Nora Ephron, ”I Hate My Purse” in I Feel Bad About My Neck p. 9-10 (via pipilottirist)
Visionary Artist Emma Kunz
1892-1963Her pieces were never meant to be displayed on a museum wall, but to lie on the floor between Kunz and one of her patients, functioning as healing diagrams and aids to meditation.
“Everything happens in accordance with a specific system of law, which I feel within me, and which never allows me to rest.”
16The troubling viral trend of the “hilarious” Black poor person
May 7, 2013Charles Ramsey, the man who helped rescue three Cleveland women presumed dead after going missing a decade ago, has become an instant Internet meme. It’s hardly surprising—the interviews he gave yesterday provide plenty of fodder for a viral video, including memorable soundbites (“I was eatin’ my McDonald’s”) and lots of enthusiastic gestures. But as Miles Klee and Connor Simpson have noted, Ramsey’s heroism is quickly being overshadowed by the public’s desire to laugh at and autotune his story, and that’s a shame. Ramsey has become the latest in a fairly recent trend of “hilarious” black neighbors, unwitting Internet celebrities whose appeal seems rooted in a “colorful” style that is always immediately recognizable as poor or working-class.
Before Ramsey, there was Antoine Dodson, who saved his younger sister from an intruder, only to wind up famous for his flamboyant recounting of the story to a reporter. Since Dodson’s rise to fame, there have been others: Sweet Brown, a woman who barely escaped her apartment complex during a fire last year, and Michelle Clarke, who couldn’t fathom the hailstorm that rained down in her hometown of Houston, and in turn became “the next Sweet Brown.”
Granted, the buzzworthy tactic of reporters interviewing the most loquacious witnesses to a crime or other event is nothing new, and YouTube has countless examples of people of all ethnicities saying ridiculous things. One woman, for instance, saw fit to casually mention her breasts while discussing a local accident, while another man described a car crash with theatrical flair. Earlier this year, a “hatchet-wielding hitchhiker” named Kai matched Dodson’s fame with his astonishing account of rescuing a woman from a racist attacker. But none of those people have been subjected to quite the same level of derisive memeification as Brown, Clark, and now, perhaps, Ramsey—the inescapable echoes of “Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife!” and “Kabooyaw,” the tens of millions of YouTube hits and cameos in other viral videos, even commercials.
It’s difficult to watch these videos and not sense that their popularity has something to do with a persistent, if unconscious, desire to see black people perform. Even before the genuinely heroic Ramsey came along, some viewers had expressed concern that the laughter directed at people like Sweet Brown plays into the most basic stereotyping of blacks as simple-minded ramblers living in the “ghetto,” socially out of step with the rest of educated America. Black or white, seeing Clark and Dodson merely as funny instances of random poor people talking nonsense is disrespectful at best. And shushing away the question of race seems like wishful thinking.
Ramsey is particularly striking in this regard, since, for a moment at least, he put the issue of race front and center himself. Describing the rescue of Amanda Berry and her fellow captives, he says, “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway!”
The candid statement seems to catch the reporter off guard; he ends the interview shortly afterward. And it’s notable that among the many memorable things Ramsey said on camera, this one has gotten less meme-attention than most. Those who are simply having fun with the footage of Ramsey might pause for a second to actually listen to the man. He clearly knows a thing or two about the way racism prevents us from seeing each other as people.
Now that you know this is a thing, please stop sharing these memes. Poor Black people speaking candidly about various serious incidents isn’t a hilarious joke.
the sound kind of sucks on this, but spot on nonetheless.
1 That tendency to betray, to lie, and to be perfectly frank. To hide away or show yourself too much. That care in guarding yourself so much that you end up telling your entire life story, your own truth with all the minute details, to a complete stranger. Those desires to flee, to run away when someone shows they’re beginning to understand you, though you haven’t revealed anything. That fear of staying. That indomitable desire for someone and not to be with anybody. To wrap caresses up in words. Those desires to change without giving anything up. That hunger for impossibilities. How to think of this contradictory confusion? It’s truth and lies, it’s good and it’s bad and there is no escape.
