Tuba Solo

This past February, Zach - my boyfriend for a year and a half, and one of my closest friends in the world for about five or six years prior to that - passed away due to medical complications.

They had been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 27. The symptoms came on fast, and the treatment was grueling. Only a few weeks in, he lost the use of his voice. He never got it back. It was an awful experience for me and all of his other loved ones; I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for him.

I like to think that I did my best to support them, but even so, life was hard for them. I have a lot of regrets, and I’m sure that they did too. Speaking for myself, the biggest one is that I’ve wanted to collaborate with them on a piece of music for a very long time. They used to compose fairly regularly, and I always loved the work they shared with me - but after 2017, they largely stopped.

Today would have been Zach’s birthday, and this is, I think, the closest I can ever get to the sort of project I wanted to make with him. It’s a rearrangement / remix of sorts, using the fifth track off their old EP Black Magic Market as a baseline. I hope that I did it justice, and I hope that it can stand as a testament to everything they meant to me.

When you’re fighting evil, it’s important to be aware of your limitations. You can only fight evil as the person you really are. Trying to ignore your limitations will not make you a better activist — it just crushes you.

Fighting evil is a lot of hard work. It’s not just about being a good person, or caring, or having the right values. Mostly, it’s work. And no one has infinite capacity to do that kind of work.

In fact, no one has infinite capacity to do *any* kind of work. As human beings, we’re limited. We have bodies, and needs, and we can’t do everything. Trying to work flat out all the time doesn’t end well, no matter how important the work is.  

One of the things we need is love. Part of that is being aware that not everything is evil. Some things are good. Some things are amazing. Some things are important in other ways. And, no matter what, people matter, and our world is worth fighting for.

Fighting evil is incredibility emotionally draining. In order to fight evil, it’s generally necessary to come into close contact with it. And to face the fact that not everyone is on your side, and not everyone means well. Many people act with active malice or callous indifference. It can be very hard to keep going when you lose an important battle and feel the weight of the consequences. It can be very hard to avoid slipping into despair. Love is one of the most powerful defenses against despair.

It is not only ok but *necessary* to find things that you can value and enjoy. Valuing your own life and the things you enjoy is an important act of resistance. Keep in mind that one of the lives you’re fighting for is your own. You are worth fighting for.

You may have to do hard, draining things that no one should ever have to do. You may have to make sacrifices. You may need to learn how to do things you never thought you’d need to do. But you don’t have to do more than you’re capable of doing — and trying to ignore all of your feelings and limitations will not help.

Check out this link! Here’s the message on the FB page:

Join in and send a postcard directly to Trump! Here are the basic instructions to participate: ** IMPORTANT - Don’t mail your card until NOV. 26th ** 1. Get a postcard from your state - any picture that represents your state. 2. In the message section, write this simple message: NOT BANNON! 3. Sign your name if you wish 4. Address it as follows: Donald Trump c/o The Trump Organization 725 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10022 5. Affix a stamp - you can use a 35 cent postcard stamp, or a normal letter stamp. 6. Take a picture of your postcard that you can share on social media using the hashtag #stopbannon . PLEASE DO NOT USE A REFERENCE TO HILLARY CLINTON OF ANY KIND. 7. Drop it in the mail! We are aiming to get these mailed between Saturday, Nov 26th and Monday, Nov. 28th to create a concentrated avalanche of postcards. But if you can’t send yours until later, don’t let that stop you. Now invite, invite, invite! The more voices we can get in the mail, from the more states, the better. To make it go viral we will all need to share the details with our sphere of influence in whatever ways we feel comfortable. Feel free to copy and paste the details or even post your own event. The more the merrier! If you are unfamiliar with Steve Bannon: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-steve-bannon-really-as-bad-as-all-that/2016/11/15/3c74af12-ab81-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html?utm_term=.cfb473cda3a4

Let’s make this an avalanche against oppression!

bimuslimheaux:

Here’s a resource for what you needa try to get done before January when Trump starts changing shit and how to get that shit done. It includes things like name changes for Trans folks and healthcare resources. It might be helpful for someone even if it’s not helpful to you so please pass it on. Help marginalized people stay healthy and safe!

IF YOU’RE A CISHET WHITE YOU NEED TO BE REBLOGGING THIS SHIT SO MARGINALIZED LGBTQ+ POC KNOW THEIR OPTIONS. THIS IS HELPFUL FOR YALL ASSES TOO!!!

German isn't an agglutinative language. German is a mildly inflective language moving towards an isolating language, like English was a thousand years ago. An agglutinative language would be Turkish, for instance. Agglutinative languages keep adding highly regular affixes to a root word which alter the meaning or catgeory of the word.

