phyllisamaryllis

[phyllisamaryllis]

If I could have ONE power, I would transfer unwanted pregnancies from the woman who doesn't want them to the pro-life women who would force the women to keep them.

I honestly cannot emphasize just how repulsed I am by people who think that minors shouldn't have access to abortions.

[phyllisamaryllis]

I honestly cannot emphasize just how repulsed I am by people who think that minors shouldn't have access to abortions.

[phyllisamaryllis]

More girls need to become mean feminists to counter the radicalised Tate boys.

[phyllisamaryllis]

Something about me is that even though I'm female and not gay, so abortion rights will affect me in a way that gay rights never will, I simply possess a loathing for homophobes that I don't possess for pro-lifers

I suppose it's because pro-lifers view the life of the baby as precious above all, so there is some material gift for them, and I think it's a fucked up view and don't agree with it at all, but I do understand it.

Also, pro-lifers make exceptions and there's a lot of nuance in the community, it's not just 'ban all abortions'.

But there's no material benefit to being homophobic......all of it is quite literally religious and nothing good comes out of it! Gay people are unhappy and stigmatised, and this often leads to higher depression and suicide rates as well as prejudice and violence against them and it doesn't even affect you directly, or at all really! You're just assuming for them, which is offensive, patronising and also extremely harmful. (Also, your religion does not dictate the law!)

I flat out refuse to respect or like homophobes. I can like (Though not respect) pro-lifers and be friends with them even though I'm very pro-choice and always will be.

[phyllisamaryllis]

Does anyone else think that Youtube video titles nowadays are stupid and childish?

[phyllisamaryllis]

You’re not depressed. You just need $250,000 in your bank account.

[phyllisamaryllis]

You know, it costs nothing to give up your homophobia, but for homophobes, they'd have to give up their sacred bible verses, their pride, their prejudice and their ego, all of which mean everything to them, so it really would feel like giving up everything to them.

[phyllisamaryllis]

I was just reading this article and the fair friend that she's describing sounds like my mom down to a T, honestly.

[phyllisamaryllis]

poems to read while having breakfast at the heartbreak hotel

I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale

[you fit into me] by Margaret Atwood

You by Carol Ann Duffy

Be Near Me by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Blessed be the spectacle by Lev St. Valentine

You Are Tired (I Think) by E.E. Cummings

Hope you're well. Please don't read this by Lev St. Valentine

To Say Dark Things by Ingeborg Bachmann

Lilichka by Vladimir Mayakovski

Love and Hate by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

Sanctuary by Jean Valentine

the winter sun says fight by Peter Gizzi

The More Loving One by W. H. Auden

A Primer For The Small Weird Loves by Richard Siken

Dirty Valentine by Richard Siken

Morning by Frank O Hara

We Don't Know How To Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova

You'll Live, But I'll Not… by Anna Akhmatova

from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva

The Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova

In Dream by Anna Akhmatova

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

Talking In Bed by Philip Larkin

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

[phyllisamaryllis]

heylooo

do you have any poetry recs perhaps?

Helloo, I don't read poetry quite enough to have a handle on the genre. But here are a few people/collections i like: Devotions by Mary Oliver (also generally Mary Oliver), Ada Limon, Ocean Vuong (especially Time is a Mother), Emily Dickinson, Jack Kerouac's poetry, Crush by Richard Siken, Seamus Heaney, Eunice D'Souza, The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

A few poems that live in my head rent free:

spring by Safia Elhillo

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickinson

Vagabonds by Arthur Rimbaud

For Grace, After a Party by Frank O'Hara

Begin by Brendan Kennelly

Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

Madhushala

Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out by Richard Siken

[phyllisamaryllis]

some essays to fill your time

Just a bunch of things I've read recently.

The Authoritarian Roots of India's Democracy by Tripurdaman Singh

Why is Everything So Ugly?

