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The Real Birth Of A Nation
"The oldest known surviving film made by an African-American director, Within Our Gates is a searing account of the US racial situation during the early twentieth century, including the years of Jim Crow, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Migration of Southern blacks to cities in the North, and the emergence of the “New Negro”. Directed by Oscar Micheaux, the film is one of the earliest and finest examples in the genre of “race films”. Produced outside the main Hollywood machine, these films were purposefully made for an all-black audience, featured black actors, and became important arenas through which representations of African-Americans in mass culture were contested." (Within Our Gates YouTube) - Industrious African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux designed a cunning film that is in so many ways an inversion of The Birth of a Nation. Where Griffith simplifies history, Within Our Gates complicates it. - This movie is very much the antithesis of Birth. The black characters are given a depth and humanity that would have been denied them in standard Hollywood productions. Sylvia in particular is amazing considering the period: she is a female character who manages to be independent and intelligent, - Restored 'Race Films' Find New Audiences (NPR)
Strong in the Real Way
I think that the stars have really aligned. I think that it’s my team, it’s the fact that we were all so dedicated to telling honest stories and to just fighting and fighting to get this material through and make it so entertaining that you could never deny how sweet and thoughtful and entertaining it is that there’s just no way to say no. Rebecca Sugar on Steven Universe and LGBTQ representation. Stephen Universe just had a history making same sex marriage in a kids cartoon and has recently had a movie announced.
The story behind California's unanimously-passsed digital privacy bill
Facebook and Google made billions mining personal data, and fought off anyone who threatened to stop them. Then came a challenge in their own backyard... Silicon Valley [had been offered] a take-it-or-leave-it privacy policy — the same kind that Silicon Valley usually offered everyone else. Nick Confessore writes in the NYT Magazine about The Unlikely Activists Who Took On Silicon Valley — and Won.
"Political power is a malleable thing, an elaborate calculation of artifice and argument, votes and money. People and institutions can seem all-powerful right up to the moment they are not. And sometimes, a thing that can’t possibly happen suddenly becomes a thing that cannot be stopped." (SLNYTMag long read.)
"Your body is yours and yours alone. "
"Your body is yours and yours alone. " Don’t let it be dictated or moulded into something you don’t want. Dress it how you want.
Wear what you think feels good and looks good, but trust me some bandwagons aren’t worth jumping on.
Your body’s going to change and then change some more and then when you think it’s finally stopped, it changes again. Keep your body hair, shave your body hair, do what you want it’s up to you, but do it for you.” (Niellah Arboine) [more inside]
Love is love...
i do not have a boyfriend so I made one out of boxes of wine.
i took my boyfriend i made out of boxes of wine to his first #pride and he loved it.
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT my boyfriend i made out of boxes of wine and i are moving in 2gether.
my boyfriend i made out of boxes of wine took me to the garden and surprised me...guys i said YES!!! [more inside]
The Irradiated International
"If power can be held through atomic bombs, colonial peoples may never be free." (pdf link) [more inside]
Stop telling me to turn my brain off during movies
Gender Trouble
What Happens to #MeToo When a Feminist Is the Accused? After a year long Title IX investigation, NYU Philosophy professor suspended Avitall Ronnell for the coming academic year for sexually harassing a male graduate student.
A number of feminist scholars, including Judith Butler, have announced their support for Professor Ronell in a letter. The letter cites the "international standing and reputation" of Professor Ronell, and accused the victim of waging "a malicious campaign against her." Zizek also signed the letter. [more inside]
Does the pillow of an insomniac feel impotent?
Everything is Alive is an unscripted interview show / podcast in which all the subjects are inanimate objects. In each episode, a different thing tells us its life story--and everything it says is true." There have been three episodes so far: 1. Louis, can of soda; 2. Maeve, lamppost; 3. Dennis, pillow. They're not "sequential," but I do suggest listening to them in order.
Hilary Woods' Colt - mysterious, dark and beautiful, pulling you in
Hilary Woods carries a range of influences into her music, from her education in dance, to growing up surrounded by music -- her father was a pianist, and in her house there was "a huge mix of folk music and Irish ballads very heavy metal." You can hear all these influences on her debut album, Colt (Bandcamp) Although it is lithe and warm, there is an austerity to its texture that harkens back to the forbidding tones of heavier music. (FACT Rated interview + review). If Grouper’s stark, intense minimalism (Bandcamp) is best visualized as the darkest corner of the coldest house, then Colt ... is the desolate, cinematic landscape outside it (London in Stereo). [more inside]
Dear Book Therapist
Do you have a problem? Do you want a book to help you solve it? Book Therapist is Rosalie Knecht, LMSW, a licensed therapist and author of the novels Relief Map and Who is Vera Kelly? (Tin House, June 2018). She will be taking questions monthly for Lit Hub at booktherapy@lithub.com. [more inside]
Masks for Mutilated Men in WW I
Anna Coleman Ladd, a sculptor, made lifelike masks for soldiers of WW I. World War I caused the death of millions of combatants and civilians, while countless soldiers suffered from injury and disfigurement. Perhaps the most disheartening were facial injuries, as soldiers had to not only deal with the physical loss, but also the constant psychological stress of wondering how people would react to their changed appearance.
Husky Karaoke
How a Transplanted Face Transformed a Young Woman’s Life [NSFW]
National Geographic: At 18, Katie Stubblefield lost her face. At 21, she became the youngest person in the U.S. to undergo the still experimental surgery. Follow her incredible story. [CW: Extremely graphic images and descriptions of facial injuries and reconstruction; suicide; overdose]
"the day is not complete if you don't let sambal teach you a lesson"
When my mom cooked sambal from scratch, she moved with controlled haste. Her eyebrows would furrow as she used her index finger to mix belacan, a pungent shrimp paste, with water. “Open all the windows!” she would suddenly yell, her warning to my brother, father and me that fiery chiles would be hitting her oiled wok in a few minutes.Sambal, a Pungent Reminder of Home and Hardship (SLNYT)
I am your worst fear / I am your best fantasy
According to the New York Times (and the curator of an exhibition of her work), Donna Gottschalk is the most famous lesbian photographer you've never heard of (NYT Link) [more inside]
This is the first time we all got a real book.
In Pennsylvania, a state with 500 school districts, the funding crisis of public education is not a breaking news story. It's been the reality for years. Students study in decaying buildings, can only dream about art classes and fight the stigma of being from "that school." The crisis of funding public education is imminent as the court is set to look into how Pennsylvania funds public education and if it violates the State Constitution. In this series, we explore deepening inequities across school districts and ask: Will the school funding crisis in Pa. ever be solved? [more inside]
move over, David Attenborough
Blessed redeemer! It's the piebald moose. Friends Nancy Andrews and Roxanne Rowsell captured a piebald (ghostly white) moose on video. The footage of the rare moose is interesting, but it's the women's Newfoundland accents and their charmingly goofy commentary that have sent it viral.
Crown Yourself
For most of my life, there has been a Rihanna single — or multiple Rihanna singles, or multiple songs defined by a Rihanna hook — playing prominently on Top 40 radio. So it's not enough to say Rihanna is the air. Rihanna shaped the texture and taste of the air by consistently doing what pop, at its very best, is supposed to do: taking disparate genres — rock, EDM, dancehall, trap and even dubstep — and turning them into something that makes sense to us, to everyone. If she's not seen as taking musical risks, it's only because so many of them paid off. Jenny Gathright argues for Rihanna as the most influential musician of the 21st century.