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The Truth About Love SpellsBy Ghia Vitale QuailBellMagazine.com From what I’ve learned, this force is by no means a “little thing,” although it is certainly crazy and chaotic in nature. As far as human neurology is concerned, love is one of the most formidably-influential drugs in the entirety of Earth's existence. Love has to be powerful in order to perpetuate life. Love spells, perhaps more than any other variety of spell, attract many people to the art of spellcraft. But love magic itself also remains a source of contention in the occult community. It’s not as though this prejudice is entirely unfounded because love spells often involve infringing upon the will of another person…or at least they do when operating upon a basal intention of that nature. Many magicians adhere to the belief that aiming love spells at unspecified love interests is the only ethical form of love magic. Yet there are also magical traditions that find love spells no more Machiavellian than wearing fishnets or splashing a dash of seductive pheromone-fortified cologne. I am referencing a wealth of personal experiences and research to justify my beliefs in pertinence to love and sex spells. After much trial and error, I’ve come to learn that love, like most magic, cannot be accurately compartmentalized into polarized, figuratively “black-and-white” categories. I should also note that I am using the term “love” in the broadest sense of the term, which includes the multitudinous shades of simple infatuation, limerence and “true” love, whatever that is. I shall preface this confession with this: love is arguably one of the most potent intoxicants known to humankind. When you or someone else feels under the influence of love, understand that love is a drug, an inebriant administered by one’s brains that can distort even the most pragmatic minds. The mind alone cannot always temper the bewitched heart. Emotions compel the lovestruck to think or act in ways that can also influence a spell’s cumulative manifestation(s). Love pervades all senses to the point where anything (or anyone) that specific force yearns is what “makes sense” to the body, heart and mind, despite the protests of the rational mind or the onlooking good samaritans. Often, emotions like inadequacy or underlying psychological issues masquerade as “love.”
Love spells are quite difficult to effectively execute for a well-practiced magician, let alone people who aren’t experienced with the art and science of manifestation. Budding magicians who takes spellcraft semi-seriously have a fairly significant advantage in comparison but that’s only a few inches of a few miles. Hell, even Apollo couldn’t get it right and he is a god! There are reasons why Aphrodite (a Goddess of love and beauty) and Dionysus (a God of intoxication, viniculture and chaos) are notoriously compatible, but I’ll leave that for you to research. Love spells require meticulous efforts and energetic awareness. Yes, there are vague love spells that are conducted to attract the most suitable mates to the caster. These are often employed successfully and I have heard of many couplings, short-term and long-term alike, occur due to these types of spells. One of the first times I performed a love spell, I purchased a pre-packaged spell kit with an instructional outline from a local metaphysical store. Soon after casting the spell, I wound up making out with a friend in another friend’s pool one night. This friend had not previously expressed interest. I think we “went out” a little bit but broke up a few days afterwards. This boy later came out of the closet but the spell succeeded in uniting us for those few days. The friend who kindly let us use her pool even noted that she thought our momentary coupling was the product of a love spell. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
EdnaI'm enamored with vintage Airstreams. So what better way to pay tribute to these beautiful icons of American design than with a photo shoot? Melissa Mankins and I were graciously hosted by Tristan and Brie, owners of a rare 1959 Airstream Tradewind currently under renovation. The main "character" in these photos is Edna, an uptight but innocent American tourist from the 1950s. '50s dress and frames: thrifted, vintage sweater: Deluxe The actor who played Junior Soprano said the moment he put on Junior's glasses, he immediately understood the character. Well, when I put on those vintage glasses, I totally understand Edna. That hat is actually an official cap from the Wally Byam Caravan Club, an organization founded to promote Airstream travel. Byam and other caravanners would wear these hats to help identify each other in large crowds while traveling. Pretty dorky, but Byam was inspired by berets after a visit to Paris. The vintage sweater features travel-themed appliques that remind me of the international caravans of the '50s and '60s. (See my Airstream history post for more info). This dress symbolizes the classic Airstream pretty well. The blue represents the backdrop of big sky country against which the silver embroidery stand out like Airstreams on an open highway. It's a party dress because Airstreams are the known as Rolls Royce of trailers. I wore another outfit, too. This mainly '70s getup represents Edna's secret inner wild-child, Elle. '70s dress and shoes: thrifted, sequined hat: Deluxe Lurking beneath the subconscious, Elle loves to come out when faced with the endless possibilities of the open road. Melina B is a writer and architectural historian with a passion for personal style, new age, airstreams and mid-century Americana. Melissa Mankins is the owner/photographer at Paper Moon Eugene. Her new project, Now You See Me will debut May of 2015. She lives in Eugene, Or. #Fashion #Photography #Vintage #Edna #VintageAirstreams #AirstreamOutfit
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The Old Stone House This clip is a single cycle of a video art piece projected and played on loop at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum's April 2014 'Unhappy Hour.' Hotel X, a jazz/world music group, performed live in the foreground. More at PoeRichmond.com #PoeMuseum #VideoArt #HotelX
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The Caged BulliesBy Fay Funk I was a creepy child. You wouldn’t think so, from looking at the drawings on the walls and refrigerators of my parents and my aunts and uncles. There are clumsy attempts at drawing anime from when I was in middle school, and some decent acrylic paintings from my high school art classes. But history has been sanitized. My most elaborate art projects from when I was a young child have either been hidden away or have disappeared completely, and are rarely brought up, unless we are discussing how surprisingly well-adjusted I turned out, considering my high creep levels as a kid. I showed an interest in sewing when I was about six years old, and to foster my creativity my mother bought me a book on how to make dolls, along with sheets of flesh-colored felt, stuffing, yarn for hair, and colorful thread for embroidering faces. The sewing machine was off-limits for me at that age, so I hand-sewed all of my dolls. I was proud of them, ignoring that they looked nothing like the pictures in my book. My dolls were always either over or under-stuffed, leaving them with bulldog bodies and hunchbacks, or floppy pinheads. Six-year-old me could not grasp the subtlety of embroidery, so my dolls suffered with amoeba-like eyes and wide, crooked red smiles. Their yarn hair was ropey and witch-like, even when I unraveled the