Casual Viewing by Will Tavlin

“You are Next”: Unmarried Urban Women in India and the “Marriage Talk” by Shilpa Phadke

Crossing Days by Thomas Dai

Inside the Indian Manosphere by Lhendup Bhatia

Optimism and Desperation by Camilla Grudova

Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College by James Walsh

Blunt-Force Ethnic Credibility by Som-Mai Nguyen

When My Authentic is Your Exotic by Soniah Kamal

The discontent of Russia by Joy Neumeyer

On anti-political projects by Kat Rosenfield

'Correcting' historical wrongs is a slippery slope by Manu Pillai

[phyllisamaryllis]

Essays

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of essays I like/find interesting/are food for thought; I’ve tried to sort them as much as possible. The starred (*) ones are those I especially love

also quick note: some of these links, especially the ones that are from books/anthologies redirect you to libgen or scihub, and if that doesn’t work for you, do message me; I’d be happy to send them across!

Literature + Writing

Godot Comes to Sarajevo - Susan Sontag

The Strangeness of Grief - V. S. Naipaul*

Memories of V. S. Naipaul - Paul Theroux*

A Rainy Day with Ruskin Bond - Mayank Austen Soofi

How Albert Camus Faced History - Adam Gopnik

Listen, Bro - Jo Livingstone

Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel - Judith Thurman

Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be - Ryan Bloom

The Duke in His Domain - Truman Capote*

The Cult of Donna Tartt: Themes and Strategies in The Secret History - Ana Rita Catalão Guedes

Never Do That to a Book - Anne Fadiman*

Affecting Anger: Ideologies of Community Mobilisation in Early Hindi Novel - Rohan Chauhan*

Why I Write - George Orwell*

Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as Social Deviance - Carrie Jaurès Noland*

Art + Photography (+ Aesthetics)

Looking at War - Susan Sontag*

Love, sex, art, and death - Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz

Lyons, Szarkowski, and the Perception of Photography - Anne Wilkes Tucker

The Feminist Critique of Art History - Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Patricia Mathews

In Plato’s Cave - Susan Sontag*

On reproduction of art (Chapter 1, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

On nudity and women in art (Chapter 3, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

Kalighat Paintings  - Sharmishtha Chaudhuri

Daydreams and Fragments: On How We Retrieve Images From the Past -  Maël Renouard

Arthur Rimbaud: the Aesthetics of Intoxication - Enid Rhodes Peschel

Cities

Tragic Fable of Mumbai Mills - Gyan Prakash

Whose Bandra is it? - Dustin Silgardo*

Timur’s Registan: noblest public square in the world? - Srinath Perur

The first Starbucks coffee shop, Seattle - Colin Marshall*

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai’s iconic railway station - Srinath Perur

From London to Mumbai and Back Again: Gentrification and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective -  Andrew Harris

The Limits of “White Town” in Colonial Calcutta - Swati Chattopadhyay

The Metropolis and Mental Life - Georg Simmel

Colonial Policy and the Culture of Immigration: Citing the Social History of Varanasi - Vinod Kumar, Shiv Narayan

A Caribbean Creole Capital: Kingston, Jamaica - Coln G. Clarke (from Colonial Cities by Robert Ross, Gerard J. Telkamp

The Colonial City and the Post-Colonial World - G. A. de Bruijne

The Nowhere City - Amos Elon*

The Vertical Flâneur: Narratorial Tradecraft in the Colonial Metropolis - Paul K. Saint-Amour

Philosophy

The trolley problem problem - James Wilson

A Brief History of Death - Nir Baram

Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical - John Rawls*

Should Marxists be Interested in Exploitation? - John E. Roemer

The Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief - Scott Berinato*

The Pandemic and the Crisis of Faith - Makarand Paranjape

If God Is Dead, Your Time is Everything - James Wood

Giving Up on God - Ronald Inglehart

The Limits of Consensual Decision - Douglas Rae*

The Science of “Muddling Through” - Charles Lindblom*

History

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine - Maria Dolan

The History of Loneliness - Jill Lepore*

From Tuskegee to Togo: the Problem of Freedom in the Empire of Cotton - Sven Beckert*

Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism - E. P. Thompson*

All By Myself - Martha Bailey*

The Geographical Pivot of History - H. J. Mackinder

The sea/ocean

Rim of Life - Manu Pillai

Exploring the Indian Ocean as a rich archive of history – above and below the water line - Isabel Hofmeyr, Charne Lavery

