Bless you ants. Blants.

[lets-steal-an-archive]

ALT

View on Twitter

https://archive.org/details/vhsinstructionals

Instructional and Educational VHS Tapes : Free Movies : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive

[berlynn-wohl]

me browsing this folder: omg omG I don’t know which one I’m more excited to watch, this Frontline episode from 1992 or this NOVA episode from 1984!!!

the NSA agent who can hear everything through my phone:

[digital-magus]

Yes… YES! fucking hell I LOVE this! Give them all to me!!

[roach-works]

IMMEDIATELY hit gold, thank you OP, i am respectfully stripping for you (1987)

[roach-works]

[golden-reedwolf]

The Black Dog (1987) by British animator Alison De Vere

This beautiful animated short was based on a dream Alison had. The film is available to watch on YouTube and if you’ve never seen it I highly recommend watching it!

[rosemarythunder]

Excerpts from “Queer Action Figures” zine #3, 1996. NYC.

[shelomit]

Music Podcasts

@minipliny​ asked for antebellum podcast recommendations yesterday,* which reminded me: at the Society for American Music conference last year, the attendees at the public scholarship conference put together a list of accessible-but-rigorous music-related podcasts. Judging by the “last edit” date in the Google doc, I don’t think this information was ever shared.

Aria Code: “deep dives” on individual arias from canonical operas;

Ben Model’s Silent Film Music Podcast: what it says on the tin, from a highly regarded film accompanist;

Bottom of the Map: a musicologist and a journalist discuss the history and influence of Southern hip-hop;

Broken Record: Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam, and/or Justin Richmond interview musicians about their work (“liner notes for the digital age”);

Cocaine and Rhinestones: long-abandoned but excellently researched podcast about country music history;

Dolly Parton’s America: limited series from WNYC, focusing on cultural history with Parton as a center point;

Drum History: focuses on the organology of the drum set/kit;

Hearing the Pulitzers: every Pulitzer winner for music in chronological order, featuring SAM stalwart Andrew Granade;

Hit Parade: “deep dives” on individual pop songs;

Listening to Ladies: Elisabeth Blair interviews living female composers;**

Lost Notes: pop music microhistory from LA public radio station KCRW;

New York Times Popcast: survey of contemporary issues in popular music, with occasional excursions into jazz and art music;

Meet the Composer: violist Nadia Sirota interviews classical composers regarding their methods, aesthetics, and philosophies;

Mogul: hip-hop history through the lenses of significant yet under-scrutinized scenes and individuals;

Music Business Podcast: focus on production and marketing, from two A&R professionals;

Music for PhDs: Sunita LaGallou interviews contemporary classical musicians active in Canada;

On a Personal Note: a podcast from the Cleveland Orchestra, with interview-based episodes on a variety of topics (repertoire, contemporary composers, orchestra staff, etc.);

Ongoing History of New Music: Alan Cross examines alt-rock music, with lots of Canadian content and interviews;

Score: The Podcast: long-form interviews with film composers;

Song Exploder: musicians discussing their own music;

Sound Expertise: a recently-launched show in which William Robin from UMD talks with other musicologists about their research;***

The Soundtrack Show: analysis of film scores as well as film soundtracks;

Switched On Pop: accessibly presented music theory in popular music;

This Is Not a Drake Podcast: Canadian hip-hop (other than Drake);

Trilloquy: “challenging the status quo of classical music” through topics like race, inclusion, and the limits of the canon;

Weird Studies: not exclusively about music, but one of the hosts is musicologist Phil Ford, so it goes there a lot.

*I was not helpful, since I only really know of one.

**Can you tell I didn’t write these blurbs? It would be much more impressive if she interviewed dead ones.

***@darkhei-noam, this is pretty much what you asked me about this May, only I didn’t know it existed back then!

[mynowherenothing]

[cryptidize]

Fuck It, Internet Guide

Hey there! As social media becomes more and more inhospitible for the local user, I wanted to post some useful/fun links to just about anything I can think of! Enjoy! Also, if you'd like an invite to the P!rated Games discord, lmk! ^_^

I AM CURRENTLY STILL UPDATING THIS POST AND I WILL REBLOG IT WHEN I ADD TO IT! Feel free to comment things I've missed, I'm sure there's way more than this came from!

WEB CENTRIC

CURLIE: THE COLLECTOR OF URLs (Curlie strives to be the largest human-edited directory of the Web. You can save sites and create your own mini webring!)

Internet Archive (A collection of over 818 Billion websites, books, movies, music, and more. Hosts the Wayback Machine, which can be used to access a multitude of sites, given they were indexed in time.)

Wiby (Human submission search engine for older webrings, as well as a how-to guide on how to develop your own search engine)

Unicode Text Converter (Easy way to make your text illegible to Google but be warned, it will make screen readers malfuction)

Embed Responsively (Easily convert links and embeds to work responsively within your site - perfect for neocities!)

Generator Land (Generate a list or prompt for just about anything!)

GifCities (Part of the Internet Archive, a special project done as part of the 20th anniversary in an effort to save data from GeoCities. Find a gif for just about anything!)

Animated Images (Another gif repository, though this one is easier to search and includes small animations.)

