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ohwhataniight · 5 days

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"Oh what a night" – The case of the BBC Sherlock transmasc aesthetics: Relating to problematic masculinities in search for identity

So I sat down and rewrote this silly essay I wrote one day after returning from my trip to the US. Flaneurism at its best (or at its worst, idk). Please bear with me but definitely send in your feedback if you read and feel like it, it means the world to me and it will definitely help me unpack some of my problematicness! Thank you <3

I take a deep drag of my American Spirit cigarette whilst the tail ofmy long black coat swishes behind me dramatically. Dusk-time Boston is lit up. The skyscrapers towering over my tiny figure are glittering against the dark through the blurry lens of my camera phone.

I am consciously imitating the aesthetic of the modern but also always Victorian BBC Sherlock, in the scene following John and Mary’s wedding, in which the world’s only consulting detective surrenders to his noble, quiet pining for his not-gay best friend.

What even is masculinity, anyway? What would I like it to be?

The creators of the series, Gatiss and Moffat, spent 10 years religiously denying the possibility of a romantic or sexual relationship between the two protagonists, while driving the hordes of fans into delirium every time that Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John (Martin Freeman) made love with their eyes or confessed their devotion to one another. Despite the queerbaiting, the homophobia and the sexism in the Moftis series, despite the 4th season fiasco, despite the actors denying the possibility of their characters ever running together into the sunset, Sherlock himself never denied being queer. Gay, asexual, demisexual, the interpretations are many, a breath of representation in the relative democracy of fandom. And as if that wasn’t enough, Sherlock and John end up canonically raising John’s daughter together at their 221B Baker Street apartment.

The modernized urban Victorian aesthetic, the provocatively coded dialogues, the deep homosociality, and the simple, pure bitterness towards the creators, renders the community of Johnlock fans more alive than ever almost 10 years after the series’ finale. In some hidden, bright corners of the internet, like fanfiction.net and archiveofourown.com, women and queers publish analyses and fanfiction in which they explore the endless galaxy of human genders, sexualities, and forms of kinship, writing the insufferably British male characters as women, non-binary, FTM, Alpha and Omega, pregnant, high, and always together - two human animals exploring bodies and experiences that belong to us in the shelter of Baker Street, with their landlady, Mrs. Hudson, being their most ardent shipper. We write entire full-length novels for free, with our sole motive being the exploration, the practice in writing, and the communication with other queers, other women, other people who feel like us and live in different sides of the earth which, despite Sherlock not remembering, keeps on orbiting the sun with the certainty born by a Johnlocker for their OTP being endgame.

Back to Boston now, which looks like Glasgow on steroids, with its red brick buildings and the glass towers that pierce the skies - it doesn’t feel as cozy and familiar to me as European cities, but it is big enough to swallow and hide me, safely, away from the suffocating and often murderous, homotransphobic gaze of my motherland, Greece. Boston feels big enough to make me feel free, invisible, and at the same time more visible than ever.

Here’s how I made it happen: in the name of an egotistical but seductive flaneurism, in the idea that here I can be non-binary and roaming the streets while smoking without thinking that, at any given moment, I might be spotted by the people from whom I’m hiding both facts, I end up romanticizing a stroll on stolen land, as well as the tar in my lungs. I feel the need to wander around, heavily perfumed, with a hanful of product in my hair, dressed androgynously in a way that my mother only accepts because she doesn’t understand the meaning of it, smoking as the soundtrack of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons’ December 1963 (Oh What a Night) blasts through my old headphones. As a queer person living in Greece, I never felt that the streets belonged to me. I’ve always felt like a pariah looking for somewhere to belong to, and the irony of going after that feeling in America as a white European tourist brings a certain sourness to my mouth. Is that how Columbus felt? Was he a sissy who didn’t feel accepted by his mum in their suffocating mediterranean society? No, fuck that thought. Fuck that circle, fuck everything I've been taught by the writers of history. I decide to leave these streets to their people, without it meaning that I’ve suddenly found the courage to reclaim my own back in motherland.

Exhaustion, flight, cowardice? Survival.

Later I will learn that the American Spirits with the Native American on their turquoise box are anything but native-owned. What’s certain is that, in this trip, I found solace while smoking stolen land.

What does that make me? A citizen of the world?

After all, in the entire trip, I pretend I’m Sherlock, the whitest man to ever white man. It’s not as if I don’t have my own personality - at least I hope that I do. It is that through relating (to fictional characters, actors, role models who remind me of an aesthetic I had to build from scratch for my trans self, with the help of other queer people who created fanart or fanfiction, moulding new arhetypes) I find a vehicle for the exploration of my existence more easily, I see my reflection (or the one I’d like to have) in the mirror. In the fandom nobody tells you how to imagine your favourite characters and how not to. Nobody tells you how to write yourself, and nobody blames you for doing it. You create with self-indulgence, and you’re applauded for it. And that saved my life.

For years I related to a genderfluid Tonks, a trans Remus Lupin, a fanon Jean Prouvaire from Les Mis. Through all those experimentations and games, the changing of clothes in the dark, the opening and closing of the closet door, I found a name for myself: Sam. And Sam, like every other trans masculinity with the name Sam, Skye, Noah, and Eliott, contains multitudes.

For the timebeing, my persona of choice is that of Sherlock, perhaps the most insufferable (and one of the most privileged) characters in the history of British TV (which says a lot). “What do you have in common with that emotionally constipated man?” you ask me because you know that my own sentiments are constantly dancing naked before me. I wonder why that is. Indeed, what do I have in common with that guy and end up projecting so much on him? Me, who hesitates to even cancel a doctor’s appointment in pursuit of constant politeness and people-pleasing (AFAB, you see).

When Sherlock’s landlady, Mrs. Hudson, disapproves of his manners and threatens him with a tete-a-tete with his mother, Sherlock gives her his blessing, saying: “You can if you like, she understands very little”.

Sherlock and his turbulent relationship to his parents. Sherlock who always observes everything while staying outside, because he doesn’t know how to get in. Sherlock, always so different that he’s used to people laughing at him, gaping at him with awe, or wanting to punch him in the face. Sherlock who always attracts attention simply because he functions the way he functions, constantly failing to be a normal human being. Neurodivergent Sherlock, camp Sherlock, forgotten-in-another-era, flaneur Sherlock, who even in the Gatiss series (especially in the Gatiss series) is desperate to love, but he never manages to get it right. And finally, Sherlock the logical, the detached, the cynic: masculine elements that I never managed - and was never allowed to - acquire, and which I desperately, problematically craved, because in society and inside me they have been coded as masc.

I am the opposite Sherlock, and that makes me even more of a Sherlock, I decide, and if that helps me sleep at night, then so be it, for now.

As Hil Malatino writes in the chapter Fall Out Boy is Trans Culture of his essay Surviving Trans Antagonism: “The boy at the center of a [Fall Out Boy track, brackets mine] is [...] being eminently braggadocious and narcissistic [...]. He’s stationed directly at the center of a completely solipsistic universe. No matter how insufferable this kind of guy is in reality, I would have killed for a fraction of his swaggering self-confidence as a kid” (Malatino 2020, 17).

