5 Quick Things: January 2021

Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

This time it’s the proper November update 🙂

>Number One<

Decolonization is not a metaphor

I love a good metaphor as much as the next person but some things are exactly what they already need to be. They don’t signify something else, they aren’t merely slogans or words you say when you want to convey “I’m a decent person” but instead they come as fully formed, complex ideas and topics which need to explored and changes made because of them. Anyway this paper is great and it’s even more relevant every day.

The answers will not emerge from friendly understanding, and indeed require a dangerous understanding of uncommonality that un-coalesces coalition politics

>Number Two<

The Tale of Galavant

If you are stuck inside and need something soul soothing for a few hours I really couldn’t recommend something anywhere near as delightful as Galavant. Most people I got to watch this show had told me they “hated musicals” and then gleefully sat through this. If you watched Crazy Ex Girlfriend, I feel like you benefited from Galavant existing but being roundly ignored. I have only bizzare praise for this odd ball of a show and this article does a better job at articulating the joy of it anyway. It’s available on a few sites in full so do yourself a favor and give yourself a few ear worms!

>Number Three<

Sounds at the End of the World

I love this video essay about the free music bin, discovery, and self. It’s a little bit about the music industry and a little bit about how finding something and being able to share in its joy, or in its wild existence is a joy in itself. How we make our communities outside of the systems that want to make them for us, how we learn and grow and collect ideas from the discard piles in life. It was strangely uplifting and totally fresh to see this video and it was kind of exactly what I needed when I found it last month. I’m not even sure how I found it but I’ll be watching Codex’s future projects and supporting their music from here.

>Number Four<

Essays from the Dash

I love Tumblr. I just do. I love the blue hell site which bizarrely often contains many shows all in gif format. It’s a place where fandom lives in part now, it’s been a mover and shaker on the internet since its inception in 2012, the perfect moment to abandon the sinking ship of LiveJournal and even after the nipples were banned, it continues to be an influential place to gather and share and be. One thing Tumblr isn’t is intuitive, the other thing Tumblr isn’t is cohesive. This book is neither of those things either. Instead of containing a singular perfect thesis and thread it is instead a book of loosely connected essays looking at all manners of parts of Tumblr and how to use, view, study, think about, and maybe even find meaning in one of the least marketable and least navigable sites on the internet. (And the book is completely free!)

>Number Five<

Sweaters, Feminism, and You

This is a fun little article about an article of clothing. I love cardigans (I’m wearing one night now! Scandal!) and you probably do too but like most things that women do, the cardigan wasn’t always just a piece of clothing but instead a symbol for changing attitudes about women’s bodies and manners in society. It’s a little depressing that things haven’t changed that much since the 30s and 40s but at least I can say with citations that my extremely soft sweater that makes me look like a blob monster isn’t just comfortable, it’s also a rebuke of society!

Alright folks, that’s it for this month, see you next month!

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