#2 week

[louisrarepairfest]

TWO WEEKS!

In just 2 weeks Louis Rare Pair Fest 2025 begins on Oct 6!

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[feministanglophile]

Blinded by the Light: Race, Class, and Bruce Springsteen

Blinded by the Light is a film about a Pakistani-British 17-year-old boy, Javed Khan, who lives in the small town of Luton, England. He is at the cusp of becoming an adult but lives under the pressure of his family - particular his traditional Pakistani father. During his last formative years of college, he’s aiming to pass his A-Levels so he can go to university in Manchester - four hours away from his family. But troubles boil over for the Khan family when Javed’s father is laid-off at his job as a car manufacturing company after 16 years, due to budget cuts. The movie involves the political standpoint of the late 80s - it takes place in 1987. So you have the Nazi Party growing back up, known today as white supremacists. Margaret Thatcher is about to be reelected as Prime Minister. Javed Khan’s dreams of going to university are struggling against all of these oppositions. The expectation from his family to make the family proud by having a successful office job, the expectations of the town and of England to be more British than Pakistani, and his own expectations of success outside of his family and town

Javed has spent 7 years writing in journals, his first one re-gifted to him by his best friend, Matt. He writes diary entries and poems, the latter he gives to Matt to use as song lyrics for his band. Javed loves Matt but feels like he’s getting left behind as Matt grows into adulthood with more independence. When we first see teenage Matt, he just got back from Ibiza, an island off the coast of Spain known for big festivals and parties - and he brought back a girl. Javed is obviously distressed by this because not only does he not have a girlfriend, which he is obviously wanting, but he wishes for the freedom to do things that are more for him and less for his family.

The foundations of family and race are a huge factor in this film. Being immigrants, his parents know the struggle of coming to a new country with expectations of a dream. And because fo this, Malik is particularly hard on Javed to make something of himself, to obtain a high standing career. Javed overall submits to his father’s rules and keeps his journals hidden. Again with the Nazi party of England, Javed and other students of color are stalked, humiliated, and taunted by bullies with too much power in their white hands. The political party, the National Front, is a big part of these incidents, grooming young boys from the ages of 10 to treat people of color as inferior to them.

Blinded by the Light is based on a true story of Sarfraz Manzoor, who is a journalist who identified with Bruce Springsteen as a teen. This movie is based on his memoir Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll. What Javed - and Sarfraz - show the audience is the power of music when it comes to identity and uplifting and giving hope. Javed is going through a tough time when he is given the Bruce Springsteen cassettes. He feels hopeless after his father is laid-off and his mother has to work even more and his older sister has to start working as well. He is tempted to throw away all of his creative writing - and actually does it - when he is transcended by Springsteen’s music. He finds a voice in the music. A voice that knew him so well, that dung into his chest, pulled his heart and gave it music. What Springsteen’s music does to Javed is give him the confidence to support his own writing, to step out from under his father’s thumb, and find himself and what he wants. Bruce Springsteen’s music is aimed at working-class people. And it’s because of his political and spiritual voice through his music, Javed finds his own voice.

[feministanglophile]

DeLuxe 2004-5, Ellen Gallagher (60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil)

“The imagery for this print series is based on advertisements found in magazines from the 1930s to the 1970s aimed at African-American readers. Gallagher uses both traditional and digital printing techniques to copy and alter advertisements for wigs, hair pomades and skin bleaching creams - products that are now seen as promoting ‘white’ ideas of beauty. Gallagher cut and layered images and text before adding a range of materials including plasticine, glitter, gold leaf and toy eyeballs. Her interventions exaggerate and question the reinvention promised by these cosmetic products.”

photos taken by madilyn sturges

[feministanglophile]

[lorcantips]

SKINCARE VLOG | 2 week trial with Wildmint + long chats and new years resolutions | AD

SKINCARE VLOG | 2 week trial with Wildmint + long chats and new years resolutions | AD

I’m really excited to share this 2 week testing video using Wildmint’s skincare range – which has been kindly sponsored by them. source

View On WordPress

[feministanglophile]

Post-London Depression

I’ve been home for almost an entire week… And I’m ready to go back. Hey Susan, count me in on the Fall 2020 trip just because I need to go back and see the city while studying Women’s studies. My two current loves, London and Feminism - as my URL correctly identifies. The two weeks we spent walking around an ancient city with more history in a road stone than I could fathom. Just last night, I walked up to my roommate, who was sitting at the table doing homework and I must have made some type of noise that made her look up in worry. “I miss London,” I cried and with as much support as she could give me, she pouted in empathy because she’s been dealing with my post-London depression this entire week. 

