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[eljotitodeperris]

I interrupted Obama because we need to be heard

The undocumented transgender woman who interrupted President Obama at the White House Pride reception writes an exclusive op-ed for the Washington Blade.

By Jennicet Gutiérrez

Pride celebrations of the LGBTQ community are taking place throughout the nation. The community takes great pride in celebrating our diversity and the progress we have made throughout the years. However, for the immigrant LGBTQ community progress has not been fully realized because of the continuous discrimination and violence we face in our daily lives.

I was fortunate to be invited to the White House to listen to President Obama’s speech recognizing the LGBTQ community and the progress being made. But while he spoke of ‘trans women of color being targeted,’ his administration holds LGBTQ and trans immigrants in detention. I spoke out because our issues and struggles can no longer be ignored.

Immigrant trans women are 12 times more likely to face discrimination because of our gender identity. If we add our immigration status to the equation, the discrimination increases. Transgender immigrants make up one out of every 500 people in detention, but we account for one out of five confirmed sexual abuse cases in ICE custody.

The violence my trans sisters face in detention centers is one of torture and abuse. The torture and abuse come from ICE officials and other detainees in these detention centers. I have spoken with my trans immigrant sisters who were recently released from detention centers. With a lot of emotional pain and heavy tears in their eyes, they opened up about the horrendous treatment they all experienced. Often seeking asylum to escape threats of violence because of their gender identity and sexuality, this is how they’re greeted in this country. At times misgendered, exposed to assault, and put in detention centers with men.

Last night I spoke out to demand respect and acknowledgement of our gender expression and the release of the estimated 75 transgender immigrants in detention right now. There is no pride in how LGBTQ immigrants are treated in this country and there can be no celebration with an administration that has the ability to keep us detained and in danger or release us to freedom.

It is heartbreaking to see how raising these issues were received by the president and by those in attendance. In the tradition of how Pride started, I interrupted his speech because it is time for our issues and struggles to be heard. I stood for what is right. Instead of silencing our voices, President Obama can also stand and do the right thing for our immigrant LGBTQ community.

[lightsandcamera-deactivated2014]

colonialism: The imperialist expansion of Europe into the rest of the world during the last four hundred years in which a dominant imperium or center carried on a relationship of control and influence over its margins or colonies. This relationship tended to extend to social, pedagogical, economic, political, and broadly culturally exchanges often with a hierarchical European settler class and local, educated (compractor) elite class forming layers between the European “mother” nation and the various indigenous peoples who were controlled. Such a system carried within it inherent notions of racial inferiority and exotic otherness.

post-colonialism: Broadly a study of the effects of colonialism on cultures and societies. It is concerned with both how European nations conquered and controlled “Third World” cultures and how these groups have since responded to and resisted those encroachments. Post-colonialism, as both a body of theory and a study of political and cultural change, has gone and continues to go through three broad stages:

an initial awareness of the social, psychological, and cultural inferiority enforced by being in a colonized state

the struggle for ethnic, cultural, and political autonomy

a growing awareness of cultural overlap and hybridity

ambivalence: the ambiguous way in which colonizer and colonized regard one another.  The colonizer often regards the colonized as both inferior yet exotically other, while the colonized regards the colonizer as both enviable yet corrupt.  In a context of hybridity, this often produces a mixed sense of blessing and curse.

alterity: “the state of being other or different”; the political, cultural, linguistic, or religious other. The study of the ways in which one group makes themselves different from others.

colonial education:  the process by which a colonizing power assimilates either a subaltern native elite or a larger population to its way of thinking and seeing the world.

diaspora: the voluntary or enforced migration of peoples from their native homelands.  Diaspora literature is often concerned with questions of maintaining or altering identity, language, and culture while  in another culture or country.

essentialism: the essence or “whatness” of something.  In the context of race, ethnicity, or culture, essentialism suggests the practice of various groups deciding what is and isn’t a particular identity.  As a practice, essentialism tends to overlook differences within groups often to maintain the status quo or obtain power.  Essentialist claims can be used by a colonizing power but also by the colonized as a way of resisting what is claimed about them.

ethnicity: a fusion of traits that belong to a group–shared values, beliefs, norms, tastes, behaviors, experiences, memories, and loyalties. Often deeply related to a person’s identity.

exoticism: the process by which a cultural practice is made stimulating and exciting in its difference from the colonializer’s normal perspective. Ironically, as European groups educated local, indigenous cultures, schoolchildren often began to see their native lifeways, plants, and animals as exotic and the European counterparts as “normal” or “typical.”