yarn like the book suggested. My parents were wonderful, praising my creativity work ethic, and very strongly encouraging to give the dolls away as gifts. The dolls did not appear again in my life until I was in college. I learned that my aunt, who had been given most of the dolls, used them to torture her partner. She would arrange them in a circle on the bed or hang them from the ceiling to scare him when he got home, or hide them around the apartment so he would occasionally get a disturbing surprise while looking for a snack. I hadn’t seen my dolls for years, but when I picked the Frankenstein-mermaid doll again at age 20 and examined it as objectively I could, I saw it. My dolls were pretty damn creepy. As unnerving as my dolls were, they had nothing on my Zoo. The cages for my Zoo were old shoe boxes with bars cut into the sides. Inside the boxes were dioramas featuring paper cut-out drawings of people who had hurt my feelings. The theme of their cage related whatever they had done to upset me. For example, a girl I overheard gossiping about my terrible swimming in the locker room after practice had a water-themed cage. She stood on a tiny island surrounded by shark and crocodile infested water. My fifth grade teacher definitely had a cage, and while I don’t remember the exact theme, it probably had something to do with math. A classmate who had been bothering me found herself trapped in a twisted play structure modeled after the one we played on at recess. My sister would have been in the Zoo, but my mother put her foot down on that one. I had about five cages in my Zoo before I stopped making them. Looking back on the Zoo I’m simultaneously disturbed by myself and in awe of my own creativity. As weird as the Zoo was, it was an effective way of coping with hurt feelings, literally locking away my anger. I don’t recall holding a grudge for longer than it took to make a cage. Maturity has made things so complicated. There is so much more to process, discussions to have, decisions to make. It’s never as simple as putting your feelings in a box. Perhaps that’s why artists have a reputation for being immature. They find the simple solution to a complicated problem, and move on. And as effective as that is, it’s weird. Really, really weird. #Makers #Creators #Dolls #Childhood
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On WantBy Laura Smith QuailBellMagazine.com Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. –Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction We all want. We want an ice-cold Snickers, for the neighbor to take down that obnoxious political sign for the wrong candidate, for our nephews to get hyper only when back in their parents’ care. We want meaningful relationships, for our work to be recognized, for our intentions to be understood. We want to listen to that gorgeous folk song on repeat until we’re sick of it and have drained our cathartic reserves. And our characters do, too. Characters’ wants drive plot. Gatsby’s dream of Daisy inspires his whole sad trajectory. Franny Glass’s need for understanding and clarity predicates her crisis, and Sophie’s deep need for peace, for simultaneously remembering and forgetting, determines her final choice with Nathan. These wants create conflict, provide us with tension and contradictions, and reveal who we are—both ourselves and our characters. A character’s wants can be an honest place to show deep contradictions. We all carry a contradictory internal monologue. We think that ex-boyfriend was a terrible person and clearly to blame for never knowing what he wanted, but we also blame ourselves for not seeing the breakup coming, for not knowing him well enough to become someone he could want. We think we behaved nobly by confronting our mothers about the dishonesty and selfishness in being judgmental, but privately we acknowledge our hypocrisy, admit we were only angry about their judgment of us. We gloss over the selfish intentions of our impulses with others in order to piece together a narrative in which we are justified, in which we are worthy of empathy. We are unreliable narrators, even with ourselves. Allowing a character to want and feel conflicting things can demonstrate the contradictions inherent in emotions and relationships: how when love makes us vulnerable, it can look a lot like hate. How love is both giving and selfish because it requires so much of us and because it reveals our deepest needs. How these contradictions drop the floor of our understanding—show us other levels we hadn’t imagined, other selves we would not otherwise confront. The innocent and the guilty, the shamed and the shameless, the brave and the vulnerable. Though we may begin with a focused, simplistic desire or emotion, we have to complicate that desire by showing its dissonance to show the complexity of a person. In stories as in music, that’s where we find beauty: in the strident tone that stretches through a chord and, once identified, resolves to sweet, aching relief. #Essay #OnWant #Characterization #Writing #CreativeWriting #Character
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Two Pro-fairy Siren SistersThe Washington State Fairies are a comedy singing duo that you can find entertaining at events and celebrations all over the Pacific Northwest. The Fairies are sisters, as all fairies are. Kalakala and Klahowya-Tahlequah, are our names. And Northwesterners may recognize those names as boats on The Washington State Ferry line. What a delightful coincidence, don't you think?
We also have a couple other characters we call on, when the time is right. The Famous Filson Sisters are an identical twin sister lounge act from Ft. Lauderdale, in their sequined '70s dresses. And The Prim Family Professional Prom Planners, Penny and Priss are a delight in their poufy '50s dresses and giant blond beehives. We write custom songs for our events. Our very favorite is one we called "Christine, Queen of Our Hearts." It was a musical love letter to Christine Gregoire, Washington's governor, thanking her for her support of marriage equality in Washington. We are, as you might imagine, pro-fairy. We also happen to be founding members of NAFTA, National Association of Trolls, Fairies and Assorted. As far as our own sparkly brand of magic and merriment—I would say it's a little fancy, a little irreverent, and always very intimate. We love to really engage with our audience, and bring them into the action. Our costumes are perhaps our favorite piece of this magical pie. The fairies' costumes are inspired loosely by the Golden Age of Hollywood. It's a fun combination of fluffy tulle, fancy corsettes, and bright red lips. All balanced by a Northwest fairy staple: pointy red rubber clogs. Very practical in our rainy climate. We have a USO look and a Navy look version of the costumes, too. We simply adore pinup hair, too! We just adore vintage looks. We so enjoy diving into some glamorous part of our fashion history. We're grateful we don't live in a time of everyday girdles and pantyhose, but thank goodness for the opportunity to play dress up. #Fairies #SingingTelegrams #Performance #Vintage The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Meditations on Mi Gabito Writing about this will take all of my energy, as Gabriel García Márquez (nay, let me call him Gabo, or Gabito, for should writing be my life then he is my father, for he engendered and birthed into me taste, style, passion, love) has smitten me. It’s a long relationship, one of embarrassment, tragedy, mourning (the Spanish word, luto, captures more musically the weight of the term), love, and cholera.
