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To doubt is a revolutionary act. Fine Art Painter Vincent Giarrano

Today in Black Excellence: Maya Angelou—a literature titan whose 1969 memoir was the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” —Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

What was the early life of Maya Angelou?

She became a celebrated writer and Black icon, but it came from a childhood of tragedy. Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou was quickly exposed to racism as a child. Her parents split when she was young, and while visiting her mother, aged eight, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend: her uncles killed the boyfriend in revenge. These horrors left Angelou mute for five years, as she discussed in an interview with Oprah, a close friend. At age 16, she gave birth and was forced to work grueling jobs to support her son—including fry cook, sex worker, and nightclub performer.

She recounted her traumas to close friend James Baldwin—fellow writer and Black icon. He challenged Angelou to write about her experiences, and she published the wildly successful memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It catapulted Angelou to international stardom and was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970. It remained on The New York Times’ paperback nonfiction bestseller list for two years—the longest record in history.

What made her such a Black icon?

Angelou was a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated on her birthday in 1968. Angelou stopped celebrating her birthday for years afterward. In 1964, Angelou helped another activist friend Malcolm X in founding the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

Spanning over 50 years, she published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, books of poetry, and plays. Her 1971 poetry collection, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’Fore I Die, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Because of her tireless work in literature and political activism, Angelou became widely respected as a spokesperson for the Black experience, particularly of women. You can even find her legacy in your pocket—she recently became the first black woman to appear on a US quarter.

Original portrait by Tumblr Creatr @inuqo

"I was filled with such deep gratitude while working on this illustration of Maya Angelou. Her talent, creativity, strength, power and resilience is inspiring to us all and I wanted to display how beautiful her Universe was. How important her words and life's journey was because it showed us that no matter how hard we fall, still we can rise".”

—@inuqo

lord-kitschener

I mean the whole damn point of the Nativity story is that the supposed son of God (interpret Jesus how you fucking want, of course) was born to a couple of poor, exhausted peasants in the stable for the inn, and his first bed was a feeding trough for animals. That would nowadays be like a poor couple where the mother gives birth in a parking garage behind the motel because they couldn’t find a better place and nobody else would take them in. It’s a pretty gritty setting, and the idea is that God was reborn in some of the rock-bottom lowest circumstances. The only thing majestic was all the angels and shit, and of course motherly love

I get that a lot of the art portraying Madonna and Child as fabulously wealthy europeans in splendid robes and golden light was meant to glorify God + whichever nobility was sponsoring the artist, and while of course it’s genuinely beautiful art, it just always struck me as horribly missing the point, which is that the supposed son of God started in incredibly humble circumstances, among the kind of people that everyone else looks down on

babettesfeastables

‘Massacre des Innocents’ by Leon Cogniét, 1824. Although the Feast of the Holy Innocents is in a couple of days time, this painting is still really relevant in that it portrays Mary as how She really was: a scared refugee mum, so fearful that Her son was going to be one of the Innocents killed by King Herod.

durnesque-esque

My new favorite mordern interpretation is this work, José y Maria by Everett Patterson (http://www.everettpatterson.com)

libraford

I had to look at this like FIVE TIMES to register all the layers of symbolism going into the piece by Patterson.

The hoodie as a veil.

Weisman cigarettes

Each of them is haloed by an advertisement sticker.

No Vacancy sign on the motel.

Dove sticker over Maria’s head.

Neon sign with a star symbol also over Maria’s head.

The crown over the ‘Dave’s City Motel’ sign. “New Manger.”

The sign behind Jose’s elbow likely says ‘Herod.’

The wee little plant growing through the cracks at their feet.

It’s like a New Testament ‘I Spy.’ I love it!

Ugh.

New favorite interpretation of the nativity.

mslorelei

Also, the motel name – Dave’s City Motel. Ever hear the hymn “Once in royal David’s city”?

tastefullyoffensive

oncesingingalways

Quality. Content.

buddhabrot

the only post i care about

flirting-with-psychology

The Passover Story in Memes

My family has an annual tradition of telling the story in a creative way so here it is, told through memes:

bad-with-emotions-sadly

Holy heck how does this only have 140-odd notes

bongmamaw-deactivated20210105

i’ve stopped trash talking comic sans after learning the font is actually one of the only dyslexia-friendly fonts that come standard with most computers and i advocate for others doing the same

not-safe-for-earth

In the event that you would like to continue hating Comic Sans, other dyslexia-friendly alternatives include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic and Trebuchet.

bigbardafree

thank

invaderxan

Random fact: Verdana is one of the few fonts which was specifically designed to be as easy to read as possible, even at smaller type sizes. It was designed this way for use on screen, but the same principles apply in print too. This is part of why some Universities use Verdana as their default font for documents.

sanctum-sanguinem

“In the event that you would like to continue hating Comic Sans” is one of the best things I’ve ever read on this website

writernotwaiting

@pedeka @lunariagold @darklittlestories

anastasiaoftheironwood

I’ll take Comic Sans over Arial any day.

writernotwaiting

Century Gothic and Trebuchet are both quite handsome typefaces.

iamhisgloriouspurpose

I’m partial to Century Gothic as well. It’s serif, but not boring.

catwinchester-deactivated201901

There’s also a dyslexic font designed especially for dyslexic people to read.