What even is masculinity, anyway? What would I like it to be?

“Do I look like Sherlock?” I ask you, hopeful and doe-eyed as I prance around in my black suit inside the house while packing for the trip. “Sherlock is gender, you know.”

“Do you really want to know how I see your gender? 100% honest-to-God?” you ask mischievously.

“Yes, I do,” I’m hanging from your lips.

“You are, deep inside your soul, in this tartan robe of yours, Bananas in Pyjamas.”

I think about it. Not exactly Sherlock. I smile though. I see my gender in your words. Goofy, boyish, vintage, loud, sleepy, badly dressed: Me. Headcanon accepted.

If headcanon and fanon - that is, reclaimed - Holmes played by (problematic) Cumberbatch teaches me how to be a boy or a man, then so be it, because I hope that my performance will be filtered, as much as possible, through my “girlish” (though still white) sensibilities. That, and the fact that there is a child inside me who never got to live as an openly, unashamedly neurodivergent, inquisitive little boy. Because there is a masculine side inside me that I must hide every day when I go to work. So I put together a playlist, I put on my scruffy headphones, and I tar my lungs, just a little more, a little longer until I’m able to finally leave my country for good and feel ready to love myself as I am. My coat swishes behind me as I dance alone on the street, invisible among the crowd, yet feeling more visible than ever before.

CITATIONS: Malatino, H. (2020). Trans care, University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv17mrv14

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clove-pinks · 1 year

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Not a new academic journal article about Paul Gavarni, but newly found by me: "Parisian Social Statistics: Gavarni, 'Le Diable à Paris,' and Early Realism" by Aaron Sheon (Google Drive link). I think this will be of interest to many of my friends here—

Le Diable à Paris is important to art historians because it included a series of illustrations by Guillaume Sulpice Chevallier, known as Gavarni, the popular Parisian illustrator who was one of the city's most colorful personalities—a bohemian and flaneur. His entire series of illustrations showing types of Parisians, particularly the poorest ones, was popular enough to be later assembled as Les gens de Paris in a separate book. Each illustration was captioned by Gavarni himself, who took pride in writing a touching or witty description for each image.

Gavarni's illustrations in Le Diable à Paris included some of the cruelest scenes of waifs, paupers, beggars, and les misérables that had yet been done. It is surprising that they have been overlooked in recent studies of the politicization of French artists in the 1840s. The curious neglect of his imagery of the destitute, unemployed Parisians in Les gens de Paris appears to be due to the general neglect of Gavarni's oeuvre. When considered at all, Gavarni has been viewed by most historians as a conservative artist, a gay blade who lived only for carnavals and bohemian self-indulgence. This assumption may be incorrect.

This is a really, really, really good article about Gavarni's world, probably the best source I've found next to his biography by Jules and Edmond de Goncourt (which is in French). There is some fascinating background on the gathering of social data and the development of the modern statistical bureau in early 19th century France; and the content of Le Diable à Paris is a LOT darker and more socially conscious than I imagined. I had thought that it was a more light-hearted work before Masques et Visages but definitely not. (Which makes it even more inexplicable that people in 1840s Britain thought that Gavarni was just a dandy who made elegant fashion drawings, only to be disappointed by his more complicated reality).

Very interesting information about provincial peasants flocking to 19th century Paris, where they lived in slums and faced discrimination and mockery for their regional dress and accents: "In the 1840s a number of pejorative words began to appear in novels and articles describing the immigrants: misérables, wretches, barbarians, savages, indigents, illiterates, nomads, vagabonds, and vagrants. Some writers described them as the 'mob' and a 'nation within the nation.'"

Special to @sanguinarysanguinity: I have FINALLY found some of Gavarni's mathematical work, thanks to this article! "Des fonctions curvitales" in Comptes Rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences (1865). It's in French but maybe the equations will give you some idea?

Gavarni's publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel was a lot younger than I imagined! I had no idea Hetzel was a political activist in the 1830s and 1840s (and opposed to the regime of Louis Philippe). He signed Honoré de Balzac to a publishing contract, too! Note to self for the upteenth time: I have to start reading Honoré de Balzac, who is constantly being brought up in association with/compared with Gavarni.

Sheon puts a pretty good case together that Gavarni should be regarded as more politically progressive and less shallow, although it makes me ponder how little I know about him. Gavarni is still enigmatic to me, and I have so many questions.

#paul gavarni #french history #1840s #les misérables #but not the novel #july monarchy #early victorian era #sheon gets bonus points for getting gavarni's birth name correct #(i wish that was less rare)#why are my favourite historical figures always obscure and neglected #also mister gavarni i'm sorry i am so bad at reading french i don't properly appreciate your touching and witty captions :(

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freusan · 2 years

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NISIOISIN’s 20th anniversary PV, voiced by Yuki Kaji (ii-chan’s VA), with a special surprise at the end! His newest series “Phantom Thief Flaneur's Patrol” had its cover revealed and a new mainline Zaregoto series novel titled “Kidnap Kidding: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense User's Daughter” was announced!! It’s been 17 years since the Zaregoto series ended, absolutely no one expected this, but I bet it’s going to be amazing.

#zaregoto series #zaregoto #nisioisin #monogatari series #戯言シリーズ #西尾維新

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demospectator · 2 years

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Taber’s Theme and Variations on a Dupont Street Butcher Shop

Before turning to an examination of Isaiah West Taber’s well-known photographs of a San Francisco Chinatown butcher shop, an expression of appreciation for some prior scholarship is in order.

A full two decades have passed since Anthony W. Lee, an art historian, critic, curator and photographer, published a masterwork in the field, Picturing Chinatown Art and Orientalism in San Francisco (University of California Press 2001). In examining the photographic record of San Francisco Chinatown’s first century, from 1850 to 1950, Lee examined more than 160 photographs and paintings from a multi-disciplinary perspective as an art, social and political historian.

In her review of Picturing Chinatown for the Journal of Asian American Studies, Volume 5, Number 2 (Johns Hopkins University Press 2002), Nancy Um wrote about one of Lee’s analysis of Chinatown’s photographs from the 1880’s as follows:

“Lee sets the stage for his inquiry by examining the earliest photographs of Chinatown, dating from the 1850s and the 1860s. He groups early views, which echo the format and the approach of contemporary regional survey photography, with a series of personal posed portraits of the Chinese population, thereby laying the groundwork for understanding the representation of Chinatown as a visual negotiation between an urban landscape and the racialized body. * * * “In the second chapter, Lee establishes Chinatown as the arena for the Bohemian flaneur who was preoccupied with the observation and the recording of his urban jaunts. Pivoting on the notion of the picturesque, Lee identifies how the dialectics of Bohemian viewing hinged on the production of a dissimilar Chinese urban landscape. As a contemporary strand, Lee describes how the white working class impulses of the 1870s and 1880s allowed for a parallel, albeit exaggerated construction of the Chinese laborer as the site of opposition, difference, and exclusion. These two narratives serve as a composite example of the ways in which the non-Chinese population of San Francisco used Chinatown as a locus for the construction of their own class and social identities.”

