nizar qabbani
My brilliant friend Hasan recommended the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani. A sprinkling of favorite lines:
if another gives you a ship
I shall give you the journey.
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.
[Your love] has taught me to leave my house
to comb the sidewalks
and search your face in raindrops
and in car lights
style icon: harley quinn in “birds of prey”
Steal the style of Harley Quinn, our bisexual queen, from the Birds of Prey movie (which was criminally underrated IMO).
I just rewatched “Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn” and Harley is just so iconic. Irrepressible, sassy, stylish, and a bisexual queen (love that she ends up with Poison Ivy in the animated show).
I want to dress like her. I want to decorate like she does. I WANT TO BE HER. SHE IS MY NEW HYPERFIXATION! Ahem.
While I’m too clumsy for gymnastics/roller derby and too risk-averse to live her devil-may-care (and, importantly, fictional) lifestyle, there’s always clothes 💅
SO HOW CAN WE DRESS LIKE HER????
Here’s what to include:
TONS. OF. JEWELRY. She wears silver, but gold works too. Chain and charm necklaces, rings on every finger, mismatched earrings, MORE IS MORE! One of her charms is shaped like a dog bone, engraved with the name BRUCE for her hyena, because she thought Bruce Wayne was a cutie.
Heavy makeup. Now is not the time for subtlety. Bold red lip, smudged dark eyeliner, optional tiny heart on your cheek <3
Sequins! Glitter! All the shiny sparkly iridescent things! Rhinestones on your face!
Neon colors (especially pink) like you’re going to a rave or Coachella or something idk #PLURiguess?
DIY vibe: torn, tattered, frayed, patched stuff to show you’re a broke scrappy punk who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. One of her jackets appears to be made out of sliced-up “CAUTION” tape 😍
subtle harlequin patterns/nods to the origin of her name
bleached blonde hair, dyed yourself
It probably goes without saying, but thrifting and DIYing seems much more fitting with Harley’s ethos than buying a bunch of new fast-fashion stuff, so the more you (we) (I!) can make yourself, the better!
(Although it might be hard to thrift those hot pink suspenders.)
p.s. it should go without saying but despite the bullets and emojis I WROTE ALL OF THIS MYSELF WITH NO HELP FROM AI. FUCK AI FOREVER!
everything is romantic
“If two particles are quantum-entangled, the state of one particle is tied to that of the other, no matter how far apart the particles are.”
Preeeeetty sure that’s what Celine Dion was referencing with “near, far, wherever you are” in “My Heart Will Go On.” [EYEBROW WIGGLE!!!!!]
ruin your lipstick, not your mascara
I’m almost a decade (!) late to this song, but it’s a great post-heartbreak anthem:
olivia colman on gender
“I've always felt sort of nonbinary…I’ve never felt massively feminine in my being female. I’ve always described myself to my husband as a gay man.”
(source)
be tormented by me, babe
It’s been a decade since our lord and savior Carly Rae Jepsen released E·MO·TION, only one of the best pop albums ever (and then the equally bangerlicious E·MO·TION Side B. Listen to“Roses” and just TRY to tell me it doesn’t destroy you). To mark the anniversary, she released 4 songs that didn’t make the cut. My current fave:
It never ceases to amaze me when a writer can put something into words that’s simultaneously specific and universal. The simplicity is pure artistry.
And when it’s catchy to boot? THAT is why I love pop!
who’s a threat?
“The US justice department has scrubbed a study from its website concluding that far-right extremists have killed far more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group.”
gender expansiveness
“There is no such thing as trans enough. The identities that fall under the umbrella of being trans are wide and varied, and there's as many different kinds as there are different kinds of people…Take two or three non-binary people, put them next to each other in a room, and their ideas of their own gender will be completely different.”
debunking detransition myths
“The largest-ever survey of trans Americans reaffirms what the trans community has been saying for ages: trans people who go back to living as their sex assigned at birth do so because of transphobia, not because of doubts about gender or transition.” [emphasis mine]
[The study says,] “‘Only 4% of people who went back to living in their sex assigned at birth for a while cited that their reason was because they realized that gender transition was not for them. When considering all respondents who had transitioned, this number equates to only 0.36%.’”
must-watch: “buy now” on Netflix
Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy is streaming on Netflix and I highly recommend it.
Granted, most of the information isn’t new. It covers stuff like:
Planned obsolescence. Almost everything is made to break quickly these days, so unfortunately this isn’t as shocking a concept as it used to be. But I didn’t realize a group of lightbulb manufacturers actually met and conspired to cut the lifespan of bulbs in half so we’d all have to buy more! WTF!
The wastefulness of fashion and other industries, with companies ordering workers to ensure discarded items aren’t usable. A Bath & Bodyworks employee said that her manager ordered her to squeeze out unsold shower gel into a dumpster so homeless people couldn’t use it; Panda Express apparently does the same by mixing unsold food together so it’s inedible 😱
Greenwashing, as well as how companies feature kids in ads in order to seem more wholesome. (I was hoping the doc would focus more on psychological tactics like this that brands use to manipulate people.)
How electronics“recycling” and donating clothes to charity usually just means they’re shipped to poor countries and pollute the air, water, and land
Electronics companies making their devices impossible to repair so you have to buy more (the book Made to Breaksounds like it’s in the same vein)
Much of it isn’t exactly groundbreaking (and the AI voice was annoying), but I still consider it a must-watch, because there are some nuggets that make the issues concrete and gut-punchy when so often “climate change” and “social justice” can seem vague and abstract. There was footage of people in Thailand surrounded by mountains of discarded electronics, breaking them apart and probably getting cancer in the process. Horrifying.
The interviews with former higher-ups at Adidas, Amazon, Unilever, Apple, etc. were illuminating—executives aren’t thinking about responsible disposal of their products, because no one is forcing them to (so we gotta!). And if they are, they’re lying about products being recyclable without actual follow-through.
The film was also a reminder that the higher you get at corporations, the more pressure there is to drink the Kool-Aid and not question anything. Overall, it was an indictment of capitalism, a reminder that growth at all costs is literally toxic.
The filmmakers tried to end on a hopeful note (probably because so much of it was devastating). A few states are passing “right to repair” legislation—in California, if items cost over $100, manufacturers have to ensure they can be repaired, diagnosed, or maintained for seven years! And organizations like The Or Foundation (clothing justice) and iFixIt (repair guides for everything) are doing good work.
Ultimately, as consumers, it’s not just about recycling more or switching from plastic to glass; it’s about buying less and pressuring corporations/politicians to change.
beauty ≠ morality
“By framing beauty as a moral achievement rather than what it often is—a combination of genetics, resources and medical intervention—we create an impossible standard. Women are expected to meet increasingly demanding beauty standards while maintaining the fiction that their appearance is entirely ‘natural’. The pressure to be beautiful becomes entangled with the pressure to be ‘good’.”
—Ellen Atlanta, “Why Are Celebrities So Keen to Deny Cosmetic Work?” in Dazed
LOST TIME
“There are days where I feel such crippling sadness, thinking of the years lost in that ridiculous palace. I wonder who I could have been otherwise.”
—Rebecca Thorne, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea