Sheena Ringo for Ongaku to Hito (音楽と人) magazine, February, 2000.
Anonymous asked:
What is your favourite small, painfully human gesture?
soracities answered:
and also if we can just:
ah, mary hartman, mary hartman, a show that reveled in the unexpected, the taboo, and the outright bizarre. yet one of its oddities lied in a little-remembered story arc that portrayed and insisted on the normalcy of something that remained contested–and criminalized–in the united states: homosexuality.
late in the show's first season, viewers meet the hartman's new neighbors, brothers ed and howard mccullough and their eccentric mother, betty. the mccullough's immediately stir suspicion due to their secretive ways and seemingly hostile efforts to ward outsiders away from their private lives. for ed and howard do have a secret: they are not brothers at all; they are lovers who for years have operated a delicate masquerade until they're outed and forced to move time and time again. while at first they're determined that they will settle once and for all, never to flee again, they question whether the charade is worth the suffering, and it eventually falls apart. at the end of their arc, ed and howard decide to come out, and even to get married.
these episodes aired in the summer of 1976 following the us supreme court decision of doe v. commonwealth's attorney of richmond, which upheld states' rights to institute laws banning homosexuality. the reversal of that decision would not come until the next century, nor, of course, would the right to same-sex marriage.
mary hartman represented the legal, social and emotional realities of gay americans in the wake of the '76 ruling. ed and howard decide that while they are no 'crusaders,' they will no longer allow homophobia to force them into hiding or even prevent them from having a 'normal' life which, for them, included being married. if this was not a historic first in american television, it was at least an extremely rare, and extremely sympathetic representation for its time and for many, many years to come.
these clips come from youtube user why i am who i am's playlist "32 minutes of television that proved I was OK"–composed entirely of ed and howard's scenes on mary hartman, mary hartman. as i made this video and commentary, i recognize for me it's intellectually interesting, but that for those watching 45 years ago, it might have been life-changing, or saving.
Letter from cartoonist Alfred Joseph Frueh to his wife Giuliette Fanciulli, sent on Jan. 10th, 1913.
The letter opens up to form a model of a gallery hung with paintings. Frueh made this model to inform his wife about the details of a specific art gallery before her visit.
There was a wall here once. The tree remembers, but now the wind blows through roots that once nestled among stones.
This weird looking mass is called a llareta plant, parts of which are over 3000 years old. You can find this ‘mature’ shrub in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Believe it or not, it is actually a relative of parsley, but I wouldn’t be garnishing my food with it any time soon!
No, you won’t find llaretas on a plate, but unfortunately it is getting used up in other ways. As you can decipher from the image, llaretas are quite dense and although they look quite mossy and moisture rich, they are actually rather dry. As a result, they can function as a fuel and this has endangered their survival.
Aside from Chile, these plants can be found throughout the Andes in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina.
-Jean
Image courtesy of Rachel Sussman
"It’s often unhealthy to hyper-analyze your sexuality to the point where how you experience it changes where you belong. This is why the idea that broader terms are somehow more restrictive is baffling. Continuously breaking labels down and creating terminology for each facet of one’s identity shrinks communities until it’s just one person convinced that they’re the only one who relates to their experiences. It isolates people and ignores the importance of individuality within a collective identity."
The author also dropped some gems in the last paragraph of the short article:
[ID: Having a plethora of specific atomized sexualities discourages broad alliances and forming solidarity over shared experiences. Instead, it forces people to over-analyze themselves and focus on how they're different from others rather than what they have in common with them. We should embrace the many ways we experience our attraction, not dissect them into different "types" that we mustn't ever conflate sectioning everyone off over the most minor contrasts does us no favors. We should approach sexual liberation with collectivism, not individualism.]
ceasefire will take place in a couple of hours I think but just so we're clear: ceasefire is less than the bare fucking minimum. the bottle line is no peace until Palestine is free. and people in Gaza are reporting intensified airstrikes so don't be fooled into thinking israhell has a conscience. as a political entity no settler colonial project, no apartheid state, no genocidal government has one. they said verbatim that they wouldn't stop until 'Gaza was quite' so let's keep shouting alongside them and all Palestinians in their struggle.
also just because Gaza isn't getting bombed day in and day out that deaths will stop. several hospitals have been damaged beyond repair or straight up destroyed. doctors were massacred. the wounded can't get treatment bc there are too many. countless houses obliterated and thousands of people displaced. aid convoys blocked at the border by israhell to prevent the people of Gaza from accessing relief. state terrorism and slow violence/death are birds of a feather. don't be fooled into passivity.
today, may 15th 2021, marks 73rd year since al nakba, or “the catastrophe”, the 1948 forced expulsion of 750,000 palestinians from their homes in order to establish the state of israel. the nakba is ongoing and has not ended. at the moment, israel is committing massacres, war crimes and an active genocide of palestinians.
