prove you're human

I forgot to include a link.

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:22:14 -0400

I forgot to include a link.

Have I told you guys that I made a split zine with my dear...

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:52:00 -0400

Have I told you guys that I made a split zine with my dear pen-pal friend Vanessa Berry? Over the course of a couple of years we sent each other writing prompts through the mail, then each wrote little stories inspired by them. Vanessa lives in Australia and I’m here in the States so my half is called Winter Here and hers is Summer Here. I’m so fond of Vanessa and I really admire her as a writer, too. She’s smart and observant and something of an institution in the zine world by now. I don’t want to brag about myself but I figure it’s okay for me brag about her.

jonhorwitz: joshuaowen: Totally Tuesday “Berlin Lovers” //...

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:42:59 -0400

jonhorwitz:

joshuaowen:

Totally Tuesday

“Berlin Lovers” // Still Corners // 2013

Cannot get enough of this song lately.

You and I share a taste in music Jon Horwitz.

tyleroakley: beesquid: nooby-banana: anniedraws: beenwanderin...

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:47:22 -0400

tyleroakley:

beesquid:

nooby-banana:

anniedraws:

beenwandering:

zolabooks:

Storybook gown constructed entirely out of recycled and discarded children’s Golden Books. Designer Ryan Novelline created the bodice from the golden spines of these classic children’s books and sewed together the skirt from their illustrated pages.

My god. It’s like gorgeous nostalgia.

This is one of the most beautiful dresses I’ve ever seen.

Oh my god, wow.

displacedsnail: thelalatheory: Come to my reading in NYC why...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:38:00 -0400

displacedsnail:

thelalatheory:

Come to my reading in NYC why dontcha. Starring me, photographer Annie Soga, and writers Betsy Housten and Eryn Loeb. Beautiful flier by the beautiful Noelle Geniza.

You guys have to come to this! It’s going to me amazing!

Everybody can I remind you about this event I’m doing on Sunday, and ask you to come to it and to be “friends” with the event on Facebook, or however Facebook works? I’m gonna read a bunch of stuff from my book and it’s all stuff I’m really excited to share with you.

the-absolute-best-gifs: This post has been featured on a...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:30:42 -0400

the-absolute-best-gifs:

This post has been featured on a 1000notes.com blog.

Hahahaha I have to stop reblogging nonsense but this is fantastic

rookiemag: So important to remember! When the hot weather hits,...

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:56:50 -0400

rookiemag:

So important to remember! When the hot weather hits, wear whatever makes you feel the most comfortable!

-Kendra

You read my mind! I just went out with a skirt and legs that kinda don’t look perfect at all and it felt comfortable and good. My hair happened to be just right though, just saying.

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:50:00 -0400

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief…and unspeakable love.”

- Rumi (via inmilkwood)

I had a really beautiful moment with a stranger yesterday. We both cried, at the same time, about the same thing, and said very little about it, because very little needed to be said. It was nice.

"Anybody making elaborate patches to swap out or sell for a fricking dollar—you have to love that..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:16:44 -0400

“Anybody making elaborate patches to swap out or sell for a fricking dollar—you have to love that shit. There is nothing better than some dyke with a bone to pick booking a merch table to trash all her acquaintances in print.”

- Jennifer Blowdryer in an interview from Beyond the Music: How Punks Are Saving the World With DIY Ethics, Skills & Values, by Joe Biel

"A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:35:29 -0400

“

A catcall is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The purity myth is entirely about reminding you that you are not yours. The fetishization of female purity in a world where catcalls are an acceptable form of communication telegraphs one thing very clearly:

“Women, stop sexualizing yourselves—that’s our job, and you’re taking all the fun out of it.”

The sexualization of women is only appealing if it’s nonconsensual. Otherwise it’s “sluttiness,” and sluttiness is agency and agency is threatening.

”

- Lindy West, “Female ‘Purity’ is Bullshit” (via perfect)

theparisreview: “If you chance to find an authoress occupied...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:14:32 -0400

theparisreview:

“If you chance to find an authoress occupied with her needle, express no astonishment, and refrain from exclaiming, ‘What! can you sew?’ or, ‘I never supposed a literary lady could even hem a handkerchief!’ This is false, and if expressed in words, an insulting idea. A large number of literary females are excellent needle-women, and good housewives; and there is no reason why they should not be.” Etiquette for dealing with the authoress, from 1854.

For more of this morning’s roundup, click here.

In case you meet an authoress

Photo

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:12:44 -0400

Test your social intelligence!

Mon, 20 May 2013 05:01:14 -0400

Test your social intelligence!:

dreammason:

realindevelopment:

paintedfire:

sainthannah:

Test how well you can read emotions of others just by looking at their eyes.

The average adult score is 26 out of 36.

My score was 28 out of 36. Find yours!

