#bad old days

[newyorkthegoldenage]

A room at 139 West 61st St., apartment 8, where an illegal abortion was performed, June 6, 1958.

Photo: NYC Municipal Archives

[thesobsister]

Reportedly, Lin-Manuel Miranda is working on a musical adaptation of essential '70s NYC dystopian drama The Warriors, working from the 1965 novel by Sol Yurick about an assembly called of all of NYC's street gangs to take place in the Bronx with a view to uniting to fight "The Man."

Interestingly, 1965 is much closer to the Jets/Sharks-type gang paradigm, with which New Yorkers were somewhat familiar, "J.D.s" and the like. The 1979 film, though, is right in the NYC-is-burning timeframe, so a gang takeover of the city at that time actually seems much more plausible.

Less well known is the fact that the novel was based on Anabasis by Xenophon, the story of the band of Greek mercenaries hired to help Cyrus II take the throne of Persia.

The Warriors became an international cult favorite over time, influencing creators in a variety of visual media. The Ghanaian poster below, however, takes a few liberties with the film, as I don't recall there being any werewolves, demons, or incidents of cannibalism in the original:

[highbrow-hepcat]

[eurovisionart]

🇬🇧 CoCo - Bad Old Days

[resonanteye]

that kid had a full time mining job he's entitled to smoke a pipe in peace after cleaning his gun

Coal miner's child using a hole in the door to enter a bedroom with a smoking pipe in one hand and a gun in the other in Bertha Hill, West Virginia. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. 1938

[pangur-and-grim]

look at that transformation! well done, Belphie, you’ve defeated death!

[procrastinating-prepper]

I was talking to a friend in her sixties recently. She mentioned that when she was growing up, police would deal with "loitering" teenagers by driving them just outside city limits and dropping them off on the side of the road. You'd have to hitchhike back or use a payphone to call someone. According to her, this was so common there was a slang term for it (I don't remember the term).

She also said if the police suspected you were homeless, they could ask you to show them some money. If you had more than five dollars in your pocket, you couldn't be homeless!

[cletusthurstonbeauregard]

[teaboot]

When I was a kid, I regularly lost reading privileges for "having an attitude" and "acting out".

It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.

It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".

Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.

When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.

It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.

That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.

That's how you process cattle.

It's fucking disgusting.

[breesperez139]

Dc x Dp Prompt #6

“I’m a twin”, Damian said one night. He could feel the narrowed eyes of his family drilling holes on his back in disbelief. Not that he could blame them. Damian had never so much as implied being raised with a companion, much less a sibling.

“I had a brother”. Damian paused to recollect himself. He had not said his brother’s name out loud in over 8 years.

“His name was… Danyal”. Damian hated the way his voice wavered, but he could not help it. Danyal was everything to him, his other half. Their heart beat as one and when one heart stopped beating, the other one died with it. At least until his family put his heart on metaphorical life support without ever realizing.

“Where is he now?” His father asked, voice filled with knowing grief and a hint of betrayal. It had in fact been 6 years since Damian first showed up on his doorstep.

“Up there”. All eyes shifted towards the specific star he was pointing to. “Right before he died, he promised me he’d guide me from the stars. Unfortunately, the stars are not visible in Gotham, so my brother is unable to be of much help unless I leave the city.”

“Your brother is Polaris, the North Star?” Tim questioned warily, most likely in attempts to not offend him. Damian was aware of how stupid it sounded, but Danyal had promised, and his brother never broke his promises.

“Yes. Danyal is with the stars now, just as he always wanted”

[techslander]

[abitofencouragement]

I think about this often, especially with regards to books. When I was a book-hungry teen girl growing up in a tiny town, there were literally NO books for me. Once I graduated beyond Encyclopedia Brown, there was such a lonely desert of books that I could enjoy. Mostly Sci Fi and Fantasy. I can picture it so clearly in my head, that section of the library, two half-height shelves and a spinner rack. I read everything on it.

I think that's why so many kids of my generation stopped reading. If you wanted to continue past a certain point, you had to make a huge leap to adult fare. If you didn't like Sci Fi or Fantasy, there was just very little for you.

And I am THRILLED beyond imagining that there are so many wonderful books and so many genres now. But man, what actual crimes I would have committed back then to get ahold of something like a Percy Jackson series. The best I could do was the freakin' Dragonriders of Pern. And I mean, bless Anne McCaffery and Mercedes Lackey and the underpaid ghostwriters who were pushing out the Star Trek novels, but even they could only write so fast!

I hopped out and did a quick search for 'books for middle schoolers' and could almost faint with the variety available.

There are GAY books for middle schoolers. I... I just... I want to invent a time machine and bring some of this back to that lonely little starved abitofencouragement and tell her that at least her kids will be able to enjoy the feast.

i literally cannot wrap my head around the notion that there’s been a “decline” in “real art.” that music is shitty now, that books aren’t what they used to be, etc etc etc.

art is more broadly accessible than ever. it’s unbelievable. it’s divine. there’s so much art on this planet right now that i could pile it all up on a plate and devour it for the rest of my life without making a dent. denigrating the “quality” of “today’s art” is like ordering a three course meal at your favorite restaurant and complaining about a food truck on the other side of town

[zaana]

Omega having a day on Kamino with her brothers

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 3: Enveloping Feelings.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 4)

[rndm-sctc3or4-i-cnt-rmmbr]

ahh the old blog

[markscherz]

Look at this friend I made on my way home the other day! What a glorious creature! So gracile and smooth! Truly a peak being. What a privilege it is to share this time in Earth’s history with creatures like this.