Gifs-Paradise (Another gif repository. I swear I collect these. Searchable and categorized.)

ASCII Art Archive (Database of ASCII Art, also known as text art)

Christopher Johnson's ASCII Art Collection (Another, arguably larger, ASCII Art database)

MelonLand (A web project and online arts community that celebrates homepages, virtual worlds, the world-wide-web and the digital lives that all netizins share, here at the dawn of the digital age. See their thoughts and the WEB REVIVAL they're starting.)

Sadgrl Webrings (Webrings brought to us by Sadgrl.Online - 60+ different ones to be exact) and Sadgrl Links (70+ links just like the ones in this post)

Districts at Neocities (Remember neighborhoods on Geocities? Imagine that but for Neocities!)

Neocities Banners (Banners from all across neocities. Blinkies, banners and more leading all over the web. Mostly 88x31, though there are bigger ones too. Technically counts as a webring.)

Blinkies.cafe (Site for blinkies where you can even make your own! I get most of my blinkies here and off DeviantArt.)

88x31 Collection (Possibly the largest collection I've seen for 88x31 buttons)

90's Cursor Effects (Want a funky cursor for your blog or website? Wanna be able to realtime preview what cursors would look like? Come get some code!)

The Malware Museum (Interact with malware and viruses from the 80s and 90s through emulation! No nasty virus interactions needed :D )

KNOWLEDGE BASES

Library Genesis - LIBGEN (Scientific journals - dedicated to archiving every science journal and their articles in existence.)

Information Mesh (A web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout different interactive timelines.)

Web Design Museum (Over 2,000 sorted websites showing web design trends from '96 to '06.)

The History of the Web (A twice monthly newsletter about web history, and the incredible people that built it. Goes from 1989 to present.)

Field Guide to Web Accessibility (Principles and applications to every day web scenarios in order to make the web a more friendly place!)

CARI - Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (an online community and collective association of researchers and designers dedicated to carrying on the important work of categorizing "consumer aesthetics" from the late midcentury, when work on the subject somewhat trailed off, through today.)

The Eye (Archive consisting of 140TB of books, websites, games, software, or anything else you can really think of.)

The Uncensored Library (A project from Reporters without Borders, where they use a loophole using Minecraft to distribute information.)

National Gallery of Art Public Domain (The National Gallery of Art has an open access policy for images of works of art in their permanent collection which the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.)

Library of Congress Public Domain (Features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.)

Public Domain Review (an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.)

New York Public Library Public Domain (Our digitized collections are available as machine-readable data: over one million records for you to search, crawl and compute.)

Official articles from NASA (PubSpace is NASA's designated public access repository. It is a collection of NASA-funded scholarly publications within the STI Repository, aiming to increase access to federally funded research in accordance with NASA Public Access Policy.)

Universal Hint System (Wanna get some vague help for an older video game without getting spoiled? Check out these awesome hints!)

Smithsonian Open Access (Download, share, and reuse millions of 2D and 3D digital items from their 21 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.)

Instructables (Wanna know how to make just about anything? Check here!)

QZAP Zine Archive (Archive of LGBT+ Zines, began in 2003 with zines dating back all the way to the 1970s. NSFW AT TIMES, BROWSE AT YOUR OWN RISK.)

P!racy Masterpost (Tumblr-based masterpost of game piracy, last updated 2021. A bit old but some of the stuff there is still good. If this link breaks, please contact me.)

P!rated Games Megathread (masterpost created by r/P!ratedGames includes required components as well as anything else you need. NOTE: PLEASE HAVE SOME SORT OF PROTECTION WHEN NAVIGATING THIS SITE)

Geocities Gallery (A website hosting a working archive for many abandoned Geocities Sites.)

Snipplr (Code Snippet repository. Great for coding issues.)

GeoCities (Archived) (Great for searching ancient webrings for gifs and website ideas. Not so great for downloads.)

Freeware Guide (Archived) (The Freeware-Guide died sometime in 2021 [we think March] but it's still full of VERY valuable information. Links are broken pretty much all the way through, but the names of software as well as what they do can be useful in finding them elsewhere thru some google searching)

Peelopaalu (Where I got a good handful of these links - AND THERE'S MORE!!!)

The Simple Site (More links to so much more cool stuff!)

ART TOOLS

Untitled - Paint (An in-browser version of classic Microsoft Paint!)

KidPix (In-browser version of classic KidPix for the public domain!)

Pixel Logic - A Guide to Pixel Art (Comprehensive guide to making cool art for $10 USD, updated semi-frequently and you get all new versions for free)

SAI - Bootlegged (A version of SAI with a multitude of brushes and textures pre-installed. Quite literally the only thing I use to draw aside from Clip Studio Paint.)

Stripe Generator (Need some easy stripes for an art piece? Can't be bothered to try and space stripes evenly? This is for you!)

Photopea (Free online photo editor supporting files for Adobe Photoshop, XCF, Sketch App, Adobe XD, and CorelDRAW, as well as many more!)

blender (A FOREVER free and Open Source software for 3D Modeling, full of tutorials and assets. I feel like most people don't know it's completely free to play with)

Vertex Meadow (A web-browser tool that renders 2D images as explorable 3D terrain. With it you can create detailed and unusual 3D environments to explore using a 2D paint-program-like interface.)