‘Piracy’, connectivity and seaborne power in the Middle Ages - Nikolas Jaspert (from The Sea in History)*

The Vikings and their age - Nils Blomkvist (from The Sea in History)*

Mercantile Networks, Port Cities, and “Pirate” States - Roxani Eleni Margariti

Phantom Peril in the Arctic - Robert David English, Morgan Grant Gardner*

Assorted ones on India

A departure from history: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990-2001 - Alexander Evans *

Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World - Gyan Prakash

Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain - Aditya Mukherjee

Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947 - Aparna Basu

The Epic Riddle of Dating Ramayana, Mahabharata - Sunaina Kumar*

Caste and Politics: Identity Over System - Dipankar Gupta

Our worldview is Delhi based*

Sports (you’ll have to excuse the fact that it’s only cricket but what can i say, i’m indian)

‘Massa Day Done:’ Cricket as a Catalyst for West Indian Independence: 1950-1962 - John Newman*

Playing for power? rugby, Afrikaner nationalism and masculinity in South Africa, c.1900–70 - Albert Grundlingh

When Cricket Was a Symbol, Not Just a Sport - Baz Dreisinger

Cricket, caste, community, colonialism: the politics of a great game - Ramachandra Guha*

Cricket and Politics in Colonial India - Ramchandra Guha

MS Dhoni: A quiet radical who did it his way*

Music

Brega: Music and Conflict in Urban Brazil - Samuel M. Araújo

Color, Music and Conflict: A Study of Aggression in Trinidad with Reference to the Role of Traditional Music - J. D. Elder

The 1975 - ‘Notes On a Conditional Form’ review - Dan Stubbs*

Life Without Live - Rob Sheffield*

How Britney Spears Changed Pop - Rob Sheffield

Concert for Bangladesh

From “Help!” to “Helping out a Friend”: Imagining South Asia through the Beatles and the Concert for Bangladesh - Samantha Christiansen 

Gender

Clothing Behaviour as Non-verbal Resistance - Diana Crane

The Normalisation of Queer Theory - David M. Halperin

Menstruation and the Holocaust - Jo-Ann Owusu*

Women’s Suffrage the Democratic Peace - Allan Dafoe

Pink and Blue: Coloring Inside the Lines of Gender - Catherine Zuckerman*

Women’s health concerns are dismissed more, studied less - Zoanne Clack

Food

How Food-Obsessed Millennials Shape the Future of Food - Rachel A. Becker (as a non-food obsessed somewhat-millennial, this was interesting)

Colonialism’s effect on how and what we eat - Coral Lee

Tracing Europe’s influence on India’s culinary heritage - Ruth Dsouza Prabhu

Chicken Kiev: the world’s most contested ready-meal*

From Russia with mayo: the story of a Soviet super-salad*

The Politics of Pancakes - Taylor Aucoin*

How Doughnuts Fuelled the American Dream*

Pav from the Nau

A Short History of the Vada Pav - Saira Menezes

Fantasy (mostly just harry potter and lord of the rings)

Purebloods and Mudbloods: Race, Species, and Power (from The Politics of Harry Potter)

Azkaban: Discipline, Punishment, and Human Rights (from The Politics of Harry Potter)*

Good and Evil in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lengendarium - Jyrki Korpua

The Fairy Story: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis - Colin Duriez (from Tree of Tales)*

Tolkien’s Augustinian Understanding of Good and Evil: Why The Lord of the Rings Is Not Manichean - Ralph Wood (from Tree of Tales)*

Travel

The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism

Chronicles of a Writer’s 1950s Road Trip Across France - Kathleen Phelan

On the Early Women Pioneers of Trail Hiking - Gwenyth Loose

On the Mythologies of the Himalaya Mountains - Ed Douglas*

More random assorted ones

The cosmos from the wheelchair (The Economist obituaries)*

In El Salvador - Joan Didion

Scientists are unravelling the mystery of pain - Yudhijit Banerjee

Notes on Nationalism - George Orwell

Politics and the English Language - George Orwell*

What Do the Humanities Do in a Crisis? - Agnes Callard*

The Politics of Joker - Kyle Smith

Sushant Singh Rajput: The outsider - Uday Bhatia*

Credibility and Mystery - John Berger

happy reading :)