Given this preface, we consider four photographs taken by Isaiah West Taber of perhaps the most famous Chinatown butcher shop of the pre-1906 community. Lee himself writes that “Taber’s photograph of Chinese grocers . . . not only records one proud merchant’s full bins and hooks but also recognizes the new outward display and street orientation of the businesses.” Lee explained Taber’s fascination with Chinese business storefronts as follows:

“Despite the many ordinances designed to push the Chinese out of Chinatown and limit the quarter’s growth, the men did not leave. Only in 1882, when the first exclusion act was passed, would the Chinese be legally forced away. These are grisly actions on the part of politicians needing votes and working classes needing jobs. Without even a thin veneer of legal justification, the ordinances attempted to stifle Chinatown as an economic entity and turn the colony into a stagnant, unproductive zone. They help explain Taber’s continuing interest in Chinatown’s shops, themselves the objects of so much larger attention and hectic legal action.”

Sometime between 1885 and 1887, Taber took a series of four photos of the Cheong Wo & Co. butcher and grocery store at 847 Dupont Street (on the southwest corner of the intersection with Washington Street).

The listing for Chong (a.k.a. Cheong) Wo & Co., as it appeared in the 1882 Directory of Chinese Business Houses published by Wells Fargo Co.

The butcher shop and grocery store held a particular fascination for the historian Lee, which he describes brilliantly and at length as follows:

“The most famous of the four pictures, [no. 2960], reveals the butcher and grocers as solid presences, men whose bodies are as substantial and detailed as the goods they sell. They occupy the openings to their store and stand amid the meats and vegetables that are their business. Taber was careful to catch the strings of hanging meat and peer into the bins of yams and beans, including all the details as a good survey photographer should. He put the men in a portrait-like composition—the outside two flanking the inside two, chins held up, elbows in rhythm. The men’s eyes meet the photographer’s own, directly and unwaveringly. I believe that something of that self-possession and confidence caused Taber to try for different angles and views. . . .

”2936 Chinese butcher and Grocery Shop, Chinatown, S.F.,” no date. (Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley). The National Galleries of Scotland asserts that its print of this photograph was created in 1887.

“. . . In the other pictures, he rearranged the men, had them pivot around the central butcher, and pushed them back into the darkness. He opened his lens while the men were in motion, so as to produce blurred figures and unclear faces. He dematerialized the grocer at the far right . . . “

“3140 Chinese butcher and Grocery Shop, Chinatown, S.F.,” c. 1887 (Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley).

“. . . and by [photo no. 3140], that man has almost given way to the window and street scene behind. He returned later in the day [photo 3111], when the stock had dwindled and the shop had become less inviting. . . .”

“A Chinese Meat and Vegetable Market, Chinatown, San Francisco, Cal.” Postcard Britton & Rey , San Francisco 563 (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-ming), based on the Taber photo 3140.

“3111 Chinese butcher and Grocery Shop, Chinatown, S.F.,” c. 1887 (Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection of the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).

“He [Taber] moved his tripod to front-center in the manner of the surveyor’s view of the facade, but he pushed the butcher back into the depths, behind a carcass that hid his face. The baskets are empty; the meats that remain seem less choice. The faces of the men are drained of details, and they are much less securely tied to their goods. At the end of the day . . .”

By adjusting the lighting of the image (which I have done above), some additional details of the interior of the shop become visible, the mention of which most archives omit and Lee was no exception (based on the darkened print reproduced in his book). The partially-obscured signage of “. . . ong Wo & co” appears in the store’s interior (above center in the photo) and provided a clue to this writer as to the store’s location.

“B 11. Shop in Chinatown, S.F., Cal., c. 1887. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). The north side of Washington Street, sloping down toward the east, is visible at right.

“Taber returned again [photo B11], but this time he avoided the men completely. He stood inside the shop looking out, approximating the men’s vantage and imaginatively taking over their places. With one part of the picture devoted to the stock and the other to the wide street, he tried to capture what it might be like to own a shop in Chinatown, devoid of the Chinese. . . .”

Lee concluded from Taber’s variations observed in the four-photo series as follows:

“This sequence should not be taken as the pictorial equivalent of the exclusionists’ ordinances. Taber’s view of the Chinese in Chinatown was much more complicated and conflicted than that, caught between the interests of the survey photographer and the portraitist and full of a self-awareness about the effects of his empirical, colonialist gaze (which indeed was related to the exclusionist’s). Working out that relationship, that mode of desire, in photographic terms was his general project, but its pathos and historicity lay in its being structured within the larger, less sympathetic debates about belonging and possession raging around him. The many [anti-Chinese] ordinances gave him ample opportunity to think through the meanings of his own practice in Chinatown.”

Partial detail of “2936 Chinese butcher and Grocery Shop, Chinatown, S.F.,” no date. (Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley). Only one character, 和, of the Chinese signage is visible on the left frame of the shop entrance.

Until this article, no writer had bothered to identify the name of the business depicted in Taber’s suite of photos from the mid-1880’s. The omission has been understandable, given the fact that Taber neglected to photograph the entire sign for the business. Only one character, 和, is visible as shown in Taber photos 2936 and 3111.

Fortunately, researchers can thank at least one photographer, and Taber himself, for continued interest in the butcher and grocery shop located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Dupont and Washington Streets.

The Cheong Wo butcher shop at 847 Dupont Street, c. 1887-1899. Photographer unknown. On the left side of the door frame a wooden sign bearing two characters 昌和 (canto: “Cheung Woh”) is clearly visible. None of the shop workers appear in the photo.

The Cheong Wo store on the ground floor of the southwest corner of the intersection of Dupont and Washington streets, c. 1887-1899. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). A substantially similar, if not the identical, horse-drawn wagon as shown in the preceding photo appears at right on the Washington Street side of the corner. The double-facing signage for the 泰興 (canto: “Tai Hing”) pawnshop appears at the upper floor corner.

The Cheong Wo & Co. butcher and grocery shop at 847 Dupont Street, c. 1900. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Bettman Archive).

In or about 1900, Taber returned to that same corner, stood across Dupont Street, and photographed a trio of men standing at the curb in front of the same storefront of his favorite Chinatown butcher and grocery shop. On that occasion, the wooden plaque bearing the two characters 昌和 (canto: “cheung woh”) was clearly visible, still fixed on the upper left frame of the entrance. More important, the street address number and English lettering of the company‘s name appeared above the doorway.

Detail from the July 1885 map published by a special committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (from the Cooper Chow collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). Based on the data from contemporaneous business directories, the “C[hinese] Meat Store” occupying the 847 Dupont Street address in 1885 was the Cheong Wo & Co.

A cross-check of the address with the business directories of the era discloses that the “Cheong Wo & Co., butchers, 847 Dupont” occupied that address from at least 1879 – 1895.

