milkweed

"To write in a journal is to consciously or unconsciously acknowledge the corrosive capabilities of..."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:51:49 +0100

“To write in a journal is to consciously or unconsciously acknowledge the corrosive capabilities of time. Journal writing is an act of mummification: one embalms the present in expectation of a future hunger for remembrance.”

- Hannah Kingsley-Ma, The Rumpus

I love my fam a heart-sickeningly amount.

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:24:00 +0100

I love my fam a heart-sickeningly amount.

“Northern Lights” - Allo Darlin

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:19:21 +0100

“Northern Lights” - Allo Darlin

"My friend Emily Prince designed and embroidered it for me. I wanted an album cover that depicted..."

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 03:31:18 +0100

“

My friend Emily Prince designed and embroidered it for me. I wanted an album cover that depicted real, touchable, substantial materials & handiwork (partly because of the album title, with its references to mending, and its excerption from the album’s central song—”Sadie”—which is full of sewing-related lyrics). It was actually a sort of distressing thing, initially, because I wanted to include everything significant and beautiful to me, and I didn’t know how that could be done. Emily and I started by itemising some objects which have accrued symbolic, nostalgic strength for us over the years (like narwhales, owls, hot air balloons, skeletons). We decided that she’d embroider these, and have them inhabit little fields of calico and burlap, the edges of which could touch and intersect, to give a sense of dense, almost airless amalgamation…because I think those symbols are at their most powerful when they brush up against each other. I’ve always been sort of obsessed by the alchemy of closeness, of cramming things together, compacting myth denser and denser.

Then we started collecting real objects… teeth, feathers, buttons, bones, acorns, a dead butterfly, leaves, coins, that sort of thing. And Emily attached them all to her tapestry. The photo went right in the center, with a macaroni frame, so it looked sort of like something a third-grader would make as a Mother’s Day gift, and sort of like a shrine for a dead person.

”

- Joanna Newsom on the cover of her album, The Milk-Eyed Mender

Books are friends that never leave.

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:36:24 +0100

Books are friends that never leave.

“Automechanic” - Jenny O.

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 02:17:14 +0000

“Automechanic” - Jenny O.

"Now, there are also plenty of other really great reasons not to talk about Dunham’s attractiveness..."

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:52:15 +0000

“Now, there are also plenty of other really great reasons not to talk about Dunham’s attractiveness or lack thereof — women: not reducible to objects, even when they’re on screens and stuff — but assuming it’s going to come up (and sometimes is even one of the things a movie/TV show/etc is trying to bring up), the most basic thought that should be in a man’s mind is: “I am not an arbiter of what is attractive.” This is pretty basic self-awareness stuff, but there it is: You can acknowledge someone is outside the norm without assigning a value to that fact. More to the point, unless the question is explicitly “Do you find Person X attractive?” — which, just to spell it out here, it effectively never is in a cultural criticism context — your opinion on the matter does not matter one tiny, goddamn iota.”

- David Barry

Li Hui I couldn’t not post this.

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:20:00 +0000

Li Hui

I couldn’t not post this.

“Cry for Judas” - The Mountain Goats

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:13:22 +0000

“Cry for Judas” - The Mountain Goats

This has completely ruined Saved by the Bell for me.

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 02:15:00 +0000

This has completely ruined Saved by the Bell for me.

Francois Harland

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:27:15 +0000

Francois Harland

“We The Common” - Thao and the Get Down Stay Down

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:26:49 +0000

“We The Common” - Thao and the Get Down Stay Down

A Brief History of the Elusive Card Carrying Feminist

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 01:41:39 +0000

roxanegay:

Rumors of the Feminist Card began circulating in the late 1800s and early 1900s during the rise of the women’s suffrage movement. Women who identified with the sociopolitically unpopular notion that women were equal to men would mysteriously receive a small card, by post, with the word FEMINIST, printed on one side in black ink, the other side blank. These cards were considered dangerous, and the consequences, should a woman be found with her FEMINIST card, were grave, so many women hid their feminist cards in the hems of their skirts or near their G-spots where they knew their husbands would never find them. When questioned about their cards, these women denied such existence vehemently, a practice that continues until today.

The FEMINIST cards were useful for allowing feminists to find like-minded women in a time when few women could publicly share their seemingly heretical ideas about equality. In church or other such male-approved gatherings, women would surreptitiously hold their FEMINIST card in a gloved left hand, and look around to see if other women were presenting their cards as such. After, these women would congregate in each other’s parlors to discuss freedom, voting, getting rid of corsets, and the latest skin treatments under the guise of sewing circles and “charity” work.

Once women received the right to vote, rather than become part of the mainstream, card carrying feminists became even more secretive. Women in the public eye would openly declare, to anyone who would listen, “I am not a card carrying feminist,” even though such was rarely the case. The more vehement the disavowals, it was often discovered, the more ardent the feminist.

In the 1970s, FEMINIST cards began appearing at women’s homes with much more frequency and before long, nearly one in three women had a FEMINIST card hidden somewhere in her home or on her person. Today, women holding these cards still congregate wherever and whenever, exchanging bold ideas about the future of women. When they are together, they proudly admit they are card carrying feminists.

John Crawford

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:04:51 +0000

John Crawford

“Old Friend” - Sea Wolf

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:03:43 +0000

“Old Friend” - Sea Wolf

"I thought I understood it, that I could grasp it, but I didn’t, not really. Only the..."

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:02:34 +0000

“I thought I understood it, that I could grasp it, but I didn’t, not really. Only the smudgeness of it; the pink-slippered, all-containered, semi-precious eagerness of it. I didn’t realize it would sometimes be more than whole, that the wholeness was a rather luxurious idea. Because it’s the halves that halve you in half. I didn’t know, don’t know, about the in-between bits; the gory bits of you, and the gory bits of me.”

- Like Crazy

believermag: Here’s some morning sweetness for you: the poet...

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:43:24 +0000

believermag:

Here’s some morning sweetness for you: the poet Eileen Myles and her girlfriend, writer Leopoldine Core, express the feeling of being in love so perfectly, you just want to roll around in their love all day. Watch them read together over at Jupiter 88.

Cat Power by Jenni Li

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:20:43 +0100

Cat Power by Jenni Li

“Ruin” - Cat Power

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 17:20:47 +0100

“Ruin” - Cat Power

"What I would like is to ban men from speaking about women’s bodies for a period of time sufficient..."

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 02:32:50 +0100

“What I would like is to ban men from speaking about women’s bodies for a period of time sufficient enough for men, and mostly politicians, to stop being afraid of the word vagina, stop spouting bizarre pseudoscience about magical uteri, stop legislating abortion and being particularly cavalier about the lives of women while sacrificing those lives for fetuses out of some misguided political or religious fervor concerning the sanctity of life, stop trying to categorize rape as illegitimate or legitimate as if such a bullshit distinction were possible, stop encouraging a lax attitude toward rape reporting and prosecution, stop concerning themselves with the sex lives of women and antiquated notions about promiscuity, stop trying to frame birth control as necessarily expensive whore medicine, stop trying to undermine the one organization dedicated to providing women from all walks of life with affordable healthcare and also to stop with all the breast staring unless the mood is right.”

- Roxane Gay