do you still love me? even if im a little weird?
trans women r literally so cool theu get tits AND a prostate?? i thought only markilpler could do that
ana mendieta “people looking at blood, moffit, iowa” 1973
“In this piece, Mendieta spilled a large amount of what appeared to be chunky blood over a doorway and sidewalk on an Iowa City street. Then she removed herself from the scene and, from a distance, photographed the reactions of various passersby. […]
It intimates to passersby that a grievous and dramatic injury has taken place, but it gives no explanation and, more important, no recourse to action. It may incite horror, concern, compassion, and revulsion—in short, pity and fear—but it doesn’t offer anywhere for these feelings to go. […] Each pedestrian’s only real choice is to walk on by, which looks from the outside—and likely felt, on the inside—like an uncaring abandonment, even if of an indeterminate or imaginary entity. […] And somewhere out of sight lurks Mendieta, a voyeur of each passerby’s involuntary voyeurism. […] People Looking at Blood says, Look at this pile of carnage, with no clear story, source, assailant, or victim. Just look at it. Now look at others looking at it. (And I will be looking at you looking.)”
— The Art of Cruelty, Maggie Nelson
Ana Mendieta was murdered by her husband and fellow artist Carl Andre. This work became a self fulfilling prophecy and meditation on tragedy, the nature of violence, and peoples unwillingness to help.
And no I will not shut up about this.
By the way, her husband never went to prison for what he did.
But it’s NOT about unwillingness to help! It’s NOT about people not caring!! It’s so very explicitly the opposite!!!
I’ve BEEN in this situation. You walk past an old crime scene, or the place where an accident happened, and you see evidence of something terrible. If it’s old, maybe broken glass, or scuff marks.
But sometimes, you’re too late. Sometimes someone is on the ground, and EMTs are already helping, and the only helpful thing you can do you is move on, refuse to linger, refuse to form a crowd.
Sometimes there’s dried blood, or fresh blood, but when you look around you can’t find anyone hurt or needing help. Whatever happened, it has happened without you, and you can’t undo it or make it better. You could contact an authority, report what you’ve seen, but that’s just sharing information. It doesn’t FEEL like helping.
Humans are by nature incredibly compassionate creatures. What is more heartbreaking to an animal designed to bring comfort than a pain that cannot be comforted? A hurt that cannot be soothed?
You are confronted by this helplessness, and it looks you in the face and says, “It’s too late for you to fix this. You must move on, and hope that next time, you aren’t.” And then you do. You have to. There is no other choice.
Ana Mendieta’s piece is not condemning the observed- it’s mourning their directionless compassion, their grief, their uncertainty- their concern and hope offered to someone or something they will never know, never speak to, never be able to help.
It says that we love each other, that we care for one another, and that even if we are lost and no one ever finds us, we are cared for long after we are gone, and by people who never knew our names.
Our outrage at her death only proves this. Now that we know her life ended tragically, what will you do? What CAN you do? Nothing. You will observe the blood, experience something that cannot be captured on film, and move on.
“What CAN you do? Nothing. You will observe the blood, experience something that cannot be captured on film, and move on.
“
It is almost five centuries ago, and the girl who will one day be a swordswoman is lying in the red-tinged mud. She can't get up—broken bone? severed tendon? She can't tell. She's yet to cultivate her palate for pain. Her enemy towers over her, a cataphract mailed in screaming steel and poisoned light. His warhammer falls, and it is death, forever death, death unconquered and unconquerable.
"No," says a part of her. She is not even seventeen years old. Her body is mangled and broken, wound piled upon wound piled upon wound. A dull kitchen knife is her only weapon, though she lost that in the mud the second her grip faltered. Her enemy is no thing of this earth. And yet—
"No. It is not death, forever death, death unconquered and unconquerable. It is only a hammer, falling. It is only 'an attack.'"
And the girl understood.
~~~
It is the better part of three centuries ago, as best the swordswoman can reckon, and she is beset on all sides by foes. They are not monsters—just mountain bandits, or highland rebels, as one cares to see it. But they outnumber her by dozens, and even an exceptional swordswoman might struggle against but two opponents of lesser skill.
From in front of her, beside her, behind her they advance, striking from every angle with spears and blades and axes. Others fill the air with arrows, sling stones, firepots. It would be effortless, to parry any single blow. It would be impossible, physically impossible, to defend against them all.
"No," says a part of her.