My first foray into the world of Macondo came from his iconic story, “The Handsomest Drowned Man,” and I abhorred every minute of it. To this young David, a man wrapped in naiveté, one who considered only science fiction and fantasy to be inventive and good uses of art, who asked for dystopian mechanics or nothing, the folkloric tale of a town swept off its feet at a dashing young drowned man left me nothing. An Orange County kid can’t even think of the word folkloric without frothing irony, the concept bringing about only the kitsch a suburbanite can expect from native customs. My only brushes with such ways of thinking came from the postmodern, hyperreal world of the California I-15, where Baker’s world-largest thermometer stands. But even this is simulacrum of small town, a place pretending to be kitschy and quaint for the sake of tourist revenue. It’s attempted folklore, diametrically opposed to Gabo’s tale. Of course, it wasn’t till my personal boom at age fifteen, when I revisited the story of Esteban and his swollen beauty, that I understood the mere attempts at folkishness that plague Southern California. For those unaware of the history of Orange County, we were founded by a Klan member, there’s a church on every block, and our one claim to fame is giving birth to Richard Nixon in a little home in Yorba Linda. We attempt to look the part of Nixon’s silent majority, folksy, conservative, Republican, church-goer. When the Oakies came they settled two places, the Valley and Orange County, and we collectively long to be Midwestern, to be folklore. Orange County has no more oranges, but we embrace this pastoral identity, turning a long dead industry into our symbol of greatness. A brush with pastoralism, sans kitsch, could only lead to a disaster of identity, an engendering of otherness, and a deconstruction of previously held ideals. At fifteen, I made it big. At the end of my life, I’ll be able to point to most anything that happened in my life and trace it, like chisel in a rock face, back to that glorious year. To hear nostalgia uttered forth by an eighteen year old might declare itself camp and melodrama, but that year I was first published, a limerick in a little zine. That year I made the first poem I consider to be “art,” about three friends and their terrible landlady. I had a first date. I met my best friend. The landmarks of life all came at once, in that beautiful year. But above all this, I acquired something immutable, a feeling, not an experience, a feeling called taste. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Never Aged OutEaster had sprung in the country, with songbirds and blossoming flowers giving us the landscape of a greeting card. I was fifteen, clad in a Limited Too jacket I felt slightly too old to wear. Perhaps I had put my hair in pigtails that morning to play down my age since I know where we were headed: the firehouse. In many small country towns, the firehouse doubles and triples as rec center and meeting hall. Even proms might happen there. In our town, it was, among other things, the site of the community egg hunt. That morning I was experiencing the “tension of opposites” explained in Tuesdays with Morrie: I wanted to do one thing, but society wanted me to do something else. Specifically, I wanted to run around with a basket and track down those eggs. Society said, Ew, grow up. My mother said to heck with society. Go get those jellybeans. I did get those jellybeans (and a plush lamb), though admittedly I was slightly embarrassed. Sure, a few other teenagers were participating in the “10 & up” egg hunt, but we were outnumbered by 10-and-a-half-year-olds. I shouldn't have even bothered noticing. I should've focused on the fun. Even if Easter is a holiday more about reflection than it is pure fun, I hope you find time for fun today. Experience joy, laugh, and go get some eggs. You're not too old. #Easter #Holidays #TuesdaysWithMorrie #YoungAtHeart
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The Nostalgia of Watching a Marvelous MovieAs a film critic, I have a lot of people who I look to as people who have influenced me as a writer and a person. There's Roger Ebert, one of the most famous film critics ever who taught me about how to creatively critique a film. Another is Floyd Reynolds, a teacher I had at Warwick High School in Newport News, Virginia who made me realize how much I enjoyed reading film. Then there's Nathan Rabin, a former editor of The A.V. Club whose series My Year of Flops taught me how to look at bad movies.
One of the most important people who has shaped me as a film critic is Mal Vincent, the film critic for The Virginian-Pilot. Every summer, Vincent hosts a series of films at the Naro Cinemas in Norfolk, Virginia. Vincent would show an original print of a classic movie, then discuss the movie. He'd discuss interesting trivia about the film, as well as the people in the movies who he had met in real life. I have been attending summer screenings at the Naro since I was fifteen, and it's because of these screenings that I have gotten to see such great classic films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Third Man, and The Razor's Edge, a film that I consider one of my all time favorites. I've been thinking about all of these figures because I recently viewed an original print of the classic Hollywood musical Singin' in the Rain. Often considered the greatest musical film ever made, Singin' in the Rain tells the story of silent film actor Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) as he deals with the business making the transition from silent films to talkies. After a disastrous first cut of his new adventure film with shrill voiced leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), Don, along with his lover Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) and best friend Cosmo (Donald O'Connor) work to turn The Dueling Cavalier into a musical in order to save the film and their careers. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Brown v. Board of Education—a LandmarkPhoto from the film Stolen Education. The George Mason University community and the public are invited to attend a symposium with experts discussing the U.S. Supreme Court landmark ruling on Brown v. Board of Education and screening a new film. The symposium, Unspoken Histories of Unequal Education, marks the 60th anniversary of the ruling and is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday, April 28, at Mason Hall on the Fairfax Campus. Admission is free, but RSVPs are suggested. The event is hosted by the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). The historic Brown v. Board of Education case, while focused on the integration of African American students in the nation’s schools, was never simply about African Americans’ rights. The film, “Stolen Education,” depicts how the nation’s “separate but equal” laws also profoundly affected Mexican-American students. “I was touched by the film’s story and its unspoken history of desegregation, racism and educational inequality,” saysRodney Hopson, the CEHD professor who is convening the symposium’s panel along with Jenice L. View and Sonya Horsford, CEHD associate professors. “It gives us another way to understand the story of a nation that has historically struggled to ensure the right of education for all, and especially those of color.” In the film, 9-year-old Lupe had already been in the first grade for three years. This was not because of her academic performance, but because she was Mexican-American. School administrators and teachers argued this practice was necessary because—as they stated in court in 1956—the “retardation of Latin children” would adversely impact the education of white children. Lupe’s son, filmmaker Enrique Alemán Jr., recaptures the remarkable story of the schoolchildren who changed education in Texas. “This event resonates especially strongly within the Mason community because of our culture of diversity and inclusion,” says Mark Ginsberg, CEHD dean. “We are honored to have such an esteemed panel of experts on campus to help us understand the challenges and find innovative actions that bring about the kind of sustained change and authentic equity that the Brown v. Board of Education decision envisioned.” Panelists include:
This event is sponsored by Masons’ Office of the Provost; CEHD; Center for Education Policy and Evaluation; Department of African and African American Studies; and Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Multicultural Education. Promotional support is provided by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, D.C. Additional support is from Mason’s Diversity Research and Action Consortium and the Leadership Education and Development Office. #GMU #BrownVBoardOfEducation #UnspokenHistoriesOfUnequalEducation #StolenEducation #Film #Racism #Education
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Genderqueer Identity in the Spotlight Photo of Mo Karnage wearing their "Vagina is for Lovers" shirt at Richmond City Council on April 1, 2014 Getting news coverage for any political issue is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you want news coverage because it is an opportunity for people to hear about important issues and to hopefully hear about the stance you are supporting. This is a good thing, and largely a necessary thing for any social movement. We need information to get out to people who might want to join us or might become convinced by our points. This is how the whole process works.
