[“You don’t have to be lesbian to appreciate that the costs of coming out can be very high. On the other hand, the cost of “staying in” may be no less dear, simply less obvious. No sudden and dramatic act of rejection or persecution occurs. One is not suddenly fired from a job, betrayed by a trusted friend, disowned by one’s family, or taken to court over custody of one’s child. And yet the costs, although harder to identify and easier to deny, may be no less insidious. Failing to come out—although it may be a necessary choice—may feed back a sense of dishonesty, deceit, and self-doubt that erodes one’s self-esteem and encourages self-hate. Failing to come out affects the very fabric of relationships and the quality of our day-to-day life. Neither intimacy nor self can flourish in an, atmosphere of secrecy and silence.
The question of coming out is not specific only to lesbianism, although those of us who are gay are uniquely vulnerable to discrimination and isolation. Rather, the theme of coming out runs continually through all our lives. Each of us must struggle, both consciously and unconsciously, with our wish to be true to our selves, both privately and publicly, and our wish to receive love, approval, validation, belongingness—or an inheritance, for that matter. It is a struggle we never entirely resolve but one we can work on—in our own way and at our own pace—in a variety of contexts and throughout our lives.”]
harriet lerner, from the dance of intimacy: a woman’s guide to courageous acts of change in key relationships
Carmilla was due for a reread and this edition is so beautiful. I am loving Machado's additions and the illustrations are stunning. Finally reading the English text instead of a translation is making me fall in love with this novella even more. I am considering another reread for my next book, but I haven't decided yet. I do have a lot of unread books but I am not sure that's what I want right now. I will try to listen to my gut. I have also been reflecting on my language goals and how because of burnout I have not been studying Irish at all lately, I am keeping up daily reviews on duolingo since that is everything my brain can manage, but I also have exercise books that wait for me and no energy or motivation to pick them up. Even worse with my French since I haven't really been doing anything for so many weeks, and I haven't attempted reading a book yet.
Watched Whisper of the Heart on Friday and honestly I have no words. This is now one of my favourite Studio Ghibli movies the art, the characters everything is so beautifully written and illustrated <3
I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…
Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?
there’s nothing more romantic than someone choosing to learn you. flipping the pages in your soul delicately and digesting your chapters with an open mind no matter how difficult or uncomfortable some of your moments read, treating each bookmark with no judgment, but pure love.
I've walked past the Barbie branded selfie booth, sat through the reel of old commercials that precede the previews, and watched Margot Robbie learn to cry, and I’m still not sure what “doing the thing and subverting the thing,” which Greta Gerwig claimed as the achievement of Barbie in a recent New York Times Magazine profile, could possibly mean. This was the second Gerwig profile the magazine has run. I wrote the first one, in 2017, which in hindsight appears like a warning shot in a publicity campaign that has cemented Gerwig’s reputation as so charming and pure of heart that any choice (we used to call them compromises) she makes is justified, a priori, by her innocence. This is a strange position for an adult to occupy, especially when the two-hour piece of branded content she is currently promoting hinges on a character who discovers that her own innocence is the false product of a fallen world. But—spoiler alert!—the point of Barbie’s “hero’s journey” is less to reconcile Barbie to death than to reconcile the viewer to culture in the age of IP.
“Doing the thing and subverting the thing”: I haven’t finished working out the details, but I think the rough translation would be Getting rich and not feeling feel bad about it. (Or, for the viewer: Having a good time and not feeling bad about it.) One must labor under a rather reduced sense of the word “subvert” to be impressed with poking loving fun at product misfires such as Midge (the pregnant Barbie), Tanner (the dog who poops), and the Ken with the earring, especially given that the value of all these collectors’ items has, presumably, not decreased since the film opened. Barbie may feature a sassy tween sternly informing Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie that the tiny-waisted top-heavy billion-dollar business she represents has made girls “feel bad” about themselves, but if anyone uttered the word “anorexia,” I missed it. (There was a reason Todd Haynes told the story of Karen Carpenter’s life and death with Barbies, and it wasn’t because an uncanny piece of molded plastic has the magical power to resolve the contradictions of girlhood and global capitalism.) There’s a bit about Robbie going back into a box in the Mattel boardroom, but Barbies aren’t made in an executive suite; they come from factories in China. On the one hand, it’s weird for a film about a real-world commodity to unfold wholly in the realm of ideas and feelings, but then again, that’s pretty much the definition of branding. Mattel doesn’t care if we buy Barbie dolls—they’re happy to put the word “Barbie” on sunglasses and T-shirts, or license clips from the movie for an ad for Google. OK, here’s my review: When Gerwig first visited Mattel HQ in October 2019, the company’s stock was trading at less than twelve dollars a share. Today the price is $21.40.
[“Given sufficient time and the inevitable stresses that the life cycle brings, we can count on periods of reactive fighting and distance in even the most ideal partnerships. The fight-or-flight response is present in all species, our own included.
The degree of trouble we get into in a particular relationship rests on two factors. The first is the amount of stress and anxiety that is impinging on a relationship from multiple sources, past and present. The second is the amount of self that we bring to that relationship. To the extent that we have not carved out a clear and whole “I” in our first family, we will always feel in some danger of being swallowed up by the “togetherness force” with others. Seeking distance (or fighting) is an almost instinctual reaction to the anxiety over this fusion, this togetherness which threatens loss of self. The specific way we get into trouble has to do with our own particular style of managing anxiety and the dances we get stuck in with others.”]
harriet lerner, from the dance of intimacy: a woman’s guide to courageous acts of change in key relationships
When performance artists Marina Abramović and her partner, Ulay, decided to end their twelve-year relationship—as lovers and artistic collaborators—they marked its ending by walking the length of the Great Wall of China. “People put so much effort into starting a relationship and so little effort into ending one,” Abramović explained. On March 30, 1988, Abramović started walking from the eastern end of the Great Wall, the Gulf of Bohai on the Yellow Sea, and Ulay began walking from the western edge, in the Gobi Desert, and they each walked for ninety days, covering roughly 2,500 kilometers, until they met in the middle, where they shook hands to say goodbye. At a retrospective of Abramović’s work in Stockholm, two video screens showed scenes from The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk. One screen showed Abramović walking past camels on hard dirt covered with snow, while the other showed Ulay hiking with a walking stick over green hills. The tapes were running on a continuous loop, and it seemed beautiful to me that on those screens, years after their breakup, these two lovers still walked constantly toward each other.
Leslie Jamison, “The Breakup Museum: Archiving the Way We Were”