hegemony: the power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all, often not only through means of economic and political control but more subtly through the control of education and media.

hybridity: new transcultural forms that arise from cross-cultural exchange. Hybridity can be social, political, linguistic, religious, etc. It is not necessarily a peaceful mixture, for it can be contentious and disruptive in its experience.  Note the two related definitions:

catalysis: the (specifically New World) experience of several ethnic groups interacting and mixing with each other often in a contentious environment that gives way to new forms of identity and experience.

creolization: societies that arise from a mixture of ethnic and racial mixing to form a new material, psychological, and spiritual self-definition.

identity: the way in which an individual and/or group defines itself. Identity is important to self-concept, social mores, and national understanding.   It often involves both essentialism and othering.

ideology:“a system of values, beliefs, or ideas shared by some social group and often taken for granted as natural or inherently true” (Bordwell & Thompson 494)

language: In the context of colonialism and post-colonialism, language has often become a site for both colonization and resistance. In particular, a return to the original indigenous language is often advocated since the language was suppressed by colonizing forces.  The use of European languages is a much debated issue among postcolonial authors.

abrogation: a refusal to use the language of the colonizer in a correct or standard way. appropriation: “the process by which the language is made to ‘bear the burden’ of one’s own cultural experience.”

magical realism: the adaptation of Western realist methods of literature in describing the imaginary life of indigenous cultures who experience the mythical, magical, and supernatural in a decidedly different fashion from Western ones. A weaving together elements we tend to associate with European realism and elements we associate with the fabulous, where these two worlds undergo a “closeness or near merging.”

mapping: the mapping of global space in the context of colonialism was as much prescriptive as it was descriptive.  Maps were used to assist in the process of aggression, and they were also used to establish claims.  Maps claims the boundaries of a nation, for example.

metanarrative: (“grand narratives,” “master narratives.”) a large cultural story that seeks to explain within its borders all the little, local narratives.  A metanarrative claims to be a big truth concerning the world and the way it works.  Some charge that all metanarratives are inherently oppressive because they decide whether other narratives are allowed or not.

mimicry: the means by which the colonized adapt the culture (language, education, clothing, etc.) of the colonizer but always in the process changing it in important ways.  Such an approach always contains it in the ambivalence of hybridity.

nation/nation-state: an aggregation of people organized under a single government. National interest is associated both with a struggle for independent ethnic and cultural identity, and ironically an opposite belief in universal rights, often multicultural, with a basis in geo-economic interests. Thus, the move for national independence is just as often associated with region as it is with ethnicity or culture, and the two are often at odds when new nations are formed.

orientalism: the process (from the late eighteenth century to the present) by which “the Orient” was constructed as an exotic other by European studies and culture. Orientalism is not so much a true study of other cultures as it is broad Western generalization about Oriental, Islamic, and/or Asian cultures that tends to erode and ignore their substantial differences.

other: the social and/or psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another group. By declaring someone “Other,” persons tend to stress what makes them dissimilar from or opposite of another, and this carries over into the way they represent others, especially through stereotypical images.

race:the division and classification of human beings by physical and biological characteristics.  Race often is used by various groups to either maintain power or to stress solidarity. In the 18th and19th centuries, it was often used as a pretext by European colonial powers for slavery and/or the “white man’s burden.”

semiotics: a system of signs which one knows what something is. Cultural semiotics often provide the means by which a group defines itself or by which a colonializing power attempts to control and assimilate another group.

space/place:space represents a geographic locale, one empty in not being designated. Place, on the other hand, is what happens when a space is made or owned.  Place involves landscape, language, environment, culture, etc.

subaltern: the lower or colonized classes who have little access to their own means of expression and are thus dependent upon the language and methods of the ruling class to express themselves.

worlding: the process by which a person, family, culture, or people is brought into the dominant Eurocentric/Western global society.

[somewhere-over-pluto-deactivate]

Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory

[globalwarmist]

‘I love you so much…’ you said. 'But not as much as I love you,’ I said. 'Oh, much more than you love,’ you said. 'Shall we compare?’ I replied. So we measure. We correlated, collated and weighed. Taller than tall, we chose mountain altitudes to scan and grade. We chose stars and galaxies to outdistance in love. Day by day we came up with calculations to outdo. From legends of Augean stables to giant structures piercing the blue. Finally you said your love was as deep as the light in my eyes when I looked at you and knew I was defeated.