31 out of 36 - this was super interesting.

27/36

29/36

I couldn’t resist. 34/36. I’m going to show this to J the next time he disbelieves me about “the look” someone was giving me.

LOWE: Language key in humanizing sex workers

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:45:00 -0400

LOWE: Language key in humanizing sex workers:

Consider two possible headlines about the same crime:

•Hooker killed in alley

•Mother of two found dead

Which one do you care about more?

Leslie Jeffrey is certain it’s the second.

“As humans, we are language-focused,” says the UNB Saint John political science professor. “We label things. And we label them good or bad. And that’s what gives us licence to act or not act.”

Jeffrey is right. It’s all garbage, but we treat recyclables with more care than trash. They’re both cars, but Jaguars garner more attention than Hyundais. And most people respond differently to a headline about a murdered “mother” or “sister” than one about a “prostitute” or a “whore.”

“Those old labels are heavily loaded with negativity and marginalization,” says Jeffrey, co-author of the 2006 book, Sex Workers in the Maritimes Talk Back. “They are all ways we say that these women are bad.”

That’s why Jeffrey says we should use the terms “sex work” and “sex worker,” instead of other not-always-considered-pejorative pejoratives in our everyday speech.

The term “sex work,” she argues, moves away from the realms of legality and morality to the world of economics. It steers the discussion away from whether sex work is right or wrong, and away from the law, toward the real way most sex workers see their trade — as work. “Good managers, bad managers, well paid, not well paid — it’s a job.”

Sex work is an increasingly common term in the global south, Jeffrey says, because there the work is seen more in the context of poverty and economic survival.

In the Maritimes, we’re still mired in morals and stigma.

Jeffrey tosses out the imaginary “Hooker killed in alley” headline example.

“It sets up the audience to not care,” she says.

It sends the message that “these women or men don’t matter. So if they are killed, we aren’t going to investigate. I am not going to go to the police and say this is horrible and call up my radio station and demand that people do something. Because what I just heard was: ‘This person who was looking to die, because they were a bad person, died.’”

That message begets stigma and violence.

(And those are no small issues in the sex trade. Halifax sex work advocacy and outreach organization Stepping Stone is so stretched in its efforts to support current and former sex workers — running a drop-in centre, compiling a bad date list, doing food and clothing bank referrals and co-ordinating housing and court support — the board eliminated its executive director position this week so that salary could go into programming.)

“(Sex workers) see and hear themselves being talked about (negatively),” Jeffrey says, “and they know it will mean people will feel comfortable treating them with disrespect and even violence.”

But can words make a difference?

“Look at all the powerful social justice movements we have had in the last 40 or 50 years,” Jeffrey says. “They have all revolved around changing the language.”

We have seen it in the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement.

“It seems at first that you’re just changing labels,” Jeffrey says. “But what we see, and what psychologists have told us, and linguists have told us, and social scientists have told us, is that human society works on language and labelling. How we understand something is how we act toward it. It is enormously powerful.”

To make “hooker” synonymous with “human,” then, perhaps means doing away with that label, and others like it, altogether.

“Changing the language,” Jeffrey says, “is the first step.”

mikehasanxiety: I’ve cried listening to Bruce Springsteen. If that ain’t ‘Merican than I don’t know...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:42 -0400

mikehasanxiety:

I’ve cried listening to Bruce Springsteen. If that ain’t ‘Merican than I don’t know what is.

Oh shoot me too. “Downbound Train” and “I’m On Fire” are the ones that usually get me.

catrocketship: The cover of my current sketchbook. It hit the...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:22:11 -0400

catrocketship:

The cover of my current sketchbook. It hit the scrap pile because, y’know, I misspelled “fellowship”.

I like this. It seems so sad that anyone would have to be reminded to behave this way but in my experience, lots of people do.

"You get depressed because you know that you’re not what you should be."

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:13:39 -0400

““You get depressed because you know that you’re not what you should be.””

- Marilyn Manson (via correctly)

I’m going to think about this.

theclevo: Do you?

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:32:48 -0400

theclevo:

Do you?

I was in a really dark mood yesterday—didn’t know it at the time but a migraine was ramping...

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:23:00 -0400

I was in a really dark mood yesterday—didn’t know it at the time but a migraine was ramping up, and that’s the course they sometimes take, disturbed mood first, then the pain—but then late in the afternoon J took me on a little walk in the beautiful old cemetery near his house and we saw a little bat flapping around overhead, and it cheered me right up. Bats in graveyards: always cheering.

"I bought plum blossoms more for the name than for the color; I buy lipstick that way, too. In other..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:21:16 -0400

“I bought plum blossoms
more for the name
than for the color;
I buy lipstick that way, too.
In other words,
if it sounds like a poem,
I’ll take it.”

- Dorothea Grossman, “Untitled” (via ethereally)