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happy "everyone forgets that icarus also flew" monday. i want to throw up !

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I fucking hate James Tissot’s paintings because in ALL OF THEM there is ALWAYS someone staring right at you, but it’s not always immediately visible. You just feel watched by this mf. Sometimes the little shit is right there at the centre, but others the bastard is just gazing from the distance, it is CREEPY, my guys

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obsessed with mass market paperbacks. their pleasing rectangular proportions. how they fit badly in a hoodie pocket so you can drag them around everywhere with you like a temporary little buddy. the way they fit in your hand because they're MADE for human hands and not as bookshelf decoration. the way the pages feel when you riffle them gently with your thumb. How pristine and crisp they look when you get them and how creased and folded they look when you're done, even if you try to be nice to them. how that wear is okay, how that's correct actually, because they're made with the philosophy that books aren't meant to be PRETTY, they're meant to be read. that little ripple new ones get on the left side from where you hold them when you're reading, the way the ripple only goes as far as you've read, because u change stories by reading as they are changing you. how you can find thousands of these creased and folded and loved little dudes in every thrift store and used book shop and neighborhood library and you can instantly see the ones that someone carried around in a backpack for weeks or read to pieces or gave up on halfway through because they wear being read like fresh snow wears footprints. I love these poorly made, subpar little rectangles so much. truly the people's books.

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I am in my first year of life and I am dressed in dark green because my mother dislikes pastel tones. Strangers frequently assume I am a boy. She does not correct them.

I am 6 and I am adamant that I would prefer to do judo than ballet. My parents do not disagree.

I am 8 and I have one dress I will willingly wear. It is covered in poppies and it feels like summer. Otherwise I am always to be found in trousers. My mother says they are better for climbing trees, anyway.

I am 11 and playing football after school because girls cannot play football in the normal team. My mother and I often go down to the park so that I can practise. She recalls my father saying he did not want a boy because he did not want to play football. That year each team in our tournament scores the same amount of goals. I save one more than the other two keepers. I am told it shows that girls can do just as well as boys.

I am 12 and a staunch feminist. I am terrified of my developing body. I am so worried about not having my period and being behind everyone. It arrives and I wish I could turn back time so desperately. I go for the male roles in as many productions as I can. Sometimes people remark that I play a boy well.

I am 15, experimenting with names and labels in the safety of online anonymity. I finally cut my hair, as I have been longing to do for months. More than one classmate mistakes me for a boy despite my skirt. I laugh it off and tamp down the twin flames of terror and joy rising in my chest.

I am 16, in love and happy and learning that female is not who I am. An elderly woman asks why I have a girls name written on my hoodie, comments that she thought I was a boy. I don’t think about it too hard, for fear of what I’ll realise. Later, I make an offhand comment about it to friends and one of them makes an attack helicopter joke. I realise that to be trans is to be mocked.

I am 17 and breaking down. I say it out loud for the first time and it feels like my world falls apart. My mother is nothing but supportive and educates herself. I am terrified.

I am 18 and hiding from the reality of coming out. I lose my partner and I will never stop wondering if me coming out set that in motion. I tell my family and they are nothing but kind. We decide not to tell my grandparents. I use my new name for the first time. I start university and no one ever knows me as anything different.

I am 19 and tired. I am losing time and my body is not working right. It feels like it never will. I nearly die. A psychiatrist says there are few measures he can recommend that I am not already taken. He says starting testosterone would likely help.

I am 20 and I have ownership of my name. I have appointments with medical professionals that range from kind and insightful to invasive and woefully uninformed. I begin to grow facial hair. My voice cracks and drops and I’m finally passing more, though not consistently. My body feels more like a home than it ever has.

I am 21 and in legal limbo. I exist in two genders, two names, two nationalities. I may have to travel to Germany to declare my identity in a German court and spend another few thousand pounds on doctors letters. I put off that problem for another day. Grandpa is dead, we are in a pandemic and I’m due to move countries in less than 6 months. Some things will have to wait.