You can install on your tablets, laptops and browers etc, so not only can you change things like documents into it, you can change websites into that font as well!

catwinchester-deactivated201901

I’m sure you’re bright enough to do a google search, but since I’m dumb enough to forget to post a link, here it is. Better late than never

https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/dyslexie-font/

captainlordauditor

I default to arial for this reason, but I will now be defaulting to verdana or dyslexie. nice.

formlessdemi

I don’t think I have dyslexia but that dyslexie font was the easiest fucking thing to read ever. Books should be written in that shit.

lunariens

ALSO!!!

For computer reading, when you mix up lines of text, there’s a web browser app called Beeline Reader. It looks like this

The colors are also customizable, to an extent and while I don’t have dyslexia, I have adhd which makes reading large amounts of text harder and this helps A LOT.

hashtagyourshirt

This is dope. I freaking love how much more accessible this information is nowadays.

joshsundquist

Everyone deserves the opportunity to dress their best. That’s why I’m so glad to be able to share Tommy Hilfiger’s innovative #TommyAdaptive collection with you. #TommyPartner

captaindibbzy

I know this is very important for people with disabilities and such but all I’m thinking is “Oh this is where super heroes get their shirts from.”

symbisexual-disaster-deactivate

my mom’s arthritis makes buttons so hard for her omg

luxlightly

Oh man that would be so nice for me, too, honestly. Buttons against my skin make me crazy with my autism. But fake buttons I might be able to do!

unashamedly-enthusiastic

This is why we need diversity in design, these answer SO MANY problems that some people face every single day.

And now that we have them, who else would just enjoy these things? Who would use them to solve a problem they have with some activities? Or in some outfits?

Gawd I love diversity

jugn00-deactivated20220212

humans: i am worthless. i cannot do anything.

also humans: *sings in the bathroom* *writes poems* *provides trees with CO2* *swims* *studies* *reads autobiographies* *proposes to their s/o* *passes a compliment* *stares at the moon* *takes shitty pictures of the sunset* *shouts fuck for no reason* FUCK! *hugs you* *talks* *doesn't like to be touched* *dances late at night* *says i love you* *says i hate you(affectionate)* :)

thecollectibles

Art by Felipe Castro

#art #digital art #Illustration #painting #Felipe Castro

1995lahaine

zijperspace

‘De Droom’ - Jules Pierre van Biesbroeck.

#Jules Pierre van Biesbroeck #Belgian #painting #woman #lilly

julia-famula

#landscape #art #illustration #cottagecore

april

i have to be silly every day or my brain will start growing mold

canadianstuck

One of the funniest things I ever experienced was when I went to go see John Mulaney live, and halfway through a bit about how expensive college in the States is, he looked down at the sleeve of his suit jacket and just. stopped. dead halt, mid sentence.

And after like three seconds, where we’re all trying to figure out the punchline because the story clearly hadn’t ended, and John Mulaney quietly says, “Has there been tinfoil on my buttons the whole goddamn show?”

He’d taken his suit to the drycleaner, and they’d wrapped the buttons on the sleeves and the coat with tinfoil to protect them, and John Mulaney didn’t notice until half-way through his set, and was SO FLABBERGASTED that he never did finish the story about college and instead did five minutes on how stupid it was that his buttons were reflecting the light and he just didn’t notice, and in that moment I understood more about John Mulaney as a person than I ever have.

ournameisfun

during one of his portland shows, he noticed this like 7 year old girl in the front row and asked her (and her parents) if she ‘is aware that she is physically here right now’ or if she was just brought along. turns out her favorite john mulaney bit is the “and I’m new in town” bit and that she’s seen all his stuff. He was so shocked and discomforted by the fact a SEVEN YEAR OLD has seen his shows, that he couldn’t get through a bit about donating to charity without interrupting himself at least three times to import good life lessons on this small child, as if that makes up for all the horrible things he’s said that she heard

sammysausage

When I saw him in Ft. Lauderdale, there was a bar in the lobby that people kept leaving to go to. At one point, a guy in the front row just got up and BOOKED IT to get drinks. John Mulaney looked over at a woman who was next to the empty seat and asked, “Are you with him? What’s his name?”

She was, in fact, with him, and she did tell him her date’s name. John Mulaney considered this, looked around, and unplugged his microphone. Leaning in to us, he told us that we were going to trick this guy so fuckin hard. He said, “At some point during the show, I am going to stop and say, ‘Well, you guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale,’ and then you guys are all going to scream back ‘WE LOVE MILKSHAKES!’ He’ll be so confused.”

He then continued on with the show as normal, the drinks guy returned to his seat, and that was that for quite a long time. We thought he had forgotten about it until, at some point during what I believe was his McDonald’s drive-thru bit, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “You guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale…”

Naturally, we erupted with “WE LOVE MILKSHAKES” and John Mulaney SWUNG around to face the drinks guy and said, “I bet you’re real confused now, huh, JASON?!”

windyvalleyzone

ah so john mulaney is a chaotic neutral cryptid

jxhn-mulaney

i saw him last night and there was a good ten minute interlude where a woman told him everything she found wrong with his suit, including that his pants were too high waisted to which he replied “that’s where my hips are” and someone in the back shouted “look at that high waisted man he’s got feminine hips!” and he yelled back “that’s my joke! i’m offended!!”

lovelydeck

I saw him live at my college. During his show he shouted something, which spooked a service dog in training that someone had brought with them (the dogs are common on campus, cause they are learning how to socialize and be in large crowds without reacting). Seeing the dog had been scared he apologized and asked the dog’s name. Upon hearing the dogs name was “Blanket” he about lost his god damn mind he was so happy. throughout the show he kept checking on Blanket. It was adorable.