What German IS, however, is a language for which compounding is very highly productive. English is also a highly productive compounding language (like the compound "word" "linguistics nerd time"). The only difference is in where we put the space. Words are... highly subjective things, and as a linguistic entity they're very difficult to define. At some point in the past, English writers and grammarians decided to divide up written words (with spaces) one way, German ones decided to divide them up another way. When spoken, saying "political apathy" or "political disenchantment" would be the same in either English or German (we can't really hear the space), they just define the chunks that are called "words" differently when written. German and English stand in contrast to, for example, Romance languages, which are not nearly as productive at compounding (think of the prepositions you would need in order to say "White House travel office staff" or "American Civil War history professor" - now, in German, they might just not have spaces between the component words).

British Columbia is going through a harsh heatwave. It should not be this hot in April.

I live in Kamloops (which isn’t pictured above). It hit 31 degrees C today. Weather reports say it’ll go up to 33 C (91F) by wednesday.

Literally within a few days, temperatures jumped 15-20 degrees C in some places.

Most places in Canada don’t have air conditioning (because in the past for the most part we haven’t needed it).

I only have air conditioning because I live on my university campus. Neither of my apartments in Vancouver had air conditioning when I lived there. My parents don’t have air conditioning where they live.

Also people have to consider that it’s only April? I’m not sure exactly what the average temperatures are in BC, but here while ~25-ish is normal summer weather, it’s not summer yet, and that temperature in April is definitely rare and can constitute a heat wave.

It is Vancouver that has much milder weather, going from like -10 to highs in the 30s. I live in Vancouver now, no one has air conditioning here. But Kamloops, and most of interior BC? Yeah, they have AC.

British Columbia is going through a harsh heatwave. It should not be this hot in April.

I live in Kamloops (which isn’t pictured above). It hit 31 degrees C today. Weather reports say it’ll go up to 33 C (91F) by wednesday.

Literally within a few days, temperatures jumped 15-20 degrees C in some places.

Most places in Canada don’t have air conditioning (because in the past for the most part we haven’t needed it).

I only have air conditioning because I live on my university campus. Neither of my apartments in Vancouver had air conditioning when I lived there. My parents don’t have air conditioning where they live.

Also people have to consider that it’s only April? I’m not sure exactly what the average temperatures are in BC, but here while ~25-ish is normal summer weather, it’s not summer yet, and that temperature in April is definitely rare and can constitute a heat wave.

It is Vancouver that has much milder weather, going from like -10 to highs in the 30s. I live in Vancouver now, no one has air conditioning here. But Kamloops, and most of interior BC? Yeah, they have AC.

Because while this fuckboy opinion is probably motivated from dudes being, well, fuckboys, it may also be mired in them being MEN.

Because like, I and every single female friend I have walked out of Star Wars with absolutely zero doubts that Rey had earned every inch of her scrappy, badass survivor mantle. It wasn’t until dudes online started whinging about the “believability” of it that I even contemplated the issue.

So now, three viewings in, the second two spent ACTIVELY SEARCHING for signs that Rey may have suffered New Powers as the Plot Demands I have this to say:

The moment the film opened on Rey - a young woman living and operating ALONE on a world in which literal survival depends on who can scavenge AND EXCHANGE the most goods for food rations, I’d wager every single woman in the audience went, “Holy shit, this girl is capable as fuck.”

We didn’t even need to see her owning the thugs trying to steal BB-8 to know she could handle herself physically. We looked at her environment, her position in that environment, and we knew that to be where she was - just to have lived as long as she had - she had to know how to fight like whoa.

Because here’s the thing: woman don’t walk through life the way men do. Just living in our world is dangerous enough for a woman - to grow up young, alone and female on a world that would brawl over scraps and sell anything that wasn’t pinned down? That’s fucking terrifying.

Women look at Rey at the beginning of TFA and see every single hard-won year of survival. Every year of losing to fellow scavengers stealing her take before she could trade it. Every year she had to not become the very thing they were trading. Every year she was an easy target. And we see every year she had to fight to make sure she wasn’t one anymore.

That had to take guts, not to mention a healthy aptitude for combat and weapons training. The ability to pick up languages and social niceties on the fly would have been essential because my enemies enemy and all that.

Every single “unrealistic” ability these dudes are wanking on about was obvious as fuck to me within the first fifteen minutes of the movie.

She… lives on a planet littered with the remains of the galactic war? Remains that include (as shown in the movie) Imperial Star Destroyers and other ships capable of hyperdrive? Remains that she has to scavenge for survival? Remains filled with parts that she’d have to know the function of in order to evaluate their trade worth?? And you don’t think she’s picked up any working knowledge of complex starship engineering in the years she’s done nothing but crawl around inside literal complex starship engineering???

The only thing that gave me pause was how seemingly easy it was for Rey to use the force, having had no prior experience. Especially given that apparently it’s impossible for individuals to uncover latent abilities without training, going by the fact that if there are no active Jedi, everybody thinks the force is some kind of myth.

