Melanie
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melanine.bsky.social
Melanie
@melanine.bsky.social
230 followers 340 following 300 posts
I don’t tend to say much but enjoy the “discourse”

Grower of flowers, corgi wrangler, new found love for power tools (renovating..). Work in software.
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Reposted by Melanie
nedraggett.bsky.social
Hell with it, I'm just going to post the whole thing here via screencap and alt text. It's Kaleb Horton, man, his writing always deserves the second read, especially since it could have just easily been lost forever like so much else. Read it, share it.
A look at forgotten Hollywood landmarks By Kaleb Horton Let's say you come in from down south, and you're looking for an unsung movie landmark. So you fly in to LAX, rent a car, blow right past Hollywood, leave Los Angeles county heading north, go over the Grapevine, gape at the monumental hills and, wow, there really is a Smokey Bear Road, then you turn off the air conditioner when the sign tells you. Once you come down the grade too fast and see the world's loneliest Denny's, you're well on your way to what you're looking for – the middle of nowhere. You're going to Kern County to find the spot where Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of the greatest scenes in movie history, the crop duster sequence from "North by Northwest." It takes place in Indiana, of course, but the Indiana road sign and the imported corn field can't deceive this Bakersfield native. The parched and desolate heat of the scene feels too much like Kern County. The scene people know off-hand — Cary Grant running from an airplane — isn't why "North by Northwest" is a classic. The film's greatness, as was often the case for Hitchcock, lies in its build-up, its suspense, its mood. The plane moment is almost anticlimax. It is those five minutes before Grant's desperate escape that constitute a mathematically perfect suspense scene. So expert is Hitchcock's hand that he creates suspense, a slow burning dread, with no camera tricks and no music in broad daylight. Grant's character is a prototypical James Bond. His perfect suit, fast wit, high-alcohol tolerance and effortless charisma have got him out of every predicament so far. In the city, among people, he has powers. Take him away from people, put him nowhere, and he's just like us — totally helpless. He has no powers: His suit is no good out here; his million-dollar tailoring and perfect haircut is just vanity now. No amount of pretending can provide escape. Here, is the one place where he can die, and he gets by on the grace of God. All he can do is wait for what's coming. So when you seek the lost landmark of this scene, you're looking for an idea as much as a place. You're on Highway 99 now, going 30 miles north of Bakersfield, looking for an unassuming patch of dirt that carries spiritual weight. The scene was filmed neart Garces Highway to the west of Delano. You'll think there's a handy exit for it. There's not. You'll probably get lost in Delano, counting on a connection. You're at once a million miles from Hollywood and a hundred miles away. It's lonely. The horizon sprawls forever like there's nothing past it. There are broken down trucks on the side of the road, plumes of smoke from faraway fires. You'll find Garces eventually. You'll pass a bar called Rosy's Place, abandoned houses, an oil field, a prison, a cemetery, a sign that says "we clean headstones," and a whole lot of gold-on-brown punctuated by an occasional trailer or car going faster than you. You're looking for where Garces meets Corcoran Road. That's where this "North by Northwest" scene was filmed. You'll get a vague idea where it is but you'll never be exactly sure, since there's little impetus for clear signage 10 miles from a prison. Maybe Corcoran Road is unlabeled. Besides, that Indiana sign and the prop cornfield haven't been there in 56 years. If you're anything like me, you'll lose the light and call it a day, unsatisfied with the route you took. You return to I-5 northbound. From the 5, you'll meet Route 46, and go through a place called Lost Hills, then back in to the location from Corcoran Road instead. That's how Hitchcock probably did it. More intuitive. Still in the middle of nowhere, but on your way to Corcoran Road, you're right next to another Hollywood landmark: Blackwells Corner, James Dean's last stop. It's a glorified Texaco, and gas is 50 cents a gallon more than it should be. They sell Jelly Bellys and '50s kitsch artifacts — plates with Marilyn Monroe's face on them, and so forth. They really figured out how to cash in on death. You don't want to stop here. But I stopped. I asked the kid at the Blackwells Corner counter how to get to Corcoran Road. He gave me a look that said "there's no reason to go there," and then wearily told me where to go anyway. I was about 8 miles from the destination. Going there is a meditative experience. You're not just going to the middle of nowhere. You're going to the perfect nowhere. Going alone, in the hypnotic heat of the Central Calfiornia Valley, you might even forget what year it is. There is no reason to believe the road would be so well preserved for half a century, intimately tied to the career of an actor born in Bristol 111 years ago, but it has been. There's an abandoned house. A barn with a cross on it. But almost nothing has changed in 56 years. At some point new lines were added on the road. There's overgrowth where there didn't used to be overgrowth. A couple discarded Budweiser cans from who knows when, but mostly it's identical. This is the same sleepy loneliness that Alfred Hitchcock used to make great art in 1959. And that may sound dull, but tranquility is the point. You stand on that dirt and there's no distraction from what's in your soul. It's an inner destination, not an outer one. I told my grandma about it when I got back to Bakersfield. She told me her Uncle Harold thought it was the prettiest road in America. And she showed me a picture of a Corcoran grade school class posing in the dirt with Grant and Hitchcock. It's just a field trip picture. The kids are fidgeting, many with arms folded, some shielding their eyes from the sun, all with obedient smiles. They'd all be in their sixties now, but they'd remember where this road is. It emphasized the ugliness of James Dean's last stop becoming a place to sell T-shirts. It's about what we preserve, and what we don't, and what we remember, and what we don't. It's easy to find shrines to morbidity and hard to find meaningful places. For those, you have to go looking.
November 26, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Melanie
billionhighways.bsky.social
I found it!!!
Corgi sitting by a pond looking pensive, text reads “I enjoying mysekf by the lake, but then I remembered instances of regret in my life, and pain I have caused others”
August 31, 2025 at 6:05 AM
Reposted by Melanie
cameronwilson.bsky.social
Centrist at the nazi rally: oh no I’m not here for the protest, I’m here to protest the counter protest
August 31, 2025 at 2:57 AM
Reposted by Melanie
timinclimate.bsky.social
This piece is so good that I feel weird and kind of gross for both discovering it four days after the fact and sharing it after midnight.