OpenGameArt (Need art for your game but you're not an artist? Consider checking here first [or just hire a real artist looking for work on here!])

MUSIC TOOLS AND DISCOVERY

BandLab (Social music platform that enables creators to make music and share their creative process with musicians and fans. Completely free with an option to set up stripe where you get 100% OF PROFITS. Available for apple/android/desktop)

JummBox (Free online beat-maker with a very simple interface that runs on your browser)

Mydora (Mydora is a continuous streaming player that gives you a deep dive into the lost archives of Myspace Music, based on some recovered data called the Dragon Hoard, with some additional metadata (most notably the locations and genres) from a different scan of Myspace conducted back in 2009. Contains 490,000+ songs, only a fraction of what was wiped out.)

Radiooooo (A place where people are able to play hit songs from the decade of their choosing from whatever country they wish.)

WFMU (Independent freeform radio broadcasting. Currently ongoing.)

Gnoosic (A sort-of music search engine that finds you songs/bands based off of your music taste.)

Khinsider (3.1 TB worth of video game soundtracks)

Radio.garden (Listen to thousands of radio stations all around the world.)

FUN STUFF

FrogLand (The purpose of Frogland is to show that the Internet can indeed provide a wealth of useful information and still be fun. Mainly, this site is dedicated to the many teachers out there who are finding new uses for the Internet as a tool for educating youngsters. Hopefully, it will inspire some young minds to find new interest in herpetology, biology, and environmental issues...not to mention providing some inspiration for young future computer "wizzes"! No longer active but still useful.)

Windows 98 icon Viewer (Want clear jpgs of all the Windows 98 symbols and icons? They're all here!)

GifyPet (Create your own embeded pet that people can play with and feed when they visit your page! See my version HERE [only works on desktop tho])

Ultimate Mushroom (Like the idea of picking mushrooms in your area but no idea what to look for? Check out this info hub!)

Gif Gallery (Another gif repositiory, only sorted by being numbered 1-100,000. Fun and silly, not so much useful unless you're looking for random gifs. Part of the MelonLand Webring)

Interesting DOS Programs (A host of DOS programming, guides and links.)

Internet Archive: MS-DOS Games (8,000 games right in your web browser! Your browser can play DOOM!)

Tiled Backgrounds (Need some small jpegs for easy website bg tiling? Browse this collection sorted by color.)

cOOl & EMO tEXt cOnVERTer xXX (Flashing warning. Wanna type like you're in the 2000s? Need a funny Green Day lyric as a caption? This is probably the best place for you.)

0x40 (Flashing Warning. Anime images synced with music. Fun for parties, lol)

WebGL Fluid Simulation (In browser fluid simulator, great for art backgrounds and desktop wallpapers.)

Flashpoint (The biggest collection of preserved Flash Games and Animations)

NCase (Free games and open source projects from Nicky [THESE ARE REALLY COOL AND FUN, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND])

Your World of Text (A huge interactive text doc that anyone can add to anonymously.)

Text To Speech (TTS in more than 30 languages and over 180 voices.)

ASCII Art Generator (Make ASCII Art from any image.)

Petit Tube (Random Youtube videos with less than 10 views)

Noclip Website (Noclip around various video game maps in your browser!)

Monster Mash (Create and animate some monsters in browser! You can also download their files.)

[hobbies306540111]

women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i'm going to fucking kill

[endangeredlove]

;___;♡♡♡♡

[mothric]

genuine question from someone who would rather chew their arm off than go to a public gym, and also doesnt have a lot of money: how do you safely get into strength training? are there youtube channels, apps (android), etc anyone recommends that makes it approachable and don't lean into diet culture / body shaming?

also the biggest thing that keeps me from working out is that I already have joint and spinal issues and moving the wrong way can fuck up a knee or a shoulder or my spine for days. I really don't want to injure myself, and have unwittingly done so before. resources that are extremely clear on exactly how to move and offer gentler / alternative ways to move for people with limited range are vital.

[feenyxblue]

Okay, so this may not technically be strength training, but muscles are dumber than bricks and cannot tell the difference between your own bodyweight and actual weights.

So, may I recommend:

Hybrid Calisthenics

Hey everyone! My name is Hampton and my brand is Hybrid Calisthenics. You can find me by that name pretty much everywhere on social media.

He runs a YouTube channel where he goes over how to work your way up to more complex exercises (for instance, his pull-ups videos start with using a door jamb and moving your weight back and forth) so it's good for easing yourself into things.

[bundibird]

You also don't have to fork out for expensive weights and such if you don't want to/can't. Substitute with stuff you either already have at home or can get from the supermarket and build up the weight you can exercise with. 500 gram cans of butter beans then 750 gram bottles of pasta sauce. 1 litre drink bottle then your 1.5 litre milk bottle. 3 litre bulk-buy bottle of laundry detergent. Etc. One of my dogs weighs 13 kilos and I pick her up on the regular (to her delight). One weighs 16 kg and I pick him up too (to his consternation and mild disapproval). You don't have to fit out some fancy home gym before you can start strength training.