Zareh Khrakhouni, Measure

(Translated from Armenian by Diana Der-Hovanessian)

[characterandwritinghelp]

Hi, I was wondering if you have any advice on writing a good villain? Like one that people hate to love/love to hate? Someone really twisted and horrible

Welcome to Villain Theory, You Will Be Here A While

I AM SO IMMEASURABLY GLAD YOU CAME HERE. If there is one thing in this universe that I have love for in whatever blackened shreds remain of my soul, it is a great villain. As evidenced by the size of this post, I have a lot of thoughts on the matter.

Everyone has a different idea of what makes a great villain, and there is no formula for making a villain that people hate to love or love to hate. Just a cursory look around Tumblr will show you that everyone has different taste in villains. Sometimes they are loved because of their physical attractiveness, other times their backstory is what makes them lovable/hatable. That is a largely subjective part of villainy that I do not think I can definitively cover.

So, rather than giving you my opinion on what makes a great villain, I intend to talk about antagonists and villains as concepts. I invite you to take from it what you will. I believe that making a villain and making a twisted villain involve different things, but I’ll get to that. (And I WILL get to that. I promise. I am just long-winded.)

Come with me. I will explain some things. You might even find them useful.

[Content warning: Spoilers. Lord of the Rings (Frodo and the Ring are spoken of), Finding Nemo (ish), Avatar: The Last Airbender (ish), Flowers for Algernon (COMPLETELY), Batman (The Joker is spoken of).] 

Let’s Consider: Antagonism vs. Villainy

Let me go into semantics once again, so we can break this down even further. A villain is a character or thing that swears by bad or evil, and who is generally the opposite of the protagonist in goal and moral. An antagonist is someone or something who works against the protagonist to impede or halt their progress. A villain can absolutely be a protagonist, but an antagonist cannot. These terms are not always interchangeable and do not always overlap. Not every story needs both and some stories succeed with neither, but that is a post for a different day.

What makes a villain a villain is action. What makes an antagonist an antagonist is force against the protagonist. Again, these things can overlap, but do not always do so. I would like you to disregard the notion that villains and antagonists must be characters. They can be, but they do not always have to be.

Antagonism as a Force Against the Protagonist

Antagonists work against the protagonist, be it directly or indirectly, active or passive. 

A direct antagonist works against the protagonist with full knowledge of the protagonist’s existence. This is probably what you think of when you think “antagonist:” someone who sees the hero coming and starts putting things in the hero’s way. Direct antagonists are more likely to be active than passive, as they do things like send henchmen, enact plans, fight the heroes, etc.

An indirect antagonist usually has their own goals that happen to coincide with the protagonist’s journey. Non-evil antagonists can easily fall into this category as a rival to the hero, providing tension without needing to be a “bad guy.” Indirect antagonists can easily be active or passive, since any activity they take part in does not have to include the hero. A passive antagonist has an effect on the plot without actually doing very much. Passive antagonists can (and are probably statistically more likely to) be objects as opposed to characters.

Consider Lord of the Rings. While yes, there is Sauron and Saruman and the Nazgul and such, hobbit Frodo’s personal antagonist is almost exclusively found in the One Ring. The Ring is a passive antagonist, which corrupts Frodo by simply existing in his possession. It attempts to corrupt him and prevent him from destroying it, thereby affecting his progress to the goal.

Antagonism as Conflict

The antagonist can be an agent of conflict, and depends on the protagonist in order to exist. Remember, antagonism is not (necessarily) villainy. Antagonism is only something that opposes the protagonist. A character can have conflicting morals and goals to your protagonist and qualify as a more-or-less good person while still being the antagonist to the story.

The antagonist serves to bring about negative progress in the protagonist’s journey to the goal, however they choose to do this. They can bring about conflict just by virtue of making the journey harder for the protagonist, just as well as they can by actively pestering, obstructing, and outright harming the protagonist. The link between conflict and antagonism is that the protagonist is navigating the maze of the plot through the conflict to reach the end goal, and the antagonist is either causing the conflict or adding new walls to the maze.

Villainy as a Reflection of the Hero

Let’s leave antagonism behind for a moment while we talk about villainy.

Villains are separate from antagonists in that not all antagonists are evil, and not all villains are antagonists. Villains oppose heroes in a number of ways, sometimes multiple ways in one story. They can stand in their way, send flocks of doom-legion troops after them, work to subvert them, ignore them while they carry out evil plots, any number of things make a villain villainous. What makes a great villain is largely up for debate, but let me start here.

