What if I start using this space to keep you posted on the ins and outs of planning my wedding in April? Like for example do you want to talk about how to fit five 60″ tables in a backyard? The merits of unfrosted cakes? Or perhaps you’d like a running tally of how many times I’ve said “jewel tones” in the past two weeks. Here are some things we missed while I was coming to terms with how I really might, in fact, prefer the eggplant tablecloths to the white ones. Didn’t see that coming.
You Should Go or Do or Give
+ Queer Astrology Conference 2015??!!? One of the perks is “Merperson on a mug” I am dying please I want this mug omg.
interrupting heternormativity one galaxy at a time
+ L7 is reuniting, making a documentary, making your dreams come true.
Queer as in F*ck You
+ Which Side Are You On?: Queer and Trans People of Color Acting in Solidarity with Queer and Trans Black Lives by Deanna Gao on BGD.
+ Sally Kohn wrote about taking her daughter for a princess makeover at Disneyland! Daughter to Disney: I’ll Take the Tiara, You Keep the Prince.
I have been a tomboy all my life. When I played with dolls they were usually being sacrificed in some sort of erupting volcano-like mud hole in my backyard or running for their lives from monsters who had taken over my Tonka truck. I know I had some dresses. I’ve seen pictures of me wearing them, around the same age as my daughter. But I look stiff and decorated, more like a tree at Christmastime than a girl in a dress. It just wasn’t my thing.
It is, however, very much my daughter’s thing. I don’t know how it is that in the modern era, I still can’t get decent reception on my cellphone but somehow traditional gender norms are silently communicated and crystal clear. My partner and I certainly didn’t teach our daughter to like pink and ruffles and such. And I can’t fathom some genetic or biological nodule that predisposes my girl to like dolls while little boys like trucks. Baloney. But somehow, even in the midst of our hyper-liberal and hyper-diverse neighborhood with girls and boys of all kinds on display every day, it happened. Did I do something wrong? Is feminism mysteriously skipping a generation? Meanwhile, I have to bribe her to wear jeans.
+ How about some Rachel Maddow on this beautiful earthly day.
http://youtu.be/f1bJZRGXjqI
+ Um excuse me your nom de plume is perfect: Life as a French Lesbian in Istanbul by Jodie Foster Wallace.
Doll Parts
+ Noah Berlatsky interviewed Netta Elzie (@nettaaaaaaaa) for The Women of #BlackLivesMatter:
“I didn’t even know what I was doing was considered organizing until someone told me,” she said. “I didn’t know I was an activist until someone told me.”
Like many of those in the #BlackLivesMatter movement, Elzie came into activism not through an organization or institution, but through Twitter. Many of those new activists and organizers, like Elzie, have been women. As a result, the visible leadership of Ferguson protest, in comparison to that of past civil-rights struggles, has been much less male.
+ Oh wow jesus. The Feminist Frequency has put together a post of one week’s worth of twitter harassment and it’s fucking appalling.
+ On Being Black and Punk by Pilot Viruet:
On the second night—a particularly long one in which I found myself falling asleep in a dive bar as a loud band played—I wandered to the back bathroom to splash water on my face and wake up. Someone walked in while I was at the sink and suddenly a girl wrapped me up in a drunk, sloppy hug. When we were untangled from each other, she exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I’m just so happy to see another brown person at Fest!”
I had, as always, been aware of the sea of whiteness in the crowds and on the stage, but I hadn’t thought about it much until that moment when I realized that I was so goddamn happy to see her, too.
+ Is this legit? We’re not sure, but it’s definitely horrifying/satisfying. When Street Harassers Realize the Women They’re Catcalling are Their Moms in Disguise.
+ George Lucas: “Girls Go to the Movies Just Like Anyone Else”. YAH WE DO.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ Obama Protects Alaska Refuge, Opens Drilling in Arctic and Atlantic. Oh.
The wilderness designation is “the highest level of protection available to public lands,” the Department of the Interior said. “If Congress chooses to act, it would be the largest ever wilderness designation since Congress passed the visionary Wilderness Act over 50 years ago.”
No sooner had he done so, however, than two days later Obama also announced he would open the Atlantic Ocean to drilling and would sell more oil and gas leases in Arctic waters. The Center for Biological Diversity blasted the new drilling plan, citing the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico as well as a series of mishaps in 2012 that eventually caused Shell to suspend its deep-water drilling operations.
+ Despite the fact that this is the most infuriatingly formatted article I’ve seen since we were all still updating our Blogger profiles, Medium’s Never Trust a Corporation to do a Library’s Job is super important and I command you to read it! “As Google abandons its past, Internet archivists step in to save our collective memory.”
+ Vocal Color In Public Radio and Challenging the Whiteness of Public Radio. WILDLY INTERESTING. Follow #PubRadioVoice for more of the conversation.
+ Woman Gets Her Anus Bronzed by Mischievous Gnome and It’s On Video. Real talk, I wasn’t sure if I should pass this along to Carolyn for the NSFW roundup or include it here, but then I watched the video and I knew — the way you know things, like that you’re truly in love or you left the iron plugged in — that I had to share it with you myself. Carolyn I’m deeply sorry and I hope you’re still fond of me.
+ Followup: Sarah Gray Miller will oversee Modern Farmer on an interim basis so calm down, relax.
+ Sorry I’m just fascinated by the teenage brain and how it’s still developing and has to be cared for differently. Are you a teenager? HI I’M FASCINATED BY YOUR BRAIN. Also it’s v important that you wait to smoke pot until you’re a little older. Just FYI.
Local Autostraddle Meet-Ups
No events this week! Who will cheer on your local roller derby team? Who will swap the books? =(
And Finally
A teaser for Netflix’s series, Wet Hot American Summer!