Three children gather on Dupont Street near the southwestern corner of its intersection with Washington Street, c. 1890′s. Photographer unknown. The Cheong Wo butcher shop can be seen in the background at left. The Grand Chinese Theater can be seen on the north side of Washington Street at right..

The Cheong Wo & Co. at 847 Dupont Street, c. 1890s. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

A lantern slide of a customer shopping at probably the Cheong Wo & Co. store based on the partial signage appearing in the upper left-hand corner and the window enframement at the far right of this photo showing a closeup of the storefront. No date. Photographer unknown (from the private collection of Wong Yuen-Ming).

Although the Crocker-Langley directory omitted listings for Chinese businesses, either by neglect or design, in the late 1890’s, the telephone books of 1903 to 1904 indicate that the butcher shop had moved to 712 Dupont sometime around the turn of the century. Thereafter, the pioneer business of Cheong Wo & Co. disappeared from view and passed into history.

However, butcher and grocery operations would continue in the old shop space at 847 Dupont Street. The business known as Sang Wo & Co occupied the corner storefront up to the eve of the 1906 earthquake.

Detail of 1905 Sanborn Map of the southwest corner of Dupont and Washington Streets, showing the continuation of what was by then a quarter-century’s use of the space at 847 Dupont as a meat counter and grocery store.

After Chinatown was rebuilt in the aftermath of the 1906 disaster, the “Sang Wo, Wholesale & Retail Butchers” would resume doing business at the same Chinatown street corner – renumbered as 867 Grant Avenue -- according to the international Chinese business directory of 1913. Perhaps it also served as a symbol to Chinatown’s post-quake residents of the continued vitality of the community’s commerce.

The interior of Sang Wo, c. 1908. (Photographer unknown from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library). The Chinese characters for the company name, 生和 (canto: “Saang Wo”) appear on the large sign seen in the rear of the store. This meat and grocery store reestablished itself at 867 Grant Avenue after the Great Earthquake and continued to do business at the southwest corner of Grant and Washington Streets until 1978.

“Chinese Butcher Shop” c. 1908. Postcard based on the preceding photograph.

[updated 2024-1-1]

#Cheong Wo & Co.#Chinese butcher and grocery store #I.W. Taber #847 Dupont St.#Anthony W. Lee #Picturing Chinatown #Sang Wo #Grand Chinese Theater #Washington Street #Tai Hing pawnshop

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huskyloverij · 2 years

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Currently working on flaneurs graphic novel , it's taking much longer than expected but it shall be worth it in the end, probably, for those who even care lol

Also MERCH!

So that's about it atm, if you're wondering why I'm spam posting, it's because I'm new and trying to get out there! I've spent almost a year now on my book series and stuff and I'm happy I'm getting a chance too share it with others on a platform like this!

Top read Togm1+2 it's on whatpadd (ik ha ha smutty app) under the name

those odd graveyard murmurs fox tails

and

Those odd graveyard murmurs legend of polaris

I'm known on tt as: gloryqweenofrainwings

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krisztamayer8 · 3 months

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Broader research

Beginning to look at research for sign writing this website opened my mind to the varying cultures that use sign writing across the globe.

The link talk about sign writing being known as 'the other muralist' in Mexico.

Im not sure if this is an area that is that relatable to me and something that is sparking many ideas.

LO1 & LO2

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alemicheli76 · 5 months

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"Delitto a Dogali. La prima epopea coloniale italiana" di Daniele Cellammare, Les Flaneurs. A cura di Ilaria Grossi

Nel 1890 viene costituita la prima Colonia Eritrea con capitale Massaua, la vittoria e conquista italiana è il traguardo di una serie di continue e aspre battaglie in un territorio ostile e per niente amichevole della politica coloniale italiana del 1885.La sete di conquista, obiettivo principale di Roma è così forte da non tener conto delle situazioni inumane in cui vivono i soldati tra clima…

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rayshellearningjournal · 5 months

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Research into Modernity Concept/Issue

Derive and Psychogeography

I chose to write on the concept of ‘Derive’ and ‘Psychogeography.’ Derive is the French word for ‘drift,’ meaning to make an “unplanned journey through a landscape.” (McDonough, 2004) This is usually done in an urban setting. Participants of the derive usually don’t focus on the direction in which they’re going or their destination. They “stop focusing on their everyday relations to their social environment.” Derive is linked with “psychogeography,’ which involves the observation of a city’s terrain and how geographical location can affect ‘the emotion and behaviour of individuals.” (Tate, n.d.) It is described as “the intersection of psychology and geography” and how “psychological experiences of the city illuminates forgotten aspects of the human environment.” (Lyons, 2017)

The Derive was an idea developed by the Letterist International, a group of radical artists that were prominent in the 1950s. Guy Debord was the member who publicly introduced the concept in his book ‘Theory of the Derive’ which was written in 1956. Writer and psychogeogrpaher Wilfried Hou Je Bek wrote “psychogeography is the fact that you have an opinion about a space the moment you step into it.” (O’Rourke, 2021) Psychogeographers “advocate the art of becoming lost in the city” which is done through the derive.

This concept is linked to Modernity because in derives, people can observe changes in cities as they are always changing. New buildings are being built or gentrified. In relation to the derive and its link with modernity, there is the relevant term called The ‘Flaneur.’ This is another French word for ‘stroller’ or ‘wanderer’. ‘Flaneur’ is represented as a man and is an “ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity.” This depicts the ability to wander around detached from society, the only purpose is to be an “acute observer of industrialised, contemporary life.” According to Bijan Stephen in his 2013 Paris Review article, Bijan Stephen had stated that the use of the Flaneur “is a vehicle for the examination of the conditions of modernity.” (Stephen, 2013)

This concept interests me because I also like to observe my surroundings when I’m outdoors. I always connect to my senses and let myself feel when I’m walking through the city, especially in the evenings where the ambience feels stronger. For my project, I’m personally going on derives in places in the city I find myself in and recording it in videos and photography.

An example of this topic in visual culture is Dustin Yellin's series called 'Psychogeographies.' This series is a collection of "fantastical colages encased within layers of glass." (Mitchell, 2015) They are presented uniquely in life-size humanoid figures. They are pieced together with drawings, paintings and magazine clippings that are stacked between glass planes. Psychogeography is described to be a "toy-box full of inventive stategies for exploring cities." (Waldman, 2014) For Yellin, his toy box is "full of everything he finds on the street - flowers, leaves, bugs, and even dead rats," which he also uses for his thee-dimensional collages sealed in resin.