On the other hand, you have the anonymous Internet trolls. These are the people who miss the point entirely, misconstrue your position, attack you for real or imagined aspects of your personal life, and generally do their best to demean and insult anyone they do not agree with. Over the years I've gotten calloused to the point where I am mostly not upset by the cruel, inaccurate, and absurd things posted about me anonymously on news article comments sections. Lately I've found them largely humorous. How you might want to deal with the trolls in your life likely depends on your personality, coping mechanisms, etc. But mostly I'd have to recommend ignoring anyone talking smack anonymously. If you are engaged in your community and receive news coverage because of your activism, you are making strides. You are bravely taking actions to make positive effects on the world. Which means that folks who are not even brave enough to attach their names to their statements are way below your league. Don't worry about what they think, you are great. A recent Style Weekly article about a City Council Meeting in my home of Richmond, Virginia has got a pretty interesting comment thread. One troll attacks me for my name, Mo Karnage. This poster says, "Her name is Moriah Karn...not 'Mo Karnage' as she refers to herself". My preferred pronouns are they/them pronouns for starters. But the juicy part is this—the commenter's name? Joe23223. Weird name right, wonder what his parents were thinking? I'd put money that he isn't named Joe23223 at all!!! What a hoax. His legal name is probably Joseph 23223. However, I have a lot of better things to do in my life than try to police what other people choose to call themselves. Names and pronouns are things that should be up to the individual. Not everyone will choose to take the time and money to legally change their names, and why should they? To please anonymous scaredy-cats on the internet? I don't think so. Other commenters on the article have gone back and forth over my gender. One used male pronouns for me, and another replied attempting to 'correct' the person using male pronouns. Gender enigma. Then we get to my most favorite comment of all. Wendy Gale March broke out her transphobia with this one: "The detainee is not a threat to public safety and 'Mo' needs to acts properly when addressing other 'adults.' Does she really want to hear 'Mommy who is that scary man-lady' at the Monument Avenue Easter Parade?? Name-calling elected officials in public chambers reduces any credibility." Clearly, Wendy was going for a transphobic insult here, but I have found the statement empowering and affirming of my genderqueerness. I am a big scary genderqueer, a frightening man-lady who will not back down when fighting for justice. I'm glad that folks in favor of the privatization of a local park and in holding up the crumbling gender binary find me threatening. On my good days I am indeed a threat to their ways of life. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Get yer plants and yer comix!There aren’t many stores where you can get a Venus flytrap and a vintage Marvel action figure in one trip. But that is certainly within the realm of possibility at Exotic Planetarium and Card and Comic Collectorama in Alexandria, Virginia's Del Ray neighborhood, not far from our nation's capital. This delightfully strange establishment is the brainchild of Dennis Webb, a native Alexandrian, trained horticulturalist and comic enthusiast, who set up shop in 1974. You’ll find comics organized by era and publisher or collection, with rare editions kept behind the counter. More about the business on Yelp.com. #Comics #ExoticPlants #Alexandria #OldDominion #GreaterWashington
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National Poetry Month, Age 16I was not accustomed to setting foot inside churches. Though I had witnessed my share of baptisms, Bar Mitzvahs, and Buddhist meditation, I was not one to frequent anything designated a holy space. And yet my first major reading as a poet took place within a house of God. It was National Poetry Month—April, that is—and I was 16 years old. Somehow, somewhere, I had noticed a call for poets and I had applied to read at a poetry and jazz festival. Needless to say, the church was a hippie church, and I was ecstatic when I found out I had been selected to clear my throat and sing my poet’s song. But the opportunity also terrified me. Whether you are a poet or a non-poet, you are probably familiar with the dreadful ‘poet’s voice.’ It’s slow, almost drowsy, yet emphatic and even a little condescending. It is exactly the way, even as a 16-year-old, I knew I did not want to sound. I had heard it too many times already, mainly because my mother had schlepped me to more city open mics than I can recall. (A cool mama she is, yes.) This was her way of encouraging me, but it was also a way of scaring me. Is this how poets are supposed to sound? I often wondered, as the poet’s voice style of reading dominated these open mics. I just want to sound like myself, only slightly more confident and with better enunciation. The festival turned out to be a placid affair, almost a dream. It was a beautiful spring day with cherry blossoms and daffodils in bloom. I had put together what felt like the perfect outfit at the time: a weird, slightly furry top, a flowing olive green skirt, and combat boots—I guess that’s how I thought poets dressed then. The audience was large enough to keep my ego from melting, yet small enough that I didn’t faint the moment I saw all those faces in the pews. And when I read, I didn’t stutter, I didn’t stumble, and I most definitely didn’t assume the poet’s voice. I read like myself. Only better. And for once being 16 didn’t feel like the worst thing in the world. #PoetryMonth #HighSchool #Essay
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The Modern Witch's AbodeBy Quail Bell Camera Eye QuailBellMagazine.com A creepy house or an enchanted coven? Invite yourself over for tea to discover just which? Make sure you bring a slice of something homemade. #Scary #Weird #Wonderful
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Youthful White Collar Crime By Christopher Sloce QuailBellMagazine.com I was born into capitalism, whether I liked it or not, and thus, into marketing and fads, first recognizing this when Pokemon cards became huge. Only anecdotes can portray the true madness. People were taking cards to school and getting busted for them as if they were bricks of cocaine. There were books pricing the cards: I owned a copy of one of these books and grew convinced I’d never know firsthand what a student loan was. Two older boys ripped me off for a holographic rare card in the Knoxville mall's WB store just because I preferred the cuter ones; I wept into my future step-dad’s ear. That isn’t to say I only appreciated the cards' monetary value. I enjoyed the games and was beginning to get into role playing games, which always have a complicated mathematical system behind the simplest actions, a fact I totally ignored. I had always drawn things, so all of my drawings began emulating what I loved. I put two and two together. By creating my own RPGs and card games, I would enjoy myself and become filthy rich, at least until 7th grade, when I realized girls existed and that doodling anime characters in my notebook and writing numbers besides their head wasn’t doing too much for me in that department. My greatest success came in 4th grade with a game called Food Fight. The inspiration came from a thank you card my friend Dalton and I made in 3rd grade thanking a local Pizza Hut for hosting our class. We drew various foods and statted them up. How does one decide what’s more powerful, French fries or pizza? Leave it to a 4th grader to figure it out. How do you create a balanced game as a 4th grader? Because you know which foods are stronger than others. (Vegetables didn’t fare well.) The game went under after it devolved into a fistfight behind a tire swing where my friend Dalton choked somebody with a gold necklace. I ended up losing recess for three days. We probably told them it was just business. Even grade-school teachers are soft on white-collar crime. #Reflection #Memories #DIYCollectibleCards #Childhood #Games #Pokemon