"You are not outnumbered. You do not face 'multiple' foes. It would be impossible to defend against every attack — but there is no 'every' attack. Only one."
"Oh," the swordswoman said. And it was, in fact, effortless.
~~~
It is eighty years ago, or thereabouts. A coiling spire of stony flesh and verdigrised copper throbs like a tumor on the horizon, coaxed from the earth by spell and sacrifice. It is the tower of a sorcerer-prince, and a birthing place of abominations.
Seven locks of rune-etched metal are opened with her single key. Wretched shapeling beasts, grown by sorcery in vitreous nodules, flee wailing from her, absconding before she even draws her blade. Demons sworn to thousand-year pacts of service find the binding provisions of their agreements unexpectedly severed.
These things dissatisfy the sorcerer-prince. He waxes wroth. He makes signs of power and chants incantations. With a flask of godling's blood, he draws the binding sigil inscribed upon the moon's dark face. With cold fire burning in his eyes, he speaks the secret name of Death. It is a king among curses, all-corrupting, all-consuming, and it falls from his lips upon the swordswoman.
"No," she says, and she turns it aside with her blade.
The sorcerer-prince's brow furrows. How did she even do that?
"Parried it."
But—
"With my sword."
No—
"See, like this."
Stop—
"Well," the swordswoman finally says, "I figured that if I just...looked at it right, and thought about it, and construed your curse as a kind of attack...then I could block it."
That's not how it works at all!
"If you insist," says the swordswoman, shrugging, and decapitates him.
~~~
It is now. It is the end. Death couldn't take the swordswoman, not when she'd spent all her life cutting it up. At times, Death might sidle up to one of her friends, or peer down into a grandchild's crib, and she'd just give it a look. That's all it took, by then.
Heartache couldn't take her, either. Bad things happened to her, and they hurt, and she lived in that hurt, but if it was ever more than she could take...she'd just, move her sword in a way that's difficult to describe. And she'd keep going.
Kingdoms fell, and she kept going. Continents crumbled and sank into the sea. Her planet's star faded and froze. She started carrying a lantern. Universes were torn apart and scattered, until all that had been matter was redistributed in thermodynamic equilibrium. With one exception.
But now it is the end. There is no time left; time is already dead. The swordswoman has outlived reality, but there is simply no further she can go. This is not a thing that can be blocked. This is the absence of anything further to block.
"No," says the girl who will one day be a swordswoman. "This isn't the ending. And even if it was, it's not the ending that matters."
The swordswoman looks back at who she was, at the countless selves she's been between them. She looks forward, at the rapidly contracting point that remains of the future. She grasps the all of linear time in her mind, and sees that it is shaped like a spear.
obsessed with the way my robotics team lead talks
she’s reinventing hieroglyphics
being a humanities major who’s friends with stem majors is so funny because you’ll ask your friends what they’re doing today and they’re like “UGH it’s so stressful i have to stabilize the reactor core for my nuclear power midterm and then i have to build the supercomputer from i have no mouth yet i must scream for my electrical engineering homework :/ what about you” and you’re like “oh well i have to read a fun little book and write an essay about gender.” and they still think you have it worse
#LateStageCapitalism
(sigh)
It wasn’t boomers who made it impossible to survive on a librarian or gardener’s salary - it was rich people.
Plenty of boomers work as librarians, teachers, gardeners, and so forth, and are finding that as the cost of living skyrockets and corporations take over more and more of the world, that their salary is no longer able to support them.
And thus you have boomers - who understand how much you want to be a librarian because they also work as librarians - going bankrupt, losing their homes, drowning in debt, and dying because of unaffordable healthcare. And they get why you’re becoming an IT specialist instead of a librarian - because they! Know! That you can’t survive! On a librarian’s salary anymore!
On the flip side, the rich people sucking money out of every service and person they can! Aren’t! Always! Boomers! Tons of them are Gen X! And an increasing number are millennials! I haven’t seen a Gen Z billionaire yet but I’m willing to bet there’s a couple by now!
Oh, and it’s not like they “don’t know” how much people want to do these sorts of jobs - they do! That’s how they justify underpaying people, because it’s your passion, you don’t ~need~ to be paid a living wage for your passion.
You have more in common with poor boomers than you do with Kylie Jenner (born 1997). Go and talk to them. Organize with them. You’ll find they have a lot to offer once you stop dismissing them as rich old folks who ruined the economy.
As someone with a super leftist boomer father I feel this
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