A villain can be a reflection or shadow of whatever the hero stands for and loves. A villain who is good at their job might be this because they represent whatever the hero fears, loathes, or is scared of. A reflective villain is more than not-the-hero, a villain is the essence of not-the-hero.

Consider another plot in which the villain is not a physical thing, but a concept. Finding Nemo is a Pixar film about fish and fishbowls. Again, Finding Nemo has no personifiable villain, as even the sharks are friends (albeit unwanted ones). Marlin’s villain in finding his son is not the dentist who took him, the sharks, the birds, or any of that. Those are obstacles. Marlin’s real villain is the concept of bigness: His fear of everything has made him feel small (which, incidentally, he is), and he must take on the entire ocean to track down his son.

Villainy as Reverse Heroism

Then you have the less metaphorical and more literal interpretation of villainy in the reversal of heroism. After all, an interpretation of evil is that it is the diametrical opposite of good.

Consider Avatar: The Last Airbender. The villain at the end of the line is Fire Lord Ozai, is a destructive megalomaniac bent on domination and assuredly lacking in empathy from his first appearance onscreen. Meanwhile, hero Aang was raised a peaceful monk and throughout the series struggles to come to grips with the idea of having to kill someone, even if that someone is as ruthless and tyrannical as Ozai. The two of them are directly opposed in a multitude of ways: where Aang concerns himself with the nature of right and wrong and morality, Ozai views right and wrong as concepts that are beneath him as the world’s most powerful Firebender. Ozai is pride against Aang’s humility.

The reversal of heroism does not necessarily mean that the hero came first and that the villain built themselves around that, but that the hero and villain are truly opposing forces, opposite each other in a multitude of ways.

Villainy as Conflict

Villainy is a phenomenal method to bring about conflict. If a burning village isn’t inciting enough an incident, then what is? Remember, though, that not all villainy is evil in so many words.

Flowers for Algernon is a story about a man who undergoes surgery to boost his incredibly low intellect. Charlie and the original lab subject, a mouse named Algernon, become wildly intelligent as a result of the medical procedure, and all seems well until Algernon’s brainpower begins deteriorating. Charlie must come to terms with the fact that his newfound intellectual capacity is also short-lived, and as the story moves forward his mind also declines to the point of its origin. Charlie’s villain in his journey to genius is not physical but entirely mental; he will always know that he used to be intelligent. His villain is the idea of knowing, and once he knows, his struggle is no longer about the decline, but remaining at the bottom with little (if any) hope of return.

Conflict and villainy can easily coincide. Conflict is the basis of the story, the thing that drives the plot and spurs on the characters. Bear in mind, if your villain is a part of the conflict, I expect you to deal with the villain somehow before resolving the plot in its entirety.

Some Final Thoughts

Now let’s put them together. An antagonistic villain is something that brings about negative progress in the protagonist’s journey by way of villainy. From here, you can go in any number of directions. Are they trying to usurp the throne from an unsuspecting monarch by way of subterfuge and policy? Are they a conniving, manipulative type, working to some nebulous goal that the protagonists happen to stumble into? Are they an inexplicable force of chaos that enjoys villainy for the sake of villainy?

Not all antagonists and villains are driven by clearly defined goals and motives. The Joker throughout his illustrious history is shown to cause chaos solely for the sake of causing chaos. An interesting dynamic of the goalless villain is the mystery of how to gain the upper hand on them. How do you prevent a villain from reaching their goal if they do not have one?

Something to think about when your protagonist/hero begins locking horns with your antagonist/villain: At what point in the story do they gain the upper hand? Remember, plot is born of conflict, and there is no real conflict if the protagonist/hero has all the pieces of the antagonist’s/villain’s demise and chooses not to use them.

Defining the conditions of success or failure can also help you overcome plot blocks when you feel your protagonists/heroes have gotten stuck in a corner. What are the conditions of defeat? How about victory? Do they change at any point in the story? Do we always know what they are, or do learn them as the story goes on?

Twisted Villainy

As to the other part of your question. What defines twisted, sick villainy more than anything is the limitations of your world, and therefore twisted villainy depends on what your genre is. This type of villain goes above and beyond what is already unacceptable in the world, which varies by genre and setting. Twisted for fantasy middle-grade fiction is going to look very different than twisted in R-rated sci-horror.