Reference List

Lyons, S (2017) ‘Psychogeography: a way to delve into the soul of a city’. The conversation, Available at: Psychogeography: a way to delve into the soul of a city (theconversation.com)

Mcdonough, T (2004) ‘Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents, Boston, October Press

Mitchell, K (2015) 'Three Dimensrional Human Collages Encased in Layers of Glass', My Modern Met, Available at: Three-Dimensional Human Collages Encased in Layers of Glass (mymodernmet.com)

O’Rourke, K (2021) ‘Psychogeography: A Purposeful Drift Through the City,’ The Mit Press Reader

Stephen, B (2013) ‘In Praise of the Flaneur’, The Paris Review

Tate, (n.d.) ‘Art Term: Psychogeography, Tate) Available at:: Psychogeography | Tate

Walman, J (2014) 'Psychogeographies: 3D Collages Encased in Layers of Glass by Dustin Yellin' Colossal, Available at: Psychogeographies: 3D Collages Encased in Layers of Glass by Dustin Yellin — Colossal (thisiscolossal.com)

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luv-tiffanyblue · 2 years

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Prologue

Synopsis: She was a lady born into French royalty and the royal court where she was highly beloved, only to meet her end at a young age and became a forgotten figure to history. The end she met became her stroke of fate as she was given a second chance to live again, forever. This is the story about (Y/n) De Auclair’s life where her new life gave her an adventure with a family and love that she never thought she would gain.

↳Jasper Hale x OC! Reader

Word count: 3k (3,055) words

Taglist: currently open; 5/10 positions (will be added more if more people are interested)

Content warnings: blood mentioned, drinking/ hunting for blood mentioned, Jasper feeling weird, & that’s all, but let me know if I missed any!

Moulage pt.3 ⚜️ Masterlist ⚜️ Chapter 1: Il Était Une Fois

Winter.

A period of quiet reflections and new beginnings of a new year as an old year ends.

The season is associated and centered with darker topics than the rest of the others. The cold and dark are the main symbols of the winter with despair seen as the last symbol. Usually, it can also be viewed as survival and the end of life as many living beings die or prepare to survive the harsh season to live to see gentle spring.

However, many may see it as a warning of their loneliness arriving soon. Not having anyone to enjoy the events that occur in the winter and having to be alone. Which might make them feel the longline with the view of seeing those around them be happy.

The winters in New York were known for their soft powdery snow that if it was picked up, would fall like pixie dust from your hands. The city’s snow had the purest white color out of all the states as it hails from their sky. From their sky, formed fluffy white clouds that were now a light gray, glooming over the state in exchange to produce their pure snow. And with that, it’s how the people of the city begin to change their daily routine from summer to winter.

Once the first snowfall lays on the ground, that's when the people of New York exchange their thin clothing for thicker clothes and the holiday festivities start. Every inch and corner of the city was to be covered by snowfall, as December started. Leaving their crystal water lakes and ponds to become frozen and turned into ice rinks for the people to enjoy. Snowmen with tophats and carrot noses start to appear on the sidewalk and parks, greeting those who walk by. Hot chocolate stands start to pop up around neighborhoods making the children beg their parents to buy them a cup.

However, the most popular and well-known holiday activity to do once early December hits is to watch the Nutcracker. It had become one of the favored Christmas time activities once it became introduced in the 1940s. The city was known for its performing arts and theater centers, so of course, the nutcracker was a new performing arts event that had now been added to the city's list. Almost every family tries to see it every year allowing ballet companies to extend show dates. Even travelers from different states come to New York to see it as there was a high chance no company there will host it.

Coming down from the upper north was a trio, a group of nomad vampires that contained two males and one girl. With one of the males being the mate of the girl. The three of them traveled not far to enter the city, wearing light winter clothing on their bodies compared to the New Yorkers. They got glances from the people as they walked by due to that, but the cold does not bother them as being a vampire and dead contributes to that factor.

The group of vampires was in the city for one reason only, which was to watch The Nutcracker, and then they could go back home. The only woman in the group, Charlotte, had convinced the two to watch the ballet as a way to celebrate the holidays. Of course, Peter, her mate, and Jasper, her close friend, had agreed to make her happy, which they did. As it was now why the trio was walking through the streets of New York City to the theater.

"It's up ahead on the street,” Charlotte exclaimed, gripping her mate’s hand tightly that making him wince. She picked up her pace to walk faster, dragging Peter with her who cannot take her excitement. As it is why, he hasn't said a word about her grip on him, so he wouldn't make her replace her excitement with guilt.

Peter looked behind him to lock eyes with his best friend, Jasper, as a way to plead with him to use his powers over Charlotte. He did love her and her excitement for the activity that they were going to do, but he could only handle so much of her. It was a way to calm her down before she would accidentally expose her abilities as a vampire due to her excitement. As well as Peter who was being treated as a rag doll by her the entire time of walking to the water with Jasper slightly behind them.

Jasper’s red eyes looked back at his friends with a hidden amusement behind them and a small smile on their faces. He just shook his head no to the side as his friend's antics entrained him. He did not want to be scolded by an angry Charlotte since she would know that he used his power on her. The reaction of Peters's face dropped at his answer made him let out a small chuckle from his lips with Peter not as amused as him.

And right before the trio’s eyes was the magnificent Palace theater located in the middle of the City. The Nutcracker's name was displayed out front of the building with the flashing bright lights lit up around it. People were dressed up in their formal evening wear as the sun had begun to set and were entering the venue. It made the three feel a little undressed, but they didn't care either way.

Charlotte began to walk towards the theater like a child in a candy store with Peter in hand as the giant lollipop.

While Jasper had a slower pace while walking to enjoy the scenery of the city as it was his first time there. His eyes roamed through the sights, the buildings, and the entire area around him until something caught his eyes. it was the ballet's official poster plastered onto the wall to show off to any on-lookers or to those that pass by.

The poster showed a single ballerina dressed in an icy blue-pink outfit and pink pointe shoes on her feet. A large award-winning smile appeared on her face as her light-colored eyes stared to the side. Her entire body was supported on one-pointed foot with the other behind her at a 90-degree angle and her arms reaching out. Above her body read the New York City Ballet company that represents Nutcracker with the dates, but it did not include who was the dancer on the poster.

Jasper could not help but felt intrigued by the poster that show the ballerina. He felt some type of feeling inside his body that he could not put his finger on and describe.

Expect, it might just be his hunger warning him to feed soon as he is surrounded by humans whose blood is pumping through their bodies. It also does not help that the ballerina has her neck stretched out showing her pale white skin that seems to glisten under the poster. It made his mouth somewhat water at the sight of her neck.

Yup. Jasper has to go hunting after this event with Charlotte and Peter. His hunger would probably get worse over time later, but he only gets that feeling when looking at the poster. He shook off that feeling when he heard Charlotte from afar saying his name, thanks to his vampire hearing.

“Jasper! Come on! We have to go inside and find our seats,” Charlotte quickly explained, still excited about the ballet even as they stood outside the venue.

Peter smiled moving his head towards the theater as a way to tell his friend to hurry up. He's also still in his mate’s tight grip as he just wants Jasper to catch up, so they could go inside and be free once they sit down.

Jasper looks forward to where the couple is and smiles at them. When he walks away from the poster, he could not help but felt weird letting go of that feeling he had. It felt sudden for it to go away quickly once he looked away and took one step back from it. The occurrence and feelings had slightly disturbed him but left it alone as he goes to keep up with the others.

