tkmbnd

archiemcphee:

What is a dog, if not a fluffy, walking canvas? That seems to be the mindset of competitive dog groomers. Photographer Ren Netherland (previously featured here) is still traveling around the United States taking awesome canine portraits at creative dog grooming competitions. We’re still impressed by just how many characters or creatures a groomer is able to include on one dog thanks to careful dyeing and shearing.

Why settle for simply transforming a dog into Yoda when you can make one end look like Yoda and the other end look like an Ewok? And just how many different Sesame Street characters can you fit on a single dog?

“It takes two intense hours for the groomers to produce their masterpieces before facing judges. Mr Netherland said: ‘The owners have to grow out their dog’s hair in preparation for the show - so that it’s long enough for them to make something. They train and rehearse throughout the year in preparation for the competition, whittling their creation down to a fine art.

‘The best thing for spectators is that when the poodles fist come onto the stage, they just look like normal poodles. Suddenly they are transformed before your eyes into something colourful and completely different. The dogs seem to enjoy the pampering and all the attention.’”

Visit Ren Netherland’s website to view more of his fascinating photos.

[via Laughing Squid and Neatorama]

Today in WTF.

XLIV
You will know that I do and do not love you
just as life is of two minds,
a word is one wing of silence,
and fire is half made of ice.

I love you just so I can begin to love you,
to begin anew at the infinite
and to able never to stop loving you:
For these reasons, I do not love you yet.

I do and do not love you as if I held
in my hands the keys to every happiness
and an uncertain, unhappy fate.

My life has two lifetimes to love you.
That’s how I can love you when I don’t
and still love you when I do.

“

—	— Sonnet 44, from Pablo Neruda’s Cien Sonetos de Amor (transl. Rafael Campo) —The other Sonnet 44. I love this poem.

Your silence has been with me and I have let it have its say. I feel, as always, the same closeness to you which your silence makes into a kind of speech of its own.

“

—	Anne Sexton, from a letter to Dennis Farrell, August 2, 1963 (via litverve)

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes

“

—	(via imodo)

aseaofquotes:

— Pablo Neruda

I will touch you with my mind. Touch you and touch and touch until you give me suddenly a smile, shyly obscene; I will touch you with my mind. Touch you, that is all, lightly and you utterly will become with infinite care the poem which I did not write.

“

—	E.E Cummings, Lady (via violentwavesofemotion)

I am not of the opinion that one can ever lack the power to express perfectly what one wants to write or say. Observations on the weakness of language, and comparisons between the limitations of words and the infinity of feelings, are quite fallacious. The infinite feeling continues to be as infinite in words as it was in the heart. What is clear within is bound to become so in words as well. This is why one need never worry about language, but at sight of words may often worry about oneself. After all, who knows within himself how things really are with him? This tempestuous or floundering or morass-like inner self is what we really are, but by the secret process by which words are forced out of us, our self-knowledge is brought to light, and though it may still be veiled, yet it is there before us, wonderful or terrible to behold.

“

—	Franz Kafka, from Diaries (via violentwavesofemotion)

Attn: Dudes

okcupidvillains:

versatilequeen:

Call out your bros.

I have literally never seen a guy tell another guy that he is being sexist, misogynist, or slut-shamey.

Not even once.

Call out your bros.

Wanna be a male feminist? This is the only way. The. Only. Way.

Her suffering was her armour. Gradually it became her skin. Then she could not take it off

“

—	Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (via theburnthatkeepseverything)

What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human.

“

—	David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (who says I’m obsessed?)