This is Ridiculous

Musical: Paradise Square

Composers: Jason Howland, Masi Asare, Nathan Tysen

The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands is a micronation near Australia.  This is their flag:

The Gay Kingdom (as it is colloquially known) was founded in 2004 in protest against Australia’s legal stance against same-sex marriage.

Here are some of their stamps:

They are currently ruled by Emperor Dale I, and their currency is the Pink Dollar.

they have a declaration of independence that talks a bit about gay rights and then just flat out copies the “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” part from the american declaration of independence. and here’s the best part: the founding group actually elected their emperor. he was originally going to be called the “administrator” of a republic. their website, however, says that “upon legal advice, his title was changed to that of Sovereign on the grounds that under Australian law a defacto prince trying to claim his crown cannot be charged with treason”. so they made it a kingdom and he now claims to be a descendent of edward ii.

everything about this is glorious and everyone should know about it.

As previously mentioned, the idea originated at Pride (Brisbane 2003) in reaction to punitive anti-marriage legislation

“On the 14th day of June 2004, at this highest point in the Coral Sea, Emperor Dale Parker Anderson raised the gay rainbow flag and claimed the islands of the Coral Sea in his name as homeland for the gay and lesbian peoples of the world. God Save our King!”

The campsite/capital Heaven was named after the London nightclub

War was declared on Australia in September 2004

The aforementioned stamps were issued in July 2006 “with the aim of creating a high and distinctive reputation amongst the philatelic fraternity”

They were never recognized legally/internationally as a micronation (and in fact Anderson refused to attend a conference in 2010 because they weren’t actually trying to be a sovereign nation)

In Feb 2017, Abetz was objecting to the flag of a “hostile nation” being flown

ME: flowing water, still rock. a sunlit meadow and a gentle breeze

GRUFF INMATE: she's one o' them poets! get 'er, lads!

[I swiftly dispatch them with a flurry of blows]

ME: what's it to ya?

WAIFISH INMATE: she's but a crude warrior! baffle her with poetry!

[I swiftly trounce them with graceful eloquence and beautiful prose]

@samplerbot

DMC Color Key: ■ 3750 Antique Blue Very Dark ■ 3840 Lavender Blue Light ■ 3842 Wedgewood Very Dark

Dimensions: 139 by 79 stitches. Font: 'pepminus10.ttf' by Peplum. Border: Adapted from Elizabeth Holland's sampler, 1737.

which in turn activated my sleeper autist, and we ended up talking about fiber arts, where i learned that this woman is part of the local lacemaker's guild and uses her woodworking experience to carve lace bobbins on the lathe. she then gave me the email address of the woman who runs it, because their group has no social media and only meets when the lead lady says 'everyone come to my house.'

while all of this was going on, another woman walks up. her partner was shopping for wood repair stuff and she heard us talking about fiber- she's a spinner who does historical reenactments nearby. period accurate, processes the wool herself. of course i ask her if they need volunteers and she gives me her contact info

"Now I've shot so many Nazis, Daddy will have to buy me a sable coat." (From his Wikipedia article).

Neil Munro "Bunny" Roger

June 9, 1911-April 27, 1997.

Bunny Roger killed a bunch of Nazis and then invented Capri pants.

He was expelled from Oxford for his indiscrete gayness (discrete gayness being perfectly fine at Oxford and part of the curriculum until...today probably, at least like 1992?). Then, having been sent down to London, he started his own fashion business, and his first client was Vivien Leigh.

Bunny served in WWII, killing fascists in North Africa and Italy, and often wearing a mauve scarf in the field. Roger claimed that he had gone into a battle brandishing a rolled-up copy of VOGUE and commanding: "When in doubt, powder heavily!"

Roger was known in high society for his themed soirées; Diamond, Amethyst, and Flame Balls were held to celebrate his 60th, 70th, and 80th birthdays. He wore a curious plum colored catsuit with a feathered headdress at his 70th birthday ball in 1981. At his 80th, he made his entrance in a catsuit of scarlet sequins with a cape of orange organza, greeting his guests from behind a wall of fire. His parties were covered by the newspapers, including a New Year's Eve Fetish Ball where the proper upper class mixed with young guests in rubber S/M gear.

From an obituary: "Beneath his mauve mannerisms, Bunny was stalwart, frank, dependable and undeceived; to onlookers a passing peacock, to intimates, a life enhancer and exemplary friend."

From another obituary:

And this in-memoriam piece.

my daughter cannot, through action or inaction, harm a human or allow a human to come to harm

a daughter at rest or in constant motion remains at rest or in constant motion unless acted upon by another force

daughters are never created or destroyed, only transformed

always treat every daughter as loaded, even if you know she isn't

7. You can fold my daughter through any two points.

10. When two or more daughters are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest daughter is preferable.

11. Any sufficiently advanced daughter is indistinguishable from magic.

12. Without a clear indicator of intent, it is utterly impossible to parody my daughter without someone mistaking it for the genuine article.

15. My daughter will not interfere with the social, cultural, or technological development of other civilizations.

19. Do not get my daughter wet or feed her after midnight.

20. My daughter can only move forward, but she captures diagonally.

21. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by my daughter.

22. My daughter is the mind-killer. She is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my daughter. I will permit her to pass over me and through me. And when she has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see her path. Where the daughter has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

23. If my daughter is bigger than your outstretched thumb, then you are within her blast radius.

And I clutch the little warm tubes of blood and feel this sick person warming my hands and I think about how kind you might be and how I wish I could hold your hand and how badly, how really really badly, I want you to get better and stay warm and hold someone’s hand again.

And anyway sometimes it’s better to not think so vividly about the people I’m doing tests for. I’m a good little cog in a vast machine of people all trying to heal and cure, and my cog feels so fucking small sometimes. But I hope the blood I prepare for you helps you breathe better and laugh and wake up feeling well rested.

This installation titled The Giant by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov features massive legs dressed in 19th-century attire. The legs appear to extend through the ceiling, suggesting a figure far too large for the room.

1. Post Understanders: people who read the whole post, voted 11, and are chuckling at the results

2. Good Sports: people who got bamboozled and are reflecting on their own habits, often with an air of exaggerated self-deprecation

3. Silly Goofy Pranksters: people who read the post but then voted for something other than 11. unclear how many of these there actually are or what their motives were.

4. Lucky Souls: people who didn't read the post but picked 11 out of sheer chance. reactions vary but i can't imagine there are too many of these.

5. Defensive Skinmers: people trying to rationalize why they didn't read the paragraph at the top of the post before interacting with it, often citing something like text size. i'm sorry but you need to be more like group 2. the instructions were at the very top, and if you read even the third sentence of that paragraph you would notice something is up. three sentences! is that so hard? do better, please

6. Clueless: still don't get it after voting?? like seeing the insane skew after trying to make a bell curve, rather than thinking "hm maybe there's a reason why the data looks like this" they instead chastise other voters for not making the bell curve, indicating they still have not read the post or really any of the notes around it.