leftover words


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May 25th, 2012

where to put all my words?

I’ve started writing poetry again, and short-short stories. It makes me happy. I know I won’t get better unless I start showing people, and I kinda do want to get better. I thought about maybe putting up some things here, but it feels awfully public. I miss LJ and its handy privacy settings, but noone seems to be there any more.

Perhaps I will make a tiny zine-thing, and give it to people who I’m not too scared of? Perhaps?

We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that it is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.

(On why he let Willow cut all of her hair off)

Read more: Will Smith On Allowing Willow To Cut Her Hair: ‘She Has Got To Have Command Of Her Body’ | Necole Bitchie.com

- He raises a really great point. What would it mean to believe very early that my body was mine. That it’s not for anyone or for any particular purpose other than to be mine until I decide otherwise.

(via larepublicadedet)

I was damned near 30 before I could believe my body belonged to me & me alone. Dear people who take an issue with this,

Let the Smiths do right by their babies & shut the fuck up about how you think they should parent.

(via karnythia)

Okay, maybe this is a tiny and kinda trite example. But there are a whole heap of wonderful assumptions lying behind this quote, and I kind of love it.

(via wretchedoftheearth)

Self-care includes holding each other accountable because we are interconnected. loving ourselves includes learning how not to harm each other. Loving ourselves includes disrupting violent patterns in our homes and community-building spaces.
alexis pauline gumbs, quoted by leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha in a transformative justice workshop at hampshire earlier this year.  (via blua)

(Source: verbalprivilege, via erosum)

May 23rd, 2012

A kid-friendly wild rumpus

“As a burgeoning radical, I was surrounded by a mythology of revolution that celebrated only one way to be a revolutionary; and, believe me, there were no newborn infants involved. … None of the stories my friend and I shared about radical politics included parents or children or grandparents or safe spaces. … How about a new mythology, celebrating revolutionaries who refuse to leave anyone behind and refuse to remain silent? If I have learned anything, I have learned this: whatever we are involved in, it should take into account the ability for multigenerational participation. That’s sustainability, that’s revolutionary, that’s the pre-figurative politics I want to commit myself to.”

May 17th, 2012
well, fuck. Good thing I’m not already in kinda a fragile mood. This reminds me of a short story I read once, long ago, about a sea monster that fell in love with a light house. Has anyone else read that? we-are-all-earthlings: infinit3-beauty:  The Loneliest Whale in the World. In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem: She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by. :(

well, fuck. Good thing I’m not already in kinda a fragile mood. This reminds me of a short story I read once, long ago, about a sea monster that fell in love with a light house. Has anyone else read that?

we-are-all-earthlings:

infinit3-beauty:

 The Loneliest Whale in the World.

In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem:

She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.

:(

(Source: erickimberlinbowley, via wretchedoftheearth)

May 14th, 2012

Not just “some lobster”

“The poet Gérard de Nerval had a penchant for lobsters, or at least for one lobster. Nerval was seen one day taking his pet lobster for a walk in the gardens of the Palais-Royal in Paris. He conducted his crustacean about at the end of a long blue ribbon. As word of this feat of eccentricity spread, Nerval was challenged to explain himself. “And what,” he said, “could be quite so ridiculous as making a dog, a cat, a gazelle, a lion or any other beast follow one about. I have affection for lobsters. They are tranquil, serious and they know the secrets of the sea.” (The episode is captured by Guillaume Apollinaire in a collection of anecdotes from 1911). Was there any basis to this story? A generation of Nerval scholars attempted to debunk it, but then a letter to his childhood friend Laura LeBeau was discovered. Nerval had just returned from some days at the seaside at the Atlantic coastal town of La Rochelle: “and so, dear Laura, upon my regaining the town square I was accosted by the mayor who demanded that I should make a full and frank apology for stealing from the lobster nets. I will not bore you with the rest of the story, but suffice to say that reparations were made, and little Thibault is now here with me in the city…” Nerval, it seems, had liberated Thibault the lobster from certain death in a pot of boiling water and brought him home to Paris. Thus we know that it was Thibault, and not just “some lobster,” who went for that celebrated promenade in the gardens of the Palais-Royal.”

(I read about this years ago, and haven’t been able to re-find it since…)

(Source: harpers.org)

May 10th, 2012
More photos from ‘Sky Croeser falling out of a tree in a ball dress’

More photos from ‘Sky Croeser falling out of a tree in a ball dress’

May 9th, 2012
I’m convinced that writer’s block doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to say. Writer’s block means you’re afraid to say what you really have to say.
Sandra Cisneros  (via zorascreation)

(via tukru-perkele)

May 8th, 2012
Courtesy of @carywin. Significantly the fault of @flyingblogspot.

Courtesy of @carywin. Significantly the fault of @flyingblogspot.

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.
Maurice Sendak (via nedhepburn)

(via wretchedoftheearth)