[theygender]

I second Hybrid Calisthenics, that's the program I use. It's run by one guy who's taken it upon himself to make exercising more accessible and it's completely free! Each exercise has different variations based on your ability and each variation is further divided into different levels of difficulty so you can work up to where you want to be. If you can't do a single push up for example then this program will help you work up to the point where you can, and if you're a master of push ups then there are more advanced body weight exercises you can tackle so you can keep moving forward in your training without stagnating. The routine offers a full body workout with absolutely no equipment required for the beginning levels. The only reason you would need to buy anything is if you want to work up to a full pull up, at which point you would need actual pull up rings

Here's his actual website which I feel is easier to navigate than the YouTube channel on its own and organizes things in a way that's easy to understand. He explains everything you need to know about the routine and each individual exercise has both a text description and a video tutorial

Hybrid Calisthenics

[diaryofandnwoman]

[warriorofdune]

May his memory be a blessing.

[ranfanblog]

Willem Arondéus (22 August 1894 – 1 July 1943) was a Dutch artist and author who joined the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II. He participated in the bombing of the Amsterdam public records office to hinder the Nazi German effort to identify Dutch Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo. Arondéus was caught and executed soon after his arrest. Yad Vashem recognized Arondéus as Righteous Among the Nations.

Their attack, which took place on 27 March 1943, was partially successful, and they managed to destroy 800,000 identity cards, and retrieve 600 blank cards and 50,000 guilders. The building was blown up and no one was caught on the night of the attack. However, due to an unknown betrayer, Arondéus was arrested on 1 April 1943. Arondéus refused to give up the rest of his team.

Arondéus was openly gay before the war and defiantly asserted his sexuality before his execution. His final words were:

"Tell the people that homosexuals are not by definition weak."

From Wikipedia

[hunter-rodrigez]

He was also a pretty great artist

[kurloz38]

Reblog to include his artwork!

[the-cassquatch]

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

[dj-of-the-coven]

Long collection of resources under the cut.

You're right that the internet is smaller than it used to be, but there's still some cool stuff left in the corners. I'd recommend checking checking out Neocities if you haven't--it's an independent web hosting platform like Geocities of the old web, and there are hundreds of interesting and active pages discoverable both through their search function and through web buttons (links attached to small pictures with the title of a website) within the websites themselves. Here are three examples of web buttons you may find in link pages:

Most Neocities websites have link pages or button collections with anywhere from tens to hundreds of these. Don't be afraid to explore!

If you're looking for something more like a search engine, I can point you towards Marginalia. It's not a particularly smart engine, but it's perfectly usable if you've ever been taught to use search engines back when they were mostly run through keywords instead of full sentence comprehension. There's also an "about" and "tips" section on the front page with more information. The algorithm of Marginalia can be filtered by the user to allow, disallow, or require JavaScript depending on your needs, plus there are filters designed specifically to prioritize web 1.0 sites or mostly text-based ones. It is possible to search for modern websites with it, but it can return websites from just about any decade (since the invention of the web, obviously) so long as they contain the information you're looking for. For example, here are some random interesting sites I've found using Marginalia:

Native Languages of the Americas: Native American Cultures

BASIC HTML COMPETENCY IS THE NEW PUNK FOLK EXPLOSION!

Earthbound Text Labs by Bill Eager

The possibilities for discovery are truly endless.

Now you might want to know about directories. These make browsing for websites easier, but require you to read through and judge which ones to visit, as there aren't algorithms ranking the sites besides the whim of whoever coded the directory. Some of them have themes, others don't. Here are two that I've used:

Yesterlinks Directory

Ichigo Directory

Directories can be harder to come by just by surfing the net, but they aren't impossible to find. Many personal websites have their own directories of interesting sites hidden within them.

Webrings are similar to directories, but are actually more community-based. You have to register your website to be a part of a webring, usually by sending an email to whoever runs it and meeting some kind of entry criteria. For example, my personal website used to be a part of a webring called Sweet Dreams, which was for websites that heavily utilize color palettes and images of cute things, particularly sweets. Webrings will give you access to a widget upon entry that allow visitors and other members to browse between the registered websites in a massive ring, ergo, where the term gets its name. Webrings can have any theme or criteria for entry. If you can make a website about it, you can find a webring for it.

Now, you might be wondering about social media alternatives. I can't offer much, but I can nudge you towards the idea of forums. Here's one I found that could really use some traffic. I also browse a bit on MelonLand forum, which is actually closed right now--it's currently closed on Mondays--but on any other day of the week, you can find a fun community there dedicated to web revival. You can find it through MelonLand's main page. I'd also recommend checking out SpaceHey, which is a MySpace clone that's customizable and easy to use.

I hope this is of some help to you. The internet may feel less magical than it used to be, but that doesn't mean that the spark has completely died out. These types of indie websites need more attention if we ever hope to reverse the damage done to the internet by centralization and corporate interest. People are trying to make the web a cooler place to be, but we're going to have to do the work of finding and interacting with these projects in order to get them off the ground someday.

