Khnos - ᜊᜓᜎᜈ͓

open.substack.com

WHO GETS TO BE A WEIRD GIRL?

on ‘weird girl’ fiction, microgenre, and the unbearable whiteness of weirdness + a rec list

Throughout history and in our modern society, women are supposed to be: thin, silent, chipper, happy, pale, dressed modestly but not too modestly, sexy but not too sexy, young, reserved, sane, able-bodied, fertile, mothering, selfless, humble, restrained, and, above all, white. She has to be a She, she has to be cis, she has to wear makeup and dresses, skirts; she cannot under any circumstances be described as smelly, loud, brash, dark, or crude. She cannot wrinkle, she cannot stink, she cannot cause a scene. A woman is always religious, a woman is always married or seeking to be married, a mother or hoping to be a mother. To stray from this path is to become weird. While I personally do not believe that any act that subverts the status quo makes one queer, I do think it makes you weird. There’s an honor to that, to stepping outside of the very thin, very pale line set by mainstream culture. To exist as one’s truest, boldest self, to exist as a human being with warts and farts and smells, to be unusual and to react with the madness, the anger that this world we live in inspires is brave. It is weird to be brave, and it is brave to be weird.

The setting sun casts magnificent baobab trees in silhouette in a dry forest near Morondava, Madagascar. Their unique shape led to their being called the "upside-down tree." Photo: Frans Lanting

Stamps of brides of Yemen, February 27, 1986

“No.2 Shengshan Island Village” ~ Shengshan Island, China by Guo Guozhu ↟ What happens when we leave and nature stays?

I think it’s interesting that the people who most often benefit from violence against minorities are the first ones to be liek “erm violence isn’t the answer” as allies

Cottongrass at Ercavallo #3 - Tita Secchi Villa , 2011

Italian, b.  ?

Oil on canvas  ,  70 x 90 cm.

art will save you, being unreasonably passionate about something niche will save you, letting past sources of joy show you the way back to yourself will save you, earnestness over composure will save you, the natural world will save you, caring for something bigger than yourself will save you, daring to be seen will save you, kindness not as a whim but a principle will save you, appreciation as a practice will save you, daring to try something new will save you, grounding will save you, love will save you, one good nights sleep will save you

wanting to fuck someone or finding them attractive does not equate to you respecting them. wanting to use aesthetic elements of someone's culture in your own work does not equate to you respecting that group of people. you can find attraction to, or aesthetic appeal in, damn near anything and that does not necessarily mean you respect it. ok thanks

my homegirl wrote a really salient essay on substack about how reliance on algorithms ultimately stifles modern day listener’s curiosity and the livelihood of music artists themselves.

open.substack.com

Your Algorithm Hates the B-Sides

Notes About Streaming from a Music Listener

i def recommend giving it a read and reflecting on your own music listening practices and habits. a favorite paragraph of mine that speaks further to the evidence that we living in a dystopia today:

“Algorithmic curation has consumed every facet of people’s lives —they search for information on AI run search engines, they exclusively buy products on social media platforms that push hundreds of ads based on the posts they engage with, they build virtual communities amongst like-minded, aesthetically aligned and desirable online users. A revival of pre-streaming label street teams and independent CD pushers would fail for many reasons, one being that they’d find the streets desolate and empty.”

“Entwined” at New Orleans Botanical Garden ☀ Lovers frozen in stone while plants plot their gentle takeover