In order to create a villain who is perceived as twisted and disturbed, you will have to think far outside the box of “normal” villainy. Figure out what your world perceives as bad, then double it up. Make it worse. Go further and further outside the lines of what nauseates and and horrifies your world, and set your villain loose.

……..So, that wraps up that question, I think. Let us know if you have other questions.

-Headless

[fromstarstostarfish]

Oh! Y’all! Although I had discussed this with a good friend already, I forgot to talk about it here. Two nights ago, I had my first out-of-body experience (excluding the time I tried DMT).

I had fallen asleep Thursday night around 9:30pm, and woke up around 1am. I was restless and was having trouble falling back asleep. Eventually, I fell asleep, but semi-woke back up in the middle of sleep paralysis, not being able to move. Honestly, that’s a lot scarier than I thought, and I’m glad I knew about it or else I’d probably have been even more frightened. I imagined myself as energy, and felt the intense vibrations as I tried to pull myself away from my body. I felt like I was drunk, and fell out of the bed. When I slowly stood up, I saw my body laying in the bed! I could barely move, and my vision was blurry. I fell again and then woke up in my bed again.

I wonder why I felt so “drunk”? Is it emotional/mental/spiritual baggage? Do I need more practice? Was it just a strange dream? 

[thepoliticalnoteboo1deac]

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.

Human Rights Watch reports on widespread abuse and torture inside Libyan prisons.

Fighters of Libyan origin return from Mali.

Progress was hailed in peace negotiations in Mali after government militias agreed to leave the town of Menaka and several arrest warrants against CMA rebels were lifted.

Ten officials kidnapped from the Tunisian Consulate in Libya have been released after negotiations. 

A leaked UN report details Morocco’s lobbying efforts, including intercepting communications, to get the UN to ignore humanitarian conditions in Western Sahara.

An Egyptian court upheld the death sentence for former leader Mohammed Morsi.

The US claimed an airstrike killed Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, but a Saharan militant group is denying the claim.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir jetted out of South Africa on Monday, leaving the country hours before a court ruled the government had to arrest him based on a standing ICC arrest warrant.

The US has faltered in efforts to bring Omar al-Bashir to justice.

A government offensive in South Sudan last month left 129 children brutally murdered, many raped.

A suspected Boko Haram attack on Wednesday night in Niger killed 38 people. Chad carried out airstrikes against Boko Haram inside Nigeria.

A sack full of homemade bombs found at an abandoned Boko Haram camp exploded, killing 63 people.

Kenya has issued a reward for the capture of a German national fighting for al-Shabaab.

An al-Shabaab suicide attack in central Somalia was foiled Thursday.

The Central African Republic will hold elections in October.

A new report investigates the “shadow economy” of CAR’s armed groups.

None of the fewer than 200 Syrian rebels in the US training program have graduated.

Rebels in the south in Quneitra have launched an offensive close to Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Islamic State lost control of the crucial Syrian town of Tal Abyad to the Kurds.

Although the OPCW has touted success in the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons this week, new descriptions are surfacing of government use of chlorine gas in its makeshift bombs. 

The fuel embargo imposed by the Islamic State is harming medical centers, grounding ambulances and shuttering businesses.

The New York Times maps Islamic State-inspired attacks around the world.

Hezbollah attacks on a Lebanese border town reportedly killed two Islamic State commanders and a handful of other IS fighters.

The year-old Palestinian unity government has resigned.

An American airstrike in Yemen killed the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – Nassir al-Wuhayshi. He has been succeeded by Qassim al-Raymi. The CIA claims not to have had prior knowledge that he was among the militants targeted.

Following the strike, AQAP executed two men accused of spying for the US.

An airstrike inside Yemen last Friday hit the Old City of Sana’a – a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A fistfight broke out at Yemeni peace talks in Geneva.

Coordinated Islamic State car bombs at mosques and the Houthi headquarters in Sana’a killed and injured 50 this Wednesday.

The Pentagon transferred six detainees from Guantánamo, where they had each spent 13 years, to Oman.

An Al Qaeda branch has posted images on Twitter of hostage Warren Weinstein before his death in an airstrike this year (they have not been authenticated yet).

A cigarette smuggler tells the Associated Press about life under the Islamic State.

A fake battle, invented online by a London man, fools Islamic State supporters.

A Marine sergeant was convicted for a second time on retrial for the murder of an Iraqi civilian in 2006.

