Xena understands the touch across time.
(via thewarriorandthebard)
Can I just say that I’m eternally mad at everyone who told me I’d like Welcome To The Dollhouse. Dave and I were watching it with our mouths agape and actually ended up turning it off because it was so upsetting and fucked up. Also it made me hate Warren from Empire Records forever.
I’M SO GLAD I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGH THAT. IT WAS SO CYNICAL.
for the record i warn EVERYONE i recommend/talk to about this movie, and most other todd solondz films. personally, i really enjoy todd solondz’s films (palindromes is amazing) but totally agree that they can be triggering and just really awful experiences for some people. i think there has to be a certain understanding around context and intent to adequately talk about some of these things… but i really don’t want to come off as having a ”you just don’t get it” film snob attitude.
I can totally see why Welcome to the Dollhouse is probably too upsetting for many people, and I don’t know what it would be like for me to watch it now, but this just made me think back to when I was about 14 and it was my favorite movie.
It was really comforting to me, actually. Here was this representation of middle school as this place of unrelenting cruelty with no redemption or hope in sight and I just thought, finally, someone’s telling the truth. I loved Dawn. She was so heroic to me, because she survived—and she didn’t survive with dignity or beauty or transcendence; she survived with this bewildered doggedness that felt like something I could actually aspire to. I could look at her and say to myself, “You don’t have to be brave. You don’t have to be dignified. You don’t have to show them all up with a smart comeback or a moving speech or your silently noble suffering. You can be weird and pissed off and inarticulate, you can keep breaking all the social rules you don’t understand, you can wear things that everyone hates, you can keep wanting more than you’re supposed to and more than is wise,you can embody everyone’s idea of utter abjection, and you still deserve to be treated like a human being.”
![cristanw:
Transgender person in the news in 1822: From the Handcock Gazette & Penobscot Patriot, Vol 3, No. 20, Wednesday, November 13, 1822.
The article reads:
A Female Warrior. – Ann Jones, better known by the name of “Waterloo Tom,” was brought up in the custody of one of the officers of the Mendicity Society, charged with an act of vagrancy, having been found that morning begging in Camberwell. – The officer stated that the prisoner was a constant customer of his, and had been before a Magistrate seven or eight times on similar charges and not-withstanding she has been as often in gaol, it had not the effect of making her discontinue her pursuits, which she could very well do, as she was receiving a pension of 1s. 9d. per day, she having been wounded at the battle of Waterloo for which exploit she derived the appellation of ”Waterloo Tom.” – The prisoner, a strong masculine woman, about 35 years of age, with saber wounds all over her face, especially on the nose, being called on the shew cause why she should not be sent to gaol, told the Magistrate if she was, it would be an extreme[l]y hard case. She stated that her husband had belonged to the 7th Light Dragoons, and had served served under the Duke of Wellington in all his campaigns, and she herself, in the attire of a private soldier, had followed him through Spain, Portugal, and other continental countries, and did military duty. She was at the battle of Waterloo, where her husband fell from his horse by a gunshot. She immediately mounted his steed and joined in the battle, and was instrumental in saving the life of Captain Lance, belonging to her husband’s troop. In which enterprise she was severely wounded, and her sex was then for the first time discovered. After the battle she was sent to England, and was now receiving 1s. a day from the Captain and 9 d. a day pension from the Government. She concluded her narrative by saying, it was very harsh treatment for her who had served her King and country, to be locked up in the jaws of a prison for begging a halfpenny. The Magistrate asked the officer if he was positive she applied for alms, and being answered in the affirmative, she as committed to the mill, at Brixton, for a month.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnhazaJLYs1qf1o2io1_1280.png)
Transgender person in the news in 1822: From the Handcock Gazette & Penobscot Patriot, Vol 3, No. 20, Wednesday, November 13, 1822.
The article reads:
A Female Warrior. – Ann Jones, better known by the name of “Waterloo Tom,” was brought up in the custody of one of the officers of the Mendicity Society, charged with an act of vagrancy, having been found that morning begging in Camberwell. – The officer stated that the prisoner was a constant customer of his, and had been before a Magistrate seven or eight times on similar charges and not-withstanding she has been as often in gaol, it had not the effect of making her discontinue her pursuits, which she could very well do, as she was receiving a pension of 1s. 9d. per day, she having been wounded at the battle of Waterloo for which exploit she derived the appellation of ”Waterloo Tom.” – The prisoner, a strong masculine woman, about 35 years of age, with saber wounds all over her face, especially on the nose, being called on the shew cause why she should not be sent to gaol, told the Magistrate if she was, it would be an extreme[l]y hard case. She stated that her husband had belonged to the 7th Light Dragoons, and had served served under the Duke of Wellington in all his campaigns, and she herself, in the attire of a private soldier, had followed him through Spain, Portugal, and other continental countries, and did military duty. She was at the battle of Waterloo, where her husband fell from his horse by a gunshot. She immediately mounted his steed and joined in the battle, and was instrumental in saving the life of Captain Lance, belonging to her husband’s troop. In which enterprise she was severely wounded, and her sex was then for the first time discovered. After the battle she was sent to England, and was now receiving 1s. a day from the Captain and 9 d. a day pension from the Government. She concluded her narrative by saying, it was very harsh treatment for her who had served her King and country, to be locked up in the jaws of a prison for begging a halfpenny. The Magistrate asked the officer if he was positive she applied for alms, and being answered in the affirmative, she as committed to the mill, at Brixton, for a month.
The last post reminded me of this confessional sampler, stitched by a 19th century woman struggling with thoughts of suicide.
Click the image for more pictures and the complete text.
holy hell. this is… intense reading.
been doing a lot of cross stitch lately. I find “radical cross stitch” as a concept a bit uninspiring because I feel like it’s often approached as parody? like ha ha, look at the incongruity, this bitter or edgy message in this traditionally saccharine medium. but in fact (as this piece shows) embroidery in general and the cross stitched sampler in particular have a rich and complicated and often subversive history. it’s women’s culture, women’s communication, women’s lives. I’m more interested in modern embroidery that’s conceptualised as a continuation rather than a parody of traditional embroidery.
This past month, there was much outrage over the fact that General Electric, despite making $14.2 billion in profits, paid zero U.S. taxes in 2010. General Electric actually received tax credits of $3.2 billion from American taxpayers.
At the same time that General Electric was not paying taxes, many undocumented immigrants, who are typically accused of taking advantage of the system while not contributing to it by many on the right, paid $11.2 billion in taxes. A new study by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy shows that undocumented immigrants paid $8.4 billion in sales taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.2 billion in personal income taxes last year. The study also estimates that nearly half of all undocumented immigrants pay income taxes.
Huh… so who’s gaming the system again?
(via crunkfeministcollective)
![criticallyqueer:
[Fang to fang with its [their] distant kin, an Abyssinian kitten paws Smilodon fatalis remains at the George C. Page Museum in Los Angeles. Sabertooths dined on large herbivores; more adaptable domestic cats flourish on fare ranging from self-serve mice to kibble in a dish.] found photo](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm4jx61lBp1qzyqbfo1_1280.jpg)
Super-Duper!
A good cane can make any picture better. The fact she looks like she’s about to use it, and while whistling a cheerful tune — hot damn.
(via dapperanddandy)
(via garconniere)
