We’re not done with summer just yet!
(29.7.2014)
Darwin. 25. HTX.
My first roll of Velvia with the Hasselblad Xpan. I haven’t used slide film in decades, so I will have to re-learn everything. The colors are amazing.
“The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don’t know what that elsewhere is.”
— E. M. Cioran
No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
my mans kept telling me he got benched and I had no clue what he was talmbout but this nigga was talking about a girl he fuckin wit said nah to sex cuz she was gettin D elsewhere 😭
Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.
Was the moment in Freedom when a Black girl performed classical dance, en pointe, on a stage for an audience.
I know Lemonade was full of imagery of Black women and I am not one so I will not step for even a second into that analysis, because it’s been done so well elsewhere and it isn’t mine to analyse.
But I haven’t seen anyone mention this, and I can’t help but think that if you’re not part of the ballet world, you might not know how excluded Black women are from classical dance.
The truth is, they are still almost entirely excluded. They are told, here perhaps more than anywhere, that their bodies are not welcome, that they don’t fit the right shape, that they’re unfeminine and too muscular and any of a hundred other pieces of racist garbage.
Misty Copeland has spoken about this more eloquently than I ever could, and so have many other Black women who dance. Precious Adams went to the Bolshoi and faced this racism at its most unapologetic heart. Michaela DePrince has fought it in the US and Europe.
So when Beyonce featured a Black girl, with natural hair, en pointe and in shoes dyed for her skin? Fucking extraordinary. Amazing. I cried.
See, in ballet, hair is a force to be controlled. Ballerina hair is straight, all one length, gelled and pinned into a bun. Mild waves can be hard to regiment to a teacher’s satisfaction. Kinky hair? No way.
And pointe shoes? They come in one colour, ‘flesh pink’, too pale even for many white girls, let alone Women of Colour. I dye my pointe shoes, and I am mixed to hell with all kinds of Eurotrash. For years, though, I wasn’t allowed. I had to wear anemic tights that made my body look like it had been photoshopped onto one pair in a parade of identical ballerina legs. For dark-skinned women, this was an even more uncomfortable sign that they did not belong.
This dancer had both her hair and her real skin tone. And she was beautiful. She had a flower crown, she was graceful and elegant, not relegated to a “passionate” role or a villain, but a beacon of femininity. She dressed in traditional white, with a skirt reminiscent of the swan in Swan Lake that is regarded as The Whitest Role in All of Ballet.
This was one of many giant Fuck Yous to the traditional Establishment Beyonce embedded in Lemonade. I know it’s a small one. I know there were many more important ones that much more qualified people have talked about.
But for me it was exhilirating and powerful to imagine the Artistic Directors of all the major companies who have told Misty Copeland she’s worthless choking on their own bile, with this very special middle finger, embedded just for them.
^^^^I feel like every black dancer (including myself) LIVED for this part! Michaela DePrince was bomb.
are cafeterias a real thing like do those actually exist in america you just line up and get given gross food and then eat in the same room as your entire school??? if that happened at my school there’d be a riot imagine how loud that would be are cafeterias a myth
…do you…do you
not have cafeterias elsewhere?
NO WE DONT WE JUST TAKE FOOD FROM HOME WITH US. there is a small cafeterias where you can buy some food or sweets but it is not like the whole school is supposed to get all their food from there. Also, we do eat in a big “room” but it is more a sort of open space where there is place too eat and tables and such
that’s a fucking cafeteria