The Taliban overran parts of the Musa Qala district of Helmand province in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban have found common purpose with their former enemy Iran, teaming up to fight the Islamic State.

The Afghan Ministry of Education may have faked school enrollment numbers to get more funding.

According to the UN, war, violence and persecution have made one out of every 122 people on the planet a refugee. 

Putin opened a military theme park called Patriot Park. At the opening of the park, he announced the addition of forty new intercontinental ballistic missiles to Russia’s arsenal. 

The US bolsters its defenses of American cities against Russian missiles. It also plans to store heavy artillery in Eastern Europe.

NATO’s “defense boost” is the largest since the Cold War ended.

A Russian army officer accused of fighting with the Taliban has come in front of a US court.

Slovenia detained Kosovo’s former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, saying they acted on a warrant from Serbia.

Polish prosecutors have asked the US for a full, unredacted copy of the Senate torture report as part of an investigation into detainee abuse at a black site inside Poland. The prosecutors say the US has been ignoring the request.

An American official has been included on the review panel established to assess the future of the British military.

The VA has extended benefits for Agent Orange exposure, opening up eligibility to Air Force reservists once denied the benefits. 

Photo: Quneitra, Syria. Free Syrian Army fighters fire rockets toward government positions. Alaa Al-Faqir/Reuters

[strangebiology]

At Least a Third of the World’s Saiga Antelopes Died this week

Due to an unknown illness, at least 85,000 and up to 120,000 of world’s saigas have mysteriously died. Scientists are waiting on toxicology reports to determine cause of death.

In the 1990′s, there were over a million saiga antelope. In 2014, the population was estimated at 260,000. They are listed as critically endangered, and have come close to extinction several times. You can read more at saiga-conservation.org. 

[strangebiology]

It is now confirmed that over 134,000 saiga have died.

The Saiga Conservation Alliance has launched an urgent appeal for donations at their Saiga Crisis Fund. Their goal is to raise £30,000 (USD$46,680) by August 2015. You can donate here in  £ or here at the Wildlife Conservation Network in USD$. Dr. E.J. Milner-Guland, chair of the Saiga Conservation Alliance, wrote in an interview with Guardian that “This money will be used to assist with the investigation and also to equip anti-poaching teams to protect those saigas that remain.”

[fromstarstostarfish]

(originally published May 27 - upper section// updated June 9 (lower section) 

[buggirl]

“Hey there! I’m so excited that I finally have an insect to submit to you for ID help!

I found this beauty in a very wet wooded area in central Minnesota. I think it’s a dipteran (second set of wings reduced?), but I am absolutely baffled trying to go any farther than that. She (is that an ovipositor?) was approximately 2-3 cm long and stayed quite still while I snapped my photos.

Thanks and have a wonderful day :)”-ogeeyou

Hi!

I was very curious what your very cool crane fly was so I emailed CSUN’s resident crane fly expert, Dr. Jim Hogue.

Here is what Jim had to say:

“Andrea, Boy, would I like to have this specimen. It looks like a female of Ctenophora dorsalis. Jim Hogue“

[fullpraxisnow]

#ConfederateFlag

[fromstarstostarfish]

Well, I’m officially setting my last day of work: July 28. It’s the last day of our pay period, so I can make sure to get a full paycheck before I’m out of work for a bit (especially since I’m bailing a month early on rent so I’m paying for that ahead of time, which I’m not used to financially).

Maybe if I hear back from a job before then, I’ll leave earlier. But I think the 28th is a good date; I could leave a couple of days afterwards, and still be able to enjoy a month of summer back in Ohio.

[khiroshige-deactivated20221210]

i just want a period piece centered around black people that isn’t about being slaves/servants

where’s our steamy 60s drama?

where’s our 30s Harlem Renaissance coming of age flick?

where’s our Victorian steampunk sci-fi adventure?

where is it? where? tell me where?????