But anyway this is an exceptionally affecting piece of writing and @roycerk2.bsky.social is a very good journalist.

But you all already knew that. Didn't you?
“There Was So Much Death.” A Toxic Algal Bloom Is Ravaging Australia’s Southern Coast—Warming Waters Are to Blame.
Three ingredients are required for an algal bloom to get going – temperature, the right conditions and food. South Australia had all the preconditions necessary, thanks to climate change.
drilled.media
August 30, 2025 at 2:14 PM
melanine.bsky.social
US, can you guys stay in bed today? Take it easy and just chill? I’d like to wake up tomorrow and find out nothing happened overnight. Slow news day!
June 24, 2025 at 9:41 AM
melanine.bsky.social
The news is too much. Here’s this guy living his best life
teamswiftparrot.bsky.social Dr swift parrot @teamswiftparrot.bsky.social · Jun 23
Look at this phenomenal yellow-tailed black-cockatoo eating protea nectar 🙂👑
A big black and yellow cockatoo tearing apart a pink flower in a green shrub
June 23, 2025 at 10:58 AM
melanine.bsky.social
The new Haim track is an absolute bop
May 30, 2025 at 5:53 AM
Reposted by Melanie
shirokumascreen.bsky.social
May 25, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Melanie
gingerandhoney.bsky.social
When RMIT decided to junk a rare, $160k weaving loom, a group of artists, teachers and students united to rescue it. The story of this loom felt like a snapshot of everything that’s wrong with how we treat arts and crafts in tertiary education, so I wrote this:

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
A new room for a doomed loom – and the battle to save Australia’s slowly dying crafts
When a rare weaving device was destined for the skip, a collective of artists, teachers and students united to rescue it. They bemoan how university course changes are replacing deep skills with compe...
www.theguardian.com
May 25, 2025 at 4:05 AM
melanine.bsky.social
Just re-upping this today as it’s on my mind. Evan having this issue in a work context!!
drdrehistorian.bsky.social André Brett @drdrehistorian.bsky.social · Apr 3
As a wise Australian once said, I should be able to mute America: www.gawkerarchives.com/culture/i-sh...
okwonga.bsky.social Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · Apr 3
Absolutely tired of the psychodrama of one country being the problem of the entire planet.
May 6, 2025 at 2:26 AM
melanine.bsky.social
SO GOOD
kyrla.bsky.social kyrla @kyrla.bsky.social · May 3
this is art, thank you peter dutton
Peter Dutton on his way to give a speech after losing the Australian election. Behind him is a TV with the tickertape bar reading "SIGNIFICANT DEFEAT"
May 3, 2025 at 11:56 AM
melanine.bsky.social
Did someone grab a still of the abc with Dutton walking past a screen saying “SIGNIFICANT DEFEAT”? Satisfying
May 3, 2025 at 11:33 AM
melanine.bsky.social
Golly gosh this is fun. Ta ta Dutton!
May 3, 2025 at 10:59 AM
melanine.bsky.social
Lolllll Peter Dick thanks Antony
May 3, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Reposted by Melanie
nisslbody.blacksky.app
I feel like AI is dividing the professional workforce into two categories; people who heavily rely on AI, and people who are good at their jobs.
April 25, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Melanie
vidyarajan.bsky.social
trans bathroom this trans bathroom that .... these ppl are so obsessed with turning the world into the toilet that is their own mind. let ppl shit in peace and do literally anything else with ur time on earth u absolute broken terf ghouls.
April 25, 2025 at 12:14 PM
melanine.bsky.social
“Medication records from pharmacy chains, lab testing and genomics data from patients treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service, claims from private insurers and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers will all be linked together, he said.”

Nightmare fuel.
mattortega.com Matt Ortega @mattortega.com · Apr 21
Gun registry? No. Autism registry? Yes?

Fuck ALL the way off.
The NIH is also now in talks with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to broaden agreements governing access to their data, Bhattacharya said. In addition, a new disease registry is being launched to track Americans with autism, which will be integrated into the data. Between 10 and 20 outside groups of researchers will be given grant funding and access to the records to produce Kennedy's autism studies. Bhattacharya did not give details on how they would be chosen, but said their selection would be "run through normal NIH processes."
April 22, 2025 at 11:09 AM
melanine.bsky.social
Like a warm, cozy 2000 blanket. Is this millennial nostalgia?
April 18, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Reposted by Melanie
pookleblinky.bsky.social
Why would you ever invest in a US company when any day the insider-trading president could decide to publicly shoot the economy in the face or publicly declare he will for the moment put the gun away.

Also, he increases tariffs but all the US news joyfully says he has removed tariffs.
April 10, 2025 at 6:44 AM
melanine.bsky.social
I don’t know if it helps anyone, but I took my little doggy to the park for a run and to the lake to watch ducks. She’s just the best.
Merle the corgi on a bench watching what’s going on at the lake Merle the corgi running to the camera Merle the corgi on her favourite stone wall
April 7, 2025 at 7:41 AM
melanine.bsky.social
I was wondering why a small renovation task that failed was eating me more than expected.. oh yes, collapse of the global economy due to a golfing orange fuckwit. Massacre of Gazans by Israel. I have wine, given up on tasks today.
April 7, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Reposted by Melanie
kebrightbill.bsky.social
Part of how we ended up here is that it's not just conservatives who don't understand how manufacturing and supply chains work. Almost nobody in this country does. They didn't understand that Trump would crash the economy because they didn't understand that we can't move manufacturing back quickly.
April 5, 2025 at 3:34 AM
Reposted by Melanie
angrystaffer.bsky.social
March 25, 2025 at 4:59 AM