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My goal here -- beyond the selfish utilitarian aspect of organizing my research -- is much in parallel with that of sites like the Medieval People of Color blog, or Kameron Hurley's award-nominated essay "We Have Always Fought". I want to help change the unexamined assumptions about the place and nature of lesbian-like characters in historic fact, literature, art, and imagination. I want to do it to help other authors find inspiration and support for the stories they want to tell. And I want to do it to affect the reception of my own writing. My project will be flawed in that it will privilege topics and interpretations of personal interest to me. (A geographic focus on Europe and it's neighbors. A temporal focus that ends before the 20th century and focuses strongly on the pre-modern. An examination of the data through a lesbian lens even when other lenses, such as transgender ones, are equally valid.) This is a caveat but not an apology. If I weren't doing it for selfish reasons, I wouldn't be doing it at all.

The Lesbian Historica Motif Project is a series of posts at The Rose Garden looking at source material about lesbian women throughout history.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:51 PM PST - 17 comments

Intersections are basically death traps, where right-turning drivers threaten collisions at any moment. [SLSmithsonian]
posted by jojomnky at 8:08 PM PST - 148 comments

What refuse in India's streets reveals about America’s hidden trash problem
posted by infini at 4:22 PM PST - 43 comments

Charlie Barsotti, one of the great cartoonists, passed away. Charlie drew close to fourteen hundred cartoons for The New Yorker over the years, beginning in the nineteen-sixties and continuing right through last week’s issue.
Many more here. Previously.
posted by growabrain at 12:02 PM PST - 45 comments

Call Me Ishmael: call a number and leave a voicemail about a book you've loved and a story you've lived. Later, that anonymous voicemail will be transcribed and made into a short video for everyone to see.
posted by SkylitDrawl at 10:52 AM PST - 12 comments

A 36 year old FDNY "probie" fights his first fire (SLNYTimes interactive)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:22 AM PST - 10 comments

Every drink in every(*) Pynchon novel. List of drinks by book. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 7:50 AM PST - 21 comments

COVER VERSIONS: 25 OF THE BEST ANDY WARHOL RECORD SLEEVES
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:33 AM PST - 19 comments

Take neat 4-colour selfies at the INTERSTELLAR SELFIE STATION [more inside]
posted by Quilford at 6:15 AM PST - 17 comments

Dylan Moran on the differences between a weekend with and without kids.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 5:47 AM PST - 157 comments

Several couples reminisce about when and how they started fucking: Josh and Debra, Zack and Evan, Isaac and Doris.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:01 AM PST - 29 comments

Today at 6 PM Eastern, the United States plays Portugal in the World Cup. The United States has never been very successful in World Cup soccer (football), but it has come close. The United States shocked the world by coming in third in 1930 and again by defeating England in 1950. In 2002, the U.S. had an upset against Portugal, but could it happen again? Playing for Portugal is Cristiano Ronaldo, possibly the best player in the world, whose fancy footwork is legendary.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:24 AM PST - 357 comments