[xerxestexastoast]

ALSO you should consider browsing Virtual Pet List and seeing if there are any pet sites you might be interested in playing. There is a whole genre of browser games right under your nose

[biothreads]

Another one that I just found recently is this, which is a whole collection of blogs, organized by topic!

ooh.directory: a place to find good blogs that interest you

A collection of 1,966 blogs about every topic

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Look guys the real internet IS STILL THERE I'm going to cry

[cloudyeveniing]

Getting off of twitter and onto neocities has really healed me and I am so glad to see it is healing other people too ;u; let's retreat into the self-made digital woods and away from corporate bs pls, I am so tired

[hthrrloooo]

Weeknight Recipes We've Made Again & Again

I mentioned yesterday that I was compiling a Keep list for me and N so that we'll have a shared inventory of quick and easy dinner options for weeknights.

So many times last year, I would get to the end of a teaching day and have zero brain power left for sifting through my mental rolodex of recipes to figure out what to make for dinner. This will make it easy: if I can't think of a dinner idea, we can both scan this list and pick something out that we already know is easy and we like eating.

Anyway, here's our list:

If something's behind a paywall—as most of the NYT stuff is—just message me & I'll send you the unlocked recipe. :)

Victoria Granof's Pasta con Ceci

things on toasts (sardines, olives, roasted peppers, mushrooms tomatoes, leftovers, etc.)

Zuni's Pasta with Preserved Tuna

Fried Egg Salad with toast

Mozzarella Schnitzel and a salad

Buttery Balsamic Chicken

Marcella Hazan's Braised Celery with Onion, Pancetta, and Tomatoes, especially over some simple grits or polenta

Marcella's Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onion, tossed with pasta

Instant Pot Coconut Shrimp Soup (Tom Kha)

Crispy Eggs Fried in Breadcrumbs

Melty Cheddar with Tomatoes on toast

Instant Pot "Baked" Potatoes topped with whatever (canned/leftover chili, broccoli & cheese sauce, loaded with sour cream & cheese & bacon & scallions, etc.)

Baked Tofu with Coconut Kale and coconut rice

One-Pot Vegan Coconut Water ABC Soup

Extra-Crispy Bar-Style Tortilla Pizza

Kale Sauce Pasta

Vegetable Pajeon (Korean Scallion Pancakes With Vegetables)

Tuna Salad Composée

Instant Pot Japchae

Twice-Cooked Pork Tenderloin

Pasta Puttanesca

Pasta with Tuna and Olives

Creamy Turmeric Pasta

Yakisoba with Pork and Cabbage

Roasted Salmon with Brown Sugar and Mustard Glaze

Tortizzas

Crispy Gnocchi With Burst Tomatoes and Mozzarella

DIY Hand Rolls or Sushi Bowls

Cheesy Rice Porridge with Greens

Vietnamese Canh (Soup with Shrimp and Mustard Greens)

20-Minute Bean and Rice Burritos

Air-Fryer Grilled Cheese (with kimchi, ham, mushrooms, leftovers, etc.)

Instant Pot Spaghetti

Nigella Lawson's Linguine Pasta with Lemon, Garlic & Thyme Mushrooms

Noodle Salad With Chicken and Chile-Scallion Oil

Lohikeitto (Finnish Salmon Soup)

Blistered Cheesy Peppers

Pressure Cooker Chipotle Chicken Pozole

Lemon Spaghetti with Roasted Artichokes

middle school cafeteria tacos from a kit

Instant Ramen Fried Rice

Poached Cod with Tomato and Saffron over rice or couscous or toasted bread

20-Minute Couscous with Tuna & Other Stuff

Chicken and Rice Soup with Celery Leaf Gremolata

Sesame-Ginger Chicken Noodle Soup

[gatheringbones]

patrick milian, from undead disco: variations on a theme, from between certain death and a possible future, edited by mattilda bernstein sycamore, 2021

[gatheringbones]

["Reagan ignored the growing death toll, and Bush told the dying to just change their behavior.

In that story, disco goes silent, and nowhere was this loss so dramatically registered as in the very public death of the "Queen of Disco," Sylvester. I was born the year Sylvester died, so everything I've encountered about him seems like an artifact of a forgotten history in which a Black gay man not only appears on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in makeup and a kimono, but he drives the audience nearly rabid with a performance that's nothing short of transcendent. The first song he plays, "Dance (Disco Heat)," grooves for an unrelenting six minutes, as he and his backup singers raise their voices in a gospel of liberation. It's only matched by the second song, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," which somehow manages to push the tempo even faster. The fact that two of the greatest disco tracks both came from the same artist in 1978 is remarkable. That Sylvester put them on either side of the same single is almost unbelievable. But ten years after that television appearance, almost to the very day, he died of AIDS-related complications at the age of forty-one. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times a few months before his death, he explained how he had been hospitalized three days for what he thought was bronchitis before finding out he had AIDS. It's fitting that the virus would begin to show itself in his voice, where an androgynous falsetto that wove together the sounds of his Pentecostal upbringing with those of Afro Cuban rhythms would emerge. The excessive sounds of Black queer self-expression, of musical and sexual promiscuity, were choked out for the world to hear. AIDS took disco by the throat.

