united states of meryl

In Meryl We Trust.

[horrorlesbians]

everytime I remember that lesbian couple that have a marble statue of the two of them embracing and sleeping on a bed together over where their graves will be because the artists didn’t believe they would be able to be married before they died, so what they couldn’t have in life they could have in death, I fucking breakdown

[horrorlesbians]

memorial to a marriage; patricia cronin

[horrorlesbians]

“on july 24th, 2011- the first day that same sex marriage was legal in new york state, particia cronin and deborah kass got married. that same year the marble ‘memorial to a marriage’ was replaced with a bronze version. rainwater pools in the space between their two sculpted bodies, and falling leaves catch on the metal in the autumn. the two women sleep peacefully through snow and ice, and the scorching days of summer. over time the hands of cemetery visitors will wear down the bronze, burnishing it into a smooth shine. one day this will mark the final resting place of the two women. and someday people will have to remember that there was a time, long ago, when this was a memorial to a marriage that two women never thought they’d have.” 

- Caitlin Doughty, on the Death in the Afternoon podcast

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

In 1990, the high school dropout rate for Dolly Parton’s hometown of Sevierville Tennessee was at 34% (Research shows that most kids make up their minds in fifth/sixth grade not to graduate). That year, all fifth and sixth graders from Sevierville were invited by Parton to attend an assembly at Dollywood. They were asked to pick a buddy, and if both students completed high school, Dolly Parton would personally hand them each a $500 check on their graduation day. As a result, the dropout rate for those classes fell to 6%, and has generally retained that average to this day.

Shortly after the success of The Buddy Program, Parton learned in dealing with teachers from the school district that problems in education often begin during first grade when kids are at different developmental levels. That year The Dollywood Foundation paid the salaries for additional teachers assistants in every first grade class for the next 2 years, under the agreement that if the program worked, the school system would effectively adopt and fund the program after the trial period.

During the same period, Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995: The idea being that children from her rural hometown and low-income families often start school at a disadvantage and as a result, will be unfairly compared to their peers for the rest of their lives, effectively encouraging them not to pursue higher education. The objective of the Imagination library was that every child in Sevier County would receive one book, every month, mailed and addressed to the child, from the day they were born until the day they started kindergarten, 100% free of charge. What began as a hometown initiative now serves children in all 50 states, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, mailing thousands of free books to children around the world monthly.

On March 1, 2018 Parton donated her 100 millionth book at the Library of Congress: a copy of “Coat of Many Colors” dedicated to her father, who never learned to read or write.

[brightlotusmoon]

The tag that says that Dolly Parton is the backbone of American Society is correct. She’s probably done more than Congress at this point.

[catchymemes]

[breakfast-sandwich-deactivated2]

What really fucks me up about a 40 hour work week and I’ve tried to explain to people over and over is that like of you do the math you have maybe 3 hours every day to just like. Rest and be with your family. And that’s kind of it

Like the average adult needs about 8 hours of sleep every night, so that cuts your 24 hours to 16 right off the bat.

You’re working for 8 hours, so 8 left.

But you actually work 8 to 5 at most offices, not 9 to 5, and that lunch is basically just long enough to retrieve food and eat. 7.

It took you 20 minutes to shower this morning, 10 to get dressed, and 45 to make a bowl of oatmeal and eat it. We’ll say 15 to get your stuff together and out to your car. 5 and a half.

You get home and have to cook dinner, 30 minutes min for that, probably more like an hour, so somewhere between 5 and 4.5 hrs left. And then you’ve got to eat it, 30 minutes if you’re being healthy about it.

So at best you’ve MAYBE got 4/4.5 hours left every week day and that’s assuming you ran exactly zero errands, didn’t stop by the gym after work, didn’t have to stay late, have a wicked fast transition time between tasks AND a commute of like 5 minutes by car. If you have to go to the store after a quick run at the gym, pick your kids up from soccer across town, and you factor in a 30 minute commute both ways, you’ve got enough free time for like one episode of show Monday through Friday. And weekends have got to be for cleaning the house and going to visit your mom for a few hours.

When do you write, or paint, or read or sew or go on hikes? When do you go on spur of the moment adventures with your wife and try to perfect your grandma’s soda bread? What happens when it rains on Saturday after being sunny all the rest of the week so you can’t go to the zoo that day and you don’t have enough money for the museum? Why are we all just content to postpone our whole lives, put off “happy” and “healthy” for a miniscule amount of extra value we’re producing for someone else?

And it’s also a thing that fascinates me about hustle culture like. When do y'all rest? When do sleep and food happen? How do you make 3 different jobs work without dying?

Idk idk like I said I’m real fucked up about it. It amazes me that more office workers aren’t great big socialists because we have this miserable job where we’re monitored constantly and just have to sit. Still. And maintain focus on ONE THING for EIGHT HOURS in a BORING GRAY ROOM with exactly two short breaks at designated times and I just?? How does that not suck for literally everyone else?? You said yourself, Angie, you’re useless after 3 pm so just?? Organize with me and negotiate for shorter days??? Like you’re literally already only producing 6 hours of value, you don’t need to be sitting there for longer than that.

[peanutbutterpickletime]

Kill the 40hr work week. We have the power.

[todaysbird]

also, to people who flex for working ‘harder’ or ‘not being lazy’ - at the end of the day, where does that get you? all it does is put more money in your employers’ pockets. (at least in regard to most retail-office/food jobs)

[neoyorzapoteca]

“In the West, you find the idea that only humans have language. I never believed that. We know bacteria sing to each other, that even subatomic particles are self-aware and communicate and tangle with one another. So, for me, the universe is itself language; everything is speaking to everything else, in particular chemical, sonic, and territorial languages. There are sorts we can’t even imagine, yet together they form part of what we as humans can sense and perceive. We can talk about things as if we know what we are talking about. That’s the most fascinating thing in the world because in truth we don’t know much at all. What we don’t know composes 99.9 percent of the real. That possibility of sensing what we cannot name makes language what it is—a reaching for what cannot be said.”