[phyllisamaryllis]

Thank you for writing. Thank you, genuinely, so much. I never really understood poetry- but now I think its rather that I never had any poetry I connected to, because I understand yours and I finally get it. I don't know how you managed it, but thank you for putting it all into words. I feel a little better reading your poems.

thank you for the kind words! i'm incredibly flattered to be a gate into the medium for you!!

and i'm going to use this as an opportunity to share some of my favourite poets and poems, because no one's work is without influence and if you vibe with my stuff, i bet you'll find something for yourself in my influences as well

richard siken and mary oliver are the obvious ones, i think. my favourite poem by richard siken is the worm king's lullaby. both crush and war of the foxes are among my favourite books. harder to pick an obvious favourite with oliver. hum, hum is definitely among them. in blackwater woods, too, and don't hesitate. a thousand mornings, felicity, and blue horses are all excellent collections by her, and like both of siken's, approachably short. lately i have been very into gabrielle calvocoressi, my favourites by her are hammond B3 organ cistern and miss you. would like to take a walk with you. wendy cope's the orange is on all of these lists, as it ought to be, it is that good. i'll do a few more rapid fire, a deeply nonconclusive list in no particular order, without explaining what they mean to me, i hope you'll take a chance on some of them, and find something that resonates with you Soup Is One Form of Salt Water by Heather Christle Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled with Shrieks by Christopher Citro Onions by William Matthews One Art by Elizabeth Bishop (i didn't really get this poem until i heard it read in reaching for the moon, and i do think that's the case with some poems) Variations on a Theme by Elizabeth Bishop by John Murillo All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs by Christian Wiman I’m not a religious person but by Chen Chen What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use by Ada Limón The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne The Mower by Philip Larkin Resumé by Dorothy Parker The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats Poem by Matthew Rohrer What Resembles The Grave But Isn't by Anne Boyer Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden Morning Love Poem by Tara Skurtu To Be Alive by Gregory Orr The World’s Loneliest Whale Sings the Loudest Song by Noor Hindi God and a Believer Take a Smoke Break by Amatullah Bourdon Cold Solace by Anna Belle Kaufman Prayer for Werewolves by Stephanie Burt Sharing a Cigarette with Joan of Arc by Dante Émile On Seatbelts and Sunsets by Hanif Abdurraqib Catastrophe is Next to Godliness by Franny Choi Jesus Dies by Anne Sexton The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski The Sarah Poems by Ruth Awad acknowledgments by Danez Smith

[phyllisamaryllis]

I dont know if you remember, but a while ago, you commented on a post of mine, and we had a brief conversation. I just wanted to say that because of that, I started to look at your post every once in a while, and weirdly enough, reading some of your posts has been extremely comforting. Old and new. This has been long, but I guess I just wanted to say thank you for being so genuine and, unknowingly, being my comfort blog.

Oh my god, I didn't know that! I don't remember the post, but I think if you showed me I might remember.

I'm really glad that my blog is comforting someone, it means the world to me-I'm serious. It's been so long since I got an ask, I love getting them :D

You're welcome, I feel really happy because of this ask. I don't post much nowadays, but I'm still on here everyday and looking at my usual blogs.

[phyllisamaryllis]

Artists, let’s talk about Instagram commission scammers

There’s been a huge rise in commission scammers recently, mostly on Instagram. A lot of new artists don’t know what to look out for, so I figured this might help people.

How they begin

Usually the scammer will write to you asking about a commission. Something deceptively cute - mostly I encounter asks about pet portraits, with one or two photos sent. They’ll probably try to sell you a sweet little story, like “It’s for my son’s birthday”. They will insist that they love your artwork and style, even though they don’t follow you or never liked a single piece of your art.

What to look out for:

Their profiles will either be private, empty, or filled with very generic stuff, dating at most a few years back.

Their language will be very simple, rushed or downright bad. They might use weird emojis that nobody ever uses. They will probably send impatient “??” when you don’t answer immediately. They’re in a crunch - lots of people to scam, you know. 

