i wane and wax into something unignorable

cora - 19 - london

[lordelesbian]

cannot quite believe that in 3 days i will be flying away to spend 5 weeks in the us this is more or less what i’ve been saving for all year and i’m frankly amazed it’s happening (read: semi-ecstatic, semi-panicked)

posting here will prob be quite sporadic - i’ve deleted my main instagram but i’m here on a lil priv travel account just for the trip if you care to stay in the loop x

[lesbianherstorian]

lesbianas de latino america at the los angeles christopher street west pride parade, june 1981

[lordelesbian]

true to my url, i am seeing lorde today (twice in a year? blessed) and look incredibly dykey 

[pussy-strut]

The problem is no longer getting people to express themselves, but providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people from expressing themselves, but rather, force them to express themselves. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, or ever rarer, the thing that might be worth saying.

Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations  (via aranrhod)

[celebsofcolor]

Solange Knowles and Janelle Monae attend the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018 in New York City.

[violetephemera]

[The older generation of writers who had established the rules for modern fiction under the assumption that their experience was “universal”] gained the ability to write stories where they could “show” and not “tell" … They had this ability not because they were masterful stylists of language or because they dripped with innate talent. The power to “show, not tell” stemmed from the writing for an audience that shared so many assumptions with them that the audience would feel that those settings and stories were “universal.” (It’s the same hubris that led the white Western establishment to assume its medicine, science, and values superior to all other cultures …) Look at the literary fiction techniques that are supposedly the hallmarks of good writing: nearly all of them rely not on what was said, but on what is left unsaid. Always come at things sideways; don’t be too direct, too pat, or too slick. Lead the reader in a direction but allow them to come to the conclusion. Ask the question but don’t state the answer too baldly. Leave things open to interpretation… but not too open, of course, or you have chaos. Make allusions and references to the works of the literary canon, the Bible, and familiar events of history to add a layer of evocation—but don’t make it too obvious or you’re copycatting. These are the do’s and don’ts of MFA programs everywhere. They rely on a shared pool of knowledge and cultural assumptions so that the words left unsaid are powerfully communicated. I am not saying this is not a worthwhile experience as reader or writer, but I am saying anointing it the pinnacle of “craft” leaves out any voice, genre, or experience that falls outside the status quo. The inverse is also true, then: writing about any experience that is “foreign” to that body of shared knowledge is too often deemed less worthy because to make it understandable to the mainstream takes a lot of explanation. Which we’ve been taught is bad writing!

— Cecilia Tan, from Uncanny Magainze 18 (via violetephemera)

[1dietcokeinacan]

IF WE WANT THE REWARDS OF BEING LOVED WE MUST SUBMIT TO THE MORTIFYING ORDEAL OF BEING KNOWN!!!!

[lordelesbian]

Oh wow the farm you’re going to is where my grandma lived and where some my family still is (cherry valley)...I don’t know any books about the area though except there’s a Nancy drew mystery set in Cooperstown I think

oh wow! it’s my girlfriend’s older sister’s place and i don’t know much about the area, but i’m looking forward to being away from the city for a while

[lordelesbian]

Hey where on the east coast are you going? I want to try to recommend something that’s specific to where you’re going if I know of anything!! Oh and for San Francisco We Are Okay by Nina LaCour is set there partially and it’s one of my favorite lesbian ya novels!!!

landing in new york, then heading upstate (jefferson) to stay on a farm for a week, back down to nyc, to dc (and fairfax virginia) for a few days and then an overnight train to chicago. 

and thank you! i’ve heard nice things about it and i feel v disconnected from this lovely new abundance of queer ya, which seemed to really flourish just after ya stopped being the dominant genre i read. i’m in san francisco for 10 days so i’ll definitely make time for it! <3 

[lordelesbian]

slouching towards bethlehem by joan didion is a good essay collection to read whilst travelling, also a field guide to getting lost by rebecca solnit

thank you! i was already planning on re-reading afgtgl, it was the first of solnit’s writing i read and i really, really love it. i’ve wanted to read more didion recently too so thank you for giving me a place to start! <3 <3 

[lordelesbian]

hello - i’m going to the usa for just over a month in the summer, and will spend a good chunk of that time on trains and buses. i would love some recommendations of books/essays to read while i’m travelling, fiction or otherwise, particularly if they’re set in/about the places i’ll be (east coast, then travelling by rail via chicago to san francisco) so i can have a little reading list ready for the trip. long shot, but please do send me some recs if you have them xx

[angelgone224-deactivated2021030]

U think I’m doing poppers but it’s lavender essential oil

[butterflypeaflowertea]

band: sings about being in love me: can’t relate florence + the machine: sings about being a big tall tree and watching as the world ends and becoming an omnipresent goddess who lives in the woods with her dryad brethren me, with tears in my eyes: me too florence me too

[1116665-555567777]

Juliana Spahr, This Connection of Everyone With Lungs

[arabellesicardi]

no story here really, just some of my favorite lines accumulated over the years in my snippets folder. all of these are easily googleable. carson jamison als gornick manuoso rankine 

[lifeinpoetry]

if there is a light then i am going to swallow it. if there is a god then i’m going to make him cry.

s. osborn, from “blasphemies at the 5th street station,” published in The Rising Phoenix Review (via lifeinpoetry)

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

I sat on a gray stone bench / and placed my grief / in the mouth of language, / the only thing that would grieve with me.

Lisel Mueller, from Alive Together: Poems; “When I Am Asked,” (edited)