— Cecilia Vicuña, from an interview in BOMB Magazine (via tasavvur)

[tvandfilm]

Russian Doll (2019-) Created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland

[witchesheal]

“If a person cannot solve a conflict with a friend, how can they possibly contribute to larger efforts for peace? If we refuse to speak to a friend because we project our anxieties onto an email they wrote, how are we going to welcome refugees, immigrants, and the homeless into our communities? The values required for social repair are the same values required for personal repair. And so this discussion must begin in the most micro experience. Confusing being mortal with being threatened can occur in any realm. The fact that something could go wrong does not mean that we are in danger. It means that we are alive. Mortality is the sign of life.”

— Sarah Schulman, Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair

[dingdongyouarewrong]

same energy as chris fleming’s “call yourself a ‘community organizer’ even though you’re not on speaking terms with your roommates”

[fernstream]

“The “generation gap” is an important social tool for any repressive society. If the younger members of a community view the older members as contemptible or suspect or excess, they will never be able to join hands and examine the living memories of the community, nor ask the all important question, “Why?” This gives rise to a historical amnesia that keeps us working to invent the wheel every time we have to go to the store for bread.

We find ourselves having to repeat and relearn the same old lessons over and over that our mothers did because we do not pass on what we have learned, or because we are unable to listen. For instance, how many times has this all been said before? For another, who would have believed that once again our daughters are allowing their bodies to be hampered and purgatorial by girdles and high heels and hobble skirts?”

— Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex,” in Sister Outsider

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[caroldanversenthusiast]

this is simply the greatest video i have ever seen

[arandomcollectionofstuff]

I'm going to reblog this a million times so be it

[kiran-wears-science-blues]

#i love how they give up on the dumb gimmick and just make her do increasingly inane trick shots

[sindri42]

Reminded of that time the xkcd guy was trying to research what sports equipment would be most effective for destroying enemy drones in flight and he looked up a bunch of stats about pro tennis player accuracy against stationary targets like 40 feet away, and figured that a really high level tennis pro might be able to hit the drone in 5-7 shots if they had the time and even then probably wouldn’t do enough damage to disrupt it more than momentarily.

And then Serena volunteered to test this theory and just, killed it instantly.

[timemachineyeah]

New superhero class that’s basically The Archer but they play tennis instead.

[justasillynerd]

Georgia Voters *who voted in the November 2020 Election* are finding themselves PURGED from voter records.

This video explains how to check this and how to re-register

Deadline to re-register is Dec 7th

[lauramakabresku]

[reporanka]

“The Anatomy of Melancholy” by Laura Makabresku, self-portrait, 2020

[thisaccisdead]

[ID: a captioned screenshot of pam from the office, edited so that the caption reads: “And I feel anti-american in this 4th of july tonight.” end id]

[refinery29]

Police officers have arrested a man for filming an arrest even though they acknowledged it was legal for him to do so– and he’s a State Congressman

The police officers seemed more concerned with calling Rep. John Walker a “race baiter” for doing something completely legal than they were in upholding the law. But the kicker is that Rep. Walker had already been arrested for the same thing years ago, which is why he fought for the law (and won) in the first place.

Gifs: John Horse

WATCH THE VIDEO

[hedaslayer]

“I wanted to challenge politically the kissing scene, which traditionally either has the surprise kiss scene thanks to a rain shower for instance, or the obvious kiss scene thanks to mustard on the corner of the lips, for instance, and it is generally carefully scripted as ‘They kiss.’ Or ‘They passionately kiss.’ And then it’s on the actors’ shoulders. It seems to rely a lot on them because it’s their bodies and fluids and interaction, but it shouldn’t be. It’s fake. It’s not about finding the magic. Actors should always be part of the elaboration of an idea, especially with intimate scenes. So I wanted to craft a scene that would embody the sexiness of consent. People who are questioning the idea of asking for consent in France, they do exist. They are brave fighters for the culture of French gallantry who say that asking for consent would not be sexy, it will break the mood. Some of the French critics thought the film lacked flesh, precisely because to them eroticism is about conflict. […] At some point I came up with the idea of them having to unveil their mouths like they would undress themselves. So I put a scarf, justified by a strong wind, pressed on their lips and thinking you would see their heavy breathing through the moving cloth.”

Céline Sciamma on creating a new first kiss

[unfumble-deactivated20241228]

I never wanted to build a “body of work,” but to preserve these, our bodies, breathing and unaccounted for, inside the work. — Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“When I discovered the body of work of those painters who were erased by art history, it was troubling and sad, also because those images are consequently missing from our lives. We are cut off from the story of our intimacy and the portrayal of the hearts and desires and bodies and private lives of these women, so I’m always trying to bring to life the images that are missing.”

//

“That’s what counted for me. That we were telling [a story] today, and with a desire to fill a gap. …there was something joyous and alive in bringing back to life the hearts and the bodies of those women.”

— Céline Sciamma

[digg]

[gingerhaze]

i’d watch an entire series about bodybuilders in a tiny town

[keybladesoras]

Birds of Prey (2020)

[accordionsrule-deactivated20240]

There has been a lot of (excellent) discourse about how this movie was shot in a way less objectifying way than Suicide Squad was. That said, this was the most unabashedly sexual shot in the movie.