However, there are two points that can explain this. First, Rey was under extreme duress. Think of it like how mothers get super strength and are able to lift cars if their children are trapped underneath. The rush of adrenaline and self-preservation instincts allowed her to tap into this hidden ability.

Now maybe that alone isn’t enough. Surely Rey has been under extreme duress before, given her back story, and surely other individuals who are force sensitive have been in difficult situations without their powers manifesting. But my second, and most important, point is the fact that Rey had the force being used on her. She was on the receiving end and knew how it felt. From there, she just took what was being used on her, flipped it around and pushed it back.

I don’t think this is due to bad writing. It’s due to our horrible, shitty sexist culture. See, if Rey started out as a useless putz ala Luke, people would hate her. I don’t mean people moaning about the depiction of women as weak or fragile. I mean the same fuckboys calling her a Mary Sue - they would have zero respect for her, they wouldn’t sympathise with her, they would find her annoying and worthy of humiliation and punishment. In our culture, women are either rewards to be saved, or unbeatable badasses. There is no room for flaws, unless those flaws are somehow in service to a man. Women don’t get the room to develop. Rey is robbed of a heroic arc - she does not get to train on Dagobah, she must know how to use a lightsaber right off the bat - because anything else would be grounds for derision.

Because while this fuckboy opinion is probably motivated from dudes being, well, fuckboys, it may also be mired in them being MEN.

Because like, I and every single female friend I have walked out of Star Wars with absolutely zero doubts that Rey had earned every inch of her scrappy, badass survivor mantle. It wasn’t until dudes online started whinging about the “believability” of it that I even contemplated the issue.

So now, three viewings in, the second two spent ACTIVELY SEARCHING for signs that Rey may have suffered New Powers as the Plot Demands I have this to say:

The moment the film opened on Rey - a young woman living and operating ALONE on a world in which literal survival depends on who can scavenge AND EXCHANGE the most goods for food rations, I’d wager every single woman in the audience went, “Holy shit, this girl is capable as fuck.”

We didn’t even need to see her owning the thugs trying to steal BB-8 to know she could handle herself physically. We looked at her environment, her position in that environment, and we knew that to be where she was - just to have lived as long as she had - she had to know how to fight like whoa.

Because here’s the thing: woman don’t walk through life the way men do. Just living in our world is dangerous enough for a woman - to grow up young, alone and female on a world that would brawl over scraps and sell anything that wasn’t pinned down? That’s fucking terrifying.

Women look at Rey at the beginning of TFA and see every single hard-won year of survival. Every year of losing to fellow scavengers stealing her take before she could trade it. Every year she had to not become the very thing they were trading. Every year she was an easy target. And we see every year she had to fight to make sure she wasn’t one anymore.

That had to take guts, not to mention a healthy aptitude for combat and weapons training. The ability to pick up languages and social niceties on the fly would have been essential because my enemies enemy and all that.

Every single “unrealistic” ability these dudes are wanking on about was obvious as fuck to me within the first fifteen minutes of the movie.

She… lives on a planet littered with the remains of the galactic war? Remains that include (as shown in the movie) Imperial Star Destroyers and other ships capable of hyperdrive? Remains that she has to scavenge for survival? Remains filled with parts that she’d have to know the function of in order to evaluate their trade worth?? And you don’t think she’s picked up any working knowledge of complex starship engineering in the years she’s done nothing but crawl around inside literal complex starship engineering???

The only thing that gave me pause was how seemingly easy it was for Rey to use the force, having had no prior experience. Especially given that apparently it’s impossible for individuals to uncover latent abilities without training, going by the fact that if there are no active Jedi, everybody thinks the force is some kind of myth.

However, there are two points that can explain this. First, Rey was under extreme duress. Think of it like how mothers get super strength and are able to lift cars if their children are trapped underneath. The rush of adrenaline and self-preservation instincts allowed her to tap into this hidden ability.

Now maybe that alone isn’t enough. Surely Rey has been under extreme duress before, given her back story, and surely other individuals who are force sensitive have been in difficult situations without their powers manifesting. But my second, and most important, point is the fact that Rey had the force being used on her. She was on the receiving end and knew how it felt. From there, she just took what was being used on her, flipped it around and pushed it back.

I don't think this is due to bad writing. It's due to our horrible, shitty sexist culture. See, if Rey started out as a useless putz ala Luke, people would hate her. I don't mean people moaning about the depiction of women as weak or fragile. I mean the same fuckboys calling her a Mary Sue - they would have zero respect for her, they wouldn't sympathise with her, they would find her annoying and worthy of humiliation and punishment. In our culture, women are either rewards to be saved, or unbeatable badasses. There is no room for flaws, unless those flaws are somehow in service to a man. Women don't get the room to develop. Rey is robbed of a heroic arc - she does not get to train on Dagobah, she must know how to use a lightsaber right off the bat - because anything else would be grounds for derision.