I am 22 and experiencing my gender in German for the first time. It’s exhilarating and bittersweet, tinged with the pain of still having to show the wrong passport to prove my nationality. I translate an autobiography of a trans man from German to English and I realise that this is what I love. I feel more accepted here than I have in the UK. I think, maybe, I could make a home here.

I am 23 and in my final year. I have taken courses that give me the chance to study gender and prove my knowledge of what I want to continue studying. I begin my first job and wind up in the Daily Mail in a mildly transphobic article. I stand by my tweets. Fuck JK Rowling.

I am 24 and the transition milestones are coming thick and fast. I email enquiring about a top surgery date only to be told it would be over half a year. I research another surgeon and contact that in the hope of a consult within a few months. From initial contact to surgery is six weeks. I feel like I have whiplash. I’m so grateful for my new body. After being told that Germany does not accept the new UK birth certificates, I am contacted to say this has now changed. I have a lot of paperwork to do. I get my forms in order and receive a shiny new green birth certificate. I change my NHS number to male. A few months later, I pick up my German passport and for the first time ever, I have documents to prove all the facets of my identity.

I am 25 and back in Vienna, a city dotted with rainbow zebra crossings and traffic lights featuring gay couples. There is a trans zebra crossing near my apartment. It makes me feel a little bit more at home every time I see it. Someone puts up stickers with “cinnamon rolls not gender roles“ near my school. Some of them stay up. I discover I will have to see an endocrinologist here and possibly go through the whole process of diagnosis all over again. I am exhausted. I commission a trans artist to draw my first ever tattoo to celebrate my transition. I am growing up. I find a trans community who switch between German and English as easy as breathing and it feels so, so good to be seen. The vitriol in the UK gets more and more brutal and I do what I can - I educate, I advocate but mostly, I keep myself alive. That has to be enough for now.

#my writing #poetry #personal #creative writing #writing #my poetry #transphobia #I wrote this one on a walk home alone after some more bullshit transphobia in uk politics

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Hey, so, ummm…how do you get motivation to write? Asking for a friend.

It’s me. I’m the friend.

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I'm begging other trans people to read an ounce of Black Feminist or Decolonialist Feminist writing. I'm on my hands and knees and begging you. I promise you, I promise you, there is so much more to Feminist theory than anything you have picked up from White/Radical/Pop/Liberal Feminism I promise you. Read There Is No Hierarchy Of Oppressions By Audre Lorde. I have a link to the PDF right here you can read it for free. Take my hand I can't do this alone (thanks glass beach). Peace And Love On Planet Earth.

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free online james baldwin stories, essays, videos, and other resources

(i believe he currently has no estate or family that can profit from his works, as the last owner of the estate was his landlady who recently died.)

James baldwin online archive with his articles and photo archives.

---NOVELS---

Giovanni's room"When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened - while Giovanni's life descends into tragedy. This book introduces love's fascinating possibilities and extremities."

Go Tell It On The Mountain"(...)Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves."

+bonus: film adaptation on youtube. (if you’re a giancarlo esposito fan, you’ll be delighted to see him in an early preacher role)

Another Country and Going to Meet the Man Another country: "James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit." Going to meet the Man: " collection of eight short stories by American writer James Baldwin. The book, dedicated "for Beauford Delaney", covers many topics related to anti-Black racism in American society, as well as African-American–Jewish relations, childhood, the creative process, criminal justice, drug addiction, family relationships, jazz, lynching, sexuality, and white supremacy."

Just Above My Head"Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work. Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land."

If Beale Street Could Talk"Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche."

also has a film adaptation by moonlight's barry jenkins

Tell Me How Long the Train's been gone At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty. 

---ESSAYS---

Baldwin essay collection. Including most famously: notes of a native son, nobody knows my name, the fire next time, no name in the street, the devil finds work- baldwin on film

--DOCUMENTARIES--

Take this hammer, a tour of san Francisco.