They’ll give you absolutely no guidelines. No hints on style, contents aside from (usually) the pet and often a name written on the artwork, no theme. Anything you draw will be perfect. Full artistic freedom. In reality they don’t really care for this part.

They’ll offer you a ridiculous amount of money. Usually 100 or 300 USD (EDIT: I know it might not be a lot for some work. What I mean here - way higher than your asking price, 100 and 300 are standard rates they give). They’ll often put in a phrase like “I am willing to compensate you financially” and “I want the best you can draw”, peppered with vague praise. It will most likely sound way too good to be true. That’s because it is.

Where the scam actually happens

If you agree, they will ask you for a payment method. They’ll try to get to this part as soon as possible. 

Usually, they’ll insist on PayPal. And not just any PayPal. They’ll always insist on sending you a transfer immediately. None of that PayPal Invoice stuff (although some do have methods for that, too). They’ll really, REALLY want to get your PayPal email address and name for the transfer - that’s what they’re after. If you insist on any other method, they’ll just circle back to the transfer “for easiest method”. If you do provide them with the info, most likely you’ll soon get a scam email. It most likely be a message with a link that will ultimately lead to bleeding you dry. Never, and I mean NEVER click on any emails or links you get from them. It’s like with any other scam emails you can ever get.

A few things can happen here:

They overpay you and ask for the difference to be wired back. Usually it will go to a different account and you’ll never see that money again. 

They’ll overpay you “for shipping costs” and ask you to forward the difference to their shipping company. Just like before, you’ll never see that money again.

The actual owner of the account (yes, they most likely use stolen accounts to wire from) will realize there’s been something sketchy going on and request a refund via official channels. Your account will be charged with fees and/or you get in trouble for fraudulent transactions. 

You will transfer the money from your PayPal credit to your bank account and they will make a shitstorm when they want their money back, making your life a living hell. They will call you a scammer, a thief, make wild claims, wearing you down and forcing you into wiring money “back” - aka to their final destination account. 

Never, EVER wire money to anyone. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Use PayPal Invoice for secure exchanges where the client needs to provide you with their email, not the other way around.

You can find more info on that method HERE.

What to do when you encounter a scammer:

Ask the right questions: inquire about the style, which artwork of yours they like, as much details as you can. They won’t supply you with any good answers.

Don’t let the rush of the exchange, their praise and the promise of insanely good money to get to you. That’s how they operate, that’s how they make you lose vigilance. 

Don’t engage them. As soon as you realize it might be a scam, block them. The sense of urgency they create with their rushed exchange, and pressure they put on you will sooner or later get to you and you might do something that you’ll regret later.

Never wire money to anyone. Never give out your personal data. Never provide your email, name, address or credit card info. 

Don’t be deceived by receiving a payment, if you somehow agree to go along with it. Just because it’s there now doesn’t mean it can’t be withdrawn. 

Here is a very standard example of such an exchange. I realized it’s a scam pretty fast and went along with it, because I wanted good screenshots for you guys, so I tried going very “by the book” with it. 

Please share this post, make it reach as many artists as possible. Let young or inexperienced artists know that this is going on. So many people have no idea that this is a thing. Let’s help each other out. If you think I missed any relevant info, do add it as an rb!

Also, if you know other scam methods that you think should be shared, consider rb-ing this post with them below. Having a master post of scam protection would AWESOME to have in the art community.

[phyllisamaryllis]

suck, and i cannot stress this enough, my cock to the fucking base

[phyllisamaryllis]

hey, if you're a usamerican getting the news, not knowing what to do, this is really really really good time to get acquainted with the national council on independent living, the independent living movement, and your local centers for independent living.

independent living centers provide services and support by disabled people for disabled people and can help with: navigating systems, self-advocacy, and accessing services, among many other things. in their truest form, CILs function not in the model of state agencies, but as a form of structured in-community mutual aid. my local CIL provides services like counseling, advocacy, grants to cover some home needs, and meals on wheels for disabled adults under sixty-five. CILs can't fill all the gaps in services we have in this country, but they do important work to keep people alive. if you need help, your local center for independent living may be able to help. if you can give help, your local center for independent living can definitely use your help!!!!!

please do reblog <3