The entire trip was like a dissociative dream - I felt like I was floating through the tours, the sights, the conversations. I ACTUALLY MISS THE TUBE! How severe is my post-London depression when I miss the hottest, sweatest, and time-consuming activity that is taking the underground?  

I miss the buildings - built hundreds of years ago but now house a Starbucks or McDonalds.

I miss Oxford Circus, the shopping was worth the hassling from non-profit initiatives on the streets.

I miss walking from Primark in Oxford Circus, through alleys to Picadilly Circus, to Chinatown, and just wondering around for a bit. 

My favorite game was pretending I wasn’t a tourist and just going about my day like your average Londoner. I think I was genuinely good at this game because of my attention to detail when it came to studying fellow English people (and my history of binging any and all British content from all media platforms).

From day one, I could tell that this city was more socially advanced than the American cities I have been in. Though that’s small (Portland and Seattle), the others in the group who had traveled farther than me agreed: London has it’s sh*t much more together than your average big city in the states. The outward acceptance to all minorities from pride flags in Soho to advertisements in the underground that featured the same number of people of color as they did white folks - and not just for “progressive” brands, but your everyday brands.

That note that Bruce Cherry told us on the London Rock Tour about the housing in London. How if one side of the street had expensive flats and townhouses, the opposite houses were more inclined to be affordable housing. Putting public housing next to private housing to avoid ghettos and “breed tolerance”. This idea that the city has but into reality - of creating a more tolerant environment for people. Even our driver from the airport to the dorms said there wasn’t one place in London that he would tell us to avoid - that the city didn’t have an “unsafe” area for women and young adults tells a lot about a city. In my own small town of 20,000, we have several areas that would be considered “unsafe” and my mom would tell me to avoid. Hell, all of Pearl District in Portland is considered an “unsafe” area for women and young lgbtqia+ people to be. 

That is not to ignore the areas of work London is still working on. Their history may be deeper than the United States, but it still has small bleeding wounds that need fixing. But what makes London a place I so desperately want to go back to is that they have people willing to put forward the effort to fix these wounds - their political agenda of socialism says enough when it compares to where they are in terms of acknowledging their past problems. 

This is starting to come off a little rose-colored-glasses, but I just love London so damn much for how little I spent in it. Ten million people in the city, and it shows with how little people react to someone dressed a little unusual on the tube. I feel insignificant in one of the biggest cities in the world but I’m okay with that if it makes me feel safer and respected. 

God, I love London and I can’t wait to go back. 

[feministanglophile]

Yas Queen (Victoria)

I know next to nothing about the royal family. I get them all confused! Why do they all share the same five names - Charles, Edward, Anne, Victoria, Elizabeth no. 78! Having serious conversations about the royals where I’m nodding my head, hoping to the gods above I can keep their names and history straight is extremely difficult.

That’s not to say I wasn’t moved when I walked into Queen Victoria’s old childhood rooms and felt like a princess myself. Yes, I realize that being royalty back then sucked (and still sucks to this day) but a shallow part of me just wants to be fancy for one second. I come from a life where one of Victoria’s rooms equaled my entire apartment! Does that fact balance out her inability to have a normal childhood? No, just let me be a little jealous of her cute dollhouse and portraits.

Walking through the life of Victoria, I can’t help but be in awe of her strength. The notes on the walls throughout the palace talked about her childhood in the rooms she was born and raised in, her fight to have freedom as a teen, to falling in love with her forever “love” her husband, Prince Albert, to raising their nine children, to her years of mourning after he died. The quotes from Queen Victoria throughout the exhibit to the artwork she had commissioned to show her and her family to the people she governed showed a strong character who, while having the power to get everything, still had to fight for her own life and respect. 

When Queen Victoria became queen at 18, she symbolized a fresh start for the monarchy - she was more “liberal” in a sense and showed an open mind compared to those who ruled before.

“Natives and colored races should be treated with every kindness and affection as brothers not - as alas! Englishmen too often do - as totally different to ourselves, fit only to be crushed and shot down!” - Queen Victoria, 1842 (five years into being queen).

It’s interesting to look at royalty in the spectrum of feminism. A lot of British royalty features strong women in the background or on the main stage. Women live(d) longer than men and it shows in the royal family as the current Queen of Great Britain is 93 and not quite done yet. I’d want to look more into how royalty differentiated throughout the royal kingdoms that are still in power to this day. We learned about the fact that if a woman of royal blood married, her husband would be named “Prince of…” instead of “King of…” because that would take power from the (future) Queen. Examples include “Queen Victoria and Prince Albert” and “Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles”. Why is King still more powerful than Queen? Shouldn’t it be based on blood or merit and not gender/sex?

Outside of these questions, I have to say the royal family dynamics (not just the British empire, but other royal families in the world) are an interesting thing to study through the eyes of feminism.

Oh and Queen Victoria kicks ass!