The trio had entered the venue that was covered in Christmas and snow-related decorations as it was now the holidays. They were amazed by the popularity and cheer it brought to people while walking through the crowd. The inside contained a sea of people who were entering and leaving the restrooms or theater. It was rather a tight squeeze to navigate through for the three but they were able to go towards the theater and found their seats easily thanks to an available seat attendant.

Once they were seated and comfortable, they stared around the theater taking in the view as everyone started to get into their seats. Their view was perfect from where they were sitting, the seats were in the middle of the theater on the floor. It allowed them to set their eyes on the stage which was centered perfectly in the middle with no one's head blocking any one of them. Not to mention, their sight was enhanced as well due to being a vampire. Therefore, allowing them to see the stage in perfect vision with every detail noticeable to their deep red-colored eyes.

Charlotte's eyes could not help but stare at everything inside the theater and the stage. The scenery was completely new to her as she has never seen anything like this even before turning. "Isn't this place just beautiful to look at?“ loudly sighed the woman whose shoulders moved down from her question. "It is just gorgeous to look at,” Charlotte said, before adding, “even though we are a tad underdressed for this event.” Her hand slid down from Peter's upper limb to his forearm, slightly squeezing it while her eyes moved away from the stage and then to the other two.

That brought the two’s attention from what they were staring at to now her. They mentally agreed with her being underdressed, but they didn't care either way.

Jasper made a small hand gesture towards their surroundings commenting, “I do have to admit that I've never been in a place like this when I was with Maria."

"I've seen places like this in newspapers, but now I'm able to experience it. And with you two,” Peter added, patting Jasper's shoulder and squeezing his lover's thigh gently. He looked at Jasper due to him not leaving the Mexican coven not long ago and haven't been exposed much. So, he had to ask, “are you doing alright? Especially, with the huge crowds of people.”

Jasper gave him a small smile before answering, “I'm alright. Probably might have to hunt later after this." However, he didn't have the need or feeling to hunt for the next few days but just in case something might happen.

Peter nodded and was going to answer, but the music started to play aloud from the orchestra pit allowing the notes to fill the room. Which made Charlotte tug on his sleeve and her finger on her lips to hush the two. Their attention went towards the giant red curtain on stage as they wait for it to be drawn up.

The music began to reach the people's ears making their voices die down along with the mutters until it went completely silent. Now, the only thing being heard in the room was the music of the Nutcracker being played. The curtain was now being drawn up allowing the audience to see the set of the stage as the Nutcracker has officially now begun.

The Nutcracker in Jasper's opinion was that it was wonderful and entertaining to watch. Expect, the show just finished its first act which was about 40 minutes to an hour long, before they announced a short ten-minute intermission before they would move on to act two. It allowed the audience a small break to sneak in a stretch from sitting down or buying a snack before the show resumes again.

A couple of the trio had gone to see if any items of the show were being sold while Jasper stayed in his seat. He did enjoy the dancers and the show, but he could not get over the feeling from earlier. His body wanted to feel that urge and emotion he felt when he stared at that poster. He knew that he would be bothered about this until he could figure out what is happening.

As Jasper was deep into his thoughts, an announcement was made stating that the show would start soon and would like people to get back to their seats before the curtains are drawn back up. He noticed his friends coming back from the outside to where he was as the audience began to fill back up. And he began to mentally prepare himself for act two of the Nutcracker with how long it would be before another break was given.

Expect, a certain presence had appeared in his surroundings that he did not notice earlier and now sensed in the building. The presence was not quite strong around him, but he could feel it and wanted to just hunt it down. However, he could not just drop his plans with his best friends and leave early in the show. Jasper could only hope that the presence would stay until the end of the show and he could track the being with that presence.

The giant red curtains had drawn back up showing a now decorated land of sweets with the dancers in different costumes and the music playing loudly as ever. Everything was wonderful as Clara and the prince appeared again and the people welcomed him back with Clara. Multiple dances were being performed Jasper noticed the presence from earlier now became stronger.

He looked down at the booklet given to him earlier that contains the performances in the acts and started to go through them. His blood-red eyes went past act one towards act two seeing that the Waltz of the flowers was more than halfway done. A pas de deux dance next contains a guest soloist appearance as one of the important roles, the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Jasper looked back up noticing the waltz of flowers had finished with the music now changing into the iconic Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The corps de ballet had moved back slightly from the center with smiles still on their faces. While Clara and the prince haven't moved and only looked in the direction of a new performer coming on stage.

The fairy's Cavalier had now appeared on stage where he smiled with his hand out to the side where he had come out of. This made everyone look to where his hand was reaching out to. A small pale hand reached out to the Cavalier’s hand, grasping it which allowed him to walk forward out to the center stage. He guided the person out behind him to show the one and only, Sugar Plum Fairy.

As they made it to the center of the stage, the two began to dance together to the music being played.

He noticed that the presence had become the strongest yet with a scent now appearing to his senses as it filled his nose. A soft, sweetly fresh aroma of white raspberries being freshly picked, daisy petals that are plucked, and a hint of sugar base musk pulled Jasper in. As soon as that fragrance hit him, all he wanted to do was pull that person with the scent towards him and hug them. it made his eyes almost black and roll back due to the feeling as the aroma did not help him.

When he got out of his trance, his red eyes located the owner of that intoxicating aroma and it landed right at the Sugar Plum Fairy. She had gorgeous (h/c) hair pulled back into a middle bun that was decorated in sparkles and a crown on top. it exposed her extended pale neck candy necklace wearing as a large smile appeared pink colored lips that reached her golden eyes. Her body had a beautiful handmade icy blue tutu with pink accents shown on the bodice and tutu.

Her skin seemed to sparkle brightly underneath the stage lights with every movement onstage. Her feet had on pointe shoes that looked to be new as she stood on the box of them, separating way from her cavalier. She became the diamond of the entire production as her partner went beside her to hold her waist to guide her.

Her features had away Jasper's attention the moment his eyes met her body and it never left her movements. When she extended any part of her body, it created the illusion of her being taller. The way she smoothly did the movements of the dance across the stage made it seem like it was easy to do. Especially, as if she had done it in her entire life just doing this single role. No mistakes could have been made with her being cast and only seemed perfect to the audience. Everything that the ballerina had done seemed flawless while captivating the audience, especially Jasper.

The entire time, the fairy was on stage, his eyes would not leave her, whether it be standing on stage or dancing he would only stare at her. He felt that if he looked somewhere she would leave and leave the faint smell of her scent behind. Inside, he knew that she would become important to him which was why his eyes were glued to her.

It was time for the final bows as every performer had bowed in order of their appearance. The only one left was the Sugar Plum Fairy as she walked to the front and went on one knee to the side, bowing deeply. The audience cheered loudly at her sight with Jasper standing up for her as he clapped loudly. While not moving his eyes away once.

As she moved her head back up, her golden eyes scanned the audience, only to meet blood-red eyes in return, right as the curtains were drawn back down.

Moulage pt.3 ⚜️ Masterlist ⚜️ Chapter 1: Il Était Une Fois

Fun facts:

Charlotte had to beg Peter and Jasper for weeks to see this ballet since November and the two agreed within the first week of December. (They cave in once she became very upset and acknowledged her weeks of asking).