But in another story, disco doesn't go silent as much as it is drowned out. Sylvester embodies how a generation of Black gay men helped create the genre, but another generation gave it a second life. Starting in late-'70s Chicago, DJS like Frankie Knuckles and Farley Jackmaster Funk were spinning at the Warehouse, a members-only club frequented mostly by Black gay men. As disco waned in popularity among mainstream Americans, a new genre of music stripped of vocals, dismantled, and looped could be heard most nights at the Warehouse. Eventually, that sound was named after its birthplace and became, simply, house music. Although Sylvester found himself at the center of American pop music, Black gay men reeling from the AIDS crisis found themselves pushed to the margins and building a music without the studio space and session musicians the label system once afforded. Instead, they reconstituted the remnants of the '70s by picking through the bits and putting them back together. By looping a four-on-the-floor drumbeat along with an Afro Cuban clave pattern and squelching synth riffs from a misued Roland TB-303, DJS like Knuckles and Funk reimagined disco in a way that was darker and colder, harder but unrefined. House is the original deconstructed disco, stitched into the aural fabric of so much contemporary pop. Maybe AIDS killed disco, but the music made in response to and out of that loss is ingrained in the sounds that sustain me and the queers of my generation."]

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults 

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

maybe I’ll start a big google doc or something one day but for now *deep breath*

The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - absolutely BUCKWILD romance with a dash of telekinesis; nonstop high society drama and misunderstanding from start to finish, happy ending guaranteed. STRONGLY recommend if you, like me, are a basic bitch who enjoys a bit of Pride and Prejudice. 

Binti (Nnedi Okorafor) - a math prodigy runs away from Earth to become the first of her people to attend a prestigious university in space, but shit gets real when a crew of hostile jellyfish aliens attack her ship. 

Chilling Effect (Valerie Valdes) - a spaceship captain and her crew take on a series of convoluted missions in order to rescue the captain’s sister, who’s been frozen and held for ransom. 

The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - an 18th century conwoman and a mysterious djinn team up to go looking for a legendary hidden city.

The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin) - a scrappy bunch of Chosen Ones have to band together to defend New York City (which is very much alive) from a huge ass monster. 

The Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone) - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress. literally WHAT is not to like?

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - high fantasy royal drama about a woman making her way to power in the wake of a political marriage that left without friends or allies. 

Escaping Exodus (Nicky Drayden) - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit (as things are wont to do in science fiction stories). 

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (Kai Cheng Thom) - a trans girl runs away to the big city, where she uses her martial arts skills to team up with other trans woman and form a vigilante gang to defend their own when police look the other way. a fascinating blend of poetry and prose and magical realism. 

Finna (Nino Cipri) - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) - come on, you’ve heard about this one. it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers? yeah, that’s the one. you got it.

In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) - a Beauty and the Beast retelling based in science fiction and Vietnamese fantasy, featuring a young woman falling in love with a “beast” who’s actually a motherly dragon after becoming a tutor to the dragon’s two powerful children. 

Jade City (Fonda Lee) - urban fantasy gang wars, pitting one magically enhanced family against rivals and a new drug that lets anyone mimic their abilities. 

The Library of the Unwritten (A.J. Hackwith) - hell’s librarian gets sent on a quest to find a runaway soul. 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) - aka one of my favorite books ever, essentially slice of life science fiction following an interspecies crew of deep space truckers making the longest and most complicated delivery of their lives. very warm and fuzzy. 

Mort (Terry Pratchett) - one of many MANY Discworld books, but a very good one to start with, following the adventures of a boy named Mort after he’s taken on as Death’s apprentice. you know, like the Grim Reaper? that Death. 

River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - historical AU in which the United States imported and domesticated hippos in the Mississippi River; follows a crew of hippo-riding crooks and hooligans as they plan one heck of a caper. 

Space Opera (Catherynne Valente) - a washed up rock star and his old bandmate get roped into performing in an intergalactic singing competition that will determine the fate of the entire planet Earth. full of aliens, attempted assassination, art, and emotional turmoil. 

This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality. 

Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) - fairyland is real, and Victorian England is sending missionaries. a woman and her brother attempt to bring the good word to the fair folk, but start to suspect the queen might just be screwing with their heads. PEAK gothic horror with a creepy fairy twist. 

Witchmark (C.L. Polk) - a doctor and former soldier with magical powers of healing is trying to live a quiet life and avoid his controlling, aristocratic family’s plans for him, only to get tangled up in a massive political conspiracy when one of his patients mysterious dies. accompanying him in his investigation is a mysterious and gorgeous faerie man. romance ensues. 

[bittenwraths]

The First Sister by Linden A Lewis. Three protagonists and all of them queer, a fun space opera. It’s not out yet, but I can tell you it’s really, really good. I highly recommend

Gods of Jade and Shadow another Silvia Moreno-Garcia book. It takes place in 1920s Mexico and has Mayan gods. A fun breezy book.

Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep. If you like YA fantasy but want a little more swearing, violence and sex then this novel is for you.

The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle Jensen. This one I really enjoyed. If you like the winner’s curse then you’ll like this book.

