ebbs and flows

[gael-garcia]

Les Femmes Palestiniennes (1974, Jocelyne Saab)

youtube (eng subs). vimeo (spanish subs) / runtime: 10mins

Palestinian women share with men this role in the armed struggle. […] We run our suicidal operations, they attack us from airplanes. It’s easy to fight, using aviation when one is up against simple armed Fedayeen. They attack us with American and French airplanes. It’s not just Israel who’s at war with us, but also the United States and France and all the other countries. We’re not afraid of Israel. We fight at broad daylight, face to face. The coward ones fight with their aviation. The brave ones fight on foot to free their land. […] And if there’s a political (two-state) solution? There won’t be any political solution. The only thing there will be is Palestine. As long as there’s at least one of our children left alive, there won’t be any political solution. There will only be Palestine, in its entirety.

[eggpngg2]

Personals on Transgender Forum, 1995-1998

[thatsbutterbaby]

Media Dreams (Expanded) by Sun Ra & His Arkestra, 1978

[dronenotes]

ethel cain shot by dollie kyarn

[nobrashfestivity]

Louise Bourgeois  

Spirals

more

[clawsonflesh]

Catherine Opie, Self Portrait/Pervert

[jareckiworld]

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) — Spider [bronze sculpture, 1997]

[twixnmix]

Keith Haring painting his mural "Once Upon a Time…" in a bathroom at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City on May 27, 1989.

Photos by Tseng Kwong Chi

[vintagewildlife]

Alligator eye in light and dark By: William Vandivert From: Life Nature Library: Reptiles 1963

[cinematographysource]

To a transgender woman, a wig is sacred. Its removal, particularly in public, recalls a time in life when she wasn’t able to inhabit her body on her own terms. In the case of “Tangerine,” the gesture is the ultimate mark of loyalty, as well as Alexandra’s tacit atonement for her transgression. But for Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez - the trans actresses who portrayed Alexandra and Sin-Dee, respectively, and consulted Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch on the script - it was tough to swallow. So much so, in fact, that Taylor and Rodriguez requested a closed set, not wanting any friends or spectators to witness the moment. Crew members stood in the parking lot outside the laundromat to ensure no one could see inside the building.

“They loved it and at the same time they hated it because it truly was a moment in which they’re completely stripped naked. In taking off their wigs, they were completely naked,” said director Sean Baker. “And I knew that, and that’s why the scene was written, because it was about the degree that one friend would go to for another friend.”

“I don’t get emotional on my own sets, but that was the one time in my entire career I started to tear up behind the camera,” Baker said. “Both of them were so incredibly brave at that moment, and I just hugged them afterward and said, ‘Thank you so much, I know that was very difficult to shoot, but I really feel that we got something special there.’”

Baker was right. Not only is it a heartfelt denouement for a movie that at times adopts the tone of a rollicking buddy comedy, but it will do as much to subtly inform audiences of the sensitivities of the transgender experience as anything else we’ve seen in entertainment yet. (x)

TANGERINE (2015) dir. Sean Baker

[xanaxfarts]

Yoshtiaka Amano: Fairies (2006)

[abwwia]

Ithell Colquhoun, Water-Flower, 1938

Arts University Plymouth © Spire Healthcare, © Noise Abatement Society, © Samaritans

[jetix]

8x8 inch drawings by Dan Huston

[haywardfreud]

Hilma af Klint, The Dove No. 12, No. 13, 1915

[joanofarcisdead]

miss major passed on. what a light we’ve lost. what a responsibility she’s trusted us with. what a generation she’s closed out with her leaving. what an honor we were all alive as she was. what a life she lived. may we keep on. may we keep on

[revolutionarykoolaid]

One our greatest living revolutionaries, Assata Shakur, has transitioned to the ancestors. On September 25, 2025, passed away in Havana, Cuba, where she had lived in exile since at least 1984. Beginning her activism in college, Shakur was a foundational member of both the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, where she honed both her revolutionary theory and practice. Targeted constantly by the state, Assata was arrested in 1973 after she and several other BLA members were attacked by state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike. She and her comrades were injured in the attack, and a state trooper was killed when BLA members returned fire in self defense. Shakur was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1977, but this did not stop her work. She continued to organize as a political prisoner, and she was broken out of jail in 1979 by fellow BLA members and the May 19 Communist Organization. During her years on the run, she was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, where she remained until her death. In 1984, Cuba granted her formal political asylum and refused to extradite her, despite relentless pressure from the United States, including a $1,000,000 reward. In 1987, she published her seminal work, Assata: An Autobiography. This work is a foundational text for anyone committed to destroying Western Imperialism and colonialism. In it, she wrote the following words, which have become a rally cry echoed throughout worldwide struggles for freedom.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Mother Assata, thank you for your relentless fight for our dignity and self-determination. We continue on in your honor and legacy. May the ancestors welcome you in warmly. Rest in Power!

[ymutate]

Paul Klee,

Artificial Symbiosis, c. 1934

watercolour and gouache