Every poster (the one Jasper had seen) had to be hand painted after getting off the press where they had to match (Y/n)’s skin tone and paint over any of her skin showing as those parts seemed to be sparkling too much from the lights and flashes that it seemed to be too much for the eyes. No one could figure out had to fix it, even with the lighting until one suggest this idea.

Peter and Charlotte noticed Jaspers gaze at the poster and wondered why he was frozen like that, but they knew it wasn’t his thirst, so it had to be something else. *spoiler* they will later realize why after the show (this will be later written in the series, but not sure when)

Charlotte's begging to see the ballet is actually based off from a real life event experience that the author,Luvblue, had did where she begged her dad to see Sleeping Beauty the ballet with cousins which he would later agree to let her and brought the tickets.

A/n: Yay, the prologue is done no I hope you’re satisfied with it! The original idea for the prologue came from a fun fact I was going to publish, but transformed it into the prologue. As well as saying that updates will be very slow due to my writing process and other personal stuff (school and family and etc) that would take a majority of my time. I hope you enjoy the fun facts and the series so far!

Disclaimer: ©luv-tiffanyblue 2022 rights reserved-please do not repost/translate/modify/copy my work on other platforms unless changed in rules! Please look at my info about my other writing platforms!

🏷 : @superkittywonderland @darlincvllen @xcharlottemikaelsonx @xanniestired666 @who-actually-cares-anymore

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mamotreco · 2 years

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Shot on Fujifilm X System by Mamotreco. Flaneur Photography.

My photography vids on YouTube (click here 📷) My music on Bandcamp (click here 📀).

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laragazzacadutanellimbo · 5 months

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"Desideravo vivere di nuovo e poi di nuovo ancora. Ero pronto ad accettare qualunque genere di vita, anche se piena di dolori e sofferenze; sentivo che solo una serie infinita di vite poteva soddisfare la mia avidità, il mio vigore e la mia curiosità".

Dell'intero romanzo, con le sue descrizioni accurate e le sue analisi psicologiche tipiche della scrittura raffinata di W. Somerset Maugham, é fondamentale il personaggio di Larry, conosciuto da Maugham tramite l'amico Elliot. Anche Elliot viene descritto e anche Elliot sembrerebbe avere una personalità alquanto misera, é un flaneur che ha una vita tutta dedita alla superficialità, alle cene e ai pomeriggi in casa dei ricchi, ad attirare a sé nobili e ad organizzare feste esibendo il proprio denaro (che scaltramente non perse durante il crollo di Wall Street).

Larry cammina sul filo del rasoio, o meglio, decide di camminare sul filo del rasoio perché la guerra lo conduce alla conoscenza del male. Nonostante molti abbiano trovato nuovamente la strada per guarire dai segni traumatici della Prima Guerra Mondiale, trovando un lavoro redditizio nella ricca America e creandosi una famiglia con unioni fruttuose, Larry non é tra questi giovani. Larry comincia a chiedersi il senso della vita, della morte, del bene e del male. Larry ha la mente costantemente piena di domande e l'unica soluzione é abbandonare l'amore per Isabel e quella sicura e ricca America per fare un "aspro cammino verso la salvezza".

Anche Isabel sembrerebbe dedita ad una superficialità e ad una ricchezza che é lo specchio degli Stati Uniti del dopoguerra, non ancora a conoscenza di quello che sarebbe avvenuto dopo: il crollo di Wall Street e la Grande Depressione. Tuttavia é una giovane intelligente, che nutrirá sempre il rimorso di non avere avuto una vita con l'amato Larry.

Larry compie moltissimi viaggi e si nutre di molte esperienze non disdegnando del lavoro nei campi o in miniera. In India sembra trovare la grande risposta, che in realtà risulta essere più una consolazione spirituale, secondo la quale il male e il bene sono processi naturali e l'unico modo per non soccombere é quello di adattarsi a questi processi.

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corkcitylibraries · 1 year

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Cork in Verse | Ana Spehar Interviews Mona Lynch

Mona Lynch graduated with an MA in Creative Writing in UCC in 2018. She is a poet, a short story writer and memoirist. She was invited to read at the opening of the Cork International Poetry festival in 2022. Her work has been published in the Examiner, Echo, Quarryman. Howl Magazine, Swerve, Voices from the Land, The World Transformed Anthology and currently has a poem on the Blarney walk as part of Patricia Looney’s Cork City Library Poetry in the Park project.She has been awarded grants by Munster Literature Society and The Arts Council.

Is there a common theme, style or structure you find yourself leaning to in your poems? Where do you seek inspiration from?

For the moment, the theme of my poems seems to be memoir related to where I grew up. My village, which I left to marry aged 21 in 1962, holds so many memories. Blarney is well known as a tourist destination, but there is, and always was, so much more to it. Once, the area of highest employment in Ireland with its woollen mills, paper mills and its famous Hydrotherapy unit. I like to write about the countryside there, my schooldays and home life. I like free verse, and if undecided about form I fall back on two-line verses, couplets.

I love the challenge of trying the different poetic forms as in Sonnets, villanelles etc. I am trying now to write a Flaneur, to wander around Cork city and write about its people and society.

Would you look on writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

I’m not sure if writing is a spiritual practice but I do find it calming. In 2016 I was seventy-five, my grandchildren grown up, when I decided to try something new, with no formal education past the age of sixteen, I was delighted to be accepted in UCC to do a master’s in creative writing. At that stage poetry was of no particular interest to me, but I had to choose it as a module in the course. There, I met poet Leanne O Sullivan and from the first class with Leanne I felt something fall into place in my life, like it was something I always needed but didn’t realise.

Do you have a favourite writing space? How often do you write?

My favourite writing space is in a spare bedroom, with my desk overlooking the garden. I write every day; I have no routine. I wish I was more at home with technology and could record as I drive or walk around. I find I do my best writing in my head when driving my car, and it’s gone when I get home. I have always loved light classical music and use music as a subject in my poems sometimes. Currently I am working on my first poetry collection, and I am being mentored by the wonderful poet Tom McCarthy with the help of an Arts Council grant. I belong to a few groups who meet on Zoom and keeping up with their prompts and challenges is also demanding.

What advice would you give to someone who just started writing?

Let nothing stop you, no one has your voice, your story, it needs to be heard. Find other people who write, join a group. Feedback is healthy and necessary for your work to develop. Read, read, and read again other poets, some you won’t like or understand, but there will be loads of people whose poems resonate with you, but keep your own voice and develop your skills. Get a list from the Irish Writers website of places to send your poems and send them off, get used to rejection, but the joy of having one accepted makes it all worthwhile.

What book would you recommend to our readers?

There are loads of books out there, but top of my list would be a book from Tech Yourself series Write Poetry and get it Published by Matthew Sweeney and John Hartley Williams and the other book is Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider.

Reverberations

My heart knows the taste of the earth there,

the zing of rain on my face.

The fields, roads, bear my footprints.