Books I haven’t read but I’ve heard good things about

Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson. This one isn’t out it but I believe it’s got a black protagonist.

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri. An Indian inspired fantasy novel. I haven’t read this one but I’ve heard good things about it.

Rage of Dragons by Evan Winters. A black fantasy novel.

The Unspoken Name by AK Larkwood. I haven’t read it but I know it’s got a lesbian protagonist.

Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope. Just started this book but I believe it’s for adults.

Tiger’s Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera. Lesbian protagonists and it’s still on my tbr.

[starhalation]

Read She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan immediately it will change your life and ruin you

[displayheartcode]

Let me know if anyone wants a list of Jewish fantasy novels

[longsightmyth]

Hit me

[displayheartcode]

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid (adult, based on Hungarian Jewish history)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (adult, based on Lithuanian Jewish history)

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (adult, urban fantasy)

The Wise and the Wicked by Rebecca Podos (YA, urban fantasy)

Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes (adult, anthology)

A good amount of Alice Hoffman’s books

Same for Jane Yolen’s short stories and Briar Rose

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (adult, historical)

People of the Book edited by Rachel Swirsky and Sean Wallace (anthology)

Anything by Shira Glassman

[displayheartcode]

Adding more!

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros (ya, historical urban fantasy about a series of murders in 1900s Chicago). Also read his sophomore novel Bone Weaver!

From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos (ya, urban fantasy)

The Ghosts of Rose Hill by RM Romero (YA, ghost story told in verse)

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb (ya, historical about angel and a demon coming to America)

Ravenfall by Kalyn Josephson (mg, urban fantasy murder mystery)

A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft (ya, romantic fantasy about a fox hunt)

The Way Back by Gavriel Salt (ya, historical portal fantasy)

The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke (ya, historical time slip) and their stand alone, This Rebel Heart (ya, magical realism and historical)

Feverwake by Victoria Lee (ya, dystopian with magic)

Death’s Embrace by HL Moore (adult, sci-fi)

[lesgardenias]

“The perfume that her body exhaled was of the quality of that earth-flesh, fungi, which smells of captured dampness and yet is so dry, overcast with the odour of oil of amber, which is an inner malady of the sea, making her seem as if she had invaded a sleep incautious and entire. Her flesh was the texture of plant life, and beneath it one sensed a frame, broad, porous and sleep-worn, as if sleep were a decay fishing her beneath the visible surface. About her head there was an effulgence as of phosphorous glowing about the circumference of a body of water - as if her life lay through her in ungainly luminous deteriorations - the troubling structure of the born somnambule.”

— Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

[waheedarehman]

girlies of indian horror

shobana in manichitrathazu//revathi in raat//urmila matondkar in bhoot//tripti dimri in bulbbul//vidya balan in bhool bhulaiya//juhi chawla in darr//waheeda rehman in kohraa//lima das in aamis//sadhana in woh kaun thi?

[akajustmerry]

anyways, instead of focusing all your energy on calling out Succession and the Last of Us for being anti-palestinian, here's some of my favourite media made by Palestinians 🇵🇸 and their allies...

Salt of this Sea (2008). Dir. Annemarie Jacir. Heist film set in Palestine about 2 Palestinians who help a Palestinian American woman rob a British bank who refused to give her the money her grandfather left her.

Netflix original series, Mo, created by Mo Amer. Dramedy about Mo, a Palestinian American without papers, trying to stay out of trouble until his US citizenship is approved (he's already been waiting for 12 years). This just got renewed for a second season!!!!

Farha (2021). Dir. Darin J. Sallam. Coming of age story about a 14 year old girl trying to survive the Nakba in 1948. Tw: settler colonial violence.

In Between (2016). Dir. Maysaloun Hamoud. A film about 3 Palestinian women, one of whom is queer, in their 20s living under occupation. Heart-warming story about friendship, solidarity and revenge. Tw: sexual assault.

In Vitro (2019). Dir. Larissa Sansour. Breathtaking short scifi film set in a future where Bethlehem has been destroyed by an ecological disaster and two scientists from different generations are trying to remember what happened. This film is pure poetry and I think about it constantly.

It Must Be Heaven (2019). Dir. Elia Sulieman. A charmingly absurdist film about Elia Sulieman seeing parallels to Palestine everywhere he goes as he tries to make a film about his homeland.

The Crossing (2017). Dir. Ameen Nayfeh. Short film about Palestinian siblings trying to cross an Israeli checkpoint to visit their grandparents.

Ramy. Episode 3 of season 3: 'American Cigarettes'. Far and away the best episode of TV of 2022, and also directed by Annemarie Jacir. Ramy goes to occupied Palestine to make a diamond deal with some Israeli brokers, but his horniness takes him to The Other Side. I think about this episode almost everyday, it's unlike anything I've ever seen.

Freedom Is A Constant Struggle by Angela Davis. A book of interviews and essays conducted by Angela Davis on how systems of racism and colonial violence are all connected, and how solidarity between communities of colour are vital, using the long-standing allyship between Palestinians, Aboriginal peoples and Black Americans as case studies.