Meeting the man

--DEBATES:--

Debate with Malcolm x, 1963 ( on integration, the nation of islam, and other topics. )

Debate with William Buckley, 1965. ( historic debate in america. )

Heavily moderated debate with Malcolm x, Charles Eric Lincoln, and Samuel Schyle 1961. (Primarily Malcolm X's debate on behalf of the nation of islam, with Baldwin giving occassional inputs.)

----

apart from themes obvious in the book's descriptions, a general heads up for themes of incest and sexual assault throughout his works.

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-despite everything, there is still love

@arthoesunshine/ @artsheila/ @daisies-on-a-cup/ @gayarsonist / @hjarta/ @yunawinter on twitter/ @bakwaaas/ @death-born-aphrodite/ anon on gentleearth/ @classicnymph on twitter

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Happy Pride Month! 🌈

Pride Flag Stamp Washi! Brand new and on sale to celebrate Pride Month 🥰

🏳️‍⚧️ mush.house/pridemonth 🏳️‍🌈

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I don't regret "guilt tripping" any of you btw maybe it's what you need so you fucking listen. you are so used to black people suffering any instance of us mentioning that you don't care about it is worse than what is already happening to us because we hurt your white feelings.

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hi it’s me again asking for help; i was able to pay up until next month for yet, got promoted to full(ish) time for my job and still looking for another. but it hasn’t been enough for the moving expenses I’m abt to incur because I’m likely about to be evicted

please help a black and disabled bisexual for the tailend of BHM. if it also maybe you feel better, next month is my birthday month and it’s already shaping up to be kinda shit so this would take so much off my plate

setting my goal high for another security deposit, and first months rent + getting moved + food, etc

v: avibb

pp or z: please inbox me!

c: $avibb

0/1700

please do not tag this post with anything if you can help it!! thank u!

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Repost: We grieve the loss of Fathi Ghaben, iconic Palestinian painter, born in Hiribya in the Gaza strip in 1947.

He was mainly known for his folklore art and depiction of resistance through existence and culture - "His figures are captured in motion as they labor, protest, tend to their fields, celebrate, and dance. The raw power of the working-class is there in Ghaben's artwork, as it is in him." (Quote from @alserkalavenue).

He passed away yesterday (Feb 25, 2024) as a result of the neglect of the occupation. He was waiting for the Israeli authorities to grant him permission to to leave Gaza to receive medical aid after multiple requests.

Photo credits and ID below the cut.

ID: [The first picture is taken in the Jabalia Palestinian Refugee Camp in the north of Gaza city. It is a black-and-white photograph of Fathi Ghaben, a Palestinian painter, in his house. The picture is from The Joss Dray Collection via Pal Museum Digital Archive. The second picture is from the same day in 1987. It is a picture of him with his family in their house. The black and white picture shows him, a woman, and three kids in frame.]

[All remaining images are directly sourced from Fathi's Facebook and/or X. One of them is a painting of farmers tending to their fields, with an abundance of oranges around them. The other is a painting of a woman sitting on the floor and sewing a traditional Palestinian pattern, known as tatreez, onto a dress. The next picture shows people in a village, a woman sits on the ground next to a clay oven, known as taboon, making bread. A child is sitting next to a collection of baked bread near her and holds a round piece of bread. The painting after depicts a large group of farmers picking fruits from trees. There’s a large amount of green fruit collected on the ground. The picture after is an image of the painter Fathi Ghaben painting on canvas. He is painting what looks like a lake in the moonlight, with trees, bushes, and birds around. The last picture is a painting of horses across a field near a stream of water.] END ID.

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In case you're looking for more reading materials on Sudan, here is a google doc compiled by Razan Idris (and under the hashtag Sudan Syllabus).

I sourced it via X here

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Palestinian Orthodox Christians attend Palm Sunday mass at the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, 13 April.

(Yasser Qudih / APA images)

via Electronic Intifada: The Month in Pictures, April 2014

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"i love..." playing cards from the deck i wrote on as a gift for my wedding annversary. 52 things i love about her!! these nine were her favorites <3