today in visual culture.

[raybear]

I'm experimenting with a new type of journal entry. It's called "found journaling". I'm so clever.

From a great person on my friends page:
But, I've been increasingly aware that 'he' feel right to me in a way that she doesn't. Stiff in its novelty, but right for me.
I've been trying to extract what is fundamental to me about being trans. It is the way I feel in my body. The rest, the way I look and behave and interact with others is peripheral. It can be played with, and manipulated, and messed around to what seems comfortable. I thought that maybe pronouns were like that.. important, but ultimately just another thing I was wearing.
Just as I sometimes feel disconnected from my body when I'm made aware of its femaleness, I am disconnected when people refer to me as she. That person, she seems quite groovy, but you're not talking about me. I'll stick to living in first person, pronoun-free.

From Talib Kweli:
Heavenly ? set you free and kill you in the same breath
That shit you gotta get off your chest before your death, unless
The way you speak is lighter than a pamphlet
Cuz the truth give the words away to the planet goddammit
I ran wit what God planted in my heart and I understand it
To be the bring the light to the dark, breathe some life in this art
This must be the truth (why?) cuz we keep marchin on (true)
The truth lay the foundation of what we rockin on
You can't see it if you blind but we will always prevail
Life is like the open sea, the truth is the wind in our sail
And in the end, our names is on the lips of dying men
If ever crushed in the earth, we always rise again
When the words of lying men sound lush like the sound of a violin
The truth is there, it's just the heart you gotta find it in

From Mos Def:
Tomorrow may never come
For you or me
Life is not promised
Tomorrow may never show up
For you and me
This life is not promised
I ain't no perfect man
I'm trying to do, the best that I can,
With what it is I have

from Dar Williams:
The blue it speaks so full
It's like the beauty one can barely stand
Or too much things dropped in your hand
And there's a green like the peace
In your heart sometimes
Printed underneath the sheets of ashy snow
And there's a blue like where the urban angels go, very bright
Now the Caldor mobile tips a biomorphic sphere
Then it swings its dangling pieces
round to other paintings here

Your behavior is so male
It's like you can't explain yourself to me
I think I'll ask Renoir to tea
For his flowers are as real as they are all the time
And the sunlight sets the furniture aglow
It's a pleasant time as far as people go, how far do they go?
Well his roses are perfect and his words have no wings
I know what he can give me and I like to know these things

Comments

[torreycanyon.livejournal.com]

Thanks Ray. I think that's the first time I've been scrapbooked.

For a newcomer, which Dar Williams CD would you recommend? I've heard good things about her from a variety of people, so I might check her out next time I'm buying new! music!

Dar Williams

[raybear.livejournal.com]

heya --
In case you didn't know, here's the order of her albums (choronologically):
The Honesty Room
Mortal City
End of the Summer
Green World

she just put out a live album, I think. And she also contributed to Cry Cry Cry with 2 other musicians.

All of the albums are great, though perhaps End of the Summer is her weakest. But there's still great stuff on it. I'm sometimes a fan of getting into artists in the order they produced music, so I can notice their changes and growth. Honesty Room is definitely more "folkie" and sparse -- mostly her and a guitar. But it's great songwriting -- some of her best lyrics. But Mortal City and Green World are probably tied in my book for her best, as far as musical complexity and lyrically.

So there you go. :)