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One Community's Struggle for Memory In a film and multimedia oral history, Memoria Presente tells the story of a community trying to deal with its past in order to change its present. Check out the Indiegogo campaign here. #CrowdSourcing #DocumentaryFilm #Interviews #Argentina
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Put All the Racist Monuments in MuseumsBy Shawn Everett Jones QuailBellMagazine.com If you had a nutshell and you just had to put the history of America in it, the bare essence, the most basic way to describe the history of America would be: Civilization had been thriving in America for millennia, then the white man came and killed off that civilization with the help of enslaved Africans. But history is written by the victors, the invaders. So that turns the story into: A brave explorer discovered a new land where all could come and live and farm and find treasures and own plantations and prosper. The progress of American culture has depended on the enslavement, oppression, genocide and ruthless aggression towards many peoples of many races, cultures and religions. I once had a housemate who painted a portrait of Hilter. To everyone's chagrin, he hung it in plain sight in the den. Everyone hated it and wanted to take it down. At my Halloween party, the portrait raised a lot of questions from guests and later I would try to explain, Well, I didn't want to be a Nazi and take it down. I imagine that the reason he painted it and hung it was that he just wanted to have discussions about Hitler and all things related to Hitler. Maybe I was naïve, but that is the way I thought of the situation. But when we had a German couch-surfer come through, everyone in the house definitely wanted the painting gone, so I just put it in our housemate's room. In Richmond, Virginia, where I lived for years, there is a monument of Christopher Columbus. There is solid proof of Columbus' terrible deeds in his very own journals, plus the journals of others. We have this man who is a symbol of American conquest because of the lies told in history books. What is standing in Richmond, too, is a monument to a person who killed, tortured and abused many people. Not unlike Hitler's holocaust was the genocide of the native people. (In fact the holocaust was fashioned after the U.S. Government's genocide of Native Americans). Yet there is a statue for him and no one has yet taken it to hide in the artist's room. Take, too, the Rebel flag. I used to work at a museum of art and history. Part of the building's rich history was that it was the last Capitol of the Confederacy. We had rooms full of Confederate items including the Confederate flag. A museum is the exact place such relics should be. Keep the history by all means, I believe in that. Because even though I began with a simple version of the history of our country, the reality is that it is never as simple and is always more complex than we can imagine. I mean, we don't hear much about the Gullah Wars, we don't hear about the intense slaughter of natives that were happening during the Civil War. We hear the simple version from the victors. And although Southerners have the right to appreciate, respect and honor their heritage and ancestors, they don't really have a right to belong to hate groups that murder and bully. Such Southerners are so wrapped up in their commotion that they don't know or care that the Rebel flag symbol to some is the same as a swastika to others—or, well, I guess they wouldn't care about that either. I guess to them burning a Confederate flag would be what it is like for some to see the same flag raised high on a pole. Except the Confederate flag can be seen in public and even on government institutions all over the South. There are more Confederate flags billowing in the wind than there are burning on the ground. I think it is time to put all the monuments in museums. Take them off of the streets and create a historical sculpture garden. In Richnond, Tredegar Iron Works right by the James River would be a good place to put them. But please get them out of my face. Now we are on the verge of disrupting a slave burial ground with a baseball stadium, right on a place that is sacred to many people all over the world. Of all the places in Richmond, why there?! Why not put the stadium on top of Hollywood Cemetery. That wouldn't go over very well, would it? Or, hey, remember that time VCU moved a house across the street and then paved over a historical stop on the underground railroad that existed under that house? We have to honor and respect all Americans history, we need to keep and preserve all of OUR history. It is what it is. From all perspectives come the truth. And as a people who live together we should live more neighborly in all respects and at least respect that all have their sacred history and the very special rights to not be oppressed by your history. #Racism #AmericanHistory #RVA #VCU
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Maybe shut your trap or shut your shop?We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Signs with these words can be seen on businesses throughout the country, from antique shops to restaurants. No sandwiches or coffee for you if you are rude or dirty, or inappropriately dressed. And yet it’s so much more complicated than that. Businesses cannot refuse service to someone for being a woman, or being an African-American. They could in the past, of course, during an ugly time in American history. Boycotts and lunch-counter protests changed that, changed the law. Some beliefs though are hard to shake. In February Arizona attempted to pass a law that would allow businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ people on the basis of religious rights. The bill made it much farther than any piece of legislation so discriminatory should, and passed both the House and the Senate before being vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer. This is as it should be; discrimination at this level is both legally and morally the antithesis of everything the United States holds true. There is a next step though, that many people have been taking recently: opposing not just discriminatory business practices, but discriminatory beliefs of owners and employees. The most recent and largest-scale to date I have seen is the resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich after the dating-website OKCupid blocked users from using the browser. When users tried to view OKCupid in Mozilla a message popped up about the CEO’s $1,000 contribution in favor of the anti-gay marriage bill Proposition 8. Users were ultimately able to use OKCupid through Mozilla, but the message sparked massive criticism of Mozilla, and Eich resigned just a few days after being appointed. Just today I saw another, similar criticism, on a local level. The Portland Mercury published an article about the anti-gay Facebook comments of Chauncey Childs, owner of a soon-to-be open market in Portland. Calls for a boycott of her business have already started. A different business owner, Nick Zukin, who owns the restaurants Mi Mero Mole and Kenny and Zuke’s, came out in support of the Childs. His feeling is that business owners should be able to think however they want, and not be “economically segregated,” for those beliefs. Unsurprisingly, calls for a boycott of his restaurants are now being made. In one regard, Zukin is right. You can say whatever you want, even if it is hateful. But freedom of speech has never been consequence-free. That’s a fact that the loudest proponents of freedom of speech