Nothing to do. Have a glass of water.
Recipes for Sad Women by Héctor Abad
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Happy Monday! (aka The day when that it feels like 6:30am all day long.)Over the course of one year, photographer Robert Weingarten took a picture of the sky, sea, and city from the same position overlooking Santa Monica Bay at 6:30 AM.
“I am not trying to seem resistant to influences. I merely note that I have always been a poor reader, incurably inattentive, on the look-out for an elsewhere. And I think I can say, in no spirit of paradox, that the reading experiences which have affected me most are those that were best at sending me off to that elsewhere… I felt at home—too much so… I remember feeling disturbed by the imperturbable aspect of his approach. I am wary of disasters that let themselves be recorded like statements of account.”
— Samuel Beckett on reading Kafka, from The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1941-1956
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Never to be outdone in the fear-mongering department, The Weather Channel asks that you kindly brace yourselves for Winter Storm Melancholia.
Seahorses: Bad at swimming and eating, but masters of romance. Good one, evolution.
serious.
I realize this is so random, but I made this thing last night which is so good that I feel to not share it is to do a disservice to the world. And what is tumblr if not a place to humblebrag all over the place about your supreme intuition for flavor science? Thus, I give you:
*Radish Rice with Chimichurri*
Ingredients:
For the Chimichurri
Make the rice according to package directions. Good job to you if you are just naturally good at this. The gods of cooking were with me last night, as I successfully didn’t scorch the hell out of the rice on the bottom pan for the first time in my adult life. I don’t know what my secret is. Maybe it was the three hour nap I took, maybe it was the fro-yo with gummy bears I ate for breakfast/lunch. Adulthood! All I know is that it is not likely to be replicated.
While the rice is cooking, roughly chop your onions/radish into somewhere between “chunky” and “pureed”. As ever, this requires either patience or a food processor. I recommend the latter. Dump these things into a bowl and squeeze the entire lemon over them, with a little bit of salt and pepper. Let them lightly pickle. Lemon Juice! You are so amazing!
Now, the Chimichurri. You will definitely need a food processor for this one because you’ll go numb from the boredom of chopping parsley into a paste. If you are like certain people I know, you will say that a food processor is one kitchen utensil too many. You will tell me that the Basque people did not have a Cuisinart in 19th century Argentina and you don’t intend to either. I will say “it is not taking up that much space on the kitchen counter, come on.” And you will say “sure, but where does it end? First a food processor, then a Pizza Pizazz?” And I will say “Think about all the hummus we can make.” And you will relent because hummus.
To the food processor- or, fine, your tired and likely pre-arthiritic fingers- add all that stuff above. And then just Pulse*Pulse*Pulse*Pulse* like you’re on minute two of the Mari Windsor DVD and its like, minutes from summer but for months you’ve been eating fro-yo with gummy bears for lunch believing it to be some sort of “health food.” With the purpose and determination that comes from penance.
Once you’ve let the rice cool at bit, add the radish/onion mix & chimichurri to the rice, stir it all around. You can serve it with meat, I suppose, but you can also serve it with wine. You could serve it with meat and wine, but lets focus on the wine. Dry, white, mineral. And done.
It’s so colorful and tasty that you’ll be making it all the time. It will be good at picnics. Use less garlic if you want to kiss people, use more if you’re actively trying to not be kissing (but whyyyyyyyyy?), give none fucks, or are concerned about your circulation.
Devour, 2013
At first glance, these objects may look like planets, but they are actually photos of the bottoms of frying pans.
The bottoms of frying pans, folks.
(Source: destructs)
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about your questions regarding straight white male privilege. They were on my mind this morning when I stopped at the general store (we still have them down here) for my cigarettes. I went into the little store just a second or two behind an African-American man who I…
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