welcome to downtown coolsville

 1. What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before?

Quick question: Am I supposed to feel constantly on the verge of failure and/or tears? Like, is that built into the system, or...?

My Chemical Romance broke up.

The day afterward I got accepted to grad school.

This has been a week of many, many feelings.

(Today is also my five-year antiversary.* The amount of feelings I am having is practically illegal.)

* tl;dr on this day five years ago I broke up with someone I thought I was going to marry kind of and it made me really sad and then it made me really happy and now I make sure to make note of the date whenever it comes around. Only Very Old LJ Friends will remember this happening, so if you do, congrats, you are practically ready for retirement.

Okay, SO. Evelyn Evelyn. Let's talk about it.

Ever since I found out who she was, way back in 2005 when I was just a wee Ish who listened to the Dresden Dolls more than was entirely healthy, I have adored Amanda Palmer. I don't mean that I like her music or find her interesting or think she is hot like ten thousand glorious suns (although all of these things are true!). I mean that since I was sixteen years old I have fucking worshiped her. Her music didn't just move me or speak to me, it was me. She was messy and complicated and funny and weird and desperate for attention and aware of herself and lonely and happy and everything I was, pretty much, and I fucking loved her for it.

And then came Evelyn Evelyn.

When I first learned about this band, the fact that it was kind of ableist definitely registered and made me intensely uncomfortable. The idea of anyone appropriating an identity that is not theirs- that they have no right to claim- is fucked up. It would be different, I think, if she was just writing songs from the point of view of a cojoined person (although even that is problematic), but to dress up as one? To play the part of a minority you're not a part of for a fucking lark? Not okay. Really, really not okay.

But it's AMANDA, I thought. She can't not make something awesome out of this. It's probably all gonna be a statement! About disabled rights, and exploitation, and... um... artifice! And stuff! Yeah!

And then I read this, and this. And that uncomfortable feeling got stronger. The idea of her dressing up as a disabled person was bad, but the way she constructed the twins as "real people" somehow affected me way worse. Not only was she cashing in on the suffering of a minority (of which she is not a part- don't talk to me about "Oasis" and how this is the exact same thing, the difference is she actually experienced date rape and abortion but she has never experienced disability), but the way she wrote the twins was so... so privileged. They aren't fully realized people even in her own mind. They're shy, fey women-children, victims (always ALWAYS victims because God knows disabled people can never be anything else amirite???) of hideous circumstances who somehow managed to come through it all with their innocence intact, ~*~rising above~*~ their awful body through the healing power of song- and with the help of an able-bodied messiah who graciously decides to make them famous. This is not a new story. This is not a new take on disability. These characters are not people. They're dolls.

I mean, for God's sake, they're afraid of beards. BEARDS.

But... it's AMANDA, I thought, a little desperately this time. Sure, maybe she doesn't get it, but maybe she just hasn't thought about it properly!

Because whatever privilege we have- and most of us have some form of it or another- we've all had that experience where we think something is cool and weird and transgressive until we, you know, learn something about people without that privilege and realize that actually, that's kind of fucked up and not cool at all really. I've done it; I can't count all the times I've looked back at things I wrote as a teenager and felt a deep, unhappy shudder of shame as I realized that my privilege wasn't just showing, but hanging all out and flapping in the wind.* You've probably done it, either with something you've created or something you were really into or something you just didn't think too hard about. Recognizing and confronting your own privilege is difficult, and it takes time, and it's always an evolving process. I'll probably wake up tomorrow and realize that something I did yesterday was fucked up, and I will feel ashamed of myself and mope about it for a little while and then make a committed effort to not do it again. Because that's how this shit works. You've got to learn as you go, and part of the learning process involves learning the many and varied ways you've been a dick to people who aren't like you. Sad but true.

So, I thought, maybe since there are people calling her out on this, she'll rethink things. Maybe she'll take a second look at this project. Maybe she'll take these critiques to heart.

I really hoped she would. Because she was AMANDA FUCKING PALMER. She was who I looked up to, who I admired, who I wanted to goddamn be.

And then came this:

setting aside 846 emails and removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery, @amandapalmer sat down to plan her next record.

"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."
"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."
"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."
"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."
"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."
"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."
"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."
"Removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery."

Because that's how you respond to people who call you out on your shit- you gaily throw them out of your headspace and carry on without learning a goddamn thing.

Because examining your privilege is boring, and your imaginary two-headed freak show is way, way more important than real live people.

Because they just don't understand your art.

Because they're just reading too much into it.

Because who gives a fuck what they think, they're just a bunch of whiny bitches.

I love the Dresden Dolls. I love Who Killed Amanda Palmer? I love her words and her music and her art and her blog and her everything, my God, I really do.

But I can't love this, and I can't support it, and I can't describe how awful and lonely and disappointed it makes me feel.

ETA: Looks like Jason Webley (kinda) gets it. :D?