[doormouseetcappendix]

in film or books, cus in books there’s 

sula by toni morisson is a steamy psychological coming of age drama i’m pretty sure taking place in the 60′s or 50′s, about two black girls in a predominately black town in Ohio, whose lives go in different but parallel directions after sharing a childhood trauma. 

mumbo jumbo is harlem renaissance era post-modern comedy about hougan detective searching for a mysterious suppressed african text, and battling the forces of white supremacy in a conspiracy to undermine black culture going back thousands of years. 

yellow-back radio broke down is a western written like a radio-show about a black cowboy named the lupe garoo kid, and a clear influence on blazing saddles that would come years later.

perdido street station’s main character is a overweight black scientist, living in a Dickensian city of magical steam punk sci fi adventure and multiple sentient races, who is involved in a secret and illegal inter-species relationship with a beetle-headed artist, and on the verge of a breakthrough in unifying magic and science. 

and pym (retro sci-fi/parody/adventure) and zone one (zombie survival horror) are great genre stories, but both are in modern era. this is also excluding afro-futurist  stuff. 

in film there’s 

yeelen - set in ancient africa, about a young man with magic powers on a quest to find his evil sorcerer father. the first real fantasy film in african cinema. black writer, director, and cast. 

daughters of the dust- set in a isolated black community living off the american coast over three generations. the first feature film directed by a black women. black writer, director, and cast. 

harlem nights- harlem renaissance era crime comedy starring three generations of comedy genius. black writer, director, and cast. 

hoodlum- underrated gangster film about black gangsters in harlem. black director and cast

ganja and hess- black vampire art film set in the 70s. black writer, director, and cast. 

chameleon street-  based on a true story about black con man in the 80s who was able to successfully impersonate lawyers, doctors, and professors, spielberg’s “catch me if you can” is essentially white washed version of the same idea. black writer, director, and cast. 

the killer of sheep- neo-realist coming of age film about black lives in 70′s Watts, made originally as a student film thesis. black writer, director, and cast. 

belle is period peace from a black film-maker, but predominately white cast, while beasts of the southern wild, attack the block, the people under the stairs, def by temptation, vampire in brooklyn, and after earth are sci-fi/fantasy/horror films with predominately black casts but not period pieces. Medicine for Melancholy, An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty, and Top Five are conversation driven romantic comedies with black, casts, writers, and directors. 90′s era set coming of age in the wood, the brothers, love and basketball, and upcoming dope.  

i think nearly all other black films fall under Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, 70′s exploitation films, dance movies, 90′s hood films, civil rights & slavery films, musician biopics, African cinema, and pre-Hollywood Race Films, but I might have missed some that don’t fall into these. 

Sorry to over-respond. Happy hunting. 

[fromstarstostarfish]

I realized it was the middle of June and I hadn’t done any summer reading besides comics. Which, really, there’s nothing wrong with that - but I want to vary my readings more, and there are crates full of books that need reading. So this weekend, I sat down and did just that. (Reading before bed especially to help break the habit of staring at a screen before sleep.) Here’s what I delved into:

Currently Reading:

Half-Resurrection Blues, Daniel José Older

The Cost of Living, Arundhati Roy

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1: Power and Responsibility

The Pride #1-5

Finished:

Journey Into Mystery Featuring Sif Vol. 1: Stronger Than Monsters

[fairy-wren]

Long-Tailed Broadbill. Photo by Meerkat

[dogjpeg]

Is this not the best assortment of beautiful faces [source: batcon.org]

[fromstarstostarfish]

Whoaaaa, I haven’t been on Tumblr in a very long time. So here I am. I also used to write some foolish shit back in the day, so hopefully there will be less of that. Also, I want to focus on well, actually writing more, as I’ve tossed that pastime aside for the past few years.

Give me a bit to change everything around here, get my page organized, etc. This should be fun.

[wetheurban]

ART: Hip Hop x High Art = Fly Art

Fly Art, a Tumblr account created by students Gisella Velasco and Toni Potenciano has been perfectly mixing popular rap lyrics and Renaissance paintings since December 2013 and we only can hope that they never stop. 

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[fhauvhebsucbejdiak]

Poison Dart Frog

Poison dart frogs consist of the family Dendrobatidae and are native to the rainforests of South and Central America. They are known for their bright colours and toxic secretions, which have been used by indigenous cultures to create poisonous darts for hunting.

The conspicuous colorations and patterns of the frogs warns potential predators of their toxicity. It is hypothesised that the frogs gain their poisons from their diet, which can consist of ants, centipedes and mites. In captivity, frogs which are reared on diets without these alkaloid poisons have a significantly lower level of toxins.

Around 4 species are used by indigenous peoples to lace darts with deadly toxins. The frogs are carefully exposed to fire, which causes them to exude a poisonous fluid. The tips of arrows and darts are soaked in this fluid and will remain deadly for 2 years.

Geoff Gallice, Drriss & Marrionn on Flickr