Mitäpä suren sanoista

long but fascinating video. the basic criticism is p much spelled out in the thumbnail there: Western music that labels itself 'Persian', 'Arabic', 'Egyptian' etc or serves as soundtracks for Middle Eastern settings is always a mishmash of wildly geographically separated regional elements that almost exclusively refers back to other Western orientalist music, but passes itself off as the real thing enough that most people have no idea what, say, Iranian music actually sounds like. it's certainly true... but the really interesting part for me is the details: Faraji breaks down the stereotypical elements of that orientalist style (the Armenian duduk, melodies that walk up and down the double harmonic major scale, a certain very specific vocal style) and describes what's missing (e.g. the many more common modes of Iranian music which use microtonal quarter tone steps, the complex ornamented articulations, the specific 'accents' of different regions) and in a fascinating bit, makes a similar mishmash of regions applied to Europe to make a parody 'Scottish' song which honestly kinda slaps. he's also got a pretty good analysis of where this stuff comes from in the affordances of Western instruments and VSTs - it's nearly impossible to play microtonal music on a guitar or piano, and Western musicians don't really learn how to do it

nix ouppy. left one is a chihuahua right one is a borzoi

2. alit,,, LOUD INCORRECT BUZZ what is that. crocodile head with legs

3. betty netch got her color wrong but overall ok

4. stridyyy too iconic to get it wrong

5. SCRIB MY BELOVED i like the one from memory even more actually. i gave birth to every scrib in morrowind myself #true

6. malnourished baby guar with rabies and a happy well fed one. smh shame on me for getting it so wrong

7. kwama warrior omg it was the hardest but actually better than i expected

8. kagouti... not bad but gave it too good of a posture

Did you know they made a music video for it? 'cause I sure didn't!

wanna see something cool and a lil scary

There is a reason why there is a more modern antisemitic caricature of "the college educated coastal elite trying to erode at western masculinity and femininity" and it's literally, in part, because of Jewish led transfeminist action. It is a caricature that exists in dialogue with longer standing antisemitic stereotypes, but we're talking specifically about the modern iteration of it.

It's because of Leslie Feinberg's action, mobilization, and writing in the late 70's through the early 00's as a vocally Jewish transgender feminist. It's because of Judith Butler's essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" and their book Gender Trouble in the 90's. It's because of Bornstein's books Gender Outlaws and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, the second of which was worked on in collaboration with Jewish trans man S. Bear Bergman. It's because Riki Wilchins has been an active part of trans and intersex feminist action for decades despite you probably not knowing hir name.

Wilchins co-founded Camp Trans with Feinberg. S/he co-founded Transsexual Menace with Denise Norris. Wilchins coined the term "genderqueer" and s/he also helped lead to the foundation of Intersex Awareness Day thanks to hir work with intersex activist Cheryl Chase and the Hermaphrodites With Attitude! protest group. Wilchins has been a backbone of trans and intersex activism since the 90's.

All Jewish nonbinary people from different assigned gender backgrounds working towards trans liberation and solidarity. For decades.

Shes a Jewish genderqueer trans woman* that has contributed a lot to the conversations surrounding: the gentrification of San Franciscos gay neighborhoods, sex work, hiv activism, disability, abuse, and incest.

If youve read the anthology, Thats Revolting! Queer strategies for fighting assimilation! Or, why are faggots afraid of faggots? Or The end of San Francisco then youre already familiar with her work.

Her work is particularly important, because she’s talked a lot about doing survival full service sex work during the 90s, and there just isnt a whole lot of people who have documented those experiences publicly for obvious reasons.

This also ties in to what op is talking about-a lot of the anti sex work conspiracy theories that go around are about Jews forcing goy in to a life of “depravity” and “pulling them away from god in to a life of sin” etc

So, when you, as a jewish genderqueer queen faggot* talk openly and publicly about doing sex work people are quick to go straight to all of that.

But anyways, yeah, shes part of this legacy too.

Laura Aguilar is a Los Angeles-based photographer whose work mines the intersection between feminism, body image, queer politics, and latinx identity. Her earliest works depicted latina lesbians in intimate portraits, calling to mind the frankness of Catherine Opie, while her best known series features self-portraits of Aguilar posed nude in the California desert landscape. These photographs are instantly striking, finding in the artist’s body formal elements that echo the landscape itself, as in its doubling here with the giant rock that eludes the frame. Aguilar also forces our gaze onto a body that does not conform to stereotypical images of latinx or feminine identity—a body type that is not so much othered as invisible, despite its ubiquity. The artist originally began to produce these photos as a means of grappling with her own issues with weight and self-acceptance, but quickly came to see them as something more. They offer a profound, ambivalent vision of woman and nature. We see Aguilar dissolve into the landscape in search of anonymity, at the same time that she reclaims the pride and beauty in her body far removed from the society that rejects it.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

Puccinia albescens, a rust fungus, growing all over these townhall clock plants.

All photos from April.

So if someone is chemically sedated, doesn’t understand that’s what’s happening, but doesn’t complain then they could be seen to be “consenting” to that treatment. That’s true even if they don’t know what the medication is, what the effects are, how long they last or that there might be other options.

Because the presence of “consent” means that a restriction wouldn’t be considered “Deprivation of Liberty” it means these people aren’t entitled to deprivation of liberty safeguards, which including having independent checks to make sure that any restrictions to their freedom is proportionate and that they’re not being abused in that setting.