often seem to forget. The government cannot silence you, but the general public does not have an obligation to listen to you or support you. In fact, freedom of speech means anyone can come right back at you with their own opinion. That’s what OKCupid did to Mozilla, and what the boycotters of the restaurant are doing now. I can choose not to eat at Kenny and Zuke’s for any reason I want, whether it’s unappealing food or hateful speech by the owner. That is not suppression. That is business. While hateful speech can get you fired, or cause your business to suffer, though it doesn’t always. Look no further than Daniel Tosh, the mediocre comedian who in 2012 made a horrific rape joke that put him at the center of a massive controversy. He still has a highly-rated TV show on Comedy Central. Such is how freedom of speech goes. Say what you want. You might be just fine, or you might lose everything. You might keep your TV show, or you might face “economic segregation.” It all depends on if people still want to listen to you. For every Daniel Tosh there is a Brendan Eich. I love freedom of speech. I love it when a person shares exactly who they are, especially when what they have to say is heinous. There is no better way to determine what person, business, or organization I don’t want to support. So say whatever you want. Say it as loudly as possible. But be ready for the consequences. #FreedomOfSpeech #Rights #Portland #SmallBusiness #OKCupid #Firefox
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The Boudoir PartyBy Kristen Rebelo Photographer: Christa Dickson Models: Jeanna Witt, Stephanie Cobb, Chey Moore Hair & Makeup: Karis A Stylist QuailBellMagazine.com You may recognize Christa's name, as she is one of our regular photography contributors. While her images typically feature women in surreal or fantastic surroundings, she has recently become interested in photographing a different setting—boudoir. We caught up with Christa to get her perspective on boudoir photography created by and for women. Tell us a little about this series. How did the idea arise and what was the process of photographing these women? This series has been sitting in the back of my head for so long, and for a long time I didn't realize it was going to be a boudoir shoot. I just started the idea of boudoir for fun, but then I kept getting a lot of responses from the girls saying how they were scared to do the shoot because of their bodies. They didn't want anyone to see them for who they are. It was so sad to me, that in the world today many women are afraid. There are such high standards for women and this is something we need to seriously work on in order to cause change. This shoot was so much fun. We got a high spirited hair and makeup stylist by the name of "Karis A stylist" to do the hair and makeup. She showed up, and was just the life of the party. The girls were each done in hour sequences at the Holiday Inn and Suites in Eastgate, Ohio. We had to show the girls they are worth the best there is to offer; so we got the king's suite! The first girl was Jeanette, then Stephanie, and we finished up with Chey. Two of the girls came in visibly "shaken." They weren't sure what to do next, and they weren't sure how they felt in their bodies. We laughed, we listened to music, we sang, we ate cookies, fruit, vegetables and we shot the sexiest shoot we could have accomplished. We did it for us. Not one of those girls left the "Boudoir Party" feeling less than a princess! It’s pretty common knowledge that many forms of media are dominated by men. Meaning the images we see—from television to high fashion to the pages of Playboy-—are usually conceived, directed, and shot by men, even if they are not the intended audience. How does your perspective change this narrative?
I think the way this was done completely changed the narrative. I think more shoots like these could be a huge step in the entire media movement. Woman need to feel empowered in their bodies. Your body is a beautiful thing, it's not something anybody should be ashamed of, and I love the way that you can accomplish that with boudoir. It's scary, it's challenging but it's completely 100 percent worth it to just push through. The reason is because we need to feel desirable, we need to feel confident. If we feel confident we can walk away and accomplish everything we want in this world; and that's what the media changes about us. The media raises standards to an unreachable level! It is okay to not be stick thin, it's okay to not be perfect because perfection is BORING. These girls have flaws but they are all so intensely beautiful. We need to remember that, the beauty is within ourselves and we need to make a movement for woman power. Our bodies are beautiful and they are our own! The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
From Hepburn to DaisiesBy Raquel Lynne QuailBellMagazine.com I discovered Atlanta born Alexis Estrada’s fashion line while I was searching for boho-inspired, eclectic pieces. One pass through her website's gorgeous look book, and I had to reach out to Alexis to congratulate her on presenting pieces that will make every women feel sweet and sultry. Some of her nuggets from our exchange: “I started designing clothing when I was a kid, practicing on my Barbies and dolls. After graduating from Georgia State with my degree in PR, I did some soul-searching. What I discovered was my desire to live the life I had always dreamed, and to do what I felt resonated within me: design clothing for women. With that goal, off I went to take classes in fashion design and marketing. My PR degree has really come in handy.” “Women who wear my clothing will find the pieces easily transition from work to an evening with friends. Described as boho-elegant and mod, the pieces I design flatter every woman’s shape. Mix in with bold colors and prints, the wearer will boldly conquer her day looking fab. My inspiration comes from women, like my mother, who styled themselves impeccably in the 70’s and 80’s. I wouldn’t be representing my line well if I left out the Hepburn and Monroe era of dressing. That is represented throughout my line as well--what I call modern fashion with an era flash.” “My dream? To design for Jennifer Lawrence and the women who grace the red carpet. From maxis and daisies for play, to red, pink and black for evening wear, I want to dress women to be fearless and confident. My advice to women is to dress in a manner that makes you happy and comfortable. Have fun with color and prints.” Speaking with Alexis was refreshing—her dynamic personality and positive attitude reflect in her designs. You can shop Alexis Estrada’s Spring and Fall collections on her website and social media sites. For inquiries, and to have her personally design something for you, too, you can email her. Website: Alexis-Estrada.com Twitter: AlexisEstrada88 Instagram: AlexisEstrada88_ Pinterest: AlexisEstrada88 Facebook: AEstrada1988 Blog: http://alexis-estrada.com/blog-2/ Email: alexis@alexis-estrada.com #Interview #AlexisEstrada #Fashion #FashionDesigner #Clothes
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Manuscript Intensive & Poetry As MemoirIntroducing Luna Luna’s Intensive Online Workshops [REGISTER HERE] Luna Luna isn’t just an arts & culture website. We’re a creative community. So, we thought we’d launch these courses as we celebrate National Poetry Month. Luna Luna aims to foster our readers’ creative growth. Our workshops, held online at your leisure (with some deadlines!) are born out of the idea that everyone deserves someone to really, truly talk to about your work. Our courses cost a fraction of the course of most online poetry courses and are comprised of both reading and writing. Mostly, our classes are geared toward your objectives and goals as a writer. Our role is to provide you with sincere & honest feedback that will enable you to write authentic, innovative and unique work. Why take one of our courses?
