fueled solely by coffee™

Hip Hop Impresario Sir Mix a Lot created a 1990 PSA for the American Library Association where he urged people to go to libraries and read books, featuring the California Raisins.

"Read about stars and cars/play electric guitars/the cops that work hard/patrolling the boulevard/the Heavyweight Champ and his craziest bouts/Books/Check em out."

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Trevor Noah interviewing Judith “Badass” Heumann

Judy Heumann believed in the inherent value of each disabled individual and would never back down on what she thought was right. Her friends and fellow activists remember her as a strong leader.

Judy Heumann

December 18, 1947 - March 4, 2023

She’s Jewish and born to immigrant german parents who migrated in the 1930s

She has been in a wheelchair for nearly her entire life due to contacting polio at a very young age.

Due to her wheelchair, she was actually barred from most schooling including kindergarten as her wheelchair was deemed as a “risk.” because it could be “in the way” if there was a fire.

She was the first wheelchair teacher in New York after suing when she was once again denied her license for the same reasons she was denied kindergarten.

She worked as the Assistant Secretary of Education for OSERS for 8 years

Her parents, especially her mother, were big parts in her becoming an activist as her mother Ilse was a community organizer and fought hard to get her daughter as much education as she could, it was her activism that helped her daughter and other disabled children be allowed to enroll in High School instead of being separated into a specific disabled school. (We don’t have time to go into all that but tldr; those schools sucked and its a genuine accomplishment disabled kids no longer have to learn in like, cramped attics that didn’t teach anything)

She was a founder of the organization Disabled in Action! She didn’t just organize sit-ins, she helped RUN the organization that was organizing them!

The president she butted heads with the most was Richard Nixxon, this isn’t that important I just know everyone loves when he gets dunked on

She helped CREATE THE INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT!!! I cannot express to you just how important that is, if you have basically any kind of disability, this act is a big reason you were able to go to a public school instead of being shoved into a warehouse.

The Black Panthers helped with the 504 sit-in! They helped bring food because the organization also included black disabled people, and one of the members of both, Brad Lomax, asked for help!

She had a podcast! You can go listen to that podcast right now!

Honestly just check out her website in general

She also founded the Berkeley Center for Independent Living!!

Honestly I could keep going on but she’s genuinely one of my heroes and was an amazing person who it is not an underestimate to say changed the world for the better.

Except in the hour of need, a binface stepped up.

happy new year -------------_--------------------

For the folks curious about templates, these are the shapes I cut from cardboard. I added a couple little pieces of cereal box cardboard as structural support in various points, like the bridge of the nose and behind the beak. Also, I ended up cutting the forehead piece a little smaller, which I marked on the paper, but I kept the template size in case you want to see how it originally looked.

It's a completely different piece of wearable art. It has a different soul. It has a different feel.

Bear's mask templates! I just want to stress that our masks are extremely low tech and budget friendly. They're made out of cardboard, hot glue, and fleece, with an elastic band in the back. I used a little sheer black fabric I had leftover from my terror bird costume for the eyes.

Fleece and felt are very forgiving fabrics and you can basically just cut a single large piece and stretch it to fit, gluing it to the cardboard one small section at a time. The fabric was the only purchase we made for these, and it was in the form of thrift store blankets.

For everyone else, the mask gets its rounded shape from a dart cut in at the top. Just cut a straight line about an inch or so, fold one side over the other, and glue it in place. If you want an even rounder shape that will sit a bit higher off of your face (not quite glasses-friendly height, but maybe more sensory-friendly for some), you can make additional darts on the sides, roughly in line with the back corner of the eyes.

The cat muzzle uses a dart at the front to create a rounded shape. (Figuring out that one was a paaaaiiiiinnnn yesterday, but I did it!) All the others, you'll want to fold the center tab down first, then fold the left and right flaps over it. Play around with how tightly you fold them over to produce slightly different shapes, and glue it once you like what you see.

When looking to attach the different pieces, you'll want to cut lots of perpendicular flaps into the attachment points (highlighted in the picture below; you'll want to fold those parts up and glue them against the mask base). Having lots of separate attachment points will allow the cardboard to flex a little more and help with stability overall.

When fleecing or felting the base, you'll want to cut a piece that is.... way bigger than you think it needs to be. My technique is to lay the fabric on top of the mask, let it drape without pulling, and give myself about one inch above the tip of the furthest projecting part -- usually the ears. Cut a rectangle and start gluing at the bridge of the snout. Glue in sections, stretching the fabric to prevent wrinkles, until the entire piece is covered.

Then, and only then, do I cut around the shape of the mask, leaving about an inch margin around the whole piece. Cut flaps all around (like you can see in the second photo Wren posted) and glue them down, stretching as you go.

The dart is just a small slit at the top of the face that can be folded over itself and glued in place to create dimension.

I thought the muzzle looked a bit too boxy and canine, so I trimmed it down and added a few pieces of thin cardboard.