teaching these ideals to little girls is why Barbie was created. Empowering women and empowering femininity is the original meaning of the Barbie doll. It’s not that you have to be all this to be a woman, but if you are all or some of this, you too are awesome.

And somehow pop culture deliberately changed that narrative. Sexualised, bimbofied, and villainised her, when she actually isn’t responsible for the impossible beauty standards — people are, she’s just a stylised, not-to-scale toy like most others.

Men are frothing because he’s just Ken and I guess they were expecting her to be just Barbie, but that’s exactly what Ken is. Canonically. A badass woman’s himbo boyfriend.

This movie has the potential to change the way we collectively see Barbie radically into what Ruth Handler’s intended, I’m so very excited

one fun thing about being a teacher in march 2023 is that chess is a literal epidemic among teens. we are starting to have meetings about how we can STOP teenagers from playing too much chess which is like if we were trying to figure out how to stop them from reading for fun. When i was in high school five years ago chess was nerd shit only but now it is transcending every social and language barrier and is absolutely rampant. kids aren’t on their phone texting in class anymore it’s ONLY chess.com. kids are playing chess on their phones while playing chess in real life. this is still better than tiktok because at least the kids are developing an attention span from this