Poetry As Memoir: Crafting Your Story MAY 2014 Instructor: Lisa Marie Basile $20.00 special price 1-month course at your own pace Photographs tell one story and only one story. They’re one-dimensional. Maybe they’re beautiful, but there is little to be discerned. The colors are obvious, unchanging. The person is right there, eternal. Nothing can be inaccurate. Poetry tells a new story. The poet is equipped with another kind of memory–one that is fluid, magical, intangible and nuanced. This course will push you to tell your story how you want to tell it. Maybe what you remember isn’t exactly accurate. Maybe what your mother remembers isn’t either. Maybe that day on the beach wasn’t exactly how everyone thought it was. In this course you’ll read and write poetry that deals with memory and storytelling. You will produce 4-8 (or more!) memoir-poems as you work alongside the instructor, who will guide you through your own aesthetic and who will respect your goals. There’s no such thing as “If this were my poem” here. We’re here to help you bring out your best work. Class is capped at 6. Email editor@lunalunamag.com with questions. Sign up below. Manuscript Work: Developing Voice & Craft MAY 2014 Instructor: Lisa Marie Basile $35.00 special price 1-month course at your own pace In this course, you will work closely with your instructor to develop, edit and craft a collection of work(you can elect to start a collection or your poetry can be written already, waiting for an editor). You will capture your real voice. You will explore your goals and emotional triggers. In doing so, you will work on your craft so that your poems are the best they can be. For this course, you’ll let the instructor know where you’re at with your collection, what your objectives are & what aesthetics and tones you have in mind or are interested in exploring. You will come away from the month-long course (which you may elect to be one-on-one or along with other writers) with written, edited and tightened work. There will be a focus on publishing during the last week. If you have a chapbook or book (up to 60 pages), you’re eligible for this class. You can work at your leisure. Class is capped at 6. Email editor@lunalunamag.com with questions. Sign up below. INSTRUCTOR Guest and additional instructors for future classes TBA Lisa Marie Basile comes from a small, haunted town in New Jersey. She is a graduate of The New School’s MFA program for creative writing. She edits the micropress, Patasola Press and helps curate and edit Diorama Journal & Series. She is the NY Editor for The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, an online and print literary and arts journal housed at The Johns Hopkins University, M. A. in Writing Program. She reads poetry for Fifth Wednesday Journal. Her work can be seen in Best American Poetry, Poets & Artists Magazine, PANK, The Nervous Breakdown, Johns Hopkin’s The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, decomP, Thrush Poetry Journal, Poetry Crush, La Fovea, Prick of the Spindle and elimae, among others. She is the author of the following chapbooks: Andalucia (The Poetry Society of New York) and Triste (Dancing Girl Press). Her newest chapbook, war/lock, is forthcoming from Hyacinth Girl Press in 2014. Noctuary Press, run from University of Buffalo, will publish her full-length poetry collection, APOCRYPHAL, in the summer of 2014. Lisa Marie has edited and curated for The The Poetry, SUNDRESS Publications and WEAVE Magazine. She has taught poetry at The Brooklyn Brainery and was poet-in-residence at Westfield High School. She currently teaches for the Eckleburg Workshops. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice. She was the February 2014 feature poet for Poets & Artists Magazine, and has been named a top contemporary NYC poet to watch in features by The New York Daily News & Relapse Magazine. #LunaLunaMag #LisaMarieBasile #Classes #Workshops #Poetry #Manuscript #Memoir
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Monsieur OscarWhat does it really mean to be an actor? Is it the ability to complete cloak yourself behind the veil of another individual? Does it mean suppressing your own individuality? When do you stop being one person and become another? These questions all appear in Holy Motors, a 2012 film directed by French director Leos Carax. Carax's previous film effort was Pola X in 1999, and Holy Motors became a film that conveyed a lot of ideas he had for films in the thirteen year directorial gap. What it results in is a film that is completely surreal and imaginary to the point that everything on film becomes questionable by nature.
