My Imaginary Brooklyn

Cataloging Only the Most Arcane & Dangerous Information.

[doctorslippery]

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

If they all chip in for their own space they can start a modern Diogenes Club.

[catchymemes]

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

Why?? Nobody gives a fuck.

[mythologyofblue]

"He thought of these years as another life within the one he had. As though it were a thing he was able to carry. A small box. A handkerchief. A stone. He did not understand how a life could vanish. How that was even possible. How it could close in an instant before you even reach inside one last time, touch someone's hand one last time. How there would come a day when no one would wonder about the life he had before this one.” -Paul Yoon, Snow Hunters

[davidhudson]

James Baldwin, August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987.

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

#JamesBaldwin #writers #lit #Istanbul

[deepseapastures-deactivated2016]

[secretcinema1]

superseventies:

Debbie Harry & Siouxsie Sioux

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

That’s Anya Phillips, not Siouxsie.

[apanelofanalysts]

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

Is this Channing Tatum’s dad?

[spyderandthefly-deactivated2023]

Hiking - “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.”

John Muir

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Kentucky? Tennessee? No, it’s Manhattan—East 62nd Street between 1st Avenue and the river, 1938.

Below: Google image capture of the same location in May 2021.

Top Photo: Sheldon Dick via LoC

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

I find this very suspect. Bernice Abbot took a photo of 62nd at York looking south toward the Queensboro Bridge in the 1930s, and there was a huge gasworks at the corner. I think it unlikely that just west of it was a rural idle.

[draculasdaughter]

Anonymous, Frances Helen Miller Stevens and Mary. Daguerreotype, ca. 1852–1853; from the Collection of the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul).

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

Pretty sure this isn’t a Daguerreotype. You almost never see living people in Daguerreotypes because you had to remain incredibly still for a very, very long time. That child wouldn’t be blurred, they’d be a ghostly smear.

[nobrashfestivity]

Angela Davis 

“ You see, that’s another thing. When you talk about a revolution, most people think violence; without realizing that the real content of any kind of revolutionary thrust lies in the principles and the goals that you’re striving for - not in the way that you reach them. On the other hand, because of the way this society is organized; because of the violence that exists on the surface everywhere - you’d have to expect that there are going to be such explosions. You have to expect things like that as reactions. If you are a black person and live in the black community all your life, and walk out on the street every day seeing white policemen surrounding you… 

When I was living in Los Angeles, for instance, long before the situation in L.A. ever occurred - I was constantly stopped. The police didn’t know who I was, but I was a black woman and I had a natural, and they, I suppose; thought that I might be a quote, ‘Militant’. And when you live under a situation like that constantly… and then you ask me whether I approve of violence… I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns. 

I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs. Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember, from the time I was very small, I remember the sounds of bombs exploding across the street; our house shaking. I remember our father having to have guns at his disposal at all times, because of the fact that at any moment we might expect to be attacked. The man who was at that time in complete control of the city government - his name was Bull Connor - would often get on the radio and make statements like, ‘Nig—s have moved into a white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight’. And sure enough, there would be bloodshed. After the four young girls who lived… one of them lived next door to me; I was very good friends with the sister of another one, and my sister was very good friends with all three of them, my mother taught one of them in her class. My mother… In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girls called my mother and said, ‘Can you take me down to the church to pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.’ And they went down, and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place. And then after that, in my neighborhood, all of the men organized themselves into an armed patrol.

 They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. I mean, that’s why when someone asks me about violence, huh… I just… I just find it incredible. Because, what it means is that the person who is asking that question has absolutely no idea what black people have gone through in this country, what black people have experienced in this country, since the time the first black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa.”

[nobrashfestivity]

Happy Birthday, Angela Davis

[mythologyofblue]

You remember too much, my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, Where can I put it down?

-Anne Carson, Glass, Irony and God

[kropotkindersurprise]

January 26 1988 - Burnum Burnum plants the Aboriginal flag at the cliffs of Dover, claiming England for the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, exactly 200 years after Arthur Phillip claimed Australia for the British. [video] The full Burnum Burnum Declaration:

I, Burnum Burnum, being a nobleman of ancient Australia, do hereby take possession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal people. In claiming this colonial outpost, we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make a Koompartoo - ‘a fresh start’. Henceforth, an Aboriginal face shall appear on your coins and stamps to signify our sovereignty over this domain. For the more advanced, we bring the complex language of the Pitjantjajara; we will teach you how to have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get bush tucker.

We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganinni for 80 years. Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your flour with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs. Based on our 50,000 year heritage, we acknowledge the need to preserve the Caucasian race as of interest to antiquity, although we may be inclined to conduct experiments by measuring the size of your skulls for levels of intelligence. We pledge not to sterilize your women, nor to separate your children from their families. We give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed onto the mentality of government handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of Aboriginal equality. At the end of two hundred years, we will make a treaty to validate occupation by peaceful means and not by conquest.

Finally, we solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, and we vow never to destroy three-quarters of your trees, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities, religions and nations in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.

Burnum Burnum

[mythologyofblue]

“The biographies of the great men see their excesses as signs of their greatness. But Jean Rhys, in her biography, is read as borderline; Anaïs Nin is borderline; Djuna is borderline; etc. etc. Borderline personality disorder being an overwhelmingly gendered diagnosis. I write in Heroines: “The charges of borderline personality disorder are the same charges against girls writing literature, I realize—too emotional, too impulsive, no boundaries.”

— Kate Zambreno

[theblastofatrumpet]

“It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane.”

— W.G. Sebald, Vertigo

[mythologyofblue]

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping, with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

-W.B. Yeats

[thefugitivesaint]

Jean Seberg (1938-1979), “Esquire Magazine”, Vol. 49, #6,  1958 Source Jean Seberg was an actor and starred in films like Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’. During the 1960s Seberg provided material support for groups fighting for civil rights, Indigenous rights, and groups like the Black Panther Party. As a result, the FBI targeted her for  “Neutralization” under the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. During this time, Seberg was stalked and harassed on a daily basis by FBI agents, repeated break-ins of her apartments were made by the FBI, she was wiretapped, she was blacklisted by Hollywood due to FBI pressure, and the FBI began circulating fraudulent and defamatory articles about her through the American press (falsely claiming that Seberg, a married white woman, was having an affair with a Black Panther Party leader. Seberg, who was pregnant at the time, was put under such public duress that she went into premature labor and her child died two days later resulting in Seberg slipping into a fierce depression). The eventual outcome of years of constant intimidation and harassment, which had long-term effects on Seberg’s mental health and well-being, was Seberg’s suicide. (The FBI admitted to its campaign against Seberg in 1979 weeks after her death.)

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

They did the same thing to Paul Robeson (including tampering with the breaks on his car), and Ernest Hemingway, who, like Seberg eventually killed himself. Also, the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) never really shut down.

[whitepeopletwitter]

[drst]

We never fucking learn.

[myimaginarybrooklyn]

Unfortunately this isn’t from Pepys. Or anyone else from the 17th century.