* One of the more fucked up ones I found, written when I was thirteen: a black tribe that worshiped a white goddess. I know. I KNOW.

Dear world in general:

Roman Polanski's talent as a filmmaker does not change the fact that he drugged and raped a thirteen year old girl, Jesus fucking Christ what is WRONG with you.

Kill yourselves,
Ish

So today I got up at six, like you do, because I'd switched my Monday shift with someone who needed Sunday off and I am a Nice Person. At least when I get paid for it. I was in a pretty good mood, despite the whole morning thing- God, mornings are so unholy I want to KILL THEM WITH FIRE- and despite the fact that one of the cats threw up on my bed. I put on my headphones, walked up the hill to work, and promptly came face to face with the dude whose shift I supposedly took. He smiled sheepishly and waved.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I asked.

He wasn't.

Apparently the boss hadn't bothered to switch us and also hadn't bothered to tell me about it. Which didn't piss me off as much as you'd think, because it meant I got to go back home and spent the rest of the day chillin' with a cup of tea and reading Momo (which is just about as kickass as apiphile said). Also it means I get to keep my lip ring in all day. One of these days I'm gonna make a tl;dr poast all about why that fucking metal circle is so important to me and it'll be GLORIOUS and everybody will probably just click past it. I know I would.

Anyway. Hi! I haven't been around much in the past little while, and I probably still won't be around much in the next couple of weeks, and maybe even all summer, but whatever, today is an exception! What's up? Why is everybody talking about the Death of Glitter Bandom? Why does everybody still think that Josh Homme is attractive when he clearly looks like a giant baby?

( Links and etc for your edutainment and learnjoyment. )

I get paid soon! This is inordinately pleasing to me, on account of it has been months since I've had any kind of disposable income and have roughly eighty frillion albums to buy. Hazards of Love, you will be MINE.

(Also? I never said anything about this, so while I'm here: Transfolks are not abominable snowmen! Transphobes, however, clearly are. Some people just need to grow the fucking fuck up.)

Hey, guys! Wanna see the transphobic shit that was printed in the Chronicle Herald?

( Heck yes you do! )

He was specifically asked by one of the panelists not to write about the speakers, and, if he did so, to change the names. And then to not only ignore their express wishes, but to spew bigoted garbage like that? I call bullshit.

So I wrote him a ( letter. )

You can yell at email Duffy at pduffy@herald.ca, and the Chronicle Herald at letters@herald.ca.

Dude lives in Halifax, for fuck's sake. The whole queer community there is gonna be on him like a ton of (immaculately groomed) bricks.

ETA: Duffy just emailed me back.

( His reply, under the cut. )

Oh, not Herald Policy? That makes it okay, then!

Way to not address... well, fucking ANYTHING, ya douchetool.

"Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. 'Here's your change.' 'Paper or plastic?' 'Credit or debit?' 'You want ketchup with that?' I don't want a straw, I want real moments! I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?"

- Waking Life

I didn't post anything yesterday because it's been a year since this and I didn't wanna think about it. But I miss him.

( That picture my sister took on the last day. )

Courtesy of kirieflowergirl: A fat rant! (As in, a rant by a fat person, not a rant about fat people.)

A fun song by the Gossip.

And JD takes a bubble bath. Only posted because Ten and I have a gigantic bottle of bubblegum-scented bubble bath by our tub, and guess who's used most of it?

My brain is telling me that the time has come to write a story about the Greek gods, alcoholism, and the rising dead. I think it may have something there, but first I need visual representations of the Twelve Olympians. (I've already decided that Hades looks like John C. McGinley.)

Dear asshole dormmates:

We're sorry if we're being too loud (though I admit I do find it slightly ironic that YOU'RE complaining after you and your pinhead buddies stay up 'til three drinking and listening to the Black Eyed fuckin' Peas). Really. Sometimes we don't notice when we're disturbing other people and we're definitely not above a reminder to be polite. I mean, if having a British mother has taught me anything, it's that.

Hahahahhhhowever, ON WHAT PLANET IS JUST WALKING INTO SOMEONE ELSE'S ROOM OKAY? YOU KNOW, CONSIDERING YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW MY NAME (AND HAVE NOT, I MUST ADD, TRIED PARTICULARLY HARD TO FIND OUT). THERE'S A DOOR THERE, FUCKER. IT'S CLOSED FOR A REASON. NAMELY, TO KEEP YOU ALL OUT BECAUSE I HATE YOU I HATE YOU YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES AAAAAAAARGHIHATEYOU.

Next time we'll be NAKED. That ain't a promise, it's a THREAT.

No love,
Me

P.S.: And, if you want to get all nitpicky, IT'S CALLED NOT SHOUTING IN THE CORRIDOR. I mean, Jesus, you're kvetching about US and then you go trumpeting down the hall a bare half hour later, what the fuck?

God, I HATE these people.