Holy Motors follows an actor named Oscar (Denis Lavant) as he is driven all around Paris in a limo driven by Céline (Edith Scob). The film is entirely set in a single day, as Oscar goes from one “appointment” to another. These appointments run from being nonsensical to insane. In each appointment, Oscar becomes a new character, acting out a scene or series of scenes with no clear goal for anything he does. Over the film, he plays a variety of characters, from an old man on his deathbed to a beggar woman to a gangster to a sewer troll. Holy Motors never provides a definite answer for why anything in the film happens. There are enough contextual clues to give at least a simple idea for what it is about. There is a company that hires actors and sends them around Paris to fulfill various roles that the people of Paris need for them to do or simply hire them to do. When Oscar acts as a father picking his daughter up from a party, we never really know if he's the girl's father or someone who was hired to be her father for that scenario. We don't even know who benefits from these appointments. There's talk of cameras being hidden or people who pay attention to the work Oscar does, but there's never anything outright confirmed. In fact, Holy Motors, which is the name on the building where Céline parks the limo at the end of the film, might not even be the company name. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Train Runs Through It #Trains #Railfanning #Locomotives #Film #Documentary #History #DMV
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The Band of RomaPapusza suffered for the song of her people, but what if we all sang at once? Today we celebrate the Roma. We celebrate the plates of food we leave for our ancestors to keep them loved and fed even in death. We cover mirrors, TV and computer screens, and bowls of water after someone dies, just long enough so that they are not trapped by their own reflection as they pass through the veils. We keep our homes and our bodies meticulously clean because the world is split into that which is pure and impure. The spirit is pure; that’s what we want to be. We believe in kintala, or karma, because what we do matters and we mean to do good. We love The Goddess of Fate and her many names and forms, Sati-Sara, Sara Kali, St. Sarah, The Black Madonna; and we believe in free will. We remind you that "Roma" is our preferred term, not “Gypsy,” a name that has been turned against us, warped into “gypped,” gyppo,” and the lowercase “gypsy,” the one that doesn’t recognize us as a proper noun, never mind a proper ethnic group. We celebrate that some of us chose to reclaim the word as we wish. We remind you that we, as a culture, are fractured by distance, persecution, and illegal deportation, and we are working to unify, to overcome discord and fight for our basic human rights. We celebrate that we are not homogenous and yet, we are united by our origin. We came from India, migrated in the 11th century, and the Rromanes (Romani language) root is Sanskrit. We are different clans—Kale, Kalderash, Lovara, Sinti, Manouche, Vlach, and many more, all with unique customs, dialects, and worldviews. We are individuals: rich, poor, artists, lawyers, blacksmiths, fortune tellers, musicians, doctors, dancers, mechanics, horse dealers, car dealers, janitors, politicians, activists, writers, professors, actors, executives, beggars, volunteers, producers, landlords, and linguists. Opre Roma: we rise up. We are loving friends, partners, parents, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. To say “I love you” we say, “I eat your heart” or “I eat your belly” because love is voracious and can never be close enough. My grandmother survived WWII Germany as a Romani woman. Now she likes to say, “I am a weed. No one wanted me, they tried to destroy me, but I grew. I am a weed and I’m proud. And I’ve always liked weeds best, anyway. Wild, strong, and very pretty.” Today we raise awareness that half of Europe’s Romani population died in the Holocaust, what we call O Porrajmos (The Great Devouring), and 2 million Romani lives lost is a modest estimation. We are rarely invited to or acknowledged in Holocaust remembrances or memorials. Sometimes we are not even allowed in the gates. We remind you that Roma were slaves alongside African Americans in the United States, and in the Balkans for four centuries. We are forcibly sterilized in Europe and the U.S., alongside Native Americans and African-Americans. We remind you that the government takes Romani children in the United States and Europe from their families because it is assumed that Roma cannot be decent, loving parents. We remind you that America has “Gypsy Crime” task forces that decide Romani fortune tellers are scammers and white fortune tellers are not. America, the country that swears to the flag not to indulge in racial profiling, blatantly profiles its Roma, just like Europe. We remind you that skinheads set Romani encampments on fire across Europe with Molotov cocktails, burning men, women, and children in their beds. We remind you of the Jobbik Party. Roma are forced into camps with no running water, waste management, electricity, or shelter. Roma are denied a right to education, or forced into special education classes because it is assumed we are mentally deficient. Amnesty calls the Romani human rights crisis “Europe’s shame,” and Roma endure hate crimes, are not allowed in shops, and are kicked out of countries because the politicians believe we cannot assimilate, that we are vermin, that Hitler didn’t kill enough of us. We remind you that Roma say, “Fuck you, Fascists. We rise up.” You learned none of this in school. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Digital Bonding“The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.” -Dave Barry My senior year of high school, I was waiting for the bus home when I noticed a girl I’d never really spoken to reading Bob Woodward’s State of Denial. I knew her by sight; she was a freshman in the same specialty program I was going to graduate that spring. I was impressed by her choice of reading material, and I told her so. We chatted now and then for the rest of the year after that, but it wasn’t until the summer I graduated that we added each other on Facebook (this was before Peak Facebook) and began talking to each other on there whenever we had the chance. Over the next four or five years, I came to think of her as a little sister, to the point that I still refer to her as such when I’m talking to anyone who doesn’t know her, simply because it’s easier to explain than the aforementioned. In fall 2012, she was serving as a groomswoman at my wedding, and one of the bridesmaids asked how long she and I had known each other. I gave the date of the Woodward conversation, but my sister corrected me and gave the time we’d begun talking to each other online. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but that was a hell of a thing: an acknowledgment that a close, intimate friendship had consisted of about 90 percent online communication. Face-to-face communication has always been a problem for me. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a symptom of my Asperger’s syndrome and what’s generic nervousness, but the naturally un-plannable nature of casual conversation intimidates me. I rehearse the vast majority of my interaction with people. Online communication is another matter; it’s still impossible to definitively plan both sides of a conversation, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to collect my thoughts in a text box than in front of someone who’s listening to every stutter and false start to a sentence. I see evidence of what being able to communicate online has done for me on a daily basis. I work with a lot of amazing, funny, interesting people and I was able to develop off-the-clock relationships with them largely because we have online spaces where I can suss out common interests and values and generally speak without fear of coming off as the office weirdo. (I’m assuming that’s a thing—this is my first office job). That’s why it’s always vaguely upsetting to hear people disparage the prevalence of online communication as though it’s somehow less than face-to-face communication, and somehow a sign of us losing our human connection. This is generally something older people who also think that it should be called CRAP music say, but not exclusively; last year I was extremely disappointed when one of my heroes, riot-grrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, told the Huffington Post, “We just don't know how to connect in a way that's actually beautiful and present…[e]veryone's on their computer phones and what-not, and it's more of not being here." It was a remarkably shortsighted perspective, I thought, especially coming from an icon of nonconformity, this idea that only the most basic, neurotypical-favoring forms of communication could be “beautiful.” This attitude, half-Luddite and half-hipster, is sort of an exercise in neurotypical privilege. “Back in the day, just talking to each other face to face was good enough for us!” they’ll say. Well, no, it was good enough for some of you. Others of us sat alone at lunch and hoped to God we’d have a class with one of the handful of people we weren’t too nervous to talk to and spent ten minutes psyching ourselves up to call a friend just to chat, before eventually deciding against it because the prospect of being told we were interrupting was too mortifying to risk. As is usually the case, I can only speak for myself, but being able to communicate online hasn’t ruined me for real-life relationships; it’s made me the best at them I’ve ever been. When you started at the top of the hill, it’s easy to disparage how someone else climbs, but you should stop to consider that maybe they’re not climbing it for you. #StateOfDenial #HighSchool #Books #Reading #Communication #Friendships #Neurotypical #Privilege
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