While sand seeps through time, I need to go back,

battle with the traffic today,

where once only the local hackney reigned.

The bell rings out full of depth, a voice calls,

drawing the parish together,

a network of fields, lake, woods, even a castle.

Across from the church stands the factory gates, quiet now.

Once, its discordant hooter vied for attention with the bell.

It called women in wrap- around aprons,

skilled at warping and weaving.

men in overalls, rags dangling

from back pockets kept the machines singing.

They gathered again on Sundays answering the bell.

In polished shoes and white collars, they came.

while I knelt and watched my freckle faced brother

the altar boy, in his starched surplice and soutane

swinging the thurible, participating in a world

closed to us girls. We all took steps to freedom,

but chains of memory shackle us.

Daily Rituals

Every day my mother made a wheel of soda bread,

one foot round, deep crossed.

While it cooled on the windowsill,

she climbed the cobbles, to the sound of the Angelus bell

from the church on the hill,

to be enfolded in a cloak of incense,

lulled by the tinkling of the thurible.

She was playing Forty-Five in Christy’s Hotel

the night the ambulance took her.

She played a trump card and collapsed.

Later when I visited, she told me

she promised the Sacred Heart she would give up the fags

if he gave her another chance.

How do I make the soda bread, I asked?

A fist of brown, a fist of white

A pinch of soda, a pinch of salt

Sour milk to mix, she rhymed.

I mixed, I stirred,

Even the dog declined.

I never felt the weight of her fist, or the size of her pinch.

#corkcitylibraries #corkinverse

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sandrateitge · 1 year

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gossip, fleeting moments, and performances

29.11. – 26.12.2021 Vitrines at Ku’damm Berlin

Queerness, writes José Esteban Muñoz in Ephemera as Evidence, is often transmitted in secret: "Instead of being clearly available as visible evidence, queerness has instead existed as innuendo, gossip, fleeting moments, and performances (...)." Appropriating the fleeting and implicating strategies of gossip allows those who are part of this sphere to interact with each other – while it evaporates when in contact with non-queer otherness. gossip, fleeting moments, and performances, act 2 of the research platform GOSSIP GOSSIP GOSSIP, places queer strategies in a series of video works in the public space along the commercialized Ku'damm – during the (shopping mad) pre-Christmas season –, and with them the "sousentendus, alienations, exaggerations, ironies, travesties" (Fichte) that characterize queer language. The artists Jasmina Al-Qaisi, Samantha Bohatsch, Anna Ehrenstein, Laure Prouvost, and Roseline Rannoch deal with gossip in up to 14 simultaneous vitrines that are otherwise reserved for advertising – expanded by a sonic activation in public space by Banu Çiçek Tülü and an audio tour by Flaneur Magazine. They all use the hidden and subversive strategies of gossip, which can be similar to the strategies of advertising, thus providing ephemeral evidence of affect, sexuality, and gender and interrupting the otherwise conventional and normative flow of advertising presented in the vitrines along Ku'damm. gossip, fleeting moments, and performances was part of the initiative DRAUSSENSTADT, funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Foundation for Cultural Education and Cultural Consulting. With the kind support of the Bureau des arts plastiques of the French Institute Germany and the French Culture Minister. Photo documentation: Victoria Tomaschko

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tasteoftravel · 2 years

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As everywhere in human life

Here, as everywhere in human life, we must take the evil with the good. It is idle, peevish, retrograde, to rail at the inevitable, or to cry out for the past. There has been awful, wanton, brutal destruction; there have been corruption and plunder; there has been vile art, making itself the pander to folly and lust; there have been cruel disregard of the poor and inhuman orgies of wealth and power, in all this series of transformation scenes which Paris has seen. No man can again recall to us the exquisite fancies carved on stone and on jewelled windows of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Perhaps it was better to cart them away than to furbish them anew with gewgaw restorations. But modern life in a vast city could not endure this plethora of obsolete churches and useless convents in its midst, and the friars, black, white, and grey, had to go with all their belongings.

Dark alleys are delicious in etchings; but they are the nests of disease, vice; and death. A city of two millions cannot breathe within the winding lanes which sufficed the burghers of the fourteenth century within their gloomy ramparts. Haussmann and his myrmidons may have amassed fortunes; but the world is still searching, lantern in hand like Diogenes, for a wise, just, incorruptible municipal authority. The art which has created modern Paris is not high art, is not true art, is in many ways most meretricious art; and in its chef d’oeuvre, the new Opera, it has reached the pinnacle of vulgar display private turkey tours. But, take it all and all, Paris can show us the brightest, most inventive, and least Musquin street architecture which the nineteenth century can achieve, and certainly the most imperial civic organization which Europe can produce.

Complex problem

There is much to be said on all sides of this complex problem; the catholic, the legitimist, the republican, the antiquarian, the artist, the poet, the socialist, the economist, even the tourist, may be listened to with sympathy in turn. Let us gnash our teeth at the tale told us by the student of old art; let us drop a tear over the wail of the dispossessed orders; let us linger over every fragment of the past which the historian can point out as spared in the havoc; let us listen to the story of the dispossessed workman; let us study the statistics of the old and the new city; let us stroll with the flaneur on the boulevards; but let us not say that it is either altogether evil or altogether good. Modern Paris is the creation of the Revolution of 1789, and, like most of the creations of that mighty and pregnant epoch, it has the soul of good in things evil; deplorable waste and error in the midst of inevitable and indispensable reform.

A city is made to live in. Now, a serious defect in old Paris was that it was a city in which men died. Down to the Revolution of 1789, the annual deaths exceeded the annual births. Since the Revolution the births exceed the deaths. The birth-rate in Paris is low, and the death-rate is high, as compared with that of London and English towns to-day; but the birth-rate of Paris is now much in excess of the death-rate.

The total deaths in modern Paris are but double the actual deaths in 1789, though the population is now nearly four times as great. The death- rate of old Paris was far higher than that of any actual city of Western Europe, and for a parallel to it we must now go to the cities of the East. The death-rate of Paris is still high, for it is largely increased by the almost deliberate destruction of infant life. But before the Revolution, we must take it that some three or four thousand lives were annually sacrificed to insanitary conditions. The sanitary condition of Paris in the middle of the last century was, indeed, that of Cairo or Constantinople. Drinking- water taken direct from the Seine, open sewers, cemeteries, and charnel-houses in the heart of the city, infected and squalid lanes, dirt, decay, and disorder made life precarious, and scattered disease wholesale. The marvel is that pestilence was ever absent.

This was no accident; nor was it due to apathy or ignorance in the people of Paris. It was a direct result of the Old Regime — the deliberate act of the Monarchy, the Church, and the Nobility. Its causes were political. Paris presented in herself an epitome of all the vices, follies, inhumanities, and solecisms of the Old System. Everything official was effete, barbarous, injurious to modern civilisation; all that prerogative, privilege, superstition, and caste could do to crush a great capital, was done. No consideration of the health, comfort, or needs of the great city affected Louis xi v. or Louis xv.

#As everywhere in human life

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