As fine and good as it is to call out Zionism in media, rmr to also support Palestinians, their work and their art. Feel free to suggest more ❤️

[elodieunderglass]

I grow our own vegetables. Many hybrid and heirloom varieties are bred for flavor rather than for commercial appeal and travel. There are entire species on the allotment that you can’t easily buy in stores because of this - like salsify, a root vegetable that tastes of fish and shellfish. Our neighbours happily take it to make vegan latkes of alarming similarity to fishcakes. You cannot sell it in stores because - despite looking like a white parsnip - it turns brown when you pick it if you scrape/bruise/cut the white root in any way, or damage the delicate little hairs, for some reason, it BLEEDS RED and is very upsetting to look at.

There are whole classes of foods like this. Foods that just don’t ship well or look good on supermarket shelves. Forbidden fruits. Vegetables that bleed and taste like meat. Sorry about this

[curioscurio]

[disasterscenario]

This website is one of my fav places to find interesting heirloom stuff! I ordered a bunch of seeds to try growing next year I’m really excited about! 

https://www.rareseeds.com/

[ct-7567]

@angelsaxis

[itsdetachable]

I’ve gotten and plants seeds from that site, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and they grow fantastically well for me.

I’m really looking forward to next season

[incremental-revolution]

Baker Creek Heirloom has good seeds but bad politics. They were going to host Cliven Bundy of the Occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Reserve who’s also pro the Capitol Riots and has made a lot of racist nastiness, although backlash made them cancel their guest list (which included other racist folks) Good sources of heirloom seeds:

Meet the Farmers

Each of the varieties offered through Truelove Seeds was grown by small-scale urban or rural farmers committed to sustainable agriculture, f

Rare Non-GMO Heirloom Seeds | Alliance of Native Seedkeepers

Alliance of Native Seedkeepers is North Americas Top Native American Source for rare heirloom Non-GMO vegetable, flower and herb garden seed

Our Story

Native Seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) is a nonprofit seed conservation organization based in Tucson, Arizona. Our mission is to conserve and promote th

[elodieunderglass]

^^^

[plum-soup]

Highly recommend Native Seed/Search and Truelove. Baker Creek has an amazingly large catalog and has some very cool and rare stuff, but they are also Mennonites and as you might expect, they do have terrible politics as listed above, although they do some decent work preserving heirloom seeds from threatened communities.

An organization that does really interesting work preserving seed from threatened communities (and larger companies like baker creek often piggyback off of some of the work done by orgs like this and NS/S) is the Experimental Farm Network. They are very explicit about their (left-leaning) political views and you don’t have to worry about them being Problematic. They have lots of interesting and rare varieties and species you really cannot find anywhere else.

Threatened Communities

An important part of our mission involves preserving and sharing seeds from communities under threat, and attempting, wherever possible, to

If you are looking for a wider selection of heirloom seed varieties, these two companies are very good resources as well, and carry many of the same things as Baker Creek. Afaik they are not expressly political beyond their general mission to preserve heirloom seeds (although southern exposure does a good job of preserving some very traditional african-American heirlooms from the Southeast US in particular).

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Saving the Past for the Future

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Saving the Past for the Future

Heirloom seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. Buy rare, organic seeds and support our nonprofit mission to preserve garden diversity. Free catal

[neolithicsheep]

Omg I hadn’t heard of the Experimental Farm Network and I am delighted! I am also completely thrilled to see people other than me remember that Baker Creek is a bunch of lying fash. They claimed they did not know about Cliven Bundy AFTER VISITING HIM IN JAIL. He was literally in jail for his anti-social bullshit when they first talked to him about the watermelons he and his mentor stole from Indigenous people and made their name on. They also take seeds from Indigenous communities globally and profit from them without sharing those profits with the communities they took the seeds from.

…I am blocked by them on Twitter after publicizing the Cliven Bundy crap, full disclosure, I have an actual feud with these people and their unethical practices.

[tkingfisher]

I was trying to get signal in the goddamn Himalayas to argue with them about Bundy. *grumble*

I also second Native Seed/SEARCH as a great org doing great work. Some of their stuff is so desert-adapted it won’t grow for me, but I’ve had great luck with some of their bean varieties.

[ayamccabre]

New Zealand people: have some links.

https://www.sentinelsgroup.co.nz/ Heirloom growers group in Canterbury. Some truly unusual stuff.

https://southernseed.org.nz Another group out of Christchurch. These guys went out of their way to help me find a rare plant that had shown up in their area like five years before I contacted them. They found it for me and shipped tubers to Wellington.

https://www.seedstofeeds.nz/upcoming-events Seed and seedling swaps, all over the country.

https://www.urbanorganics.org.nz/seed-exchange Otago seed exchange

https://kahikateafarm.co.nz/ Live plants, some of them truly hard to find.

https://koanga.org.nz/ These guys had a scandal a while back and never really recovered. Their range is much reduced (unless you’re a member), but they do the work of importing new species into the country, so some of their stuff can’t be found anywhere else.

https://www.sporeshift.co.nz Mushrooms!

kingsseeds.co.nz/ A large commercial grower. Their seeds are clearly labelled if they’re heirloom (older varieties) or open pollinated (you can save seeds for next year). They have some less common things, as well as all the more popular stuff.