Anaïs Mitchell, “Road to Hell (Reprise)” // Don’t Look Up (2021) dir. Adam McKay // Miranda Mundt, Muted // BigSimpleComics, Critter Comics // The Narcissist Cookbook, “GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE” // Chase Petra, “Prologue” // Eleanor Davis, You & a Bike & a Road
I.D. below cut
[Image Description: 7 Images with text
Image 1: Lyrics from the Hadestown song “Road to Hell (Reprise).” They read, “To know how it ends / And still begin to sing it again / As if it might turn out this time.”
Image 2: Two frames from the movie Don’t Look Up. On the top frame is a view of a man and woman from the chest up. The woman, Kate, looks past the camera, giving a small, sad smile. The man, Yule, looks at Kate. Text underneath them reads "I'm grateful … I'm grateful we tried." On the bottom frame, a man, Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, looks down with a tired, wistful smile. Text underneath him reads, "Man, oh man did we try."
Image 3: A webcomic panel from Muted by Miranda Mundt. A red-haired woman, Camille, and a humanoid blue flower demon, Dendro, touch their foreheads together. Dendro’s eyes are closed, and she cups Camille’s face in her hands. Camille looks dispirited. Dendro is saying, “While you can reach out to help her … it is ultimately her choice if she takes your hand.”
Image 4: Two webcomic panels from Critter Comics (formerly Snail Comics) by BigLittleComics. In the first panel, a closeup of a the face of a slug, Sam. She is saying, “It’s very tempting to think we have no power, and that we can’t change anything.” In the second panel, we zoom out to see Sam is talking to a snail, Jordon. Sam continues, “But giving up seems pretty convenient for the snails actively making our world suck!”
Image 5: Lyrics from the song “GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE” by The Narcissist Cookbook. They read, “And listen / I know, okay? I know it feels / Like I’ve just got you lugging’ heavy rocks around all day / For no reason, with no reward / But please, trust me / I can see what you’re not able to see yet / This is not just a pile of stones, okay? / We are buildin’ a castle together / And we’re gonna build it, brick by heavy fuckin’ brick.”
Image 6: Lyrics from the song “Prologue” by Chase Petra. They read, “I may be scared, but I’ll find strength in fear.”
Image 7: A text bubble from the book You & a Bike & a Road. It reads, “Another day spent undestroyed.”
You know. I'm not an incredibly athletic individual. But every so often, when the mood strikes, I very much enjoy tearing through the apartment at top speed, taking turns chasing Ollie and getting chased.
There's something so beyond words about playing hide-and-go-tag with a fluffy little guy who will try and sneak up on you the same way you sneak up on him, who will chase you when you run, who totally GETS what's going on and will enthusiastically join in despite having no common language or anything.
And the we just lay on the nice cold floor together like freaks
there are corners of this website where the year is still 2013. and sometimes, on beautiful nights when the veil is thin, you can find them . if you know where to look
CONNIE PANZARINO at a pride march in Boston circa 1990
[ID: Connie is marching along in her sip 'n' puff (SNP) wheelchair. She is wearing a patterned poncho and sporting a green felt party crown on her head. She styles a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with her slicked back hair. She is smiling. Attached to the back of her wheelchair is a large green cardboard poster that reads "Trached Dykes Eat Pussy Without Comin' Up For Air!" followed by a pink upside-down triangle with a stick figure person in a wheelchair at the centre (a symbol for disabled women)].
the cyborg & the crip by Alison Kafer
[ID: “Trached dykes eat pussy without coming up for air.” Connie Panzarino, a longtime disability activist and out lesbian, would attach this sign to her wheelchair during Pride marches in Boston in the early 1990s. Shockingly explicit, her sign refuses to cast technology as cold, distancing, or disembodied/disembodying, presenting it instead as a source and site of embodied pleasure.
“Trach” is an abbreviation of tracheotomy, a medical procedure in which a breathing tube is inserted directly into the trachea, bypassing the mouth and nose. Someone with a trach, then, can, in effect, breathe through her throat, freeing her mouth for other activities (another version of this sign is “Trached dykes french kiss without coming up for air”). From a cyborgian perspective, this sign is brilliantly provocative and productive. It draws on the pervasive idea that adaptive technologies grant superior abilities,not merely replacing a lost capacity but enhancing it, yet it does so in a highly subversive way. The message here isn’t about blending in, about passing as normal or hypernormal, but about publicly announcing the viability of a queer disabled location. It’s disnormalizing, adamantly refusing compulsory heterosexuality, compulsory able bodiedness, and homonormativity. As Corbett O’Toole argues, it challenges the perceived passivity of disabled women, presenting them as actively pleasuring their partners, thereby graphically refuting stereotypes linking physical disability with nonsexuality.]
given the current climate this pride especially i feel i must mention that i love my trans friends, i stand with trans people in the fight against transphobic legislation and those who would enforce it, and this blog is not a good place for you to be if you do not vibe with that
i had the opportunity to see @narcissistcookbook live at a local venue last week. it was a profoundly moving experience, like watching a prophet make the sea surge. i'm honored that i got to be there.