i would love to hear about people's museum experiences and what have been some of the most impactful pieces of art you've gotten to see in person. i'll go first!
in july 2023, i took the bus up to boston to go to the museum of fine arts, as i hadn't been in many years and wanted to revisit. at the time they were running a special exhibit titled "hear me now: the black potters of old edgefield, south carolina" which i was particularly interested in seeing not only for the art itself, but for how the MFA curated the collection and how they handled artistic and cultural discourse as related to chattel slavery and the labor of the black enslaved artists who created the pots on display.
one artist whose work was featured prominently throughout the exhibit was david drake, known as dave the potter, an enslaved man who made an estimated 40,000 pots over the course of his life, though fewer than three hundred remain today. his work is recognizable for the inscriptions he would include on the vessels—he wrote his name on many, and twenty seven of dave's pots feature verses written and inscribed in the ceramic itself (you can read all the verses here). one of the pots on display at the MFA was the one pictured below:
[Image ID: a photograph of a large ceramic pot inside a glass museum display case. the pot is sitting on a black platform on top of a larger grey-black cube. the cube has the text "I wonder where is all my relation/Friendship to all and every nation" printed on it in yellow-green font. in the background of the image there is a television screen with an image of six black people displayed on it. /.End ID]
the american ceramic society notes that "the inscription appeared several years after an enslaved woman from his household named lydia and her two sons were sent away to louisiana. though unconfirmed, some sources speculate that these people were drake’s family, with lydia being either his wife or sister."
i saw this pot and immediately burst into tears, and still find it hard to even write about the experience of seeing this piece without having an emotional response. it's difficult to name what comes up with seeing this piece—histories of violence, of resilience, of diaspora, of resistance, of love, of blackness are just a few that i'm able to articulate—but i haven't had an experience like that in a museum setting like that before or since.
in an interview with the washington post, dave's great-great-great-great-granddaughter pauline baker said, "i hope the people who view our ancestor’s work see that he was resilient, creative, brave, and tenacious. most of all, i hope they see he was human." i hope that by sharing this piece with you all that you are able to see the same in his work.
this is totally okay to reblog, and please feel free to share in the tags and/or tag me if you share your own stories of seeing art in museums that has particularly moved you!
Following Beyoncé's historic win as the first Black woman to win Best Country Album, the category has been retired and split into two: Best Contemporary Country Album (Black dominated) and Best Traditional Country Album (white dominated)." /end ID]
Recording Academy reveals 2026 Grammys will add Traditional Country Album category and several more changes.
"[…] [T]he Best Country Album award no longer exists in its previous form. When nominations are unveiled on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025, they will instead include Best Contemporary Country Album — the new version of this award — and the newly-introduced Best Traditional Country Album.
"The Recording Academy’s distinction between the two categories focus on the style of performance and included instrumentation. The Traditional Country Album category will include “country recordings that adhere to the more traditional sound structures of the country genre, including rhythm and singing style, lyrical content, as well as traditional country instrumentation,” like acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, piano, electric guitar, and live drums.
"Best Contemporary Country Album, on the other hand, is less defined. “The intent is to recognize country music that remains reminiscent and relevant to the legacy of country music’s culture, while also engaging in more contemporary music forms,” the new rule reads. It notes that entries in the category should “create a sensibility that reflects the broad spectrum of contemporary country style and culture” through style, structure, content, and presentation."
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"In June 2025, The Recording Academy announced a significant restructuring of its country music award categories ahead of the 68th Grammy Awards. Starting in 2026, the long-standing Best Country Album will be renamed Best Contemporary Country Album, and a new category—Best Traditional Country Album—will be introduced."
Unsurprisingly, many viewed the timing of these changes as a direct response to Beyoncé’s crossover success. Critics, including some fans from Beyoncé’s Beyhive, accused the Grammys of “moving the goalpost” after Cowboy Carter, warning that the shift may reinforce genre gatekeeping and racially motivated exclusion. Some defended Beyoncé, noting that category splits are a common practice following genre-defying hits: Beyoncé’s 2023 dance hit Break My Soul spurred the creation of a Best Pop Dance Recording category.
Supporters of the split argue it broadens recognition across the increasingly diverse and fragmented country ecosystem, boosting visibility for roots-based artists like Charley Crockett, Sierra Ferrell, and Colter Wall who might have otherwise been overshadowed. The Recording Academy pointed out that genre divisions such as this are already in place in R&B, Pop, and Blues.
(I can't find a source that says it was specifically Break My Soul that spurred the creation of the new category, Wikipedia lists a variety of artists that inspired the change - of whom Beyoncé is one - and this Billboard article about new categories introduced in 2024 doesn't mention her at all)
"Yes, Frankenstein is pretty but it lacks subtlety"
Guillermo del Toro laid his entire soul bare for us to gawk at and in the process made a true Romantic masterpiece, the least you could do is be grateful
[id: Comment by @flyingboatfortressthingy: subtlety is like how loud music is. there's supposed to be a mix of loud and soft (unsubtle and subtle), but so many people started being Louder and Louder that now people forget that the existence of a loud part isn't in and of itself bad. the issue is if you're loud bc ¯(ツ)/¯ and little else]
This criticism is so bizarre to me, why would anyone got to see Frankenstein by Guillermo del Toro and expect it to be subtle? If he has something to say, he's just gonna say it. What about this subject matter done by this man led people to believe that the film would have intricate subtext? (To keep with your metaphor, imagine going to Wacken and demanding the music be turned down.)
But, on the other hand, I see this specific complaint so often, that surely, there must be something to it. Something in the film clearly chafes against people's expectations in a way that leads to a dismissive, eye-rolling "Yeah, Victor is the true monster, we get it". This sentiment annoys me to no end; it's not a criticism of del Toro's craftsmanship as a filmmaker, but a rejection of the film's core thesis.
Yes, Victor is the antagonist. The bad guy. The "real monster". That's the point. Del Toro makes this unequivocally clear not because he thinks you, the viewer, are an idiot, but because rather than purely an adaptation of the novel, the film is a response to the mythos of Frankenstein. It exists within a context of 200 years of cultural impact, it engages with all the ways the novel and the Creature have been adapted, subverted, reimagined.
Victor is in the wrong. His inability, his refusal to parent his strange and unusual child is a moral failing. That's the point, and when people complain about this being "unsubtle" I can't help but wonder if what they actually wanted was ambiguity. Maybe it's a little understandable that Victor would reject his creation? Maybe we can sympathize with people who react with fear and horror at the sight of him?
(No, and also fuck you, is what del Toro says to that.)
The film is unambiguous in its sympathies. It refuses to appease a culture that wants a monster to be at least a little bit evil. It refuses to take an ironic half-step back from its own earnestness. It knows that budging even just a little would undermine the entire point - in this, it is subversive.
Something about that seems to make people very uncomfortable.
Hey tumblr how are we dealing this morning with the cognitive dissonance of “closeted or boymoding trans women clearly do not experience male privilege. It is transmysoginistic to say so as any social benefits gained are conditional at best and come with the distinct threat of systemic violence at worst, not to mention the emotional toll of hiding your identity from those around you…………but it’s different for stealth/passing trans men who obviously benefit from male privilege and do not suffer any negative repercussions socially or emotionally from remaining stealth.“ because I am dealing not so well and I am angry
sorry about my inconsistent hyperfixations @cosm0skid - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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