30+ families are facing forced displacement by israeli forces in the neighborhood of sheikh jarrah in east jerusalem. their houses are to be taken over by colonial settler organizations. [x]
gaza is being bombed actively in illegal attacks and that has been going on for six days. the number of victims is as of right now, evening of may 15th, 145 martyrs, including 40 children. israel dropped phosphorous bombs on unarmed palestinian civilians. white phosphorous is specifically internationally prohibited to use on civilians because it can melt skin and penetrate to your bones. white phosphorus burns are slow, agonizing, can cause organ failure. if you don’t die, you’ll live with holes in your skin for the rest of your life. this is a literal war crime.
pogroms are going on. israeli settlers and israeli police are going door-to-door in palestinian homes, breaking in, beating, kidnapping, burning, shooting every palestinian in sight. they are marking palestinian houses to attack at night.
words are not enough to convey the horror of what’s going on. IDF soldiers detaining sedated palestinian children are joking about selling them. israel bombed an orphanage. a palestinian father found out about his four children being killed by an israeli missile in gaza. a baby was the only survivor of an attack on his family’s house. a guy reporting casualties in a hospital in gaza ended up finding the dead bodies of two of his siblings. and more. watch these videos. see the atrocities palestinians endure with your own eyes.
palestinians have specifically asked for social media activism and coverage. israel cares deeply for their international image: they pay students to defend them online, an israeli airstrike destroyed the al jazeera office in gaza which also houses the AP and other media outlets. consistency in your online activism is essential. sharing videos and posts and photos posted by people in palestine of everything that is happening is essential. israel wants a media blackout. posts about sheikh jarrah are being censored, people have been losing internet in protest sites in the West Bank, there is a threat to israeli bombardment to the main transmission tower for internet services in gaza. by being constantly and consistently vocal, you are aiding more than you think.
the situation is not “complicated”. there is no “two sides” to take into account or whatever bs zionists are trying to feed you. on one side there are colonizers, settlers, protected by an iron dome and bomb shelters that look like hotel rooms, and on another a dispossessed people who are being pulled out from under the rubble because they do not have anywhere to hide from the bombs that are raining down on them. on one side you have people going to the beach and to brunch while crying to the media about the inconvenience they have to endure, and on another you have people who are defenseless, have nowhere to run, don’t have a roof over their head, who are going through a clean water shortage are being bombed a few feet away from those same settlers. israel has killed more people in gaza the past 24 hours than hamas rockets have killed in the past 20 years.
while boosting palestinian voices and sharing every kind of content you see capturing what is happening in palestine specifically from palestinians, please take this time to learn more about palestine, and more on how to help:
- decolonize palestine is a website created by palestinians to debunk myths, explain history, answer FAQs, etc. please read thoroughly through it.
- support the bds (boycott, divest, and sanctions) movement: an explanation of what it is and the official site to learn more. for example: ben & jerry’s is a company to boycott, as they actively support apartheid, and profit from sales in israeli settlements. also, in 2014, when israel killed so many palestinians it ran out of morgue space, they used ben & jerry’s ice cream freezers to store their bodies.
- demand your trade unions to endorse bds.
- protest israeli terror. a lot of protest are happening today on the occasion of the nakba.
- if you are american, call your local state reps. demand they end all aid to israel. america gives 3.8 billion dollars each year to israel.
- demand your governments to stop arming israel. materially challenge the ability of the occupation to continue attacks on palestinians. for example, today in livorno, italy, dockers refused to load weapons on ship destined to israel.
- if your city is doing police exchanges with the IOF, demand they stop.
- donate to the palestinian children’s relief fund, which provides free medical care and humanitarian aid to youth in palestine.
- share the meal is an app made by the wfp and they currently have a campaign going on for families in palestine. a meal costs less than a dollar. please donate if you can.
- center palestinian voices. muhammed el kurd (@/m7mdkurd on twitter and @/mohammedelkurd on instagram) from sheikh jarrah has been the main spokesperson of this violent dispossession on various media outlets. please watch his interviews and listen to what he has to say. here’s a twitter list to follow for live updates about palestine and the occupation’s crimes. please follow it. this post is only a general overview of everything that went on the past few days, it’s nowhere near enough to be informed.)
as someone who’s been involved in all kinds of pro-palestinian, anti-zionist activism for as long as i can remember, i don’t want to be too hopeful, but it feels different now. all israeli propaganda is collapsing. their narrative is not sticking anymore. people are becoming aware of its genocidal reality. please use your social capital and voice and keep doing so consistently.
israel just annihilated the al jazeera and ap offices on live tv
absolutely brazen, the sheer balls on these guys
the us has bombed al jazeera offices in the past, claiming they shelter legitimate military targets and islamophobia means the west shrugged it off but the claim that the AP of all groups were sheltering legitimate military targets is going to be a much, much harder sell to the international community.
“'The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today,' AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement." - from this article
This is so fucked. The article goes on to try to make it a two sided conflict as much as possible -- people on both sides destroying each other's property, etc.
But Israel has killed 139 people in its strikes, according to this. Hamas has killed 8.
Leaving aside the fact that these articles never talk about the existing power dynamic & oppression of Palestineans, these are clearly unequal numbers.
🇵🇸 SHOP PALESTINE 🇵🇸
Palestinians will tell you that one of their greatest wishes is that the world would not forget them; this is what their oppressors are aiming to do. Unfortunately the attacks in Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa mosque are just instances in decades of horrific oppression and ethnic cleansing. You can directly help Palestinians by buying from them and helping them take economic power back.
The above are some examples of the beautiful and high quality products available at Shoppalestine.org including their honestly addictive Olive wood series and stunning embroidered goods (just to name a few).
!!! Hadeel.org is a UK alternative !!!
Similar and equally beautiful products here too^
You can also donate to one of the emergency appeals here:
The last keffiyah/kufiya factory in Palestine also has its own official website @ kufiya.org (with other designs I don’t think I saw in the shop above), & they are currently able to ship to the US & Australia
there’s also Handmade Palestine, a US based site that also has face masks and jewelry, etc
[Image description: A nine-image photoset depicting various different products. They consist of a canister of olive oil, a woven wallet, two dishes, a woven tapestry, a tea set and a bag of tea, two stacks of wooden dishes and a vase. End description]
(image description copied from tilde-heart on another version of the post that didn't have the kufiya link.)